Part 7
Christianity Rests Upon a Dream.
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." (Mat. 1 : 18-20.)
"Before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Ghost."
1. How could any one but Mary say who the father of the child was?
2. If the conception was miraculous then neither Mary nor any one else could know ought of the paternity of the child.
3. Mary says nothing about the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost.
4. Who found out that Joseph had had such a dream?
5. Was it duly reported and verified then and there?
6. The book that relates the dream is anonymous and does not appear in history until A. D. 180-182.
7. The writers of the other three gospels know nothing of this dream.
8. There is no evidence that the writer of the first gospel ever personally knew Mary.
9. Luke (1 : 30) says that it was to Mary that the angel of the Lord appeared.
10. Only a dream! The corner-stone of Christianity rests upon a dream! Take away this dream and Christianity has nothing left.
THE GOLDEN RULE.
The moral teachings of the Bible are not original. Back of the pyramids in pre-historic times mothers taught their children to be kind to each other. Not from heaven but out of the human heart came the golden rule. A mother's love was sufficient to reveal this best rule of life. Human inspiration is the only inspiration needed to call forth the expression--"Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you."
Sixty years before the Christian era, Hellel, a Jewish rabbi wrote: "Do not do to others, what you would not like others to do to you."
Two hundred and eighty years before Christ, Epicurus said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Three hundred and fifty years before Christ, Socrates said: "Act toward others as you desire them to act toward you."
Three hundred and seventy years before Christ, Aristippus said: "Cherish reciprocal benevolence, which will make you as anxious for another's welfare as your own."
Three hundred and eighty-five years before Christ, Aristotle wrote: "We should conduct ourselves toward others, as we would have them act toward us."
Four hundred years before Christ, Sextus said: "What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them."
Four hundred and twenty years before Christ, Plato wrote: "May I do to others as I would have them do to me."
Five hundred years before Christ, Confucius taught: "Do unto another what you would have him do to you, and do not to another what you would not have him do unto you: it is the foundation principle of all the rest." (24th Maxim Confucius.) Jesus concludes by saying, "For this is the law and the prophets," and Confucius closes his rule by observing, "Thou only needst this law alone; it is the foundation and principle of all the rest."
And it should not be overlooked that Jesus, in thus attributing the golden rule to "the law and the prophets," disclaims its authorship. Confucius does the same.
Six hundred years before Christ, Thales said: "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."
Six hundred and fifty years before Christ, Pittacus taught: "Do not do to your neighbor what you would take ill from him."
"That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament contains no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the apostolic writings are quotations from Pagan authors, are well known to every scholar; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an objection against Christianity, it is a strong recommendation of it, as indicating the intimate relation between the doctrines of Christ and the moral sympathies of mankind in different ages. But to assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues on the part of the assertor, either gross ignorance or else wilful fraud." (Buckle, "History of Civilization," vol. 1, p. 129.)
"Did space admit, I could cite numerous passages from Enoch in close correspondence with the New Testament scripture, in many cases almost word for word. In that book, as in the Talmud, and as was held by the Jews in general (saving the Sadducees), may be found the exact doctrines taught by Jesus relative to the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, the punishment of the wicked in everlasting fire, and the reward of the righteous in heaven. The eschatology of Jesus is borrowed in toto from that prevalent in Judea during his lifetime. Not one single new idea respecting the 'four final things,' death, judgment, heaven, and hell, can be found in Jesus' teachings as embodied in the gospels."--Wm. Emmette Coleman.
Jesus an Essene.
