I NOW understood the words of Jesus: "_Ye have heard that it hath been
said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you,
That ye resist not evil._" Jesus' meaning is: "You have thought that you
were acting in a reasonable manner in defending yourself by violence
against evil, in tearing out an eye for an eye, by fighting against evil
with criminal tribunals, guardians of the peace, armies; but I say unto
you, Renounce violence; have nothing to do with violence; do harm to no
one, not even to your enemy." I understood now that in saying "_Resist
not evil_," Jesus not only told us what would result from the observance
of this rule, but established a new basis for society conformable to his
doctrine and opposed to the social basis established by the law of
Moses, by Roman law, and by the different codes in force to-day. He
formulated a new law whose effect would be to deliver humanity from its
self-inflicted woes. His declaration was: "You believe that your laws
reform criminals; as a matter of fact, they only make more criminals.
There is only one way to suppress evil, and that is to return good for
evil, without respect of persons. For thousands of years you have tried
the other method; now try mine, try the reverse."
Strange to say, in these later days, I talked with different persons
about this commandment of Jesus, "_Resist not evil_," and rarely found
any one to coincide with my opinion! Two classes of men would never,
even by implication, admit the literal interpretation of the law. These
men were at the extreme poles of the social scale,--they were the
conservative Christian patriots who maintained the infallibility of the
Church, and the atheistic revolutionists. Neither of these two classes
was willing to renounce the right to resist by violence what they
regarded as evil. And the wisest and most intelligent among them would
not acknowledge the simple and evident truth, that if we once admit the
right of any man to resist by violence what he regards as evil, every
other man has equally the right to resist by violence what he regards as
evil.
Not long ago I had in my hands an interesting correspondence between an
orthodox Slavophile and a Christian revolutionist. The one advocated
violence as a partisan of a war for the relief of brother Slavs in
bondage; the other, as a partisan of revolution, in the name of our
brothers the oppressed Russian peasantry. Both invoked violence, and
each based himself upon the doctrine of Jesus. The doctrine of Jesus is
understood in a hundred different ways; but never, unhappily, in the
simple and direct way which harmonizes with the inevitable meaning of
Jesus' words.
Our entire social fabric is founded upon principles that Jesus reproved;
we do not wish to understand his doctrine in its simple and direct
acceptation, and yet we assure ourselves and others that we follow his
doctrine, or else that his doctrine is not expedient for us. Believers
profess that Christ as God, the second person of the Trinity, descended
upon earth to teach men by his example how to live; they go through the
most elaborate ceremonies for the consummation of the sacraments, the
building of temples, the sending out of missionaries, the establishment
of priesthoods, for parochial administration, for the performance of
rituals; but they forget one little detail,--the practice of the
commandments of Jesus. Unbelievers endeavor in every possible way to
organize their existence independent of the doctrine of Jesus, they
having decided _a priori_ that this doctrine is of no account. But to
endeavor to put his teachings in practice, this each refuses to do; and
the worst of it is, that without any attempt to put them in practice,
both believers and unbelievers decide _a priori_ that it is impossible.
Jesus said, simply and clearly, that the law of resistance to evil by
violence, which has been made the basis of society, is false, and
contrary to man's nature; and he gave another basis, that of
non-resistance to evil, a law which, according to his doctrine, would
deliver man from wrong. "You believe" (he says in substance) "that your
laws, which resort to violence, correct evil; not at all; they only
augment it. For thousands of years you have tried to destroy evil by
evil, and you have not destroyed it; you have only augmented it. Do as I
command you, follow my example, and you will know that my doctrine is
true." Not only in words, but by his acts, by his death, did Jesus
propound his doctrine, "_Resist not evil_."
Believers listen to all this. They hear it in their churches, persuaded
that the words are divine; they worship Jesus as God, and then they say:
"All this is admirable, but it is impossible; as society is now
organized, it would derange our whole existence, and we should be
obliged to give up the customs that are so dear to us. We believe it
all, but only in this sense: That it is the ideal toward which humanity
ought to move; the ideal which is to be attained by prayer, and by
believing in the sacraments, in the redemption, and in the resurrection
of the dead."
The others, the unbelievers, the free-thinkers who comment on the
doctrine of Jesus, the historians of religions, the Strausses, the
Renans,--completely imbued with the teachings of the Church, which says
that the doctrine of Jesus accords with difficulty with our conceptions
of life,--tell us very seriously that the doctrine of Jesus is the
doctrine of a visionary, the consolation of feeble minds; that it was
all very well preached in the fishermen's huts by Galilee; but that for
us it is only the sweet dream of one whom Renan calls the "charmant
docteur."
