"FOR THE WORK'S SAKE."
That night, at the request of Hatasa, the whole family assembled in her
room, and she insisted upon having them engage in their usual religious
exercises, to which she listened with profoundest attention, and with a
certain amazement; for it was hard for her to grasp at once the idea
that God might be worshiped without a temple, a priest, and a sacrifice;
but the fact furnished its own best explanation. And the sorrowful
woman soon found herself following with a new, strange sort of interest
the reading of the gospel, and the earnest, extemporaneous, sympathetic
prayer of Ammonius, in which he pleaded with God not to suffer his dear
and sorrowful guests, nor the aged and righteous priest, who had so long
sought for the truth, to depart from his abode without having learned by
blessed experience how freely Jesus can forgive, and what light and
peace his gospel can afford to all who believe thereon.
After the conclusion of these exercises, Am-nem-hat saith to Ammonius,
"There are some things connected with thy simple and beautiful religion
about which I would question thee when thou shalt have leisure and
inclination to answer me."
Then said Ammonius: "Whenever thou wilt! Even now, if thou wilt go with
me into another room, where our conversation may not weary the others."
"Nay," cried Hatasa. "Go not hence, I beg; for I eagerly desire to hear
such conversation."
Then said Am-nem-hat: "I know the Jewish scriptures, and also the new
books which the Christians have written; but I desire thee to tell me
plainly what the evidence is of the fact, upon which thou dost
continually insist, that Jesus of Nazareth, whom Pilate crucified, is
the Christ."
"The evidence is primarily historical and prophetic," said Ammonius,
"based chiefly upon the Jewish laws and prophecies concerning him that
were written centuries before the advent of our Lord, and that do
testify of him."
"Yea," answered Am-nem-hat, "but these proofs only go to establish the
coming of a Divine Man, in whom not only Plato and Socrates, who knew
nothing of the Jews, but the Egyptians also, and many more, believed. I
speak not of proofs that Messiah was to come, but of the proof that
Jesus, whom Pilate crucified, was he."
"The evidences upon this point are twofold," answered Ammonius. "One
line of proof which is the most satisfying, and which in fact amounts to
positive knowledge, is the personal consciousness of the believer,
experimental religion, whereby he knoweth that faith, the conviction of
sin, the justification of the believer, and all of the phenomena which
must necessarily attend the faith, are true. But this highest, most
satisfactory, most scientific form of evidence is of course inaccessible
to one that believeth not, except by the testimony of those who have
personal experience of the truth. The other line of evidence is founded
on the fact that the prophecies foretold for centuries just what Messiah
should do and suffer when he might come, and we know that Jesus did and
suffered just those things--many of them not possible to be done without
the Divinity--as healing of the sick, unstopping the deaf ears,
cleansing the lepers, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead,
and preaching good tidings to the poor; all of which things Jesus
customarily did, all of which things his followers have done from that
day to this; whereby we know that he is Christ indeed."
"Dost thou mean to assert that the Christians yet work miracles?" asked
Am-nem-hat.
"Assuredly," replied Ammonius. "Jesus not only did the miracles
himself, but did solemnly promise that, wherever his disciples should
continue to obey him in all things, they should be able, by faith in his
name, to do thaumaturgical works even unto the end of time; and they
have certainly done so ever since."
"Dost thou really believe that thou hast seen a miracle with thine own
eyes?"
"Yea, verily," said Ammonius, "and many of them."
The ancient paused a long time, and seemed lost in profoundest
meditation. At length he answered in a tone of inexpressible sadness
and weariness: "I was in the temple service at Thebes for nearly half a
century, and much of the time a priest. At Ombos I was high-priest for
five-and-twenty years, and until some five years ago. I have seen some
wonders, indeed, which the people called miracles. but alas! alas! I
know just how those things were done! The sun rises and sets, and no man
hindereth it! The Nile overfloweth its banks, and refresheth all the
land of Kem, and shrinketh back in his accustomed channel; the stars in
heaven pursue their bright and tranquil way, and seed-time cometh, and
the harvest; and life and death. All nature moves on in obedience to
fixed, changeless, universal laws, which have been from the beginning;
and I find myself unable to believe that these laws were ever violated,
or suspended, in order to furnish evidences of any religion, or for any
purpose whatever; although, no doubt, good men may believe that such
things have occurred."
"And as to that," said Ammonius, "beyond any question thou art right.
