I. What Was The Bible Meant to Teach?
|LET us now examine the claim that nothing has or can hurt the bible,
and that this fact is the proof of its divinity. We will have no trouble
in proving to the reader, that, in spite of the most expensive and
extensive protection which the bible has enjoyed for centuries,
criticism has compelled it to part, one after another, with all its
claims. The science of the bible, for instance, has been thoroughly
discredited. Its story of creation and of the origin of man has been
everywhere replaced by the truer revelation of science. Darwin has
placed Genesis on the shelf. The fire of criticism has irrevocably
destroyed the Mosaic narrative. "Inspiration" has gone down before
investigation. There is not a single institution of learning which
accepts any longer the bible for a guide in matters of science. Even in
Catholic schools, the world revolves around the sun, and the heresy of
Galileo is to-day the faith of both pope and cardinals. Yes, the world
goes around, and even the Catholic church does not wish to prevent it,
but goes around with it. Is not the word of man, then, as far as it
relates to science, more reliable than the Word of God? In science,
at least, the bible has been replaced by the better books of modern
thinkers.
The bibliolater, however, tries to turn the edge of this strong point
against his fetish by answering that the bible was not meant to teach
science. Very well, if science is not the province of the bible, then,
it leaves out one of the most important branches of knowledge, and
to that extent it is inferior to the books that include science. But
really, to say that the bible does not teach science, is to admit that
it is unscientific, or false in its science. It may not have been the
intention of Moses to deny the doctrine of evolution, but when he says
the universe was made in six days, and apparently, out of nothing, he
talks unscientifically, and, therefore, ignorantly and falsely. Joshua
may not have intended to combat the law of gravitation, but when he
stops both sun and moon for his private business, he makes himself a
rival of Sir Isaac Newton by teaching a contrary science, that is to
say, a false science. It is impossible for the bible to speak about
the origin of man--the animals, vegetation and the formation of sun
and star--without entering the field of science. When, therefore, its
clerical defenders say that the bible was not meant to teach science,
they really mean it is something else in the bible that is inspired, and
not its science.
It is then admitted that the science of the bible is not "inspired," and
that the science of man is better than that of the bible; let us now see
if the history of the bible is "inspired." If we desire the truth about
the nations of antiquity--Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome--do we go
to the bible for information? Are not the stones dug out of the ground,
and the uncovering of buried cities, the reading of the inscriptions
upon monument and pyramid, a more reliable source of knowledge than
Hebrew gossip? Is it the bible or the hieroglyphics which have resisted
the wear and tear of time that introduce us to the laws, institutions,
the manners and morals of remote nations? Did Herodotus get his facts
from the bible? Did Rawlinson discover his wonderful story of ancient
empires in the bible? Did Gibbon copy his monumental history of the
Roman world from the bible? There is to-day in the Louvre, in France, a
stone, called the Hammurabi stone, which gives a truer glimpse into the
public and private life of ancient Chaldea than all the five books of
Moses. It is discoveries like the Hammurabi stone which enable us to
understand also the bible and the sources it borrowed from. In the
British museum are the sculptures, the slabs, the bas-reliefs, the
mummies, the tombs, the thrones, and the gods of the world of long ago;
and it is from them, and not from the anonymous and undated copies
of lost documents which compose the bible that we receive accurate
information concerning the races of the past. But, perhaps, the bible
was not meant to teach history, any more than it was meant to teach
science. The history of the bible is as unreliable as its science. What
information it gives us about the Egyptians is not true; what it says
about the ancient Assyrian empire is not true; even what it says of the
"chosen people" is not true. The excavations and investigations of
man have shown that the bible writers invented, in the majority of
instances, the vices they attributed to their neighbors and the virtues
which they claimed for themselves. Both their own greatness and the
insignificance of their rivals existed only in their own imagination.
But if the bible were not meant to teach either science or history,
what does it teach? It will not be denied that before the days of modern
thought the bible taught everything--science and history as well. It is
criticism that has compelled the bible to retire from those fields. But
to say, as the clergy do, that the bible is not an authority on science
or history, is to make a fearful admission. Either the "inspired"
authors knew the truth about the universe and the ancient empires, or
they did not If they knew the truth, why did they tell an untruth; if
they were ignorant, why did they not admit their ignorance? The books
which teach both science and history represent, in that respect,
at least, a greater and richer collection of books than the
Jewish-Christian scriptures.
But is philosophy the specialty of the bible? The wisest man in the
bible, who is also the wisest man God is said to have created, is
Solomon. There are many excellent maxims in the writings attributed
to this Jewish author. But writing maxims does not make a man a
philosopher. To be a philosopher, one must not only have some kind of an
answer to the many questions which come up in the life of the world,
but he must also work these answers, acquired after years of study and
research, into what might be called a system, comprehensive in its sweep
and harmonious in the relation of its parts to the whole. Is there an
author or a teacher in the bible who may be called a philosopher, or
who has a philosophy, in this sense of the word? Compare Solomon with
Aristotle, whom Goethe called "The intellect of the world!" What are
Solomon's handful of proverbs compared with Aristotle's monumental
work, touching upon every phase of human life--art, science, history,
politics, ethics, music, the drama, education, government, international
law, medicine, finance, economics, religion! How diminutive appears "the
wisest man" of the bible beside this colossus, whom Dante named "The
master of those who know!" And while Aristotle was not "inspired," there
is not in all his writings one idea that is degrading or immoral, while
much of Solomon's writings would be denied the privilege of the mails
were they not labeled "holy."
The _Songs of Solomon_, which abound in passages we can not quote in
this place, are defended by the clergy on the theory that they were
meant to describe the love of Christ for his church. But Solomon had
never heard of Christ. And, then, why should Christ use the language of
a debauchee to express his affection for the church? How desperate
must be the case of the bible champions to resort to so foolish an
explanation!
In the book of _Ecclesiastes_, another of Solomon's philosophical
treatises, there are expressed ideas which are positively hurtful. The
whole tenor of his teaching is that everything is a vanity. "Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity," he cries. Like a satiated oriental sultan, he
has lost the ability to take pleasure in life. Like Macbeth, he wishes
"the estate of the world were now undone." Life to him is but a "strut"
across the stage. There is no difference, he says, between a man and a
beast; between a fool and a wise man, between a good man and a bad man,
for what happens to the one happens to the other. And the conclusion he
arrives at is this:
_A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink,
and to be merry._ *
* Ecclesiastes viii, 15.
Few people, and even few preachers, who quote the words "Let us eat and
drink and make merry, for to-morrow we may die," know, or are willing
to admit, that the words did not originate with some French infidel, but
with the wisest man God ever created.
Speaking of women, Solomon is "inspired" to make the following comment:
_Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: One man among a thousand
have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found._ *
* Ecclesiastes vii, 28.
No other man but an "inspired" Jew would be forgiven for such an insult
to woman. Solomon plainly states that while both men and women are
bad, yet women are much worse, for he has found one good man among a
thousand, but not one good woman "among all those." Could any book be
more unholy than the one which contains so sweeping and spiteful an
accusation? And yet this is the book the reading of which our preachers
are trying to make compulsory in the home and school. But the saddest
and strangest of all is the conduct of the women, who notwithstanding
this insult, fall upon their knees before this Asiatic volume and kiss
the text that filches from them their good name!
Of course, there are bad women, as there are bad men. But if the ability
to restrain one's passions be a virtue, if resistance to temptation is
indicative of strength of character, women are much stronger than
men. There are few men who would not make fools of themselves if women
encouraged them. If patience, endurance of pain, and self-sacrifice are
desirable traits of character, women are braver than men. Every time
a woman becomes a mother, she descends, so to speak, into the grave to
give life to another. There is not a man who was not at one time carried
in a woman's arms. But for her love, tenderness and unselfishness, there
would have been no civilization.* If woman counts for anything to-day;
if intellectually, socially, industrially and politically, she has
stepped to the front, it is all due to her own efforts--efforts against
ancient and "inspired" prejudices, against the opposition of bibles and
the creeds, of priests and politicians, and of Church and State. Unaided
by man or God, woman has saved herself from a life of slavery and
inaninity, of injustice and drudgery, and to-day both Church and State
fear the rising power of woman!
* Consult the author's Woman Suffrage; or, the Childbearing
Woman and Civilization.
But perhaps the bible is great for its _literary_ qualities. Much is
said in praise of the bible in this respect. We are asked to admire it
as a collection of literary masterpieces. But which are the masterpieces
in the bible? Is it the book of Ruth? Is it Esther? Is it Jonah, or
Daniel, or Ezekiel? Is it Leviticus, or Isaiah? Is it the Psalms of
David, or the Songs of Solomon? The only book that comes near being a
masterpiece is the book of Job, which, with the exception of the first
and second chapters, in which Satan makes a fatal wager with Jehovah for
the soul of Job, is the work of a sceptic. Is there any story or romance
in the bible that can compare in beauty and might to the _Faust_ of
Goethe, or the _Omar Khayyam_ of Fitzgerald, or to the _Prometheus
Unbound_ of Shelley? Is there a book among the five attributed to Moses,
or the dozen or more attributed to the prophets, that is as entrancing
as Victor Hugo's _Les Miserables?_
Is Joshua's story of brigandage to be likened to Schiller's drama of the
_Robbers?_ And where is the tale in the bible that permeates the thought
with an indescribable sweetness as the _David Copperfield_ of Dickens,
or the _Adam Bede_ of George Eliot? What is there in the two books of
Kings, and the two books of Samuel, and the two books of Chronicles that
can be mentioned in the same breath with the glories that enrich the
pages of a Walt Whitman or an Emerson? Is there any wit or humor in the
bible as refreshing, as innocent, as contagious, and as illuminating as
that which made Mark Twain the darling of two hemispheres? Is there such
music in the bible as throbs and swells in the lyric of Heine, in the
thunder tones of Milton, or in the wild wonder of Byron's song? And in
richness of style, in fluency and charm of language, in the sublimity
and pathos of poise and period, in purity of diction, in felicity of
expression, in soundness of conception and reasoning, is there any part
of the Hebrew bible that can approach the incomparable authors of Athens
and Rome, whose thought is the perpetual fragrance of the centuries?
