...Officious, pious Christian souls seem very anxious to know how my conversion was brought about, and seem desirous that I should impose upon them an account of some wonderful miracle. With true Christian importunity they inquire if I did not, like Saul, behold a light when on the way to Damascus; or if, like Balaam, the son of Beor, I was not riding a restive ass, which suddenly opened its mouth and discoursed like a human being. No, ye credulous souls, I never journeyed to Damascus. Even the name would be unknown to me if I had not read the "Song of Songs," wherein King Solomon compares the nose of his beloved to a tower looking towards Damascus. Nor have I ever seen an ass—that is, no four-footed one—that spoke like a human being; whereas I have met human beings in plenty that every time they opened their mouths spoke like asses. In fact, it was neither a vision, nor a seraphic ecstasy, nor a voice from heaven, nor a remarkable dream, nor any miraculous apparition, that brought me to the path of salvation. I owe my enlightenment simply to the reading of a book! one book! yes, it is a plain old book, as modest as nature, and as simple; a book that appears as work-day-like and as unpretentious as the sun that warms, as the bread that nourishes us; a book that looks on us as kindly and benignly as an old grandmother, who, with her dear tremulous lips, and spectacles on nose, reads in it daily: this book is briefly called the book—the Bible. With good reason it is also called the Holy Scriptures: he that has lost his God can find Him again in this book, and towards him who has never known Him it wafts the breath of the divine word. The Jews, who are connoisseurs of precious things, well knew what they were about when, at the burning of the second temple, they left in the lurch the gold and silver sacrificial vessels, the candlesticks and lamps, and even the richly-jewelled breast-plate of the high-priest, to rescue only the Bible....
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...DISTINGUISHED German philosophers who may accidentally cast a glance over these pages will superciliously shrug their shoulders at the meagreness and incompleteness of all that which I here offer. But they will be kind enough to bear in mind that the little which I say is expressed clearly and intelligibly, whereas their own works, although very profound, unfathomably profound—very deep, stupendously deep—are in the same degree unintelligible. Of what benefit to the people is the grain locked away in the granaries to which they have no key? The masses are famishing for knowledge, and will thank me for the portion of intellectual bread, small though it be, which I honestly share with them. I believe it is not lack of ability that holds back the majority of German scholars from discussing religion and philosophy in proper language. I believe it is a fear of the results of their own studies, which they dare not communicate to the masses. I do not share this fear, for I am not a learned scholar; I, myself, am of the people. I am not one of the seven hundred wise men of Germany. I stand with the great masses at the portals of their wisdom. And if a truth slips through, and if this truth falls in my way, then I write it with pretty letters on paper, and give it to the compositor, who sets it in leaden type and gives it to the printer; the latter prints it, and then it belongs to the whole world.
The religion of Germany is Christianity. Therefore I shall have to relate what Christianity is, how it became Roman Catholicism, how out of this sprang Protestantism, and out of the latter German philosophy. Inasmuch as I am about to speak of religion, I beg beforehand of all pious souls not to be uneasy. Fear naught, ye pious ones! No profane witticisms shall offend your ears. It is true that these are yet necessary in Germany, where, at this juncture, it is important to neutralise ecclesiastical power. For there we are now in the same situation that you in France were before the Revolution, when Christianity was yet in the closest union with the old régime. The latter could not be overthrown so long as the former maintained its sway over the masses. Voltaire's keen ridicule was needed ere Samson could let his axe descend. But neither the ridicule nor the axe proved anything; they only effected something. Voltaire could only wound the body of Christianity. All his jests gathered from the annals of the Church, all his witticisms against the doctrines and public worship of the Church, against the Bible, this holiest book of humanity, against the Virgin Mary, that loveliest flower of poesy, the whole encylclopædia of philosophical shafts which he launched against the clergy and priesthood, wounded only the outward, mortal body of Christianity, not its inner being, not its profound spirit, nor its eternal soul.
For Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea. But what is this idea?
