CHAPTER XVI. THINGS THAT REMAIN

INDEX

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

THE Eliminator has now been before the public nearly two years. I have seen nothing worthy of the name of criticism respecting it. A few Unitarian ministers have said that Christ must have been a person instead of a personification, for the reason that men could not have conceived of such a perfect character without a living example, and that the great influence exercised by him for so long a time, over so many people, proves him to have been an historic character. These arguments are anticipated and fully answered. (See pp. 283, 284, 306.)

Our Unitarian friends are the greatest _idealists_ upon the globe! They only accept the Gospel biography of Jesus (and we have no other) just so far as the story accords with what they think it ought to be. They deny the immaculate conception and miraculous birth of the Christ, and have very great doubts about his crucifixion and resurrection. Their Christ is purely _ideal_. The fact is that Christendom has worshipped the literal Jesus for the ideal Christ for nearly twenty centuries, though their conceptions of him have been manifold and contradictory. No wonder that so many intelligent Christian sects in the early ages of the church utterly denied the existence of Jesus as an historic person. (See pp. 266, 267, 357.) But there is indubitable evidence that this _Christ character_ (called by many Unitarians the “Universal Christ”) was mainly _mythical, drawn from the astrological riddles of the older Pagan mythologies._

In fact, almost everything in Christianity seems to have been an _afterthought_. It is the least original of any of the ten great religions of the world, and the great mistake has been in making almost everything _literal_ which the wise men of ancient times regarded as _allegorical_. This comes from the priestly attempt to identify the _Jewish Jesus_ with the _Oriental Christ_ Tradition is, in fact, the main foundation of the Christian scheme, and cunning sacerdotalists have done by artifice what history, in fact, has failed to do. But for its moral precepts and its “enthusiasm of humanity,” Christianity would not survive for a single century. The so-called “Apostles’ Creed” (which was not formulated until centuries after the last Apostle slept in the grave), and which is repeated in so many churches every Sunday, has a greater number of historical and theological misstatements than any other writing of the same length now extant!

There is in our day a general disposition to magnify the virtues of the Christ of the New Testament, connected with a proposition to unite all Christians in his leadership. This device will not succeed, because it is as impossible to found a perfect religion upon an imperfect man as it is upon a fallible Book. Lovers of the truth will show that the traditional Christ is not a perfect model. (See Chapter xiii.) There is a most significant sense in which it may be truthfully said: “Never man spake like this man,” as no great moral teacher ever uttered so many things that needed to be revised and explained!

May it not be the fact that both Catholic and Protestant Christians are under a great delusion as to the facts of religion? I think so. I believe so. I well know how difficult it is to explode a delusion that is nearly twenty centuries old, and that is supported by a sacerdotalism of vast wealth and learning, and whose votaries by “this craft have their wealth.”

I nail these _Thèses_ to the church doors of all the Catholics and Protestants in Christendom, and with Martin Luther, at the Diet of Worms, I exclaim, “Here I stand. I cannot move! God help me!” If I am mistaken, then my reason is at fault and all history is a lie! It is said that when Renan died, the Pope inquired whether he had confessed before his de-cease, and upon being told that he had not, replied, “Well, then God will have to save him for his sincerity!” I am ready to be judged on this ground. I sum up my latest conclusions thus: The Jesus of the Gospels is _traditional_, the Christ of the New Testament is _mythical_.

R. B. WESTBROOK.

1707 Oxford Street,

Philadelphia.

October 1, 1894.

PREFACE

Many things in this book will greatly shock, and even give heartfelt pain to, numerous persons whom I greatly respect. I have a large share of the love of approbation, and naturally desire the good opinion of those with whom I have been associated in a long life. There is no pleasure in the fact that I have to stand quite alone in the eyes of nearly all Christendom. There is no satisfaction in being deemed a disturber of the peace of the great majority of those “professing and calling themselves Christians.” But, at the same time, I must not be indifferent in matters where I believe truth is concerned.

Before I withdrew from the orthodox ministry I used to wonder why God in his gracious providence had not seen fit to so order events as to give us a credible and undoubted history of the incarnation and birth of his Son Jesus Christ, and why that Saviour, who had come to repair the great evils inflicted upon our race by Adam, had never once mentioned that unfortunate fall.

I do not deny that there was a person named Jesus nearly nineteen hundred years ago. I think there were several persons bearing this name and who were contemporaneous, and that several of them were very good men; but that any one of them was _such_ a person as is described in the Gospels I cannot believe. I lay special emphasis on the word such. Admitting for the sake of the argument the real, historical personality of Jesus of Nazareth, he has by the process of _idealization_ become an _impersonation_, and I have so attempted to make it appear; and I cannot but think that this view is not inconsistent with the most enlightened piety and religious devotion, while this explanation relieves us of many things which are absurd and contradictory.