And I have not yet even mentioned the thousand-souled, the myriad-minded
Shakespeare, whose monument is in the wonder and astonishment of the
world, and whose cemetery is the heart of humanity, where he lies in
such pomp and splendor that for such a tomb the gods even would wish to
die!
And as for _eloquence_. I do not have to belittle the bible prophets
in order to score a point in favor of the men and the voices which have
thrilled the ages. I have read chapter after chapter from the
preachments of Isaiah and Jeremiah without deriving any more meaning out
of them than I do from the verbose pages of prophet Dowie or Eddy. All
theosophist writers speak in cryptic phrases. It is the thought that is
like a clear and transparent stream, flowing as a sparkling gem, and not
the thick and muddy source, that inspires true eloquence.
If the bible prophets were to reappear in our midst, doing and saying
the things they are charged with in the Word of God, I am sure they
would be placed under bonds to keep the peace. Let us see what it
meant to _prophesy_ in bible times. In the first book of Samuel, the
nineteenth chapter, we read that Saul sent a regiment to capture David.
It so happened that his messengers, while en route, became prophets,
every one of them. He sent a second regiment with the same result. A
third set of messengers become also prophetic and began to prophesy. We
will let the bible explain what these men did when they became prophets,
by quoting the lines which describe the conduct of Saul, who, going in
search of his regiments, became himself a prophet:
_And he (Saul) went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the Spirit of God
was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied, until he came to
Naioth in Ramah.
And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel
in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night.
Wherefore, they say, is Saul also among the prophets?_
Mark the word "also," which means that all his messengers had likewise
stripped themselves when "the Spirit of the Lord was upon them." David
did the same thing when he danced naked before the ark.
To the chief of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, came this
instruction from heaven:
_At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go
and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from
thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot._ *
And he walked the streets, if the bible is to be depended, for three
years "naked and barefoot.... for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon
Ethiopia," whatever that may mean. Another prophet, Micah, declares he
will not only go about "stripped and naked," but he will also "howl."
** And are these the men to be compared with the masters of eloquence in
ancient and modern history?
* Isaiah xx, 2.
** Micah i, 8.
Is it necessary, after all this, to call attention to the better
and purer eloquence of Demosthenes, thundering against the menace of
Macedonia to the liberties of Athens; of Cicero, defending, both with
his voice and sword, the culture of Europe against the barbarians of
the north; of Plato's _Apologia_ of Socrates, the finest argument for
freedom of thought and speech that has come down to us from the past;
of Pericles, eulogy of Athens, city of the light; of the _Antigone_ of
Sophocles, or the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus, unexcelled in literature, as
the Grecian Pantheon is in architecture!
And have we not forty centuries of forensic eloquence to pit against
the explosions and fulminations of the diviners and soothsayers of
the bible? There is Mirabeau, Danton, Cavour, Castellar, Garibaldi,
Mazzini, Burke, Charles Sumner, Carl Schurz, Abraham Lincoln, and a
glorious host of others, whose voices trembled with the woes of Ireland,
or the victories of England, or the hopes of United Germany, or the
cries of mangled France! Besides, the orators of Europe saved their
countries by the new hope and energy they instilled into them; the
prophets of the bible drove the nation they represented into ignominious
bondage, and left desolation and ruin where there was once a people and
a nation. Even the debris which Rome and Greece have left behind them is
the envy of all the world to-day, while not even the Jews are willing to
go back to their own Jerusalem.
II. The Bible and Religion
|BUT if the bible were not meant to teach science or history; if it were
not meant to be a literary masterpiece, or a text-book of philosophy
and eloquence, was it meant to teach religion? The claim is persistently
made that it is essentially as a book of religion that the bible is to
be judged, and that, as such, it is unsurpassed by any work of man. It
is true that religion is the principal theme of the bible, but has it
made any original contributions to it? Does the bible throw any more
light on what are called the mysteries of religion than any other book?
Before the bible, men speculated about the hereafter; has the bible
changed speculation into knowledge? Before the bible, men believed or
doubted the gods; has the bible changed faith, or doubt, into certainty?
Which unsolved problem concerning the origin of the universe, or of man,
has the bible illuminated? The bible has added to the number of sects
and creeds, but has it removed even one theological tenet from the field
of controversy and uncertainty? A book concerning the most important
deliverances of which Christians themselves do not, and will not agree,
can not very well be a revelation.
Nor has the bible added a single new doctrine to the religious
creeds that were already current in the world. Was it the doctrine
of immortality, or of the incarnation, the immaculate conception, the
trinity, the devil, original sin, or atonement by blood which the bible
discovered. All these beliefs, together with baptism, circumcision,
communion, etc., existed among the peoples of the world long before the
advent of the Jews. Alexander von Humboldt says that when the different
religions of the world are placed side by side it is difficult to tell
them apart. Like mosses or grass, they spring up the same in every soil,
and only by a very powerful microscope could be detected the slight
variations, due to climate, time and environment.
I know the final plea for the bible is that it announced for the first
time the one God idea. But we had occasion to ask in former comments on
this subject, what was the value of such a contribution? Why is one God
better than three or three hundred? Would the world have been better
off with only one man in it, or the heavens with only one God, and no
angels, cherubim, seraphim, Christs, or any other celestial being? But
it is not true, as the following texts clearly prove, that the bible
teaches the one-God theory. It is impossible not to infer from the way
the Jewish writers speak of Jehovah that they believed in the existence
of other gods besides their own:
_Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods?--Exodus XV, II.
Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.--Exodus xviii,. n.
Our Lord is above all gods.--Psalms cxxxv, 5.
Before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.--Psalms cxxxviii, 1.
Great is our God above all gods.--II Chronicles ii, 5.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.--Exodus xx, 3.
Worship him, all ye gods.--Psalms xcvii, 7._
The same idea is conveyed by the declaration of David that among the
gods there is none like unto his God, and by the further fact that
Moses, when he met God in the bush, asked for his name, to distinguish
him from other gods. There is no necessity for nomenclature in heaven if
there is only one God. We do not need a name for God, unless more than
one God exists in the universe. To name God, then, is a clear proof
that it is done to distinguish him from others in the same calling. Why
should God have a name? When Moses asked for the name of God, the
latter should have replied: A name! for me! I, who am the Infinite, the
Eternal! Names are to distinguish one from another. I have no equal, or
rival. Has the Universe a name? Has Time a name? Has Truth a name? The
mere fact of God having a name shows he is but one of the many idols,
labeled and classified, that he may not be confused with others of the
same profession.
A further proof of the plurality of gods in the bible is furnished
by one of the texts which has been deliberately tampered with. The
distinguished scholar, Dr. Christie David Ginsburg, in his "Introduction
to the Hebrew Bible," gives a long list of biblical passages which the
_Sopherim_, or the rabbis, have purposely changed. One of the altered
texts is in second Samuel, xxi: "Every man to his gods, O Israel." By
transposing the two middle letters of the Hebrew word for gods, the
translators converted the "gods," into "tents," and so the text now
reads, "Every man to his tents, O Israel."
In the next chapter will be discussed the claim that the superiority of
the bible lies in the perfect morality which it teaches.
III. Does the Bible Teach Morality?
|THE question which opens this chapter will surprise many of my readers.
It has so often and so confidently been claimed that the bible is
the text-book of morality, that hardly any one has thought of even
investigating the claim. Just as the people have believed the bible to
be inspired because they say so, they have come to believe, for the same
reason, that the bible is the book of morals. The truth is, however, as
I will endeavor to show, that the bible no more teaches morality than it
does science, history or philosophy. That was not the purpose for which
it was written, and that is an end toward which it makes practically no
contribution at all.
Morality may be defined as the assertion of our rights and the defense
of the rights of others. There is not a single phase of the question
which is not covered by this definition. Even if morality were defined
as the sum of our duties, personal and social, even then we must conquer
the right to perform these duties, else we can not live a moral life.
To obey our consciences we must have freedom, and freedom is a right; to
sacrifice ourselves for a cause, or to keep ourselves "unspotted of the
world," we must be allowed the right to develop along the line of our
best ideals. Therefore, to be moral is to have the strength and the
independence to be ourselves, and to defend others in the exercise of
the same right. It is in the very nature of a revelation to deny man
the right to be himself. But that is the very negation of morality.
"You must obey," says the bible; "never mind whether you understand the
commandments, or whether you approve of them or not." Is that morality?
And the bible can not treat you as its equal, else what will become of
its infallibility? In other words, the bible wants slaves who will do
its bidding without protest or question. Under slavery there can be no
self-development; that is to say, slaves can not be moral. It will be
seen that by morality we mean very much more than the observance of a
few "thou shalt nots."
But, again, a revelation, by forbidding us to improve upon its
teachings, denies to us the greatest of all rights--that of growing
better than our teachers. To believe in infallibility is to deny one's
self the right to learn, and people who can not learn, or who can not
correct their mistakes, can not be moral. But to say that the bible does
not object to our changing its commandments, dropping some and adding
others, is to admit that the bible is not divine. But if we may not
add, nor take away, nor improve upon the bible commandments, then we are
automatons, and not men, and for automatons there is no morality.
The gods will not permit anybody to be better than themselves. Such a
thought is blasphemy to them. The progress that leaves the gods behind
is denounced by all the churches. But what is this but denying a man
the right to be himself, even if by being himself he should eclipse the
gods. "Do as I tell you," or "Be as I am," is the bible commandment. The
commandment of morality is "Be yourself."
But what about the many texts in the bible which demand purity, charity,
love of one's neighbor, and, above all, righteousness? It is difficult
to believe that the bible writers could have meant by the word
righteousness what we mean by it, namely, ethical rectitude. How could
such men as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Moses be held up as saints,
and, at the same time, the most immoral deeds be attributed to them,
without one word of disapproval? These men were "holy," not because they
were pure, kind, just, honorable, or righteous, but because they were
orthodox. Listen to this text: "And he believed in the Lord; and he
counted it to him for righteousness." * Abraham was "righteous," not
because his conduct was right, but because he had the right faith.
