THE MIRACLE-MONGERS.
At 958 B.C. Abijah is king over Judah. He reigns only three years. King Asa follows, 955.
Nadab follows Jeroboam, king of Israel; dies; and Baasha reigns in 954.
“And there was war between Asa, and Baasha king of Israel, all their days” ([1 Kings xv, 16]).
These facts go to show that fighting continued between Israel and Judah. Foreign powers are now invited to help, and the struggle continues.
In 918 Ahab is king of Israel. It is during his reign that a new class of men rise, agitators, talkers, prophets, and small miracle-makers.
Elijah makes his appearance. Jehu had already prophesied against Baasha; he was a minor star in the field of prophecy. Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, “said unto Ahab,” etc., says [1 Kings xvii, 1]. Ahab was king of Israel 918.
No miracles are reported to have occurred after Moses. Joshua did not perform any, except that incident about the sun. During all these centuries from 1443, the date of Joshua’s death, up to the reign of Ahab, not a miracle-maker appears. There are strong men, bad men, fighting men, priests, brave generals, very wicked men, etc., but none performs a miracle.
Another class of men are soon to appear. They, however, do not make their appearance until a century later, or so. I mean the nervous men, the visionary dreamers and prophets of the type of Isaiah. In addition, any number of soothsayers, necromancers, fortune-tellers, and quacks had entered into the business of miracle-making on a small scale. And a new school of skeptics and philosophic speculators slowly developed.
Civilization had not advanced much, but it nevertheless was progressing. The minds of men had undergone an evolution. The Jehova of Moses, or the simple abstract form of the Chaldean idol of Abraham, had lost its force, prestige, and importance. The ark, that sacred box, is completely lost sight of in these stirring times of revolution, rebellion, dissension, and fighting.
The high priest since the time of Saul had to take a subordinate position. He was the minor oracle, the fault-finder, sometimes the counselor, but never the leader. There was also great competition among the prophets. The trade had grown profitable, consequently false prophets, as they were termed, were trying to gain royal favor. The ideas about God and Jehova had increased and multiplied. Disputes and confusion swayed the people. Idolatry flourished, and the Gods of Abraham and Moses were to some extent still sustained by the relatives of the man who created Jehova, Moses.
Man’s progress in thought, the evolution of the human brain, is slow and uncertain, especially when the line of advance is of a speculative and problematic character. It is not like a scientific question, that can be demonstrated; accompanied by actual proof and absolute certainty; with no discussion or equivocation, no denial or speculation; which once established remains forever the same. Euclid’s geometry has never been disputed. Hippocrates in medicine—whatever he said that was known and true, remains unchanged. Everything that is based upon facts lasts forever.
CHAPTER XIII.
JEHOVA TAKES A REST.
God rests and lets the Hebrews take care of themselves for a period of four hundred and seventy-six years.
During these several centuries we hear nothing of miracle or of prophecy, of any importance. In fact, we have passed the only time God or Jehova made himself at all conspicuous. He never appeared again so prominently. He made his exit with Moses. When we hear of Jehova it is but the mere echo of his former self.
It is not our purpose to examine or criticise the balance of the Old Testament, but for the sake of showing how human and natural is all the course of these people struggling and making an attempt to exist as a nation, it will be well to consider the actual state of affairs of God’s people, after they had become a nation.
Joshua, the disciple of Moses, the general and leader after him, subdued and conquered the territory Moses had indicated, and divided the land among eleven tribes.
He followed the example of his master. He was a man of resolution and energy, and at this time he had a well-disciplined army. He was quick and active in his movements, with the prestige of Moses to back him. He made war on neighboring nations, slaughtered, hanged, and conquered, sparing nothing. He was shrewd and strategic. He consolidated the nation. He was wise, eloquent, and persuasive.
This closes the existence of the republican or theocratic form of government, not a very glorious career of the Hebrews as a nation.
Nothing very remarkable occurs during these four centuries, but we have a variety of incidents, all interwoven with superstitious notions of a barbaric, miraculous nature. Besides the introduction of the Box, called the ark, female agitators and heroines are introduced. Debora and Barak deliver the people from Sisera, by means of Mrs. Jael Heber, who drives a tent-nail through his temple while he is asleep. Then there is great rejoicing and another miracle is performed.
Meantime they were in slavery under the Assyrians for eighty years—freed by Othniel; under the Moabites eighteen years—freed by one Ehud. Under the Canaanites they were in slavery twenty years, and were delivered by Barak and Debora. The Midianites afflicted the country for seven years, and Gideon delivered them.
And this period called the era of the judges winds up with the Benjamites abusing the wife of a Levite, from the effects of which she dies. Thereupon the husband cuts the body up in twelve pieces and sends one to each of the Twelve Tribes—of course through his brother Levites. War is made upon the Benjamites whereby they are nearly exterminated.
Lust, robbery, plunder, slaughter, superstition, and barbarism marked these few centuries with little intermission.
The Levites had utilized the time in establishing the church and their priestly order, and that was actually the governing power during the four hundred and seventy-six years, but always under the name of the God of Moses, and was therefore designated the theocratic form of government.
I ask now in all seriousness, can anyone possessing a reasonable amount of understanding really believe that a God, such as Jews and Christians would make us believe that Jehova is, could behave in the manner recited in the history of the judges? It is a poor god that cannot restrain his people from committing crimes and depredations, restraining their brutal instincts and passions, keeping them in order, at peace among themselves and with others.
These intestine quarrels began in Moses’s time, at the formation and organization of the Jews as a nation, and ceased only with their destruction.
The church which was called into life by Moses was firmly established during this period with all the priestly paraphernalia of an Egyptian temple. Aaron may rightly be considered as the first pope of the church, and the Levites the priestly tribe.
“And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a miter, and a girdle, and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. And they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet and fine linen” ([Ex. xxviii, 4, 5]). These theatrical garments we have to this day in the Christian churches. Some additions have been made, corresponding and harmonizing with the events that have occurred since.
We must not for one moment suppose that the Hebrews were the only people that were active and struggled for existence—which existence in their case this Jehova Christendom still looks upon as most miraculous.
As a nation the Jews never invented anything. Jehova is the only thing humanity at large has inherited, and he has been a cause of quarrel and discord ever since. Joshua dies 1443 and Saul is made king 1095. Other nations during this period advance more rapidly in civilization without God, without Jehova, than the Hebrews do with his assistance. Dardanus, king of Troy, is busy building cities 1480 B.C. Danmoni invades Ireland 1463 B.C. Perseus establishes the kingdom of Mycene 1457 B.C. Crockery is made by the Greeks 1490 B.C. All kinds of tools and weapons are being made. At 1453 Olympic games are celebrated in Greece. Hercules makes his appearance and arrives in Phrygia 1225 B.C. The Trojan war begins 1194 and Helen elopes with Paris 1204 B.C. Latinus in 1239 reigns in Italy. In 1141 the temple of Ephesus is burnt by the Amazons. Many nations may be cited using dancing music. Singing had already developed. I cite these few items to show that the world was doing bravely without Jehova or God. In 1115 the Chinese not only knew of the mariner’s compass, but were compiling a standard dictionary containing forty thousand characters—which is said to have been completed by Pa-aut-she 1100 B.C.
These brief statements, these few historical facts—and there are any number of them—I recite for the purpose of showing that other nations developed, other kingdoms existed, other peoples had already made considerable advances in art, science, lawmaking, government, priestcraft, without God, without Jehova, without the ark. These other nations had their oracles, their ceremonies, their customs. And what is more, they still exist as nations. They no doubt had their wonders, their miracles, their spirits, their souls, their ghosts, their holy of holies, their sanctums, their angels, and their divinities, and whatever else has from time to time been invented to control and deceive the masses and to satisfy the priests.