Just because this idea has not yet been clearly comprehended, and because the essential has been mistaken for the fundamental, there is as yet no history of the Church. Two antagonistic factions write the history of the Church, and contradict each other incessantly. But the one as little as the other will ever distinctly state what that idea really is which is the underlying principle of Christianity, of its symbolism, of its dogma, of its public worship, and which strives to reveal itself throughout its whole history, and has manifested itself in the actual life of Christian nations.
...How this idea was historically evolved, and disclosed itself in the world of phenomena, may be discovered as early as the first centuries after the birth of Christ, if we study impartially the history of the Manicheans and the Gnostics. Although the first were branded as heretics, and the latter defamed, and both anathematised by the Church, yet their influence on the doctrines of the Church was lasting. Out of their symbolism Catholic art was developed, and their modes of thought penetrated the whole life of Christendom. The First Cause of the Manicheans does not differ much from that of the Gnostics. The doctrine of the two principles, the good and the evil, constantly opposing each other, is common to both. The Manicheans derived this doctrine from the ancient Persian religion, in which Ormuz, the light, is at enmity with Ahriman, the darkness. The others, the real Gnostics, believed in the pre-existence of the good principle, and accounted for the rise of the evil through emanation, through the generation of Æons, which, the farther they are removed from their origin, the more vicious and evil do they become.
...This Gnostic theory of the universe originated in ancient India, and brought with it the doctrine of the incarnation of God, of the mortification of the flesh, of spiritual introspection and self-absorption. It gave birth to the ascetic, contemplative, monkish life, which is the most logical outgrowth of the Christian principle. This principle has become entangled among the dogmas of the Church, and has been able to express itself but very obscurely in the public worship. But everywhere we find the doctrine of the two principles prominent; the wicked Satan is always contrasted with the good Christ. Christ represents the spiritual world, Satan the material; to the former belong our souls, to the latter our bodies. Accordingly, the whole visible world, which constitutes nature, is originally evil, and Satan, the prince of darkness, through it seeks to lure us to ruin. Therefore it behoves us to renounce all the sensuous joys of life, to torture the body, which is Satan's portion, in order that the soul may the more majestically soar aloft to the bright heavens, to the radiant kingdom of Christ.
This theory of the universe, which is the true fundamental idea of Christianity, spread itself with incredible rapidity, like a contagious disease, over the whole Roman empire. These sufferings, at times strung to fever-pitch, then again relaxing into exhaustion, lasted all through the middle ages; and we moderns still feel in our limbs those convulsions and that debility. And if among us, here and there, there be one who is already convalescent, he cannot flee from the universal hospital, and feels himself unhappy as the only healthy person among invalids.
When once mankind shall have recovered its perfect life, when peace shall be again restored between body and soul, and they shall again interpenetrate each other with their original harmony, then it will be scarcely possible to comprehend the factitious feud which Christianity has instigated between them. Happier and more perfect generations, begot in free and voluntary embraces, blossoming forth in a religion of joy, will then smile sadly at their poor ancestors, who held themselves gloomily aloof from all the pleasures of this beautiful world, and through the deadening of all warm and cheerful sensuousness almost paled into cold spectres. Yes, I say it confidently, our descendants will be more beautiful, more happy, than we; for I have faith in progress; mankind is destined to be happy, and I have a more favourable opinion of the Divinity than those pious souls who imagine that He created mankind only to suffer. Already here on earth, through the blessings of free political and industrial institutions, would I seek to found that millennium which, according to the belief of the pious, is not to be until the day of judgment. The one is perhaps as visionary a hope as the other, and possibly there will be no resurrection of humanity, either in the politico-moral or in the apostolic-Catholic sense. Perhaps mankind is doomed to eternal misery; the masses are perhaps condemned to be for ever trodden under foot by despots, to be plundered by their accomplices, and to be jeered at by their lackeys. Alas! in that case we must seek to maintain Christianity, even if we recognise it to be an error. Barefoot, and clad in monkish cowls, we must traverse Europe, preaching the vanity of all earthly good, and inculcating resignation. We must hold up the consoling crucifix before scourged and derided humanity, and promise, after death, all the seven heavens above.