*THE CHRISTIAN CREED; OR, WHAT IT IS BLASPHEMY TO DENY*
_By_
*Annie Besant*
_SHOWING SOME OF THE ERRORS, CONTRADICTIONS, AND ABSURDITIES, GIVEN ON
DIVINE AUTHORITY,IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT_
London
_1883_
THE CHRISTIAN CREED, OR, WHAT IT IS BLASPHEMY TO DENY
A struggle has began, which promises to be one of the fiercest that this
century has seen, between the bigots and persecutors on the one hand and
the supporters of free speech on the other.
It appears, then, worth while to look closely into this Christian creed,
which claims the right to imprison and torture men of pure life for
non-belief in its tenets. Christianity threatens us with persecution
here and damnation hereafter if we do not believe its doctrines. “He
that believeth not shall be damned,” says Jesus. “He that believeth not
shall be imprisoned and pick oakum,” says Mr. Justice North. The threat
of damnation would trouble us little if it stood alone—we could put off
consideration of that until we arrived in the other world; but the
threat of imprisonment here is unpleasant. If we are to burn for ever
hereafter, the Christians might really allow us to enjoy ourselves here;
is their malice (like their hell) such a bottomless pit that an eternity
of torture is not enough to fill it up?
Let us see what we must believe on peril of damnation and Newgate. (1)
We must believe the “Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be
of divine authority;” (2) we must believe each “one of the persons in
the Holy Trinity to be God,” while (3) we also believe that there are
not “more gods than one;” (4) we must believe the “Christian religion to
be true;” we are strictly forbidden to publish any “ludicrous matter
relating to God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible, or the formularies of the
Church of England as by law established,” and are warned that we shall
not be saved by our remarks being “intended in good faith as an argument
against any doctrine or opinion.”
(1) We must believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to
be of Divine Authority.
This first demand on our faith is a very large one, and can only be met
by refusing to read any scientific book, to look at any geological or
antiquarian collections, to study any kind of natural knowledge; we must
erase from our memories all the facts we have learned about the world;
we must reject purity and decency of morals; we must revert to a
condition of barbarous ignorance and barbarous conduct before we can
believe very many parts of the Holy Scriptures are of divine authority.
Still, as we are to be imprisoned and damned for not believing this, we
must try, and we had better examine a little more exactly what we are to
believe on divine authority. Only some of our imposed feats of
_leger-de-foi_ will be examined. Those who can accomplish these will not
bungle over the rest.
It is of divine authority that god made “a firmament in the midst of the
waters” and divided the waters, putting some above it and some below,
and this firmament is “heaven” (Gen. i., 6—8). This heaven has windows
in it which let the rain through (Gen. vii., 11), and when these windows
are closed the rain stops (Gen. viii., 2). It has doors, through which
the manna was rained down on the Israelites (Ps. lxxviii., 23, 24). This
“sky” is very “strong,” as is indeed necessary remembering all it has to
support above it, and resembles “a molten looking-glass” (Job. xxxvii.,
18). Another reason why it should be very strong is that god has “set”
in it the sun, moon and stars. Some of the stars are large and solid,
and require a very strong setting.
My unbelieving reader, you may have some difficulty in crediting all
this. You may argue that the sky is not strong at all, but is only a
vast space, and that to apply the word strong to space shews gross
ignorance. Divine authority says the sky _is_ strong, and if you persist
in believing facts instead of the Bible, you will at least find Newgate
strong and its space limited. You may argue that the stars are at very
various distances, and cannot all be set in one arching roof resembling
a molten looking-glass; that when it rains, the rain is due to
condensation of watery vapor within our atmosphere, at a distance of at
the most very few miles, and not to the opening of any windows at a
distance of many billions of miles; that the firmament must be at least
5,480,490,000,000 miles away, as the stars are set in it, and the
nearest fixed star is at that distance, while the furthest is beyond
calculation. All these contentions of yours are facts, I admit, but they
fly in the teeth of the fictions which are of divine authority; and as
Mr. Justice North is armed with full power to vindicate the divine
authority, you had better, if you want to keep out of gaol, give up the
facts and pretend to believe in the fictions.
It is of divine authority that god made grass and herb and fruit tree on
the “third day of creation,” the day before he created the sun, two days
before he made fishes and birds, and three days before he made animals.
In the face of this it is a mere trifle, my dear sceptical reader, that
no herb could yield seed, no fruit tree could yield fruit, without the
aid of the sun. It is quite true that a plant without the sun-rays can
form no chlorophyll; that without chlorophyll no starch, no reparation
nor growth of tissues can proceed. What are these mere botanical facts
beside the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures? It is also true that
in the study of fossils no traces of all these grasses, herbs, and fruit
trees are found precedent to all animal life. That the earliest living
thing which has left a trace was an animal, not a plant. That fishes
precede fruit trees in the fossilised history of the globe, although
fruit trees precede fishes in the divinely authoritative fable. These
geological facts must follow the botanical, my heretic, and you must be
content to take the Holy Scriptures on faith, for they are not even
tales founded on fact.