What everybody should understand is that these Hebrews during the theocratic form of government were no better than, and in fact not so good as, other nations, or any of their neighbors.
The stage of civilization has never yet advanced beyond the natural capacity and capability of the people at any time. Whatever stage has been reached in the world’s progress in the past, it was in harmony and corresponded with the degree of nervous culture that had been attained.
And just in proportion as the senses were developed, intelligence and understanding advanced. The senses are the sole originators of ideas. The collective experience and training of these senses becomes the standard by which we may judge the height of knowledge any class of people may have reached.
Nations kept pace with one another, copying from one another, imitating or modifying or improving those things and conditions with which they were brought in contact, whether by travel, commercial intercourse, or war. All these means of communication served as a means of exchanging ideas, of adopting, rejecting, or improving whatever degree of civilization had been attained.
At no time has any individual, community, or nation been especially favored by any supernatural endowment, influence, or miraculous contribution towards their advancement. But each has always been improved by the force, energy, power, of some individual or individuals whose training and education has been such as to fit him or them to concentrate and carry out the ideas that have perhaps been floating for a greater or lesser time in the intellectual atmosphere. When civilization has outgrown the swaddlings of the times, something must yield. A change is sure to be effected. Although it may not take place without a struggle, or at once, ultimately it will and must attain the necessary accommodation.
Change or revolution has never yet taken place without some new ideas having been evolved. Doubts have arisen, and processes of reasoning have been set in motion, plans made, in order to upset the old ideas, to replace them by the new.
New ideas and improvements ripen slowly. The minds of men are not ready to receive and adopt them. Skepticism as to the existing state of things makes way for the newer and advanced condition of affairs.
Our understanding and reasoning faculties are limited to the state of progress and the steps that have been made in the advancement of civilization. We may be a little before our time, but never very much.
We could never have had an electric light if Volta had not discovered the battery. Nor would steam power be so generally used if the marquis of Worcester had not had the idea suggested to him A.D. 1663 of a way to drive up water by fire, etc.
Men must learn to know and understand that all knowledge, whether belonging to mythology, idolatry, fable, romance, theology, philosophy, or science—all rules adopted for our mode of conduct, either as individuals, communities, or governments—are the products of the brain, evolved by degrees by a perfectly natural process.
And just as we advance from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to puberty, from puberty to manhood, from manhood to maturity, from maturity to reasoning, from reasoning to judgment, from judgment to wisdom, so humanity has gone step by step, through many thousands of centuries perhaps, slowly improving in intelligence, accumulating experience. Observing so many phenomena in nature they did not understand, it was all surprise and wonder. And not being able to account for them, in consequence of the infantile development of their nerve centers, admiration of their beauty and usefulness led to gratitude and worship. And they at length made themselves images representing these extraordinary phases. Thus idols in all probability originated. Like children with dolls, they dressed them, painted them, played with them, imitated living beings in their form and shape, endowing them with some of the best human qualities or virtues known to them.
The collection of these representations, especially the most prominent ones, formed in due time the center or focus round which fables and myths gathered. The older they grew, the more they were honored, till at length they became established institutions.
The history of the human race begins with fables, myths, childish stories, and with idols. These prevail until some one arises and either disputes their authenticity or proves them unreasonable. This tends to produce new ideas, disputes, conflicts, angry passions, and separation.
Differences of opinion concerning old ideas and methods lead to the formation of new ones, especially when the old ones cease to interest and become impracticable or burdensome. New ideas in time take the place of the old ones, improved, modified, and adapted to the existing circumstances and conditions.
The Levites had for several centuries attempted to govern the Hebrews by means of ecclesiastical discipline, laws, and leadership, but finally discovered that it was anything but a success. Every form had been tried. They were threatened with destruction, in spite of their Jehova and the wooden Box, the ark. Some new stimulant had to be tried to bring about a more healthy condition of affairs. To consolidate the nation if possible, to infuse a new spirit, and divert ideas from discontent, turmoil, and dissension, a king was suggested. Samuel finding a very tall man who bore an excellent reputation for courage and wise conduct, one of the tribe of Benjamin, he selected him as a proper person to become king of the Jews. This man’s name was Saul.
Samuel himself not only was a clever priest and prophet, but also possessed the necessary qualities to make a good general. It was he who defeated the Philistines after they had gained one victory over the Israelites and captured their ark.
During this period of their existence as a republic, an ecclesiastical republic—the theocracy, as it is called—they had to contend and struggle, and undergo many vicissitudes. It was barbarian fighting against barbarian. Regardless of their having on the one side Jehova and the ark, and on the other side Dagon & Co., the victory always remained with the best-disciplined or more numerous army, which also possessed good generalship.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF NATIONAL LIFE.
The Hebrew monarchy established under Saul 1095 B.C., continued and cemented under David, and weakened and ruined under Solomon, terminated in the year 975 B.C., lasting altogether one hundred and twenty years.
This marks the culmination of national greatness and glory—and the rapid decline and disintegration.
We now come upon the rise of a new class of men, prophets of a new school—visionary men, dreamers and agitators, reformers—besides miracle-mongers and fault-finders. Discontent reigned. Men began to sing the glories of their past greatness, the wonders of Jehova, the miracles of Moses, and the promises that the Lord had made to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of the land that flowed with milk and honey.
It seems almost unaccountable, even from a theological, Christian standpoint, that God, Jehova, the Lord almighty, should not be able to exhibit his wonderful powers regularly, systematically, instead of by fits and starts, on special occasions, after intervening centuries. Why should a God come and go by leaps and jumps, appearing and disappearing at distant ages, now helping and then punishing? Why lead and mislead? Why permit people to be so foolish and senseless as to create rival gods? Why should he be jealous of a wooden god, or of any other kind of an idol?
Why should it be necessary to whip people into understanding God, knowing him? Why were there so many thousand people slaughtered to force conviction of his marvelous powers?
Is it not an outrage on common sense for a God to stoop to mountebank tricks, subterfuge, and delusion, so-called miracles, in order to establish his existence, or his presence?
If God made man, why did he not make him properly to begin with, so as to suit himself at least? Why did he not make him so as to know the father right from the start?
Why should this almighty God, this Jehova, keep his chosen people continually on the rack of transgression, crime, and folly?
Why did he create them so that they should so easily forget him, and devote their reverence, their veneration, their sacrifices, and their prayers to some brass or wooden image?
The excuse so frequently made throughout the Bible, as a reason for losing battles or being made captives, that the Jews forsook their Jehova, their God, is no extenuating circumstance. How comes it that the nations with the heathen gods were victorious and finally conquered the Hebrew nation and led them forth as captives? The heathen gods must have been equal, indeed frequently superior, to the Hebrew God, because they, the heathen gods, were so very often victorious, and finally subdued the Hebrews.
The two nations Judah and Israel fell into idolatry almost immediately. Solomon even preferred Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians; and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites ([1 Kings xi, 5]), and how many other strange gods we have no record.
Israel began as a kingdom 975 B.C.; Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, was the first king and Hoshea the last; Shalmanezer, king of Assyria, took Samaria by force, and drove the Ten Tribes into Media captives, in the year 721 B.C.; this kingdom having lasted two hundred and fifty-four years, and having had during that time nineteen kings.
