How much may fairly be included under the title "Christian Morality"?
Some of the more enlightened Christians would confine the term to the
morality of the New Testament, and would exclude the Hebrew code as
being the outcome of a barbarous age. But the Freethinker may fairly
contend that any moral rules taught by the Bible are part of Christian
morality. By the statute 9 and 10 William III, cap. 32, the "Holy
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament" are declared to be "of divine
authority," and there is no exclusion indicated of the Mosaic code; this
statute is binding on all British subjects educated as Christians, and
enacts penalties against those who infringe it. By Article VI. of the
Church of England, Holy Scripture is defined as "those canonical books
of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in
the Church," and a list is subjoined. In Article VII. we are instructed
that the "Commandments which are called moral" are to be obeyed, but
that the "civil precepts" of the Mosaic code ought not "of necessity to
be received in any commonwealth;" from which we may conclude that the
Church does not feel bound to enforce, as "of necessity," polygamy,
prostitution, murder of heretics, and slavery. She does not venture to
designate such precepts as immoral, but she does not feel bound in
conscience to enforce them, for which small concession we must feel
grateful. Passing from the law of the land to the Bible itself, we find
that the Mosaic code must certainly be recognised as divine. Jesus
himself proclaims: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the
prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil," and this is
emphasised by the declaration: "Whosoever, therefore, shall break _one
of these least_ commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called
least in the kingdom of heaven." The Broad Church party will be very
little, if this be true. Turning to the Old Testament, we find that some
of the most immoral precepts are spoken by God himself, immediately
after the "Ten Commandments;" surely that which "The Lord said" out of
"the thick darkness where God was," from the top of Sinai "on a smoke,
with the thunderings and lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet," can
scarcely be reverently designated as "the outcome of a barbarous age"?
Yet it is under these circumstances that God taught that a Hebrew
servant might be bought for seven years; that a wife might be given him
by his master, and that the wife and the children proceeding from the
union belonged to the master; that the servant could only go free by
deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex.
xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man
might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's
euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she
may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator
supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the
transaction) she may go free (Ibid. 7-11). It was under these
circumstances that God taught that if a man should beat a male or female
slave to death, he should not be punished, providing the slave did not
die till "a day or two" after, because the slave was only "his money"
(Ibid. 20, 21). Why blame a Legree, when he only acts on the permission
given by God from Mount Sinai? Dr. Colenso writes: "I shall never forget
the revulsion of feeling with which a very intelligent Christian native,
with whose help I was translating these words into the Zulu tongue,
first heard them as words said to be uttered by the same great and
gracious Being whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole
soul revolted against the notion, that the great and blessed God, the
merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a servant, or maid, as
mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the
victim of the brutal usage had survived a few hours. My own heart and
conscience at the time fully sympathised with his" ("The Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua," p. 9, ed. 1862). It was under these circumstances that
God taught that a thief, who possessed nothing of his own, should "be
sold for his theft" (Ex. xxii. 3). It was under these circumstances that
God taught: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ibid 18). To this
cruel and wicked command myriads of unfortunate human beings have been
sacrificed; in the course of the Middle Ages hundreds of thousands
perished; in France and Germany "many districts and large towns burned
two, three, and four hundred witches every year, in some the annual
executions destroyed nearly one per cent. of the whole population....
The Reformation, which swept away so many superstitions, left this, the
most odious of all, in full activity. The Churchmen of England, the
Lutherans of Germany, the Calvinists of Geneva, Scotland, and New
England rivalled the most bigoted Roman Catholics in their severities.
Indeed, the Calvinists, though the most opposite of all to the Church of
Rome, were in this respect perhaps the most implicit imitators of her
delusions" ("The Bible; What it is," by C. Bradlaugh, p. 262). "During
the seventeenth century, 40,000 persons are said to have been put to
death for witchcraft in England alone. In Scotland the number was
probably, in proportion to the population, much greater; for it is
certain that even in the last forty years of the sixteenth century the
executions were not fewer than 17,000" (Ibid, p. 263). The Puritans in
New England signalised themselves by their merciless severity towards
wizards and witches. France was the first country to stem the tide of
cruelty. In 1680 Louis XIV. "issued a proclamation prohibiting all
future prosecutions for witchcraft; and directing that even those who
might profess the art should only be punished as impostors." In England
"the last execution was at Huntingdon, in 1716;" in Scotland, at
Darnock, in 1722. The last person burned as a witch was Maria Sanger, at
Wurzburg, in Bavaria, 1749 (Ibid, p. 265). Such fruit has borne the
command of God from Sinai. It was under these circumstances that God
taught that any who sacrificed to any God but himself should be "utterly
destroyed" (Ex. xxii. 20). The practical effect of this we shall
presently see, in conjunction with other passages.
If we pass from these precepts, given with such special solemnity, to
the other articles of the so-called Mosaic code, we shall find rules of
an equally immoral character. Lev. xxiv. 16 commands that "he that
blasphemeth the name of the Lord" shall be stoned. Lev. xxv. 44-46
directs the Hebrews to buy bondmen and bondwomen of the nations around
them, "and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after
you, to inherit them for a possession," thus sanctioning the
slave-traffic. Leviticus xxvii. 29 distinctly commands human sacrifice,
forbidding the redemption of any that are "devoted of men." Clear as the
words are, their meaning has been hotly contested, because of the stain
they affix on the Mosaic code. "[Hebrew: MOT VOMOT]" that he die. The
commentators take much trouble to soften this terrible sentence.
According to Raschi, it concerns a man condemned to death, in which case
he must not be redeemed for money. According to others, it is necessary
that the person shall be devoted by public authority, and not by private
vow; and the Talmud speaks of Jephthah as a fanatic for having thought
that a human being could serve as a victim, as a burnt-offering; but
there are too many facts which prove the existence and the execution of
this barbarous law; see, besides, the paraphrase of Ben Ouziel: [Hebrew:
KL APRShA TMVL DDYN QShVL MYTChYYB] "all anathema which shall be
anathematised of the human race cannot be redeemed neither by money, by
vows, nor by sacrifices, neither by prayers for mercy before God, since
he is condemned to death" (Lévitique, par Cahen, p. 143; ed. 1855).
Thus Jephthah devoted to the Lord "whatsoever cometh out of the doors of
my house to meet me," and, his daughter being the one who came, he "did
with her according to his vow" (Judges xi. 30-40).
