Communism and Christianism Part 19

One of the critics of Communism and Christianism whose representations are in alignment with several others says:

While the Bishop speaks in the language of scholarship, he entirely ignores all the findings of modern scholars on the literature of the Bible.

The failure to show more clearly that my representations concerning the untenableness of the basic doctrines of Christian supernaturalism are in alignment with the conclusions of outstanding authorities in the newly developed sciences of historical and biblical criticisms is indeed a defect and an attempt will here be made to remove it by a short but faithful and, as I think, convincing summary of what such authorities in these sciences have to say on the subject.

My summary is summarized from a pamphlet by Charles T. Gorham, published by Watts and Company, 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet St., E. C. 4, London, England, which is itself an able summarization of the relevant facts which have been scientifically established as they are given in the greatest of all the Bible Dictionaries, the Encyclopedia Biblica.

It will be seen that all except one among my contentions concerning the baselessness of the supernaturalism of orthodox Christians are well sustained. This exception is the contention that Jesus is not an historical personage, but a fict.i.tious one. However the great critics are unanimously with me even in this, for two crushing facts are admitted by them: (1) the Old Testament affords no scientifically established data from which a reliable history of the Jews can be written, and (2) the New Testament has no such data for a biography of Jesus.

The illuminating summary which is a large part of my answer to the criticism under review follows, and it is as far as possible in the language of Mr. Gorham:

Once upon a time there was a system of Christian Theology. It was a wonderful though a highly artificial structure, composed of fine old crusted dogmas which no one could prove, but very few dared to dispute. There was the "magnified man" in the sky, the Infallible Bible, dictated by the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the Fall, the Atonement, Predestination and Grace, Justification by Faith, a Chosen People, a practically omnipotent Devil, myriads of Evil Spirits, an eternity of bliss to be obtained for nothing, and endless torment for those who did not avail themselves of the offer.

Now the house of cards has tumbled to pieces, or rather it is slowly dissolving, as Shakespeare says, "like the baseless fabric of a vision". The Biblical chronology, history, ethics, all are alike found to be defective and doubtful. Divine Revelation has become discredited; a Human Record takes its place. What has brought about this startling change? The answer is, Knowledge.

Thought, research, criticism, have shown that the traditional theories of the Bible can no longer be maintained. The logic of facts has confirmed the reasonings of the independent thinker, and placed the dogmatist in a dilemma which grows ever more acute. The result is not pleasant for the believer; but it is well that the real state of things should be known, that the kernel of truth should be separated from the overgrown husk of tradition.

During the last few years a work has been issued which sums up the conclusions of modern criticism better than any other book. It is called the Encyclopedia Biblica, and its four volumes tersely and ably set forth the new views, and support them by a ma.s.s of learning which deserves serious consideration. And the most significant thing about it is not merely that the entire doctrinal system of Christianity has undergone a radical change, but that this change has largely been brought about by Christian scholars themselves. A rapid glance at this store-house of the heresy of such scholars will give the reader some idea of the extent of the surrender which Christianity has made to the forces of Rationalism. It must be premised that s.p.a.ce will permit of the conclusions only being given, without the detailed evidence by which they are supported.

Let us begin with our supposed first parents. Is the story of Adam and Eve a true story? There are, we are told, decisive reasons why we cannot regard it as historical, and probably the writer himself never supposed he was relating history.[K]

The Creation story originated in a stock of primitive myths common to the Semitic races, and pa.s.sed through a long period of development before it was incorporated in the book of Genesis. If, then, it is the fact, as Christian scholars a.s.sert, that this story of the Creation originated in a pagan myth, and was shaped and altered by unknown hands for nearly a thousand years, it is nothing more nor less than superst.i.tion to hold that it is divinely true.

As for the Old Testament patriarchs, we now learn that their very existence is uncertain. The tradition concerning Abraham is, as it stands, inadmissible; he is not so much a historical personage as an ideal type of character, whose actual existence is as doubtful as that of other heroes. All the stories of the patriarchs are legendary.

The whole book of Genesis, in fact, is not history at all, as we understand history. Exodus is another composite legend which has long been mistaken for history.

The historical character of Moses has not been established, and it is doubtful whether the name is that of an individual or that of a clan.

The story of his being exposed in an ark of bulrushes is a myth probably derived from the similar and much earlier myth of Sargon.[L]

Turning to the New Testament, we find that modern critical research only brings out more clearly than ever the extraordinary vagueness and uncertainty which enshroud every detail of the narrative. From the article on "Chronology" we learn that everything in the Gospels is too uncertain to be accepted as historical fact. There are numerous questions which it is "wholly impossible to decide". We do not know when Jesus was born, or when he died, or who was his father, or what was the duration of his ministry. As these are matters on which the Gospel writers purport to give information, the fact of their failure to do so settles the question of their competency as historians.

The supposed supernatural birth of Jesus has of late exercised the minds of theologians. It is not surprising that some of them should reject the notion, for it is one without a shred of evidence in its favor. Setting aside the well-known fact that many other religions a.s.sume a similar origin for their founders, we may note the New Testament accounts are in such hopeless conflict with each other that reconciliation is impossible.

The important subject of the "Resurrection" is treated by Professor P.

W. Schmiedel, of Zurich, who tells us that the Gospel accounts "exhibit contradictions of the most glaring kind".

The article on the Gospels by Dr. E. A. Abbott and Professor Schmiedel is crammed with criticism of a kind most damaging to every form of the orthodox faith. The view hitherto current, that the four Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and appeared thirty or forty years after the death of Jesus, can, it is stated, no longer be maintained.

The alleged eclipse of the sun at the Crucifixion is impossible. One of the orthodox shifts respecting this phenomenon is that it was an eclipse of the moon!

Modern criticism decides that no confidence whatever can be placed in the reliability of the Gospels as historical narratives, or in the chronology of the events which they relate. It may even seem to justify a doubt whether any credible elements at all are to be found in them.

Yet it is believed that some such credible elements do exist. Five pa.s.sages prove by their character that Jesus was a real person, and that we have some trustworthy facts about him. These pa.s.sages are: Matthew xii. 31, Mark x. 17, Mark iii. 21, Mark xiii. 32, and Mark xv. 34, and the corresponding pa.s.sage in Matthew xxvii. 46, though these last two are not found in Luke. Four other pa.s.sages have a high degree of probability--viz., Mark viii. 12, Mark vi. 5, Mark viii. 14-21, and Matthew xi. 5, with the corresponding pa.s.sage in Luke vii. 22. These texts, however, disclose nothing of a supernatural character. They merely prove that in Jesus we have to do with a completely human being, and that the divine is to be sought in him only in the form in which it is capable of being found in all men.[M]

The four Gospels were compiled from earlier materials which have perished, and the dates when they first appeared in their present form are given as follows:--Mark, certainly after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70; Matthew, about 119 A. D.; Luke, between 100 and 110; and John, between 132 and 140.

The question of the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles, is now far from being so clear as was once universally supposed. Advanced criticism, Professor Van Manen tells us in his elaborate article on "Paul", has learned to recognize that none of these Epistles are by him, not even the four generally regarded as una.s.sailable. They are not letters to individuals, but books or pamphlets emanating from a particular school.

We know little, in reality, of the facts of Paul's life, or of his death: all is uncertain. The unmistakable traces of late origin indicate that the Epistles probably did not appear till the second century.

The strange book of Revelation is not of purely Christian origin.

Criticism has clearly shown that it can no longer be regarded as a literary unit, but it is an admixture of Jewish with Christian ideas and speculations. Ancient testimony, that of Papias in particular, a.s.sumed the Presbyter John, and not the Apostle, as its author or redactor.

The Epistles of Peter, James and Jude are none of them held to be the work of the Apostles. They probably first saw the light in the second century; the second Epistle of Peter may even belong to the latter half of that period.

All the above conclusions are summarized, as nearly as may be, in the words of the authors of the respective articles. Their significance is surely enormous. Right or wrong, eminent Christian scholars here proclaim results in complete antagonism to the ideas usually accepted as forming the true basis of the Christian faith. They amount, in fact, to a complete and unconditional surrender of the whole dogmatic framework which has. .h.i.therto been held as divinely revealed, and therefore divinely true.