The kingdom of Judah lasted longer, beginning at the same time, 975 B.C. Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, was the first king. The captivity of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem was completed 588 B.C. Judah had existed as a nation about three hundred and eighty-seven years. Jehoiachin and Zedekiah were the last kings. During this period they had about twenty-one kings. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made a conquest of Egypt, besieged Jerusalem, pillaged and burnt the Temple, and carried everything away that he could lay his hands on.
With few exceptions, a worse, a more brutal set of men than these rulers never governed any nation. During their successive reigns, we find an unbroken succession of the barbarities which were at that time the generally recognized method of warfare, accompanied by licentiousness, and all the other savageries of these semi-civilized people.
Prophet traffic flourished in those days. There were as many kinds of prophets as there were gods, with a complement of priests to correspond.
Religious hate and intolerance was manifest on every occasion towards one another. To gain power and control the affairs of state was the chief aim and object. They would curse and destroy one another whenever a favorable opportunity occurred.
Two religious fanatics became especially conspicuous about 918 B.C., Elijah and later Elisha. The antagonism and hostility between the leaders of factions was now very intense. Jezebel slaughtered the prophets of her opponents, and Elijah, who was the leader of the Jehova faction, cursed and raved, and many hundred prophets of Baal were slaughtered ([1 Kings xviii, 19, 40]). It was brutality against brutality, crime against crime, savagedom against savagedom. The bloody struggle continued right along, the slaying being employed on any and every occasion. Thus he caused the killing of the several fifties, as related in [2 Kings i]. Elijah was a zealot; harsh, bitter, and merciless to the opponents of his faith. As to the miracles, they answered the purpose well enough for a lot of ignorant, half-civilized country people. We have had similar tricks repeated by priests all along, deluding, cheating, and defrauding the poor simple-minded, ignorant classes.
“And it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” ([2 Kings ii, 11]). How could a man go up to heaven? The atmosphere around this terrestrial globe is about two to three hundred miles in hight. The law of gravitation prevents the smallest particle from leaving the earth’s surface, much more a body of the weight of a man. The whirlwind belongs to the earth, and never reaches beyond a certain hight. Besides, everything taken up by a whirlwind or cloud in due time returns to mother earth. As for the horses and chariot of fire, in later days pious persons pretend to have seen similar appearances. A man sitting before a fire fancies he sees all kinds of pictures and faces; they are the reflections of his mind. So when one fancies representations of figures and objects in the clouds, or in the moon, they are either delusions of vision, or the fancied picture of the imagination. There are delusions of hearing. An unsound condition of the nervous system may produce hallucinations of such a nature; a disease or a mental derangement may occasion this sort of nervous disturbances.
A new feature was introduced by these men—the healing art, resuscitating the supposed dead, casting out evil spirits, laying on hands, etc. A sillier piece of charlatanism was never put in print than Elisha’s miraculous resuscitating trick on a child in a cataleptic fit ([2 Kings iv, 34], etc.).
A craftier or more cunning piece of business was exciting Jehu, King Ahab’s general, to rebel, and to slaughter the whole of the king’s family. Elisha sends a young prophet to Jehu to pour oil on his head and anoint him king, on his promise to exterminate the king’s family ([2 Kings ix]): “For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel” ([2 Kings ix, 8]).
Ahab, Jezebel, and Ahab’s seventy sons were all slaughtered. All the great man’s priests, and his kinsfolk, were slain. And Elisha called together all the prophets of Ahab’s faction, all those that worshiped Baal, and killed them all off. General Jehu was made king as a recompense for the services he had rendered to the Elisha faction. That was about 884 B.C.
Usurpation, conspiracy, and bloody crimes mark this period. Intrigue, robbery, spoilings, lust, and degradation seem epidemic in these nations. When they were not fighting each other, they were warring with these barbarities.
Elijah had undoubtedly a powerful party at his command when he prompted Jehu to revolt and assume the reins of government. He had everything pretty well organized when Elijah said, “And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.”
“Yet I have left seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal” ([1 Kings xix, 17, 18]). These seven thousand were no doubt his immediate disciples, not the commoner herd of people.
He selected a man to succeed him, whom he no doubt knew well—a farmer, for Elisha was plowing when he was chosen as chief agitator, arch-conspirator, and inheritor of all the rights and privileges of a revolutionary leader ([1 Kings xix, 20], etc.).
This plowman, prophet, and conspirator combines in himself also the healer, preacher, and leader, etc. He cures Naaman’s leprosy, causes iron to swim, brings blessings to some and curses to others.
These knavish tricks succeeded with the ignorance and superstition of the day. The people could be swayed in any direction by a clever, determined, bold talker, consequently were easily excited into the committal of any acts, no matter how revolting or brutal.
These political factions led by prophets and priests were not so gentle and polite towards one another as they are at the present day. The church ruled. Gods of either side alternately were in power. Those in power killed off those who were out of power.
Whether it is Elijah or Elisha, leaders of the Jehova party, or Queen Jezebel, leader of the Baal prophets of the other party, the result always depends upon numbers and clever leadership.
Ferocious brutality never ceases but for a short while. There is not a spark of humanity, no mercy, not an act of kindness or consideration.
Menahem was king of Israel 772 B.C. He smote Tipsha and all that were therein. “And all the women therein that were with child he ripped up” ([2 Kings xv, 16]).
Thus we have page after page marked with bloody crime in the book called sacred history, scripture, and what not. And alas! this is God’s work, God’s own book, God’s own people.
Much has been said about the inaccuracies in the Bible—the contradictions, the errors that are found. We are not concerned in any of them. We are interested in directing the attention of the reader to the book called holy scripture, a book believed to have been written by supernatural inspiration, relating to certain acts done by God; and these acts, accompanied by wonders, were performed for a people especially selected by him, that were under his protection, guidance, direct supervision; and their leaders, lawgivers, kings, priests, prophets, and teachers were by reason of their holiness in communication with this God, either directly or indirectly, and thereby were endowed with powers that rendered them capable of doing things contrary to the fixed laws of nature.
We have endeavored to point to a few of the acts of the greatest and best men figuring in that book called scripture. These men were not divine nor were their acts divine. Their acts were not humane, nor anything approaching what is understood to be humane at the present age. On the contrary, their acts were barbarous, savage, brutal, cruel, and in many instances outrageous.
They, the Hebrews, were no better than their neighbors the heathens, whatever their name or nationality might be. The heathen with their idols were just as good in war, in battle, as, if not better than, the Jews were with their God, their Jehova, and the ark, and finally succeeded in subduing the Jews, burning their Temple with God’s ark, vessels, etc., taking them captives, and destroying them as a nation.
It is evident from history that the principal men of the nation were corrupt; that both the kingdom of Israel and that of Judah were rotten to the core. They were continually warring with each other, as with other nations. Their abuses gave rise to public agitators, who always found supporters.
Men of the Elijah and Elisha stamp never lose an opportunity, and they made the most of all of it while they lived.
They introduced a school of thought and action that laid the foundation for new sects that culminated in the remote future. The belief in medical miracles was more firmly fastened upon the minds of their followers by the prophets, fortune-tellers, and healers, than by any class previous.
Other nations meantime were progressing in civilization—literature, the art of warfare, etc. Greece was gaining laurels. Homer appeared. Hesiod wrote about 900 B.C. Tyrtæus’s Elegies, Archilochus’s Satires, etc., about 700 B.C. The Persians and Romans were rising and making rapid progress and conquest, soon to sweep smaller peoples and nations aside. These heathen made conquests, gained victories, transplanted the captives, and were altogether far more prosperous and successful with their idols than the Hebrews were with their God. Nothing else better proves that the struggles for supremacy among the human families were perfectly natural, each side depending always on their leaders, their skill in fighting, their bravery, and their organization; that their Gods, their idols, their oracles, and their priests played but a small part in the transactions of life; and that all the gods, whether idols, or mythological, or Jehovistic, and no matter of what nationality, had all about the same material value, power, and importance.