It is of divine authority that sun, moon, and stars were created on the
fourth day, after the world had been in existence for three. It is true
that to talk of a member of a solar system like our earth as existing
three days before the central sun came into being is to talk nonsense.
But that is of no importance if the nonsense is of divine authority. It
is also true that the light travelling from part of the Milky Way at the
rate of 186,000 miles per second would take 9,000 years (Madler) to
reach our earth, so that if the Holy Scriptures are of divine authority
we should be unable to see these stars, which we nevertheless do see.
Who would rashly put the testimony of everybody’s eyes against the
authority of this old book written in an unknown tongue, by an unknown
author, at an unknown date? If the stars are there, they ought not to
be, and if we can see them we ought not to be able to do so. I am not
sure that they are not committing a silent and perpetual blasphemy by
their very existence; but then Mr. Justice North cannot reach them to
put them out, odious as is the outrage they commit on the feelings of
the Christian public, and I doubt if the sentence of damnation
threatened by Jesus would run in that distant spot.
It is of divine authority that on the 6th day of creation, just 5,887
years ago, god created man, male and female. It is true that man has
left his bones in the ground as a record of his existence hundreds of
thousands of years ago, although he has only existed during 5,887 years.
But that was a thoughtless and irreverent action on his part, which
cannot be allowed to have any weight as compared with the divine
authority of the Holy Scriptures. Men should not leave their bones about
in caves and drifts as arguments for the wicked unbeliever and puzzles
for the faithful soul.
It is of divine authority that everything was once created in two
different ways, perfectly incompatible the one with the other, and both
equally true. The two stories of the creation are mutually exclusive;
but, as they are both of divine authority, both must be believed, on
peril of prison here and of damnation hereafter. It is blasphemy to deny
that the world was covered with water, so that god was obliged to gather
it away into one place to let the land appear, which forthwith brought
forth from its moist surface herb and grass and tree (Gen. i., 12), and
that the world was at the same time so dry that god could not set in it
the herb and plant which he had previously made (Gen. ii., 5). It is
blasphemy to deny that the vegetation was brought forth by the earth
itself at the mere command of god: “Let the earth bring forth grass,”
etc. (Gen. i., 11). It is also blasphemy to deny that “the Lord God
made... every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every
herb of the field before it grew,” and that the reason for this creation
before planting was that “the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon
the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground” (Gen. ii., 5).
It is blasphemy to deny that god made man, the last of his works, after
the earth was clothed with vegetation, after the seas were filled with
life, and after fowl were flying in the air, and beasts and cattle and
creeping things were roaming over the earth (Gen i, 11, 12, 20—27). It
is also blasphemy to deny that god made man, the first of his works,
before any vegetation was growing on the earth, before a single fowl of
the air or a single beast of the field was made (Gen ii., 5, 7, 8,
9,19).
It is blasphemy to deny that god commanded the “waters” to “bring forth
abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly
above the earth” (Gen. i., 20). It is also blasphemy to deny that “out
of the ground the Lord God formed... every fowl of the air” (Gen. ii.,
19). If wicked sceptics say that the fowl cannot have been brought forth
by the waters if “every fowl” was formed out of the ground, the only
answer is that both these contradictory statements are of divine
authority, and “he that believeth not shall be damned.” Convincing, is
it not?
It is blasphemy to deny that man was created with woman, in the likeness
of god (Gen. i., 27, and v., 1,2), and came into a world replete with
life, with fowl and every living thing, over which god gave him dominion
(Gen. i., 28). It is also blasphemy to deny that man was created without
woman, and came into a world where there was no life, and that god,
pitying his loneliness, formed all living things in the attempt to make
a help meet for the man, and that failing in this attempt he lastly made
a woman, not with man but long afterwards (the making and naming of all
animals and birds intervening), out of one of the man’s ribs which he
detached for that purpose from his skeleton while the man was asleep
(Gen. ii., 7, 18, 19—22).
It is blasphemy to deny that god gave man for food “every tree in the
which is the fruit of a tree” (Gen. i., 29), while it is equally
blasphemy to deny that the “Lord God” withheld from him as food one of
the trees (Gen. ii., 17.)
It is blasphemy to deny that god, who is “the truth,” said that Adam
should die “in the day that” he eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge
(Gen. ii., 7), and it is blasphemy to deny that so far from dying in
that day, “all the days that Adam lived were 930 years,” and that “he
begat sons and daughters” (Gen. iv., 5, 4) long after the day on which,
unless we blaspheme and make god a liar (1 John v., 10), we must believe
that he died.
It is blasphemy to deny the fable of the Fall. It is of divine authority
that a talking snake persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden
tree, and that by eating this fruit man and woman found out that they
were naked, a sufficiently obvious fact of which they appear to have
been ignorant. The first result of eating the forbidden fruit was a
regard for decency, and they made some somewhat inadequate clothes out
of fig leaves, sewing them together. There is no divine authority as to
the implements used, nor as to the discovery of the needles and thread
which seem necessary for the sewing. God who is “a spirit” (John iv.,
24) and who is “without body” and “parts” (1 Art of the Church
established by law) “walked in the garden” (Gen. iii., 8) soon
afterwards; it is blasphemy to deny that god walked, and blasphemy to
assert that he has legs. The method of walking without legs is not
revealed to us on divine authority, so we must believe (literally)
without understanding.