Kalisch, in his Commentary on the Old Testament, gives us an exhaustive
essay on "Human Sacrifices among the Hebrews," endeavouring, as far as
possible, to defend his people from the charge of offering such
sacrifices to Jehovah by reducing instances of it to a minimum. He says,
however: "Yet we have at least two clear and unquestionable instances of
human sacrifices offered to Jehovah. The first is the immolation of
Jephthah's daughter." He then analyses the account, pointing out that it
was clearly a sacrifice to _Jehovah_, and that Jephthah's "intention of
sacrificing his daughter was publicly known for two full months; no
priest, no prophet, no elder, no magistrate interfered, or even
remonstrated." Even further: "The event gave rise to a popular custom
annually observed by the maidens of Israel; Jephthah's deed evidently
met with universal approbation; it was regarded as praiseworthy piety;
and indeed he could not have ventured to make his vow, had not human
victims offered to Jehovah been deemed particularly meritorious in his
time; otherwise he must have apprehended to provoke by it the wrath of
God, rather than procure his assistance. Nothing can be clearer or more
decided.... The fact stands indisputable that human sacrifices offered
to Jehovah were possible among the Hebrews long after the time of Moses,
without meeting a check or censure from the teachers and leaders of the
nation--a fact for which the sad political confusion that prevailed in
the period of the Judges is insufficient to account" (Leviticus, Part
I., pp. 383-385; ed. 1867). Kalisch further points out that the vow of
Jephthah promises a _human_ sacrifice; the Hebrew expression signifies
"_whoever_ comes forth" (see p. 383), and "the Hebrew words, in fact,
absolutely exclude any animal whatever; they admit none but a human
being, who alone can be described as going out of the house to meet
somebody; for, though the restrictive usage of the East binds girls
generally to the seclusion of the house, it seems to have been a common
custom for Hebrew women to proceed and meet returning conquerors with
music and rejoicing; and the sacrifice of one animal, an extremely poor
offering after a most signal and most important success, would certainly
not have been promised by a previous vow solemnly pronounced" (Ibid, pp.
385, 386). Our commentator justly adds: "From the tenour of the
narrative it is manifest that the deed was no isolated case, but that
human sacrifices were on emergencies of peculiar moment habitually
offered to God, and expected to secure his aid. One instance like that
of Jephthah not only justifies, but necessitates, the influence of a
general custom. Pious men slaughtered human victims not to Moloch, nor
to any other foreign deity, but to the national God Jehovah" (Ibid, p.
390). "The second recorded instance of human sacrifices killed in honour
of Jehovah forms a remarkable incident in the life of David" (Ibid, p.
390). We read in 2 Sam. xxi. that God said that a famine then prevailing
was on account of Saul and of his bloody house; that David desired to
make an "atonement;" that seven men of Saul's family were hanged "in the
hill _before the Lord_;" that then they were buried, with Saul and
Jonathan, "and, _after that_, God was intreated for the land." "It
particularly concerns us to observe that the whole matter was, in the
first instance, referred to Jehovah; that David was plainly informed of
the intention of the Gibeonites of 'hanging up' the seven persons
'before Jehovah' as an 'atonement;' that he willingly surrendered them
for that atrocity; that he evidently expected from that act a cessation
of the famine; and that this calamity is reported to have really
disappeared in consequence of the offering" (Ibid, p. 392). Kalisch, in
his anxiety to diminish as far as possible the evidence that human
sacrifices were enjoined by the law, urges that the passage in Leviticus
(xxvii. 29) merely implies that "everything so devoted shall be
destroyed. The extirpation of the men, as a rule heathen enemies in
Canaan, or Hebrew idolaters, is indeed referred to a command of Jehovah,
but it is not intended as a _sacrifice_ to him" (Ibid, p. 409). Surely
this verges on quibbling, and is not even then borne out by the context.
Leviticus xxvii. deals entirely with private "singular vows," and the
"devoting" (_Cherem_) of "man and beast and of the field of his
possession," is not the judicial devoting to destruction of an
idolatrous city or individual, but a special voluntary offering from a
pious worshipper. Besides, even if such judicial duties were "the rule,"
what of the exceptions? There are several indications of the practice of
human sacrifice to Jehovah beyond the two related by Kalisch (the
command to sacrifice Isaac is in itself a consecration by God of the
abomination); the curious account of Aaron's death--whose garments are
taken off and put on his son, and who thereupon dies at the top of the
mount, having walked up there for that purpose, clearly indicates that
he did not die a natural death (Numbers xx. 23-28). Many think that "the
fire from the Lord" which devoured Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 1-5) denotes
the sacrifice "before the Lord" of the offending priests. Kalisch demurs
to these latter charges, and to some other additional ones, but says:
"It is, therefore, undoubted that human sacrifices were offered by the
Hebrews from the earliest times up to the Babylonian period, both in
honour of Jehovah and of heathen deities, not only by depraved
idolaters, but sometimes even by pious servants of God; they probably
ceased to be presented to Jehovah not much before they ceased to be
presented at all" (Leviticus, part i., p. 396). We cannot here omit to
notice the command of God in Exodus xxii. 29, 30: "The first-born of thy
sons shalt thou give to me. Likewise thou shalt do with thine oxen and
with thy sheep," etc. As against this we read a command in chap. xiii.
13, "All the first-born of man among thy children thou shalt redeem."
Here, as in many other instances, we get contradictory commands, best
explained by the fact that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands.
Kalisch says: "It is impossible to deny that the first-born sons were
frequently sacrificed, not only by idolatrous Israelites, in honour of
foreign gods, as Moloch and Baal, but by pious men in honour of Jehovah;
but the Pentateuch, the embodiment of the more enlightened and advanced
creed of the Hebrews, distinctly commanded the redemption of the
first-born" (Ibid, p. 404). Kalisch--we may point out--considers the
Pentateuch in its present form as post Babylonian, and regards it as a
reforming agent in the Jewish community.
In Numbers v. 12-31 we find the command to practise the brutal and
superstitious custom of the ordeal, the endorsement of the whole ordeal
system of the Middle Ages. Deuteronomy xiii. is entirely devoted to
commands of murder, and is the indulgence given beforehand to every
persecuting priest. The prophet whom God uses to prove his people, is to
be put to death for being God's instrument; anyone who tries to turn
people aside from God is to be stoned, and the hand of the nearest and
dearest is to be "first upon him to put him to death;" any city which
becomes idolatrous is to be destroyed, the inhabitants and the cattle
are to be slain, and everything else is to be burnt. Deuteronomy xvii.
