💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › occult › OTO › bsgospelas3.occ captured on 2022-07-17 at 09:47:06.

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2022-06-12)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT BERNARD SHAW by Aleister Crowley

File 3 of 4


All editions copyright (c) O.T.O.

O.T.O.
P.O.Box 430
Fairfax, CA  94930
USA

(415) 454-5176 ----  Messages only.


	
************************************************************************



Page numbers from the 1st edition are indicated like this:  {1}
at the bottom of each page.

Original footnotes are brought up to the point of citation in text and
enclosed thusly:  <<footnote goes here>>  There is evidence internally that several other footnotes were intended, but inadvertently left in the text instead of being set to the bottom of the page.  These have been kept intact, and are usually recognizable by their form, e.g. "(Footnote re this passage:  This short passage is too shocking to ...)"

Additional notes are marked in the same manner, and identified as to origin:
<<T NOTE: ..........>> --- note by the transcriber of pp. 1-143
<<WEH NOTE: .........>> --- note by Bill Heidrick


	
************************************************************************





                          "Equal Distribution."

   It is impossible to treat Mr. Shaw's conclusion that the share of every member of the community must be equal, at all seriously.  It would simply mean that most rare and beautiful things would cease to exist.  Even assuming (what is enormous exaggeration) that the income of each person would work out at five hundred pounds a year, who is to wear a pearl necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds?  The interest on the money comes to more than the total share.  The necklace would have to be broken up or put in a museum, {120}
and all its value lost to mankind.
   Similarly there could be no private ownership of pictures of any value, there could be no beautiful houses, or gardens, no parks except public parks, which produce (in me at least) nothing but a sense of dreary dissatisfaction, and are not even enjoyed by the people they are intended to benefit.  Battersea Park, for instance, is within three minutes' walk of innumerable slums; but the children play in the slums, not in the park.
   There is also the obvious point that people will not work exceptionally unless they get exceptional payment.  If there were no possibility of in some way improving my position--if only by making myself more infamous even than I am (Matthew V, 11,12) by writing this essay, I should certainly not trouble to do it.  Men will work themselves to death to advance in the world, or to make the lives of those they love happier.  But if everything is to be on the dead level, they will not `put themselves out', they will not take risks.  Humanity will become stagnant.


                    "The Captain and the Cabin Boy."

   Mr. Shaw's argument for equalizing the income of these two persons, is as follows: "Nothing, therefore, is really in question, or ever has been, but the differences between class incomes.  Already there is economic equality between captains, and economic equality between cabin boys.  What is at issue still is whether there shall be economic equality between captains and cabin boys.  What would Jesus have said?  Presumably he would have said that if your only object is to produce a Captain and a cabin boy for the purpose of transferring you from Liverpool to New York, or to manoeuvre {121} a fleet and carry powder from the magazine to the gun, then you need give no more than a shilling to the cabin boy, for every pound you give to the more expensively trained captain.  But, if in addition to this you desire to allow the two human souls which are inseparable from the captain and the cabin boy, and which alone differentiate them from the donkey--engine, to develop all their possibilities, then you may find the cabin boy costing rather more than the captain, because cabin boy's work does not do so much for the soul as the captain's work.  Consequently you will have to give him at least as much as the captain unless you definitely wish him to be a lower creature, in which case the sooner you are hanged as an abortionist the better.  That is the fundamental argument."
   It is really good to hear the fundamental argument at last!  The only explanation of it appears to be that Mr. Shaw is making the common error of confusing money and money's worth.  If a man has everything he wants, he does not care, unless he happens to be a money maniac, in what terms his wealth is expressed.  Suppose (for example) that I wish to achieve a gigantic and highly desirable feat, such as the codification of the Laws of England.  For me to do that I must be trained from childhood in an extremely special way.  I must always have servants to attend to food and clothing so that I never have to think about them.  I must have secretaries to save me manual labour, to look up my references, and to do a thousand other services of the kind.  I must have a comfortable house, an enormous library, and a thousand other things which are expressions of wealth, and which certainly everybody cannot have.  In these circumstances I should not mind whether you called my {122} income a cent a year or a dollar a minute.  And since I am enjoying these special advantages, they cannot be equally enjoyed by all those who are working under me.  It is not obvious how they can be compensated spiritually for the inferior character of their tasks merely by giving them a larger income than mine.  If it achieved anything at all, it would tend to unfit them for the work for which they are fitted. <<T NOTE: Crowley obviously intends that a butler who received a salary equivalent to his master would not remain long a butler!>>
   I do not know whether Mr. Shaw really wishes to hang me as an abortionist.  I do not `definitely wish one person to be a lower creature than another', but I do recognize that there are bound to be vast differences between the different people.  It is simply a fact of nature that Mr. Shaw is not equal to the average native of Dahomey.  He would probably be entirely nonplussed if he were asked to cut up and cook a plump young woman.
   The grand error of all social idealists is in their definition of equality.  The Indian caste system, and even to a certain extent the Church of England ideal, is much more sensible.  The Indians recognize that there must be thieves, prostitutes, murderers, and even judges; and each class has its special honour.  A man can develop his soul perfectly in his own orbit of life provided that he does his duty in `that station to which it has pleased God to call him'.
   The judge is not `lower' than the prostitute; he is only a different kind<<T NOTE: Note Crowley's obvious irony towards judges.>>; and a self-respecting judge does not complain of his disabilities.  He makes up his mind to get the best out of his situation by increasing the gaiety of nations through the absurdity of his decisions.  He affords matter for the jests of Swift, {123} Gilbert, and Mr. Shaw himself, and on his death-bed he can say just as cheerfully as Wainwright or Crippen, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do."
   What is needed is self-respect, whether your business is to dig drains or to command armies.  You should realize that you are performing a service to the community.  Your government should help you to do this.  The Germans, with their common sense and sound grasp of psychology, have already gone far in this direction, so that we have Mrs. Butcher Schmidt, and Mrs. Baker Meyer and Mrs. Candlestick-maker Ringler.  Happiness comes with pride in what you are, unhappiness with wanting to be something that you are not.  The discontent in England is principally the result of the intense social snobbery which prevails in every circle.


          "The Political and Biological Objections to Inequality"

   What Mr. Shaw says about democracy in this section is perfectly true, but he omits to offer any proof that the cause of the corruption against which he exclaims is "class stratification of income".  The objections which he advances are objections to democracy.  The troubles of which he complains hardly exist in Germany on the one hand and in many native Indian States on the other.


                         "Jesus as Economist."

   In this section Mr. Shaw goes a little backward.  By equal income he really means that everyone should be assured of the bare necessities of life.  That is a more reasonable proposal.  The objections to it are chiefly practical, and the average {124} stockbroker will certainly be able to think of them in five minutes, so that it is unnecessary to labour the point.
   But now we come back to Jesus, whose advice is crystallized in the following paragraph: "In other words, that we should all be gentlemen and take care of our country because our country takes care of us, instead of the commercialized cads we are, doing everything and anything for money, and selling our souls and bodies by the pound and the inch, after wasting half the day haggling over the price."  To some minds the omission to formulate a practical scheme of carrying this excellent programme into effect may appear a slight drawback.  The section concludes: "Decidedly, whether you think Jesus was God or not, you must admit that he was a first-rate political economist."  Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed, and one cannot resist the temptation to try to earn it so easily; so here goes.  I think we should all be kings like Charlemagne, with minds like Newton, hearts like Shelley, souls like Goethe and bodies combining Hercules with Antinous.  Decidedly, whether you think I am God or not, I am some kind of a very fine fellow!


                         "Jesus as Biologist."

   It is impossible to understand why Mr. Shaw should say, "He was also as we now see a first-rate biologist."  All the evidence offered is the statement that "We and our Father are one" which Jesus never made at all, and one or two other phrases of a similar kind, which, as has been shown above, do not in the least represent the doctrine of Jesus.
   Mr. Shaw may be reminded that from days long before Jesus even {125} to this hour the ordinary greeting of two Hindus who meet is to place the palms of their hands togeather [sic], by which they signify a denial of duality, and say, "Thou art That", the word `That' meaning supreme existence far beyond and above any personal and creative God.  The actual statements of Jesus, "I and my Father are One, ye are of your Father the Devil", are not at all in keeping with this line of thought.
   The feat of interpreting megalomaniac egotism and sectarian bigotry as mystic monism gives cards and spades to the folks of half a century ago, who tried to read Modern Science into the Book of Genesis.  And anyhow I do not quite see what Mystic monism has to do with bigotry.


             "Money, the Midwife of Scientific Communism."

   Mr. Shaw comes back to the earth a little.  He perceives that the extreme variety of possessions demanded by different men involves, for convenience, a medium of exchange.  Advanced thinker as he is, he flashes upon us the discovery that the system of barter has its drawbacks.
   But having paid tribute to this perspicacity, we must regret that it does not also extend to seeing that most of the things--at any rate, the new things--which are really desireable, and even useful to humanity, are produced by persons who have a very great deal of money to spare.  Any one who has had any experience in dealing with governments knows that it is quite impossible to get them to experiment.  Does Mr. Shaw suppose for a moment that we should ever have had railways or aeroplanes, if the matter had {126} been left to government?  The state knows only too well, apart from the question of finding the money for elaborate improvements, there is always the vested interest<<In this phrase I wish to include the conservatism of the stupid and the old.  Under communism, though it would make no financial difference to the flint-chipper to be turned into a bronze-caster, he would still object to undergo the fatigue of learning a new trade.  And all selfish incentive would be denied him;  he would therefore be just as obstinate as the stage coachman was when we introduced the steam-engine.>> to fight.
   Practically all inventions of any size or importance have had to force their way to acceptance through a thousand obstacles.  How could the motor car have been introduced but by the faith of capitalists?  These men were not working in the least to benefit humanity; they saw a fortune in it, and they threw away their money by the hundred thousand in the hope of getting it back many times over, like the man in the parable of the Talents.  The late Isaac Rice, for example, submitted to a yearly loss which came near to crippling him rich man as he was, in order to perfect the Holland submarine.  The inventor (if he is lucky) may find one man or even a half a dozen to believe that what he proposes is possible.  But to convince a state department would be a greater miracle than any of those recorded in the gospels.  Even when an invention has been working satisfactorily for years, the state remains the Old Guard of the sceptics.  This is another reason why humanity would stagnate under communism.  It is true that the inventor would not be troubled by the impossibility of his finding money for his experiments for the simple reason that he would not take the trouble to invent, when he could get no good for it.  {127}


                     "Why Jesus did not Marry."