"Of the resemblance between the Essenes and the followers of Christ in their principles and practices, I will let a Christian writer speak--Christian D. Ginsburg, LL. D., who is a leading contributor to Alexander's new edition of Kitto's Cyclopedia, the most orthodox of the chief English Bible dictionaries. I will read a few extracts from an essay entitled, 'The Essenes Their History and Doctrines.' Dr. Ginsburg says: 'The identity of many of the precepts and practices of Essenism and Christianity is unquestionable. Essenism urged on its disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; so did Christ. (Mat. 6 : 33, and Luke 12 : 31.) The Essenes forbade the laying up of treasures upon earth; so did Christ. (Mat. 6 : 19, 21.) The Essenes demanded of those who wished to join them, to sell all their possessions, and to divide it among the poor brethren; so Christ. (Mat. 19 : 21, and Luke 12 : 33.) The Essenes had all things in common, and appointed one of the brethren as steward to manage the common bag; so the primitive Christians. (Acts 2 : 44, 45; 4 : 32, 34, and John 12 : 6; 13 : 29.) Essenism regarded all its members on the same level, forbidding the exercise of authority of one over the other, and enjoining mutual service; so Christ. (Mat. 20 : 25-28, and Mark 9 : 35, 37; 10 : 42, 45.) Essenism commanded its disciples to call no man master upon the earth; so Christ. (Mat. 23 : 8, 9.) Essenism laid the greatest stress on being meek and lowly in spirit; so Christ. (Mat. 5 : 5, 29.)
'Christ commended the poor in spirit, those who hunger after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart and the peacemakers; so the Essenes.... Christ combined the healing of the body with that of the soul; so the Essenes. Like the Essenes, Christ declared that the power to cast out evil spirits, to perform miraculous cures, etc., should be possessed by his disciples as signs of their belief. (Mark 16 : 17; comp. also Mat. 10 : 8, and Luke 9 : 1, 2; 10 : 9.) Like the Essenes, Christ commanded his disciples not to swear at all, but to say yea, yea, and nay, nay. The manner in which Christ directed his disciples to go on their journey (Mat. 10 : 9, 10) is the same which the Essenes adopted when they started on a mission of mercy. The Essenes, though repudiating offensive war, yet took weapons with them when they went on a perilous journey: Christ enjoined his disciples to do the same thing. (Luke 22 : 36.) Christ commended that elevated spiritual life, which enables a man to abstain from marriage for the kingdom of heaven's sake, and which cannot be attained by all men save those to whom it is given (Mat. 19 : 10-12; comp. also 1 Cor. 8); so the Essenes, who, as a body, in waiting for the kingdom of heaven, abstained from connubial intercourse. The Essenes did not offer animal sacrifices, but strove to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, unto God, which they regarded as a reasonable service; the apostle Paul exhorts the Romans to do the same. (Rom. 12 : 1.) It was the great aim of the Essenes to live such a life of purity and holiness as to be the temples of the holy spirit and to be able to prophesy; the apostle Paul urges the Corinthians to covet to prophesy. (1 Cor. 14 : 1, 39.) When Christ pronounced John to be Elias (Mat. 11 : 14), he declared that the Baptist had already attained to that spirit and power which the Essenes strove to obtain in their highest stage of purity. It will therefore hardly be doubted that our Savior himself belonged to this holy brotherhood. This will especially be apparent when we remember that the whole Jewish community, at the advent of Christ, was divided into three parties, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and that every Jew had to belong to one of these sects. Jesus, who in all things conformed to Jewish law, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, would naturally associate himself with that order of Judaism which was most congenial to his holy nature. Moreover, the fact that Christ, with the exception of once, was not heard of in public till his thirtieth year, implying that he lived in seclusion with this fraternity, and that though he frequently rebuked the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, he never denounced the Essenes, strongly confirms this conclusion.... The accounts given by Josephus first mentioned their existence in the days of Jonathan the Maccabaean, B. C. 166; and they most unquestionably show that the Essenes existed at least two centuries before the Christian era, and that they at first lived among the Jewish community at large. Their residence at Jerusalem is also evident from the fact that there was a gate named after them. When they ultimately withdrew themselves from the rest of the Jewish nation, the majority of them settled on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, sufficiently distant to escape its noxious exhalations, and the rest lived in scattered communities throughout Palestine and Syria. Both Philo and Josephus estimated them to be above four thousand in number. This must have been exclusive of women and children. We hear very little of them after this period (that is, 40 A. D.); and there can hardly be any doubt that, owing to the great similarity which existed between their precepts and practices, and those of the primitive Christians, the Essenes, as a body, must have embraced Christianity.'"--Underwood, in Underwood-Marples Debate.