To the god of the bible himself, the difference between good and evil,
or right and wrong, was altogether secondary, else how could he have
said, "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments
whereby they should not live." **
* Genesis xv, 6.
** Ezekiel xx, 25.
It no more troubles the conscience of Jehovah to play a trick upon his
people than it did that of Abraham when he trafficked in his wife's
honor. Nor did it in the least surprise the prophets when they caught
their god lying to them. "Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar?"
asks Jeremiah; and again he says, "Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast
greatly deceived this people." * But is he then going to look for
another and a more honest god? Not at all. He does not regard lying as
an insurmountable defect in the character of his god. And this because
there is no ethical code in the bible; the bible is jealous of one
thing--the right belief.
Jeremiah is not the only prophet who is willing to overlook in his deity
so slight a defect as immorality: "Shall there be evil in a city and the
Lord hath not done it?" is the exulting cry of Amos. **
Isaiah makes the God of Israel say: "I make peace and create evil.... I,
the Lord, do all these things." *** Nor did it in the least disconcert
another prophet to admit that "the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the
mouth of all these thy prophets." **** Like people, like God. It is not
religion that shapes and molds a people, but the people who make their
religion. This explains such passages as the following, which the Jews
attributed to their God:
_And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord
have deceived the prophet. (v)
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a
device against you. (vi)_
* Jeremiah xv, 18; iv, 10.
** Amos iii, 6.
*** Isaiah xlv, 7.
**** I Kings xxii, 23.
v. Ezekiel xiv, 9
vi. Jeremiah xviii, 11.
In one of his letters, St. Paul does not hesitate to write that God
purposely causes people to believe in a lie that he may have an excuse
to damn them for not believing the truth. That people could read such a
passage without protest and abhorrence, shows how effective has been
the blight of this Asiatic cult upon the mind and heart of the western
world. "And for this cause," writes the Apostle Paul, "God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all
might be damned." *
The God who in the Old Testament hardened the heart of Pharaoh that he
might ruin him and his people, leads people, in the New Testament, to
hug a delusion to their souls that he might damn them. And this is the
being who is not only to be our pattern for morality, but it shall also
be considered impossible for any one to be better than he is. To try to
improve on this "divine" pattern is blasphemy, both to the Jew and the
Christian.
To teach that no one can be better than Jehovah, as he is depicted in
the bible, is the most hopeless pessimism. Morality is born of hope and
courage. It is the idea of human perfectibility and the idea of progress
which give wings to human effort. The bible denies to man the privilege
to transcend the ideals of the past, or to be better than his Asiatic
gods.
* II Thessalonians ii, 11, 12.
IV. Righteousness in the Bible
_What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God_. *
* Micah vi, 8.
|THIS, and similar passages, are often quoted to give the bible a
reputation. Many commentators, Mathew Arnold among them, contend that
righteousness is the major key-note of the Old Testament. To prove this,
the above passage from the prophet Micah is often quoted. Another text
which these commentators are fond of quoting reads as follows:
_And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the
salvation of God._ *
* Psalms 1, 23.
To deserve this salvation by a life of righteousness, it is claimed, was
the one all-permeating thought of the "people of the bible." But this
last passage from the Psalms occurs only once in the Old Testament, and
it is a little strange that there should be just one reference to the
thought which is said to permeate the whole bible. However, that is
not the real answer to the conclusions drawn from this passage. By
consulting the margin of the Revised Version of the bible, which,
too, is the work of Christian scholars and has this advantage over the
Authorized Version, that it is more accurate--by consulting, then, the
latest and more accurate translation of the bible, we find that the text
reads:
_Whosoever offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me, and
prepareth a way that I may show him the salvation of God._
There is nothing here about "righteousness," or ethical conduct, or
conversation. It was the English translators who gave the text its moral
tone.
Let us now examine the text which opens this chapter. It declares that
God requires of his people justice, mercy and humility. The word which
has been translated into English as "mercy" is _hesed_. It is difficult
to believe that this word meant in Hebrew what we understand by "mercy."
In the one hundredth and thirty-sixth Psalm, David, whose character we
explain in this book, thus praises the _hesed_, or "mercy" of God:
_To him that smote Egypt in their first-born; for his mercy (hesed)
endureth forever._ *
Surely no modern moralist would think of attributing the wholesale
murder of all the first-born in a land to the "mercy" of God! In the
same vein, David, while praising Jehovah's "mercy" for "overthrowing
Pharaoh and his host, in the Red sea," for "slaying great kings," and
"famous kings," whom God killed in battle and whose lands he gave to
the Jews, he exclaims, "For his hesed (mercy) endureth forever." We
associate with the idea of "mercy," tenderness, compassion and charity.
What makes "mercy" or charity a great quality is that it is, as a rule,
bestowed upon the unfortunate, and even the undeserving. But to describe
killing people in their sleep, or throwing down stones from heaven to
destroy soldiers defending their homes, ** or to drown a nation trying
to recover their property from the Jews who had "spoiled the Egyptians,"
before fleeing the land, as acts of "mercy," is to make of morality a
mockery. What is the difference between the red Indian extolling Manitou
for the scalps he has given him, and David singing:
* Psalms cxxxvi, 10.
** Joshua x, ii.
_To him that smote Egypt in their first-born:
For his mercy endureth forever._ *
* Consult Chilperic's article in The Reformer, Vol. VI, page
664.
Who would for a moment hesitate between these lines of David and
```_The quality of mercy is not strained;
```It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
```Upon the place beneath:_
of Shakespeare?
It is not our purpose to show that the Old Testament knows nothing of
"mercy" in the modern sense of the word, but that the word _hesed_ in
the bible text, which figures in the English translation of this text
as "mercy," means something quite different. Following the lead of the
great Hebrew scholar, Gesenius, Chilperic makes the word _hesed_ in
this text from Micah, synonymous with our word "piety." What Jehovah
desires of his people, then, is not clemency, but piety; not the love of
man, but the love of God. It is the duty of man to God, not the duty of
man to his fellows, the world over, that the Jewish prophet has in mind.
The first-born of Egypt and all the other foes of Israel were destroyed
as a reward for the piety of the chosen people. It is for this David
praises the hesed of the Lord. In the same way, the "do justly" in the
text has also a purely ceremonial meaning. The word "justly" in the
translation is not the English of the Hebrew word in the text, which
is _mishpat_. The Jews used the word in the sense of the law, or the
judgments and ordinances, of Jehovah. What the Lord requires, then, in
this text from Micah, which the commentators make so much of, is "to
perform the law, to love piety, and to submit to Jehovah." And when the
prophet quotes the Semitic God as saying: "I desired hesed (mercy), and
not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings," *
he means just what the modern revivalist means when he says: "All your
morality can not save you. What God insists upon is _piety_." If further
evidence be required to know that what we understand by justice, love,
charity, had no place in the vocabulary of the bible writers, there is
the story narrated in I Samuel, xv. This "moral" teacher, Samuel, orders
King Saul, in the name of Jehovah, to slaughter the Amalekites, "both
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." The
king, in carrying out this program, manages to spare the lives of the
best of the cattle; he also allows the Amalekite king to escape alive.
Whereupon, Jehovah is so provoked that, "it repenteth me that I have
set up Saul to be king," he says. Then Samuel goes to see the king, who
relates to him how he had consumed the Amalekites by putting everything
to the sword. "And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the
sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" The king
replied that the best of the sheep and of the oxen were reserved "_to
sacrifice unto the Lord_." Observe now the answer which the prophet of
God gave to the king:
* Hosea vi, 6.
_Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in
obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to hearken than the fat of rams._
Now we understand what it is that the Lord demands; so did Saul, after
Samuel had explained it to him, for "Samuel hewed Agag (the king whose
life had been spared) in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." From a human
point of view, it would have been more moral to sacrifice to God the
cattle Saul had saved than to "hew in pieces" a human being, but that
is the morality of man; to be moral in the bible sense is to do as God
commands, whether what he commands you to kill be a sheep or a human
being. Morality, according to the bible, means unquestioning obedience.
Addressing a monster revival meeting, the Christian preacher declared
that: "Violation of the sixth commandment, cursing, theft, drunkenness,
and even murder, are pardonable sins, but refusal to accept the Son of
God is an eternal barrier to the heavenly kingdom." *
* The Toledo News-Bee, May 17, 1911.
That is our definition of immorality.
V. The Ten Commandments
|IT is the claim of both Jews and Christians that the Ten Commandments
form the foundation, not only for the moral and civil laws of our
country, but of the civilized world as well. Some bibliolaters, in their
zeal, go so far as to say that there was no morality in the world before
the Ten Commandments were announced. That is to say, in their opinion,
morality is but a few thousand years old. Why, the world itself,
according to the bible chronology, is nearly six thousand years old. Are
we to understand, then, that until the time of Moses the world managed
to get along without any morality at all?
But we know that the world is very much older than six thousand years,
and that there were great empires and a civilization which was already
old, long long before the Jews arrived. Egypt was at the zenith of her
culture when the sons of Jacob appeared within her gates to beg for
bread, and Babylonia and Persia were world-empires when the Jews were
still slaves. But to admit that there was any morality before Moses,
is to give up the bible. What need could there be of a moral law coming
down from heaven, if there were one already growing out of the earth? No
deity is needed to find for us what was never lost, or to give us what
we already possessed. To admit, therefore, that there were ancient
nations who flourished and waxed strong in art and commerce, in culture
and character, long before the Ten Commandments descended from the
clouds, would be fatal to the claim that there can be no morality
without the bible.
The defenders of the bible find themselves in a very embarrassing
position. They can not deny Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome; but
if they admit the greatness and glory of these empires, what becomes of
their claim that morality was first given to the world by Moses in the
wilderness? There is only one way out of the dilemma: Refuse to discuss
the question. And that is practically the tactics of the bible champions
at present. It is absolutely impossible to find any more an educated and
respectable churchman who is willing to debate the question before an
audience of inquirers. Silence is their one remaining asset.
