IV. Since, according to Christ’s teaching, our planet is “a vale of tears,” and our earthly life is valueless and a mere preparation for a better life to come, it has succeeded in inducing men to sacrifice all happiness on this side of eternity and make light of all earthly goods. Among these “earthly goods,” in the case of the modern civilized man, we must include the countless great and small conveniences of technical science, hygiene, commerce, etc., which have made modern life cheerful and comfortable; we must include all the gratifications of painting, sculpture, music, and poetry, which flourished exceedingly even during the Middle Ages (in spite of its principles), and which we esteem as “ideal pleasures”; we must include all that invaluable progress of science, especially the study of nature, of which the nineteenth century is justly proud. All these “earthly goods,” that have so high a value in the eyes of the monist, are worthless—nay, injurious—for the most part, according to Christian teaching; the stern code of Christian morals should look just as unfavorably on the pursuit of these pleasures as our humanistic ethics fosters and encourages it. Once more, therefore, Christianity is found to be an enemy to civilization, and the struggle which modern thought and science are compelled to conduct with it is, in this additional sense, a “cultur-kampf.”
V. Another of the most deplorable aspects of Christian morality is its belittlement of the life of the family, of that natural living together with our next of kin which is just as necessary in the case of man as in the case of all the higher social animals. The family is justly regarded as the “foundation of society,” and the healthy life of the family is a necessary condition of the prosperity of the State. Christ, however, was of a very different opinion: with his gaze ever directed to “the beyond,” he thought as lightly of woman and the family as of all other goods of “this life.” Of his infrequent contact with his parents and sisters the gospels have very little to say; but they are far from representing his relations with his mother to have been so tender and intimate as they are poetically depicted in so many thousands of pictures. He was not married himself. Sexual love, the first foundation of the family union, seems to have been regarded by Jesus as a necessary evil. His most enthusiastic apostle, Paul, went still farther in the same direction, declaring it to be better not to marry than to marry: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” If humanity were to follow this excellent counsel, it would soon be rid of all earthly misery and suffering: it would be killed off by such a “radical cure” within half a century.
VI. As Christ never knew the love of woman, he had no personal acquaintance with that refining of man’s true nature that comes only from the intimate life of man with woman. The intimate sexual union, on which the preservation of the human race depends, is just as important on that account as the spiritual penetration of the two sexes, or the mutual complement which they bring to each other in the practical wants of daily life as well as in the highest ideal functions of the soul. For man and woman are two different organisms, equal in worth, each having its characteristic virtues and defects. As civilization advanced, this ideal value of sexual love was more appreciated, and woman held in higher honor, especially among the Teutonic races; she is the inspiring source of the highest achievements of art and poetry. But Christ was as far from this view as nearly the whole of antiquity; he shared the idea that prevailed everywhere in the East—that woman is subordinate to man, and intercourse with her is “unclean.” Long-suffering nature has taken a fearful revenge for this blunder; its sad consequences are written in letters of blood in the history of the papal Middle Ages.
The marvellous hierarchy of the Roman Church, that never disdained any means of strengthening its spiritual despotism, found an exceptionally powerful instrument in the manipulation of this “unclean” idea, and in the promotion of the ascetic notion that abstinence from intercourse with women is a virtue of itself. In the first few centuries after Christ a number of priests voluntarily abstained from marriage, and the supposed value of this celibacy soon rose to such a degree that it was made obligatory. In the Middle Ages the seduction of women of good repute and of their daughters by Catholic priests (the confessional was an active agency in the business) was a public scandal: many communities, in order to prevent such things, pressed for a license of concubinage to be given to the clergy. And it was done in many, and sometimes very romantic, ways. Thus, for instance, the canon law that the priest’s cook should not be less than forty years old was very cleverly “explained” in the sense that the priest might have two cooks, one in the presbytery, another without; if one was twenty-four and the other eighteen, that made forty-two together—two years above the prescribed age. At the Christian councils, at which heretics were burned alive, the cardinals and bishops sat down with whole troops of prostitutes. The private and public debauchery of the Catholic clergy was so scandalous and dangerous to the commonwealth that there was a general rebellion against it before the time of Luther, and a loud demand for a “reformation of the church in head and members.” It is well known that these immoral relations still continue in Roman Catholic lands, although more in secret. Formerly proposals were made from time to time for the definitive abrogation of celibacy, as was done, for instance, in the chambers of Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, Saxony, and other lands; but they have, unfortunately, hitherto proved unavailing. In the German Reichstag, in which the ultramontane Centre is now proposing the most ridiculous measures for the suppression of sexual immorality, there is now no party that will urge the abolition of celibacy in the interest of public morality. The so-called “Freethought” Party and the utopian social democracy coquette with the favor of the Centre.