He hath but a poor conception of our God who thinketh that, in creating
a world wherein he intended miracles to occur, he did not know enough to
provide natural laws by which these phenomena might come to pass without
violating or suspending the established order. But, if I could know
that it violates or suspends any law of nature to raise the dead, I
would not believe such a fact, although I have seen it done. But why
dost thou suppose that the anastasis of the dead is contrary to natural
law? Our Lord hath never said so; on the contrary, he came to fulfill,
not to violate, the law. Surely thou canst not declare that any miracle
violates or suspends, or is without law, unless thou canst first
truthfully declare that all laws are known to thee, and that among them
there is none by which the dead might be raised up. But although thou
art wise and learned, thou knowest that Nature withholdeth many secrets
yet from thee. Thou knowest that no man hath mastered all her laws; and
even those which we know may be weak, and mean, and narrow, compared
with those of which we are profoundly ignorant. But we Christians teach
that God is not the author of confusion, but of order; that all laws of
nature, physical, mental, spiritual, are but the expression of his will,
which must be harmonious throughout, and can not be self-contradictory;
and that just as he hath made some law by which water seeks a level, and
by which heavy bodies tend toward the center of the world, and by which
oil and water, that repel each other by nature, will unite with an
alkali to make a new creature, just so he hath established laws by which
the miracles are done; so that the anastasis of the dead, or any other
miracle, must be as purely and truly a natural phenomenon as is the
rising of the sun, or the falling of the dew--not so common, perhaps,
because these phenomena involve powers and faculties of the human soul
that do not act always and automatically as do the laws of physical
nature; so neither does one sleep, or talk, or think always, but only
when he wills to do so."
"That is a new, strange view of thaumaturgy! Thou sayst 'the miracles
are under law'; perhaps, then, other men besides the Christians might be
able to perform them."
"I know not to what extent it might be possible for other men to
exercise the power of faith which is an essential condition in the
working of miracles. I suppose they might do wonderful things, that
would bear about the same relation to our Christian miracles that their
various religions bear to our holy Christianity. And I suppose that the
witchcraft and demonology denounced by Moses were the results of the
exercise of faith in false gods. But a Christian miracle, depending
upon faith in Christ as a primary condition for the exercise of
thaumaturgical power, must remain impossible to all who possess not that
faith. Thou hast read the Gospels, and thou knowest the Lord hath said,
'If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye might say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the midst of the sea,
and it should obey you.' But he also said, 'Without me ye can do
nothing.'"
"I infer," said Am-nem-hat, "that thou thinkest faith to be the law of
miracles; thou thinkest that this faith is itself a force in nature
sufficient for the accomplishment of physical results; and that they who
sincerely believe may, by means of this force, even raise up the dead.
Why, then, are not all the dead raised up?"
"Thou hast stated the law rather too broadly," answered Ammonius. "The
faith that worketh miracles must be applied under proper conditions to
be of any avail. Water, oil, and alkali do not always produce soap, but
only when the proper conditions are observed. So I suppose that no man
could be raised up from the dead against his will; and, while there be
many Christians that have sought for martyrdom, there be but few that
were willing to be raised again, and fewer still that ever requested the
brethren to pray for their anastasis, because they preferred to depart,
and to be with the Lord, which is far better."
"I do remember," said Am-nem-hat, "that many years ago, when Decius was
Emperor of Rome, a bitter persecution raged against the Christians at
Alexandria. I saw Julian, and Macar, and Epimachus, and Alexander burned
at the stake; and truly many seemed to seek for martyrdom rather than to
shun it, a fact which we attributed to a certain incorrigible and
hopeless wickedness in them, and not, as thou dost, to their assurance
of obtaining a better life. I suppose, indeed, that such men as those
would not have desired to be restored to a life which they seemed
anxious to lose; and it seemeth reasonable enough that, even if it had
been possible to do so, they should not have been recalled against their
will. Wilt thou not state more fully yet the conditions upon which thou
thinkest this thaumaturgy may be exercised?"
"Faith in Jesus is the primary condition," said Ammonius, "but there are
also others. Once a man came unto our Lord and besought him to heal his
son, saying that the disciples had been unable to do so. Our Lord did
heal him with a word. Afterward the disciples inquired of him why it
was that they had failed in doing the same work, and he said unto them
that it was because of their unbelief. Now thou must perceive that it
was not because of their want of faith in him, for they were then
following him; so that it must have been because of their unbelief in
their own power and authority to do the work in his name. It seemeth,
therefore, that faith on the part of the thaumaturgist in his own power
to accomplish the miracle in the Lord's name is one of the conditions of
thaumaturgy."
"That also seemeth to be a reasonable and proper condition," answered
Am-nem-hat. "But are there yet others?"