2-7 is to the same effect. These commands have also borne abundant
fruit. Who can reckon the millions of human lives that have been spilt
in obedience to them? The slaughter of the Midianites, of the people of
Jericho, Ai, Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, and of many another city,
marking with blood each step of the people of God, who smote "all the
souls that were" in each, and "let none remain"--all these are but as
the first-fruits of the great harvest of human slaughter, reaped for the
glory of God. Right through the "sacred volume" runs the scarlet river,
staining every page; when its record closes, the Church takes it up, and
the river rolls on down the centuries; let the Inquisition tell over its
victims; let Spain reckon her murdered ones, 31,912 burnt alive in that
one land alone; let the Netherlands speak of their slain sons and
daughters; let France and Italy swell the tale; nor let England and
Scotland be forgotten, nor the blood-roll of Ireland be missed; Catholic
murdering Arian; Arian slaying Catholic; Romanist burning Protestant;
Protestant hanging Romanist. The names of those who obey God's command
may be changed, but they all do the same accursed work, spreading
religion everywhere with fire and sword; nor does the harm confine
itself to Jews and Christians only, for Mahomet, the prophet of Arabia,
catches up the teaching of Moses and re-echoes it, and the Moslem
follows on the inspired path, and stains it once again with human blood.
A God, a Bible, a priesthood--how have they ruined the world; how fair
and bright might earth have been had there been no teachers of religion!
"How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm,
Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown!
How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar!
The weight of his exterminating curse
How light! and his affected charity,
To suit the pressure of the changing times,
What palpable deceit! but for thy aid,
Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend,
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men,
And heaven with slaves!
Thou taintest all thou look'st upon......."
--("Queen Mab," by P.B. Shelley; can. 6. Collected works, p. 12, edition
1839.)
Deuteronomy xxi. 10-14 instructs the Hebrew that if, after victory, he
sees a beautiful woman and desires her, he may take her, and if later,
"thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she
will," to starvation, to misery, what matter, after God's chosen is
satisfied. Deut. xxiii. 2 punishes a man for that which is no fault of
his, his illegitimate birth. We have omitted many absurd precepts found
in this Mosaic code, and have only chosen those which are grossly
immoral, and can be defended by no kind of reasoning as to "defective,"
or "imperfect" morality, "suited to a nation in a low stage of
civilisation."
These laws not only fall short of a perfect morality, but they are
distinctly and foully immoral, and tend directly to the brutalisation of
the nation which should live under them. It is true that there is much
pure morality in this code, and some refined feeling here and there.
These jewels are curiously out of place in their surroundings. Imagine a
people so savage as to need laws permitting all the abominations
referred to above, and yet so cultivated as to be capable of
appreciating the beauty of: "If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee
lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him; thou shalt
surely help him" (Exodus xxiii. 5). It is time that it should be
publicly acknowledged that the so-called Mosaic code is literally a
mosaic of scattered fragments of legislation, of various ages, and
various stages of civilisation, put together a few hundred years before
Christ. At present, the whole code lies on the shoulders of
Christianity, and is fairly pleaded against it by the Freethinker.
It is not necessary to speak here against the practical morality of Old
Testament saints; the very names of Lot, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
Joshua, Samuel, David, etc., bring before the mind's eye a list of
crimes so foul, so cowardly, so bloody, that no enumeration of them can
be needed. Of them, we may fairly say with Virgil:--
"Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa."
Turning to the New Testament morality, we may attack it in various ways:
we may argue that the better part of it is not new, and therefore cannot
be regarded as especially inspired, or that it leaves out of account
many virtues necessary to the well-being of families and states; or we
may contend that much of it is harmful, and much of it impracticable.
The better part is that which is NON-ORIGINAL. All that is fair and
beautiful in Christian morality had been taught in the world ages before
Christ was born. Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tsze, Mencius, Zoroaster, Manu,
taught the noble human morality found in some of the teaching ascribed
to Christ (throughout this Section the morality put into Christ's mouth
in the New Testament will be treated as his).
Christ taught the duty of returning good for evil. Buddha said: "A man
who foolishly does me wrong I will return to him the protection of my
ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go
from me" ("Anthology," by Moncure D. Conway, page 240). In the Buddhist
Dhammapada we read: "Let a man overcome anger by love; let him overcome
evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by
truth" (Ibid, p. 307). Again: "Hatred does not cease by hatred at any
time; hatred ceases by love; this is an old rule" (Ibid, p. 131).
Lao-Tsze says: "The good I would meet with goodness. The not good I
would meet with goodness also. The faithful I would meet with faith. The
not faithful I would meet with faith also. Virtue is faithful.
Recompense injury with kindness" (Ibid, p. 365). Confucius struck a yet
higher and truer note: "Some one said, 'What do you say concerning the
principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?' The Sage
replied, 'With what, then, will you recompense kindness? Recompense
kindness with kindness, and injury with justice'" (Ibid, p. 6). Manu
places "returning good for evil" in his tenfold system of duties; in his
code also we find: "By forgiveness of injuries the learned are purified"
(Ibid, p. 311). The "golden rule" is as old as the generous and just
heart. The Saboean Book of the Law taught: "Let none of you treat his
brother in a way which he himself would dislike" (Ibid, p. 7).
"Tsze-Kung asked, 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule for one's
whole life?' Confucius answered, 'Is not reciprocity such a word? What
you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others. When you are
labouring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for
yourself'" (Ibid, pp. 6, 7).
If Christ taught humility, we read from Lao-Tsze: "I have three precious
things which I hold fast and prize--Compassion, Economy, Humility. Being
compassionate, I can therefore be brave. Being economical, I can
therefore be liberal. Not daring to take precedence of the world, I can
therefore become chief among the perfect ones. In the present day men
give up compassion, and cultivate only courage. They give up economy and
aim only at liberality. They give up the last place, and seek only the
first. It is their death" (Ibid, p. 216). Lao-Tsze says again: "By
undivided attention to the passion-nature and tenderness it is possible
to be a little child. By putting away impurity from the hidden eye of
the heart, it is possible to be without spot. There is a purity and
quietude by which we may rule the whole world. To keep tenderness, I
pronounce strength.... The fact that the weak can conquer the strong and
the tender the hard, is known to all the world; yet none carry it out in
practice. The reason of heaven does not strive, yet conquers well; does
not call, yet things come of their own accord; is slack, yet plans well"
(Ibid, pp. 323, 324). Again: "The sage ... puts himself last, and yet is
first; abandons himself, and yet is preserved. Is not this through
having no selfishness? Hereby he preserves self-interest intact. He is
not self-displaying, and therefore he shines. He is not self-approving,
and therefore he is distinguished. He is not self-praising, and
therefore he has merit. He is not self-exalting, and therefore he stands
high; and inasmuch as he does not strive, no one in all the world
strives with him. That ancient saying, 'He that humbles himself shall be
preserved entire'--oh, it is no vain utterance" (Ibid, pp. 327, 328).