It is blasphemy to deny that “the eyes of the Lord are in every place;”
it is also blasphemy to assert that the eyes of the Lord were in the
special place wherein Adam and his wife “hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God amongst the trees” (Gen. iii., 8). The only way
to reconcile these contradictions is to believe that Adam and his wife
and the trees behind which they hid themselves were nowhere, and to
believe this comes perilously near the blasphemy of denying the whole
story.
It is blasphemy to deny that god cursed the serpent— who had
unfortunately lost the power of speech just at the time at which he most
required it—for being the helpless tool of Satan, and condemned him to
go on his belly and to eat dust. Divine authority does not say how
snakes went about before this literal fall, whether on their heads or
their tails, so that the method of their locomotion is not of faith.
It is blasphemy to deny that god made coats of skins for Adam and Eve,
although coat-making seems rather a curious employment for a deity, and
scarcely as dignified as world-making. We are not told what became of
the animals whom god deprived of their skins for this purpose; nor
whether he killed them first. If he did, then death first entered into
the world by god’s immediate act. As it is blasphemy to deny that death
entered into the world by sin (Rom. v., 12), it is difficult to avoid
identifying god with sin, and this, again, is, I fear me, blasphemy.
If in any other old eastern book we read about trees the eating of the
fruit of which gave knowledge, serpents which talked, gods who walked in
gardens and who made coats, we should at once understand that we were
reading old myths, and should never dream of regarding them as a record
of historical facts. If we apply the same reasoning to the Bible,
Justice North will send us to pick oakum here, and we shall be burned
for ever hereafter.
It is blasphemy not to believe that “Cain went out from the presence of
the Lord” (Gen. iv., 16)—whom it is blasphemy to deny is everywhere
present—and that god put a mark on him lest any one—there being only in
existence his own family—“finding him should kill him” (Gen. iv., 15).
It is blasphemy not to believe that having a wife, who was also his
sister, and who bare him a son, he “builded a city” (Gen. iv., 17) for
himself, his wife and child. How many houses there were in the city, and
whether each of the three inhabitants lived in a separate house, or the
trio moved from house to house, so as to inhabit “the city,” these
things are not revealed by divine authority.
It is blasphemy not to believe that Adam lived 930 years, Cain 910
years, Methuselah 969 years; and that the rest of the antediluvian
patriarchs lived to approximate ages. It is useless to allege that such
preposterous terms of life are contrary to all experience. “He that
believeth not shall be damned.”
It is blasphemy to deny that all the human race are descended from one
man, Adam, created 5,887 years ago. It is true that there was existing
in Egypt a settled government more than 11,000 years ago, and as a
settled government implies centuries upon centuries of political
evolution, it is hard to reconcile this fact with the declaration made
on divine authority that man has only existed for about half this
period. Egyptian antiquities are not safe subjects of study for the true
believer, and a nation which has blasphemy laws on its statute books
should shut up its museums and burn its collections of Egyptian
treasures, for each room stored with these objects is a training school
for blasphemers and a standing menace to the faith of the young. Justice
North should also ask that the delta of the Mississipi should be blown
up with dynamite to the depth of at least a thousand feet, for that
blasphemous ground has given up human bones, says the blasphemer
Gliddon, which formed parts of living men 57,000 years ago.
It is of divine authority that “the strength of Israel will not lie nor
repent, for he is not a man that he should repent” (1 Sam. xv., 29). It
is of equally divine authority that “it repented the Lord that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” (Gen. vi., 6).
It is blasphemy to deny that god knows all things before they take
place; that before he created man he knew what man would do, and slew a
lamb from the foundation of the world (Rev. xiii., 8) to atone for the
sins not then committed, but which man would commit in due time; that at
this same period the book of life was written containing the names of
all those who were to be saved (Rev. xvii., 8); that no sin occurs that
god does not himself do, (Is. xlv., 7; Amos iii., 6), so that he need
not have any difficulty in avoiding sin if he objects to it. Since it is
blasphemy to deny any of these propositions, it is a great trial to
faith to believe that god repented when he saw happen the facts he
fore-ordained, and grieved over the wickedness which he caused; yet hard
as this is, you will be damned if you do not believe it, so you had
better try to do so.
It is blasphemy to deny that god, “whose tender mercy is over all his
works” (Prayer-book), said that he would destroy “both man and beast,
and the creeping things and the fowls of the air” (Gen. vi., 7). We are
not told what sins had been committed by the beasts and fowls and
creeping things, so that god exclaimed: “it repenteth me that I have
made them.” If the Bible were a mere human book, and “the Lord” were a
mere ordinary man, I should say that he was behaving like a naughty,
passionate child, who has lost his temper because the paper animals he
has cut out very badly will not stand properly, and who tears them up in
a rage. But as it is blasphemy to say this, and blasphemy to deny that
god did act exactly in the fashion that would be naughty if he were a
child, I can only suppose that the conduct for which a child would be
put in the corner is admirable when displayed by a god.
