WHAT DID JESUS TEACH?
The doctrines of Jesus may be sought for and found in a small compa.s.s.
Four thin gospels are alleged to contain nearly the entirety of his sayings, and as most Englishmen are professedly Christians, it might be fairly supposed that the general public were conversant with Christ"s teachings. This, however, is not the case. The bulk of professors believe from custom rather than from reading. They profess a faith as they follow a fashion--because others have done so before them. What did Jesus teach? Manly self-reliant resistance of wrong, and practice of right? No; the key-stone of his whole teaching may be found in the text, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."*
* Matthew v, 3.
Is poverty of spirit the chief among virtues, that Jesus gives it the prime place in his teaching? Is poverty of spirit a virtue at all?
Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fullness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; but poverty of spirit is a crime. When men are poor in spirit, then do the proud and haughty in spirit oppress and trample upon them, but when men are true in spirit and determined (as true men should be) to resist and prevent evil, wrong, and injustice whenever they can, then is their greater opportunity for happiness here, and no lesser fitness for the enjoyment of further happiness, in some may-be heaven, hereafter. Are you poor in spirit, and are you smitten; in such case what did Jesus teach? "Unto whom that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other."* "Twere better far to teach that "he who courts oppression shares the crime." Rather say, if smitten once, take careful measure to prevent a future smiting. I have heard men preach pa.s.sive resistance, but this teaches actual invitation of injury, a course degrading in the extreme.
Sh.e.l.ley breathed higher humanity in his n.o.ble advice:
"Stand ye calm and resolute, Like a forest close and mute, With folded arms and looks, which are Weapons of an unvanquished war."
There is a wide distinction between the pa.s.sive resistance to wrong and the courting of further injury at the hands of the wrongdoer. I have in no case seen this better ill.u.s.trated than in Mr. George Jacob Holyoake"s history of his imprisonment in Gloucester Jail,** where pa.s.sive resistance saved him from the indignity of a prison dress, and also from compulsory attendance at morning prayer in the prison chapel, which in his case would have been to him an additional insult. But the teaching of Jesus goes much beyond this kind of conduct; the poverty of spirit principle is enforced to the fullest extent--"Him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee, and from him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again."*** Poverty of person is the only possible sequence to this extraordinary manifestation of poverty of spirit.
* Luke vi, 29.
** "Last trail by Jury for Atheism."
*** Luke vi, 29, 30.
Poverty of person is attended with many unpleasantnesses; and if Jesus knew that poverty of goods would result from his teaching, we might expect some notice of this. And so there is--as if he wished to keep the poor content through their lives with poverty, he says, "Blessed be ye poor for yours is the kingdom of G.o.d."* "But woe unto you that are rich, for you have received your consolation."** He pictures one in h.e.l.l, whose only related vice is that in life he was rich; and another in heaven, whose only related virtue is that in life he was poor.*** He at another time tells his hearers that it is as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.****
The only intent of such teaching could be to induce the poor to remain content with the want and misery attendant on their wretched state in this life, in the hope of a higher recompense in some future life. Is it good to be content with poverty? Nay, "tis better far to investigate the cause of such poverty, with a view to its cure and prevention. The doctrine is a most horrid one which declares that the poor shall not cease from the face of the earth. Poor in spirit and poor in pocket.
With no courage to work for food, or money to purchase it! We might well expect to find the man who held these doctrines with empty stomach also; and what does Jesus teach?--"Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled."***** He does not say when the filling shall take place, but the date is evidently postponed until the time when you will have no stomachs to replenish. It is not in this life that the hunger is to be sated. Do you doubt me, turn again to your Testament and read, "Woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger."****** This must surely settle the point.
* Luke vi, 20.
** Luke vi, 24.
*** Luke xvi, 19--81.
**** Luke xviii, 25.
***** Luke vi, 21.
****** Luke vi, 25.
It would be but little vantage to the hungry man to bless him by filling him, if, when he had satisfied his appet.i.te, he were met by a curse which had awaited the completion of his repast. Craven in spirit, with an empty purse and hungry mouth--what next? The man who has not manliness enough to prevent wrong will probably bemoan his hard fate, and cry bitterly that so sore are the misfortunes he endures. And what does Jesus teach?--"Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh."*
Is this true, and if true, when? "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."** Aye, but when? Not while they mourn and weep.
Weeping for the past is vain; "tis past, and a deluge of tears will never wash away its history. Weeping for the present is worse than vain--it obstructs your sight. In each minute of your life the aforetime future is present-born, and you need dry and keen eyes to give it and yourself a safe and happy deliverance. When shall they that mourn be comforted? Are slaves that weep salt teardrops on their steel shackles comforted in their weeping? Nay, but each pearly overflow, as it falls, rusts mind as well as fetter. Ye who are slaves and weep, will never be comforted until ye dry your eyes and nerve your arms, and, in the plenitude of your manliness,
"Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep have fallen on you."