Jesus is said to be pre-eminent as a moral teacher because he directed
his teaching to the improvement of the heart, knowing that from a good
heart a good life would flow; in Manu's code we read: "Action, either
mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit as itself is good
or evil ... of that threefold action be it known in the world that the
heart is the instigator" (Ibid, p. 4). Buddha said: "It is the heart of
love and faith accompanying good actions which spreads, as it were, a
beneficent shade from the world of men to the world of angels" (Ibid, p.
234). Jesus reminded the people that the ceremonial duties of religion
were small compared with "the weightier matters of the law, justice,
mercy, and truth;" Manu wrote: "To a man contaminated by sensuality,
neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor observances, nor
pious austerities will procure felicity. A wise man must faithfully
discharge his moral duties, even though he dares not constantly perform
the ceremonies of religion. He will fall very low if he performs
ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his moral duties" (Ibid, p.
3). Exactly parallel to a saying of Jesus is one in the Saboean Book of
the Law: "Adhere so firmly to the truth that your yea shall be yea, and
your nay, nay" (Ibid, p. 7).
In urging that all great moral duties were taught by pre-Christian
thinkers, we do not mean that Christ took his moral sayings from the
books of these great Eastern teachers; there was no necessity that he
should go so far in search of them, for in the teachings of the Rabbis
of his nation he found all of which he stood in need. Many of these
teachings have been preserved in the more modern Talmud, grains of wheat
amid much chaff, the moral thoughts of some of the purest Jewish minds.
"Take the Talmud and study it, and then judge from what uninspired
source Jesus drew much of his highest teaching. 'Whoso looketh on the
wife of another with a lustful eye, is considered as if he had committed
adultery'--(Kalah). 'With what measure we mete, we shall be measured
again'--(Johanan). 'What thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself, do
not to others; this is the fundamental law'--(Hillel). 'If he be
admonished to take the splinter out of his eye, he would answer, Take
the beam out of thine own'--(Tarphon). 'Imitate God in his goodness. Be
towards thy fellow-creatures as he is towards the whole creation. Clothe
the naked; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; be a brother to the
children of thy Father.' The whole parable of the houses built on the
rock and on the sand is taken out of the Talmud, and such instances of
quotation might be indefinitely multiplied" ("On Inspiration;" by Annie
Besant; Scott Series, p. 20). From these founts Jesus drew his morality,
and spoke as Jew to Jews, out of the Jewish teachings. To point out
these facts is by no means to disparage the nobler part of Christian
morality. It is rather to elevate Humanity by showing that pure thoughts
and gracious words are human, not divine; that the so-called
"inspiration" is in all races cultivated to a certain point, and not in
one alone; that morality is a fair blossom of earth, not a
heaven-transplanted exotic, and grows naturally out of the rich soil of
the loving human heart and the noble human brain.
What nobler or grander moral teachings can be found anywhere than
breathe through the following passages, taken from the "bibles of all
nations" so ably collected for us by Mr. Corway in the "Sacred
Anthology" quoted from above? "Let a man continually take pleasure in
truth, in justice, in laudable practices and in purity; let him keep in
subjection his speech, his arm, and his appetites. Wealth and pleasures
repugnant to law, let him shun; and even lawful acts which may cause
pain, or be offensive to mankind. Let him not have nimble hands,
restless feet, or voluble eyes; let him not be flippant in his speech,
nor intelligent in doing mischief. Let him walk in the path of good men"
(Manu, p. 7). "He who neglecteth the duties of this life is unfit for
this, much less for any higher world" ("Bhagavat Gita," p. 26). "Charity
is the free gift of anything not injurious. If no benefit is intended,
or the gift is harmful, it is not charity. There must also be the desire
to assist, or to show gratitude. It is not charity when gifts are given
from other considerations, as when animals are fed that they may be
used, or presents given by lovers to bind affection, or to slaves to
stimulate labour. It is found where man, seeking to diffuse happiness
among all men--those he loves, and those he loves not--digs canals and
pools, makes roads, bridges, and seats, and plants trees for shade. It
is found where, from compassion for the miserable and the poor, who have
none to help them, a man erects resting-places for wanderers, and
drinking-fountains, or provides food, raiment, medicine for the needy,
not selecting one more than another. This is true charity, and bears
much fruit" ("Katha Chari," pp. 219, 220). "Never will I seek, nor
receive, private individual salvation--never enter into final peace
alone; but for ever, and everywhere, will I live and strive for the
universal redemption of every creature throughout the world" (Kwan-yin,
p. 233). "All men have in themselves the feelings of mercy and pity, of
shame and hatred of vice. It is for each one by culture to let these
feelings grow, or to let them wither. They are part of the organisation
of men, as much as the limbs or senses, and may be trained as well. The
mountain Nicon-chau naturally brings forth beautiful trees. Even when
the trunks are cut down, young shoots will constantly rise up. If cattle
are allowed to feed there, the mountain looks bare. Shall we say, then,
that bareness is natural to the mountain? So the lower passions are let
loose to eat down the nobler growths of reverence and love in the heart
of man; shall we, therefore, say that there are no such feelings in his
heart at all? Under the quiet peaceful airs of morning and evening the
shoots tend to grow again. Humanity is the heart of man; justice is the
path of man. To know heaven is to develop the principle of our higher
nature" (Mencius, pp. 275, 276). "The first requisite in the pursuit of
virtue is, that the learner think of his own improvement, and do not act
from a regard to (the admiration of) others" ("The She-King," p. 286).
"Benevolence, justice, fidelity, and truth, and to delight in virtue
without weariness, constitute divine nobility" (Mencius, p. 339).
"Virtue is a service man owes himself; and though there were no heaven,
nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life.
It is man's privilege to know the right and follow it. Betray and
prosecute me, brother men! Pour out your rage on me, O malignant devils!
Smile, or watch my agony with cold disdain, ye blissful gods! Earth,
hell, heaven, combine your might to crush me--I will still hold fast by
this inheritance! My strength is nothing--time can shake and cripple it;
my youth is transient--already grief has withered up my days; my
heart--alas! it seems well nigh broken now! Anguish may crush it
utterly, and life may fail; but even so my soul, that has not tripped,
shall triumph, and dying, give the lie to soulless destiny, that dares
to boast itself man's master" ("Ramayana," pp. 340, 341). What Christian
apostle left behind him the records of such words as those of Confucius,
boldly spoken to a king: "Ke K'ang, distressed about the number of
thieves in his kingdom, inquired of Confucius how he might do away with
them? The sage said, 'If you, sir, were not covetous, the people would
not steal, though you should pay them for it.' Ke K'ang asked, 'What do
you say about killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?'
