But we must read between the lines; the purpose of Jesus, or whoever was the author of the parable, was to show that the greater the sinner, greater still is the welcome that awaits him. And this welcome is not to be deserved, or earned through merit; it is given as a favor. God, whom the father in the parable typifies, cares little for character. People must not flatter themselves that they are saved because they deserve it. Look at the worthy elder son who had done his duty: he was not invited to the feast. Look at the prodigal son, who had descended to the level of the swine; he was "dined and wined." Now we understand why the malefactor on the cross was saved, and all his crimes wiped out in the twinkling of an eye. Had he been a better man than he was, or had he been innocent of the crimes for which he was crucified, there would have been no chance for him. Nor does Jesus say a word about the subsequent conduct of the forgiven prodigal? Did he make amends for the harm he had done to others by his selfishness? Was he really a changed character after he was feted? Not a word. The promise Jesus holds out to the sinner is not reform, but forgiveness.
Let us take another parable: A very rich farmer, or landlord, goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He hired some very early in the day; others about the noon hour, and others again as late as "the eleventh hour," that is to say, just an hour before the close of day. When the laborers came to receive their pay for the day's work, the landlord paid the man who had put in a full day just as much as he paid those who had only worked for one short hour. Naturally, the men who had borne the brunt of the hot day, and had done most of the work, complained. To which the lord of the vineyard made this reply: "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?" * And turning to his disciples, Jesus said: "So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen." ** The full meaning of which is that an employer's or the Lord's whim is law.
* Matthew xx, 15.
** Matthew xx, 16.
What man of affairs can derive any benefit from such a parable? But the object of Jesus, in this, as in the former parable, is to show the independence of God of what we would call the moral law. God is not bound by any considerations of justice. He is an oriental who showers favors or withholds them just as his pleasure dictates. And whatever he gives is a favor, and not a debt which he must pay because of any merit on the part of anybody. If wages are to be distributed according to the quality and quantity of the work done, then what is there left for God to do?
To Jesus, God was something like a Turkish sultan of the olden days who exalted his barber to the rank of a grand vizier, and humbled the vizier to the level of a keeper of his stables, all in one night, to show that his pleasure is above any consideration of justice and character. But this is not morality; this is caprice. To pay the man who has worked only for one hour as much as the man who has worked all day long, is to rob the latter of his dues. The Asiatics may submit to it, but the American or European laborer will not. Because he is the sultan, or because he is God, is no excuse for such eccentricity. No; you are not at liberty to pay as you please, or to make contracts which sacrifice justice to whim.
In the parable of Lazarus and Dives, the fondness of the bible for the worthless, the fallen, the good for nothing, so to speak, becomes all the more evident. At the door of a rich man sits a miserable beggar. He is not only poor, but also diseased. Like many an oriental fakir, he is covered with sores, which by their stench attract the hungry dogs to his person. There he sits all day long—a menace to the public health, and an object of disgust. When this beggar dies, he is carried by angels straight to Abraham's bosom; It is, of course, a pity he had to remain on earth so long before entering Paradise. But what had he done to deserve so great a reward? We might as well ask what the prodigal son had done to deserve the "fatted calf," or the "eleventh-hour laborer" to deserve a full day's wages.
Nor is it true that Lazarus was saved for the inner beauty of his character. As I have shown elsewhere, * by refusing a few drops of water to cool the parched tongue of the man who had given him of the crumbs of his table on earth, Lazarus proved himself to be as small of soul as he was leprous of body. But the point of the parable is to show that a man is saved, not because he deserves salvation, but because God takes a fancy to him. And the more unworthy the subject, the better it illustrates that it is whim, and not justice, that presides over the destinies of man. We may plead with justice; against whim we are helpless. It is the sense of this helplessness of man in the hands of a whimsical God that makes Christianity so pessimistic. Of course, for the "elect" favor and whim are better than law and justice; and for the mediocre and the sinner, it is a good thing that merit or character does not count for anything before God. But what about those who have no other "pull" than their own self-respect and honor? And the dogma of total depravity has been invented to relieve the duty of being just to any one, since all mankind deserves to be damned.
* Is the Morality of Jesus Sound.
The same indifference to reason is shown in the next parable: A certain slave owed his king the enormous sum of ten thousand talents. In round numbers a talent is worth one thousand dollars. Accordingly this slave was indebted to his royal master for the sum of ten million dollars. A slave owing more money than any one king ever owned in Jesus' day! How he incurred this impossible debt is not explained. But the king pressed the slave for payment. Whereupon the slave fell at his sovereign's feet and begged for mercy. As expected, the king, with a wave of his hand, makes the slave a present of the ten million dollars which he owes, thereby canceling the entire indebtedness. Does this not remind us of the parable of the prodigal son? Even as he was forgiven the waste and debauchery which had disgraced him, this slave is quickly freed from his obligation. The motive in making the debt a fabulous one was to emphasize the generosity of the sovereign. This brings us to the conclusion already announced, that great sinners are preferred to little ones, because they help to show more directly that it is not character or personal merit that saves, or even helps a man with God, but pure patronage on the part of the deity. Salvation is a favor. That is the burden of the parables of Jesus.
The slave, however, fails to be as generous toward his debtors as his lord was to him. Instead of canceling their obligations as his own had been, he cast them into prison. When the king heard of this he summoned the slave into his presence, and said to him: "O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me. Should not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?" * In other words, debtors should be allowed to keep what they have borrowed for the mere asking. The whole tenor of the parable is antisocial. To follow such teaching is to head toward bankruptcy. There will be no lenders, if there are to be no collections. Once more Jesus sacrifices the worthy members of society to the spendthrifts and the prodigals. The man who can lend is the real benefactor, not the borrower; but Jesus is interested in saving the latter, and in such a way as to ruin the former. But the shortsightedness of this policy, as already pointed out, is seen in its effects upon the creator and conserver of wealth—he will stop saving, and then what is the borrower going to do? Jesus' advice practically amounts to this: "Allow your debtors to defraud you." But the process will kill the debtor as well as the lender.