Thomas Paine was a Deist. As such he believed that nature may be compared with a clock and G.o.d with its maker. As the clock maker, under normal conditions, has but little to do with his handiwork, so it has been with the Creator and his universe. The theists of every name (Christian, Jew, Mohammedan and Buddhist), not to speak of others, believe that the universe, with all which therein is, lives, moves and has its being as the result of the willings of their respective G.o.ds.

Though I have my G.o.d, indeed two G.o.ds, one G.o.d in the world of my physical existence--a trinity: matter, force and motion, and another G.o.d in the world of my moral existence--a trinity: fact, truth and life, yet if the rejection of both deism and theism is atheism, I am an atheist.

But a.s.suming for the sake of argument that there is a conscious personal being who has had and is having something to do with making things what they are, I set my seal to this arraignment:

Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests; but for the good of mankind it leads to nothing here or hereafter.

--Thomas Paine.

William Rathbone Greg in his Creed of Christendom says that much of the Old Testament which Christian divines, in their ignorance of Jewish lore, have insisted on receiving and interpreting literally, the informed Rabbis never dreamed of regarding as anything but allegorical.

The literalists they called fools.

Origen and Augustine, the two greatest men which Christianity has produced, would agree with Greg in this. We have already quoted the motto of this section from Origen, and we will now quote this from Augustine:

It very often happens that there is some question as to the earth or the sky, or the other elements of this world, respecting which one who is not a Christian has knowledge derived from most certain reasoning or observation, and it is very disgraceful and mischievous and of all things to be carefully avoided, that a Christian, speaking of such matters as being according to the Christian Scriptures, should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.

FOOTNOTES:

[K] But if Adam and Eve are not historical personages there is no doctrine of supernaturalistic Christianism resting on the solid ground of facts and the whole of its immense dogmatic structure is floating in the air of theories and myths.--Author.

[L] It is questionable whether such persons as Samson, Jonah and Daniel ever lived, but it is certain that their adventures are as mythical as anything in Aesop's Fables.--Author.

[M] But these nine texts which for some years were often triumphantly pointed to as the pillars upon which securely rested the historicalness of Jesus as a man are now lying in the dust where the learned and brilliant Professor William Benjamin Smith of Tulane University put them by his great contribution to the Christological problem in a book, ent.i.tled Ecce Deus in which he, as I think, proves conclusively that the Jesus of the New Testament never was a real man but always an imaginary G.o.d, the Christian recasting of the Jewish G.o.d, a new Jehovah.--Author.

IV. WOULD SOCIALISM CHANGE HUMAN NATURE?

Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever, Or the priests of the b.l.o.o.d.y Faith: They stand on the brink of that mighty river Whose waves they have tainted with death, It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells, Around them it foams and rages and swells, And their swords and their scepters I floating see Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.

--Sh.e.l.ley.

My revolt against the existing capitalist system of economics and the capitalized political and religious systems which support it is complete, and the end which I have in view in this booklet is that of primitive Christianism, as it is taught by Mary in the Magnificat, the putting down of the owning masters of the world and the exaltation of the working slaves, only that I do not recommend, as she did, that the masters should be banished to starve but rather that they should be allowed to become producers and to live then as such, not as robbers, as they now live.

This is bolshevism. It is not anarchy, but a new dictatorship instead of the old, that of the proletariat in place of the bourgeoisie. But this dictatorship (though necessary during the period of transition from the capitalist system, by which commodities are made only for the profit of a few to an industrial system by which they will be made only for use of the many) is not the goal of socialism. Its goal is a cla.s.sless world--a world in which all who are able to work shall directly or at least indirectly contribute their due proportion, according to their abilities and opportunities, towards feeding, clothing, housing and educating it.

Perhaps the truest thing in the Bible relates to the utterly corrupt condition of civilization, nor was it ever truer than now, and it always must be equally true while the world is divided into master and slave cla.s.ses under the dictatorship of the masters:

The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.