It is related in the bible that the Ten Commandments were written on two
tables of stone by the deity himself. But in a fit of anger, Moses, in
whose custody the documents in stone were placed, "cast the tables out
of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." * This was a device to
account for the nonexistence of the tables. If ever there were a time
when a miracle would have been in order, it was when Moses dropped the
commandments. After forty days of labor, Jehovah delivers the moral
law, and not wishing to entrust the work of taking down his dictation to
Moses, he inscribes them on imperishable stone, with his own hand. And
then they fall and break, like any schoolboy's slate. The slates should
not have broken--and they would not have broken--if all the other
miracles told in the bible are true. To have miracles without number
when we do not need them, and then to refuse the one miracle that could
have saved the handwriting of God, is a fatal argument against the
miraculous.
* Exodus xxxii, 19.
It is true that Moses was summoned to the mountain for a new set of
tables and commandments, but as I shall proceed to explain, the second
Ten Commandments were not written by the deity. His handwriting was
irretrievably lost by the breaking of the first tables. We have miracles
to preserve shoes and garments, and dead men's bones, but none to save
the writing of God. Thus it is that all the "original" documents of
the prophets and the apostles have perished, while the real wood of the
cross and the coat of Jesus have been miraculously preserved.
In Exodus, thirty-second chapter, verse sixteen, we read:
_And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of
God, graven upon the tables._
But what was the use? The tables broke, and the writing is lost. Why go
to all that trouble to produce original documents, only to lose them
so shortly after they are finished? The thirty-fourth chapter and the
twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth verses of the book of Exodus inform us
that the second collection of Commandments which were given to replace
the broken tables of stone, were not written by Jehovah, but by Moses:
_And the Lord said unto Moses, write thou these words... And he (Moses)
was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights... And he wrote upon
the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments._ *
* Exodus xxxiv, 27, 28.
But not only were the new commandments not in God's handwriting, but
they were also totally different from the first Ten Commandments. Thus
it was not only the divine writing that perished, but also the moral law
as first given. It is true that Moses reports what the lost commandments
were, but if he could remember them, why was it necessary for him to
go up the Mount for a transcript of them? The unpleasant conclusion is
forced upon our minds that not only had Moses forgotten what the broken
tables of stone contained, but Jehovah, himself, could not remember
them. Where, then, did Moses get the Ten Commandments which he says were
on the broken slates? I do not know. If he reported them from memory,
and his memory were reliable, why was a second set of slates ordered,
that the Lord might write on them "the words that were in the first
tables, which thou breakest"? * If a second series of commandments were
given, as the text plainly states, because the first series was lost,
how did Moses reproduce the lost commandments? Could he have put
the fragments of the broken tables together, restoring thereby the
handwriting of God? Really, it is not history that the bible gives us,
but gossip.
It has already been shown that the deity did not write the second
version of the moral law with his own hand, although he promised he
would. Let me now present the second version of the Ten Commandments,
to show that Jehovah had forgotten just as completely as had Moses, the
first Ten Commandments which he himself had inscribed on the slates.=
* Exodus xxxiv, 1, abbreviated.
_Exodus XXXIV.
1. Thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous,
is a Jealous God.
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.
4. Every firstling that is male is mine. And the first fruits of the
land thou shalt bring unto the Lord.
5. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks.
7. Thrice in the year shall all your men children (women not wanted)
appear before the Lord God.
8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
9. The sacrifice of the passover shall not be left over till the
morning.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk._
That these were the commandments given to take the place of those
unfortunately lost appears by the text that follows, and which we ask
permission to quote again:
_And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words:
... And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten
commandments._ *
* Exodus xxxiv, 27.
By comparing these two pronouncements, only a very slight resemblance
can be discovered between them. In both documents, God is jealous, and
the feast of Sabbaths and weeks is ordered to be scrupulously observed.
There is not a single commandment in the second deliverance which can
be described as ethical in its import. It is a "moral law" without the
remotest suggestion of morality in it. Nothing is said about the duty
of man to himself, his neighbor, or his posterity. The Ten Commandments
which were broken and lost contained, at least, prohibitory clauses
against murder, theft, adultery, and the bearing of false witness
against one's neighbor. Even though these interdictions had in view
the protection of the Jew only, as the conduct of Israel toward other
peoples plainly shows; and even though only a portion of the lost
decalogue concerned itself with morality at all, the others being of
a theological and ceremonial character, still they, at least, have the
_appearance_ of being a moral law, while the second decalogue is not
even that.
And why are there ten commandments? The Protestants split the first
commandment which forbids the worship of other gods and the making of
graven images into two separate commandments; the Catholics, on the
other hand, divide the last commandment, which says, "Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's house," or wife, or ox, or ass, into two, by
separating the wife from the ass and the ox. "Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's wife," is a commandment by itself in the Catholic bible,
while, as explained, the Protestant bible makes no distinction between
a man's ox, ass and wife. Of course, we prefer the Catholic manipulation
of the bible, in this respect, to that of the Protestants, who are
more jealous of the favor of Jehovah than of that of woman. But by what
authority do these sects go about splitting the divine commandments?
Only recently Cardinal Gibbons expressed great horror at the suggestion
of certain Protestants that the Ten Commandments should be abbreviated
and modernized. "What blasphemy," exclaimed the cardinal. Yet, his
church was guilty of that very kind of "blasphemy" when it separated
what God had joined together--the ass, the ox and the wife.
VI. The Commandments Broken
|THE most telling criticism against the bible as an ethical work
is that, while every one of its moral commandments are deliberately
countermanded and cancelled and allowed to be, yes, ordered to be,
broken, not one of the ceremonial or theological commandments was for a
single time even suspended, or its neglect winked at, by the all-seeing
Jehovah. The man who gathered kindling wood on the seventh day, or
called on other gods, or ate his totem, or forgot his taboo, or omitted
the Abrahamic rite, or ate fat, or forgot his blood offerings, or
married a Gentile, or ate leavened bread on certain days, or approached
too near to a priest or the candlesticks, was never allowed to escape
punishment; while the thief, the murderer, the debauchee, the falsifier,
the traitor, the assassin, was again and again applauded and rewarded
with special favors. The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," was barely
spelled out in full when the Lord orders a saturnalia of murder.
_Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side,
and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay
every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his
neighbor... even every man upon his son._ *
Who can have patience with such a book? What has become of the intellect
of Europe that it can go to such a book for its morality? In one of
Napoleon's unpublished letters, addressed to Junot, after giving secret
instructions about the movement against Lisbon, he adds, "Shoot, say,
sixty persons." ** If that makes him a monster, what shall we say of a
being who asks fathers to murder their sons, and sons their fathers, in
cold blood, and that, too, immediately after he had said, "Thou shalt
not kill." But why was this bacchanalia of bloodshed ordered? The answer
will cause a shudder: "That he (Jehovah) may bestow upon you a blessing
this day." *** To kill was an act of worship. To please God was better
than to spare one's children from the edge of the sword. God demanded
murder, and not until he was obeyed would he "bless" them! Do we need
any further proof that there is only one commandment in the bible: "Thou
shalt obey the Lord thy God," that is to say, the priest. If he
forbids murder, obey him; if he commands murder, obey him. But the most
important point about all this is that both the giving and the
breaking of a "moral" commandment is for the purpose of furthering
the theological and ritualistic interests. "And the Lord plagued the
people," that is to say, he ordered this internecine murder--why? Not
because they had violated any of the "moral" commandments, but, mark
the excuse given, "because they made the calf." **** The most abominable
thing in the sight of this priest-made God, is not immorality, but
infidelity.
* Exodus xxxii, 27-29.
** Lettres Médités de Napoleon. Le cestre.
*** Exodus xxxii, 29.
**** Exodus xxxii, 35.
It would be easy to enumerate the so-called "moral" commandments, one
after the other, and show how every one of them was ordered broken
when the interests of the creed required it. "Thou shalt not steal" was
revoked again and again, and a thousand encouragements offered to seize
the land and goods of others. The commandment "Thou shalt not commit
adultery" was made a mockery of by the express instruction to make a
raid on neighboring countries and carry off the young girls by force. *
We have reason to be ashamed of Europe, of the Aryan races, for wanting
to place such a book into the hands of young and old as the Word of God.
* Numbers xxxi, 18.
Indeed, without any violence, either to the letter or to the spirit of
the bible, we may offer the following as the real Ten Commandments given
by God to Moses:
1. Thou shalt steal everything thou canst--thou shalt plunder, and
practice usury.
2. Thou shalt murder the alien and the heathen as well as thy own
brother.
3. Thou shalt bear false witness.
4. Thou shalt commit adultery.
5. Thou shalt covet.
6. Thou shalt hate thy neighbor of another faith.
7. Thou shalt persecute.
8. Thou shalt be cruel, and buy and sell human beings.
9. Thou shalt be superstitious.
10. Thou shalt despise woman, but permit a man to marry as many wives,
and keep as many concubines as his fancy dictates. And let a man divorce
his wife whenever it shall please him to do so.
Space fails us to quote all the texts in the bible which support the
above commandments. It would be like reproducing the greater portions of
the bible to offer even a partial list of the direct and indirect ways
in which the bible lends its authority, as well as encouragement, to the
commission of what we would consider criminal acts. Moreover, it would
be a very unpleasant task to repeat, or to call attention to, those
parts of the bible which this phase of my subject leads me into. And
yet I do not see how I can altogether shirk the disagreeable task. The
reader has no idea how big a part of the bible is unreadable. If anybody
undertook to bring out a cleanly version of the bible for family use, he
would soon find that the Old Testament, at least, would have to be left
out, almost completely. Dr. Thomas Inman says: "A long experience in
life and a retentive memory would lead me to say that the bible, as we
have it, is the first book which leads many youths astray." *
That Jehovah ordered his people to _steal_, is clearly indicated by the
following text:
_When ye go, ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall borrow of her
neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and
jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons and
upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians!_
What they were ordered to do to the Egyptians, they were ordered to do
to all the nations they could lay their hands upon. The lands and goods
of others were to be seized by force. Stealing was forbidden if the
property belonged to a Jew; it was sanctioned if the property belonged
to the "heathen."