Confucius said, 'In carrying out your government, why use killing at
all? Let the rulers desire what is good, and the people will be good.
The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.' How can men who
cannot rectify themselves, rectify others?" ("Analects of Confucius," p.
358).
In "The Wheel of the Law," by Henry Alabaster, we find some most
interesting information on the moral teaching of Buddhism, and the
following quotation is taken from one of the Sutras: "On a certain
occasion the Lord Buddha led a number of his disciples to a village of
the Kalamachou, where his wisdom and merit and holiness were known. And
the Kalamachou assembled, and did homage to him and said, 'Many priests
and Brahmins have at different times visited us, and explained their
religious tenets, declaring them to be excellent, but each abused the
tenets of every one else, whereupon we are in doubt as to whose religion
is right and whose wrong; but we have heard that the Lord Buddha teaches
an excellent religion, and we beg that we may be freed from doubt, and
learn the truth.' And the Lord Buddha answered, 'You were right to
doubt, for it was a doubtful matter. I say unto all of you, Do not
believe in what ye have heard; that is, when you have heard anyone say
this is especially good or extremely bad; do not reason with yourselves
that if it had not been true, it would not have been asserted, and so
believe in its truth. Neither have faith in traditions, because they
have been handed down for many generations and in many places. Do not
believe in anything because it is rumoured and spoken of by many; do not
think that it is a proof of its truth. Do not believe merely because the
written statement of some old sage is produced; do not be sure that the
writing has ever been revised by the said sage, or can be relied on. Do
not believe in what you have fancied, thinking that because an idea is
extraordinary it must have been implanted by a Dewa, or some wonderful
being. Do not believe in guesses, that is, assuming some thing at
haphazard as a starting-point, draw your conclusions from it; reckoning
your two and your three and your four before you have fixed your number
one. Do not believe because you think there is analogy, that is, a
suitability in things and occurrences, such as believing that there must
be walls of the world, because you see water in a basin, or that Mount
Meru must exist because you have seen the reflection of trees: or that
there must be a creating God because houses and towns have builders....
Do not believe merely on the authority of your teachers and masters, or
believe and practise merely because they believe and practise. I tell
you all, you must of your own selves know that 'this is evil this is
punishable, this is censured by wise men, belief in this will bring no
advantage to one, but will cause sorrow.' And when you know this, then
eschew it. I say to all you dwellers in this village, answer me this.
Lopho, that is covetousness, Thoso, that is anger and savageness, and
Moho, that is ignorance and folly--when any or all of these arise in the
hearts of men, is the result beneficial or the reverse?' And they
answered, 'It is not beneficial, O Lord!' Then the Lord continued,
'Covetous, passionate, and ignorant men destroy life and steal, and
commit adultery, and tell lies, and incite others to follow their
example, is it not so?' And they answered, 'It is as the Lord says.' And
he continued, 'Covetousness, passion, ignorance, the destruction of
life, theft, adultery, and lying, are these good or bad, right or wrong?
Do wise men praise or blame them? Are they not unprofitable, and causes
of sorrow?' And they replied, 'It is as the Lord has spoken.' And the
Lord said, 'For this I said to you, do not believe merely because you
have heard, but when of your own consciousness you know a thing to be
evil, abstain from it.' And then the Lord taught of that which is good,
saying, 'If any of you know of yourselves that anything is good and not
evil, praised by wise men, advantageous, and productive of happiness,
then act abundantly according to your belief. Now I ask you, Alopho,
absence of covetousness, Athoso, absence of passion, Amoho, absence of
folly, are these profitable or not?' And they answered, 'Profitable.'
The Lord continued, 'Men who are not covetous, or passionate, or
foolish, will not destroy life, nor steal, nor commit adultery, nor tell
lies; is it not so?' And they answered, 'It is as the Lord says.' Then
the Lord asked, 'Is freedom from covetousness, passion, and folly, from
destruction of life, theft, adultery, and lying, good or bad, right or
wrong, praised or blamed by wise men, profitable, and tending to
happiness or not?' And they replied, 'It is good, right, praised by the
wise, profitable, and tending to happiness.' And the Lord said, 'For
this I taught you, not to believe merely because you have heard, but
when you believed of your own consciousness, then to act accordingly and
abundantly'" (pp. 35-38). In this wise fashion did Buddha found his
morality, basing it on utility, the true measure of right and wrong.
Buddhism has its Five Commandments, certainly equal in value to the Ten
Commandments of Jews and Christians:--
"First. Thou shall abstain from destroying or causing the destruction of
any living thing.
"Second. Thou shalt abstain from acquiring or keeping, by fraud or
violence, the property of another.
"Third. Thou shalt abstain from those who are not proper objects for thy
lust.
"Fourth. Thou shalt abstain from deceiving others either by word or
deed.
"Fifth. Thou shalt abstain from intoxication" (Ibid, p. 57).
From Dr. Muir's translations of "religious and moral sentiments,"
already quoted from, we might fill page after page with purest morality.
"Let a man be virtuous even while yet a youth; for life is transitory.
If duty is performed, a good name will be obtained, as well as
happiness, here and after death" ("Mahabharata," xii., 6538, p. 22).
"Deluded by avarice, anger, fear, a man does not understand himself. He
plumes himself upon his high birth, contemning those who are not
well-born; and overcome by the pride of wealth, he reviles the poor. He
calls others fools, and does not look to himself. He blames the faults
of others, but does not govern himself. When the wise and the foolish,
the rich and the poor, the noble and the ignoble, the proud and the
humble, have departed to the cemetery and all sleep there, their
troubles are at an end, and their bodies are stripped of flesh, little
else than bones, united by tendons--other men then perceive no
difference between them, whereby they could recognise a distinction of
birth or of form. Seeing that all sleep, deposited together in the
earth, why do men foolishly seek to treat each other injuriously? He
who, after bearing this admonition, acts in conformity therewith from
his birth onwards, shall attain the highest blessedness" (Ibid, xi. 116,
p. 23).
Such are a few of the moral teachings current in the East before the
time of Christ. Since that period, these non-Christian nations have gone
on in their paths, and many a gem of pure morality might be culled from
their later writings, but we have only here presented teachings that
were pre-Christian, so as to prove how little need there was for a God
to become incarnate to teach morality to the world. "Revealed morality"
has nothing grander to say than this earth-born morality, nothing
sublimer comes from Judæa than comes from Hindustan and from China. Just
as the symbolism of Christianity comes from nature, and is common to
many creeds, so does the morality of Christianity flow from nature, and
is common to many faiths; when nations attain to a certain stage of
civilisation, and inherit a certain amount of culture, they also develop
a morality proportionate to the point they have reached, because
morality is necessary to the stability of States, and utility formulates
the code of moral laws. Christianity can no longer stand on a pinnacle
as the sole possessor of a pure and high morality. The pedestal she has
occupied is built out of the bricks of ignorance, and her apostles and
her master must take rank among their brethren of every age and clime.