Out of all the wicked men there was one man, Noah, who found “grace in
the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. vi., 8). Noah was not what Atheists would
regard as a very good man, so far as his conduct is recorded in Holy
Scripture. In fact, we are not told of any one good action that he
committed. He was a very selfish man, for he saved himself and his
family in the ark, and left all his poor fellow-creatures to drown; he
drank so much wine that he misbehaved himself shamefully before his
children (Gen. ix., 21), and in any respectable society would have had a
sack thrown over him, and would have been carried on a stretcher to the
nearest police station; he cursed and swore at his poor grandson because
his son, the young man’s father, had told his brethren of the condition
to which Noah had reduced himself (Gen. ix., 25). Yet, in spite of all
this disgusting misbehavior, it is blasphemy to deny that “Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
It is blasphemy to deny that in a vessel 300 cubits long, 50 cubits
broad, and 30 cubits high, divided into three floors, with only one
window in it, 1 cubit square, for purposes of light and ventilation, and
this window kept shut till nearly the end of the time (compare Gen.
viii., 6), eight persons with pairs or sevens “of every living thing of
all flesh,” lived for one year and seventeen days. It is blasphemy to
deny that into this floating Black Hole went “of every living thing of
all flesh, two of every sort” (Gen. vi., 19), and although only two of
every sort went in, yet of some sorts “sevens” went in, “the male and
his female” (Gen. vii., 2), so that two and fourteen signify the same
number when the multiplication table is of faith. What the number of
this numerous live cargo of fowls, of cattle, and of every creeping
thing (Gen. vi., 20) must have been, may be faintly imagined by the fact
that there are known 6,200 species of the “fowls of the air” alone. As
the fowls were to be taken “by sevens,” there must have been an aviary
in the ark containing 86,800 birds, and some of these, such as the
eagles, the ostriches, and the condors would require considerable room.
Of Mammalia some 1,600 species are known, and elephants, hippopotami,
rhinoceroses, buffaloes, giraffes—to take but a few instances—are fairly
large, and one might imagine—were it not blasphemy to think so— that
lions, tigers, pumas, leopards, wolves, etc., would not only be
difficult to manage among the sevens of sheep, goats, and oxen, but
would also suffer from the want of exercise necessitated by their caged
condition. As the ark must have been packed quite closely in every
division, from floor to ceiling, it is difficult to understand how the
creatures survived their voyage, while it is blasphemy to deny that
every one of them in due time “went forth out of the ark” (Gen. viii.,
19).
In addition to all the living creatures, Noah took with him into the ark
“of all food that is eaten” (Gen. vi., 21). As there could be no room
for Noah and his family to walk about distributing the food (and it
would have been scarcely safe to have left it to natural selection), we
must suppose that layers of animals and layers of food were packed
alternately all through, and even this arrangement must have given rise
to some awkward complications if, in order to save space, a pair of
caterpillars were dropped in among the cabbages packed round the noses
of a pair of guinea-pigs. One might almost imagine that the going forth
from the ark must have been a lively ante-type of the general
resurrection of the dead.
But yet again, in my efforts to realise this beautiful and divinely
inspired history, I am almost afraid that I am being beguiled into
blasphemy. “Lord, I (do not) believe. Help thou mine unbelief.”
It is blasphemy to deny that 4,232 years ago a universal flood took
place, covering “all the high hills that were under the whole heaven”
(Gen. vii., 19); the manner in which this was done is partly explained
by Peter, who tells us that at that time the earth was “standing out of
the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being
overflowed with water, perished” (2 Pet. iii., 5, 6). This world—half
in, half out of the water—is not any world known to history nor to
science; there is not a shadow of proof of its existence, except that of
divine authority; such a world has nothing in common with our own globe,
a planet circling round the sun; the solar system, as we know it, would
have been disorganised by the sudden increase in mass of one of its
members; our globe has most certainly not been “overflowed with water”
daring the last 5,000 years, for the cones built up of scoriæ from Mount
Etna have been undisturbed for at least 12,000 years. If you believe the
testimony of these hills, you must believe that divine authority has
blundered over the deluge; but then, if you think this you will be
damned, and if you say it Justice North will send you to pick oakum.
It is of divine authority that the ark came to land upon the mountains
of Ararat (Gen. viii., 4) after its long and stormy voyage. The
humming-birds, the tropical butterflies, the monkeys and the animals of
the equatorial zone must have found it rather chilly during their
seven-months’ stay in the region of perpetual snow, especially as there
can have been no facilities for hot-water pipes in the ark. All the
living things, tropical or polar, must have also suffered much from the
difficulty of breathing on that exalted spot, as the waters went down
and the higher atmosphere regained its normal rarity. But what are
little difficulties of this sort to the true believer, especially when
into the scale of belief are thrown the smile of god and the approval of
Mr. Justice North?
It is of divine authority that Noah sent out of the ark a dove, which
returned to him finding “no rest for the sole of her foot,” “for the
waters were on the face of the whole earth” (Gen. viii., 9); yet seven
days later the same dove returned from a second excursion with “an olive
leaf pluckt off,” “in her mouth” (v., 11). It is, therefore, blasphemy
to deny that an olive tree stood firm beneath the crushing weight of the
tons of water which covered every high hill, and was so little injured
by its submersion of eleven months that it promptly budded out as the
water left uncovered its topmost boughs.
