Omitting a historical sketch of the great Chinese teacher, and confining ourselves briefly to an exposition of his philosophy or religion, we notice at once that Confucianism devotes itself exclusively to this world—to the now and here. This is very remarkable when we remember how all the other teachers made the world to come, that is to say, some invisible and undiscovered world the principal theme of their preaching. To lose this world that we may win the next was the burden of the teaching of both Buddha and Jesus. But the great Chinaman completely ignored the so-called next world, and directed all his efforts toward the enlightenment of man concerning the world that now is. It will readily be seen what a radical difference there is between Confucius and his colleagues. When they spoke of gods, Confucius spoke of man; when they asked for faith, Confucius recommended knowledge; when they delivered mysteries, Confucius presented facts. With perfect propriety we may call Confucius the first apostle of secularism. Now secularism is the very opposite of supernaturalism, and as the world is becoming more and more secular, that is to say, practical and humanitarian, Confucius is the only one among the great sages who is as much modern as he is ancient.
In the teaching of Confucius we do not find the least suggestion of even so much as a Buddhist hell. The religion taught by Confucius is the least theological of any Oriental cult. Confucius was a teacher, not a priest. He worked no miracles, delivered no inspired oracles, dealt in no mysteries, claimed no supernatural powers, did not think that the less sense there was in a religion the more divine it would be, and made no attempt to allure with future promises, or to frighten with hell-fire his hearers. In the long annals of a past musty with age and choking with superstitions innumerable, the page on which is inscribed the name of this sanest of all Asiatics is the fairest and freest from cant and rant.
The name of Zoroaster takes us back to a very remote period in the history of our humanity. It has been conjectured that when he began his career as a religious teacher he found his people, the Persians, worshiping the principle of Evil, or Ahriman, the Persian name for Devil. While Zoroaster was unable to wean his people from Ahriman, he did succeed in supplementing the fear of the devil with the love of God or Ormuzd, the principle of goodness. The dualism is the distinguishing characteristic of the religion founded by Zoroaster, and is also its contribution to nearly all the other religions; for we find in Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism the same fundamental belief in the existence of a God invariably accompanied by his rival—the Devil. What the one creates, the other destroys; what the one mends, the other mars; God makes the light, the Devil the darkness; God kindles the flame, the Devil tries to turn it into smoke; God is omnipotent in wisdom, the Devil is equally resourceful in mischief. Zoroastrianism or Mazdaism, then, is the parent of dualism, namely, of the eternal struggle between these two archpowers for the possession of man.
Without denying to Zoroaster the name of reformer, and also of empire-builder,—for doubtless his services contributed to the political expansion of Persia, making her on land and sea, one of the great powers of ancient times, and duly acknowledging the beginnings of a high morality in the collected scriptures called the Avestas, attributed to his pen,—we are compelled by the evidence to charge the religion of Zoroaster, that is to say, the religion of dualism, of a God plus a Devil, with having invented, so to speak, the awful doctrine of hell, and therefore of religious persecution. It was a natural consequence of the belief in a God opposed by a Devil to make war upon all who were not on the side of God. And as the prophet is himself invariably the vicar or the apostle of God, it followed that all those who refused obedience to his will were in opposition to the Deity and should be suppressed, even as God is trying to suppress the Devil, his antagonist.
When we approach the Jewish-Christian faith, we find the dark stream of religious persecution, which had its source in Zoroastrianism, grown into a raging sea. The three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism, bear to one another the relation of parent and children. Christianity is the elder, and Mohammedanism the younger daughter of Judaism. The predominant trait, which is common to them all, is exclusiveness. It is impossible to be humanitarian or universal and exclusive at the same time, which is another way of saying that, where the spirit of exclusiveness holds sway, there religious toleration will be considered a crime, both against God and the State. Of course in all three of these faiths are to be found passages which seem to possess an accent of universality. But it is a universality conditioned on the conversion of the whole world to the faith in question. "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations," writes the Jewish prophet, but observe it says,—"My house,"—which means that the whole world will come to worship in a Jewish temple. It does not mean that Pagan and Christian, without embracing the Jewish faith, may each worship his own "Christ" in a Jewish synagogue. It is in this same spirit that the Mohammedan throws open his mosque, and the Christian his cathedral to the whole world. Brotherhood in these religions is limited to those of the true faith. The misbeliever is an alien to whom it is a sin even to say "God speed." Intermarriage is forbidden with a view to emphasize the fact that only through conversion can a stranger become a friend or a brother. Such exclusiveness was bound to breed hatred and persecution.