Jesus' Teachings Not up to the Moral Standard of To-day.
1. Jesus failed to explicitly teach any of the cardinal human virtues. If he taught kindness and forgiveness it was usually at the expense of justice.
2. He nowhere explains and inspires self-reliance and individual liberty.
3. He nowhere condemns kingcraft, priestcraft and tyranny. He opposes their abuses, but not the radical evils out of which they spring.
4. He has no just ideas of marriage and divorce.
5. He nowhere explains the nature of heaven and hell.
6. He does not teach the value of economy and thrift, but turns people loose with the notion that they must take no thought for the morrow.
The following saying of Jesus exhibits the lack of a high moral sense of justice, and also the fact that he does not pretend to be the savior of the whole human race. He said to his own countrymen: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins be forgiven them. (Mark 4 : 11.)
From this we learn that Jesus did not desire to save the Gentiles; the parabolical style was used in order to prevent them from becoming converted and having their sins pardoned.
In addition to this imperfection of the moral sense, Jesus was sometimes unforgiving in his spirit and practice. He says on one occasion: "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven." (Mat. 10 : 33.)
It is true that he taught his disciples to love their enemies, but it is a precept he did not observe himself; he allowed himself to speak of those who did not accept his teachings as, "fools," "hypocrites," "thieves," "serpents," "vipers," and many other abusive epithets, which clearly exhibit on his part anger and hatred. We have another instance of his unforgiving spirit in that myth of the dying thief on the cross. It is there recorded that Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of his enemies, but had he been consistent with that prayer, he would not have pardoned one thief without also pardoning the other. When he could ask God to forgive his enemies, it would have been demanded by his own rule, that he also forgive them; but, on the contrary, he only forgives the malefactor who spoke words in his praise. This spirit is carried out in the doctrine of future rewards and punishments.
Jesus Exhibits an Imperfect Sense of Justice.
In failing to recognize the rights of property; in his denunciation of the rich; in his teachings of submission to wrong; in his professing to pardon sin, even before it is asked for, Jesus errs. This moral sense is lacking in his teachings concerning God. Take this as an illustration: "Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." (Luke 11 : 15.)
And so it is with God, he leads us to believe, for though he is our friend he will not grant our requests; but if we annoy and tease him, at last, worn out, he will answer our prayers to get rid of us. Therefore, "Ask and it shall be given you; for every one that asketh receiveth."
The parable of the unfortunate widow is another instance in point: "There was in a city a judge who feared not God, neither regarded man [same kind of judges in our cities now]. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while; but afterwards he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." (Luke 18 : 2-6.) It is just so in praying to God. He may not hear you or heed you at first, yet by a "continual coming and troubling him," he must of necessity at last become weary and grant you the desires of your heart, in order to escape being troubled.
At one time the scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been taken in the act of adultery, and asked for his judgment. He said: "He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her." This was a well-directed rebuke, and they felt it, and they "went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last." Then Jesus, standing alone with the woman, asks, "Woman where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." (John 8 : 7-11.)
In all parts of the Bible adultery is condemned, and by all civil laws it is now prohibited, and all religious teaching forbids it, and there is no reason in this case why Jesus should not have condemned the act, even while he showed mercy to the actor. Here as elsewhere Jesus shows mercy at the expense of justice. Were these principles carried out in life, the criminal would go untried and unpunished.
"Go into the village over against you, and straightway you shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them unto me. And if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them, and straightway he will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass. And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, and the colt, and put on their clothes, and set him thereon." (Mat. 21 : 2-7.)
The writer would have us believe that Jesus rode upon two asses at once; but the prophet who could invent such a story must have been an ass himself to suppose that Jesus could ride upon two donkeys of such unequal size at one time. It was not the prophet, however, who perpetrated this outrage upon common sense, but the writer of Matthew, whoever he was. Mark, Luke, and John mentioned the affair, and all agree in speaking of one ass only. Had the writer read the prophet aright, he would have quoted it differently, "Behold thy King cometh unto thee, ... lowly, and sitting upon an ass; even a colt, the foal of an ass." (Zech. 9 : 9.)