It is of divine authority that “every beast, every creeping thing, and
every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after their kinds,
went forth out of the ark” (Gen. viii., 19), and that Noah, lest his god
should not have had his appetite for slaughter satiated by the
putrifying masses of the drowned dead, scattered over the face of the
whole earth, took “of every clean beast and of every clean fowl” (v.
20), and offered up his puny sacrifice by fire from the few living
things left from the huge sacrifice by water. It is blasphemy to deny
that as the fumes of the roasting animals went up “the Lord smelled a
sweet savor” (v. 21), and gratefully declared: “neither will I again
smite any more every thing living, as I have done” (v. 21). So that god
appears to have made man, then to have repented that he made him, then
to have destroyed him, and then to have been half sorry once more,
declaring that he would not do it again. And this is the god in “whom is
no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James i., 17). It certainly
required a revelation to tell us so.
It is of divine authority that the “fear” and “dread” of man is on every
“beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that
moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea” (Gen. ix.,
2). This fear is not very evident in the tiger as he tears a man in
pieces, in the vulture who picks out the eyes of the dying traveller, in
the shark who snaps in twain the swimming sailor; yet it is consoling to
know that they are all trembling with dread of their prey as they
swallow the toothsome morsel. The “covenant which is between me and you
and every living creature of all flesh” (Gen. ix., 15) is rather funny;
if it were not blasphemy to deny it I should scarcely have conceived of
god entering into a covenant with, say, a black-beetle. The covenant is
not of much use to individuals apparently, though entered into with
“every” one of them, for though god promises that he will not again
drown them all _en masse_, he gives no pledge as to drowning in detail,
and this is quite as unpleasant to the victims.
It is blasphemy to deny that 4,130 years ago “the whole earth was of one
language and of one speech” (Gen. xi., 1), and the whole science of
philology is therefore a delusion and a snare. As “they”—the whole
earth—“journeyed from the east,” they “found a plain,” and made up their
minds to build “a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven”
(verses 2 and 4). It is blasphemy to deny that god—who at that time
appears to have known little about the laws of gravitation or the
difficulty of breathing, say, five miles up—thought they might succeed,
and, being omnipresent, he changed his place, and “came down to see the
city and the tower which the children of men builded.” In order to
prevent the appearance of the top of the tower in heaven—heaven being
above the firmament, the firmament having the stars set in it, and the
nearest fixed star being 5,480,490,000,000 miles away, so that if they
had directed their tower towards this star, and had built at the rate of
ten miles a day, it would have taken them more than 1,501,504,109 years
to reach heaven, that is, they would have had to build for 1,501,599,979
years onwards from the present time—god being afraid that they would
storm his realm, took the trouble to confound their language, so that
they might not understand each other’s speech. When we read of the
Titans trying to storm heaven, we know that the story is a myth; but the
same fable is “Bible truth” in Genesis, and it is blasphemy to deny it,
foolish as it is.
It is blasphemy to deny that when Terah was 70 years of age he begat
Abram (Gen. xi., 26), and that he died when he was 205 years of age
(verse 32); it is blasphemy to deny that Abram was 75 years old when he
departed out of Haran and went into Canaan (Gen. xii., 4, 5); it is
blasphemy to deny that Abram stayed in Haran until after his father’s
death (Acts vii., 4); that is, it is blasphemy to deny that the 135
years of Terah’s life are of exactly the same length as the 75 years of
Abram’s life. Anyone who believes not that 135=75 will be damned. Moral,
parents should not allow their children to learn arithmetic, for by so
doing they imperil their immortal souls, and risk their committal to
gaol by the tender mercies of Mr. Justice North.
Sarai, about whose age there is some doubt, in consequence of the great
length of her husband’s years, was a very fair woman; reckoning by
Terah’s age, she must have been at this time at least 160 years old
(supposing that she married at 15), but she seems to have been only 90
years of age at least 25 years later (Gen. xvii., 17). However, whether
she was a fair woman of 160 summers, or a gay young thing of only 65,
she proved to be indeed a treasure to her husband. For it is of divine
authority that faithful Abraham pretended that his wife was only his
sister, and allowed King Pharaoh to take her and to pay him for her
“sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and
she-asses, and camels” (Gen. xii., 16); it is blasphemy to deny that god
plagued poor innocent “Pharaoh and his house with great plagues” because
they were deceived by his friend’s shameless venality and lying, and
that when Pharaoh discovered the fraud, Abram took himself off with his
wife and all he had gained by her sale, being, as the sacred narrative
naively remarks, “very rich” (Gen. xiii., 2) after this transaction.
It is blasphemy to deny that “he [god] is faithful that promised” (Heb.
x., 23); it is also blasphemy to deny that he [god] broke his promises.