The modern state that would lift not only the material, but the moral, life of its people to a higher level is entitled, and indeed bound, to sweep away such unworthy and harmful conditions. The obligatory celibacy of the Catholic clergy is as pernicious and immoral as the practice of auricular confession or the sale of indulgences. All three have nothing whatever to do with primitive Christianity. All three are directly opposed to true Christian morality. All three are disreputable inventions of the papacy, designed for the sole purpose of strengthening its despotic rule over the credulous masses and making as much material profit as possible out of them.
The Nemesis of history will sooner or later exact a terrible account of the Roman papacy, and the millions who have been robbed of their happiness by this degenerate religion will help to give it its death-blow in the coming twentieth century—at least, in every truly civilized state. It has been recently calculated that the number of men who lost their lives in the papal persecutions of heretics, the Inquisition, the Christian religious wars, etc., is much more than ten millions. But what is this in comparison with the tenfold greater number of the unfortunate moral victims of the institutions and the priestly domination of the degenerate Christian Church—with the unnumbered millions whose higher mental life was extinguished, whose conscience was tortured, whose family life was destroyed, by the Church? We may with truth apply the words of Goethe in his Bride of Corinth:
“Victims fall, nor lambs nor bulls,
But human victims numberless.”
In the great cultur-kampf, which must go on as long as these sad conditions exist, the first aim must be the absolute separation of Church and State. There shall be “a free Church in a free State”—that is, every Church shall be free in the practice of its special worship and ceremonies, and in the construction of its fantastic poetry and superstitious dogmas—with the sole condition that they contain no danger to social order or morality. Then there will be equal rights for all. Free societies and monistic religious bodies shall be equally tolerated, and just as free in their movements as Liberal Protestant and orthodox ultramontane congregations. But for all these “faithful” of the most diverse sects religion will have to be a private concern. The state shall supervise them, and prevent excesses; but it must neither oppress nor support them. Above all, the ratepayers shall not be compelled to contribute to the support and spread of a “faith” which they honestly believe to be a harmful superstition. In the United States such a complete separation of Church and State has been long accomplished, greatly to the satisfaction of all parties. They have also the equally important separation of the Church from the school; that is, undoubtedly, a powerful element in the great advance which science and culture have recently made in America.
It goes without saying that this exclusion of the Church from the school only refers to its sectarian principles, the particular form of belief which each Church has evolved in the course of its life. This sectarian education is purely a private concern, and should be left to parents and tutors, or to such priests or teachers as may have the personal confidence of the parents. Instead of the rejected sectarian instruction, two important branches of education will be introduced—monistic or humanist ethics and comparative religion. During the last thirty years an extensive literature has appeared dealing with the new system of ethics which has been raised on the basis of modern science—especially evolutionary science. Comparative religion will be a natural companion to the actual elementary instruction in “biblical history” and in the mythology of Greece and Rome. Both of these will remain in the curriculum. The reason for that is obvious enough; the whole of our painting and sculpture, the chief branches of monistic æsthetics, are intimately blended with the Christian, Greek, and Roman mythologies. There will only be this important difference—that the Christian myths and legends will not be taught as truths, but as poetic fancies, like the Greek and Roman myths; the high value of the ethical and æsthetical material they contain will not be lessened, but increased, by this means. As regards the Bible, the “book of books” will only be given to the children in carefully selected extracts (a sort of “school Bible”); in this way we shall avoid the besmirching of the child’s imagination with the unclean stories and passages which are so numerous in the Old Testament.
Once the modern State has freed itself and its schools from the fetters of the Church, it will be able to devote more attention to the improvement of education. The incalculable value of a good system of education has forced itself more and more upon us as the many aspects of modern civilized life have been enlarged and enriched in the course of the century. But the development of the educational methods has by no means kept pace with life in general. The necessity for a comprehensive reform of our schools is making itself felt more and more. On this question, too, a number of valuable works have appeared in the course of the last forty years. We shall restrict ourselves to making a few general observations which we think of special importance.