From our modern standpoint all the gods may be classed in one category. We may safely pronounce them to be creatures of imagination, sprung into existence through ignorance, fears, and superstition. They are all alike false, frivolous, and foolish. They have not a particle of truth in them. And the Gods that are now held in such high esteem by many people, are no better than the Chaldean idols.
Judah is still struggling to retain her grip on her national life. Every effort prolongs the agony. Hezekiah is king 717 B.C. Isaiah is the prophet. Romantic dreamer, songster, critic, and man of visions, he sees distress, ruin, and misery before him; recalls the glories of the past, but sees none of the faults; sees the greatness of the nation of Solomon, David, and Saul, and now beholds the national degradation. He laments this dreadful condition with a bitterness of feeling. Then he hopes against hope that something will happen in the future that will bring about a happy state of his nation and reproduce the golden prosperity of those glittering ages that are gone. This man is a close observer, a visionary man, and a critic. He writes and sings of his own people, of his own country. In the introduction which he gives himself in [Isaiah i] and [ii], he presents his vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem, etc. He reproaches them for their sin, iniquity, corruption, etc.: “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” (i, 7).
His dream and hope of the future: “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (ii, 4).
This entire chapter, like most of the chapters of Isaiah, is a work of the imagination. It is the fancy of a dreamer who mentally sees the thing he longs for. In his nervous exaltation, visions appear, incoherent, meaningless, except to himself. He brings different parts of different objects together, representing things and scenes he is familiar with, in the form of pictures, natural in parts but unnatural and impossible as a whole.
“As for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them” (iii, 12). He describes the “tinkling ornaments” about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, their chains and bracelets and mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, and the rings and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins, and the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails, etc. This portion is no doubt realistic. It shows his mental condition and the mood he was in.
His humor changes: “Now I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard” (v, 1). In this chapter he touches upon everything that strikes his fancy. Hell, wind, land, instruments, lions, etc., etc., are all introduced. He rambles all over nature. Imaginary ideas are mixed with realities indiscriminately, for illustration, comparison, lamentation, or complaining. High in the temple he sees the Lord sit; sees the seraphim with six wings, etc. (vii). And in chapter viii he has a “great roll and writes in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.” Verse 1: “And I went to the prophetess; and she conceived, and had a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz” (3).
Isaiah lived after the captivity of the Ten Tribes.
He also knows of the constant fighting between the Ten tribes and the two, Israel and Judah. Israel has been carried away captive to other lands and its country has been given to a people called Cutheans, or Samaritans. These cultivated and adopted in some measure the Jewish religion. In moments of despondency he refers to them as he refers to Moab and other nations elsewhere. The whole Christian faith seems to be based on the prophecy of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, 6th and 7th verses. Isaiah starts out in this chapter speaking of the time when God first lightly afflicted the land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtali, etc. In the 6th verse he says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” etc. That man has no reference to Christ as Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
Chapter viii, verse 8: “And he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of the land, O Immanuel.” This really means the son which the prophetess conceived, and called Maher-shalal-hash-baz.
Chapter ix, verse 21: “Manasseh and Ephraim, and Ephraim and Manasseh; and they together shall be against Judah,” etc. He talks in a confused, mystified fashion, alluding now to this people, now to that; at one time to the Tribes and at another to the Moabites, Assyrians, then to Egypt or Zion; dreams of tyrants, hypocrites, and his hopes revived about the remnants of Israel. When he speaks of the child he has not the remotest dream of Christ. He has no foreknowledge, except what his judgment suggests. He feels annoyed and irritated, then his hope and aspiration soothe and comfort him, and in chapter xi he describes a most happy state of affairs: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (verse 6). “And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox” (xi, 7), etc.
The wildest and most extravagant kinds of interpretation are given to various passages in Isaiah. Into them the theologians force a meaning:
Chapter xxxv, 1: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Christians say it means the joyful flourishing of Christ’s kingdom.
In chapter xliii, verse 2, Jehova declares: “I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no savior.”
He repeats it in chapter xliv, verse 6: “I am the first, and I am the last, and beside me there is no God.”
Verse 8: “Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”
Chapter xlix: “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken ye people from afar; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” This is supposed to mean, Christ being sent to the Jews complaineth of them.
Chapter lv: “Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold! for your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgression is your mother put away.” It is said that this means, Christ sheweth that the dereliction of the Jews is not to be imputed to him, by his ability to save. This is the Christian interpretation of the above passage. It is a misrepresentation of facts as well as meaning. Why twist, torture, and falsify it?
Isaiah lived in stirring times. After the captivity of the Ten Tribes, the government and the people were corrupt. An invasion was at hand. Sennacherib invades Judea 712–711 B.C. The Medes and Assyrians were also fighting for supremacy. Being an educated man, he knew the history of his nation—their trials, the triumph and the glory they had enjoyed, and the decline of this people with its pride and pomp to a passing away. He had ample material to supply his imagination; he therefore dreamed, sang praises, saw visions, hoping for something to turn up, miraculous or otherwise, to save the remnant of his nation. He cannot be compared to the two strong, rough miracle-mongers of Israel, Elijah and Elisha, that had lived over a century before him.
This idealistic dreamer had not the slightest knowledge of coming events, of what was to happen seven hundred years later. The minds of men had slowly undergone changes.
The rigidity of the Mosaic laws had undergone some modification, and some change in interpretation as to the meaning of the many commands and usages. With every battle and with every invasion new notions, new customs, were introduced. The transition was surely laying the foundation for various schools, which was inevitable as the intelligence and education progressed.
After Isaiah Jeremiah comes, as a natural result of the age. Manasseh, king of Judah, had been carried captive to Babylon, and restored to power 677 B.C. Ammon and Josiah follow. The latter is killed, and his successor, Jehoahaz king of Judah, is deposed and carried to Egypt 609. Three years later Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem. Jehoiachin reigns three months, and he is carried off captive to Babylon, besides three thousand of the principal persons of dignity, and among these was Ezekiel (598 B.C.). Zedekiah was appointed king. He was the uncle of Jehoiachin, twenty-one years of age when he began his reign; a bad one it was, and he suffered for it. And he was the last of the kings of Judah. In 588 B.C. Jerusalem was captured and destroyed, the Temple burnt; the sons and friends of Zedekiah were slain; Zedekiah’s eyes were put out, and he was bound and taken to Babylon.
Jeremiah had spoken a good many truths, and given them ample warnings what would happen. He met with a great deal of opposition—was thrown into prison and made to suffer for his boldness. His exhortations and his appeals availed nothing.
The heads of the high priests and those of the rulers were cut off. The destruction was complete.
Jeremiah wrote fifty-two chapters, and Christian interpreters managed to find two places in this entire writing that indicated Christ’s kingdom:
Chapter xxiii, verse 5; “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute justice and judgment in the earth”—meaning, Christ shall rule and save them.
Chapter xxxi, verse 22: “How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man”—meaning, Christ is promised.
These are the only two spots whence any possible allusion can be drawn.