_Murder_ is plainly commanded in the following text:
_Slay every man his brother, and every man his companion and every man
his neighbour._ **
* Ancient Faiths, etc., Vol. II, page 77.
** Exodus iii, 21, 22.
There is hardly a page in the Old Testament which is not red with
bloodshed.
_Lying_ was approved by the deity. Moses was commanded to tell a
falsehood to Pharaoh, as were many of the other prophets advised to
practice deception. Despite all the plagues which God is said to have
sent upon the Egyptians to prove his might and power to deliver his
people out of bondage, it was found necessary, as a last resort, to tell
a lie to the king of Egypt to induce him to permit their departure. Upon
being asked by Pharaoh why and where they wanted to go, Moses answered:
_The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three
days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God; lest
he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword._ *
While planning to go on an expedition to seize the lands which their God
had promised them, they tell Pharaoh that they only desire to hold some
kind of a prayer-meeting in the desert, after which they would come
back, supposedly to return the jewels of gold and silver they had
borrowed from the neighbors. The falsehood was effective when all the
miracles had failed. The Egyptians actually, if the story is true,
allowed the Jews to rob them before they left.
God also commanded Samuel to lie:
_And the Lord said unto Samuel... I will send thee to Jesse the
Bethlemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons. And Samuel
said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said,
Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord._
**
In the same way, the bible, it is to be regretted, sanctions sexual
immorality.
_And the Lord said to Hosea, Go take unto thee a wife of whoredom._ ***
Again, the Lord commands:
_When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy
God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them
captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a
desire unto her... thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and
she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her,
then thou shalt let her go whither she will._ ****
Not a word is said about obtaining the woman's consent. And the
following:
_But all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him,
keep alive for yourselves._ (v)
* Exodus v, 3.
** Samuel xvi, 1, 2.
*** Hosea i, 2.
**** Deuteronomy xxi, 10-14.
v. Numbers xxxi, 18.
Such texts show how indifferent the bible is to what we understand by
morality.
As to _coveting_: The whole of the biblical instructions was nothing
more than a continuous encouragement to the Jews to covet everything
that was their neighbors, from the jewelry of the Egyptian, to the
lands, the cattle, the homes and daughters of the nations of the earth:
_And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying... I will
give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a
stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. *
For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy
seed for ever._ **
But it will be impossible to command people to rob and slay their
neighbors, and to covet their homes and women, without at the same time,
commanding them to _hate_ them.
_Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it
unto the stranger... that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an
alien. ***
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.... unto a stranger thou
mayest lend upon usury._ ****
Jesus improved upon the Old Testament by calling upon his followers to
include in their hatred the members of their own family:
_If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife,
and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple._ (v)
* Genesis xvii, 3, 8.
** Genesis xiii, 15.
*** Deuteronomy xiv, 21.
**** Deuteronomy xxiii, 19, 20.
v. Luke xiv, 26.
Religious _persecution_ is openly sanctioned both in the Old and the New
Testaments. Every expression of independence, or disagreement with the
priesthood, was blasphemy, and punishable by death.
_And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to
death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the
stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name
of the Lord, shall be put to death._ *
The Bible gives a very long list of "blasphemies" for which the death
penalty is ordered--from failing to circumcise one's children, to
gathering sticks on the Sabbath. And as to those professing a different
faith, the commandment was as follows:
_These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in
the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it,
all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye
shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the
hills, and under every green tree:
And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars and burn
their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their
gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place._ **
* Leviticus xxiv, 16.
** Deuteronomy xii, 1-4.
Could intolerance go further than that! Other peoples are not to have
any gods at all. Even as their lands will be taken away from them, so
shall their gods. And since their Jehovah never intended to be the god
of anybody else but a Hebrew, it followed that the Jews were the only
people privileged to own a god.
Why should "all the high places," where the other nations served their
gods, be destroyed? Did not Moses go to Mount Sinai, a high place, to
worship Jehovah? Why may not a Gentile have his own high place, as well
as a Jew? Surely, the heathen gods on their mountains could not possibly
have given a more unmerciful set of commandments than those which
Jehovah dictated to Moses. There was no breadth in the God of the Jews.
_Live and let live, or Think and let think_, is the conquest of
modern thought for which we are indebted to Rationalism. We say it,
reluctantly, but say it we must, Jehovah was a bigot. How long will the
Jews continue to profess a religion which requires of them to live in
Europe and America, and in the twentieth century, according to the
ways of the desert? If Gentiles, in every country, are in great numbers
forsaking Christianity, let the exodus of the Jews from the synagogue be
equally earnest and pronounced.
_Cruelty_ was to be the accompaniment of religious persecution.
The descriptions of acts of cruelty against the stranger seem to have
given positive pleasure to the writers of the bible, for they enter into
the most repulsive details in narrating them:
_For the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.... Howbeit
Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the
Kenite: for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the
house of Heber the Kenite.
And Tael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord,
turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the
tent, she covered him with a mantle... Then Jael Heber's wife took a
nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto
him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the
ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.... Behold, Sisera
lay dead, and the nail was in his temples._ *
* Judges iv, 9, 17-23.
For this act of treacherous cruelty Jael was sainted:
_Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed
shall she be above women in the tent.... She put her hand to the nail,
and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she
smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken
through his temples.... So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord._ *
_Superstitions_ of the most degrading type are recommended and their
daily practice sanctioned. Though they claimed to be on talking terms
with the deity, they had, nevertheless, to cast lots, and resort to
sorcery and divination, to find out the mind of the Lord.
_Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years
old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.
And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid
each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.... And it
came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a
smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram._ **
Could anything be more meaningless?
... _And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel
prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under
him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one
on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were
steady until the going down of the sun.
And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the
sword._ **
* Judges v, 24-31.
** Exodus xvii, 11-13.
Only the most hopeless ignorance could credit such a performance.
And Jesus thought that by self-mutilation one could become a candidate
for heaven:
_For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's
womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and
there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
And the four beasts said, Amen._
VII. Thou Shalt Despise Women
|THE most unfortunate person in the whole bible is a woman. How is it
then that the bible has come to be regarded as really the emancipator
of woman? Well, that is only one of many fictions about the "Holy" book.
Not only is the responsibility for the fall of man, and the existence
of such a place as hell, thrown upon woman, because she ate of the
forbidden tree; but she is also introduced as a mere fragment of man,
made out of one of his ribs. As soon as born she was sold into perpetual
slavery.
_Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee._*
* Genesis iii, 16.
Never once did God promise a daughter to any of his favorites. And
girls are completely left out from the family chronicle. In biblical
genealogies there are no women. "The Hebrew word used in the bible
for 'female,'" says Joseph McCabe, "can not with decency be translated
literally into English." Women were strictly excluded from the service
of Jehovah. Nor were they privileged to repair to Jerusalem on the
stated occasions required, by the national worship to appear before
Jehovah. It is no wonder that under these conditions the women of the
bible, as Lecky says, were "of a low order, and certainly far inferior
to those of Roman history, or Greek poetry." Paul was inspired to
command: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.... I
suffer not a woman to teach (Paul never could have dreamed of our public
schools), nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." *
In the Old Testament motherhood is an act deserving atonement, and rules
are given how a woman shall apply for absolution, as it were, after
childbirth. If her offspring were a boy, the punishment was lighter than
when she gave birth to a girl. **
* I Timothy ii, 11, 12.
** Leviticus xii, 2-5.
The commandment for a man to sell his daughter into slavery, as also
the institution of polygamy, and concubinage and divorce, extensively
practiced by the leaders in the Holy Bible, show what precious little
interest Jehovah took in the welfare of woman. The bible continued
for centuries--down to the time of the Renaissance--to keep woman in
subjection. Even to-day, one of the greatest obstacles in the path of
woman is the bible. In a sermon at Saint Crantock's, preached only six
years ago, the vicar offered the following reasons for opposing the
granting to women the rights and opportunities enjoyed by man:
_(1) Man's priority of creation. Adam was first formed, then Eve.
(2) The manner of creation. The man is not of the woman, but the woman
of the man.
(3) The purport of creation. The man was not created for the woman, but
the woman for the man.
(4) Results in creation. The man is the image of the glory of God, but
woman is the glory of man.
(5) Woman's priority in the fall. Adam was not deceived; but the woman,
being deceived, was in the transgression.
(6) The marriage relation. As the church is subject to Christ, so let
the wives be to their husbands.
(7) The headship of man and woman. The head of every man is Christ, but
the head of the woman is man._
For this one sin alone--its insult and injustice to woman--we should
never make our peace with the bible. Worse than all its miracles,
fables, absurdities, immoralities, contradictions, indecencies, is its
tyranny over woman because she is _weak_. This is unpardonable.
It is no defense to say that allowance must be made for the remote times
in which these barbarities were committed. It is not the morality of the
"times" but the morality of an infallible book that is under discussion.
Moreover, why could not the people who daily saw God and heard from
him, be at least as decent as their "heathen" neighbors? The Midianites,
whose virgin daughters Moses ordered his followers to abduct, after all
the rest of the inhabitants had been put to death, had sheltered
Moses for forty years when he fled for his life from Egypt. * Their
hospitality is repaid by Moses in this unspeakable fashion. Why could
not Moses be as honorable and humane as the Midianites? Even by the
admissions of the bible itself, the nations whom Jehovah ordered to be
exterminated were very much more hospitable than the Jews. Had Assyria,
Egypt, Babylonia or Persia followed the example of the Jews, there would
not have been any Jews left in the world to-day. And the fact that,
after long years of captivity in heathen countries, when permission was
given the Jews to return to Jerusalem, many of them refused to do so,
preferring a foreign country to their own, is decisive proof that the
"heathen" did not treat the Jews so unmercifully as Jehovah wanted the
Jews to treat the heathen. I can protest against the massacre of the
Christians by the Turks, or of the Jews by the Christians, because I
do not believe the bible is binding upon my conscience. But how can a
Christian or a Jew plead for liberty of conscience? How can a Jew or a
Christian protest against being massacred while hugging to his bosom a
book which commands and approves of the most inhuman treatment of one
people by another?
* Exodus ii, 15.