Jesus teaches that the poor, the hungry and the wretched shall be blessed? This is not so. The blessing only comes when they have ceased to be poor, hungry and wretched. Contentment under poverty, hunger and misery is high treason, not to yourself alone, but to your fellows.
These three, like foul diseases, spread quickly wherever humanity is stagnant and content with wrong.
* Luke vi, 31.
** Matthew v, 4.
What did Jesus teach? "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."* So far well, but how if thy neighbor will not hear thy doctrine when thou preacheth the "glad tidings of great joy" to him? Then forgetting all thy love, and with bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can manifest, thou "shalt shake off the dust from your feet," and by so doing make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbor who has ventured to maintain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his priest.** It is, indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one another could result from the dehumanizing and isolating faith required from the disciple of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his Protestant brethren,*** "If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple."**** "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set men at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man"s foes they shall be of his own household.*****" "Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."****** The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself. The teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow.
* Matthew xix, 19.
** Matthew x, 14,15.
*** Luke xiv, 26.
**** Matthew x, 84--86.
***** Matthew xix, 29.
The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness; our joy depends on our brother"s also. But what does Jesus teach? That "many are called, but few are chosen;" that the majority will inherit an eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal happiness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a truthful course of life? Not so. Jesus puts Father Abraham in Heaven, whose reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The pa.s.sport througli Heaven"s portals is faith. "He that believeth and baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be d.a.m.ned."*
Are you married? Have you a wife you love? She dies and you. You from your first speech to your last had ever said, "I believe," much as a clever parrot might say it, if well taught. You had never examined your reasons for your faith for, like a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal reason. You said, therefore, "I believe in G.o.d and Jesus Christ," because you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, "I believe in Allah, and in Mahomet his prophet," had your birthplace been a few degrees more eastward, and your parents and instructors Turks. You believed in this life and awake in Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not think as you did--she could not.
Her organization, education and temperament were all different from your own. She disbelieved because she could not believe. She was a good wife, but she disbelieved, A good and affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman, but she disbelieved. And you are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven, while she is writhing in agony in h.e.l.l.
* Mark xvi,16.
If true, I could say with Sh.e.l.ley, of this Christianity, that it
"Peoples earth with demons, h.e.l.l with men, And heaven with slaves."
It is often urged that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that he brought redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did Jesus teach? "Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritan enter ye not."* These were his injunctions to those whom he first sent out to preach. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," is his hard answer to the poor Syrophenician woman who is entreating succor for her child. Christianity, as first taught by Jesus, was for the Jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them that the world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it.
"He came unto his own and his own received him not,"** Why should the Jews be more G.o.d"s own than the Gentiles? Is G.o.d the creator of all?
and did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and privilege than all other men? Then, indeed, is great and grievous injustice done. You and I had no choice whether we would be born Jews or Gentiles; yet to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which if accepted, shuts out all beside. The Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent feature in the teachings of Jesus, and it may be well to ascertain, as precisely as we can, the picture drawn by G.o.d incarnate of his own special domain. "Tis likened to a wedding feast, to which the invited guests coming not, servants are sent out into the highways to gather all they can find--both good and bad. The King comes in to see his motley array of guests, and findeth one without a wedding garment.
* Matt. x, 5.
** John i, 11.
The King inquired why he came into the feast without one, and the man, whoso attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. And who can wonder? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the fashion of his coming or his attiring. Then comes the King"s decree, the command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven: "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Commentators urge that it was the custom to provide wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text does not warrant this position, but a.s.signs, as an explanation of the parable, that an invitation to the heavenly feast will not insure its partakal, for that many are called, but few are chosen. What more of the Kingdom of Heaven? "There shall be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance."* Nay, it is urged that the greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has sinned, so much the more he loves G.o.d. "To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."** Is not this indeed a.s.serting that a life of vice, with its stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consistent and virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the prodigal son?*** Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness?
These ambiguities, these a.s.sertions of punishment and forgiveness of crime, instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious detractions from a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim divinity.
* Luke xv, 7.
** Luke 7, 47.
*** Luke xv, 27.
Will you again turn back to the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature of the whole? Then, I ask you, read the story of the fig-tree* withered by the hungry Jesus. The fig-tree, if he were all-powerful G.o.d, was made by him, he limited its growth and regulated its development. He prevented it from bearing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his _infinite love_ was angry that the tree had not upon it that which it could not have. Tell me the love expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his parables, and in which he says: "For, I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. But those, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me."**
What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were G.o.d, represents himself as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few who are chosen): "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."***
* Matt xxi, 18-22; Mark xi, 12-24.
** Luke xix, 26,17.