   The first point to notice is another example of Mr. Shaw's carelessness in reading the Bible.  He says "The disciples, like Jesus himself, were men without family entanglements."  We find in Matthew VIII, 14. "And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of fever."  Of course Peter's wife may have been dead, but we are not told so, and anyhow a wife's mother is the worst family entanglement that any one can have, on the evidence of any vaudeville comedian in the world.  But Mr. Shaw speaks further of the bachelordom of Jesus, and it is therefore worth our while to examine the precise meaning of this superficially fascinating phrase.
   We cannot doubt, in fact, we have absolute knowledge, that in one curious respect Jesus differed from all other `holy men' of the East.  One of the regular functions of the prophet or ascetic is to remove the curse of sterility, for his sanctity tends to bring him into close relationship with a creative deity, and his mode of life conduces to physical vigour.  Such men are always followed by all classes of women, and it is considered no disgrace to them; for in Judaea and the East generally it is more shame to be a barren woman than to be a harlot; and therefore any means are justifiable to remove the stigma.  There is usually a thin veil thrown over the transaction; it is a shrine of dead saints' bones, or a hot spring which works the miracle.  (Footnote.  There was such a place within recent years, near Nice; Frank Harris has written an amusing story on the subject.)
   Dr. Frazer give endless instances of the custom, and it survives {128} all over the East to-day.
   If we think of the conditions of life in Syria two thousand years ago, we must admit that it would be impossible for women to follow a prophet unless on some such excuse of pilgrimage or what not.  They would be utterly lost to all shame; for the Eastern harlot is much more modest in her demeanour than the English or American virgin; and they could not, even at that, earn their livelihood.  It was women of position, as well as `sinners', that followed Jesus, and `ministered' to him of their substance', as Luke tells us.
   We cannot doubt then that the object of all these women was to repair the deficiencies of their husbands; and we cannot doubt that in this case they were disappointed.  Jesus of course could hardly have failed to understand their desires; but he knew how to soothe their feelings without yielding to their wishes, for they never ceased to follow him.
   It is curious that legend should have anticipated this fact in the case of the Buddha, who was also a wandering ascetic, and also chaste, though in this case he had abandoned a harem and his chldren to follow the religious life.  But his chastity was assured by divinely-ordained anatomical precautions; for from his birth "membrum ejus membrano quodam continebatur, ne copulare poset" as an early biographer assures us, failing however to explain the chldren previously referred to.
   It is then certain beyond all doubt that Jesus was an exception to the prophetic rule.
   Should a freethinker of no propriety demand our authority {129} for this conviction, it will be useless to seek it in Holy Scripture, for the gospels give no hint of any sort that this was so; but they will confidently rely in this matter upon the opinion of my Uncle Tom, who is President of the Children's Special Service Mission, and therefore in a position to know.
   Still less attention should be paid to those critics who claim that the Greek words `agape' (love or charity) and `agapao' should be interpreted in any other than a strictly spiritual sense; for the word is used of the relation between Jesus and John, who is also described as `qedesh' or holy, a technical phrase applied to certain temple servants in Judaea <<T NOTE: Crowley is making a veiled allusion to his XIth degree O.T.O. practice of homosexual sodomy.  The masonic title of this magickal degree is described with the appellation of Qadesh, which is translated also as `holiness unto the lord.'  Apparently Crowley is insinuating that Jesus buggered John.>><<WEH NOTE: Although the XIth degree is often thought to be homosexual and is in fact apart from the primary structure of O.T.O., there is no historical basis for equating XIth degree and homosexual practice.  The evidence relies on what Crowley said and did when he coincidently styled himself XIth degree O.T.O. in a very few instances.  Most of the Libers marked "Baphoment ... XIth" have to do with heterosexual symbolism or nonsexual matters entirely, e.g. Liber XV and others in the "Blue Equinox".  As to John, yes, it is possible that Crowley suggests a homosexual relationship, but it is equally plausible that John was a "sacred prostitute" and stand-in for a sexually impotent Jesus.  This latter view can also be read into Crowley's hint, and it carries more of the context.  If we stroll down that lane a bit, we come to another interpretation of "the beloved disciple", not beloved by Jesus so much but by all the Jesus groupies.  Ambling quite around the bend, we might suggest that the slang "John", meaning the client of a prostitute, has a sound New Testament base!  After all, homosexual friendships in biblical times and places were ubiquitous to the point of being unremarkable.  This preposterous arch western taboo is relatively recent.  Heterosexual irregularity was much more spicy in biblical times.  In any event, the context suggests impotence for Jesus; and it is therefore more correct to suggest "John buggered Jesus" than the other way `round.>> and grossly mistranslated in Deuteronomy XXIII, 17, I Kings XIV, 24, XV, 12, XXII 46 and II Kings XXIII, 7; it is doubtless better rendered as `the divine'.  Such conjecture, supported as it may be by profane scholarship so-called, makes in this instance the most abominable nonsense.  Such interpretation as scholars have suggested may be, as they say, perfectly usual and natural in the East; but in the case of Jesus we have absolute knowledge that it was not so.
   It is useless to urge that we have no ground whatever for that knowledge; knowledge of this exalted kind needs no basis in fact; it is for this very reason that it is unshakeable.  Such facts as we may have all point in a precisely opposite direction; in all men of proper spirit this should strengthen instead of weakening their conviction.  What better test is there of faith than that it should be utterly opposed to reason?
   It has been necessary to violate one's feelings by mentioning these utterly unfounded and repugnant conjectures, because Mr. {130} Shaw has taken the curatical view of the celibacy of Jesus; and it appears necessary to point out that this view is not based on anthropology or theology or on any other branch of science or of reason; and it is not based on any statement whatever in the Gospels; it is founded on that wondrous gift of faith--the evidence of things not seen--which is our sole true guide in Life.
   It may however be observed in this place that chasitity has been from the first a matter of priestly forethought.  The first genius that caught the idea of living withough work--he got the idea from the village idiot, who was supposed to be divinely possessed--said to villagers:  I too am inspired; you must let me wander about all day and do as I like; and you must feed me."  "What," they indignantly exclaimed, "You are a holy man too?  Where does the holiness come in?  "Oh,"  replied the aspirant to Holy Orders, "that's all right.  I'm not at all like you are.  You eat pig and dog; I will touch nothing but chicken and gazelle.  You have wives; I never degrade myself to the level of an animal.  For shame!"  In other words, his holiness was proved by his refusing to do the orthodox thing, just as in the case of plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day, in the gospels.
   It is the natural and even the necessary formula.  How else is he to prove his holiness, and get free meals?
   The alternatives are prophecy and thamaturgy; and the best holy men have always combined these methods.  As Solomon says, "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."
   Of course, the priest soon saw how to indulge himself secretly under the cloak of his sanctity; if he were actually seen in adultery, it was only necessary to explain that it was not he, {131} but a demon who had taken his shape in order to destroy his reputation.  A man who so excited the malice of the Evil One must be holy indeed!
   So celibacy began; later, it was organized, and came to mean sexual freedom without sexual responsibility, as it does to-day. <<WEH NOTE: See the ancient oath of the Crusading Order of the Knights of Malta to the effect that they forswore marriage in return for the pledge of their Order to insure inheritance and protection for any future children.>>


                   "Inconsistency of the Sex Instinct."

   The whole of this section is founded upon the gravest error.  "In our sexual natures we are torn by an irresistible attraction and an overwhelming repugnance and disgust.  We have two tyrannous physical passions; concupiscence and chastity.  We become mad in pursuit of sex: we become equally mad in the persecution of that pursuit.  Unless we gratify our desire the race is lost:  unless we restrain it we destroy ourselves." <<T NOTE: Crowley will attack this point from his thelemic standpoint that Christianity is the accursed and unnatural source of the so-called `chastity instinct' which conflicts with the natural sexual drive.>>
   This is not the sex-instinct at all.  It is sexual degeneracy gross, morbid, and revolting.  If the above passage were read to an Afghan he would not understand it; after about three weeks' explanation he would grasp the purport sufficiently to exclaim, that it was a ridiculous lie.  It is the exacerbation to madness of the fact which the Latins expressed in the phrase `post coitum animal triste', a fact, by the way, which itself depends on ignorance of sexual technique and hygiene.
   And what exaggerated this mild malaise into the melancholia which Mr. Shaw seems to think common to humanity?  The very influence of Christianity itself.  The doctrine of `sin' is the root of all evil.  It was indeed time that a prophet should come forth to declare: "The word of Sin is Restriction."  "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." {132]


                      "For Better, for Worse."

   This section is extremely profound and well worth study.  It appears to lead to the conclusion that kindness and conscientousness and altruism are really drawbacks to the progress of humanity.  As Nietzsche said this, and I too agree with him, there is little more to be said.  The way out does indeed seem to be that word of Jesus "To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that he seemeth to have."  It is curious, by the way, that Mr. Shaw did not quote this text in his argument for communism and equality!  What is needed is quite obvious; the great man will make his greatness felt, and will draw to himself a crowd of lesser people utterly willing to sacrifice their own advantage and development by devotion to his, or, as I should prefer to put it, by finding their own advantage and development through that devotion.  This is really a Christian doctrine, by the way: "He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."  (Matthew X, 39.)


                           "The Remedy"

   Mr. Shaw's remedy for the trouble outlined in the preceding paragraph is economic independence.  The argument is here expressed in what are to me almost unintelligible terms.  The love of power is the strongest instinct of humanity, beyond mere appetites, and if one weapon were removed another would be quickly forged.  It is here permissible to quote one of the most admirable parables ever written.  It is in one of the lesser known books of Robert Louis Stevenson. {133}

   "THE HOUSE OF ELD."

From "Fables", by Robert Louis Stevenson.

   So soon as the children began to speak, the gyve was riveted; and the boys and girls limped about their play like convicts.  Doubtless it was more pitiful and more painful to bear in youth, but even the grown folk, besides being very awkward on their feet, were often sick with ulcers.
   About the time when Jack was ten years old, many strangers began to journey through that country.  These he beheld going lightly by on the roads, and the thing amazed him.  "I wonder how it comes," he asked, "that all these strangers are so quick afoot, and we must drag about our fetter."
   "My dear boy," said his uncle, the catechist, "do not complain about your fetter, for it is the only thing that makes life worth living.  None are happy, none are good, none are respectable, that are not gyved like us.  And I must tell you besides, that it is very dangerous talk.  If you grumble at your iron, you will have no luck; if ever you take it off, you will be instantly smitten by a thunderbolt."
   "Are there no thunderbolts for the strangers?" asked Jack.
   "Jupiter is long suffering to the benighted," returned the catechist.
   "Upon my word, I could wish I had been less fortunate," said Jack, "For if I had been benighted, I might now be going free, and it cannot be denied the iron is inconvenient, and the ulcer hurts."
   "Ah!" cried his uncle, "do not envy the heathen!  Theirs is {134} a sad lot!  Ah, poor souls, if they but knew the joys of being fettered!  Poor souls, my heart yearns for them.  But the truth is they are vile, odious, insolent, ill-conditioned stinking brutes not truly human--for what is a man without a fetter?--and you cannot be too particular not to touch or speak with them."
   After this talk, the child would never pass one of the unfettered on the road but what he spat at him and called him names, which was the practice of the children in that part.
   It chanced one day, when he was fifteen, he went into the woods and the ulcer pained him.  It was a fair day, with a blue sky; all the birds were singing; but Jack nursed his foot.  Presently another song began; it sounded like the singing of a person, only far more gay; at the same time there was a beating on the earth.  Jack put aside the leaves; and there was a lad of his own village, leaping and dancing, and singing to himself in a green dell; and on the grass beside him lay his iron.
   "Oh!" cried Jack, "you have your fetter off!"
   "For God's sake don't tell your uncle!" cried the lad.
   "If you fear my uncle," returned Jack, "why do you not fear the thunderbolt?"
   "That is an old wives' tale," said the other.  "It is only told to children.  Scores of us come here among the woods, and dance for nights together, and are none the worse."
   This put Jack in a thousand new thoughts.  He was a grave lad; he had no mind to dance himself; he wore his fetter manfully, and tended his ulcer without complaint.  But he loved the less to be deceived or to see others cheated.  He began to lie in wait {135} for heathen travellers, at covert parts of the road, and in the dusk of day, so he might speak with them unseen; and these were greatly taken with their wayside questioner and told him things of weight.  The wearing of gyves (they said) was no command of Jupiter's.  It was the contrivance of a white-faced thing, a sorcerer that dwelt in that country in the Wood of Eld.  He was one like Glaucus, that could change his shape, yet he could always be told; for when crossed, he gobbled like a turkey.  He had three lives; but the third smiting would make an end of him indeed, and with that his house of sorcery would vanish, the gyves fall, and the villagers take hands and dance like children.
   "And in your country?"  Jack would ask.
   But at this the travellers with one accord, would put him off, until Jack began to suppose that there was no land entirely happy.  Or, if there were, it must be one that kept its folk at home; which was natural enough.
   But the case of the gyves weighed upon him.  The sight of the children limping stuck in his eyes.  The groans of such as dressed their ulcers haunted him.  And it came at last in his mind that he was born to free them.
   There was in that village a sword of heavenly forgery, beaten upon Vulcan's anvil.  It was never used but in the temple, and then the flat of it only.  And it hung on a nail by the catechist's chimney.  Early one night, Jack rose, and took the sword, and was gone out of the house and the village in the darkness.
   All night he walked at a venture, and when day came he met strangers going to the fields.  Then he asked after the Wood of Eld and the house of sorcery; and one said north and one south, {136} until Jack saw that they deceived him.  So then, when he asked his way of any man, he showed the bright sword naked; and at that the gyve at the man's ankle rang, and answered in his stead; and the word was still "Straight on".  But the man, when his gyve spoke spat and struck at Jack, and threw stones at him as he went away so that his head was broken.
   So he came to that wood, and entered in.  And he was aware of a house in a low place, where funguses grew, and the trees met, and the steaming of the marsh arose about it like a smoke.  It was a fine house, and a very rambling; some parts of it were ancient like the hills, and some but of yesterday, and none finished; and all the ends were open, so that you could go in from every side.  Yet it was in good repair, and all the chimneys smoked.
   Jack went in through the gable; and there was one room after another, all bare, but all furnished in part so that a man could dwell there; and in each there was a fire burning where a man could warm himself, and a table spread where he might eat.  But Jack saw nowhere any living creature; only the bodies of some stuffed.
   "This is a hospitable house," said Jack, "But the ground must be quaggy underneath, for at every step the building quakes."
   He had gone some time in the house, when he began to be hungry.  Then he looked at the food, and at first he was afraid; but he bared the sword, and by the shining of the sword it seemed the food was honest.  So he took the courage to sit down and eat, and he was refreshed in mind and body.
   "This is strange," thought he, "that in the house of sorcery there should be food so wholesome."  {137}
   As he was yet eating, there came into that room the appearence of his uncle, and Jack was afraid because he had taken the sword.  But his uncle was never more kind, and sat down to meat with him, and praised him because he had taken the sword.  Never had these two been more pleasantly together, and Jack was full of love to the man.
   "It was very well done," said his uncle, "to take the sword and come yourself into the House of Eld; a good thought, and a brave deed.  But now you are satisfied; and we may go home to dinner arm in arm."
   "O, dear, no!" said Jack.  "I am not satisfied yet."
   "How!" cried his uncle.  "Are you not warmed by the fire?  Does not this food sustain you?"
   "I see the food to be wholesome," said Jack, "and still it is no proof that a man should wear a gyve on his right leg."
   Now at this the appearanace of his uncle gobbled like a turkey.
   "Jupiter!" cried Jack, "is this the sorcerer?"
   His hand held back, and his heart failed him for the love he bore his uncle; but he heaved up the sword and smote the appearence of his uncle on the head; and it cried out aloud with the voice of his uncle; and fell to the ground; and a little bloodless, white thing fled from the room.
   The cry rang in Jack's ears, and his knees smote together, and conscience cried upon him: and yet he was strengthened, and there woke in his bones the lust of the enchanter's blood.
   "If the gyve's are to fall" cried he, "I must go through with this; and when I get home, I shall find my uncle dancing."  {138}
   So he went after the bloodless thing.  On the way he met the appearance of his father; and his father was incensed and railed upon him, and called to him upon his duty, and bade him to be home while there was yet time.  "For you can still," said he, "be home by sunset, and then all will be forgiven."
   "God knows" said Jack, "I fear your anger; but yet your anger does not prove that a man should wear a gyve on his right leg."
   And at that the appearance of his father gobbled like a turkey.
   "Ah, heaven," cried Jack, "the sorcerer again!"
   The blood ran backward in his body, and his joints rebelled against him for the love he bore his father; but he heaved up the sword, and plunged it in the heart of the appearance; and the appearance cried out aloud with the voice of his father; and fell to the ground; and a little bloodless white thing fled from the room.
   The cry rang in Jack's ears, and his soul was darkened; but now rage came to him.  "I have done what I dare not think upon," said he, "I will go to an end with it, or perish.  And when I get home, I pray god this may be a dream, and I may find my father dancing."
   So he went on after the bloodless thing that had escaped; and in the way he met the appearance of his mother, and she wept.  "What have you done?  O, come home (where you may be by bed-time) ere you do more ill to me and mine; for it is enough to smite my brother and your father."
   "Dear mother, it is not these I have smitten," said Jack, "it is but the enchanter in their shape.  And even if I had, it should not prove that a man should wear a gyve upon his right leg."  {139}
   And at this the appearance gobbled like a turkey.
   He never knew how he did that; but he swung the sword on the one side, and clove the appearance through the midst; and it cried out aloud with the voice of his mother; and fell to the ground--and with the fall of it the house was gone from over Jack's head, and he stood alone in the woods, and the gyve had fallen from his leg.
   "Well," said he, "the enchanter is now dead and the fetter gone."  But the cry rang in his soul, and the day was like the night to him.  "This has been a sore business," said he, "Let me go forth out of the wood, and see the good that I have done to others."
   He thought to leave his fetter where it lay, but when he turned to go, his mind was otherwise.  So he stooped and put the gyve in his bosom, and the rough iron galled him as he went, and his bosom bled.
   Now when he was forth of the wood upon the highway, he met folk returning from the field; and those he met had no fetters on the right leg, but behold! they had one upon the left.  Jack asked them what it signified, and they said, "that was the new wear, for the old was found to be a superstition."  Then he looked at them nearly, and there was a new ulcer on the left ankle, and the old one on the right was not yet healed.
   "Now may God forgive me!" cried Jack, "I would I were well home.
   And when he was home, there lay his uncle, smitten on the head and his father pierced through the heart, and his mother cloven through the midst.  And he sat in the lone house and wept beside {140} the bodies.

