Is the Morality of Jesus Sound? Part 1

Is the Morality of Jesus Sound?

by M. M. Mangasarian.

_I make war against this theological instinct: I have found traces of it everywhere. Whoever has theological blood in his veins is, from the very beginning, ambiguous and disloyal with respect to everything.... I have digged out the theologist instinct everywhere; it is the most diffused, the most peculiarly SUBTERRANEAN form of falsity that exists on earth. What a theologian feels as true, MUST needs be false: one has therein almost a criterion of truth._

--_Nietzsche._

Is the Moral Teaching of Jesus Sound?

A great deal depends upon the answer to the question, "Is the moral teaching of Jesus sound?" This question brings us to the inner and most closely guarded citadel of Christianity. If it can be captured, the rout of supernaturalism will be complete; but as long as it stands, Christianity can afford to lose every one of its outer fortifications, and still be the victor. Reason may drive supernaturalism out of the Catholic position into the Protestant, and out of that, into the Unitarian, and out of that again into Liberalism, but reason does not become master of the field until it has stormed and razed to the ground this last and greatest of all the strongholds--the morality of Christianity.

If Jesus was the author of perfect or even the highest ideals the world has ever cherished, he will, and must, remain the saviour, _par excellence_, of the world. Whether he was man or G.o.d, which question Unitarianism discusses, is a trifling matter. If his ethical teaching is practically without a flaw, I would gladly call him G.o.d, and more, if such a thing were possible. His walking on the water, or his raising the dead, or his flying through the air, would not in the least embarra.s.s me. I could accept them all--if he rose morally head and shoulders above every other mortal or immortal, our world has ever produced. It is claimed that he did. What is the evidence?

To facilitate this discussion, and to concentrate all our attention on the subject of this discourse, we will waive the question of the historicity of Jesus. For the sake of argument, we will accept the gospels as history--accept the authenticity of the doc.u.ments, the trustworthiness of the witnesses, and the inspiration of the texts which we are to quote. We will grant every point; concede every claim, allow every contention of the defendants. We will then say to them: Does the evidence which you have presented and we have accepted without raising any objections, prove that the moral teaching of Jesus is perfect, or even the highest the world has ever possessed?

A system of thought, or a code of morals, is much like a building. A serious crack in one of the walls, or a post that is not secure in its socket, is enough to make the whole building unsafe. When a building is condemned, it is not condemned for the parts that are sound, but for the part or parts that are unsound. To change my ill.u.s.tration, the strength of a chain is in its weakest link. So is the strength of a religion in its most vulnerable parts. By overlooking the weakness and dwelling solely upon the strong points, we could make any religion appear as the best in the world; as a similar bias would prove the most rickety building even perfectly safe. A lawyer, an advocate, or special pleader, may conceal, or cover up the cracks in the walls of a building, or the defects of an inst.i.tution. But why should I? My object is not to save the building, but the people who are in it. I am not interested in saving the creed or the religion, but the people who stake their lives on it. I am not trying to earn my fee, I am trying to serve the people.

Why should I, then, be expected to spread the mantle of charity over a building that deserves to be condemned, or plead for a religion that blocks the path of advancement? And why,--why should any religion beg for charity? To a cashier of a bank, to a treasurer of a corporation, to an official of the munic.i.p.ality or the state, who should beg the examining committee not to look into all his dealings, but only to report what good they can of him, we say: "You are guilty." Not only that, but he is also trying to make us his accomplices.

Lawyer-like, preachers often tell their hearers to see only the good in the bible, for instance. "When you are eating fish," they say, "you eat the meat and throw away the bones. Do the same with the bible." But why should anything in the bible be meant to be thrown away? Pardon me if I use a stronger expression--why should any part of the Word of G.o.d be destined for the garbage box?

It is a pleasure, and it confirms us in our optimism, to admit that in all the religions of the world, even in the crudest, there is much that is good, as in every structure or dwelling there are rooms and walls and posts that are perfectly sound. Religions live, as buildings endure,--by the soundness there is in them. It is not the cracked wall or damaged pillar which supports the building--it is the sound parts that keep it together. The same is true of religions. It is the truths they contain that preserve them. Mohammedanism, for instance, has survived for nearly fifteen centuries, and its survival is due to the virtues and not to the vices of the Mohammedan faith. This is equally true of Judaism and Christianity. If human Society has survived for these many centuries, it is because, imperfect as it is, there is enough of justice and honor among men to keep it from disintegration. But is that any reason why we should be content with what little justice or truth there is in the world, and not strive for more? And shall we hold our tongues on the terrible injustice and oppression all around us simply because there is also goodness and virtue among men? Simply because the human race keeps going as it is, shall we not endeavor to improve it? And because there is some good in all religions, shall we shut our eyes to the dangerous fallacies they contain? Is it not our duty as well as our privilege to labor for a more rational and a more enn.o.bling faith?

In the teachings attributed to Jesus, whose nativity is celebrated to-day[1] in Europe and America, there is much that we are in cordial sympathy with. We can say the same of all the founders of religions. If any one were to point out to us pa.s.sages of beauty in the four evangels, I for myself would gladly agree to all that may be said in their praise.

But if I were asked to infer from these isolated pa.s.sages that the ethical teaching of Jesus is not only the most perfect within human reach, but also sufficient to the needs of man for all time, I would deem it a stern duty to combat the proposition with all the earnestness at my command. It would then be the duty, indeed, of every one to denounce the attempt to arrest the progress of the world by holding it bound to the thought of one man. In the interest of morality itself, it must be shown that Jesus is not the highest product of the ages, nor is he the best that the future can promise. There is room beyond Jesus. But not only was Jesus not the perfect teacher his worshippers claim him to have been, but there are flaws in his system--cracks and rents in the walls of his temple--so serious and menacing, that not to call attention to them would be to shirk the most urgent service we owe to the cause of humanity.

[1] Christmas Sunday, Dec. 26, 1909.

My first general criticism of the morality of Jesus is, that it lacks universality. It is not meant for all peoples and all times. It is rather the morality of a sect, a coterie, or a secret society. I object to the provincialism of Jesus. Jesus was not a cosmopolite. He was a Hebrew before he was a man. If we find Jerusalem on the map of the world and draw a circle around it,--covering the rest of the map with our hands,--we will then have before us all the world that Jesus knew anything about,--or cared for. Little did he think of the rest of the world. The continents of Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the, as yet, undiscovered America, had no place whatever either in his thought or affection. The yellow millions of China and j.a.pan, the dusky millions of Hindustan, the blacks of Africa with their galling chains, the white races with the most pressing problems which ever taxed the brain of man--do not seem to have deserved even a pa.s.sing notice from Jesus. It is quite evident that such a country as our America, for instance, with its nearly one hundred millions of people of all races and religions, dwelling under the same flag, and governing themselves without a King or a Caesar, never crossed the orbit even of his imagination. Is it reasonable to go to a provincial of this description for _universal_ ideals?

What Jesus has in mind is not humanity, but a particular race. Israel is the nation that monopolizes his attention, and even in that nation his interest is limited to those that believe in him as the Messiah. The idea of a world-salvation was utterly foreign to his sympathies. His disciples were all of one race, and he emphatically warned them against going into the cities of the Gentiles to preach the gospel. He tells them that he was sent expressly and exclusively for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Of course, we are familiar with the "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," but Jesus is supposed to have given that commandment after his _death_. In his life time, he said, "Go not into the cities and towns of the Gentiles." If he said, "Go _not_, to the Gentiles!" when he was living, the "Go to the Gentiles," after his death, has all the ear-marks of an interpolation.

The two statements squarely contradict each other. Granting that Jesus knew what he was talking about, he could not have given both commandments. Moreover, from the conduct of the apostles who refused to go to the Gentiles until Paul came about,--who had never seen or heard Jesus,--it may be concluded that Jesus did not change his mind to the very last on the matter of his being sent "only for the lost children of the House of Israel."