"It is written that he did not many wonderful works at Capernaum because
of their unbelief. He often said to those who asked his aid, 'Be it
unto thee according to thy faith.' And from these facts it seems to
follow that faith on the part of him for, or upon, whom the work was to
be done, and on the part of those among whom it was to be done, was also
one of the conditions upon which the exercise of thaumaturgical power
depended."
"But," objected Am-nem-hat, "if he was in truth divine, why should he
pay any attention to the unbelieving or to the unwilling? Why did he
not do the miracles in defiance of them all, as well as if they had been
faithful and willing?"
"Because," answered Ammonius, "our Lord teacheth and requireth only a
willing obedience and faith. Not God himself will force the human will;
for that which is of compulsion hath no morality. It is of necessity,
therefore, neither holy nor unholy. A necessary holiness is a
contradiction in terms. God's use of sovereignty hath been to make man
free. Besides, faith itself is the law of miracles; to have wrought
miracles where no faith was, would have been to violate the very law by
which he worked, and so to have degraded miracles to the plane of an
arbitrary and sporadic exhibition of divine power, instead of leaving
them as they are, the highest result of the very highest form of
universal law."
"That seemeth reasonable enough," rejoined Am-nem-hat, "and in
accordance with my conception of the character of a holy and perfect
God. But as I perceive thou clearly comprehendest the Christian system,
upon which I have bestowed much thought almost in vain, suffer me to put
one other case to thee which seemeth to me to be inexplicable upon any
principles which thou hast stated as constituent elements of the law of
miracles, if thou art not yet weary of my questions."
"Nay," said Ammonius, "I am not weary. Thou mayst ask many things,
indeed, which I know not, and can not answer; but, so far as I can give
thee any aid, it affordeth me pleasure to answer thee as intelligently
as I can."
"The matter is this," said Am-nem-hat. "It is recorded in thy sacred
books that when the apostles were going about Jerusalem, imparting the
Paraclete by the laying on of their hands, and working divers miracles,
one Simon, a magician, came unto them and offered money unto them if
they would communicate unto him the same power, so that he also might
become a thaumaturgist. But one of them, named Peter, did bitterly
rebuke him, saying, 'Thy money perish with thee!' Now, the apostles had
faith; the people who saw them doing all these wonderful works had
faith, and were baptized by Philip. Simon Magus himself had faith as
much as any one of them, and, when Peter rebuked him, with fear and
trembling he besought Peter, saying, 'Pray ye to the Lord for me, that
none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.' Now, here seem
to have been all of the conditions of faith and willingness in Simon of
which thou hast spoken, and yet Peter manifestly regarded the desire of
Simon as a sort of sacrilege. Why was this so?"
"Why," said Ammonius, "Peter declared that his thought that the gift of
God may be purchased with money was evil; and that his heart was not
right in the sight of God, and that he should repent of his wickedness,
and that his very thought showed that he was still in the gall of
bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity."
"That is very true," answered Am-nem-hat, "but his tender of money to
the apostles only proves his appreciation of the value of the power
which he desired to purchase. Peter saith not that Simon was a bad man,
but that this particular thing was wicked; why was it so in him, and not
in them?"
"Because," replied Ammonius, "it is manifest from the whole record that
Simon desired to purchase this power for himself, and to use it for his
own purposes."
"Certainly so," persisted Am-nem-hat, "but in what respect was it
sacrilegious for him to desire to use the power for his own purposes,
any more than it would have been to use his brain, or his hand, for his
own advancement; or his learning, or skill, for the acquisition and
cultivation of which he had, perhaps, expended money?"
"The answer to thy question," replied Ammonius, "involves some
consideration of the very genius of Christianity as a system of divine
truth. If, as thou seemest to suppose, the religion of our Lord had
been only a system of spiritual truth, it might be difficult to deny
that the apostles were selfish, and that Simon was very badly treated.
But this is not at all true. Thou knowest that the legislation of Moses
was for the Israelites only; that of Egypt for the land and people of
Kem only; that of other lands and ages for certain peoples only. But
thou canst not have read the scriptures so carefully without learning
the fact that Jesus died for all men, and that his truth is designed for
all mankind. Thou seest, therefore, that, if Simon Magus could have
obtained this power to exercise it for his own purposes, he would have
made it the agency by which to gain limitless authority and wealth unto
himself, and oppress the poor. Thou seest also that, if any nation or
government could exercise thaumaturgical powers, that nation or
government would soon become the ruler and the tyrant of the world.