For he promised Abram, over and over again, that he would give to him as
well as to his seed the land of Canaan (Gen. xiii., 15; xv., 7, 8;
xvii., 8, etc.); yet we find that Abram was obliged to buy a sepulchre
for his wife’s corpse, and never inherited the land at all. Even as far
as his seed was concerned, god broke the “everlasting covenant” (Gen.
xvii., 9) he made, to give to “thee and to thy seed after thee, the land
wherein thou art a stranger, even the land of Canaan for an everlasting
possession” (Gen. v., 8), for the Jews only possessed part of this land
for a short time, instead of for ever, and as defined by god, “this
land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates”
(Gen. xv., 18), they never had it at all. It is comforting to notice
that this promise-breaking god is the same who in the person of his son
declared: “he that believeth not shall be damned for as he did not keep
his word in the one case perhaps he will not do so in the other.
One day, as Abram was returning from the slaughter of some of his
enemies, a certain Melchizedek, named with charming appropriateness King
of Peace (Heb. vii., 2), went out to meet him, and blessed him. Nothing
is said in Genesis to make us regard Melchizedek as the extraordinary
being that he really was; for it is blasphemy to say that Melchizedek
was ever born, that he had any ancestors, that he ever died (Heb. vii.,
3); like Topsy, “’spects he growed”; where he is now nobody knows; he
would be a most useful “Christian antiquity,” but he is not producible.
On the world’s stage he made but this one appearance, “positively for
the first and last time.” Melchizedek is a type of Jesus Christ. Jesus
was born; Melchizedek was not. Jesus had a mother; Melchizedek had none.
Jesus had his descent from David; Melchizedek was without descent. Jesus
died; Melchizedek had no end of life. The correspondence between them is
really striking. The only similarity is that they were both without any
acknowledged father, and this peculiarity they share with many pagan
heroes and with some less important folk.
It is blasphemy to deny that Abram, the “friend of God,” took to himself
his wife’s maid, Hagar, and that when this poor slave was about to bear
him a child he chivalrously handed her over to her jealous mistress,
Sarai, saying: “Behold, thy maid is in her hand; do to her as it
pleaseth thee” (Gen xvi., 6). An ordinary man, under such circumstances,
would have had some tender, pitiful feeling towards the mother of his
unborn child; but Abram was a saint of God, and was above all weak
sentiment of that kind, so he stood quietly by while Sarai ill-treated
the woman who had lain in his arms, and let her flee away into the
wilderness unhelped and unpitied. God’s angel drove poor Hagar back to
her bondage, and after her return her son was born. At this time Abram
was 86 years of age; fourteen years later Sarah had a son, Isaac, and
some time after she insisted on turning out poor Ishmael, with his
mother, Hagar. A sweet, womanly creature was Sarah. Abraham made no
objection, but “rose up early in the morning” to send off his first-born
son and his mother, and was generous enough to take “bread and a bottle
of water,” and to make this splendid present to Hagar “putting it on her
shoulder, and the child, and sent her away.” “The child” was now about
fifteen years of age, and would have been a little heavy for poor Hagar
to carry if he had been an ordinary well-grown boy; he was, however,
curiously small for his age, for we learn that when “the water was spent
in the bottle” “she cast the child under one of the shrubs” (Gen. xxi.,
15). It is blasphemy to deny that Hagar carried this big baby, and threw
him about like a toy.
It is blasphemy to deny that “the Lord” appeared to Abraham in the
plains of Mamre, and that he, with two others, eat dressed calf, butter
and milk (Gen. xviii., 1—8). It is blasphemy to say that god has parts
(Art. I.), but it is difficult to understand how he eat without teeth,
and swallowed without a throat; besides, what became of the eaten meat
if there was no stomach to receive it? Truly, the gate is narrow which
leadeth unto life, and narrow must be the brains that go in there
through.
It is blasphemy to deny that god, who knows everything, did not know
what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah.
He said: “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because
their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they
have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me;
and if not, I will know” (Gen. xviii., 20, 21). Much faith is necessary
to believe that god knew and that he did not know all at once, but “he
that believeth not shall be damned.”
It is blasphemy to deny that the same god who did not punish Lot and his
daughters for incest, punished Lot’s poor wife because she committed the
terrible crime of looking back towards her burning home. She was turned
into a “pillar of salt” (Gen. xix., 26), and Jesus bids us remember her
(Luke xvii, 32), but does not say why we should do so. If god had
forgotten her and had turned the two daughters into salt, the family
history would have been less scandalous than it is.
It is blasphemy to deny that god “rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Gen. xix., 24). Heaven
must be a pleasant place if it contains stores of brimstone and fire
which can be rained down in this fashion. Action of this kind is
supposed to be wicked when done by man, but a divine O’Donovan Rossa is
apparently held up for our admiration. I have sometimes wondered whether
this brimstone may not possibly have come from the lake of brimstone and
fire connected with the bottomless pit (Rev. xx., 10); if so, it is very
probable that as the earth turned round and Sodom and Gomorrah came
opposite the bottomless pit, so that it was above those “towns,” god
lifted the lid and let out some of the contents. This view should
commend itself to the religious, as it cannot be pleasant for them to
look forward to spending eternity in the close neighborhood of a
celestial manufactory of dynamite.