This man is unlike the visionary, romantic dreamer Isaiah, whose imagination and nervous exaltation kept him more or less in a state of excitability and carried him into regions of dreamland where his hopes and wishes were planted. Jeremiah writes up the historical occurrences; passes judgment on his own people and on the nations his people had to struggle with, bewailing their corruption, wickedness, wretchedness, misery. He never dreams of Christ or Christianity, nor does he in any part allude to Christ. He also, like Isaiah, wrote and acted in accordance with the times he lived in. He was a steadfast friend to his disciple Baruch. His lamentations describing the miserable state of Jerusalem, bewailing its calamities, are perfectly human, and perfectly natural for a patriot and a poet of his time.
Ezekiel was in Chaldea among the captives about 590 B.C. This man is also largely endowed with a prolific imagination; he is a visionary man. He adopts a new method of talking; when the word of the Lord comes to him, “Son of Man” is the manner in which he is addressed. Jeremiah uses the expression, “Sayeth the Lord,” or “the word to Jeremiah from the Lord saying”——Isaiah uses, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Ezekiel wrote forty-eight chapters. The following are interpreted to mean Christ:
Chapter xxxiv, verse 20: “Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them: Behold I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle”—meaning, the kingdom of Christ.
Chapter xxxvi, verse 25: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you; and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you”—meaning, the blessings of Christ’s kingdom.
Chapter xxxvii, verse 20: “And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes”—meaning, the promises of Christ’s kingdom.
The political methods of governing nations which had their origin in the ages of barbarism, ignorance, and brutality, left the rotten remnants to construct upon them a system of rules for the guidance of the masses, to control, subjugate, and restrain their mental faculties, the development and advancement of their understanding, and to perpetuate the suppression of their higher intellectual powers.
The beliefs in a God with the inferior natural human functions were handed down to us through many centuries, undergoing transitions and changes to suit the occasions, circumstances, and times.
The toning down of the Hebrew God is in the first instance mainly due to the beneficent influences of the heathen, as they were then called. The educational facilities the Jews enjoyed during their captivity were of a better and higher order, and how much of the entire book called scripture is due to these opportunities afforded them we shall never know. History teaches us, however, that Ezra, when Cyrus was king of Persia, 457 B.C., was permitted to go to Jerusalem to collect what manuscripts and data he could find, and he is credited to have written the Chronicles 453 B.C. How many more books or parts were written and compiled by Ezra and his companions will remain a mystery.
The work of resuscitating the nation—to recover its former importance, to reëstablish some of its former glory—was attempted seventy years later, under Cyrus, who granted the Jews the privilege to return and rebuild the Temple.
They were prompted to do this out of pure motives of patriotism, and it can be regarded only as a struggle to continue to exist as a portion of a historic people. The Levites were instrumental in bringing about their return. The tribes were those belonging to the kingdom of Judah.
At this time an opposition temple and an opposition religion was established by the people of Samaria, a mixture of Cutheans and Israelites. The rivalry and hatred towards each other was as intense as the hatred and bitter factional fight had been between the Ten Tribes and the two tribes Israel and Judah.
Affairs did not succeed well. There were quarrels, wrangles, application to higher authorities to arbitrate and decide their differences and disputes. New kings, new powers, came for conquest and plunder. New leaders, new governors, deceit, treachery, rebellion, assassination, mark these centuries under Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, until 63 B.C., when Judea was made a Roman province. Meantime new sects had organized under different names, each one giving its interpretation as to the signification of the laws contained in the books that were handed down to them. From the multiplicity of opinions, sects, factions, and fanaticisms, the already modified ideas were about to undergo a farther transition, that helped to inaugurate what might well be termed a reformation.
While this nation was crumbling to pieces other nations had advanced in civilization, in art, science, and literature, that never claimed to have done anything under the influence of a Jehova, or any symbol representing him. These nations—Greeks, Romans, Persians—seemed to have succeeded better with mythological gods than the Jews with theirs. They had laws to govern them, which required neither smoke nor thunder to make them. Man, plain man, made them. Some were surrounded with mysterious ceremonies, symbols; others were not. Lycurgus reforms the constitution of Sparta 884 B.C. Carpets are made for tents about this time. The art of sculpture rises in Egypt. Buddha’s religion is introduced into India, and an attempt is made to discover the primitive language of mankind by Psameticus; and, what is of considerable importance, children are being educated in the Grecian language and manners 660 B.C.
These facts are mentioned to show that nations that were not hampered with the Jehovistic religion, that had no miracles, wonders, or arks, were more advanced in the national sciences, had made farther progress in the general civilization of mankind, than the Hebrews. The electricity of amber was discovered by Thales, and he also taught the spherical form of the earth as the true cause of lunar eclipses, 640 B.C. Schools of learning flourished in many places. Authors appeared whose writings are classic to this day—Sappho, Alcæus, Æsop, Pittachus. Solon’s legislation in Athens superseded the laws of Draco.
It was not the Mosaic God that made these people intelligent, gave them their understanding. Their enlightenment was due simply to the natural processes of the great nervous centers, independent of all supernatural interference.
The school of statuary was opened at Athens by Depoenus and Scyllis. Comedies were enacted on a cart by Susarian and Dolon. Dials were invented by Anaximander, etc. Learning is encouraged at Athens, and a public library is founded. All this and much more occurs about 540 B.C.
Persia, too, is rapidly spreading its empire; growing powerful; progressing in wealth, commerce, and learning. Zoroaster founds his philosophy, without bloodshed, rapine, or murder.
Rome is in a nourishing condition; takes its first census 565 B.C.—811,700 citizens—spreading its empire.
We must ever bear in mind that all these nations were called heathen, and their methods of belief are looked upon by Christian teachers as much inferior to their own.
Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, is not inferior in his morality to any of the moralists of the age in which he lived, 522 B.C. And we may safely say he is equal even to the morals of to-day. Manners, methods, and fashions change, but certain principles remain.
We can examine the pages of the history of other human races and compare them with the Jews, God’s own chosen race, his own people, and the heathen takes the prize in every branch of science, art, and the progress of civilization. The Hebrews for many, many centuries, with their blind infatuation with the supernatural, their constant superstitious practices of their ceremonial, their senseless devotion to an imaginary piece of extravagance, were so steeped in stupidity and ignorance that they had neither time nor inclination to observe and examine nature and its workings, so remained slaves to their preposterous practices.
Republics become fashionable. Corinth starts with her republican form of government 582 B.C., and Rome follows in abolishing a regal government and establishing a republic 509 B.C.
The Carthaginians make a voyage to Great Britain for tin, etc.
Sophocles, Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, and a host of renowned men rise to teach the world how to think, how to speak. Philosophy, medicine, morality, poetry, history, comedy, tragedy, arts, and science had a firm hold on the public mind. A degree of refinement both in manner and in conduct prevailed among all classes.
It was about this time that Ezra and his companions were compiling—rather collecting—fragments for composing the book of Chronicles. Other books may have been compiled or written.
Nehemiah followed Ezra. He rebuilt and repeopled Jerusalem. For all that, nothing good of a permanent character was accomplished.
Time goes on, centuries accumulate; intelligence, experience, and a higher grade of civilization appear. Nations grow more powerful. The struggle for supremacy continues, and Judah, like a shuttlecock, is thrown about from nation to nation, now under one dominion and now under another.
Religious opinions, however, are forming. They are hostile, bitter, inimical towards one another; accompanied with all the hatred, jealousy, spite, that religious differences usually engender. They are all anxious to hold office, priestly or otherwise, consequently bribery, lying, and misrepresentation are the means used to gain the influence of those in power. The rivalry between the sects makes matters no better.
The Samaritan sect were already in existence when Ezra returned to Jerusalem. Hostilities led to conflicts, and there was little peace between them.