In their opinion, Jesus could not rise to the heights of wisdom and
culture attained by our civilization. If he had been on an intellectual
level with his modern critics, he never would have uttered his charming
nonsense about the birds of the air, the turning of the other cheek, the
taking no thought for the morrow. These historical critics judge of the
value of Christianity by what they see of it as it now exists. The
Christianity of our age and civilization approves of society as it now
is, with its prison-cells, its factories, its houses of infamy, its
parliaments; but as for the doctrine of Jesus, which is opposed to
modern society, it is only empty words. The historical critics see this,
and, unlike the so-called believers, having no motives for concealment,
submit the doctrine to a careful analysis; they refute it
systematically, and prove that Christianity is made up of nothing but
chimerical ideas.
It would seem that before deciding upon the doctrine of Jesus, it would
be necessary to understand of what it consisted; and to decide whether
his doctrine is reasonable or not, it would be well first to realize
that he said exactly what he did say. And this is precisely what we do
not do, what the Church commentators do not do, what the free-thinkers
do not do--and we know very well why. We know perfectly well that the
doctrine of Jesus is directed at and denounces all human errors, all
_tohu_, all the empty idols that we try to except from the category of
errors, by dubbing them "Church," "State," "Culture," "Science," "Art,"
"Civilization." But Jesus spoke precisely of all these, of these and all
other _tohu_. Not only Jesus, but all the Hebrew prophets, John the
Baptist, all the true sages of the world denounced the Church and State
and culture and civilization of their times as sources of man's
perdition.
Imagine an architect who says to a house-owner, "Your house is good for
nothing; you must rebuild it," and then describes how the supports are
to be cut and fastened. The proprietor turns a deaf ear to the words,
"Your house is good for nothing," and only listens respectfully when the
architect begins to discuss the arrangement of the rooms. Evidently, in
this case, all the subsequent advice of the architect will seem to be
impracticable; less respectful proprietors would regard it as
nonsensical. But it is precisely in this way that we treat the doctrine
of Jesus. I give this illustration for want of a better. I remember now
that Jesus in teaching his doctrine made use of the same comparison.
"_Destroy this temple_," he said, "_and in three days I will raise it
up_." It was for this they put him on the cross, and for this they now
crucify his doctrine.
The least that can be asked of those who pass judgment upon any doctrine
is that they shall judge of it with the same understanding as that with
which it was propounded. Jesus understood his doctrine, not as a vague
and distant ideal impossible of attainment, not as a collection of
fantastic and poetical reveries with which to charm the simple
inhabitants on the shores of Galilee; to him his doctrine was a doctrine
of action, of acts which should become the salvation of mankind. This he
showed in his manner of applying his doctrine. The crucified one who
cried out in agony of spirit and died for his doctrine was not a
dreamer; he was a man of action. They are not dreamers who have died,
and still die, for his doctrine. No; that doctrine is not a chimera!
All doctrine that reveals the truth is chimerical to the blind. We may
say, as many people do say (I was of the number), that the doctrine of
Jesus is chimerical because it is contrary to human nature. It is
against nature, we say, to turn the other cheek when we have been
struck, to give all that we possess, to toil not for ourselves but for
others. It is natural, we say, for a man to defend his person, his
family, his property; that is to say, it is the nature of man to
struggle for existence. A learned person has proved scientifically that
the most sacred duty of man is to defend his rights, that is, to fight.
But the moment we detach ourselves from the idea that the existing
organization established by man is the best, is sacred, the moment we do
this, the objection that the doctrine of Jesus is contrary to human
nature turns immediately upon him who makes it. No one will deny that
not only to kill or torture a man, but to torture a dog, to kill a fowl
or a calf, is to inflict suffering reproved by human nature. (I have
known of farmers who had ceased to eat meat solely because it had
fallen to their lot to slaughter animals.) And yet our existence is so
organized that every personal enjoyment is purchased at the price of
human suffering contrary to human nature.
We have only to examine closely the complicated mechanism of our
institutions that are based upon coercion to realize that coercion and
violence are contrary to human nature. The judge who has condemned
according to the code, is not willing to hang the criminal with his own
hands; no clerk would tear a villager from his weeping family and cast
him into prison; the general or the soldier, unless he be hardened by
discipline and service, will not undertake to slay a hundred Turks or
Germans or destroy a village, would not, if he could help it, kill a
single man. Yet all these things are done, thanks to the administrative
machinery which divides responsibility for misdeeds in such a way that
no one feels them to be contrary to nature.