It is blasphemy to deny that “just Lot” (2 Pet. ii., 7) offered his two
virgin daughters to satiate the lust of the crowd surrounding his house:
“let me, I pray you,” said this good father, “bring them out unto you,
and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.” This generous offer, which
would be vile in any one but a saint, throws much light on his later
relations with these young women. The frightful crime related in Gen.
xix., 30—36, seems to have been much approved of by god; for we learn in
Deut. ii., 9 and 19, that the Moabites and Ammonites were not to be
molested, for their lands were given “unto the children of Lot for a
possession,” and the reference Bible refers us back on this to the
beautiful story in Genesis. Little English girls are given this story to
read, and it would be blasphemous to teach them that Lot and his
daughters were criminals of the filthiest type. The holy book of god
says that Lot was a “just” man, and there is not a word of disapproval
of his vice. If it were not that all good little girls must read the
Bible, it would be far better that they should not know that such crimes
are committed at all. Children’s thoughts should never be turned towards
sexual matters in any fashion, and they do not so turn of themselves,
and it would be one of the worst mischiefs done by the Bible—if it were
not the book of god—that it destroys this natural healthy indifference
in children’s minds. It is not wonderful that such frightful tales of
family immorality are but too often told at the assizes, or that poor
ignorant people, believing with blind faith in the Bible, repeat the
crime of Lot and his daughters, and are startled when our human laws
punish peremptorily the crime which in the Bible is blessed of god.
It is blasphemy to deny that god plagued the innocent household of
Abimelech, the king of Gerar, because Abimelech had been deceived by the
lie of Abraham, god’s friend. From the story as related in Genesis xx.
we learn that Abimelech took Sarah—then over ninety years of age—
believing her to be Abraham’s sister; next, that finding out the trick
played on him, he gave her back to her base husband, rebuking him in
“that thou hast brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin next, that
Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister, although she was also his wife, and
that such marriage unions between children of the same father by
different mothers are pleasing to god; next, that Abraham accepted
“sheep and oxen and men-servants and women-servants” from Abimelech with
his restored wife, as well as “a thousand pieces of silver,” ironically
bestowed on him as her “brother;” and, finally, we learn that it is
blasphemy to deny that just the same sequence of events happened twice
over to Abraham, and also happened to Isaac his son (Gen. xx vi., 7—11),
who inherited the family untruthfulness and the family cowardice with
the family property.
It is blasphemy for a man to say “when he is tempted, I am tempted of
god; for god cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man”
(James i., 13). Yet it is blasphemy to deny that “after these things god
did tempt Abraham (Gen. xxii., 1). If anybody is infidel enough to ask
how a god that tempts no one could have tempted Abraham, the best answer
is: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” Perhaps Abraham was no one,
and in that case both statements would be true.
Everyone knows the beautiful story of Abraham and the sacrifice of
Isaac. How this noble father led his child to the slaughter; how Isaac
meekly submitted; how the farce went on till the lad was bound and laid
on the altar, and how god then stopped the murder, and blessed the
intending murderer for his willingness to commit the crime. If anyone
now tries to emulate Abraham’s faith, he is treated as a dangerous
lunatic; but it is blasphemy to deny that that which would be murder now
was virtue then.
It is blasphemy to deny that Isaac was born when his father and mother
were too old for his birth to be natural (Gen. xvii., 17); in fact,
Abraham was “as good as dead” and Sarah “was past age” (Heb. xi., 11,
12), and we are told that when “he was about an hundred years old” “his
own body” was “now dead” (Rom. iv., 19). Although it is blasphemy to
assert that he was _not_ too old at 100 to become the father of one son,
it is also blasphemy to assert that he _was_ too old more than 37 years
later to become the father of six sons (Gen. xxv., 2). We are bound to
believe that Abraham was naturally capable of becoming a father when he
was 86 years of age, and when he was over 137 years of age, but that it
was only by a miracle that he was capable of becoming a father when he
was 100 years of age. Truly there are in the Bible “some things hard to
be understood” (2 Pet. iii., 16).
It is blasphemy to deny that before Esau and Jacob were born god chose
one as his favorite, and declared: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated” (Rom. ix., 13). If anyone should carpingly allege that it was
wrong to hate poor unborn Esau before he had committed “any good or
evil” (Rom. ix., 11), the right answer is that “god’s ways are not as
our ways,” and that which would be wickedness in man is righteousness in
god. God loved Jacob. Jacob would not give his starving brother food
until he had bargained for his birthright in return (Gen. xxv., 29—34);
but god loved Jacob. Jacob cheated his blind father, pretending to be
his brother, and deceived the old man’s sense of touch, the sense of
vision having failed (Gen. xxvii., 11, 12, 15, 16, 22, 23); but god
loved Jacob. Jacob was a hypocrite, and when he took a kid dressed to
imitate venison to his father, pretended that he had found it quickly
“because the Lord thy god brought it to me” (v. 20); but god loved
Jacob. Jacob was a liar, declaring that he was his brother Esau (v. 19,
24); but god loved Jacob. Jacob was a coward, and ran away from his
defrauded brother; but god loved Jacob. Jacob hated his wife (Gen.