In Judea there were several sects, holding various opinions. Like so many political factions, each sought control, and tried to uphold its peculiar views and interpretations.
The Sadducees sprang into life about 244 B.C. This sect believed that the soul dies with the body; “nor do they regard the observance of anything besides that the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent; but this doctrine is received but by few, yet by those still of greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost anything of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise hear them” (Josephus).
This sect, one would judge, consisted of the wealthy and more enlightened class.
“The Pharisees live meanly, despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the contract of reason; and what that prescribes for them, as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice. They also pay respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and, when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers and sacrifices, they perform them according to their directions; insomuch that the cities gave great attestation to them, on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and of their discourse also” (Josephus).
“The doctrine of the Essenes is this, that all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls and esteem that rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for, and when they send what they have dedicated to God unto the Temple, they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the Temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor Barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he that hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way; and neither have many wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the income of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men, and priests, who are to get their coin and their food ready for them. Of a fourth sect of Jewish philosophers, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only ruler and lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” (Josephus).
These matters are quoted to show the changes and modifications religious opinions were undergoing, and must have undergone for many centuries previously, until they reached the present stage.
The arguments, discussions, and reasons given, as well as the beliefs adopted, differ only in degree and kind from those when Abraham and his father dissented from the mode of worship then extant in Chaldea, some one thousand nine hundred years previous, and from the modifications introduced by Moses, the greater part of which were adopted from the Egyptians—whence the Jews really got the first taste of civilization.
These religious notions of the Jews are the opinions, simply the opinions, of a small branch of the human family. There are a great many others.
During all these centuries little or nothing was known of the natural, of the more intimate relations of nature and nature’s forces. And of all nations the Jewish race knew the least. They were too much occupied with the supernatural to ever learn anything of the natural.
The supernatural idea sprang from the mire of ignorance and barbarism and savagery. Crime and outrage mark the centuries as it rolled along in the tide of human events, halting only when forced, and renewing its current when there was nothing to bar its way—struggling madly, conquering, fighting, subduing. Life was of no value, and everything was brutally crushed under this monstrous supernatural idea, until at length it was brought to halt by superior natural forces that in time crushed and subdued it.
After one thousand four hundred years of Jehovaism, of various shades and hues, this religion emerges from the past ages to the coming centuries in a new garb, slightly improved, somewhat milder in temper, and wearing altogether a new mask, so that neither Father Abraham nor General Moses would recognize his offspring.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
We come to the beginning of the second two thousand years of modified Jehovaism, called the Christian era.
The Christian era, like the Chaldean-Abrahamic era, and like the Mosaic-Jehovistic era, was introduced in a mysterious manner. Both the Mosaic and the Christian were accompanied with miracles, differing in degree and intensity, as also corresponding with the changes and transitions of the times, the progress of intelligence, and the development of brain power.
If Moses had made the attempt to perform his miracles in Christ’s time, he would have been hooted. He could not have deceived these masses with his tricks as he did the ignorant horde he led out of Egypt. These people had no opinion, no idea, no intelligence. They were the obedient tools and slaves of anyone who exhibited superior skill to control them and keep them in subjection, as the Catholic and Greek church make the ignorant masses subservient to their will at this day.
The small end of the wedge of science had begun to make its way into the dense solid mass of ignorance and superstition, through the thick coating of Jehovistic supernaturalism. This thin end, however, opened a chink big enough to give us the first glimpse of the natural.
Men began to think, reason, calculate. Their past experience made them think and compare the various conditions of man and things in nature. Philosophy, arts, science, had taken root, in opposition to and in spite of any supernatural theory or any Jehovistic influence.
The natural is the proper antidote for this supernatural poison.
Greece was one of the first nations that helped to lift the heavy fog that obscured man’s intellectual vision:
These few citations I hope will be convincing proof of the progress made, thus showing that men were observing, reasoning, calculating, governed by demonstration and proof. It would have been impossible for Moses, or any other man, to perform miracles of the nature theologians believe, at the time of Christ.
Two conditions are always necessary for every miracle—profound ignorance on the one hand, and a clever fraud on the other.
There are, however, another class of miracles, that are at all times in order; that are played and plied on human failing and human weakness, always coupled with ignorance on the one side, and dishonest scoundrelism, a fraud by a priest or church mountebank, on the other.
In disturbances of nature, no one believes unless he has ocular proof and demonstration, knowing that these things are subject to natural laws and no one man could produce an earthquake or a thunderstorm. No man could stop the current of the Mississippi river either by praying or by throwing a stick over it.
What we can do, that has the appearance of a miracle, is to play upon the susceptibilities, failings, weaknesses, and imaginations of ignorant human nature.
These cure-alls, these medical wonder-workers, these spiritual charlatans, these theological miracle-mongers, these fanatical frauds, were introduced more prominently in the Bible story by the celebrated political agitators Elijah and Elisha.
The Christian form of religion is a modification of the Hebrew, mixed with either Greek or some other of the numerous doctrines existing at that period. The hero of this reformation is brought to our notice in what is scripturally called a miraculous manner.
Matthew introduces the subject by saying (i, 18): “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”
We have noticed how ([Gen. vi, 2]) the sons of God married the daughters of men—who the lady was, the mother of these sons, we do not know, or by what process they were brought into this world.
There are instances in the Bible when prayer had the effect of producing that interesting condition on woman.
We have also the example of Eli, that fat, lascivious priest (whose sons entertained themselves behind the altar with the ladies) who assisted Hannah when the Lord closed her womb. The Temple has served many outrageous purposes, and many amusing as well as instructive lessons might be gathered. Fortunately the Jewish Temple is no exception. The heathen temples were equally guilty.
During the reign of Tiberius, the Romans had a temple of Isis, and they had a god called Anubis. A man with the name of Mundus fell in love with a married lady called Paulina, who bribed the priests to permit him to appear to Paulina in the temple as the god Anubis. The priest representing the god Anubis invited Paulina to the temple in order to be entertained by that god. Her husband, pleased with the favor, consented. Paulina was entertained all night at the temple by what she supposed to be the god Anubis, Mundus representing him. Paulina was delighted, her husband also, but Mundus could not hold his tongue. Tiberius heard of it; he caused the temple, priests, and all to be burnt, and Mundus was exiled for three months. The priests were crucified. Anyone curious to know particulars about this matter may consult history.
In modern times, living as we do in an age of reason, fact, and science, we do not take the same view of these particular occurrences such as the Bible speaks of as our forefathers, the ancients who lived in an age of fancy and imagination. The Holy Ghost, unless he is in the substantial form of a man, can accomplish nothing, and either Mrs. Mary Joseph had committed an act of indiscretion before marriage, or Joseph himself was the father.
It would be far more decent for all parties concerned to legitimatize the child. The effect or result would be just the same, since the young gentleman is to be the great reformer of that age, clever, meek, mild, amiable as he is represented to be in the New Testament.
Mark begins his gospel: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Luke begins historically and then tells his virgin story (i, 27).
John philosophizes, and tells us that (verse 18) “no man hath seen God; the only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him.” In verse 45 he is called the son of Joseph.
The entrance of Christ into this world is the most stupid and ridiculous piece of nonsense that was ever written. If Christ is the son of God he can be no relation of David, and Joseph can certainly not be his father. Or if the Holy Ghost was the cause of Mary’s condition before marriage, Joseph condoned the offense by living with her, and is the father by adoption and not by nature; and can by no means be a relation or descendant of David.
Then again, if Joseph is the father, Jesus is not the son of God. In that case, he might be a relation of David, but no relation to God.