But the thought of Jesus is as Hebraic as are his sympathies. His G.o.d is invariably the "G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Suppose he had also called G.o.d, "The G.o.d of Abraham, Confucius and Socrates." Ah, if Jesus had only said that! The idea of the larger G.o.d was in the human mind, but not in his. The idea was in the air, but Jesus was not tall enough to reach it. He did not look beyond a tribal Deity. The G.o.d of Jesus was a Hebrew. To Jesus David was the only man who looked big in history. Of Alexander, for example, who conquered the world and made the Greek language universal--the language in which his own story, the story of Jesus, is written, and which story, in all probability would never have come down to us but for the Greek language and Alexander; of Socrates, whose daily life was the beauty of Athens; of Aristotle, of whom Goethe said that he was the greatest intellect the world had produced; of the Caesars, who converted a pirate station on the Tiber to an Eternal City--Jesus does not seem to have heard at all--and if he had, he does not seem to care for them, any more than would a Gypsy Smith.

The heaven of Jesus is also quite Semitic. His twelve apostles are to sit upon twelve thrones--to judge the _twelve tribes of Israel_. There is no mention of anybody else sitting on a throne, or of anybody else in heaven except Jews. People will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south to meet their father, Abraham, in heaven. The cosmography or topography of the world to come is also Palestinian. It has as many gates as there are sons of Jacob; all its inhabitants have Hebrew names; and just as on earth, outside of Judea, the whole world was _heathen_, in the next world, heaven is where Abraham and his children dwell; the rest is _h.e.l.l_. Indeed, to Jesus heaven meant Abraham's bosom. And we repeatedly come across the phrase, "heavenly Jerusalem" in the New Testament, as the name of the abode of the blessed? Is it likely that a man so racial, so sectarian, so circ.u.mscribed in his thought and sympathies,--so local and clannish,--could a.s.sume and fulfill the role of a universal teacher?

But not only was the world of Jesus a mere speck on the map, but it was also a world without a future. Jesus expected the world to come to an end in a very short time. And what was the use of trying to get acquainted with, or interested in, a world about to be abandoned? The evidence is very conclusive that Jesus believed the end of the world to be imminent. He says: "Verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel before the son of man come." As Palestine was a small country, and its few cities could easily be visited in a short time, it follows that Jesus expected the almost immediate end of the world. In another text he tells his disciples that this great event would happen in the lifetime of those who were listening to him: "This generation," he says, "shall not pa.s.s away," before the world ends. This belief in the approaching collapse of the world was shared by his apostles. Paul, for instance, is constantly exhorting Christians to get ready for the great catastrophe, and he describes how those still living will be transformed when Jesus appears in the clouds.

The earliest Christian Society was communistic, because all that they needed was enough to subsist upon before Jesus reappeared. It would have been foolish from their point of view to "lay up treasures on earth"

when the earth was soon to be burnt up. Moreover, they were not commanded to labor, but to "watch and pray." The fruits of labor require time to ripen in, and there was no time. The cry was, "Behold the bridegroom is at the door." Hence, to "watch and pray" was the only reasonable occupation. We can see for ourselves how this belief in the near end of the world would create a kind of morality altogether unsuitable to people living in a world that does not come to an end.

Jesus never dreamt that the world was going to last, for at least another two thousand years. If anyone had whispered such a thing in his ears, he would have gasped for breath. Could the curtain of the future have been lifted high enough for Jesus to have seen in advance some of the changes that have come upon the world during the past twenty centuries,--the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Mohammedanism,--carrying two continents and throwing the third into a state of panic,--wresting the very Jerusalem of Jesus from the Christians and holding it for a thousand years; had Jesus been able to foresee the Dark Ages, the Italian Renaissance, the German Reformation, the French Revolution, the American Revolution with its Declaration of Independence, and later on, its Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation,--and finally, had Jesus caught even the most distant gleam of that magnificent and majestic Empire, the Empire of Science, with its peaceful reign and bloodless conquests, slowly and serenely climbing above the horizon, bringing to man such a hope as had never before entered his breast, and giving him the stars for eyes, and the wind for wings--had but a glimpse of all this crossed the vision of this Jerusalem youth, his conception of a world soon to be smashed would have appeared to him as the infantile fancy of a--well, what shall I say?--I shall not say of a fanatic, I shall not say, of an illiterate,--let me say--of an enthusiast. The morality of Jesus not only lacked universality, but it was also framed to fit a world under sentence of immediate destruction.