My forehead throbs as I quote these forbidden texts, and my pulse rises.
But I have the consolation that the book is not true, that the wild
stories it tells about Jews and Christians had no basis in history. If I
could only get the devout Jews and Christians to realize this!
VIII. The Sermon on the Mount
|HOWEVER imperfect the teachings of others in the Old and New Testament
might be, it is urged that Jesus himself is the one infallible
revelation of God, and that even if everything else is lost, nothing is
really lost so long as Jesus abides. This is the remaining consolation
of the apologists of the bible. No reasons are given as to why, in an
inspired book, there should be only one person who is really inspired.
Nor do these "new theologians" stop to think that such an admission is
equivalent to a plea of guilty--for if no one but Jesus in the bible
is to be trusted, then Jesus can not be trusted either. In plain words
Jesus tells his hearers that they must believe in him, because Moses
and the prophets testify of him. Repeatedly Jesus expressed his
unquestioning belief in the Old Testament. He had come not to destroy
the law of Moses, but to fulfil it. And he expressly told them, that
there was no necessity for any one to come down from heaven to teach the
people, for "if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." * But if "Moses and the
prophets" are not to be depended upon, what becomes of Jesus' testimony
of them? Jesus says "Moses and the prophets were of God," the "new
theologians" say they were not. In the meantime, the same "new
theologians" say that Jesus knew what he was talking about.
But the "new theologians," who have nearly thrown overboard everything
else, still cling, or pretend to cling, so ardently to Jesus as a moral
teacher, because of the supposed beauty of the Sermon on the Mount,
and the other teachings of Jesus. This is not the first time that the
present writer makes the Sermon on the Mount a subject for comment. **
There are many fine passages in the collection of utterances attributed
to Jesus, but we have the same objection against the moral teachings
of Jesus that we have against the moral teachings of Moses and the
prophets. The best in Jesus' sermons are to be found in the Old
Testament, and there is enough of the worst in the Old Testament in the
sayings attributed to Jesus to make his teachings unfit, in the main,
for universal uses.
* Luke xvi, 31.
** Consult the author's Is the Morality of Jesus Sound.
On one theme all parts of the bible are in perfect unison--God comes
before man. To us this is the negation of morality. "Blessed are the
pure in heart," preaches Jesus; and why are the pure blessed? "Because,"
is the answer, "they shall see God." There is not a word said about the
social worth of personal and public purity of heart. Not a word that to
be pure is to bless the world in which one lives, or that by being pure
we help to make life on earth sweeter and more lovable. The idea that
to be pure in thought and conduct is the way to serve humanity, and
make this earth a heaven, does not occur to Jesus at all. He is not
interested either in humanity or in this earth. His eyes are fixed upon
the mists beyond. His one thought is of the invisible God, not of man
who is made of flesh and blood.
And when the "purity" required is examined, it will be found that, in
consonance with the Old Testament, purity of belief is what is meant
by it. The thief on the cross would see God, not because he was pure in
heart, but because he believed before he died. In the same way the other
virtues are recommended, not for their civic values, not as the means of
social well-being and blessedness, but as auxiliaries to piety, namely,
to the worship of God.
That Jesus had no message to man is seen in his attempt to shift the
center of gravity, so to speak, from this world to the next. He would
take away from man the world in the hand, for the one hidden away in the
clouds. "Blessed are ye that hunger now," cries Jesus to the starving
multitude, "for ye shall be filled." * But _when?_ It reads very
much like the vague and airy promises which a politician makes to his
constituents when he is bidding for votes. "Give us bread _now_," cry
the poor. Can the famished eat a promise for bread? But Jesus was not
interested in helping them "now." He had come to reveal God and his
glory, not to make the world a happy home for man. He prayed for and
predicted the speedy destruction of the world; why, then, should he
labor for its betterment? And in his "next world" is there really going
to be no more poverty? Let us read what Jesus says:
_Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.... Woe unto you
that are full! for ye shall hunger._ **
* Luke vi, 21.
** Luke vi, 21-25.
In the dim, distant day those who hunger now will have all that they
can eat, but those who now are filled will starve. What then is the
advantage of that future day over the now? Instead of doing away with
hunger, it is to be shifted on to another set of people. There will be
just as much poverty in the beautiful future Jesus predicts, as there is
to-day, only the people who are poor here, will be rich there, and the
rich now, will be the poor then. Is there any inspiration in such a
prospect? Is it not like clinging to a straw, to expect help from such
haphazard utterances as these? What a serious world desires to know
is not how to "beat around the bush," but how to remedy real evils. By
taking the bread from one man and giving it to another, we neither add
to the quantity of food, nor diminish the stress of poverty. Yet that is
precisely the solution Jesus proposes with such a flourish of trumpets.
Is it any wonder that people do not care for his heaven, or that
humanity has turned away from Jesus to look for help elsewhere? Again
Jesus says:
_Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh.... Woe unto you that
laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep._ *
* Luke vi, 21-25.
Is it not fantastic? Jesus seems to believe that to laugh _now_ is a
crime; and yet he holds it up as a future reward to those who weep now.
There is an oriental saying that the food which each one that comes into
the world needs, is set apart for him by Allah; he may eat it all at
once, and starve the rest of his life, or use it moderately, and have
enough to last him all the days of his life. Likewise, Jesus appears to
be of the belief that there is just so much happiness set apart for man;
he can take it in this world, and go to _hades_ in the next; or he
can make this world a place of mourning, and go to heaven in the next.
Therefore, "Woe to those who want their heaven here, for they shall be
tormented forever after, and blessed are those who mourn and weep here,
for they shall laugh in the hereafter." Is this sense?
According to Jesus, as long as a man is weeping and mourning he is
"blessed," but as soon as he begins to laugh, then "woe" unto him. In
the same way, a man is "blessed" as long as he is hungry, but the moment
he is "filled" Jesus turns upon him with a "woe unto you." Who could
fail to draw the conclusion from such teaching that to help people to be
happy now, is to expose them to the "woe unto you" of God, and to help
people out of poverty now, is to bring upon their heads the curse of the
future; and that, therefore, we should let the poor be the poor, and the
rich, the rich--leaving it to the unknown future to settle all accounts.
Such a teacher deserves to have only the unthinking for his disciples.
One Sunday in June, about three years ago, I went to hear the Rev. Dr.
Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, in New York city. For his
scripture lesson he read the parable of the "Wheat and the Tares." *
This is about a farmer who sows good seed in his field. But while he was
asleep, his enemies came and sowed tares among the wheat. As the blades
sprang up "and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also."
The farm-hands, when they saw this, asked the owner for permission to
destroy the tares. "Nay," replied the master, "lest while ye gather up
the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together
until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn
them: but gather the wheat into my barn."
* Matthew xiii, 24-30.
What edification is there in such a story? To bring a church full of
people together--tired, busy, perplexed, hungering for ideas, for truth,
for beauty--only to tell them that the tares must not be touched
or separated even from the wheat until some day in the future, some
judgment day in the clouds, when the Lord of the harvest shall gather
up the tares to be burned, and the wheat to be deposited in his chests!
Could anything be more destructive of human endeavor and hope than this
shifting of all responsibility upon God and the future? If the parable
has any meaning, it is this: Let every field become rank with weeds,
and let nothing be done to destroy the weeds _now_--the future will take
care of that. The _future_ is the one great asset of the priest.
"Wait until you die," is his answer to every challenge to show present
results.
The weeds injure the wheat during the time that the crop is growing, and
not after it is ready to be harvested. What is gained by burning up the
tares when they can no longer hurt the wheat and after they have done
all the harm they could to the grain by stealing sun and moisture from
them? Besides, there is just as much danger of gathering up the wheat
with the tares at harvest time as there is of rooting up the wheat with
the tares while they are growing together. Why postpone the purging
process? Why let a child, for example, grow up to be a criminal to be
hanged, if there is a way of saving him from evil associations earlier
in life? What farmer or educator will follow the advice of Jesus, to let
the bad and the good alone until judgment day?
Suppose, instead of such an unprofitable story, with its impracticable
lesson, and its suggestion of _laissez faire_, the preacher had read the
page from Ralph Waldo Emerson, which contains a grander passage than
is to be found in the whole bible, "My freedom is part of my faith"; or
suppose he had read to his audience the page from Thomas Paine in which
occurs that thrilling and musical pæan, "Where liberty is not, there is
my country"--and why? Not to wait until some distant day, but to bring
about and share with them now, and here, the blessings of liberty; or
suppose the preacher had greeted his hearers with the words of Goethe,
"In the whole, the good, the true, the beautiful, resolve to live."
Would he not have read to them from a better bible?
But the gem in the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to be the, "But I say
unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy
right cheek, turn to him the other also." * This advice is supplemented
with the "Love your enemies," which is claimed to be the noblest
utterance in all religious literature. The philosophy underlying these
commandments is the same which we found in the parable of the "Wheat and
the Tares." Even as the tares are to be allowed to have their way in
a wheat field, evil is not to be resisted in the world of men, but let
alone. It is not the business of man, according to Jesus, to effect
reforms; he must leave it all to God. In his own time, and in his own
way, God will fill the hungry and punish the rich; he will burn the
tares and save the wheat; and he will reward the good and destroy the
evil.
* Matthew v, 39.
This Asiatic fatalism is quite consistent with the belief in an all-wise
and powerful being at the head of affairs. If God were not almighty,
we might assist him in his work; or if he were not all-wise, we might
enlighten him on some things, but being almighty, and all-wise, he does
not wish any meddling on our part. Besides, if we resist evil, or weed
the tares, or fight poverty and misery, we might think that it is our
efforts which have made the world better. But that is taboo. Really,
Jesus is quite right; there is no room for human effort where an
infinite being is doing things. The plea that God wants us to help
him, because if we neglect to do our part, neither will he do his, is
nonsensical. An attitude of passivity is alone becoming to a believer.
To bestir oneself about the tares, or the evil in the world, is to show
that one has lost faith in the Lord of the harvest. "Stand still and see
the salvation of the Lord," is the word of inspiration.