And as men make their gods, an exclusive people will have an exclusive god. The Bible conception of God is one of the most repellant in religious literature. We may say it is the least successful attempt at god-making on record. The three religions we have named have all one and the same God, with only unimportant variations. The authors of the Bible seem to have labored under the impression that to make their God acceptable they had only to make him intensely partisan. One who loves his own only. But they have made him, necessarily, as terrible as he is exclusive. He is not only called a jealous God, but also a consuming fire, a man of war. It is expressly stated that "He is angry every day." The English translators have interpolated the words—"with the wicked,"—but the original as rendered into Latin, German, French and other languages, shows plainly that the editors of King James' Version took undue liberties with the text. The Revised Version has dropped the words with the wicked, and the text now conveys the same meaning in the English Bible as in the German, which reads: "Und ein Gott, der taglich dirauet," and in the French, "La colere the Dieu est toujours prete a eclater."
"Irascitur per singulos dies," are the words in the Vulgate.
To please his makers the God of the Jew, the Christian and the Mohammedan orders the extermination of all who object to be converted: "And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them." Each of the three religions, unfortunately, has been too willing to obey to the letter this unfraternal injunction introduced into the mouth of the Deity by the priesthood. As the authors of the above text claimed to be inspired the priests of these three religions have shed more blood than all the tyrants put together. This is a fearful but absolutely just indictment against the Jewish-Chris-tian-Mohammedan religion.
But confining for a moment our remarks to Christianity alone, it must be admitted that in spite of its doctrine of hell, it has certain redeeming features about it which are of undoubted pagan origin and which we do not find in Judaism. The advantage of Christianity over Judaism consists in the former's generous efforts to save the whole world, irrespective of race or color, from the doom of hell. This is the contribution of the Gentile to Christianity. The words of Jesus, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," were in all probability put in his mouth by a Gentile. What Jesus really said, if, indeed, we can be sure of anything that he said, was, "Go not into the cities of the Gentiles," assuring them at the same time that the world would come to an end before they had even finished preaching to the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus as a Jew shared the belief of his people that "none are beloved before God but Israel." It was the Greek and Latin genius that made of Christianity more than merely another. Jewish sect, by breathing into it as much of its universalism as a dogmatic religion would admit Of course, the best service which paganism rendered Christianity was to introduce into it a new God—the man God as against the all-God Jehovah—who, by personal sacrifices, conquered for the whole world an opportunity to be saved. Christ, as a secondary God—or a junior God—was the revolt of the Gentile world against the Jewish Deity. Whatever good Christianity has done is due to this rebellion which culminated in compelling the dread Jehovah to admit the man-God into full and equal partnership with him. The Jews call this blasphemy; but Christianity, inspired by the Hellenic and Latin genius, weakened the divinity by dividing it into three—later into four, by the addition of a woman to the number. In this alone, namely, in making a new God, and thus taking from the old solitary deity many of his ancient and Semitic prerogatives, Christianity has proved its greater sympathy with paganism than with Judaism.
Another leading trait of these three religions is their fear and hatred of freedom of thought To perpetuate their own power the priests of this family of religions found it necessary to suppress, at first by threats of divine punishments, and when these failed, by force of arms, all inquiry. Faith, which meant unquestioning acquiescence, was of God; Science, which meant investigation, was of the Devil. The agents of this group of religions which between them have held Europe, America and a great part of Asia and Africa captive for many centuries, prompted their God to solemnly declare in infallible documents, that a father should not hesitate to kill his own son, or a son his own father; that a mother should destroy her child, and the child its mother,—to prevent them from professing or following another religion. It is impossible to bring a more horrible accusation against a set of men. The worst thing that we can say against the profession of the law or of medicine, pales into insignificance when compared with this specimen of the inhumanity of the priesthood. The day of judgment is here, and the founders of these three religions are summoned to answer at the bar of humanity, awakened from sleep, for the wholesale massacres which have dipped the world in blood, for the Spanish and Scottish inquisitions, and for the sectarianism and hatred which converted men of the same race and country into implacable enemies and persecutors of one another.