Another instance of this disregard of the interests of others is exhibited by Jesus where he casts the devils out of two men and permits them to enter the swine, "and the swine ran down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters." Mark (5 : 12) says there were about two thousand head, but there is not a word said about the equity of the proceeding. In this case Jesus does not offer any compensation for the destruction of property which had been caused by him.
He does not make even an apology or an explanation. No wonder, then, that the people became alarmed at this and asked him to go on his journey with as little delay as possible: "The whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts." (Mat. 8 : 34.)
Another instance of this lack of the sense of justice is displayed in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The one goes to heaven, that is, to Abraham's bosom, because he was poor, and the other to hell, because he was rich. Say what we may our civilization is built upon wealth. Civilization, the highest and noblest estate of man, is achieved by the utter repudiation of poverty. The legitimate love of money is the spur of all human progress. Civilization would speedily degenerate into barbarism if this respect for property was removed.
His views of poverty are in harmony with his teachings on other human interests: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;" "Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." How evident it is that one of the most essential virtues of life is here repudiated.
Thoughtfulness about the future is a distinguishing trait of a wise man. To take no thought for the morrow would be as foolish as for one to bind himself hand and foot on the approach of his enemy. Science inspires man with earnest inquiry about the morrow, and also enables him by his perception of it how better to live to-day.
"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away." (Mat. 5 : 42.) Society as it now exists would not last a single day if his command were obeyed. Borrowing and lending is poor business, even as it is now carried on, but what it would become under the universal practice it would be impossible to guess.
"And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again." (Luke 6 : 34.) So impracticable a precept is this, that no people have ever practiced it, nor could it be carried out without the demoralization and overthrow of civilization.
Jesus Teaches the Duty of Submission to Wrong.
The general doctrines of resignation and contentment are incompatible with strength of character and progress in life. The most worthy members of society everywhere are just those people who have the least resignation and contentment. Jesus does not seem to have cherished these conditions himself. He was neither contented nor resigned to the social status about him. "The powers that be" did not seem to him to be from above, but from beneath, and he accordingly waged war upon the existing social evils. But Jesus also teaches the duty of submission to wrong: "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other; and 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 6 : 29, 30.) Just think of it! "And of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again." Society would be overthrown in a day if this command was carried out. We should have no commerce, no law protecting our various interests, no civilized society. Paul echoes the same notion when he says, "Now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" (1 Cor. 6 : 7.)
Suffer yourselves to be defrauded! If human life has any virtue at all, it surely consists in some degree in doing the very opposite, that is, in not suffering ourselves to be defrauded. It is true that love seems at first sight to be an all-important virtue, and one incapable of abuse; but such love as induces us to submit to wrong is spurious. In the world as it exists about us, we are culpable when we suffer ourselves to be defrauded. The common virtues which are recognized by all men are courage and resistance to wrong. Everywhere our eyes turn, we look to see the hero who nobly resists the wrongs and frauds which the powerful perpetrate upon the weak and helpless. "Resistance to tyrants is the will of God" is the modern conception of duty. And in accordance therewith we have laws prohibiting wrong and fraud. Besides there is no manliness, self-reliance, or self-respect compatible with such craven submission, which is spiritless and purposeless. John Stuart Mill observes of Christianity: "Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; innocence rather than nobleness; abstinence from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good. In its precepts (as has been well said), 'thou shalt not' predominates over 'thou shalt.'"
Immoral Teachings of Jesus.
"Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay; but rather division." (Luke 12 : 51.)
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Mat. 10 : 35.)
"I am come to send fire on earth; and what will I, that it be already kindled." (Luke 12 : 49.)
"For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
"The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law." (Luke 12 : 52, 53.)
"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." (Luke 14 : 26.)
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I come not to send peace, but a sword." (Mat. 10 : 34.)
"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." (Mat. 10 : 21.)
"And they said unto him, Lord, behold here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough." (Luke 22 : 38.)