And could anything be more pessimistic than "Resist not evil?" If not
the evil, what then shall man resist? Nothing? But he will fall into
decay unless he resists the forces that menace his well being. And why
was man made a moral agent or created in the "divine" image if he is to
let the powers of darkness have their way, instead of girding himself
for battle against them? But the decline of man is desired because that
is the only way the world may come to an end, and God and his heaven
ushered in. Such is the philosophy of Jesus.
If God does not wish us to "resist evil," pray what is the devil's
pleasure? We have been told that the devil always wants us to do the
things which God has forbidden. Does he, then, want us to resist evil?
Not to resist the agencies of evil, is not to resist the devil, if there
is such a being; and not to resist the devil is to surrender to him,
which is just what he would want us to do.
The Sermon on the Mount, if complied with, would lead the world to an
_impasse_. We must not resist the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus,
and, according to the same teacher, we must not resist evil either.
But unless the Holy Spirit and evil are the same, how can we be as
hospitable or as passive toward the one as toward the other? We must
stand still and let God work in us his purposes, says the bible,
and, according to the same book, we are to be equally passive to the
operations of the Evil One. Is such advice intelligible? Could
anything be more confusing and bewildering to the moral sense than so
contradictory a commandment? If the gospel writers had put in Jesus'
mouth the words, "I am the darkness of the world," they would not have
been very far wrong.
Why resist not evil? If evil is evil, and if we have power to resist it,
why may we not do so? What is morality but the exercise of the power of
resistance against evil? The idea that by resisting evil we become evil
ourselves, as Tolstoi maintains, is as much a conundrum as the text
itself. Did not Jesus resist the devil in the wilderness? Did he not
drive the evil spirits out of his patients? Did he not denounce the
scribes and Pharisees who would not accept his Messiaship? And did he
not scourge the money-changers out of the temple court, and overturn
their tables by sheer physical force? Why did he resist evil himself?
And did such resistance degrade him?
In all probability, the reason we are warned against resisting evil is
that evil is one of the agencies God works by, and, therefore, to resist
it is to rebel against God. But not to resist evil is to do evil. "If
any man," says Jesus, in this famous sermon, "will sue thee at the law,
and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." * But there need
be no law courts, even, to go to, if we will only notify the robbers
in advance that they may have all they can lay their hands on. Why not
strip ourselves for the benefit of the oppressor and thereby save him
also from the trouble of suing us for anything? Is the above advice
given for the benefit of the honest man or the robber? Surely the latter
will not object to being given more than he sought to steal. And why
should an honest man labor to possess anything, since he must permit
the thief and the brigand to enjoy all the fruits of his own economy
and thrift? By what process of ratiocination does Jesus arrive at the
conclusion that the man of fraud and violence should not only not be
denied any demand he may make upon us, but that he should have more, nay
all we have earned and saved. Is not this nihilism?
* Matthew v, 40.
No extraordinary intelligence is needed to see what would happen to
the state that decided to live up to the teachings of Christ. Every
precaution to protect our homes and families would be condemned as
unchristian. Instead of throwing the burglar out, or arousing the police
to pursue and arrest him, we must thank him for giving us an opportunity
to practice the rare "virtue" of giving also the other coat, as well as
of turning also the other cheek to him. If the brigand strikes us once,
we must encourage him for a second blow; if he has killed but one member
of the family, he must be pampered into further indulgence in his bloody
pastime. Is this the Christian religion? Surely it is not the
religion of common sense. But Jesus does not seem to reflect upon the
consequences to the robbers themselves of this policy of non-resistance,
and of giving freely to him that would borrow of us. In order to be able
to take or borrow of one's neighbor, that neighbor must have something.
But to encourage the having of things, the possessor of things must be
protected. Jesus, by taking away this protection, endangers the creation
of wealth of any kind. What is the robber or the beggar to take when
there is nothing to take? And there will be nothing to take when the
industrious are sacrificed to the lazy and the vicious. Jesus strikes
at the roots of civilization by his doctrine of "let alone." And that
is really what he is after. Wealth, culture, liberty, help to make us
fonder of this world than of the next, fonder of things than of God! And
that, a jealous religion will not tolerate.
We are aware of the many ingenious explanations proposed to retain the
Sermon on the Mount in the creeds, though it is diligently excluded from
life. Praise the Sermon on the Mount, but do not practice it, seems to
express the attitude of the church. Jesus is not supposed to have really
meant what he said about "turning the other cheek," or allowing the
oppressor his way. What he was trying to say, argue the commentators,
was that we should be patient under provocation, not given to seeking
vengeance; and that we should be generous to the indigent and the
unfortunate. That was what Jesus wanted to say, according to defenders
of the bible; but instead of saying that, he said something so totally
different that a large army of commentators is kept busy trying to
excuse and explain what he really said.
The world needs a teacher _who can say what he means, and mean what he
says_. If his commentators can make themselves understood why could not
Jesus? Besides, it is not right to be patient with wrong, or generous to
the oppressor. Shakespeare's thought was very much more wholesome when
he said that kindness to the guilty is injustice to the honest.
Instead of these nihilistic or pessimistic utterances, which no
self-respecting nation will translate into daily life, suppose Jesus had
said, "Not to resist crime is also a crime." Suppose he had said, "If
ever evil, or darkness, or poverty, is to be conquered, it will be by
the efforts of man only." But Jesus was trying to put man to sleep, not
to provoke him into action against the enemies of his progress. Compare
the three simple but puissant commandments of Volney, the author of "The
Ruins," to the whimsical ethics of the Sermon on the Mount:
I.-- _Preserve thyself!_
This is the first task to which man must apply his head and hands. He
must preserve himself. A thousand things conspire against his life. He
is beset by dangers and temptations. Under every stone lurks a menace
to his well being. He must compel a place for himself in nature, and be
able to hold it against all rivals.
II.-- _Instruct thyself!_
Mark the positiveness of both commandments. By being active, not
by passivity, will man succeed, both in self-preservation and
self-instruction. Once we are confident of our standing in nature, and
reasonably sure of our daily bread, it is our high privilege to start
on the quest for knowledge. "Instruct thyself!" Knowledge is the
all-conquering weapon. Know thyself, thy fellows, thy world. The sun is
the light of the body; knowledge is the light of the mind.
III.--_Moderate thyself!_
Having conquered the means which assure self-preservation, and having
through much labor acquired science--the intellectual sun which turns
man's night into day--the next virtue, the practice of which alone can
enable man to enjoy the life he has learned to preserves, and the arts
and pleasures he has created through knowledge, is to put a wholesome
check upon his appetites by exercising moderation. Not until a man
can moderate himself does he really become a moral, that is to say, a
superior, being--a conqueror who can hold his possessions. In one of his
romances, Voltaire makes the first man ask his Maker what he must do to
get the most beauty and joy out of life. The answer to this question is
also Voltaire's: "Practice Moderation."
How simple are all the commandments of Reason compared with the
contradictions of Revelation! There is not one word of Reason ever
spoken which has lost either its authority or beauty, while it is
admitted by the believers themselves that more than half of the divine
Revelation has become obsolete. To the question, "Why do not men obey
the ordinances and commandments in the Old Testament?" the answer of the
churches is, "The times have changed," or, "They were meant only for
the Jews." Revelations grow old and expire. Reason, like the sun,
rises daily to give unto each day its daily light. If Rationalists ever
succeed in building a Hall of Reason, the two commandments which they
will inscribe over its entrance will never need revision:
1. _Speak according to knowledge._
2. _Act according to conscience._
IX. The Parables of Jesus
|JESUS is supposed to be the vein of gold in the bible. As already
intimated, if the whole book is of God, it is difficult to see why
certain portions of it should be more or less godly than others. Among
the parables of Jesus, that of the "Prodigal Son" is said to be one
of the most inspiring. It is the story of a young man who borrows in
advance his portion of his father's wealth, while the latter is still
living, and leaves home. After wasting his inheritance by riotous
living, he finds himself face to face with starvation. The worst thing
happens to him that might happen to a pious Jew--he is compelled to take
care of a herd of swine, and to eat of their food. In this condition,
he remembers that his father is still rich, with plenty of servants, and
food for everybody. He decides to go back to him, just as he is, and to
throw himself upon his mercy. It never occurs to him to try and make for
himself a good reputation before he returns to his father, or to earn
back the wealth he has squandered by a life of debauchery. Why should
he? It is not his father's respect he wants, but his forgiveness. His
foolish father does just as the prodigal expected; he gives him a royal
welcome. A ring is slipped on his finger, the richest robe is thrown
over his shoulders, and the fatted calf is killed for him.
Nobody will claim that the good-for-nothing son deserved all these
honors. Indeed, it is quite plainly insinuated that he is honored for
being a repentant sinner, unlike his elder brother, who had no need of
repentance, because he remained at home and did his duty. To eat the
"fatted calf," it is necessary to be a great sinner, suing for mercy.
For the honest, who have no need to cry for forgiveness, there are no
banquets. This is shown by the treatment accorded the other son, who
had not asked for his portion of the inheritance, and had not wasted
his years and money in self-indulgence, who had not deserted his aged
father, but stood at his side in the home and the vineyard, doing also
the work of the younger brother who had run away from home. No favors
are conferred upon him, no feast is given in his honor, and strangest
of all, he is not even invited to the party. It is by accident that he
finds out about the costly banquet at which his prodigal brother was
being entertained, while he himself was toiling in the fields. Who ate
the fatted calf? Not the man who raised it, but the man who had lost all
claim upon the fruits of his brother's or father's toil. Is this the way
to encourage virtue? Rob the honest son who has not shirked labor--who
has been faithful, devoted and frugal--to feast the prodigal, who has
already consumed one fortune and is now begging for another? _Begging_,
I say, for the idea of earning one is very disagreeable to prodigals.
As long as there is a "father" who is willing to treat his prodigal son
better than the worthy son, prodigals will not be wanting in the world.
And this is the gem of the collection over which we are supposed to go
into ecstasies!
But we must read between the lines; the purpose of Jesus, or whoever
was the author of the parable, was to show that the greater the sinner,
greater still is the welcome that awaits him. And this welcome is not to
be deserved, or earned through merit; it is given as a favor. God, whom
the father in the parable typifies, cares little for character. People
must not flatter themselves that they are saved because they deserve it.