Some make the laws, others execute them; some train men by discipline to
automatic obedience; and these last, in their turn, become the
instruments of coercion, and slay their kind without knowing why or to
what end. But let a man disentangle himself for a moment from this
complicated network, and he will readily see that coercion is contrary
to his nature. Let us abstain from affirming that organized violence, of
which we make use to our own profit, is a divine, immutable law, and we
shall see clearly which is most in harmony with human nature,--the
doctrine of violence or the doctrine of Jesus.
What is the law of nature? Is it to know that my security and that of my
family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of
misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings--by the
terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling within
prison walls; by the fear inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians
of civilization, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to
protect our pleasures with loaded revolvers against the possible
interference of the famishing? Is it to purchase every fragment of bread
that I put in my mouth and the mouths of my children by the numberless
privations that are necessary to procure my abundance? Or is it to be
certain that my piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that every
one else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat?
It is only necessary to understand that, thanks to our social
organization, each one of our pleasures, every minute of our cherished
tranquility, is obtained by the sufferings and privations of thousands
of our fellows--it is only necessary to understand this, to know what is
conformable to human nature; not to our animal nature alone, but the
animal and spiritual nature which constitutes man. When we once
understand the doctrine of Jesus in all its bearings, with all its
consequences, we shall be convinced that his doctrine is not contrary to
human nature; but that its sole object is to supplant the chimerical
law of the struggle against evil by violence--itself the law contrary
to human nature and productive of so many evils.
Do you say that the doctrine of Jesus, "_Resist not evil_," is vain?
What, then, are we to think of the lives of those who are not filled
with love and compassion for their kind,--of those who make ready for
their fellow-men punishment at the stake, by the knout, the wheel, the
rack, chains, compulsory labor, the gibbet, dungeons, prisons for women
and children, the hecatombs of war, or bring about periodical
revolutions; of those who carry these horrors into execution; of those
who benefit by these calamities or prepare reprisals,--are not such
lives vain?
We need only understand the doctrine of Jesus, to be convinced that
existence,--not the reasonable existence which gives happiness to
humanity, but the existence men have organized to their own hurt,--that
such an existence is a vanity, the most savage and horrible of vanities,
a veritable delirium of folly, to which, once reclaimed, we do not again
return.
God descended to earth, became incarnate to redeem Adam's sin, and (so
we were taught to believe) said many mysterious and mystical things
which are difficult to understand, which it is not possible to
understand except by the aid of faith and grace--and suddenly the words
of God are found to be simple, clear, and reasonable! God said, Do no
evil, and evil will cease to exist. Was the revelation from God really
so simple--nothing but that? It would seem that every one might
understand it, it is so simple!
The prophet Elijah, a fugitive from men, took refuge in a cave, and was
told that God would appear to him. There came a great wind that
devastated the forest; Elijah thought that the Lord had come, but the
Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came the thunder and the
lightning, but God was not there. Then came the earthquake: the earth
belched forth fire, the rocks were shattered, the mountain was rent to
its foundations; Elijah looked for the Lord, but the Lord was not in the
earthquake. Then, in the calm that followed, a gentle breeze came to the
prophet, bearing the freshness of the fields; and Elijah knew that God
was there. It is a magnificent illustration of the words, "_Resist not
evil_."
They are very simple, these words; but they are, nevertheless, the
expression of a law divine and human. If there has been in history a
progressive movement for the suppression of evil, it is due to the men
who understood the doctrine of Jesus--who endured evil, and resisted not
evil by violence. The advance of humanity towards righteousness is due,
not to the tyrants, but to the martyrs. As fire cannot extinguish fire,
so evil cannot suppress evil. Good alone, confronting evil and resisting
its contagion, can overcome evil. And in the inner world of the human
soul, the law is as absolute as it was for the hearers by Galilee, more
absolute, more clear, more immutable. Men may turn aside from it, they
may hide its truth from others; but the progress of humanity towards
righteousness can only be attained in this way. Every step must be
guided by the command, "_Resist not evil_." A disciple of Jesus may say
now, with greater assurance than they of Galilee, in spite of
misfortunes and threats: "And yet it is not violence, but good, that
overcomes evil." If the progress is slow, it is because the doctrine of
Jesus (which, through its clearness, simplicity, and wisdom, appeals so
inevitably to human nature), because the doctrine of Jesus has been
cunningly concealed from the majority of mankind under an entirely
different doctrine falsely called by his name.