My forehead throbs as I quote these forbidden texts, and my pulse rises. But I have the consolation that the book is not true, that the wild stories it tells about Jews and Christians had no basis in history. If I could only get the devout Jews and Christians to realize this!
VIII. The Sermon on the Mount
HOWEVER imperfect the teachings of others in the Old and New Testament might be, it is urged that Jesus himself is the one infallible revelation of God, and that even if everything else is lost, nothing is really lost so long as Jesus abides. This is the remaining consolation of the apologists of the bible. No reasons are given as to why, in an inspired book, there should be only one person who is really inspired. Nor do these "new theologians" stop to think that such an admission is equivalent to a plea of guilty—for if no one but Jesus in the bible is to be trusted, then Jesus can not be trusted either. In plain words Jesus tells his hearers that they must believe in him, because Moses and the prophets testify of him. Repeatedly Jesus expressed his unquestioning belief in the Old Testament. He had come not to destroy the law of Moses, but to fulfil it. And he expressly told them, that there was no necessity for any one to come down from heaven to teach the people, for "if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." * But if "Moses and the prophets" are not to be depended upon, what becomes of Jesus' testimony of them? Jesus says "Moses and the prophets were of God," the "new theologians" say they were not. In the meantime, the same "new theologians" say that Jesus knew what he was talking about.
But the "new theologians," who have nearly thrown overboard everything else, still cling, or pretend to cling, so ardently to Jesus as a moral teacher, because of the supposed beauty of the Sermon on the Mount, and the other teachings of Jesus. This is not the first time that the present writer makes the Sermon on the Mount a subject for comment. ** There are many fine passages in the collection of utterances attributed to Jesus, but we have the same objection against the moral teachings of Jesus that we have against the moral teachings of Moses and the prophets. The best in Jesus' sermons are to be found in the Old Testament, and there is enough of the worst in the Old Testament in the sayings attributed to Jesus to make his teachings unfit, in the main, for universal uses.
* Luke xvi, 31.
** Consult the author's Is the Morality of Jesus Sound.
On one theme all parts of the bible are in perfect unison—God comes before man. To us this is the negation of morality. "Blessed are the pure in heart," preaches Jesus; and why are the pure blessed? "Because," is the answer, "they shall see God." There is not a word said about the social worth of personal and public purity of heart. Not a word that to be pure is to bless the world in which one lives, or that by being pure we help to make life on earth sweeter and more lovable. The idea that to be pure in thought and conduct is the way to serve humanity, and make this earth a heaven, does not occur to Jesus at all. He is not interested either in humanity or in this earth. His eyes are fixed upon the mists beyond. His one thought is of the invisible God, not of man who is made of flesh and blood.
And when the "purity" required is examined, it will be found that, in consonance with the Old Testament, purity of belief is what is meant by it. The thief on the cross would see God, not because he was pure in heart, but because he believed before he died. In the same way the other virtues are recommended, not for their civic values, not as the means of social well-being and blessedness, but as auxiliaries to piety, namely, to the worship of God.
That Jesus had no message to man is seen in his attempt to shift the center of gravity, so to speak, from this world to the next. He would take away from man the world in the hand, for the one hidden away in the clouds. "Blessed are ye that hunger now," cries Jesus to the starving multitude, "for ye shall be filled." * But when? It reads very much like the vague and airy promises which a politician makes to his constituents when he is bidding for votes. "Give us bread now," cry the poor. Can the famished eat a promise for bread? But Jesus was not interested in helping them "now." He had come to reveal God and his glory, not to make the world a happy home for man. He prayed for and predicted the speedy destruction of the world; why, then, should he labor for its betterment? And in his "next world" is there really going to be no more poverty? Let us read what Jesus says: