The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth? Part 8

If the world is improving at all, and we believe it is, the progress is due to the fact that man pays now more attention to _this_ life than formerly. He is thinking less of the other world and more of this. He no longer sings with the believer:

The world is all a fleeting show For man's delusion given.

Its smiles of joy, its tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, There's nothing true but heaven.

How could people with such feelings labor to improve a world they hated? How could they be in the least interested in social or political reforms when they were constantly repeating to themselves--

I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger-- I can tarry, I can tarry, but a night.

That these same people should now claim not only a part of the credit for the many improvements, but all of it--saying that, but for their religion the "world would now have been a h.e.l.l," [Footnote: Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, of the Central Church, Chicago. See A New Catechism.--M. M.

Mangasarian.] is really a little too much for even the most serene temperament.

Which of the religions has persecuted as long and as relentlessly as Christianity?

Which of the many faiths of the world has opposed Science as stubbornly and as bitterly as Christianity?

In the name of what other prophets have more people been burned at the stake than in the names of Jesus and Moses?

What other revelation has given rise to so many sects, hostile and irreconcilable, as the Christian?

Which religion has furnished as many effective texts for political oppression, polygamy, slavery, and the subjection of woman as the religion of Jesus and Paul?

Is there,--has there ever been another creed which makes salvation dependent on belief,--thereby encouraging hypocrisy, and making honest inquiry a crime?

To send a thief to heaven from the gallows because he believes, and an honest man to h.e.l.l because he doubts, is that the virtue which is going to save the world?

The claim that Jesus has saved the world is another myth.

A _pictorial_ Christ, then, has not done anything for humanity to deserve the tremendous expenditure of time, energy, love, and devotion, which has for two thousand years taxed the resources of civilization.

The pa.s.sing away of this imaginary savior will relieve the world of an unproductive investment.

We conclude: Honesty, like charity, must begin at home. Unless we can tell the truth in our churches we will never tell the truth in our shops. Unless our teachers, the ministers of G.o.d, are honest, our insurance companies and corporations will have to be watched. Permit sham in your religious life, and the disease will spread to every member of the social body. If you may keep religion in the dark, and cry "hush," "hush," when people ask that it be brought out into the light, why may not politics or business cultivate a similar partiality for darkness? If the king cries, "rebel," when a citizen asks for justice, it is because he has heard the priest cry, "infidel," when a member of his church asked for evidence. Religious hypocrisy is the mother of all hypocrisies. Cure a man of that, and the human world will recover its health.

Not so long ago, nearly everybody believed in the existence of a personal devil. People saw him, heard him, described him, danced with him, and claimed, besides, to have whipped him. Luther hurled his inkstand at him, and American women accused as witches were put to death in the name of the devil. Yet all this "evidence" has not saved the devil from pa.s.sing out of existence. What has happened to the devil will happen to the G.o.ds. Man is the only real savior. If he is not a savior, there is no other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Hindu Trinity.]

PART II.

IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?

"But," says the believer, again, as a last resort, "Jesus, whether real or mythical, has certainly saved the world, and is its only hope." If this a.s.sertion can be supported with facts, then surely it would matter very little whether Jesus really lived and taught, or whether he is a mere picture. Although even then it would be more truthful to say we have no satisfactory evidence that such a teacher as Jesus ever lived, than to affirm dogmatically his existence, as it is now done. Whatever Jesus may have done for the world, he has certainly not freed us from the obligation of telling the truth. I call special attention to this point. Because Jesus has saved the world, granting for the moment that he has, is no reason why we should be indifferent to the truth. Nay, it would show that Jesus has not saved the world, if we can go on and speak of him as an actual existence, born of a virgin and risen from the dead, and in his name persecute one another--oppose the advance of science, deny freedom of thought, terrorize children and women with pictures of h.e.l.l-fire and seek to establish a spiritual monopoly in the world, when the evidence in hand seems clearly to indicate that such a person never existed.

We shall quote a chapter from Christian history to give our readers an idea of how much the religion of Jesus, when implicitly believed in, can do for the world. We have gone to the earliest centuries for our examples of the influence exerted by Christianity upon the ambitions and pa.s.sions of human nature, because it is generally supposed that Christianity was then at its best. Let us, then, present a picture of the world, strictly speaking, of the Roman Empire, during the first four or five hundred years after its conversion to Christianity.

We select this specific period, because Christianity was at this time fifteen hundred years nearer to its source, and was more virile and aggressive than it has ever been since.

Shakespeare speaks of the uses of adversity; but the uses of prosperity are even greater. The proverb says that "adversity tries a man." While there is considerable truth in this, the fact is that prosperity is a much surer criterion of character. It is impossible to tell, for instance, what a man will do who has neither the power nor the opportunity to do anything. "Opportunity," says a French writer, "is the cleverest devil." Both our good and bad qualities wait upon opportunity to show themselves. It is quite easy to be virtuous when the opportunity to do evil is lacking. Behind the prison bars, every criminal is a penitent, but the credit belongs to the iron bars and not to the criminal. To be good when one cannot be bad, is an indifferent virtue.

It is with inst.i.tutions and religions as with individuals--they should be judged not by what they pretend in their weakness, but by what they do when they are strong. Christianity, Mohammedanism and Judaism, the three kindred religions--we call them kindred because they are related in blood and are the offspring of the same soil and climate--these three kindred religions must be interpreted not by what they profess today, but by what they did when they had both the power and the opportunity to do as they wished.

When Christianity, or Mohammedanism, was professed only by a small handful of men--twelve fishermen, or a dozen camel-drivers of the desert--neither party advocated persecution. The worst punishment which either religion held out was a distant and a future punishment; but as soon as Christianity converted an Emperor, or Mohammed became the victorious warrior,--that is to say, as soon as, springing forth, they picked up the sword and felt their grip sure upon its hilt, this future and distant punishment materialized into a present and persistent persecution of their opponents. Is not that suggestive?

Then, again, when in the course of human evolution, both Christianity and Mohammedanism lost the secular support--the throne, the favor of the courts, the imperial treasury--they fell back once more upon future penalties as the sole menace against an unbelieving world. As religion grows, secularly speaking, weaker, and is more completely divorced from the temporal, even the future penalties, from being both literal and frightful, pale into harmless figures of speech.

It was but a short time after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, that the following edict was published throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire:

"O ye enemies of truth, authors and counsellors of death--we enact by this law that none of you dare hereafter to meet at your conventicles...nor keep any meetings either in public buildings or private houses. We have commanded that all your places of meeting--your temples--be pulled down or confiscated to the Catholic Church."

The man who affixed his signature to this edict was a monarch, that is to say, a man who had the power to do as he liked. The man and monarch, then, who affixed his imperial signature to this _first_ doc.u.ment of persecution in Europe--the first, because, as Renan has beautifully remarked, "We may search in vain the whole Roman law before Constantine for a single pa.s.sage against freedom of thought, and the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine,"--this is glory enough for the civilization 'which we call _Pagan_ and which was replaced by the Asiatic religion--the man and the monarch who fathered the first instrument of persecution in our Europe, who introduced into our midst the crazed hounds of religious wars, unknown either in Greece or Rome, Constantine, has been held up by Cardinal Newman as "a pattern to all succeeding monarchs." Only an Englishman, a European, infected with the malady of the East, could hold up the author of such an edict,--an edict which prost.i.tutes the State to the service of a fad--as "a pattern."