I desire to explain more fully than appears in the _Table of Contents_ the plan of this book. I first combat the policy of _suppression and deception_, and insist that the whole truth shall be published, and have shown that sacerdotalism is responsible for the fact that it has not been done. As so-called Christianity is based upon Judaism, I undertake to show the fabulous character of many of the claims of the Jews, disclaiming all intention to asperse the character of Israelites of the present generation.

I thought it proper in this connection to give the substance of an _open letter_ to the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on _Moses and the Pentateuch_—to which His Honor never responded—showing that the “law of Sinai was not the first of which we have any knowledge,” and that Moses was not “the greatest statesman and lawgiver the world had ever produced,” as the Chief-Justice had affirmed in a lecture before the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Presenting brief views of the symbolic character of the Old Testament, and showing how “Astral Keys” unlock many Bible stories, I undertake to show that the so-called fall of Adam is a _fable_, nothing more; and then, as the _first_ Adam is shown to be a _myth_, I go in search for the “_last Adam_.” Finding no knowledge of such a person except in the New Testament, I deem it necessary to briefly show the character of this book, that it may be determined how far it should be received as evidence in a matter of so much importance. Then in five chapters, more or less connected, I combat the idea of the historical, or rather _traditional_, Jesus, and follow with an examination of the evangelical dogma of _Blood-Salvation_, and close with a very brief summary of the _Things that Remain_ as the foundation of faith.

I do not expect _caste_ clergymen to read this book any farther than is necessary to denounce it. It is their way of meeting questions like those herein discussed. I am prepared to have certain _dilettanti_ sneer-ingly say, “This book is of no critical value.” They are so accustomed to “scholarly essays” which “are poetically sentimental and floridly vague” that they have little respect for anything else. The book is intended for the common people, and not for the professional critics.

I do not expect everybody to agree with me, especially at first. Truth can afford to wait, and in years to come many points that I have made, which are now so startling, will be calmly and intelligently accepted.

There are probably mistakes in the book—mistakes in names, in dates, and perhaps in facts; but these will not affect the main argument. No man knows everything. Until recently it was never suspected by the learned world that _The Contemplative Life_ was not written by Philo nearly nineteen centuries ago, instead of being written by a monk in the third century of the Christian era. Even Macaulay and Bancroft have made mistakes, and so have many other authors of good repute.

I have always tried to preserve a _reverent spirit_—a genuine respect for true religion and morality. I have always been profoundly religious, and cannot remember the time when I was not devout. But I do not believe that it is ever proper “to do evil that good may come.” In this work I have sought only the _truth_, in the firm conviction that superstition and falsehood cannot promote a course of _right living_, which is the object and aim of all true religion.

I have a supreme disregard for literary fame. I do not shrink from being called a _compiler_ or even a _plagiarist_. There is absolutely very little of real _originality_ in the world. I could have followed the course of many writers and _absorbed or assimilated_, and thus seemingly made my own what they had written; but I have chosen to quote freely, and so have substantially given the words of many authors of repute, and at the same time saved myself the labor of a re-coining, which does not, after all, deceive the intelligent reader. The books from which I largely quote are mainly voluminous and very expensive, and some of them are out of print. I am indebted to the learned foot-notes of Evan Powell Meredith in his prize essay on _The Prophet of Nazareth_ for several things, and must not fail to acknowledge my obligations to certain living authors for valuable assistance, and especially to my friend Dr. Alexander Wilder, who prepared at my request the substance of Chapter X., _The Drama of the Gospels_, and who, in my judgment, has few superiors in classical and Oriental literature.

I sympathize with those persons who will complain-ingly exclaim, “You have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where you have laid him.” But suppose that we do not _need a Saviour_ in the evangelical sense? Suppose that man has not _fallen_, but that the race has been _rising_ these many centuries; and that while we have mainly to save ourselves, all the good and great men of all ages have aided us in the work of salvation by what they have said and done and suffered, so that instead of one savior we really have had many saviors. I think that this view is more reasonable and consoling than the commercial device of what is called the “scheme of redemption,” besides having scientific facts to sustain it.

I have preserved on the title-page some of my college degrees, to indicate my professional studies of theology and law, and not from motives of pedantry.

R. B. WESTBROOK.

1707 Oxford Street, Philadelphia.

SKELETON KEYS TO SACERDOTAL SECRETS