Of the Morals of Jesus Christ.
I.
As for his Morals, we see nothing more divine therein than in the
writings of the ancients, or rather we find only what are only extracts
or imitations. St. Augustin (ch. 9 and v. 20 of the Confessions, Book
7,) even admits that he has found in some of their works nearly all of
the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. As far as may be
seen, that Apostle is believed, in many places, to have stolen from
other authors, and that it was not difficult to rob the Prophets of
their enigmas and visions to make his Apocalypse. Whence comes the
conformity which we find between the doctrine of the Old Testament
and that of Plato? to say nothing of what the Rabbins have done, and
those who have fabricated the Holy Writings from a mass of fragments
stolen from this Grand Philosopher.
Certainly the birth of the world has a thousand times more probability
in his Timaeus than in Genesis, and it cannot be said that that comes
from what Plato had read in the books of the Jews during his travels
in Egypt, for according to St. Augustin himself, (Confessions, Book 7,
ch. 9, v. 20,) Ptolemy had not yet translated them. The description
of the country of which Socrates speaks to Simias in the Phaedon
(?) has infinitely more grace than the Terrestrial Paradise (of Eden)
and the Androgynus [43] is without comparison, better conceived than
what Genesis says of the extraction of Eve from one of the sides of
Adam. Is there anything that more resembles the two accidents of Sodom
and Gomorrah than that which happened to Phaeton? Is there anything
more alike than the fall of Lucifer and that of Vulcan, or that of the
giants cast down by the lightnings of Jupiter? Anything more similar
than Samson and Hercules, Elijah and Phaeton, Joseph and Hippolitus,
Nebuchadnezzar and Lycaon, Tantalus and the tormented rich man
(Luke xvi, 24), the manna of the Israelites and the ambrosia of the
Gods? St. Augustin--quoted from God, Book 6, chap. 14,--St. Cyrile
and Theophylactus compare Jonah with Hercules, surnamed Trinsitium
(?Trinoctius), because he had dwelt three days and three nights in
the belly of a whale. The river of Daniel, spoken of in the Prophets,
ch. vii, is a visible imitation of Periphlegeton, which is mentioned
by Plato in the Dialogue on the "Immortality of the Soul."
Original sin has been taken from Pandora's box, the sacrifice of Isaac
and Jephthah from the story of Iphigenia, although in the latter
a hind was substituted. What is said of Lot and his wife is quite
like the tale which is told of Baucis and Philemon. In short, it is
unquestionable that the authors of the Scriptures have transcribed
word for word the works of Hesiod and Homer.
II.
But it seems that I have made quite a digression which, however,
may not be unprofitable. Let us return then to Jesus, or rather,
to his Morals.
Celsus proves, by the account of Origen (Book VI, against Celsus),
that he had taken from Plato his finest sentiments, such as that
which says (Luke, c. xviii, v. 25), that a camel might sooner pass
through the eye of a needle than a rich man should enter the Kingdom
of God. It was the sect of Pharisees of which he was, and who believed
in him, which gave birth to this. What is said of the Immortality of
the Soul, of the Resurrection, of Hell, and the greater part of his
Morals, I see nothing more admirable than in the works of Epictetus,
Epicurus and many others. In fact, the latter was cited by St. Jerome
(Book VIII, against Jovian, ch. viii), as a man whose virtue puts
to the blush better Christians, observing that all his works were
filled with but herbs, fruits and abstinence, and whose delights
were so temperate that his finest repasts were but a little cheese,
bread and water. With a life so frugal, this Philosopher, pagan as he
was, said that it was better to be unlucky and rational, than rich
and opulent without having good sense, adding, that it is rare that
fortune and wisdom are found in the same individual, and that one
could have no knowledge of happiness nor live with pleasure unless
felicity was accompanied by prudence, justice and honesty, which are
qualifications of a true and lasting delight.
As for Epictetus I do not believe that any man, not excepting Jesus
himself, was more austere, more firm, more equitable, or more moral. I
say nothing but what is easy to prove, and not to pass my prescribed
limit I will not mention all the exemplary acts of his life, but give
one single example of constancy which puts to shame the weakness and
cowardice of Jesus in the sight of death. Being a slave to a freeman
named Epaphroditus, captain of the guards of Nero, it took the fancy
of this brute to twist the leg of Epictetus. Epictetus perceiving that
it gave him pleasure said to him, smiling, that he was well convinced
that the game would not end until he had broken his leg; in fact, this
crisis happened. "Well," said Epictetus with an even smiling face,
"did I not say that you would break my leg?" Was there ever courage
equal to that? and could it have been said of Jesus Christ had he been
the victim? He who wept and trembled with fear at the least alarm,
and who evinced at his death a lack of spirit that never was witnessed
in the majority of his martyrs.
I doubt not but what it might be said of this action of Epictetus what
the ignorant remark of the virtues of the Philosophers, that vanity was
their principle, and that they were not what they seemed. But I say
also that those who use such language are people who, in the pulpit,
say all that comes into their heads--either good or evil--and they
want the privilege of telling it all. I know also that when these
babblers, sellers of air, wind and smoke, have vented all their
strength against the champions of common sense they think they have
well earned the revenues of their livings: that they have not merited
a call to instruct the people unless they have declared against those
who know what common sense and true virtue is.
So it is true that nothing in the world approaches so little to the
manners of true scholars as the actions of the ignorant who decry them
and who appear to have studied only to procure preferment which gives
them bread; and which preferment they worship and magnify when this
height is attained, as if they had reached a condition of perfection,
which, to those who succeed, is a condition of self-love, ease, pride
and pleasure, following nothing less than the maxims of the religion
which they profess.
But let us leave these people who know not what virtue is, and examine
the divinity of their Master.