If we asked for a modern ill.u.s.tration of what a church will do when it has the power, there is the example of Russia. Russia is today centuries behind the other European nations. She is the most unfortunate, the most ignorant, the most poverty-pinched country, with the most orthodox type of Christianity. What is the difference between Greek Christianity, such as prevails in Russia, and American Christianity! Only this: The Christian Church in Russia has both the power and the opportunity to do things, while the Christian church in America or in France has not. We must judge Christianity as a religion by what it does in Russia, more than by what it does not do in France or America. There was a time when the church did in France and in England what it is doing now in Russia, which is a further confirmation of the fact that a religion must be judged not by what it pretends in its weakness, but by what it does when it can. In Russia, the priest can tie a man's hands and feet and deliver him up to the government; and it does so. In Protestant countries, the church, being deprived of all its badges and prerogatives, is more modest and humble. The poet Heine gives eloquent expression to this idea when he says: "Religion comes begging to us, when it can no longer burn us."

There will be no revolution in Russia, nor even any radical improvement of existing conditions, so long as the Greek Church has the education of the ma.s.ses in charge. To become politically free, men must first be intellectually emanc.i.p.ated. If a Russian is not permitted to choose his own religion, will he be permitted to choose his own form of government? If he will allow a priest to impose his religion upon him, why may he not permit the Czar to impose despotism upon him? If it is wrong for him to question the tenets of his religion, is it not equally wrong for him to discuss the laws of his government? If a slave of the church, why may he not be also a slave of the state? If there is room upon his neck for the yoke of the church, there will be room, also, for the yoke of the autocracy. If he is in the habit of bending his knees, what difference does it make to how many or to whom he bends them?

Not until Russia has become religiously emanc.i.p.ated, will she conquer political freedom. She must first cast out of her mind the fear of the church, before she can enter into the glorious fellowship of the free.

In Turkey, all the misery of the people will not so much as cause a ripple of discontent, because the Moslem has been brought up to submit to the Sultan as to the shadow on earth of Allah. Both in Russia and Turkey, the protestants are the heretics. The orthodox Turk and the orthodox Christian permit without a murmur both the priest and the king to impose upon them at the point of a bayonet, the one his religion, and the other his government. It is only by taking the education of the ma.s.ses out of the hands of the clergy that either country can enjoy any prosperity. Orthodoxy and autocracy are twins.

Let me now try to present to you a picture of the world under Christianity about the year 400 of the present era. Let us discuss this phase of the subject in a liberal spirit, extenuating nothing, nor setting down aught in malice. Please interpret what I say in the next few minutes metaphorically, and pardon me if my picture is a repellant one.

We are in the year of our Lord, 400:

I rose up early this morning to go to church. As I approached the building, I saw there a great mult.i.tude of people unable to secure admission into the edifice. The huge iron doors were closed, and upon them was affixed a notice from the authorities, to the effect that all who worshiped in this church would, by the authority of the state, be known and treated hereafter as "infamous heretics," and be exposed to the extreme penalty of the law if they persisted in holding services there. But the party to which I belonged heeded not the prohibition, but beat against the doors furiously and effected an entrance into the church. The excitement ran high; men and leaders shouted, gesticulated and came to blows. The Archbishop was urged to ascend his episcopal throne and officiate at the altar in spite of the formal interdiction against him. He consented. But he had not proceeded far when soldiers, with a wild rush, poured into the building and began to discharge arrows at the panic-stricken people. Instantly pandemonium was let loose. The officers commanding the soldiers demanded the head of the offending Archbishop. The worshipers made an attempt to resist; then blood was shed, the sight of which reeled people's heads, and, in an instant, the sanctuary was turned into a house of murder. Taking advantage of the uproar, the Archbishop, a.s.sisted by his secretaries, escaped through a secret door behind the altar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Engraving of XV Century Representing the Trinity.]

On my way home from this terrible scene, I fell upon a procession of monks. They were carrying images and relics, and a banner upon which were inscribed these words: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of G.o.d." As they marched on, their number increased by new additions. But suddenly they encountered another band of monks, carrying a different banner, bearing the same words which were on the other party's banner, but instead of "The Virgin Mary, Mother of G.o.d," their banner read: "The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ." The two processions clashed, and a b.l.o.o.d.y encounter followed; in an instant images, relics and banners were all in an indiscriminate heap. The troops were called out again, but such was the zeal of the conflicting parties that not until the majority of them were disabled and exhausted, was tranquility restored.