Jesus' doctrine of a pa.s.sing world was born of his pessimism. The old, whether in years, or in spirit, as Shakespeare says, are always wishing "that the estate of the Sun were now undone." Weariness of life is a sign of exhaustion. The strong and the healthy love life. The young are not pessimists. Jesus had the disease of aged and effete Asia. He was not European in ardor or energy. He contemplated a pa.s.sing panorama, a world crashing and tumbling into ruins all about him, with Oriental resignation. The groan of a dying world was music to him. He enjoyed the antic.i.p.ation of calamity. The end of the world would put an end to effort and endeavor, both of which the Asiatic dislikes. To tell people that the world is coming to an end soon,--today, tomorrow, is not to kindle, but to extinguish hope; and without hope our world would be darker even than if the sun were to be blotted out of the sky.

The objection against Christianity, as also against its parent, Judaism, is that it seeks to divert the attention of man from the work in hand to something visionary and distant. It was to direct men's thoughts to some other world that Jesus belittled this.

What are you doing, asks the preacher.

I am laboring for my daily bread.

Indeed! Have you not heard that Jesus said: "Labor not for the meat that perisheth?"

And what are _you_ doing?

We are building a city.

What! Do you not know that it is written in the Word of G.o.d that, "Here we have no abiding City?"

And _you_--

I have married and have decided to share my life with the woman I love.

And have you not read in St. Paul's Epistles, says the preacher again, that they who are married neglect the things of the Lord?

And _you_?

We are laboring to improve the world we live in--to make it a little cleaner and sweeter.

But do you not know, asks the man of G.o.d, that the world will soon pa.s.s away,--that, as Jesus has foretold, the sun will turn black, the stars will fall, and the elements will be consumed in a general conflagration?

The effect of the teaching of both Judaism and Christianity is to incapacitate man for earnest work now and here. And what do these religions offer in place of the home, the love, the world, which they take away from us? Let us ask the priest:

Where then _is_ our home?

Yonder!--and he points into s.p.a.ce with his finger.

Where? In the clouds?

Higher.

In the stars?

Higher still.

In the ether?

No, higher yet, far, far away. You can not see it. You have to take my word for it.

And, unfortunately, so many of us _take his word for it_. And upon what terms will the priest condescend to pilot us to our invisible and aerial mansions? We must turn over to him now, our all,--mind, body and lands.

The doctrine of a world hastening to destruction, while it has demoralized the people, it has enriched the churches. During the middle ages, and earlier, and also in more recent times, more than once the credulous public has been scared out of its possessions by the preachers of calamity. Jesus can not very well clear himself of responsibility for this, because, it was he who tried to hurry the people out of a world soon to be set on fire. When a young man asked Jesus' permission to go and bury his father, he was told to "Let the dead bury their dead." This was extraordinary advice to a son who wished to do his father a last service. But Jesus was consistent. The world was catching fire and there was no time to lose. The morality of Jesus was the morality of panic. He would not give people the time to think of anything else but their own salvation from the impending doom. This was Bunyan's interpretation of the spirit of Christianity, for he made _Christian_, the hero of his story, to flee at once from the city of destruction, leaving his wife and children, his neighbors and his country behind. The morality of panic!

That this superst.i.tion that the world was about to be destroyed influenced the whole teaching of Jesus, as well as depressed his spirits, will be seen by an examination of his famous Sermon on the Mount. Matthew and Luke give somewhat different reports of it. It is likely that Luke's is the less embellished, and therefore more representative of Jesus' real att.i.tude toward life. In the third Gospel, Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor." Matthew gives it as, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." If the first doc.u.ment had the latter form, it is not likely that a later copyist would drop the "in spirit," but if the earlier simply read, "Blessed are the poor," a later writer might find it convenient and necessary even, to soften it by adding the words "in spirit." In Luke there is nothing said about hungering after righteousness, it is merely, "Blessed are ye, that hunger now: for ye shall be filled." The drift of the Sermon as given by Luke, which in all probability is nearer the original than that given by Matthew, and which is at any rate equally inspired, is to wean men from a world which is but a snare and a delusion, and to get them to cultivate other-worldliness. Let me quote a few of the beat.i.tudes:

"_Blessed be ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of G.o.d. Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh_--