                               "MORAL

                Old is the tree, and the fruit good,
                Very old and thick the wood.
                  Woodman, is your courage stout?
                  Beware! the root is wrapped about
                Your mother's heart, your father's bones....
                And like the mandrake comes with groans.
                         ----------------------


                       "The Case for Marriage."

   At last this admirable preface admits that for which we have been contending.  The existence of domestic virtue is no longer denied.  But there is still a good deal of confusion: for example, Mr. Shaw speaks of "Self-denial, which is not a virtue at all."  The root of the whole trouble is this infernal consiciousness of sin, which has been the ruin of mankind, and has its root in the grossest animism and fetichism.  The crops will not grow, unless we sacrifice seventy-seven virgins every month.  We did not smear the image of Mumbo-Jumbo with the proper kind of blood, and that accounts for the thunder storm.
   There is no such thing as self-denial.  Self-denial is merely the self-indulgence of self-denying people.  There is an old, old story of an old-old woman, very benighted, who had not heard of Christianity till the Scripture reader came and read her the story of the Crucifixion, at which she wept copiously; but she soon dried her tears, remarking: "after all, it was `is `obby".  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law; or, as Mr. Shaw himself once said, "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule."


                     "Celibacy no Remedy." {141}

   Mr. Shaw is really very unfortunate; he seems deliberately to make the worst of life.  "Not only is marriage intolerable but its alternatives are intolerable; "and yet we get on very well!  The grim humour of Sir Richard Burton's remark about women, "We can do neither with them nor without them", is a much bigger statement of the case.
   It does appear, however, that whether Mr. Shaw is right in thinking that economic independence would assist or no, he is dimly aware that the mischief lies principally in the sense of sin; or so at least one interprets the following passage.  "The practical solution is to make the individual economically independent of marriage and the family, and to make marriage as easily dissoluble as any other partnership; in other words, to accept the conclusions to which experience is slowly driving both our sociologists and our legislators.  This will not instantly cure all the evils of marriage, nor root up at one stroke its detestable traditon of property in human bodies.  But it will leave Nature free to effect a cure; and in free soil the root may wither and perish."


                     "After the Crucifixion."

   We now return to the New Testament narratives.  Mr. Shaw says that "Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly.  He was hardly cold in his grave, or high in his heaven (as you please), before the apostles dragged the tradition of him down to the level of the thing it has remained ever since.  And that thing the intelligent heathen may study, if they would be instructed in it by modern books, in Samuel Butler's novel, {142} The Way of All Flesh."
   We need hardly reiterate that the Christianity to which Mr. Shaw objects is in the gospels just as much as that of which he approves.  All that he has praised is the regular routine of any Eastern ascetic, a splendid rule for the individual of exceptional temperament, but utterly inapplicable to society as a whole.
   As to the other Christianity, every one has not read the Way of All Flesh or even Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, which is their fault and not mine, and one which they should take pains to remedy.  But I can forgive them for not having read a book called the World's Tragedy, <<T NOTE: An extended dramatic poem by Crowley which tells the story of the world before the birth of Christ and after in an exceedingly blasphematory form.  There is a long prose introduction which is, as Crowley says here, autobiographical.  The blatant homosexuality and anti-clerical attitude caused the book to be quickly banned (and burned).  It is currently (as of 1988) in print from Falcon Press.>> for it is somewhat rare and difficult to obtain, so I will quote a section of the author's autobiographical preface, which has the merit of being cold-drawn fact without evasion, equivocation or any mental reservation whatever.


                                  "A Boyhood in Hell."