Looking about me, I saw the spire of a neighboring church. My curiosity prompted me to wend my steps thither. As soon as I entered, I was recognized as belonging to the forbidden sect, and in an instant a hundred fists rained down blows upon my head. "He has polluted the sanctuary," they cried. "He has committed sacrilege." "No quarter to the enemies of the true church," cried others, and it was a miracle that, beaten, bruised, my clothes torn from my back, I regained the street. A few seconds later, looking up the streets, I saw another troop of soldiers, rushing down toward this church at full speed. It seems that while I was being beaten in the main auditorium, in the baptistry of the church they were killing, in cold blood, the Archbishop, who was suspected of a predilection for the opposite party, and who had refused to retract or resign from his office. The next day I heard that one hundred and thirty-seven bodies were taken out of this building.

Seized with terror, I now began to run, but, alas, I had worse experiences in store for me. I was compelled to pa.s.s the princ.i.p.al square in the center of the city before I could reach a place of safety. When I reached this square, it had the appearance of a veritable battlefield. It was Sunday morning, and the partisans of rival bishops, differing in their interpretation of theological doctrines, were fighting each other like maddened, malignant creatures. One could hear, over the babel of discordant yells, scriptural phrases. The words, "The Son is equal to the Father," "The Father is greater than the Son," "He is begotten of the same substance as the Father," "He is of like substance, but not of the same substance," "You are a heretic," "You are an atheist," were invariably accompanied with blows, stabs and sword thrusts, until, as an eye- witness, I can take an oath that I saw the streets leading out of the square deluged with palpitating human blood. Suddenly the commander of the cavalry, Hermogenes, rode upon the scene of feud and bloodshed. He ordered the followers of the rival bishops to disperse, but instead of minding his authority, the zealots of both sides rushed upon his horse, tore the rider from the saddle and began to beat him with clubs and stones which they picked up from the street. He managed to escape into a house close by, but the religious rabble surrounded the house and set fire to it. Hermogenes appeared at the window, begging for his life. He was attacked again, and killed, and his mangled body dragged through the streets and rushed into a ditch.

The spectacle inflamed me, being a sectarian myself. I felt ashamed that I was not showing an equal zeal for _my_ party. I, too, longed to fight, to kill, to be killed, for my religion. And, anon! the opportunity presented itself. I saw, looking up the street to my right, a group of my fellow-believers, who, like myself, shut out of their own church by the orthodox authorities, armed with whips loaded with lead and with clubs, were entering a house. I followed them. As we went in, we commanded the head of the family and his wife to appear. When they did, we asked them if it was true that in their prayers to Mary they had refrained from the use of the words, "The mother of G.o.d." They hesitated to give a direct answer, whereupon we used the club, and then, the scourge. Then they said they believed in and revered the blessed virgin, but would not, even if we killed them, say that she was the mother of G.o.d. This obstinacy exasperated us and we felt it to be our religious duty, for the honor of our divine Queen, to perpetrate such cruelties upon them as would shock your gentle ears to hear. We held them over slowly burning fires, flung lime into their eyes, applied roasted eggs and hot irons to the sensitive parts of their bodies, and even gagged them to force the sacrament into their mouths.....As we went from house to house, bent upon our mission, I remember an expression of one of the party who said to the poor woman who was begging for mercy: "What! shall I be guilty of defrauding the vengeance of G.o.d of its victims?" A sudden chill ran down my back. I felt my flesh creep. Like a drop of poison the thought embodied in those words perverted whatever of pity or humanity was left in me, and I felt that I was only helping to secure victims with which to feed the vengeance of G.o.d!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trinity in XIII Century.]

I was willing to be a monster for the glory of G.o.d!