The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

our iniquities, and with his stripes we

are healed.”

 

There are many worthy people who think it a very extraordinary thing

that this poem can be used almost word for word to describe the rejected

mission and martyrdom of Jesus. But as the Hebrew prophets resembled

one another, and were tried before the same tribunal under the same law,

the coincidence is not surprising. A poetical description, in vague and

general terms, of the rebellion of the English people and the execution of

Charles the First would apply equally well to the rebellion of the French

people and the execution of the Louis the Sixteenth.

 

The Prophet of Nazareth did not differ in temperament and character

from the noble prophets of the ancient period. He preached, as they did,

the religion of the heart; he attacked, as they did, the ceremonial laws; he

offered, as they did, consolation to the poor; he poured forth, as they did,

invectives against the rulers and the rich. But his predictions were

entirely different from theirs, for he lived, theologically speaking, in

another world. The old prophets could only urge men to do good that the

Lord might make them prosperous on earth, or at the most that they might

obtain an everlasting name. They could only promise to the people the

restoration of Jerusalem and the good things of the Gentiles; the

reconciliation of Judah and Ephraim, and the gathering of the dispersed.

The morality which Jesus preached was also supported by promises and

threats, but by promises and threats of a more exalted kind: it was also

based upon self-interest, but upon self-interest applied to a future life.

For this he was indebted to the age in which he lived. He was superior as

a prophet to Isaiah, as Newton as an astronomer was superior to Kepler,

Kepler to Copernicus, Copernicus to Ptolemy, Ptolemy to Hipparchus,

and Hipparchus to the unknown Egyptian or Chaldean priest who first

began to register eclipses and to catalogue the stars. Jesus was a

carpenter by trade, and was urged by a prophetic call to leave his

workshop and to go forth into the world, preaching the gospel which he

had received. The current fancies respecting the approaching destruction

of the world, the conquest of the Evil Power, and the reign of God had

fermented in his mind, and had made him the subject of a remarkable

hallucination. He believed that he was the promised Messiah or Son of

Man, who would be sent to prepare the world for the kingdom of God,

and who would be appointed to judge the souls of men and to reign over

them on earth. He was a man of the people, a rustic and an artisan: he

was also an imitator of the ancient prophets, whose works he studied and

whose words were always on his lips. Thus he was led as man and

prophet to take the part of the poor. He sympathised deeply with the

outcasts, the afflicted, and the oppressed. To children and to women; to

all who suffered and shed tears; to all from whom men turned with

loathing and contempt; to the girl of evil life who bemoaned her shame;

to the tax-gatherer who crouched before his God in humility and woe; to

the sorrowful in spirit and the weak in heart; to the weary and the heavy

laden, Jesus appeared as a shining angel with words sweet as the

honeycomb and bright as the golden day. He laid his hands on the heads

of the lowly; he bade the sorrowful be of good cheer, for the day of their

deliverance and their glory was at hand.

 

If we regard Jesus only in his relations with those whose brief and bitter

lives he purified from evil and illumined with ideal joys, we might

believe him to have been the perfect type of a meek and suffering saint.

But his character had two sides, and we must look at both. Such is the

imperfection of human nature that extreme love is counterbalanced by

extreme hate; every virtue has its attendant vice, which is excited by the

same stimulants, which is nourished by the same food. Martyrs and

persecutors resemble one another; their minds are composed of the same

materials. The man who will suffer death for his religious faith will

endeavour to enforce it even unto death. In fact, if Christianity were true

religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God

designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to

mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those

who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be

lost, and so there would be an economy of torment in the long run. It is

therefore not surprising that enthusiasts should be intolerant. Jesus was

not able to display the spirit of a persecutor in his deeds, but he displayed

it in his words. Believing that it was in his power to condemn his fellow-creatures to eternal torture, he did so condemn by anticipation all the rich

and almost all the learned men among the Jews. It was his belief that

God reigned in heaven but that Satan reigned on earth. In a few years

God would invade and subdue the earth. It was therefore his prayer,

“Thy kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” God´s

will was not at that time done on earth, which was in the possession of the

Prince of Darkness. It was evident, therefore, that all prosperous men

were favourites of Satan, and that the unfortunate were favourites of God.

Those would go with their master to eternal pain: these would be

rewarded by their master with eternal joy.

 

He did not say that Dives was bad or that Lazarus was good, but merely

that Dives had received his good things on earth and Lazarus his evil

things on earth, that afterwards Lazarus was rewarded and Dives

tormented. Dives might have been as virtuous as the Archbishop of

Canterbury, who is also clothed in fine linen and who fares sumptuously

every day; Lazarus might have been as vicious as the Lambeth pauper

who prowls round the palace gates, and whose mind, like his body, is full

of sores. Not only the inoffensive rich were doomed by Jesus to hell-fire,

but also all those who did anything to merit the esteem of their fellow-men. Even those that were happy and enjoyed life—unless it was in his

own company—were lost souls. “Woe unto you that are rich,” said he,

“for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full, for ye

shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and

weep. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did

their fathers of the false prophets.” He also pronounced eternal

punishment on all those who refused to join him. “He that believeth and

is baptised,” said he “shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be

damned.”

 

He supposed that when the kingdom of God was established on earth he

would reign over it as viceroy. Those who wished to live under him in

that kingdom must renounce all the pleasures of Satan´s world. They

must sell their property and give the proceeds to the poor, discard all

domestic ties, cultivate self-abasement, and do nothing which could

possibly raise them in the esteem of other people. For they could not

serve two masters: they could not be rewarded in the kingdom of this

world, which was ruled by Satan, and also in the new kingdom, which

would be ruled by God. If they gave a dinner they were not to ask their

rich friends lest they should be asked back to dinner, and thus lose their

reward. They must ask only the poor, and for that benevolent action they

would be recompensed thereafter. They were not to give alms in public

or to pray in public, and when they fasted, they were to pretend to feast;

for if it was perceived that they were devout men and were praised for

their devotion, they would lose their reward. Robbery and violence they

were not to resist. If a man smote them on one cheek they were to offer

him the other also; if he took their coat they were to give him their shirt;

if he forced them to go with him one mile they were to go with him two.

They were to love their enemies, to do good to them that did them evil.

And why? Not because it was good so to do, but that they might be paid

for the same with compound interest in a future state.

 

It might be supposed that as in the philosophy of Jesus poverty was

equivalent to virtue and misery a passport to eternal bliss, sickness would

be also a beatific state. But Jesus, like the other Jews, believed that

disease proceeded from sin. In Palestine it was always held that a priest

or a prophet was the best physician, and prayer, with the laying on of

hands, the most efficacious of all medicines. Among the sins of Asa it is

mentioned that, having sore feet, he went to a doctor instead of to the

Lord. Jesus informed those on whom he laid his hands that their sins

were forgiven them, and warned those he healed to sin no more lest a

worse thing should come upon them. Such theological practitioners have

always existed in the East, and exist there at the present day. A text from

the Koran written on a board and washed off into a cup of water is

considered God´s own physic; and as the patient believes in it, and as the

mind can sometimes influence the body, the disease is occasionally

healed upon the spot. The exploits of the miracle doctor are exaggerated

in his lifetime, and after his death it is declared that he restored sight to

men that were born blind, cleansed the lepers, made the lame to walk,

cured the incurable, and raised the dead to life.

 

In Jerusalem the scribe had succeeded to the seer. The Jews had already

a proverb, “A scholar is greater than a prophet.” The supernatural gift

was regarded with suspicion, and if successful with the vulgar excited

envy and indignation. In the East at the present day there is a permanent

hostility between the Mullah, or doctor of the law, and the dervish, or

illiterate “man of God.” Jesus was, in point of fact, a dervish, and the

learned Pharisees were not inclined to admit the authority of one who

spoke a rustic patois and misplaced the aspirate, and who was no doubt,

like other prophets, uncouth in his appearance and uncleanly in his garb.

At Jerusalem Jesus completely failed, and this failure appears to have

stung him into bitter abuse of his successful rivals the missionary

Pharisees, and into the wildest extravagance of speech. He called the

learned doctors a generation of vipers, whited sepulchres, and serpents;

he declared that they should not escape the damnation of hell. Because

they had made the washing of hands before dinner a religious ablution,

Jesus, with equal bigotry, would not wash his hands at all, though people

eat with the hand in the East, and dip their hands in the same dish. He

told his disciples that if a man called another a fool he would be in danger

of hell-fire; and whoever spoke against the Holy Ghost, it would not be

forgiven him “neither in this world nor in the world to come.” He said

that if a man had done anything wrong with his hand or his eye, it were

better for him to cut off his guilty hand, or to pluck out his guilty eye,

rather than to go with this whole