Men of ordinary education no longer believe either in the Holy Ghost, the manner of Christ’s coming, nor in his divinity. It is an absurd fabrication, an impossibility and contrary to nature.
I repeat once more, that neither God, his spirit, nor his holy ghost, can perform anything that is in direct opposition to the laws of nature.
The miracles that are attributed to Jesus Christ by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are invariably of a medical nature; embracing all kinds—lepers, palsy, fevers, dropsy, the blind, the dumb, the lame—hemorrhages of women, casting out devils, curing lunatics, healing every disease.
The manner of curing is very peculiar—by touch, by rebuke, by word, by spit and touch.
A sample or two will suffice:
[Mark vii, 32]: “And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand on him.” 33: “And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue.” 34: “And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is, be opened.” 35: “And straightway his ears were opened, and the strings of his tongue were loosed, and he spake plain.”
[Matt. xvii, 15], etc.: Christ rebukes the devil out of a lunatic.
Chapter xx, 34: He touches the eyes of two blind men and they see.
[Luke viii, 43]: “And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed by any.” 44: “Came behind him, and touched the borders of his garment; and immediately, her issue of blood stanched.”
Chapter viii, 54 (woman dead): “And put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called saying, Maid, arise.” 55: “And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway,” etc.
[John ix, 1]: “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man, which was blind from his birth.” Verse 6: “When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.”
[Luke xiv, 2]: He cures a man of dropsy, etc.
That these cures were actually performed is not very probable, for the simple fact that the art of medicine was little known, and least known among the Jews.
That these four witnesses really were present at the time these operations were performed, we have no proof. Luke says Christ cures blindness by touch; John makes him use spit and clay. We are not told that he was trying experiments. Anyway, every operation was successful. Raising people from the dead was equally successful.
Why should we wonder that such miracles could be performed among the lower classes, rude, uneducated, and poor? They were ready to believe any kind of plausible deception; and it was among this class that he found his adherents.
These performances called miracles are supposed to have happened nearly two thousand years ago. At that time the masses were not to be compared to the masses of to-day in education, understanding, or in the progress made in every branch of art, science, literature, mechanics, etc.
The church Christianity has also progressed somewhat, and there can be no possible excuse for the priests of to-day affirming these pretended cures of Christ. They ought to know that the notions of these things are due to feebleness of intellect in the uncultured brain, to the lack of understanding and the gullibility of the masses. Christ and his disciples were as ignorant as the masses concerning medicine or the healing art. They knew absolutely nothing about it. At 325 A.D., later 318, fathers of the then existing Christian organizations approved of the entire contents. Nay, a large part of it may have been manufactured by them.
At this day there is no reason that men should not know better. Every man, whether priest or layman, ought to understand that so-called miraculous cures can be performed only by men, priests or others, that premeditatedly, with intent, cheat, swindle, and defraud some portion of the public, in consequence of the ignorance of the one, and the superior knowledge, shrewdness, and cunning of the other.
It is a flagrant abuse of authority, a miserable condition of our laws, a stupendous piece of bigotry, an outrage, that a man can be punished for speaking the truth, and it is an actual miracle that people are still so wonderfully stupid as to believe in the scandalous deception of the healing qualities of an old rag, a coat, pretended to have belonged to Christ or some one else. Recently we read in the daily paper, the Sun: “Berlin, Sept. 26.—In Treves, Herr Reichar has been sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment for ridiculing the holy coat and for attacking the Roman Catholic prelates because they encouraged the people to believe that it had healing qualities. His publisher, Herr Sonnenburg, was sentenced to three weeks’ imprisonment. The chief charge against them was blasphemy.”
Even in this city, some miserable cheat or cheats attempted to perpetrate the same sort of scoundrelism in one of the Catholic churches.
During the recent cholera desolation in Hamburg, we read: “In all the churches services of prayer for the abatement of the plague have been held. They have been attended by crowds which have filled the buildings” (Sun).
In ancient times plagues were regarded as visitations from God; to-day we know that they are the products of filth and starvation. Sanitary measures and food for the starving are needed, instead of prayer. The churches would answer a far better purpose converted into soup-kitchens and healthy lodging-houses for the poor and homeless.
In Russia the condition is still worse. The degradation of the masses is extreme. Of the dreadful doings there we hear but the slightest echo. The Russian priest is an ignorant, intolerant, selfish, tyrannical brute. In time of cholera the clergy walk in procession through the streets in church garb, with banners, crosses, candles, chanting and praying, while the dirt, filth, and cholera poison lie all around them.
The pilgrimages to Lourdes are another ecclesiastical swindle. The poor, miserable dupes are enticed in order to be plundered. From the Tribune, “Zola at Lourdes,” we quote: “Nothing could be more truly sensational than the annual pilgrimage thither, the flocking to that shrine of tens of thousands of devotees, dozens of special trains running to it daily; the daily processions, with thousands of priests and tens of thousands of the laity; the fervent prayers of the supplicants, and the wild exaltation of those that are miraculously healed—or who believe themselves to be healed.… So M. Zola, accompanied by Mme. Zola, were at Lourdes, and following the crowd, proceeded at once to the holy grotto. He found it surrounded by more than twenty thousand people, of both sexes and of all ages and conditions. Indeed in none of his novels is a more striking scene portrayed than that. In the afternoon the daily procession occurred. At its head marched no less than two thousand priests, monks, and nuns. Then came the holy sacrament, borne beneath a silken canopy. After it came the sick and the suffering who had come thither to be cured. These were cripples on crutches or leaning on the arms of friends; the blind, led by their friends or fellow-pilgrims; sick and deformed infants in their mothers’ arms; here and there a cripple and a blind man arm in arm, relying upon each other, the one for support, the other for guidance. Behind these thousands came other thousands of suppliants, sightseers, perhaps some scoffers, while yet other thousands stood by and gazed upon the scene.”
It is indeed a miracle that we have so many such persons at this stage of progressive civilization. But the church and its priests have exerted every influence to prevent its advance.
Fortunately the world at large has outgrown this childish nonsense to some extent. The development of our civil laws, with a greater knowledge of the natural laws, keep the church and priestly fanatics in subjection.
As to the resurrection of Christ’s body, or anyone else’s body, we may put it down as fabulous and untrue. Dead bodies do not rise—cannot rise. From the moment a body is dead the process of decomposition begins, and resuscitation is an impossibility. No one believes it, and the priest of this century even doubts it, though the manner of Christ’s birth and death forms the creed of Christian believers, and reads as follows:
“I believe in God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”
Does anyone, except the most ignorant, believe any of the items contained in the above creed?
The men that composed the Old, and later the New Testament, may have been sincere in their belief, may have acted from pure motives, and I give them credit that their endeavors were honest, that they knew no better. They could not know the truth, have knowledge of the natural. Its forces, its capabilities, its phenomena—these were unknown to them. They erred, were mistaken in what they observed; that of itself is ample excuse for their opinions.
No such excuse exists at this present time, and no men or set of men, however organized, priestly or otherwise, should be permitted to delude and stupefy the more ignorant portion of a community.
The judge on the bench ought to know better than punish a man because he ridicules the efficacy of an old coat to cure miraculously. It is a disgrace to our civilization, and should not be tolerated.
We have a right to criticise any idea, opinion, set of opinions, or ceremonies, no matter how ancient, how originated or by whom entertained or put into practice.
We have as much right to protest against the truth or falsity of their statements, as any of our forefathers had in remote ages.