   "The Revd. H. d'Arcy Champney M. A. of Corpus Christi College, had come out of sect.
   He had voted at the Parlieamentary elections by crossing out the names of the candidates and writing: "I vote for King Jesus."
   He has started a school for the Sons of Brethren at 51, Bateman Street, Cambridge.  May God bite into the bones of men the pain that hell on earth (I have prayed often) that by them it may be sowed with salt, accursed for ever!  May the maiden that passes it be barren, and the pregnant woman that beholdeth it abort!  May the birds of the air refuse to fly over it!  May it stand as a curse, as a fear, as an hate, among men!  May the wicked dwell {143} therein!  May the light of the Sun be withheld therefrom, and the light of the Moon not lighten it!  May it become the home of the shells of the dead, and may the demons of the pit inhabit it!  May it be accursed, accursed, accursed -- accursed for ever and ever!
   And still, standing as I stand in the prime of early manhood, free from all the fetters of the body and the mind, do I curse the memory thereof unto the ages.
   It was a good enough school from the point of examiners, I dare say.  Morally and physically it was an engine of destruction and corruption.  I am just going to put down a few facts haphazard as they come to my memory; you may form your own judgment.
1.  We were allowed to play cricket, but not to score runs, lest it should excite the vice of `emulation'.
2.  Champney told me, a child of not twelve years old, that he had never consummated his marriage, (Only the very acute verbal memory which I possess enables me, years after, to recall and interpret his meaning.  He used a coarser phrase).
3.  We were told that `the lord had a special care of the school, and brought to light that which was done in darkness', etc., etc., ad nauseam.  `The instrument was on this occasion so-and-so, who had nobly come forward, etc., etc.  In other words, hyprocrisy and sneaking were the only virtues.
   Naturally, one of several boys who might be involved in the same offence would take fright, and save his skin by sneaking.  The informer was always believed implicitly, as against probability, or even possibility, with complete disregard of the testimony of other and independent witnesses. {144}
   For instance, a boy named Glascott, with insane taint, told Mr. Champney that he had visited me (12 years old) at my mother's house during the holidays --- true so far, he had --- and found me lying drunk at the bottom of the stairs."  My mother was never asked about this; nor was I told of it.  I was put into `Coventry' i.e., nor master nor boy might speak to me, or I to them.  I was fed on bread and water; during work-hours I walked solitary around the playground.  I was expected to `confess' the crime of which I was not only innocent, but unaccused.
   This punishment, which I believe criminal authorities would consider severe on a prisoner, went on for a term and a half.  I was, at last, threatened with expulsion for my refusal to `confess', and so dreadful a picture of the horrors of expulsion did they paint me -- the guilty wretch, shunned by his fellows, slinks on through life to a dishonoured grave, etc. that I actually chose to endure my torture, and to thank my oppressor.
   Physically, I broke down.  The strain and the misery affected my kidneys<<WEH NOTE: Renal failure is a common issue of malnutrition>>; and I had to leave school altogether for two years.  I should add in fairness that were were other accusations against me, though, as you shall hear, almost equally silly.
   I learnt at last, through the intervention of my uncle, in a lucid interval, what I was supposed to have done.  I was said to have tried `to corrupt Chamberlain' -- not our great patriotic statesman, shifty Joe -- but a boy.  (I was 12 years old, and quite ignorant of all sexual matters till long after).  Also I had `held a mock prayer meeting'.  This I remembered.  I had strolled up to a group of boys in the playground, who were indeed holding one.  As {145} they saw me one said `Brother - - - - will now lead lead us in prayer.'  Brother - - - - - was too wary, and walked away.  But instead of doing what a wise boy would have done; gone straight to the head and accused them of forty-six distinct unmentionable crimes, I let things slide.  So, fearing that I might go, they hurried off themselves, and told him how that wicked - - - - had tried to lead them away from Jesus.
   Worse, I had called Page 1 a pharisee.  That was true; I had said it.  Dreadful of me!  And Page 1, who `walked very close to Jesus', of course went and told.
   Yes, they all walked close to Jesus -- as close as Judas did.
4.  A boy named Barton was sentenced to 120 strokes of the cane on his bare shoulders, for some petty theft of which he was presumably innocent.
   Superb was the process of trial.  It began by an extra long prayer-time, and Joshua's account of the sin of Achan, impressively read.  Next, an hour or two about the Lord's care of the school, the way he brought sin to light.  Next, when well worked up, and all our nerves on the jump, who stole what?  Silence.  Next. the Lord's care in providing a witness -- like the witnesses against Naboth!  Then the witness and his story, as smooth as a policeman's.  Next, sentence.  Last, execution with intervals of prayer!
   Champney's physique being impaired, one may suppose by his excessive devotion to Jesus, he arranged to give 50 strokes one day, and 60 the next.
   My memory fails -- perhaps Barton will one day oblige with his reminiscences -- but I fancy the first day came so near killing him {146} that he escaped the second.
   I remember one licking I got -- on the legs, because flogging the buttocks excites the victim's sensuality! -- 15 minutes prayer, 15 more strokes -- and more prayer to top it!
5.  On Sunday the day was devoted to `religion'.  Morning prayers and sermon (about 45 Min.).  Morning `Meeting' (1 1/2 to 2 hours).  Open-air preaching on Parker's Piece (say 1 hour).  Bible reading and learning by heart.  Reading of the few books `sanctioned for Sunday' (say 2 hours).  Prayer-meeting (called voluntary, but to stay away meant that some sneak in the school would accuse you of something next day), (say 1 hour).  Evening prayer and sermon (say 30 minutes).  Preaching of the Gospel in the meeting-roon (1 1/2 hours).  Ditto on Parker's Piece (say 1 hour).  Prayer before retiring (say 1/2 hour).
6.  The `Badgers' Meeting'.  Every Monday night the school was ranged round the back of the big schoolroom, and the scourings of Barnswell (Cambridge's slums) let in, fed, preached to, and dismissed.
   Result, epidemics of ringworm, measles and mumps.  Oh no! not a result; the Lord's hand was heavy upon us because of some undiscovered sin.
   I might go on for a long while, but I will not.  I hope there are some people in the world happy enough to think that I am lying, or at least exaggerating.  But I pledge my word to the literal truth of all I have said, and there are plenty of witnesses alive to confirm me, or to refute me.  I have given throughout the actual names, addresses and other details. {147}
   Too ill with albuminaria brought on by the savage treatment of Champney to do any regular work, I was sent away with various tutors, mostly young men from Cambridge, members of the unspeakable C.I.C.C.U.
   I remember in my first term at Cambridge how I was in the rooms of a leading light of the C.I.C.C.U., the Revd. Something Doddridge.
   I remember how eloquently he held forth on the courage to stop any `impure conversation'.  I remember how impressed we were; how a gentleman with `honourable' in front of his name, destined to be celebrated in the world of motors and balloons,<<He was a pioneer of the aeroplane, and killed at Bournemouth during an exhibition flight.  In gloria requiescat!>> walked into the room and told us rather a lively story.  The Reverend Something Doddridge thought of the `honourable' and laughed pleasantly.
   I remember how, boys as we were, we filed austerely from the rooms without farewell.  Oh, you must know the C.I.C.C.U.!
   I remember too how this Doddridge, while in charge of my morals, aided and abetted me in extinguishing street lamps; and how when a policeman pounced upon me, heforsook me and fled!  A true disciple of Jesus!
   I had no playmates; my morals might be corrupted!  Only the `children of brethren' were eligible, and these were as a rule socially impossible.
   I was always being watched for signs of masturbation, and always being warned and worried about it.  It says something for human innocence that after four years of this insane treatment I was still absolutely ignorant, though on fire in every nerve to learn the practice that people made so much fuss about. {148}
   But really -- my tutors!  Of all the surpassing prigs!  I was so mentally shattered by the disease and torture -- for both continued -- that I remember practically nothing of the next two years.
   But at least I shall take care that this book comes into the hands of the Very Reverend Armitage Robinson Esq., M.A., D.D., Dean of Westminster; for through I suppose he knows how his missionary brother Jack seduced to sodomy his missionary brother Fred, he may still be ignorant of how that brother Fred (one of my tutors) attempted to seduce me in his own mother's house at Maze Hill.  This came a little later; and I knew exactly what he was doing, as it happened.  I let him go as far as he did, with the deliberate intention of making sure on that point.
   I think my readers will agree --- enough of my tutors!
(Footnote re this passage:  This short passage is too shocking to reprint in a book intended for general circulation, with regard to the conduct of one tutor with unusually high clerical connections, is here omitted.)<<WEH NOTE: This "footnote" carried in place in text and not at the page foot in the Ist edition.>>
   I ought to make an honourable exception of one Archibald Douglas, an Oxford man and a traveller.  He taught me sense and manhood, and I shall not easily forget my debt to him.  I hear he is dead -- may earth lie light upon him!
   Of course my Mother and her brother my uncle couldn't stand him.  (I must excuse my mother and my uncle.  The former was the best of all possible mothers, only marred beyond belief by the religious monomania which perhaps started in what one may call `Hysteria of Widowhood'; the latter a typical sexual degenerate.)  They stole his letters and faked up some excuse for getting rid of {149} him.  And if `an orphan's curse can drag to hell a spirit from on high', what of the curse of a child on those who betrayed him in their bigotry and meanness to such tortures as I have described?
   My whole soul cramped; society denied me; books debarred me, with the rare ecception of Scott, Ballantyne, and some of Dickens, with a few even worse!
   To illustrate the domestic principles of literary criticism:
   I was forbidden David Copperfield because of `little Em'ly'.  Emily being my Mother's name, I might cease to respect her.  For the same reason she proscribed the Bab Ballads, recommended by a rash tutor, because `Emily Jane was a nursery maid'!  Coleridge's Ancient Mariner was condemned because of the water-snakes whom he `blessed unaware'; snakes being cursed in Genesis!
   As it happened, however, I had a backbone in me somewhere.  I had always refused to join the sneaking hypocrite gang at Champney's; now I accepted the war, and began to fight for my freedom.  I went long walks in the mountains, where my tutors could not follow me, and where delightful peasant girls could and did follow me -- God bless them!
   One day I had a difference of opinion with a tutor, in the course of which he fell from a rock into a loch (whose name I forget) near Forsinard.  Memory fails to recall the actual cause of dispute; but I think I had thrown his fishing-rod into the loch, and thought that it was expedient for him to try and retrieve it.
   The same night he found me in the heather with Belle Mc.Kay the local beauty (God bless her!) and gave me up as a bad job.
   So I fought the swine!  They sent me to Malvern, where my {150} weakness made me the prey of every bully, and saved me from the attention of every budding Eulenburg.  Sodomy was the rule at Malvern; my study-companion used even to take money for it.  I cunningly used my knowledge of the fact to get away from the school.
   It must not be supposed that we had no other amusements.  There was `pill-ragging'; a form of fight whose object was to seize and hurt the opponent's testicles; and `greasing'; i.e., spitting either in each other's faces or secretly so the victim could not detect the act.  In my time this had died out of the other houses; but still flourished in my own house `Huntingdon's, No.4.  There was bullying, too; and now and then cricket and football.
   They sent me to Tonbridge; my health broke down; partly, one may say, through what would have been my own fault or misfortune if I had been properly educated; but, as it was, was the direct result of the vile system that, not content with torturing me itself, handed me over bound and blindfold to the outraged majesty of Nature.
   I escaped from Tonbridge.  They sent me to Eastbourne to a P.B. family where I had more liberty, and could have been happy; but the revolting cruelties which they inflicted on the only pretty and decent member of the family, my dear `sister' Isabelle, caused me one day to knock their heads together and walk out of the house.
   They sent me to Cambridge.  I found myself my own master, and settled down to lead a righteous, sober and Godly life; and to make up for lost time in the matter of education.
   Outside purely scholastic subjects, they had taught me to fight, to love the truth, to hate oppression, -- and by God!  I think they taught me well. {151}
   On my soul, I should thank them."


          "The Vindictive Miracles and the Stoning of Stephen"

   "Of Jesus alone of all the Christian miracle workers there is no record, except in certain gospels that all men reject, of a malicious or destructive miracle.  A barren fig-tree was the only victim of his anger.  Every one of his miracles on sentient subjects was an act of kindness."
   That is perfectly true as far as it goes.  But Jesus constantly approves vindictive miracles.  The destruction of the whole earth by the flood, and that of Sodom and Gomorrah, by fire do not make him bat an eyelid.  Furthermore, he gives in the parable of the wheat and the tares his reason for not destroying the wicked in detail.  He prefers to wait until the end of the world and make one tremendous holocaust.
   It must appear to the ordinary reader a very poor kind of mercy to leave people alone on these terms, and the Inquisition, in burning men alive in order to save their souls, is by comparison no more to be reckoned cruel than a surgeon.  At the same time, all this apart, there is admittedly a distinct difference in the flavour of the miracles.  It almost lends verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.  It does suggest that the fountain of authority was gone, and that his successors had to take practical steps to assure their succession.  It would be a natural step to take in the circumstances.
   Yet Mr. Shaw's phrase contains one caveat.  He talks of `certain gospels that all men reject.'  But seeing that `all men' of {152} whom it is here spoken were not `all men' at all -- for surely the writers of these gospels did not reject them -- but only partisans determined to allow nothing to pass the censor, may not this fact have been a reason for the rejection?  The excellence of a biography is not to be determined by its amiability or the reverse, according to our personal ideas of what we should like the truth to be.  That is carrying pragmatism a little too far!
   We have, for example, in the past few years no less than five biographies or `gospels' of Oscar Wilde in English.  Those extremely stupid persons who cannot believe that the dramatist was anything but a combination of all virtues with all the graces indignantly reject the Gospel according to Frank Harris.  But we, who do not care twopence whether Wilde was a second Prince Consort or a second Caligula, but want to know exactly what kind of man wrote An Ideal Husband, take the opinions of such people with a grain of salt.  The very partisanship displayed tends to make us incredulous.  We accept, in a word, Frank Harris's account of Wilde for this reason, above many, that he says the best and worst of the man with the most absolute carelessness as to what any one may think.
   There are some persons who regard loyalty as entirely superior to truth.  It is a noble attitude; but it is not a critical attitude.  Certainly judgment is far from such people, and the fact that they reject certain gospels would if anything incline the unbiassed person to close examination of them.


                            "Paul."