Look at the worthy elder son who had done his duty: he was not invited
to the feast. Look at the prodigal son, who had descended to the level
of the swine; he was "dined and wined." Now we understand why the
malefactor on the cross was saved, and all his crimes wiped out in the
twinkling of an eye. Had he been a better man than he was, or had he
been innocent of the crimes for which he was crucified, there would have
been no chance for him. Nor does Jesus say a word about the subsequent
conduct of the forgiven prodigal? Did he make amends for the harm he
had done to others by his selfishness? Was he really a changed character
after he was _feted?_ Not a word. The promise Jesus holds out to the
sinner is not reform, but forgiveness.
Let us take another parable: A very rich farmer, or landlord, goes out
early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He hired some
very early in the day; others about the noon hour, and others again as
late as "the eleventh hour," that is to say, just an hour before the
close of day. When the laborers came to receive their pay for the day's
work, the landlord paid the man who had put in a full day just as much
as he paid those who had only worked for one short hour. Naturally, the
men who had borne the brunt of the hot day, and had done most of the
work, complained. To which the lord of the vineyard made this reply: "Is
it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil,
because I am good?" * And turning to his disciples, Jesus said: "So the
last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few
chosen." ** The full meaning of which is that an employer's or the
Lord's whim is law.
* Matthew xx, 15.
** Matthew xx, 16.
What man of affairs can derive any benefit from such a parable? But
the object of Jesus, in this, as in the former parable, is to show the
independence of God of what we would call the moral law. God is not
bound by any considerations of justice. He is an oriental who showers
favors or withholds them just as his pleasure dictates. And whatever
he gives is a _favor_, and not a debt which he must pay because of any
merit on the part of anybody. If wages are to be distributed according
to the quality and quantity of the work done, then what is there left
for God to do?
To Jesus, God was something like a Turkish sultan of the olden days who
exalted his barber to the rank of a grand vizier, and humbled the vizier
to the level of a keeper of his stables, all in one night, to show that
his pleasure is above any consideration of justice and character. But
this is not morality; this is caprice. To pay the man who has worked
only for one hour as much as the man who has worked all day long, is
to rob the latter of his dues. The Asiatics may submit to it, but the
American or European laborer will not. Because he is the sultan, or
because he is God, is no excuse for such eccentricity. No; you are not
at liberty to pay as you please, or to make contracts which sacrifice
justice to whim.
In the parable of Lazarus and Dives, the fondness of the bible for the
worthless, the fallen, the good for nothing, so to speak, becomes all
the more evident. At the door of a rich man sits a miserable beggar. He
is not only poor, but also diseased. Like many an oriental _fakir_, he
is covered with sores, which by their stench attract the hungry dogs to
his person. There he sits all day long--a menace to the public health,
and an object of disgust. When this beggar dies, he is carried by angels
straight to Abraham's bosom; It is, of course, a pity he had to remain
on earth so long before entering Paradise. But what had he done to
deserve so great a reward? We might as well ask what the prodigal son
had done to deserve the "fatted calf," or the "eleventh-hour laborer" to
deserve a full day's wages.
Nor is it true that Lazarus was saved for the inner beauty of his
character. As I have shown elsewhere, * by refusing a few drops of water
to cool the parched tongue of the man who had given him of the crumbs of
his table on earth, Lazarus proved himself to be as small of soul as he
was leprous of body. But the point of the parable is to show that a man
is saved, not because he deserves salvation, but because God takes
a fancy to him. And the more unworthy the subject, the better it
illustrates that it is whim, and not justice, that presides over
the destinies of man. We may plead with justice; against whim we are
helpless. It is the sense of this helplessness of man in the hands of a
whimsical God that makes Christianity so pessimistic. Of course, for
the "elect" favor and whim are better than law and justice; and for the
mediocre and the sinner, it is a good thing that merit or character
does not count for anything before God. But what about those who have
no other "pull" than their own self-respect and honor? And the dogma of
total depravity has been invented to relieve the duty of being just to
any one, since all mankind deserves to be damned.
* Is the Morality of Jesus Sound.
The same indifference to reason is shown in the next parable: A certain
slave owed his king the enormous sum of ten thousand talents. In round
numbers a talent is worth one thousand dollars. Accordingly this slave
was indebted to his royal master for the sum of ten million dollars. A
_slave_ owing more money than any one king ever owned in Jesus' day! How
he incurred this impossible debt is not explained. But the king pressed
the slave for payment. Whereupon the slave fell at his sovereign's feet
and begged for mercy. As expected, the king, with a wave of his hand,
makes the slave a present of the ten million dollars which he owes,
thereby canceling the entire indebtedness. Does this not remind us of
the parable of the prodigal son? Even as he was forgiven the waste and
debauchery which had disgraced him, this slave is quickly freed from
his obligation. The motive in making the debt a fabulous one was
to emphasize the generosity of the sovereign. This brings us to the
conclusion already announced, that great sinners are preferred to little
ones, because they help to show more directly that it is not character
or personal merit that saves, or even helps a man with God, but pure
patronage on the part of the deity. Salvation is a favor. That is the
burden of the parables of Jesus.
The slave, however, fails to be as generous toward his debtors as his
lord was to him. Instead of canceling their obligations as his own had
been, he cast them into prison. When the king heard of this he summoned
the slave into his presence, and said to him: "O thou wicked servant, I
forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me. Should not thou
also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on
thee?" * In other words, debtors should be allowed to keep what they
have borrowed for the mere asking. The whole tenor of the parable is
antisocial. To follow such teaching is to head toward bankruptcy. There
will be no lenders, if there are to be no collections. Once more Jesus
sacrifices the worthy members of society to the spendthrifts and
the prodigals. The man who can lend is the real benefactor, not the
borrower; but Jesus is interested in saving the latter, and in such a
way as to ruin the former. But the shortsightedness of this policy,
as already pointed out, is seen in its effects upon the creator and
conserver of wealth--he will stop saving, and then what is the borrower
going to do? Jesus' advice practically amounts to this: "Allow your
debtors to defraud you." But the process will kill the debtor as well as
the lender.
If Jesus really wanted to encourage mendicancy, and to make this earth
a paradise for the beggar, he could not have served his purpose better
than by such a parable, or by the advice to "Give to him that ask-eth
thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." **
The beggar could not wish for a stronger endorsement of his profession.
Everything belongs to the beggar, and he is to have what he wants, not
for any work he may do in return, but because he wants it.
* Matthew xviii, 32-33.
** Matthew v, 42.
In the Lord's Prayer, one of the petitions reads: "Forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors," which really means, "We have allowed our
neighbors to impose upon us; you must allow us, Lord, to impose upon
you." Jesus could have found a hundred other ways of recommending
compassion for the weak and the unfortunate, if that were really what
he was aiming at. But his purpose was to show that the borrower, the
beggar, the prodigal, the good-for-nothing, are the favored children
of God. It is not the strong, the self-reliant, the industrious, the
successful, whom God has chosen for his kingdom, but "the foolish of
this world." And why? The question has already been answered: to show
that it is not merit or character that saves, but the grace of God.
By saving the worthless, God gets all the glory; while if he saved the
strong and the virtuous, it might be said that it was their character
which helped to save them. "My name is Jealous," * saith the Lord.
* Exodus xxxiv, 14.
But Jesus does not forget to speak a good word also for the robber.
Indeed the beggar and the robber belong to the same profession. And
if anything, the robber's is the more respectable calling. He does
not whine and weep and, cant as the beggar does, to get his neighbor's
goods; he takes it by force, or craft, which is better than pious
prating. The robber risks his life, shows skill and daring, and is not
so prosaic, or at all sanctimonious, like the beggar. But, in the final
analysis, they are partners in business. They are both agreed that their
rich neighbors must not object to part with their possessions on demand.
If Jesus had the beggar in his mind when he commanded, "Give to him that
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away,"
he had the welfare of the highway robber in mind when he commanded: "If
any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." In the parable
of the Good Samaritan, which, from our point of view, comes nearest to
being the most innocent and harmless among the parables, while Jesus
deservedly lauds the humanity of the Samaritan toward his fellow man,
who had fallen among thieves, there is not a word said in condemnation
of the robber. A splendid opportunity to denounce the lax conditions
which made life and property insecure, which encouraged plunder and
murder along the highways of travel and commerce, was overlooked by
Jesus. He fails to call upon the authorities to take measures to prevent
the repetition of such crimes as he has been describing. He does not
call upon the officers of the law to pursue and catch the thief, and
mete out to him the punishment he deserves. Nothing of this. He praises
the pity, the compassion of the Samaritan, which praise was well
deserved, but a man has not done his best when he has helped a victim of
the robbers to a dinner and a bed--he must protect future travelers from
such outrages by assisting in the arrest and prompt punishment of
the criminal. But Jesus is not interested in reforming robbers, or
converting beggars into productive citizens. In fact, one reading
between the lines can not avoid the conclusion that Jesus would let
the robbers alone, inasmuch as they give the good Samaritan a chance
to practice piety and to show compassion. The beggar and the robber you
always have with you, Jesus seems to say, for how can men be kind and
forgiving without them?
In conclusion, the lesson of the parables, to an unprejudiced mind, is
this: the more worthless and degraded a man, the more loaded down with
debts, the more dangerous he is to his fellows, the more suitable he
will be to prove that God saves whom he wishes, independent of the
question of merit, and that "the righteousness of man is as filthy
rags." * A more opprobrious phrase could not have been used to express
utter contempt for human virtues. According to the Gospel, "the whores
and harlots," as well as beggars and robbers, ** "shall enter the
kingdom of God," "before the righteous, or the wise of this world." ***
But upon what grounds?
* Isaiah lxiv, 6.
** "Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the
publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before
you."--Matthew xxi, 31.
*** For God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise.'--I Corinthians i, 27. Paul also states
that the way to be wise is by becoming a fool: "... let him
become a fool, that he may be wise."--I Corinthians iii, 18.
"It is my whim."