Thou seest that, if any church that is in any way connected with, or
bound unto, an earthly government, could exercise this power,
ecclesiasticism would quickly make mankind its slaves: for manifestly no
people could long resist a government that had thaumaturgical power
wherewith to enforce obedience to its laws. Thou seest also that if the
faith that is effective for miracles could be exercised for any purposes
except the edification of the Church and the good of all men, the faith
itself might have become a nameless and unappealable tyranny. Nay, if
it were ever possible to exercise such power except under such
conditions as necessarily and absolutely to preclude the use of it for
any private purposes, thou seest that sooner or later, under the
influence of inborn selfishness, the thaumaturgists would have made war
upon each other, and, in place of seeing nations contending with sword,
and bow, and spear, we would have seen them hurling against each other
all of the destructive forces of nature, and only chaos and utter ruin
could have ended the superhuman strife. It was therefore ordained that
the thaumaturgic faith can not be exercised except under conditions
which necessarily exclude the use of it for private purposes, and insure
its exercise for the good of the common Church only."
"Canst thou specify by what means this restricted use of the power hath
been enforced? For it seemeth to me that, if it exists, it must be
beyond control."
"In order to exclude all worldly ambitions and selfishness from the
kingdom which he established in the world, our Lord ordained that his
Church should be a community in which all men are free and
equal--brethren only. Hence he ordained, as the fundamental law of the
kingdom, that all private rights of property (including estates, rank,
offices, prerogatives) should be forever abolished in his Church, and
that Christians should hold them all in common. Hence, the kingdom of
heaven is an absolute democracy, social and political, based upon faith
in Christ, and community of rights and property among all who believe.
Of this community the apostles themselves were the divinely appointed
type. They used thaumaturgy for the common good only, and not for
personal aggrandizement. The common treasure was put into a bag, and, as
if to show the divine scorn of wealth and of all human distinctions that
grow out of it, the bag was intrusted to Judas, the only base one of the
twelve. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, because the law of
that kingdom imperatively required the consecration of all that he had
to the common good. But, under the power of a living faith, many
complied with this law, and the Church prospered. Thus did the bishops
that were ordained by the apostles, as Linus at Rome, Polycarp at
Smyrna, Evodius at Antioch, and others also. Thus did Paulinus, Cyprian,
Hilary, and others. Such has been the law and practice of the common
Church even unto this day. For the primary law of the kingdom of heaven
demandeth the consecration of all property, and the abdication of all
worldly honors, offices, and authority. And Simon Magus desired not
part or lot in this kingdom, but his own advantage only. And thou must
perceive that thaumaturgical power exercised by such a church must
necessarily be for the common good of all, and not for any personal,
political, or sectarian purposes; and the faith that worketh wonders
must therefore be impossible to any human association except to the
church organized upon the foundation which Jesus himself laid, even the
communion of the holy; for the liberty, fraternity, and equality, which
constitute the socialism and politics of the kingdom, can not exist upon
any other foundation. And, of course, thaumaturgic power will vanish
even out of the Church if the day shall ever come in which those who
believe shall abandon the communal organization of the kingdom of
heaven, and establish human statutes as the law thereof."
"I think," said Am-nem-hat, "that thy words remove many of the
difficulties which have beset my study of thy sacred books. For I now
perceive that the parables of Jesus--a species of literary composition
unknown, perhaps impossible, to other men--which I supposed to refer to
some spiritual, mystical doctrines, were in fact spoken concerning his
Church, or kingdom, in this world."
"Assuredly so," replied Ammonius. "And thou hast done well to
characterize the parable as 'a species of literary composition unknown
and impossible to other men'; for no other man hath written a parable,
nor do I suppose that any man ever will do so. For he spake as never
man spake: he spake in parables; without a parable he spake not. The
history, the poem, the fable, the allegory, may be used by other
teachers also; but the parable is the language of Jesus alone; and no
man can handle it but himself."
"I can now understand that strange parable of 'the unjust steward,'"
said Am-nem-hat, "although, when I first read the words, 'I say unto
you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that
when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations,' I did
even suppose that Jesus represented eternal life to be a vendible thing,
and that his religion, like every other, assured the rich that they
could purchase salvation with money--although this seemed to be
antagonistic to the general current of his teachings."