   We may now approach a section of this preface which is in many {153} ways the heart of the whole argument, without wishing to deprive the author of a single laurel, it is only fair to the memory of Anna Kingsford to remind the reader that the theory of Paul's character presented in this preface is due to her, and was one of the principal features of her attempt to reconstruct Christianity on the basis of what Jesus taught.<<She seems to have possessed a subconscious knowledge that Jesus was a synthesis of the Pagan gods.  It is a very significant demonstration of the occasional accuracy of intuition; for her conscious mental equipment was but mediocre.>>  We do not know enough about Paul to be perfectly sure from what bodily infirmity he suffered.  But there is a great deal of evidence in his treatment of the sex question to make us suspect that he was some kind of sexual degenerate.  Any man who is Abnormal sexually, if he should combine with this defect a powerful intellect and some degree of personality, is a far more dangerous wild beast than any dragon of fable.  Paul was evidently a monster of this type.
   Mr. Shaw more or less admits this, though he does not put it quite so plainly.  The ordinary rationalist adds epilepsy to this diagnosis on the ground of the phenomena recorded of his conversion.  But epilepsy is a dangerous weapon.  People who talk too much of it are usually themselves moral epileptics.  Was it Lombroso or some other lunatic who proved that Mohammed, Caesar, Goethe and most other great men of the world were epileptics?  The specialist is always trying to prove that ninetyfive per cent of humanity suffer from the disease he is studying.  It would be easy to call a convocation of doctors to prove that everybody had everything.
   The purpose, however, of these pages must be to show that the Pauline doctrine is perfectly consonant with that of Jesus.  {154} "Paul reconstructed the old Salvationism from which Jesus had vainly tried to redeem him, and produced a fantastic theology which is still the most amazing thing of the kind known to us.  Being intellectually an inveterate Roman Rationalist, always discarding the irrational real thing for the unreal but ratiocinable postulate, he began by discarding Man as he is, and substituted a postulate which he called Adam.  And when he was asked, as he surely must have been in a world not wholly mad, what had become of the natural man, he replied `Adam is the natural man.'"
   We have shown earlier by the quotation of innumerable passages the Jesus taught Salvationism in the plainest terms.  We will take moreover, in this instance, one of the most famous passages in the gospels.  It is the first discourse of Jesus given by John, and is a discourse with a Pharisee named Nicodemus.  It occurs in the third chapter of John, verses 14 to 21.  "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the {155} light, lest his deeds should be reproved."
   This discourse begins in the following way, in the same chapter, verses 1 to 6.  "There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:  The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him.  Rabbi we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?  can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
   From these passages we learn that `a man', that is any man, or if you like, `the world', that is, all men, are in an unregenerate condition.  They cannot see the kingdom of God.  They were ready to perish, and Jesus came into the world especially to redeem them from this condition.  The change is symbolized by a new birth.  It is perfectly clear that this operation is to be accomplished by believing in Jesus.  That this belief is not a pure matter of free will is evident from John VI, 28, 29, 27, 44.  "Then said they unto him, what shall we do, that we might work the works of God?  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.  All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast cut.  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me to draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."  It is rather {156} amusing to read in verse 60 of the same chapter the comment of the disciples.  "This is an hard saying: who can hear it?"  It is an evident statement of the doctrines of election and predestination.
   However, the main point is that man as such is unregenerate and needs salvation, which is practically Paul's doctrine.  The only point at which Mr. Shaw cavils is the identification of the `man' of Jesus with the `Adam' of Paul.  But Jesus did not say `man'; he was talking Hebrew, or a dialect of it, and said `Adam' If Mr. Shaw will be good enough to draw a clear distinction between the doctrine of Paul and that of Jesus, he will certainly earn the thanks of humanity.
   It is further to be observed that Adam means mankind, and is not merely the name of the first man.  It is the German `mensch'.  The enlightened or mystical school of commentators upon the Hebrew Scriptures did not believe in the story of Genesis in the crude way sanctioned by ancient savages and modern so-called literalists.  It was man's disobedience to God, his fallen nature, which was recorded in a sort of parable in the book of Genesis.  The commentators took a piece of popular folk lore, and read a philosophical meaning into it, just as one draws universal morals from plays and novels without in the least believing that they have any historical foundation.
   This section continues with an identification of sin with sex.  "Paul's theory of original sin was to some extent idiosyncratic.  He tells us definitely that he finds himself quite well able to avoid the sinfulness of sex by practising celibacy; {157} but he recognizes, rather contemptuously, that in this respect he is not as other men, and says that they had better marry than burn, thus admitting that though marriage may lead to placing the desire to please wife or husband before the desire to please God, yet preoccupation with unsatisfied desire may be even more ungodly than preoccupation with domestic affection.  This view of the case inevitably led him to insist that a wife should be rather a slave than a partner, her real function being, not to engage a man's love and loyalty, but on the contrary to release them for God by relieving the man of all preoccupation with sex, just as in her capacity of house-keeper and cook she relieves his preoccupation with hunger by the simple expedient of satisfying his appetite.  This slavery also justifies itself pragmatically by working effectively; but it has led to many foolish surmises about Paul's personal character and circumstances, by people so enslaved by sex that a celibate appears to them a sort of monster."
   The boot is entirely on the other leg.  It is Paul who is obsessed by sex, and to such an extent that he makes `sin' of it; instead of regarding it as a perfectly natural human appetite like eating or drinking.  A celibate "is" a sort of monster.  The sexual process is connected so closely with consciousness (or, if you prefer it, subconsciousness<<The psychoanalysts now call this `unconsciousness', an awkwardly ambiguous word.>>) that any departure from the normal colours not only the mind but the character in the most fantastic ways.  We have only to think of the notorious cruelty of eunuchs, {158} the peculiar modifications of character noticeable in old maids, and the actual changes in physical appearance determined by these limitations.  One may think of the extremely common insanities associated with puberty on the one hand, and on the other the occurence of the menopause in women, and of impotence in men, to see that modern medical opinion is perfectly right in holding that any variation from the normal healthy exercise of these functions is exceedingly dangerous to mental stability.  The average man, if deprived of proper care in this matter, may become a dangerous lunatic for the time being.
   Where there is congenital incapacity we almost always find fanaticism.  The very cases quoted by Mr. Shaw of men who "have defied the tyranny of sex"<<A man born blind can hardly be described as `defying the tyranny' which compels other men to see what is under their eyes.>>.  Carlyle and Ruskin, are examples of the very great mental damage which is almost invariably caused by sex-abnormality.  He also quotes "whole priesthoods"; one can only remark that the priests of Attis can hardly he said to be eminently quotable as examples of the harmlessness of interference with the most important functions of life!  It is possible for people engaged in violent athletic exercise involving real hardship and bodily emaciation, such as explorers, to be perfectly undisturbed by long privation.  But any one with any knowledge of schools and universities is acquainted with the lack of mental balance caused by this kind of disturbance.  Religious hysteria at the age of puberty is an almost universal phenomenon.  We do not find the averge {159} man of the world is in any way obsessed by sex.  It is the abnormal people who talk, and talk, and talk about it in a way which is nauseating even though it be so pitiful!


                      "The Confusion of Christendom."
                      "The Secret of Paul's Success."
                            "Paul's Qualities."

   Mr. Shaw keeps on repeating his original statement, that Christianity as we know it has no foundation in the words attributed to the gospel.  It is rather like the Bellman in the "Hunting of the Snark".  "What I tell you three times is true".  As for me, I am prepared to deny it unto seventy times seven, and find fresh texts every time.  In this section, however, Mr. Shaw rather gives himself away by saying "There is not one line of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus."  That seems rather like confessing that he is aware of the size of his petitio principii.  The whole subject of the dispute is as to what the "characteristic" utterances of Jesus were.  Suppose, pray, that I were to find half a dozen statements of Mr. Shaw's, which were errors of fact.  (It is human to err, and I doubt whether any one ever got through such a life's work as his without some error.)  Suppose I were then to quote these sentences, and say, "There is not one word of sense or truth in the `characteristic' utterances of Bernard Shaw."  Mr. Shaw might be forgiven for thinking me unfair, particularly as it is the usual method employed by his critics, especially those who do not trouble to look for error, or have the capacity to know one when they see it.
   In this section Mr. Shaw takes us into the controversy about {160} Faith and Works.  But certainly the passages quoted above from the third and sixth chapters of John, and an hundred others, show that Luther was justified in saying that salvation depends entirely on faith, and Calvin in maintaining that faith was not a matter of free will, but of election.  It is true that Jesus adds in John XIV, 15.  "If you love me, keep my commandments."  But it is evident that such keeping of commandments is merely evidence of faith.  St. James says in this epistle, the second chapter and the 17th verse to the end.  "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.  Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.  But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without work is dead?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?  Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?  And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.  Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.  Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?  For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
   For this reason Luther wished to remove the Epistle of James from the Canon, knowing as he did that works merely meant Tetzel, and the sale of indulgences.  This, however, rests solely on the statement that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. {161}  But the word `justified' is not identical with the word `saved'.  You may be a naughty child, but you do not cease to be a child, and if he that believeth on Jesus hath everlasting life, it is not obvious how he is to lose it merely through failing to manifest the evidences of life.
   The general tenor of the passage in James, which is after all a mere instruction to the church in practical matters, as is evident from a perusal of the whole epistle, is that saving faith is an invisible quality.  The Catholics are perfectly right to excommunicate a person who does not give evidence of the faith which is in him.  The Penitent Thief had no time to do any works.  It is perfectly natural and right in the practical government of a church to say, with the poet; "It was all very well to dissemble your love, but why did you kick me downstairs?"  If a man is elected to be saved, saved he is.  But only God knows whether he is elected or not.  God knoweth the heart; we can only judge the tree by its fruits.
   Paul is perfectly in line with Jesus on this matter of Faith and Works.  His doctrine is perfectly clear in such passages as the following: Romans VI, 12 to 23.  "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace?  What then?  Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?  God forbid.  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants {162} ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience, unto righteousness?  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.  I speak after the manner of men because of the infermity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righeousness unto holiness.  For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.  What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."
   Romans VI, 1 to 4.  "What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?  Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"
   God, who has elected us from all eternity to escape the damnation of our fellows, appeals to our generosity and gratitude.  But he will never go back on his word, except in the case of the `Son of Perdition'.  That is Paul, and that is Jesus, Mr. Shaw can never evade it.