Any individual that permits his prejudices to get the better of his judgment, because he belongs to this or that church, is unfit to serve in a public capacity. The judge or magistrate that sentenced Reichar and Sonnenberg at Treves deserves to be branded as the greatest jackass that ever decorated a bench.
Ridicule is the only weapon that wipes out these shameful practices, that helps to enlighten the masses, that elevates their thoughts and makes their understanding.
It is disgraceful enough for the ancients to have crucified Christ for his opinions, beheaded Paul for his preaching, and crucified St. Peter for his energy.
Abraham had a right to have his opinions. He differed with the Chaldeans about their gods, ridiculed them, despised them, argued, reasoned, as best he knew how. He had to leave the land of his birth for his opinions.
Moses had a right to set up his Jehova, organize a nation, and fight under his banner. He forced a success with superior numbers and superior skill.
Coming to Christ, Paul and Peter had a right to their opinions. They suffered for their opinions, yet their opinions held.
We of to-day have a right to deny the truth of their opinion. We have a right to deny any part or the whole of their doctrine, their pretensions, their errors; we have a perfect right to decline to accept their say-so for proof of anyone’s having done certain things by supernatural aid. And neither church nor priest can force people to believe in their absurdities, when our reason, understanding, and common sense tell us that it is neither true nor possible.
Few men are so dull that they do not recognize the fact that it is unpleasant, as well as unprofitable, for an organized body of men, whether church or other organization, who have prospered, gained influence, control and authority over men, territory or wealth, by means of certain ideas or opinions, to be interfered with or encroached upon by a new and opposing organized body, with new ideas or opinions, lest the former might lose some of their influence, control, or authority over men, territory, or wealth.
Selfishness and self-preservation lie at the root of this, and every aggressive movement will be hindered, checked, or prevented if possible.
CHAPTER XVI.
ORGANIC LIFE—VEGETABLE.
The constituent elements that enter into vegetable life consist in the main of three elementary substances. These essential elements consist of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon.
The secondary elementary bodies consist of nitrogen and earthy elements, sulphur and phosphorus.
There are also found other elementary substances in lesser quantities in vegetable structures, as potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, silicon, aluminium, iron, manganese, chlorine, bromine, and iodine.
These are the materials of which vegetables are made. Vegetables derive all the materials of their fabric from the earth and the air. Plants can possess no simple elements which these do not supply. They may take in, to some extent, almost every element which is thus supplied. The elements above mentioned are not of universal occurrence, nor are they all components of any one vegetable tissue.
Although plants and animals have no peculiar elements; though the materials from which their bodies spring, and to which they return, are common earth, water, and air, yet in them these elements are wrought into something widely different from any form of lifeless mineral matters, under the influence of what is usually termed the principle of life. This may be said to consist of a favorable condition brought about by the union of certain elements, under a moist atmosphere and a high temperature, combined with other powerful forces in nature.
“When this terrestrial globe began to cool the matter predominating in the atmosphere was water or its elements oxygen and hydrogen, carbonic acid and nitrogen; under the influence of a high temperature, and powerful sources of electricity, numerous combinations were produced between the elements; first carburetted hydrogen, then a nitrogenous combination, more or less analogous to the albuminous matter which we know” (Huxley).
Among the innumerable combinations nature produced, during a series of infinite ages, slowly undergoing transformation, the mixture of these substances, acting chemically upon one another, generating and regenerating at the expense of their surroundings, composed the first living being. This being was of excessive simplicity, comparable to the organisms which we call monera.
The sun’s heat acting upon these elements, and the elements acting upon one another, produced motion. Heat is motion, expansion, restrained and acting in its strife upon the smallest particles of bodies.
The principles of life were first produced by the action of the sun’s heat upon these vitalizing elements, setting them in motion, generating the required force. The surrounding condition being favorable, the simplest form of physiological life was produced. Once under the influence of what may now be termed the principle of life, in connection with which alone such phenomena are manifested, the three or four simple constituents effected peculiar combinations, giving rise to a few organizable elements—as they are termed, because of them the organized fabric of the vegetable or animal kingdom is built up. This fabric is in a good degree similar in all living bodies; the solid parts, or tissues, in all assuming the form of membranes, arranged so as to surround cavities, or form the walls of tubes, in which fluids are contained. Such a structure is called organized structure, and the bodies so composed are called organized bodies, because such fabrics consist of parts coöperating with one another as instruments or organs adapted to certain ends, and through which alone the living principle, under whose influence the structure itself was built up, is manifested in the operations which the animal or plant carries on. There is in every organic fabric, a necessary connection between its conformation and the action it is destined to perform. This is equally true of the minute structure, or tissue, as revealed by the microscope, and of the larger organs which the tissues form in all plants and animals of the higher grades, such as a leaf, a petal, or a tendril, a hand, an eye, or a muscle. The term organization formerly referred to the possession of organs in this larger sense, that is, of conspicuous parts or membranes. It is now applied as well to the intimate structure of these parts, themselves made up of smaller organs through which the vital forces directly act.
Protoplasm, called by Huxley the basis of physical life, is nothing more than a homogeneous albuminous matter. An isolated albuminoid is not living any more than an acid or a base equally isolated is a chemically active body. But a mixture of two or several albuminous substances (a protoplasm contains at least two) might be living, similarly as a mixture of an acid and a base demonstrates the chemical activity of the two bodies. But, whereas in the combination of an acid and a base, the formation of a new body puts an end to the dynamic manifestations of the mixture; the albuminous matter which by its union gives birth to a protoplasm, that is to say, to living matter, is capable of generating itself at the expense of the medium in which it is placed, and in proportion to the dynamic manifestations which it produces, gives birth to some rejected excreta in its midst.
Living matter may be roughly compared to an electric pile, the elements of which are capable of regenerating indefinitely. This continual exchange of the elements of living bodies and the medium in which they are placed, is one of the conditions of life. Life is the continued organization, while the molecules constituting the organized body (organism) are in a state of mobile equilibrium, or a continual renovation. A grain of vegetation, or an animal (Rotifera) slowly dried, might not manifest any vital property for a long time. Far from constituting an example opposed to our definition, it on the contrary goes to corroborate it. Whilst the chemical elements which compose it could not act one upon the other, it was necessary that they should be dissolved: Corpora non agunt nisi sulta. One might compare these organisms to a pile where nothing except the fluid is wanting. The eggs of certain animals (birds, etc.), that require a certain heat in order to develop completely, furnish us a case analogous to those chemical actions which could not be accomplished in a perfect manner except by a sufficient elevation of temperature.
The long discussions that have taken place in the last few years on this question, the attempted efforts to demonstrate or refute the heterogenic doctrine, have but indifferently served the purposes of science. They have made us at least to see more clearly the impotence of chemistry and physiology alone to solve the biological problem. It is impossible for anyone to study with care the organization of the Infusoria, and even the Protista, and believe that beings so complex are formed by spontaneous generation. The size of an animal or a vegetable signifies nothing in this question. The imperfections of the micrographic investigation have alone permitted the notion of the creation of beings such as the Paramecia, the Mucidina, etc. Even in the more inferior Protista, the Bacteria, and other Schizomycites, the hypothesis of heterogeny is reversed by the simple observation that these beings present a very complicated metamorphosis. An evolution, that is to say a series of supposed forcible metamorphoses, a special condition of the germ, resulting from heredity, consequently proves a generation dependent on other than anterior organisms.
This reasoning, however, demonstrates in an unobjectionable manner that the first living beings were formed independent of all preëxisting organization, and that these beings were as little organized as possible.
The latest progress in chemistry and in biology permits us to raise the veil partly in recovering the obscure origin of living matter.