"Verily," replied Ammonius, "the words of Jesus would convey no other
meaning, if, indeed, the fundamental law of the Church had not excluded
therefrom all the private wealth, honors, and authority after which the
Gentiles seek. But, if thou wilt consider that the unjust steward is
any believer that useth his means, pecuniary, intellectual, physical,
for his own aggrandizement, and not for the common good; that the Lord
of that steward is Jesus; that unrighteous mammon is wealth held by
private ownership, and that the true riches is wealth held by common
title for the good of all--thou canst then understand how, even upon
ceasing to be steward (the end of life), one may make amends for past
selfishness and mammon-worship, by giving up his property to the common
Church. Thou canst understand how it is just that those who come in
even at the eleventh hour to work in his vine-yard shall have an equal
reward with those who entered early and bore the heat and burden of the
day. Thou wilt see that it is true that those who gave up houses and
lands for his sake and the gospel's reaped manifold more 'now in this
present life' by gaining a communal title in the property of all other
believers--an increase which our Lord expressly promises as to all the
interests and relationships of life, except as to the wife; for, while,
if one leave houses, lands, father, mother, brother, sister, or
children, for the gospel's sake, the severed interests and relationships
are replaced a hundred-fold by his admission into the kingdom of heaven,
monogamic marriage was and is the law of the Church. And thou canst
thus give a practical and beautiful meaning to all that our Lord hath
said and done; thou wilt see that the social and political system of the
gospel is the only kingdom that can ever banish crime, hatred, and
selfishness out of human life, and so regenerate the world; thou wilt
see that the Scribes and Pharisees persecuted our Lord because his
kingdom excluded war, slavery, private-property rights, estates, rank,
offices, prerogatives--of all which things they were 'covetous'--just as
the Romans and all other established governments persecute the
Christians, even unto this day, for the same reasons. For Christ
desireth the brotherhood of men; the liberty and equality of men; and
that the average talents, energy, and prosperity of all may insure the
common weal; and not that some shall be emperors, lords, and masters,
whereby it cometh to pass that many must be slaves; not that some be
inordinately rich, and others distressfully poor."
"I will read the gospels and the Acts again in the light of thine
instructions," said Am-nem-hat. "But, verily, many passages thereof
already come crowding into my mind that bear new and potent meanings;
for I perceive clearly enough that Christianity is not only a system of
spiritual truth, but also of social and political truth, that is founded
upon the faith, and from that basis assaulteth selfishness in its strong
citadel of private rights by elevating the common good into a higher
thing than private aggrandizement, and separating the people of his
kingdom from all personal honors, prerogatives, and wealth, after which
the Gentiles seek."
"Thou wilt perceive this all the more clearly," said Ammonius, "if thou
wilt reread the gospels with this thought in thy mind; for thou wilt at
once perceive that many passages, which in any other view would seem
strongly tainted with fanaticism, or rhapsody, or demagoguery, are
precisely the things which Jesus ought to have said if his kingdom was,
indeed, a social and political democracy founded upon faith and
community of rights and property. For the Jews, who supposed that our
Lord would overturn the Roman authority and establish a great
Israelitish nation instead thereof, were not any more in error than are
those who falsely suppose that he would establish no kingdom at all, and
that he taught only spiritual truth, as do the Therapeutae."
"I am familiar with the work of Philo 'On a Contemplative Life, or the
Devout,'" answered Am-nem-hat, "in which he giveth a full and succinct
account of the Therapeutae; but, indeed, I had supposed that he therein
intended to describe the first heralds of the gospel, and the practices
handed down from the apostles."
"Beyond doubt the Therapeutae were Christians," continued Ammonius, "but
they separated themselves from the apostolical churches in order to lead
a more devout life, and they gradually exalted all their conceptions of
spiritual truth until they began to despise all temporal surroundings;
and in this they departed from the teaching of our Lord: for there is no
teacher of men more free from asceticism or stoicism than is Jesus. He
was ever busied about and interested in the common, every-day life of
common men; he was touched with the feeling of our infirmity in all
things; sympathized in all the joys and sorrows of those about him,
their trials and triumphs, seeking to lead them, not out of the world,
but into a way of life wherein every pure and wholesome feeling,
affection, and faculty of the human heart might find full development,
exercise, and satisfaction. The vast difference, indeed, between Jesus
and the philosophers subsists in the fact that, while they were ever
painfully seeking for rules and actions by which the select and favored
few might attain a perfect human life, he ordained a simple, perfect
system by which to bring the higher, purer life within the reach of all
men, especially the poor."
In such conversations the time passed quickly; and it was strange to
note with what deep interest the sorrowful Hatasa, and also Theckla and
Arius, listened to every word, and strove to catch the full
signification of every phrase; while Arete heard it patiently, as one
might listen to an oft-told but still pleasant story, and old Thopt, as
if she knew little and cared less about the whole matter, being
satisfied that whatever Ammonius and his wife might do must be right and
true.