                  "The Acts of the Apostles."

   The only remark in this section which calls for comment is as follows: "The author of The Acts, though a good story-teller, {163} like Luke, was (herein also like Luke) much weaker in power of thought than in imaginative literary art.  Hence we find Luke credited with the authorship The Acts by people who like stories and have no aptitude for theology."  It may be observed that these people include practically all orthodox theologians.  Mr. Shaw's argument appears to be that The Acts is full of salvationist theology; but so is Luke, as we have shown abundantly.  Even if it were not so, there would be no reason for doubting that one man wrote both books.  All works of theology are full of contractions; besides, Luke may have changed his mind.  But we cannot see any particular contradiction.  Even if we could, it would not weigh with us against the plain statement with which The Acts of the Apostles begins.
   Acts I, 1 to 4 and 8 to 9.  "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.  Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
   Compare this with Luke, 1 to 4.  "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us.  Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect {164} understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus."  Luke XXIV, 49 to 51.  "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.  And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them."
   There are slight discrepancies as to the actual last words of Jesus, but nothing that would make any reasonable person doubt that the one narrative is the continuation of the other by the same hand.


          "The Controversy on Baptism and Transubstantiation."

   This section again is fairly accurate, except that we cannot agree that there was any dispute about baptism and circumcision as `means of salvation'.  These were merely `outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace.'


                      "The Alternative Christs"

   Under this heading it appears fitting to clarify still further.  Mr. Shaw says, "Let us now clear up the situation a little.  The New Testament tells two stories for two different sorts of readers.  One is the old story of the achievement of our salvation by the sacrifice and atonement of a divine personage who was barbarously slain and rose again on the third day: the story as it was accepted by the apostles.  And in this story the political, economic, and moral views of the Christ have no importance: the atonement is everything; and we are saved by our faith in it, and not by works or opinions (other than that particular opinion) {165} bearing on practical affairs.
   The other is the story of a prophet who, after expressing several very interesting opinions as to practical conduct, both personal and political, which are now of pressing importance, and instructing his disciples to carry them out in their daily life, lost his head; believed himself to be a crude legendary form of god; and under that delusion courted and suffered a cruel execution in the belief that he would rise from the dead and come in glory to reign over a regenerated world.  In this form, the political, economic and moral opinions of Jesus, as guides to conduct, are interesting and important; the rest is mere psychopathy and supersitition.  The accounts of the resurection, the parthenogenetic birth, and the more incredible miracles are rejected inventions; and such episodes as the conversation with the devil are classed with similar conversations recorded of St. Dunstan, Luther, Bunyan, Swedenborg, and Blake."
   Part of this is exceedingly amusing.  Mr. Shaw has picked out a dozen passages from the whole gospel, misinterpreted them and misapplied them, and remarks that the rest is mere psychopathy and superstition.  It reminds one of the famous way to cook an olive.  Stuff a lark with the olive, a quail with the lark, a fowl with the plover, a goose with the fowl, a turkey with the goose; roast, throw the birds out of the window, and eat the olive.  I am perfectly in agreement with him in those passages, which he calls valuable as guides to conduct.  I only object to his imagining that any teacher from the East was ever silly enough to suppose that the excellent rule devised for the freedom of the recluse {166} from all disturbances of material anxieties or desires could be made into a rule for the community at large.
   And now, we may try to put the whole question of the life of Jesus in the light of what we know of the religions of the East from the `Yoga" of Patanjali to the worship of Dionysus and Attis.


                        "The Yogi Jesus."<<This, and the following seven section-headings, are mine, and not Mr. Shaw's.>>

   The life of Jesus, omitting the mystical birth and death, is altogether characteristic of the `holy man' of the East.  The only record of his childhood is given in Luke II, 42 to 52.  "And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.  And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.  But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance.  And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.  And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.  And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.  And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him: son, why hast thou dealt with us?  Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.  And he said unto them.  How is it that ye sought me?  Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?  And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.  And he went down with them, and came {167} to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart."  This is the natural sort of incident which one remembers and thinks worthy of mention in the early life of a teacher.  He was a very clever and even precocious boy; and he behaved well to his parents.  (It would spoil the author's purpose to make him a miraculous boy; for his object is to prove how mystic practices can convert a commonplace person into a genius)  We hear nothing of the life of Jesus from the time he was twelve to the time he was thirty.  There is no evidence whatever that he worked as a carpenter.  During the dispute about whether he came from Galilee or not, which has been quoted previously, it is asked, is he not the carpenter's son?  And are these not his brethren?  Nobody says `Is he not the carpenter?'  It is as if there was some slight mystery in regard to what he was doing before the age of thirty.
   There is no mystery to any one acquainted with the religious life of the East.  It is evident (any such person will say) that Jesus felt the call of the religious life as a young man, found a guru or teacher, and became his disciple.  Either he became a fullfledged Adept, or the old man died, and he came forth into the world from his concealment ready to take disciples of his own.  With these he wanders about the country, living, as is customary with such people, on the bounty which is always assured by the piety of the vulgar to men who have given up the world.  He picks up disciples in different places; a chosen few he keeps with him for special and secret instruction in spiritual development, others he sends out as sort of advance agents with a simple message {168} to prepare people for his coming.
   It is also exceedingly characteristic of the Eastern `holy man' to shine in dialogue with the `Zahid' or orthodox.  He begins by doing something unconventional, and confutes those who reproach him.  There are endless examples in the writings of the Sufis and dervishes as well as in Indian accounts of the lives of their `holy men'.  It is unnecessary to labour this point further.
   Now those sayings of Jesus which Mr. Shaw approves are all characteristic of this form of life.  Let us take a few of the ancient aphorisms of Patanjali.  "Yoga is restraining the mindstuff from taking various forms."  That is the whole definition of `Yoga'.  The mind is supposed to be concentrated on `the effulgent one which is beyond all sorrow', or something of the kind; and if one `takes thought for the morrow', it is a disturbance.  We are to control the mind-stuff `by practice and non-attachement', which is defined later in these terms: `that effect which comes to those who have given up their thirst after objects either seen or heard, and which wills the to control the objects, is non-attachemnt'.  This is identical with the advice not to allow the affections and passions to disturb the concentration of the mind.
   We learn further that `grief, mental distress, tremor of the body, irregular breathing accompany non-retention of concentration'.  Compare the sayings of Jesus, `let the dead bury their dead, but come thou and follow me.'  Further, `friendship, mercy, gladness, indifference being thought of in regard to subjects happy, unhappy, good and evil respectively, pacify the mind'.  Compare this with the instruction of Jesus to love your neighbour as yourself. {169}  You must have no unkind thoughts and yet no passionate thoughts, for all these disturb the mind.
   We are also to note the following phrase of Patanjali. `the pain-bearing obstructions are ignorance, egotism, attachment, aversion and clinging to life.  Ignorance is taking that which is not eternal, impure, painful, and non-self for the eternal, pure happy self.  Egoism is the identification of the seer with the instrument of seeing (that is, the body of the mind).  Attachment is that which dwells on pleasure.  Aversion is that which dwells on pain.  Flowing through its own nature, and established even in the learned, is the clinging to life.'  This is he very teaching of Jesus as approved by Mr. Shaw in every respect.
   Much more could be said, but this appears to me to be enough as a clear identification of the teaching of Jesus with the universal and much more ancient doctrine.  There is no new item.
   With regard to the manner of the life of Jesus we should also note that he frequently goes `apart into the desert place to pray'.  This is a common practice of all Eastern Yogis: it is essential that they should not be disturbed during meditation.  We may quote the Kshurika Upanishad which recommends `a noiseless place', and the S'vetasvatara which says,

   "Let the place be pure, and free also from boulders
                   and sand.
    Free from fire, smoke and pools of water,
    Here where nothing distracts the mind or offends the eye
    In a hollow protected from the wind a man should
                   compose himself."

The power of working various miracles is also given by `Yoga'.  Patanjali says, `By making the Samyama on the form of the body {170} the power of perceiving forms being obstructed, the power of manifestation in the eye being separated, the Yogi's body becomes unseen."  This explains perfectly the miracle recorded in the gospels where "they took up stones to stone him, but he passing through the midst of them Went his way."
   Patanjali continues, "Karma is of two kinds, soon to be fructified, and late to be fructified.  By making Samyama on that, or by the signs called Aristha, portents, the Yogis know the exact time of separation from their bodies.'  This explains how Jesus foretold the time of his death.
   We learn further from Patanjali that `concentration on the well of the throat' causes hunger to cease, which explains how Jesus was to resist the temptation of Satan to turn stones into bread.
   We next read that the Yogi, `by the conquest of the current Saman, is surrounded by blaze', which accounts for the Transfiguration; and again: `by making Samyama on the relation between the Akasa and the body' the Yogi, becoming light as cotton wool, goes through the skies; from which the ascension becomes the most natural thing in the world.
   We need not continue.  All writers on Yoga tell us of other powers as that of the ability to walk on the surface of the water, to multiply food, and to heal diseases.  Any one who is conversant with the literature of the subject is absolutely bound to read the story of Jesus the thaumaturgist as the account of a `holy man', who had succeeded in all these practices and attained all these powers. {171}
   They are really all one power, by the way.  On the theory, all material things are illusions caused by ignorance, and one who has conquered ignorance by the realization of the truth "I and my Father are one", (by realization we do not here mean the mere formulation of the mental conception that it is so, but something far deeper) knows the mediate causes, which are `fine' as opposed to gross, and spiritual in their nature, so that, by modifying by the power of the mind that mental state which causes the illusion of gravitation or the impermeability of matter, he can suspend these phenomena and rise through air or pass a brick wall,<<In order to prevent a person from hearing a bell which is struck close to him, it is only necessary to place the bell in vacuo.  All phenomena depend on certain conditions; and if we can remove the conditions with which they occur, we can prevent them.  All material things "are" `illusions caused by ignorance'.  Professor Elihu Thomson wrote to me recently that our ideas of all phenomena must be based on `a sort of something which we know exists, but which we cannot quite describe', and all phenomena are to be subject -- ultimately -- to electrical laws.  The electrical current is itself therefore an example of `matter passing through matter' to use the old and yet more ignorant term; and for us to pass through brick walls is only a question of knowing how to place our bodies and the walls in such electrical conditions that the phenomenon occurs.  Words like `solid', `heavy', `material', are only formulae of the credo of ignorance.>>  The above discussion of the subject is extremely summary; but we trust that it will be found conclusive.