xxix., 31); yet god loved Jacob. Jacob swindled his hospitable uncle
Laban out of his flocks and herds (Gen. xxx., 31-43); yet god loved
Jacob. Jacob ran away from his uncle with his ill-gotten gains, like a
thief in the night (Gen. xxxi, 20); yet god loved Jacob. Jacob was once
more a coward, afraid of the brother he had wronged, and sent on some of
his people to get killed that he might escape (Gen. xxxii., 7, 8); yet
god loved Jacob. It is instructive to know the kind of men that god
loves, and to know that god loves a bargaining, cheating, hypocritical,
lying, swindling coward. As to poor Esau, on whom fell the awful hate of
god before he was born, he seems to have been a brave, loving,
generous-hearted man. The kindly words of the man god hated, as he
refused his cringing brother’s present: “I have enough, my brother; keep
that thou hast unto thyself” (Gen. xxxiii., 9), contrast forcibly with
the mean, despicable conduct of the man god loved. It is blasphemy to
deny that god abetted pious Jacob’s frauds, for we learn that “god hath
taken away the cattle of your father, and given them to me” (Gen. xxxi.,
9), and that in suggesting the method of fraud god reminded him of the
share due to himself by the vow he had made (Gen. xxxi, 13), the said
vow being that “of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the
tenth to thee” (Gen. xxviii., 22).
It is blasphemy to deny that the foul stories of Tamar and Onan, of
Tamar and Judah, and of the births of Pharez and Zarah—the children of
Judah and his daughter-in-law —with all the details of the several
events (Gen. xxxviii.), are of divine authority. If any one but god had
told the stories they would be indecent, and the teller would be liable
to prosecution under Lord Campbell’s act. Out of the filthiest
literature the story told in verses 27—30 could not be paralleled, and I
doubt if Holywell Street has anything fouler on its book-shelves. Yet
little innocent girls are given the book containing these perfectly
useless and indescribable nastinesses; and if decent people venture to
criticise the book, avoiding the parts of it only fit for pious hands,
they are liable to be sent to gaol, and the judge accuses them of
undermining morality! The sooner the morality built on Judah, Tamar, and
the stories of Onan and Pharez, is undermined the better for decent
society.
The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife is told in the next chapter
(Gen. xxxix), and I have heard a clergyman read this story out in church
without the smallest hesitation to listening men, women, and children.
Christianity blunts the very commonest feelings of human decency in the
minds of its followers; and the clergy, who deprave the minds of the
young by circulating the Holy Book, have the insolence to accuse
unbelievers in its divinity of undermining morality!
It is blasphemy to deny that god blessed the Egyptian midwives for
telling a deliberate lie (Ex. i., 19, 20). It is also blasphemy to deny
that “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. xii., 22). The
only deduction we can draw from these two facts, both given on divine
authority, is that god blesses that which is an abomination to him. Once
again we must say piously: “His ways are not as our ways.”
With the second chapter of Exodus begins the story of Moses, “the man of
god.” Like most of the Bible saints, Moses was a great sinner from the
point of view of ordinary morality. He began his public career with a
murder. “And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that
he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens; and he spied
an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this
way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the
Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Ex. ii., 11, 12). The careful looking
“this way and that way” before he interferes shows the care for his own
person that characterises Moses. A man might have been moved by honest
indignation to smite an oppressor. The careful looking round and the
hiding of the body do not impress us with a sense of the heroic.
After this adventure Moses ran away from Egypt and dwelt in Midian, and
while looking after his father-in-law’s flock, he saw a remarkable
sight, a bush burning, but not consumed. It is blasphemy to deny that
god was in the “midst of the bush” (Ex. iii., 4), and it is blasphemy to
suggest, what is nevertheless true, that this legend of a god in the
midst of a bush is a trace of the old tree-worship so common in Eastern
lands, a worship constantly referred to later in the Hebrew scriptures
under the name of “the grove.” This god who spoke to Moses was one of
the gods of the grove. It is very unfortunate that the truth should be
so blasphemous.
It is blasphemy to deny that god said: “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. xx.,
15), and also blasphemy to deny that he commanded the Israelites to rob
the Egyptians (Ex. iii., 21, 22). Little discrepancies of this sort must
not be allowed to trouble the true believer. Moses did not believe what
god said, and in later times he that believeth not shall be damned. But
in those days god treated sceptics more mercifully, and instead of
damning Moses god performed two miracles to convince him. What a pity
that Mr. Foote did not live in the days of Moses; if his walking-stick
had turned into a snake, and then when he had caught hold of the snake’s
tail it had turned back into a walking-stick, perhaps he might have
become a believer. It puzzles me a little, however, why the performance
of useless and childish miracles of this sort should be admitted as
proving anything. If I go to Maskelyne and Cooke’s I see much more
wonderful transformations than those performed on Mount Horeb, but I do
not, therefore, feel inclined to worship Mr. Maskelyne or to take Mr.
Cooke as my guide and mentor. Miracles are hopelessly irrelevant; if
they were all true they would prove nothing beyond the dexterity of the
miracle-worker.