It is a serious fault in Christian morality that it has so many
OMISSIONS in it. It is full of exhortations to bear, to suffer, to be
patient; it sorely lacks appeals to patriotism, to courage, to
self-respect. "The heroes of Paganism exemplified the heroism of
enterprise. Patriotism, chivalrous deeds of valour, high-souled
aspirations after glory, stern justice taking its course in their hands,
while natural feeling was held in abeyance--this was the line in which
they shone. Our blessed Lord illustrated all virtues indeed, but most
especially the passive ones. His heroism took its colouring from
endurance. Women, though inferior to men in enterprise, usually come out
better than men in suffering; and it is always to be remembered that our
blessed Lord held his humanity, not of the stronger, but of the weaker
sex" ("Thoughts on Personal Religion," by Dean Goulburn, vol. ii., p.
99; ed. 1866). What is this but to say, in polite language, that Jesus
was very effeminate? The Christian religion has all the vices of
slavery, and encourages submission to evil instead of resistance to it;
it has in it the pathetic beauty of the meekness of the bruised and
beaten wife still loving the injurer, of the slave forgiving the
slave-driver, but it is a beauty which perpetuates the wrong of which it
is born. Better, far better, both for oppressor and for oppressed, is
resistance to cruelty than submission to it; submission encourages the
wrong-doer where resistance would check him, and Christianity fails in
that it omits to value strong men and true patriots, rebels against
authority which is unjust. Rome taught its citizens to reverence
themselves, to love their country, to maintain freedom: the Roman would
die gladly for his mother-country, and deemed his duty as a citizen the
foremost of his obligations. The love of country, and the sense of
service owed to the State, is the grandest and sublimest virtue of the
Pagan world. All felt it, from the highest to the lowest: at Thermopylae
the Spartans died gladly for the land they covered with their bodies,
faithful unto death to the duty entrusted to them by their country; men
and women equally felt the paramount claim of the State, and mothers
gave their sons to death rather than that they should fail in duty
there. The Roman was taught to value the Republic above its officers; to
resist the highest if he grasped at unfair supremacy; to maintain
inviolate the rights and the liberties of the people. Christianity
undermined all these manly virtues; it preached obedience to "the powers
that be," whether they were good or bad; it upheld the authority of a
Nero as "ordained of God," and pronounced damnation on those who
resisted him; and so it paved the way for the despotism of the Middle
Ages, by crushing out the manhood of the nations, and fashioning them
into Oriental slaves. Little wonder that kings embraced Christianity,
and forced it on their subjects, for it placed the nations bound at
their footstools, and endorsed the tyranny of man with the authority of
God. Throughout the New Testament what word is there of patriotism? The
citizenship is in heaven. What incitement to heroism? Resist not the
power. What appeal to self-reverence? In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. What cry against injustice and oppression? Honour the king, and
give obedience to the froward. Christianity makes a paradise for tyrants
and a hell for the oppressed.
Intertwined with the evil of omissions of duty is the direct injury of
commanding NON-RESISTANCE, and of enforcing INDIFFERENCE TO EARTHLY
CARES. "I say unto you that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any
man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him
twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of
thee turn not thou away" (Matt. v. 39-42). The surface meaning of these
words is undeniable; they are the amplification of the command, "resist
not evil." What effect would obedience to these injunctions have upon a
State? None committing an assault would be punished; every unjust suit
would succeed; every forced concession would be endorsed; every beggar
would live in luxury; every borrower would spend at will. Nay more;
those who did wrong would be rewarded, and would be thus encouraged to
go on in their evil ways. Meanwhile, the man who was insulted would be
again struck; the poor man who had lost one thing would lose two; the
hard-working, frugal labourer would have to support the beggar and the
borrower out of the fruits of his toil. Such is Christ's code of civil
laws: he is deliberately abrogating the Mosaic code, "an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth," and is replacing it by his own. If the Mosaic
law is to be taken literally--as it was--that which is to replace it
must also be taken literally, or else one code would be abolished, and
there would be none to succeed it, so that the State would be left in a
condition of lawlessness. Suppose, however, that we allow that the
passage is to be taken metaphorically, what then? A metaphor must mean
_something_: what does this metaphor mean? It can scarcely signify the
exact opposite of what it intimates, and yet the exact opposite is true
morality. Only a system of taking Christ's words "contrariwise" can make
them useful as civil rules, and even "oriental exaggeration" can
scarcely be credited with saying the diametrically contrary of its real
meaning. But it is urged that, if all men were Christians, then this
teaching would be right, and Christ was bound to give a perfect
morality. That is to say, if people were different to what they are,
this teaching of Christ would not be injurious because--it would be
unneeded! If there were no robbers, and no assaulters, and no borrowers,
then the morality of the Sermon on the Mount would be most harmless.
High praise, truly, for a legislator that his laws would not be
injurious when they were no longer needed. Christ should have remembered
that the "law is made for sinners," and that such a law as he gives here
is a direct encouragement to sin.
We can scarcely wonder that, inculcating a course of conduct which must
inevitably lead to poverty, Christ should hold up a state of poverty as
desirable. We read in Matthew v. 3, "Blessed are the poor _in spirit_"
and it is contended that it is poverty only of spirit which Christ
blesses; if so, he blesses the source of much wretchedness, for
poor-spirited people get trampled down, and are a misery to themselves
and a burden to those about them. If, however, we turn to Luke vi. 20,
we find the declaration: "Blessed are ye poor," addressed directly to
his Apostles, who were anything but poor in spirit (Luke ix. 46, and
xxii. 24); and we find it, further, joined with the announcement,
"blessed are ye that hunger now," and followed by the curses: "Woe unto
you that are rich ... woe unto you that are full." If "hunger" means
"hunger after righteousness," the antithesis "full" must also mean "full
of righteousness," a state on which Christ would surely not pronounce a
woe. Mr. Bradlaugh well draws out the various thoughts in these most
unfortunate sayings: "Is poverty of spirit the chief amongst virtues,
that Jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? Is poverty of
spirit a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of
spirit, fulness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of
spirit is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and
haughty in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true
in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent
evil, wrong, and injustice whenever they can, then is there greater
opportunity for happiness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment
of future happiness, in some may be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in
spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach? 'Unto
him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other' (Luke vi.
29). It were better far to teach that 'he who courts oppression shares
the crime.' Rather say, if smitten once, take careful measures to
prevent a future smiting. I have heard men preach passive resistance,
but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course degrading in the
extreme ... the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to the fullest
conceivable extent--'Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take
thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again' (Luke vi. 29, 30). Poverty of
person is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation
of poverty of spirit. Poverty of person is attended with many
unpleasantnesses; and if Jesus knew that poverty of goods would result
from his teaching, we might expect some notice of this. And so there
is--as if he wished to keep the poor content through their lives with
poverty, he says, 'Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God'
(Luke vi. 20) ... Poor in spirit and poor in pocket. With no courage to
work for food, or money to purchase it, we might well expect to find the
man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also; and what does
Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled'
... Craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next?
The man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong, will probably
bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes
he endures. And what does Jesus teach? 'Blessed are ye that weep now,
for ye shall laugh' (Luke vi. 21) ... Jesus teaches that the poor, the
hungry, and the wretched shall be blessed. This is not so. The blessing
only comes when they have ceased to be poor, hungry, and wretched.
Contentment under poverty, hunger, and misery is high treason, not to
yourself alone but to your fellows. These three, like foul diseases,
spread quickly wherever humanity is stagnant and content with wrong"
("What Did Jesus Teach?" pp. 1-3).
But Jesus did more than panegyrise poverty; he gave still more exact
directions to his disciples as to how poverty should be attained. Matt.
vi. 25-34 is as mischievous a passage as has been penned by any
moralist. "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye
shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on." It is said
that "take no thought" means, "be not over anxious;" if this be so, why
does Christ emphasise it by quoting birds and lilies as examples,
things, which, literally, take _no_ thought? the argument is: birds do
not store food in barns, yet God feeds them. You are more valuable than
the birds. God will take equal care of you if you follow the birds'
example. The lilies spin no raiment, yet God clothes them. So shall he
clothe you, if you follow their example. The passage has no meaning, the
illustrations no appositeness, unless Christ means that _no_ thought is
to be taken for the future. He makes the argument still stronger: "the
Gentiles seek" meat, drink, and clothing. But God, your Father, knows
your need for all these things. Therefore, "seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof." If Christ only meant the common-place advice, "do not be
over-anxious," he then lays the most absurd stress on it, and speaks in
the most exaggerated way. Sensible Gentiles do not worry themselves by
over-anxiety, after they have taken for the morrow's needs all the care
they can; but they do not act like birds or like lilies, for they know
that many a bird starves in a hard winter because it is not capable of
gathering and storing food into barns, and that many a garbless lily is
shrivelled up by the cold east wind. They notice that though men and
women are "much better than" birds and lilies, yet God does not always
feed and clothe them; that, on the contrary, many a poor creature dies
of starvation and of winter's bitter cold; when our daily papers record
no inquests on those who die from want, because none but God takes
thought for them, then it will be time enough for us to cease from
preparing for the morrow, and to trust that "heavenly Father" who at
present "knoweth that" we "have need of these things," and, knowing,
lets so many of his children starve for lack of them.
The true meaning of Christ is plainly shown by his injunctions to the
twelve apostles and to the seventy when he sent them on a journey: "Take
nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, nor
money; neither have two coats apiece" (Luke ix. 3); and: "Carry neither
purse, nor scrip, nor shoes ... in the same house remain, eating and
drinking such things as they give" (Ibid, x. 4, 7). The same spirit
breathes in his injunction to the young man: "Go and sell that thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and
come and follow me" (Matt. xix. 21). The fact is that Jesus held the
ascetic doctrine, that poverty was, in itself, meritorious; and, in
common with many sects, he regarded the highest life as the life of the
mendicant teacher. His doctrine of poverty passed on into the Church
that bears his name, and one of the three vows taken by those who aspire
to lead "the angelic life" is the vow of poverty. The mendicant friars
of the Middle Ages, the "sturdy beggars," are the lineal descendants of
the Eastern mendicants, and are the fruits of the morality taught by
Christ. On this point, as on many others, the morality of the Epistles
is far higher than that of the Gospels, and the common-sense and
righteous law, "that if any would not work neither should he eat" is,
however, incompatible with Christ's admiration for mendicancy, a far
more wholesome and salutary kind of moral teaching than that which we
have been considering.
The dogma of rewards and punishments as taught by Christ is fatal to all
reality of virtue. To do right from hope of heaven: to avoid wrong for
fear of hell: such virtue is only skin-deep, and will not stand rough
usage. True virtue does right because it _is_ right, and therefore
beneficial, and not from hope of a personal reward, or from dread of a
personal punishment, hereafter. Christianity is the apotheosis of
selfishness, gilded over with piety; self is the pivot on which all
turns: "What shall it _profit_ a man if he gain the whole world, and
lose _his own_ soul?" (Mark viii. 36). "He that receiveth a prophet in
the name of a prophet _shall receive a prophet's reward_; and he that
receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man _shall receive
a righteous man's reward_. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple,
verily I say unto you, he _shall in nowise lose his reward_" (Matt. x.
41, 42). "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, _him will I
confess also_ before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall
deny me before men, _him will I also deny_ before my Father which is in
heaven" (Ibid, 32, 33). "Pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, _shall reward thee_ openly" (Ibid, vi.
6). "We have forsaken all and followed thee: _what shall we have
therefore_?... When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,
_ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones_" (Matt. xix. 27, 28). The
passages might be multiplied; but these are sufficient to show the
thorough selfishness inculcated. All is done with an eye to personal
gain in the future; even the cold water is to be given, not because the
"little one" is thirsty and needs it, but for the reward promised
therefore to the giver. Pure, generous love is excluded: there is a
taint of selfishness in every gift.
The thought of Heaven is also injurious to human welfare, because men
learn to disregard earth for the sake of "the glory to be revealed."
People whose "citizenship is in heaven," make but sorry citizens of
earth, for they regard this world as "no continuing city," while they
"seek one to come." Hence, as all history shows us, they are apt to
despise this world while dreaming about another, to trouble little about
earth's wrongs while thinking of the mansions in the skies; to acquiesce
in any assertion that "the whole world lieth in wickedness," and to
trouble themselves but little as to the means of improving it. From this
line of thought follows the long list of monasteries and nunneries,
wherein people "separate" themselves from this world in order to
"prepare" for another. All this evil flows directly from the Christian
morality which teaches that all hopes, efforts, and aims should be
turned towards laying up treasures in heaven, where also the heart
should be. One need scarcely add a word of reprobation as to the
horrible doctrine of eternal torture, although that, too, is part of the
teaching of Christ. The whole conscience of civilised mankind is so
turning against that shameful and cruel dogma, that it is only now
believed among the illiterate and uncultured of the Christians, and soon
will be too savage even for them. It has, however, hardened the hearts
of many in days gone by, and has made the burning of heretics seem an
appropriate act of faith, since men only began on earth the roasting
which God was to continue to all eternity.
The morality of Christ is also faulty because it shares in the
persecuting spirit of the Mosaic code. The disciples are told:
"Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart
out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily, I
say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and
Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city" (Matt. x. 14, 15).
Christ proclaims openly: "Think not that I am come to send peace on
earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man
at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be
they of his own household" (Ibid, 34-36). To a man whom he calls to
follow him, and who asks to be allowed first to bury his father, Christ
gives the brutal reply: "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God" (Luke x. 60). Another time he says: "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" (Ibid, xiv. 26). A religion that destroys the
home, that introduces discord into the family, that bids its votaries
hate all else save Christ, acts as a disintegrating force in human life,
and cannot be too strongly opposed.
Neither must we forget the teaching of Christ regarding marriage. He
deliberately places virginity above marriage, and counsels
self-mutilation to those capable of making the sacrifice. "All men
cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given ... 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_" (Matt. xix.
11, 12). Following this, 1 Cor. vii. teaches the superiority of an
unmarried state, and threatens "trouble in the flesh" to those who
marry. And in Rev. xiv. 1-4, we find, following the Lamb, with special
privileges, 144,000 who "were not defiled with women; for they are
virgins." This coarse and insulting way of regarding women, as though
they existed merely to be the safety-valves of men's passions, and that
the best men were above the temptation of loving them, has been the
source of unnumbered evils. To this saying of Christ are due the
self-mutilations of many, such as Origen, and the destruction of myriads
of human lives in celibacy; monks and nuns innumerable owe to this evil
teaching their shrivelled lives and withered hearts. For centuries the
leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as of a necessary evil, and
the greatest saints of the Church are those who despised women the most.
The subjection of women in Western lands is wholly due to Christianity.
Among the Teutons women were honoured, and held a noble and dignified
place in the tribe; Christianity brought with it the evil Eastern habit
of regarding women as intended for the toys and drudges of man, and
intensified it with a special spite against them, as the daughters of
Eve, who was first "deceived." Strangely different to the *general
Eastern feeling and showing a truer and nobler view of life, is the
precept of Manu: "Where women are honoured, there the deities are
pleased; but where they are dishonoured, there all religious acts become
fruitless" ("Anthology," p. 310).
Evil also is the teaching that repentance is higher than purity: "joy
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenth, _more than_ over ninety
and nine just persons which need no repentance" (Luke xv. 7, 10). The
fatted calf is slain for the prodigal son, who returns home after he has
wasted all his substance; and to the laborious elder son, during the
many years of his service, the father never gave even a kid that he
might make merry with his friends (Ibid, 29). What is all this but
putting a premium upon immorality, and instructing people that the more
they sin, the more joyous will be their welcome whenever they may choose
to reform, and, like the prodigal, think to mend their broken fortunes
by repentance?
Thoroughly immoral is the teaching contained in the two parables in Luke
xvi. In the one, a steward who has wasted his master's goods, is
commended because he went and bribed his employer's debtors to assist
him, by suggesting to them that they should cheat his master by altering
the amount of the bills they owed him. In the other, the parable of the
rich man and Lazarus, the evil moral is taught that riches are in
themselves deserving of punishment, and poverty of reward. The rich man
is in hell simply because he was rich, and the poor man in Abraham's
bosom simply because he was poor; it can scarcely add, one may remark,
to the pleasure of heaven for the Lazaruses all to look at the Diveses,
and be unable to reach them, even to give them a single drop of water.
Thus whether we see that the nobler part of the Christian morality is
pre-Christian, and is neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Hindu, nor
Buddhist, but is simply human, and belongs to the race and not to one
creed. Whether we note the omissions in its code, making it insufficient
for human guidance; whether we mark its errors, mistakes, and injurious
teachings; whichever point of view we take from which to consider it, we
find in it nothing to distinguish it above other moral codes, or to
prevent it from being classed among other moralities, as being a mixture
of good and bad, and, therefore, not to be taken as an, unerring guide,
being like them, all FALLIBLE.
* * * * *
INDEX TO SECTION III. OF PART II.
* * * * *
INDEX OF BOOKS USED.
Bhagavat Gita, in Anthology...406
Bradlaugh, The Bible: what it is...397
" What Did Jesus Teach?...414
Buddha, in Anthology...403, 405
" Wheel of the Law...408
Cahen, Lévitique...398
Colenso, Pentateuch and Book of Joshua...396
Confucius, in Anthology...403, 404, 408
Dante, Inferno...403
Dhammapada, in Anthology...403
Gouldburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion...411
Kalisch, Leviticus...399, 400, 401
Katha-Chari, in Anthology...407
Kwan-yin, in Anthology...407
Lao-Tsze, in Anthology...403, 404
Mahabharata, in Muir...410
Manu, in Anthology...404, 405, 406, 419
Mencius, in Anthology...407
Prayer Book, Art. vi. vii....395
Ramayana, in Anthology...407
Sabaean Book of the Law, in Anthology...404, 405
Shelley, Queen Mab...402
She-King, in Anthology...407
Statutes, 9 and 10 William III. cap. 32...395
Talmud, quoted by Besant...405
* * * * *
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Christian morality, compared with others...403
" degrading to women...419
" immoral towards sin...419
" non-original...403
" non-resistant...412
" omissions in...411
" paved way for despotism...412
" persecuting in spirit...418
" sanctions mendicancy...416
" selfish...417
" what included in...395
Heaven and Hell, harm done by belief in...417
Heroism of Paganism...412
Human sacrifice, sanctioned by God...398
" among Jews...398
Marriage, teaching of Christ concerning...419
Morality of great Pagan teachers...406
" compared with that of Christ...403
Murder of blasphemer, sanctioned by God...397
" heretics...401
Ordeal, sanctioned by God...401
Poverty inculcated by Christ...414
Prostitution, sanctioned by God...402
Religion, evil of...402
Sale of daughter sanctioned by God...396
" thief...396
Slaves, beaten to death...396
Slavery, sanctioned by God...396, 397
Unthrift taught by Christ...415
Utility the test of morality...411
" religion according to Buddha...408
Value of Christianity to tyrants...412
Witches, number of killed...397
Witch-murder, sanctioned by God...397