                     "The Jewish Prophet Jesus."

   This element in the character of Jesus needs no elaboration.  It is evident from many of the passages quoted previously in this essay that he was merely carrying on the tradition of Isaiah, Jeremiah {172} and Ezekiel in such passages for example as Matthew XI, 21 to 24, which have been quoted above as evidence of the inclination of Jesus to use threats.  Compare with Isaiah XVII, 1.  "The burden of Damascus, Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap." and twenty other passages.
   The woes pronounced against the Scribes and Pharisees are exactly paralleled by Jeremiah XXIII, 1 to 4.  "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord.  Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase," and innumerable other passages.
   The long passage in the twenty fourth chapter of Matthew, and repeated in the other synoptics, is precisely in the style of Daniel XII, 1 to 3.  "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince, which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.  And many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
   Jesus even acknowledges Daniel in Matthew XXIV, 15 as his authority.  The return to God, the repentance of the people, and the restoration of the kingdom, are practically the sole theme of Jesus the patriotic Hebrew prophet.  Sufficit. {173}


       "Jesus as the typical god of Asia.  (with contributions from
        Egypt, Greece, and Rome.)"

   In the opening of this subject, it is desirable to glance for a moment at history.  Asia at this time was being thrown open to the western world.  Alexander the Great had invaded India, and the wars of Greece and Persia had ceased, just about long enough for things to settle down to commerce, and the interchange of ideas.  As to Egypt, the fall of the Ptolemies was within the memory of living men, Alexandria was still the storehouse of learning, in spite of the destruction wrought by Caesar.
   Syria was geographically an absolute focus of these three main currents.
   Rome was spreading civilization, enforcing the Pax Romana on the nomadic tribes and savage settlers, making the lives of merchants comparatively safe, and their property secure.  Men began to travel widely, and new ideas became possible and even inevitable.  We see something not dissimilar to-day; the British conquest of India was the means of orientalizing European thought, and the result is now, as it was then, that a synthetic religion has once more become possible.
   These three main influences were at work, then, upon Syria.  Against them was the invincible prejudice and obstinacy of orthodox Jews, who clung to Moses and the Prophets with dogged tenacity.  But Judaism had never really taken root in Israel.  The `lost ten tribes', and even Judah and Benjamin, were always `whoring after strange gods', insisting the Jehovah was best worshipped under his title of King or `Moloch', by passing their {174} children through the fire to him, building `groves' and `high places', with sacred prostitutes complete, both male and female, and even indulging in sheer idolatry, the worship of graven or molten images.  One has only to read the prophets to be bored stiff with their eternal diatribes against all these practices.  Most of them talk of nothing else -- one cannot quote them; one would have to reprint them.
   We have Ezekiel besieging a tile with the city of Jerusalem portrayed upon it, and building a fort against it, and casting a mount against it, and setting a camp against it, and setting battering rams against it round about, with an iron pan between it and the real city, all on the best principles of sympathetic magic. (Ezekiel IV, 1-2.)  And in chapter V he burns hair, and chops it, and scatters it, with a similar object; and (again in chapter IV) he cooks his food with dung, so as to cause the Jews to eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles.'
   Hosea is commanded by God to take "a wife of whoredoms" on whom he begets a whole series of illegimite children, and calls them by `unlucky' names, in order to make still more trouble for his unhappy countrymen.
   Even the records of the Kings show that, beyond a few foreign wars, they did nothing but do righteousness in the sight of the Lord by taking away `abominations', or evil in the sight of the Lord by putting them back again, just as later on the apostles spend half their time reproaching the Christians for all manner of hideous crimes, to say nothing of mere vice.<<(Rom. XIII, 13.  I.Cor. V, 1. VI, 18. XI, 20, 21.  Eph. IV, 25, 28. V, 3-5, 18.  Phil. III, 17-19.  Col. III, 8, 9.  I.Thess. IV, 3-7.  I.Tim. I, 6-10.  Titus I, 10. II, 16<<WEH NOTE: possibly Titus III, 1 is intended here.  There is no II, 16.>>. II, 1-3.  I.Peter II, 11.  II.Peter, 11, 13, 114<<WEH NOTE: possibly II.Peter, II, 13-14 is intended>>.  III.John 9, 10.  Jude, 4, 12, 13.  Rev. II, 14, 20-22 --- etc. etc. etc.  I expect all apostles have similar trials!>> {175}
   It is evident throughout, that the Children of Israel as a whole never lived up to their prophets, whom indeed they stoned and sawed asunder, and otherwise zepped.
   But the time of Herod was worse than all others previous.  There had been a small revival through the rebuilding of the temple, but a perusal of the Books of Maccabee will show what a very small remnant the Jews really were.  Even within a few days' journey of Jerusalem itself was Samaria, with whose people the Jews had `nothing in common', while within the precincts of the temple itself were warring sects of Pharisees and Sadducees and many more.
   Conceive now the three currents above referred to clashing at this focus of the temple, under the protection of the Roman government, which was as sensible in the matter of religious toleration as the British Empire of to-day.  These currents must be now studied in more detail.
   Let us therefore take a cursory survey of various Asiatic religions; we shall find many essential features practically universal, with no graver differences than unimportant local variations.
   I trust that I shall not go too far astray from the teaching of Dr. J.G. Frazer -- I am proud to be the humblest member of the college of which he is so honourable a boast -- if I try to summarize corn-worships, wine-worships, sun-worships, moon-worships, phallic-worships, and the rest, by indicating one point in which all agree; namely in possessing a periodic cycle.
   Nature repeats herself, like history.  Whatever in Nature we {176} most cherish, whatever we regard as most necessary to our life and joy, we celebrate; thus, all celebration being lyrical or dramatic, we choose the moment of the triumph of our `hero' over death, whether that be the renewal of the earth in spring, or the renewal of the sun at dawn.
   In all such dramas, then, the central point is the death and resurrection of whatever it is that saves us (from starvation or what not), in a word, of "Our Savior".<<I do not here wish to imply adherence to any particular doctrine of the original reason for such celebration; on any basis the facts stand.>>
   It is also to be remembered that these celebrations were not originally merely such; the early peoples of the earth, with their history and geography limited to a few years and a few miles, had not our present certainty that nature would repeat herself, and the approach of winter may have seemed to such as a catastrophe.  At first the savage sowed no seed; he simply noticed that things grew again.  When some genius grasped the idea of cause and effect deeply enough to induce him to till the earth, it was a sort of magic, a direct conspiracy of man to conquer nature -- and so it was.  He therefore sowed his seed with all kinds of formalities intended to propitiate the unknown powers that presided over the destinies of the earth.
When, therefore, we find the rising of the Nile attributed to the tears of Isis, and when we know that Isis, the great Mother of Nature, wept on the death of Osiris, the reaping of the corn, we can understand that corn would be thrown into the Nile, as it were to {177} give her something to weep for!  But Osiris being personified later as a man or man-god, the rite would soon develop into the hewing asunder of a man as the representative of Osiris, and casting his limbs into the Nile, instead of the actual corn.  And the King of the country being responsible for the prosperity of the people, what more natural than to sacrifice the King himself?  In hundreds of tribes this was actually done; the King had to suffer in person.  This was true even of daily sacrifice in some cases.  But the savage more often tried to fool Nature by dressing up a common man as the King, rendering him worship, and then slaying him.
   The above is not an actual example in all details, but it will suffice to show part of the general reasoning which led to the custom of a periodic sacrifice of a man dressed as a King.  The reader may study the subject in elaborate (and even rather overwhelming) detail in The Golden Bough.  Associate with this main idea of ritual a few obvious points of ceremonial like preliminary dedication to the powers of Nature by purification by water and consecration by fire, and we are ready to study the magical life of Jesus the typical Asiatic god.  We are to note that in this character Jesus does no miracles (except the doubtful case of the healing of the ear of Malchus, only recorded in one Gospel, and that the least reliable and most obviously doctored, that of Luke) but while he boasts of his mighty powers makes no effort to exercise them.  The story is wholly miraculous, but the wonders are performed upon Jesus, not by him.  The real exception to this rule is after the resurrection, where in spite of the demonstration to Thomas (John XX) and his willingness to eat, he behaves rather like the Cheshire {178} Cat in "Alice in Wonderland", appearing and disappearing in a ghostlike manner.
   Now at last we are ready to compare the stories told of the life of Jesus with those of similar deities; and we shall anticipate slightly by heading our section: