,,preface ,,to ,,androcles ,,and ,,the  
,,lion3  ,,on ,,the ,,prospects ,,of    
,,christianity   ,by ,bernard ,shaw     
#aiab    ,,contents3     ,why not give  
,christianity a ,trial8    ,why ,jesus  
more than ,another8    ,was ,jesus a    
,coward8    ,was ,jesus a ,martyr8      
,the ,gospels without ,prejudice    ,the
 ,gospels now unintelligible to ,novices
    ,worldliness of the ,majority       
,religion of the ,minority4             
,salvationism    ,the ,difference       
between ,atonement and ,punishment      
,salvation at first a ,class ,privilege2
 and the ,remedy    ,retrospective      
,atonement2 and the ,expectation of the 
,redeemer    ,completion of the ,scheme 
by ,luther and ,calvin    ,john         
,barleycorn    ,looking for the ,end of 
the ,world    ,the ,honor of ,divine    
,parentage     ,,matthew    ,the        
,annunciation3 the ,massacre3 the       
,flight    ,john the ,baptist    ,jesus 
joins the ,baptists    ,the ,savage     
,john and the ,civilized ,jesus         

,jesus not a ,proselytist    ,the       
,teachings of ,jesus    ,the ,miracles  
,matthew imputes ,bigotry to ,jesus     
,the ,great ,change    ,jerusalem and   
the ,mystical ,sacrifice    ,not this   
,man but ,barabbas    ,the ,resurrection
    ,date of ,matthew's ,narrative      
,class ,type of ,matthew's ,jesus       
,,mark    ,the ,women ,disciples and the
 ,ascension     ,,luke    ,luke the     
,literary ,artist    ,the ,charm of     
,luke's ,narrative    ,the ,touch of    
,parisian ,romance    ,waiting for the  
,messiah     ,,john    ,a ,new ,story   
and a ,new ,character    ,john the      
,immortal ,eye ,witness    ,the         
,peculiar ,theology of ,jesus    ,john  
agreed as to the ,trial and ,crucifixion
    ,credibility of the ,gospels        
,fashions of ,belief ,credibility and   
,truth    ,christian ,iconolatry and the
 ,peril of the ,iconoclast    ,the      
,alternative to ,barabbas    ,the       
,reduction to ,modern ,practice of      
,christianity    ,modern ,communism     

,redistribution    ,shall ,he ,who      
,makes1 ,own8    ,labor ,time    ,the   
,dream of ,distribution ,according to   
,merit    ,vital ,distribution    ,equal
 ,distribution    ,the ,captain and the 
,cabin ,boy    ,the ,political and      
,biological ,objections to ,inequality  
,jesus as ,economist    ,jesus as       
,biologist    ,money the ,midwife of    
,scientific ,communism    ,judge ,not   
,limits to ,free ,will    ,jesus on     
,marriage and the ,family    ,why ,jesus
 did not ,marry    ,inconsistency of the
 ,sex ,instinct ,for ,better for ,worse 
,the ,remedy    ,the ,case for ,marriage
    ,celibacy no ,remedy    ,after the  
,crucifixion    ,the ,vindictive        
,miracles and the ,stoning of ,stephen  
,confusion of ,christendom    ,secret of
 ,paul's ,success    ,paul's ,qualities 
,acts of the ,apostles    ,the          
,controversies on ,baptism and          
,transubstantiation    ,the ,alternative
 ,christs    ,credulity no ,criterion   
,belief in ,personal ,immortality no    

,criterion    ,the ,secular ,view       
,natural1 not ,rational1 therefore      
,inevitable    ,the ,higher ,criticism  
,the ,perils of ,salvationism    ,the   
,importance of ,hell in the ,salvation  
,scheme    ,the ,right to refuse        
,atonement    ,the ,teaching of         
,christianity    ,christianity and the  
,empire      ,,preface ,,on ,,the       
,,prospects ,,of ,,christianity         
,,why ,,not ,,give ,,christianity ,a    
,,trial8  ,the question seems a hopeless
 one after #bjjj years of resolute      
adherence to the old cry of ,not this   
man1 but ,barabbas4 ,yet it is beginning
 to look as if ,barabbas was a failure1 
in spite of his strong right hand1 his  
victories1 his empires1 his millions of 
money1 and his moralities and churches  
and political constitutions4 ,this man  
has not been a failure yet2 for nobody  
has ever been sane enough to try his    
way4 ,but he has had one quaint triumph4
 ,barabbas has stolen his name and taken
 his cross as a standard4 ,there is a   

sort of compliment in that4 ,there is   
even a sort of loyalty in it1 like that 
of the brigand who breaks every law and 
yet claims to be a patriotic subject of 
the king who makes them4 ,we have always
 had a curious feeling that though we   
crucified ,christ on a stick1 he somehow
 managed to get hold of the right end of
 it1 and that if we were better men we  
might try his plan4 ,there have been one
 or two grotesque attempts at it by     
inadequate people1 such as the ,kingdom 
of ,god in ,munster1 which was ended by 
crucifixion so much more atrocious than 
the one on ,calvary that the bishop who 
took the part of ,annas went home and   
died of horror4 ,but responsible people 
have never made such attempts4 ,the     
moneyed1 respectable1 capable world has 
been steadily anti-,christian and       
,barabbasque since the crucifixion2 and 
the specific doctrine of ,jesus has not 
in all that time been put into political
 or general social practice4 ,i am no   
more a ,christian than ,pilate was1 or  

you1 gentle reader2 and yet1 like       
,pilate1 ,i greatly prefer ,jesus to    
,annas and ,caiaphas2 and ,i am ready to
 admit that after contemplating the     
world and human nature for nearly sixty 
years1 ,i see no way out of the world's 
misery but the way which would have been
 found by ,christ's will if he had      
undertaken the work of a modern         
practical statesman4 ,pray do not at    
this early point lose patience with me  
and shut the book4 ,i assure you ,i am  
as sceptical and scientific and modern a
 thinker as you will find anywhere4 ,i  
grant you ,i know a great deal more     
about economics and politics than ,jesus
 did1 and can do things he could not do4
 ,i am by all ,barabbasque standards a  
person of much better character and     
standing1 and greater practical sense4  
,i have no sympathy with vagabonds and  
talkers who try to reform society by    
taking men away from their regular      
productive work and making vagabonds and
 talkers of them too2 and if ,i had been

 ,pilate ,i should have recognized as   
plainly as he the necessity for         
suppressing attacks on the existing     
social order1 however corrupt that order
 might be1 by people with no knowledge  
of government and no power to construct 
political machinery to carry out their  
views1 acting on the very dangerous     
delusion that the end of the world was  
at hand4 ,i make no defence of such     
,christians as ,savonarola and ,john of 
,leyden3 they were scuttling the ship   
before they had learned how to build a  
raft2 and it became necessary to throw  
them overboard to save the crew4 ,i say 
this to set myself right with           
respectable society2 but ,i must still  
insist that if ,jesus could have worked 
out the practical problems of a         
,communist constitution1 an admitted    
obligation to deal with crime without   
revenge or punishment1 and a full       
assumption by humanity of divine        
responsibilities1 he would have         
conferred an incalculable benefit on    

mankind1 because these distinctive      
demands of his are now turning out to be
 good sense and sound economics4  ,i say
 distinctive1 because his common        
humanity and his subjection to time and 
space 7that is1 to the ,syrian life of  
his period7 involved his belief in many 
things1 true and false1 that in no way  
distinguish him from other ,syrians of  
that time4 ,but such common beliefs do  
not constitute specific ,christianity   
any more than wearing a beard1 working  
in a carpenter's shop1 or believing that
 the earth is flat and that the stars   
could drop on it from heaven like       
hailstones4 ,christianity interests     
practical statesmen now because of the  
doctrines that distinguished ,christ    
from the ,jews and the ,barabbasques    
generally1 including ourselves4         
,,why ,,jesus ,,more ,,than ,,another8  
,i do not imply1 however1 that these    
doctrines were peculiar to ,christ4 ,a  
doctrine peculiar to one man would be   
only a craze1 unless its comprehension  

depended on a development of human      
faculty so rare that only one           
exceptionally gifted man possessed it4  
,but even in this case it would be      
useless1 because incapable of spreading4
 ,christianity is a step in moral       
evolution which is independent of any   
individual preacher4 ,if ,jesus had     
never existed 7and that he ever existed 
in any other sense than that in which   
,shakespear's ,hamlet existed has been  
vigorously questioned7 ,tolstoy would   
have thought and taught and quarrelled  
with the ,greek ,church all the same4   
,their creed has been fragmentarily     
practised to a considerable extent in   
spite of the fact that the laws of all  
countries treat it1 in effect1 as       
criminal4 ,many of its advocates have   
been militant atheists4 ,but for some   
reason the imagination of white mankind 
has picked out ,jesus of ,nazareth as   
,,the ,christ1 and attributed all the   
,christian doctrines to him2 and as it  
is the doctrine and not the man that    

matters1 and1 as1 besides1 one symbol is
 as good as another provided everyone   
attaches the same meaning to it1 ,i     
raise1 for the moment1 no question as to
 how far the gospels are original1 and  
how far they consist of ,greek and      
,chinese interpolations4 ,the record    
that ,jesus said certain things is not  
invalidated by a demonstration that     
,confucius said them before him4 ,those 
who claim a literal divine paternity for
 him cannot be silenced by the discovery
 that the same claim was made for       
,alexander and ,augustus4 ,and ,i am not
 just now concerned with the credibility
 of the gospels as records of fact2 for 
,i am not acting as a detective1 but    
turning our modern lights on to certain 
ideas and doctrines in them which       
disentangle themselves from the rest    
because they are flatly contrary to     
common practice1 common sense1 and      
common belief1 and yet have1 in the     
teeth of dogged incredulity and         
recalcitrance1 produced an irresistible 

impression that ,christ1 though rejected
 by his posterity as an unpractical     
dreamer1 and executed by his            
contemporaries as a dangerous anarchist 
and blasphemous madman1 was greater than
 his judges4     ,,was ,,jesus ,a       
,,coward8  ,i know quite well that this 
impression of superiority is not        
produced on everyone1 even of those who 
profess extreme susceptibility to it4   
,setting aside the huge mass of         
inculcated ,christ-worship which has no 
real significance because it has no     
intelligence1 there is1 among people who
 are really free to think for themselves
 on the subject1 a great deal of hearty 
dislike of ,jesus and of contempt for   
his failure to save himself and overcome
 his enemies by personal bravery and    
cunning as ,mahomet did4 ,i have heard  
this feeling expressed far more         
impatiently by persons brought up in    
,england as ,christians than by         
,mahometans1 who are1 like their        
prophet1 very civil to ,jesus1 and allow

 him a place in their esteem and        
veneration at least as high as we accord
 to ,john the ,baptist4 ,but this       
,british bulldog contempt is founded on 
a complete misconception of his reasons 
for submitting voluntarily to an ordeal 
of torment and death4 ,the modern       
,secularist is often so determined to   
regard ,jesus as a man like himself and 
nothing more1 that he slips             
unconsciously into the error of assuming
 that ,jesus shared that view4 ,but it  
is quite clear from the ,new ,testament 
writers 7the chief authorities for      
believing that ,jesus ever existed7 that
 ,jesus at the time of his death        
believed himself to be the ,christ1 a   
divine personage4 ,it is therefore      
absurd to criticize his conduct before  
,pilate as if he were ,colonel          
,roosevelt or ,admiral von ,tirpitz or  
even ,mahomet4 ,whether you accept his  
belief in his divinity as fully as      
,simon ,peter did1 or reject it as a    
delusion which led him to submit to     

torture and sacrifice his life without  
resistance in the conviction that he    
would presently rise again in glory1 you
 are equally bound to admit that1 far   
from behaving like a coward or a sheep1 
he showed considerable physical         
fortitude in going through a cruel      
ordeal against which he could have      
defended himself as effectually as he   
cleared the moneychangers out of the    
temple4 ,gentle ,jesus1 meek and mild is
 a snivelling modern invention1 with no 
warrant in the gospels4 ,st4 ,matthew   
would as soon have thought of applying  
such adjectives to ,judas ,maccabeus as 
to ,jesus2 and even ,st4 ,luke1 who     
makes ,jesus polite and gracious1 does  
not make him meek4 ,the picture of him  
as an ,english curate of the farcical   
comedy type1 too meek to fight a        
policeman1 and everybody's butt1 may be 
useful in the nursery to soften         
children2 but that such a figure could  
ever have become a centre of the world's
 attention is too absurd for discussion2

 grown men and women may speak kindly of
 a harmless creature who utters amiable 
sentiments and is a helpless nincompoop 
when he is called on to defend them2 but
 they will not follow him1 nor do what  
he tells them1 because they do not wish 
to share his defeat and disgrace4       
,,was ,,jesus ,a ,,martyr8  ,it is      
important therefore that we should clear
 our minds of the notion that ,jesus    
died1 as some are in the habit of       
declaring1 for his social and political 
opinions4 ,there have been many martyrs 
to those opinions2 but he was not one of
 them1 nor1 as his words show1 did he   
see any more sense in martyrdom than    
,galileo did4 ,he was executed by the   
,jews for the blasphemy of claiming to  
be a ,god2 and ,pilate1 to whom this was
 a mere piece of superstitious nonsense1
 let them execute him as the cheapest   
way of keeping them quiet1 on the formal
 plea that he had committed treason     
against ,rome by saying that he was the 
,king of the ,jews4 ,he was not falsely 

accused1 nor denied full opportunities  
of defending himself4 ,the proceedings  
were quite straightforward and regular2 
and ,pilate1 to whom the appeal lay1    
favored him and despised his judges1 and
 was evidently willing enough to be     
conciliated4 ,but instead of denying the
 charge1 ,jesus repeated the offence4   
,he knew what he was doing3 he had      
alienated numbers of his own disciples  
and been stoned in the streets for doing
 it before4 ,he was not lying3 he       
believed literally what he said4 ,the   
horror of the ,high ,priest was         
perfectly natural3 he was a ,primate    
confronted with a heterodox street      
preacher uttering what seemed to him an 
appalling and impudent blasphemy4 ,the  
fact that the blasphemy was to ,jesus a 
simple statement of fact1 and that it   
has since been accepted as such by all  
western nations1 does not invalidate the
 proceedings1 nor give us the right to  
regard ,annas and ,caiaphas as worse men
 than the ,archbishop of ,canterbury and

 the ,head ,master of ,eton4 ,if ,jesus 
had been indicted in a modern court1 he 
would have been examined by two doctors2
 found to be obsessed by a delusion2    
declared incapable of pleading2 and sent
 to an asylum3 that is the whole        
difference4 ,but please note that when a
 man is charged before a modern tribunal
 7to take a case that happened the other
 day7 of having asserted and maintained 
that he was an officer returned from the
 front to receive the ,victoria ,cross  
at the hands of the ,king1 although he  
was in fact a mechanic1 nobody thinks of
 treating him as afflicted with a       
delusion4 ,he is punished for false     
pretences1 because his assertion is     
credible and therefore misleading4 ,just
 so1 the claim to divinity made by      
,jesus was to the ,high ,priest1 who    
looked forward to the coming of a       
,messiah1 one that might conceivably    
have been true1 and might therefore have
 misled the people in a very dangerous  
way4 ,that was why he treated ,jesus as 

an imposter and a blasphemer where we   
should have treated him as a madman4    
,,the ,,gospels ,,without ,,prejudice4  
,all this will become clear if we read  
the gospels without prejudice4 ,when ,i 
was young it was impossible to read them
 without fantastic confusion of thought4
 ,the confusion was so utterly          
confounded that it was called the proper
 spirit to read the ,bible in4 ,jesus   
was a baby2 and he was older than       
creation4 ,he was a man who could be    
persecuted1 stoned1 scourged1 and       
killed2 and he was a god1 immortal and  
all-powerful1 able to raise the dead and
 call millions of angels to his aid4 ,it
 was a sin to doubt either view of him3 
that is1 it was a sin to reason about   
him2 and the end was that you did not   
reason about him1 and read about him    
only when you were compelled4 ,when you 
heard the gospel stories read in church1
 or learnt them from painters and poets1
 you came out with an impression of     
their contents that would have          

astonished a ,chinaman who had read the 
story without prepossession4 ,even      
sceptics who were specially on their    
guard1 put the ,bible in the dock1 and  
read the gospels with the object of     
detecting discrepancies in the four     
narratives to show that the writers were
 as subject to error as the writers of  
yesterday's newspaper4  ,all this has   
changed greatly within two generations4 
,today the ,bible is so little read that
 the language of the ,authorized        
,version is rapidly becoming obsolete2  
so that even in the ,united ,states1    
where the old tradition of the verbal   
infallibility of the book of books      
lingers more strongly than anywhere else
 except perhaps in ,ulster1             
retranslations into modern ,english have
 been introduced perforce to save its   
bare intelligibility4 ,it is quite easy 
today to find cultivated persons who    
have never read the ,new ,testament1 and
 on whom therefore it is possible to try
 the experiment of asking them to read  

the gospels and state what they have    
gathered as to the history and views and
 character of ,christ4     ,,the        
,,gospels ,,now ,,unintelligible ,,to   
,,novices4  ,but it will not do to read 
the gospels with a mind furnished only  
for the reception of1 say1 a biography  
of ,goethe4 ,you will not make sense of 
them1 nor even be able without impatient
 weariness to persevere in the task of  
going steadily through them1 unless you 
know something of the history of the    
human imagination as applied to         
religion4 ,not long ago ,i asked a      
writer of distinguished intellectual    
competence whether he had made a study  
of the gospels since his childhood4 ,his
 reply was that he had lately tried1 but
 found it all such nonsense that ,i     
could not stick it4 ,as ,i do not want  
to send anyone to the gospels with this 
result1 ,i had better here give a brief 
exposition of how much of the history of
 religion is needed to make the gospels 
and the conduct and ultimate fate of    

,jesus intelligible and interesting4    
,,worldliness ,,of ,,the ,,majority4    
,the first common mistake to get rid of 
is that mankind consists of a great mass
 of religious people and a few eccentric
 atheists4 ,it consists of a huge mass  
of worldly people1 and a small          
percentage of persons deeply interested 
in religion and concerned about their   
own souls and other peoples'2 and this  
section consists mostly of those who are
 passionately affirming the established 
religion and those who are passionately 
attacking it1 the genuine philosophers  
being very few4 ,thus you never have a  
nation of millions of ,wesleys and one  
,tom ,paine4 ,you have a million ,mr4   
,worldly ,wisemans1 one ,wesley1 with   
his small congregation1 and one ,tom    
,paine1 with his smaller congregation4  
,the passionately religious are a people
 apart2 and if they were not hopelessly 
outnumbered by the worldly1 they would  
turn the world upside down1 as ,st4     
,paul was reproached1 quite justly1 for 

wanting to do4 ,few people can number   
among their personal acquaintances a    
single atheist or a single ,plymouth    
,brother4 ,unless a religious turn in   
ourselves has led us to seek the little 
,societies to which these rare birds    
belong1 we pass our lives among people  
who1 whatever creeds they may repeat1   
and in whatever temples they may avouch 
their respectability and wear their     
,sunday clothes1 have robust            
consciences1 and hunger and thirst1 not 
for righteousness1 but for rich feeding 
and comfort and social position and     
attractive mates and ease and pleasure  
and respect and consideration3 in short1
 for love and money4 ,to these people   
one morality is as good as another      
provided they are used to it and can put
 up with its restrictions without       
unhappiness2 and in the maintenance of  
this morality they will fight and punish
 and coerce without scruple4 ,they may  
not be the salt of the earth1 these     
,philistines2 but they are the substance

 of civilization2 and they save society 
from ruin by criminals and conquerors as
 well as by ,savonarolas and            
,knipperdollings4 ,and as they know1    
very sensibly1 that a little religion is
 good for children and serves morality1 
keeping the poor in good humor or in awe
 by promising rewards in heaven or      
threatening torments in hell1 they      
encourage the religious people up to a  
certain point3 for instance1 if         
,savonarola only tells the ladies of    
,florence that they ought to tear off   
their jewels and finery and sacrifice   
them to ,god1 they offer him a          
cardinal's hat1 and praise him as a     
saint2 but if he induces them to        
actually do it1 they burn him as a      
public nuisance4     ,,religion ,,of    
,,the ,,minority4 ,,salvationism4  ,the 
religion of the tolerated religious     
minority has always been essentially the
 same religion3 that is why its changes 
of name and form have made so little    
difference4 ,that is why1 also1 a nation

 so civilized as the ,english can       
convert negroes to their faith with     
great ease1 but cannot convert          
,mahometans or ,jews4 ,the negro finds  
in civilized ,salvationism an           
unspeakably more comforting version of  
his crude creed2 but neither ,saracen   
nor ,jew sees any advantage in it over  
his own version4 ,the ,crusader was     
surprised to find the ,saracen quite as 
religious and moral as himself1 and     
rather more than less civilized4 ,the   
,latin ,christian has nothing to offer  
the ,greek ,christian that ,greek       
,christianity has not already provided4 
,they are all1 at root1 ,salvationists4 
,let us trace this religion of          
,salvation from its beginnings4 ,so many
 things that man does not himself       
contrive or desire are always happening3
 death1 plagues1 tempests1 blights1     
floods1 sunrise and sunset1 growths and 
harvests and decay1 and ,kant's two     
wonders of the starry heavens above us  
and the moral law within us1 that we    

conclude that somebody must be doing it 
all1 or that somebody is doing the good 
and somebody else doing the evil1 or    
that armies of invisible persons1       
benefit-cut and malevolent1 are doing   
it2 hence you postulate gods and devils1
 angels and demons4 ,you propitiate     
these powers with presents1 called      
sacrifices1 and flatteries1 called      
praises4 ,then the ,kantian moral law   
within you makes you conceive your god  
as a judge2 and straightway you try to  
corrupt him1 also with presents and     
flatteries4 ,this seems shocking to us2 
but our objection to it is quite a      
recent development3 no longer ago than  
,shakespear's time it was thought quite 
natural that litigants should give      
presents to human judges2 and the buying
 off of divine wrath by actual money    
payments to priests1 or1 in the reformed
 churches which discountenance this1 by 
subscriptions to charities and church   
building and the like1 is still in full 
swing4 ,its practical disadvantage is   

that though it makes matters very easy  
for the rich1 it cuts off the poor from 
all hope of divine favor4 ,and this     
quickens the moral criticism of the poor
 to such an extent1 that they soon find 
the moral law within them revolting     
against the idea of buying off the deity
 with gold and gifts1 though they are   
still quite ready to buy him off with   
the paper money of praise and           
professions of repentance4 ,accordingly1
 you will find that though a religion   
may last unchanged for many centuries in
 primitive communities where the        
conditions of life leave no room for    
poverty and riches1 and the process of  
propitiating the supernatural powers is 
as well within the means of the least of
 the members as within those of the     
headman1 yet when commercial            
civilization arrives1 and capitalism    
divides the people into a few rich and a
 great many so poor that they can barely
 live1 a movement for religious reform  
will arise among the poor1 and will be  

essentially a movement for cheap or     
entirely gratuitous salvation4 ,to      
understand what the poor mean by        
propitiation1 we must examine for a     
moment what they mean by justice4       
,,the ,,difference ,,between ,,atonement
 ,,and ,,punishment  ,the primitive idea
 of justice is partly legalized revenge 
and partly expiation by sacrifice4 ,it  
works out from both sides in the notion 
that two blacks make a white1 and that  
when a wrong has been done1 it should be
 paid for by an equivalent suffering4   
,it seems to the ,philistine majority a 
matter of course that this compensating 
suffering should be inflicted on the    
wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent 
effect on other would-be wrongdoers2 but
 a moment's reflection will show that   
this utilitarian application corrupts   
the whole transaction4 ,for example1 the
 shedding of innocent blood cannot be   
balanced by the shedding of guilty      
blood4 ,sacrificing a criminal to       
propitiate ,god for the murder of one of

 his righteous servants is like         
sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with 
the rinderpest3 it calls down divine    
wrath instead of appeasing it4 ,in doing
 it we offer ,god as a sacrifice the    
gratification of our own revenge and the
 protection of our own lives without    
cost to ourselves2 and cost to ourselves
 is the essence of sacrifice and        
expiation4 ,however much the            
,philistines have succeeded in confusing
 these things in practice1 they are to  
the ,salvationist sense distinct and    
even contrary4 ,the ,baronet's cousin in
 ,dickens's novel1 who1 perplexed by the
 failure of the police to discover the  
murderer of the baronet's solicitor1    
said ,far better hang wrong fellow than 
no fellow1 was not only expressing a    
very common sentiment1 but trembling on 
the brink of the rarer ,salvationist    
opinion that it is much better to hang  
the wrong fellow3 that1 in fact1 the    
wrong fellow is the right fellow to     
hang4  ,the point is a cardinal one1    

because until we grasp it not only does 
historical ,christianity remain         
unintelligible to us1 but those who do  
not care a rap about historical         
,christianity may be led into the       
mistake of supposing that if we discard 
revenge1 and treat murderers exactly as 
,god treated ,cain3 that is1 exempt them
 from punishment by putting a brand on  
them as unworthy to be sacrificed1 and  
let them face the world as best they can
 with that brand on them1 we should get 
rid both of punishment and sacrifice4   
,it would not at all follow3 on the     
contrary1 the feeling that there must be
 an expiation of the murder might quite 
possibly lead to our putting some       
innocent person--the more innocent the  
better--to a cruel death to balance the 
account with divine justice4            
,,salvation ,,at ,,first ,a ,,class     
,,privilege2 ,,and ,,the ,,remedy       
,thus1 even when the poor decide that   
the method of purchasing salvation by   
offering rams and goats or bringing gold

 to the altar must be wrong because they
 cannot afford it1 we still do not feel 
saved without a sacrifice and a victim4 
,in vain do we try to substitute        
mystical rites that cost nothing1 such  
as circumcision1 or1 as a substitute for
 that1 baptism4 ,our sense of justice   
still demands an expiation1 a sacrifice1
 a sufferer for our sins4 ,and this     
leaves the poor man still in his old    
difficulty2 for if it was impossible for
 him to procure rams and goats and      
shekels1 how much more impossible is it 
for him to find a neighbor who will     
voluntarily suffer for his sins3 one who
 will say cheerfully ,you have committed
 a murder4 ,well1 never mind3 ,i am     
willing to be hanged for it in your     
stead8  ,our imagination must come to   
our rescue4 ,why not1 instead of driving
 ourselves to despair by insisting on a 
separate atonement by a separate        
redeemer for every sin1 have one great  
atonement and one great redeemer to     
compound for the sins of the world once 

for all8 ,nothing easier1 nothing       
cheaper4 ,the yoke is easy1 the burden  
light4 ,all you have to do when the     
redeemer is once found 7or invented by  
the imagination7 is to believe in the   
efficacy of the transaction1 and you are
 saved4 ,the rams and goats cease to    
bleed2 the altars which ask for         
expensive gifts and continually renewed 
sacrifices are torn down2 and the       
,church of the single redeemer and the  
single atonement rises on the ruins of  
the old temples1 and becomes a single   
,church of the ,christ4                 
,,retrospective ,,atonement1 ,,and ,,the
 ,,expectation ,,of ,,the ,,redeemer    
,but this does not happen at once4      
,between the old costly religion of the 
rich and the new gratuitous religion of 
the poor there comes an interregnum in  
which the redeemer1 though conceived by 
the human imagination1 is not yet found4
 ,he is awaited and expected under the  
names of the ,christ1 the ,messiah1     
,baldur the ,beautiful1 or what not2 but

 he has not yet come4 ,yet the sinners  
are not therefore in despair4 ,it is    
true that they cannot say1 as we say1   
,the ,christ has come1 and has redeemed 
us2 but they can say ,the ,christ will  
come1 and will redeem us1 which1 as the 
atonement is conceived as retrospective1
 is equally consoling4 ,there are       
periods when nations are seething with  
this expectation and crying aloud with  
prophecy of the ,redeemer through their 
poets4 ,to feel that atmosphere we have 
only to take up the ,bible and read     
,isaiah at one end of such a period and 
,luke and ,john at the other4           
,,completion ,,of ,,the ,,scheme ,,by   
,,luther ,,and ,,calvin  ,we now see our
 religion as a quaint but quite         
intelligible evolution from crude       
attempts to propitiate the destructive  
forces of ,nature among savages to a    
subtle theology with a costly ritual of 
sacrifice possible only to the rich as a
 luxury1 and finally to the religion of 
,luther and ,calvin4 ,and it must be    

said for the earlier forms that they    
involved very real sacrifices4 ,the     
sacrifice was not always vicarious1 and 
is not yet universally so4 ,in ,india   
men pay with their own skins1 torturing 
themselves hideously to attain holiness4
 ,in the west1 saints amazed the world  
with their austerities and              
self-scourgings and confessions and     
vigils4 ,but ,luther delivered us from  
all that4 ,his reformation was a triumph
 of imagination and a triumph of        
cheapness4 ,it brought you complete     
salvation and asked you for nothing but 
faith4 ,luther did not know what he was 
doing in the scientific sociological way
 in which we know it2 but his instinct  
served him better than knowledge could  
have done2 for it was instinct rather   
than theological casuistry that made him
 hold so resolutely to ,justification by
 ,faith as the trump card by which he   
should beat the ,pope1 or1 as he would  
have put it1 the sign in which he should
 conquer4 ,he may be said to have       

abolished the charge for admission to   
heaven4 ,paul had advocated this2 but   
,luther and ,calvin did it4     ,,john  
,,barleycorn  ,there is yet another page
 in the history of religion which must  
be conned and digested before the career
 of ,jesus can be fully understood4     
people who can read long books will find
 it in ,frazer's ,golden ,bough4        
,simpler folk will find it in the       
peasant's song of ,john ,barleycorn1 now
 made accessible to our drawingroom     
amateurs in the admirable collections of
 ,somersetshire ,folk ,songs by ,mr4    
,cecil ,sharp4 ,from ,frazer's magnum   
opus you will learn how the same        
primitive logic which makes the         
,englishman believe today that by eating
 a beefsteak he can acquire the strength
 and courage of the bull1 and to hold   
that belief in the face of the most     
ignominious defeats by vegetarian       
wrestlers and racers and bicyclists1 led
 the first men who conceived ,god as    
capable of incarnation to believe that  

they could acquire a spark of his       
divinity by eating his flesh and        
drinking his blood4 ,and from the song  
of ,john ,barleycorn you may learn how  
the miracle of the seed1 the growth1 and
 the harvest1 still the most wonderful  
of all the miracles and as inexplicable 
as ever1 taught the primitive           
husbandman1 and1 as we must now affirm1 
taught him quite rightly1 that ,god is  
in the seed1 and that ,god is immortal4 
,and thus it became the test of ,godhead
 that nothing that you could do to it   
could kill it1 and that when you buried 
it1 it would rise again in renewed life 
and beauty and give mankind eternal life
 on condition that it was eaten and     
drunk1 and again slain and buried1 to   
rise again for ever and ever4 ,you may1 
and indeed must1 use ,john ,barleycorn  
right barbarouslee1 cutting him off at  
knee with your scythes1 scourging him   
with your flails1 burying him in the    
earth2 and he will not resist you nor   
reproach you1 but will rise again in    

golden beauty amidst a great burst of   
sunshine and bird music1 and save you   
and renew your life4 ,and from the      
interweaving of these two traditions    
with the craving for the ,redeemer1 you 
at last get the conviction that when the
 ,redeemer comes he will be immortal2 he
 will give us his body to eat and his   
blood to drink2 and he will prove his   
divinity by suffering a barbarous death 
without resistance or reproach1 and rise
 from the dead and return to the earth  
in glory as the giver of life eternal4  
,,looking ,,for ,,the ,,end ,,of ,,the  
,,world  ,yet another persistent belief 
has beset the imagination of the        
religious ever since religion spread    
among the poor1 or1 rather1 ever since  
commercial civilization produced a      
hopelessly poor class cut off from      
enjoyment in this world4 ,that belief is
 that the end of this world is at hand1 
and that it will presently pass away and
 be replaced by a kingdom of happiness1 
justice1 and bliss in which the rich and

 the oppressors and the unjust shall    
have no share4 ,we are all familiar with
 this expectation3 many of us cherish   
some pious relative who sees in every   
great calamity a sign of the approaching
 end4 ,warning pamphlets are in constant
 circulation3 advertisements are put in 
the papers and paid for by those who are
 convinced1 and who are horrified at the
 indifference of the irreligious to the 
approaching doom4 ,and revivalist       
preachers1 now as in the days of ,john  
the ,baptist1 seldom fail to warn their 
flocks to watch and pray1 as the great  
day will steal upon them like a thief in
 the night1 and cannot be long deferred 
in a world so wicked4 ,this belief also 
associates itself with ,barleycorn's    
second coming2 so that the two events   
become identified at last4  ,there is   
the other and more artificial side of   
this belief1 on which it is an          
inculcated dread4 ,the ruler who appeals
 to the prospect of heaven to console   
the poor and keep them from insurrection

 also curbs the vicious by threatening  
them with hell4 ,in the ,koran we find  
,mahomet driven more and more to this   
expedient of government2 and experience 
confirms his evident belief that it is  
impossible to govern without it in      
certain phases of civilization4 ,we     
shall see later on that it gives a      
powerful attraction to the belief in a  
,redeemer1 since it adds to remorse of  
conscience1 which hardened men bear very
 lightly1 a definite dread of hideous   
and eternal torture4     ,,the ,,honor  
,,of ,,divine ,,parentage  ,one more    
tradition must be noted4 ,the           
consummation of praise for a king is to 
declare that he is the son of no earthly
 father1 but of a god4 ,his mother goes 
into the temple of ,apollo1 and ,apollo 
comes to her in the shape of a serpent1 
or the like4 ,the ,roman emperors1      
following the example of ,augustus1     
claimed the title of ,god4 ,illogically1
 such divine kings insist a good deal on
 their royal human ancestors4           

,alexander1 claiming to be the son of   
,apollo1 is equally determined to be the
 son of ,philip4 ,as the gospels stand1 
,st4 ,matthew and ,st4 ,luke give       
genealogies 7the two are different7     
establishing the descent of ,jesus      
through ,joseph from the royal house of 
,david1 and yet declare that not ,joseph
 but the ,holy ,ghost was the father of 
,jesus4 ,it is therefore now held that  
the story of the ,holy ,ghost is a later
 interpolation borrowed from the ,greek 
and ,roman imperial tradition4 ,but     
experience shows that simultaneous faith
 in the descent from ,david and the     
conception by the ,holy ,ghost is       
possible4 ,such double beliefs are      
entertained by the human mind without   
uneasiness or consciousness of the      
contradiction involved4 ,many instances 
might be given3 a familiar one to my    
generation being that of the ,tichborne 
claimant1 whose attempt to pass himself 
off as a baronet was supported by an    
association of laborers on the ground   

that the ,tichborne family1 in resisting
 it1 were trying to do a laborer out of 
his rights4 ,it is quite possible that  
,matthew and ,luke may have been        
unconscious of the contradiction3 indeed
 the interpolation theory does not      
remove the difficulty1 as the           
interpolators themselves must have been 
unconscious of it4 ,a better ground for 
suspecting interpolation is that ,st4   
,paul knew nothing of the divine birth1 
and taught that ,jesus came into the    
world at his birth as the son of        
,joseph1 but rose from the dead after   
three days as the son of ,god4 ,here    
again1 few notice the discrepancy3 the  
three views are accepted simultaneously 
without intellectual discomfort4 ,we can
 provisionally entertain half a dozen   
contradictory versions of an event if we
 feel either that it does not greatly   
matter1 or that there is a category     
attainable in which the contradictions  
are reconciled4  ,but that is not the   
present point4 ,all that need be noted  

here is that the legend of divine birth 
was sure to be attached sooner or later 
to very eminent persons in ,roman       
imperial times1 and that modern         
theologians1 far from discrediting it1  
have very logically affirmed the        
miraculous conception not only of ,jesus
 but of his mother4  ,with no more      
scholarly equipment than a knowledge of 
these habits of the human imagination1  
anyone may now read the four gospels    
without bewilderment1 and without the   
contemptuous incredulity which spoils   
the temper of many modern atheists1 or  
the senseless credulity which sometimes 
makes pious people force us to shove    
them aside in emergencies as            
impracticable lunatics when they ask us 
to meet violence and injustice with dumb
 submission in the belief that the      
strange demeanor of ,jesus before       
,pilate was meant as an example of      
normal human conduct4 ,let us admit that
 without the proper clues the gospels   
are1 to a modern educated person1       

nonsensical and incredible1 whilst the  
apostles are unreadable4 ,but with the  
clues1 they are fairly plain sailing4   
,jesus becomes an intelligible and      
consistent person4 ,his reasons for     
going like a lamb to the slaughter      
instead of saving himself as ,mahomet   
did1 become quite clear4 ,the narrative 
becomes as credible as any other        
historical narrative of its period4     
,,matthew4     ,,the ,,annunciation3    
,,the ,,massacre3 ,,the ,,flight  ,let  
us begin with the gospel of ,matthew1   
bearing in mind that it does not profess
 to be the evidence of an eyewitness4   
,it is a chronicle1 founded1 like other 
chronicles1 on such evidence and records
 as the chronicler could get hold of4   
,the only one of the evangelists who    
professes to give first-hand evidence as
 an eyewitness naturally takes care to  
say so2 and the fact that ,matthew makes
 no such pretension1 and writes         
throughout as a chronicler1 makes it    
clear that he is telling the story of   

,jesus as ,holinshed told the story of  
,macbeth1 except that1 for a reason to  
be given later on1 he must have         
collected his material and completed his
 book within the lifetime of persons    
contemporary with ,jesus4 ,allowance    
must also be made for the fact that the 
gospel is written in the ,greek         
language1 whilst the first-hand         
traditions and the actual utterances of 
,jesus must have been in ,aramaic1 the  
dialect of ,palestine4 ,these           
distinctions were important1 as you will
 find if you read ,holinshed or         
,froissart and then read ,benvenuto     
,cellini4 ,you do not blame ,holinshed  
or ,froissart for believing and         
repeating the things they had read or   
been told1 though you cannot always     
believe these things yourself4 ,but when
 ,cellini tells you that he saw this or 
did that1 and you find it impossible to 
believe him1 you lose patience with him1
 and are disposed to doubt everything in
 his autobiography4 ,do not forget1     

then1 that ,matthew is ,holinshed and   
not ,benvenuto4 ,the very first pages of
 his narrative will put your attitude to
 the test4  ,matthew tells us that the  
mother of ,jesus was betrothed to a man 
of royal pedigree named ,joseph1 who was
 rich enough to live in a house in      
,bethlehem to which kings could bring   
gifts of gold without provoking any     
comment4 ,an angel announces to ,joseph 
that ,jesus is the son of the ,holy     
,ghost1 and that he must not accuse her 
of infidelity because of her bearing a  
son of which he is not the father2 but  
this episode disappears from the        
subsequent narrative3 there is no record
 of its having been told to ,jesus1 nor 
any indication of his having any        
knowledge of it4 ,the narrative1 in     
fact1 proceeds in all respects as if the
 annunciation formed no part of it4     
,herod the ,tetrarch1 believing that a  
child has been born who will destroy    
him1 orders all the male children to be 
slaughtered2 and ,jesus escapes by the  

flight of his parents into ,egypt1      
whence they return to ,nazareth when the
 danger is over4 ,here it is necessary  
to anticipate a little by saying that   
none of the other evangelists accept    
this story1 as none of them except      
,john1 who throws over ,matthew         
altogether1 shares his craze for        
treating history and biography as mere  
records of the fulfillment of ancient   
,jewish prophecies4 ,this craze no doubt
 led him to seek for some legend bearing
 out ,hosea's ,out of ,egypt have ,i    
called my son1 and ,jeremiah's ,rachel  
weeping for her children3 in fact1 he   
says so4 ,nothing that interests us     
nowadays turns on the credibility of the
 massacre of the innocents and the      
flight into ,egypt4 ,we may forget them1
 and proceed to the important part of   
the narrative1 which skips at once to   
the manhood of ,jesus4     ,,john ,,the 
,,baptist  ,at this moment1 a           
,salvationist prophet named ,john is    
stirring the people very strongly4 ,john

 has declared that the rite of          
circumcision is insufficient as a       
dedication of the individual to ,god1   
and has substituted the rite of baptism4
 ,to us1 who are accustomed to baptism  
as a matter of course1 and to whom      
circumcision is a rather ridiculous     
foreign practice of no consequence1 the 
sensational effect of such a heresy as  
this on the ,jews is not apparent3 it   
seems to us as natural that ,john should
 have baptized people as that the rector
 of our village should do so4 ,but1 as  
,st4 ,paul found to his cost later on1  
the discarding of circumcision for      
baptism was to the ,jews as startling a 
heresy as the discarding of             
transubstantiation in the ,mass was to  
the ,catholics of the ,,xvi century4    
,,jesus ,,joins ,,the ,,baptists  ,jesus
 entered as a man of thirty 7,luke says7
 into the religious life of his time by 
going to ,john the ,baptist and         
demanding baptism from him1 much as     
certain well-to-do young gentlemen forty

 years ago joined the ,socialists4 ,as  
far as established ,jewry was concerned1
 he burnt his boats by this action1 and 
cut himself off from the routine of     
wealth1 respectability1 and orthodoxy4  
,he then began preaching ,john's gospel1
 which1 apart from the heresy of        
baptism1 the value of which lay in its  
bringing the ,gentiles 7that is1 the    
uncircumcized7 within the pale of       
salvation1 was a call to the people to  
repent of their sins1 as the kingdom of 
heaven was at hand4 ,luke adds that he  
also preached the communism of charity2 
told the surveyors of taxes not to      
over-assess the taxpayers2 and advised  
soldiers to be content with their wages 
and not to be violent or lay false      
accusations4 ,there is no record of     
,john going beyond this4     ,,the      
,,savage ,,john ,,and ,,the ,,civilized 
,,jesus  ,jesus went beyond it very     
rapidly1 according to ,matthew4 ,though1
 like ,john1 he became an itinerant     
preacher1 he departed widely from       

,john's manner of life4 ,john went into 
the wilderness1 not into the synagogues2
 and his baptismal font was the river   
,jordan4 ,he was an ascetic1 clothed in 
skins and living on locusts and wild    
honey1 practising a savage austerity4   
,he courted martyrdom1 and met it at the
 hands of ,herod4 ,jesus saw no merit   
either in asceticism or martyrdom4 ,in  
contrast to ,john he was essentially a  
highly-civilized1 cultivated person4    
,according to ,luke1 he pointed out the 
contrast himself1 chaffing the ,jews for
 complaining that ,john must be         
possessed by the devil because he was a 
teetotaller and vegetarian1 whilst1     
because ,jesus was neither one nor the  
other1 they reviled him as a gluttonous 
man and a winebibber1 the friend of the 
officials and their mistresses4 ,he told
 straitlaced disciples that they would  
have trouble enough from other people   
without making any for themselves1 and  
that they should avoid martyrdom and    
enjoy themselves whilst they had the    

chance4 ,when they persecute you in this
 city1 he says1 flee into the next4 ,he 
preaches in the synagogues and in the   
open air indifferently1 just as they    
come4 ,he repeatedly says1 ,i desire    
mercy and not sacrifice1 meaning        
evidently to clear himself of the       
inveterate superstition that suffering  
is gratifying to ,god4 ,be not1 as the  
,pharisees1 of a sad countenance1 he    
says4 ,he is convivial1 feasting with   
,roman officials and sinners4 ,he is    
careless of his person1 and is          
remonstrated with for not washing his   
hands before sitting down to table4 ,the
 followers of ,john the ,baptist1 who   
fast1 and who expect to find the        
,christians greater ascetics than       
themselves1 are disappointed at finding 
that ,jesus and his twelve friends do   
not fast2 and ,jesus tells them that    
they should rejoice in him instead of   
being melancholy4 ,he is jocular and    
tells them they will all have as much   
fasting as they want soon enough1       

whether they like it or not4 ,he is not 
afraid of disease1 and dines with a     
leper4 ,a woman1 apparently to protect  
him against infection1 pours a costly   
unguent on his head1 and is rebuked     
because what it cost might have been    
given to the poor4 ,he poohpoohs that   
lowspirited view1 and says1 as he said  
when he was reproached for not fasting1 
that the poor are always there to be    
helped1 but that he is not there to be  
anointed always1 implying that you      
should never lose a chance of being     
happy when there is so much misery in   
the world4 ,he breaks the ,sabbath2 is  
impatient of conventionality when it is 
uncomfortable or obstructive2 and       
outrages the feelings of the ,jews by   
breaches of it4 ,he is apt to accuse    
people who feel that way of hypocrisy4  
,like the late ,samuel ,butler1 he      
regards disease as a department of sin1 
and on curing a lame man1 says ,thy sins
 are forgiven instead of ,arise and     
walk1 subsequently maintaining1 when the

 ,scribes reproach him for assuming     
power to forgive sin as well as to cure 
disease1 that the two come to the same  
thing4 ,he has no modest affectations1  
and claims to be greater than ,solomon  
or ,jonah4 ,when reproached1 as ,bunyan 
was1 for resorting to the art of fiction
 when teaching in parables1 he justifies
 himself on the ground that art is the  
only way in which the people can be     
taught4 ,he is1 in short1 what we should
 call an artist and a ,bohemian in his  
manner of life4     ,,jesus ,,not ,a    
,,prosletyst  ,a point of considerable  
practical importance today is that he   
expressly repudiates the idea that forms
 of religion1 once rooted1 can be weeded
 out and replanted with the flowers of a
 foreign faith4 ,if you try to root up  
the tares you will root up the wheat as 
well4 ,our proselytizing missionary     
enterprises are thus flatly contrary to 
his advice2 and their results appear to 
bear him out in his view that if you    
convert a man brought up in another     

creed1 you inevitably demoralize him4   
,he acts on this view himself1 and does 
not convert his disciples from ,judaism 
to ,christianity4 ,to this day a        
,christian would be in religion a ,jew  
initiated by baptism instead of         
circumcision1 and accepting ,jesus as   
the ,messiah1 and his teachings as of   
higher authority than those of ,moses1  
but for the action of the ,jewish       
priests1 who1 to save ,jewry from being 
submerged in the rising flood of        
,christianity after the capture of      
,jerusalem and the destruction of the   
,temple1 set up what was practically a  
new religious order1 with new           
,scriptures and elaborate new           
observances1 and to their list of the   
accursed added one ,jeschu1 a bastard   
magician1 whose comic rogueries brought 
him to a bad end like ,punch or ,til    
,eulenspiegel3 an invention which cost  
them dear when the ,christians got the  
upper hand of them politically4 ,the    
,jew as ,jesus1 himself a ,jew1 knew    

him1 never dreamt of such things1 and   
could follow ,jesus without ceasing to  
be a ,jew4     ,,the ,,teachings ,,of   
,,jesus4  ,so much for his personal life
 and temperament4 ,his public career as 
a popular preacher carries him equally  
far beyond ,john the ,baptist4 ,he lays 
no stress on baptism or vows1 and       
preaches conduct incessantly4 ,he       
advocates communism1 the widening of the
 private family with its cramping ties  
into the great family of mankind under  
the fatherhood of ,god1 the abandonment 
of revenge and punishment1 the          
counteracting of evil by good instead of
 by a hostile evil1 and an organic      
conception of society in which you are  
not an independent individual but a     
member of society1 your neighbor being  
another member1 and each of you members 
one of another1 as two fingers on a     
hand1 the obvious conclusion being that 
unless you love your neighbor as        
yourself and he reciprocates you will   
both be the worse for it4 ,he conveys   

all this with extraordinary charm1 and  
entertains his hearers with fables      
7parables7 to illustrate them4 ,he has  
no synagogue or regular congregation1   
but travels from place to place with    
twelve men whom he has called from their
 work as he passed1 and who have        
abandoned it to follow him4     ,,the   
,,miracles  ,he has certain abnormal    
powers by which he can perform miracles4
 ,he is ashamed of these powers1 but1   
being extremely compassionate1 cannot   
refuse to exercise them when afflicted  
people beg him to cure them1 when       
multitudes of people are hungry1 and    
when his disciples are terrified by     
storms on the lakes4 ,he asks for no    
reward1 but begs the people not to      
mention these powers of his4 ,there are 
two obvious reasons for his dislike of  
being known as a worker of miracles4    
,one is the natural objection of all men
 who possess such powers1 but have far  
more important business in the world    
than to exhibit them1 to be regarded    

primarily as charlatans1 besides being  
pestered to give exhibitions to satisfy 
curiosity4 ,the other is that his view  
of the effect of miracles upon his      
mission is exactly that taken later on  
by ,rousseau4 ,he perceives that they   
will discredit him and divert attention 
from his doctrine by raising an entirely
 irrelevant issue between his disciples 
and his opponents4  ,possibly my readers
 may not have studied ,rousseau's       
,letters ,written ,from ,the ,mountain1 
which may be regarded as the classic    
work on miracles as credentials of      
divine mission4 ,rousseau shows1 as     
,jesus foresaw1 that the miracles are   
the main obstacle to the acceptance of  
,christianity1 because their            
incredibility 7if they were not         
incredible they would not be miracles7  
makes people sceptical as to the whole  
narrative1 credible enough in the main1 
in which they occur1 and suspicious of  
the doctrine with which they are thus   
associated4 ,get rid of the miracles1   

said ,rousseau1 and the whole world will
 fall at the feet of ,jesus ,christ4 ,he
 points out that miracles offered as    
evidence of divinity1 and failing to    
convince1 make divinity ridiculous4 ,he 
says1 in effect1 there is nothing in    
making a lame man walk3 thousands of    
lame men have been cured and have walked
 without any miracle4 ,bring me a man   
with only one leg and make another grow 
instantaneously on him before my eyes2  
and ,i will be really impressed2 but    
mere cures of ailments that have often  
been cured before are quite useless as  
evidence of anything else than desire to
 help and power to cure4  ,jesus1       
according to ,matthew1 agreed so        
entirely with ,rousseau1 and felt the   
danger so strongly1 that when people who
 were not ill or in trouble came to him 
and asked him to exercise his powers as 
a sign of his mission1 he was irritated 
beyond measure1 and refused with an     
indignation which they1 not seeing      
,rousseau's point1 must have thought    

very unreasonable4 ,to be called an evil
 and adulterous generation merely for   
asking a miracle worker to give an      
exhibition of his powers1 is rather a   
startling experience4 ,mahomet1 by the  
way1 also lost his temper when people   
asked him to perform miracles4 ,but     
,mahomet expressly disclaimed any       
unusual powers2 whereas it is clear from
 ,matthew's story that ,jesus           
7unfortunately for himself1 as he       
thought7 had some powers of healing4 ,it
 is also obvious that the exercise of   
such powers would give rise to wild     
tales of magical feats which would      
expose their hero to condemnation as an 
impostor among people whose good opinion
 was of great consequence to the        
movement started by his mission4  ,but  
the deepest annoyance arising from the  
miracles would be the irrelevance of the
 issue raised by them4 ,jesus's teaching
 has nothing to do with miracles4 ,if   
his mission had been simply to          
demonstrate a new method of restoring   

lost eyesight1 the miracle of curing the
 blind would have been entirely         
relevant4 ,but to say ,you should love  
your enemies2 and to convince you of    
this ,i will now proceed to cure this   
gentleman of cataract would have been1  
to a man of ,jesus's intelligence1 the  
proposition of an idiot4 ,if it could be
 proved today that not one of the       
miracles of ,jesus actually occurred1   
that proof would not invalidate a single
 one of his didactic utterances2 and    
conversely1 if it could be proved that  
not only did the miracles actually      
occur1 but that he had wrought a        
thousand other miracles a thousand times
 more wonderful1 not a jot of weight    
would be added to his doctrine4 ,and yet
 the intellectual energy of sceptics and
 divines has been wasted for generations
 in arguing about the miracles on the   
assumption that ,christianity is at     
stake in the controversy as to whether  
the stories of ,matthew are false or    
true4 ,according to ,matthew himself1   

,jesus must have known this only too    
well2 for wherever he went he was       
assailed with a clamor for miracles1    
though his doctrine created             
bewilderment4  ,so much for the         
miracles6 ,matthew tells us further1    
that ,jesus declared that his doctrines 
would be attacked by ,church and ,state1
 and that the common multitude were the 
salt of the earth and the light of the  
world4 ,his disciples1 in their         
relations with the political and        
ecclesiastical organizations1 would be  
as sheep among wolves4     ,,matthew    
,,imputes ,,dignity ,,to ,,jesus4       
,matthew1 like most biographers1 strives
 to identify the opinions and prejudices
 of his hero with his own4 ,although he 
describes ,jesus as tolerant even to    
carelessness1 he draws the line at the  
,gentile1 and represents ,jesus as a    
bigoted ,jew who regards his mission as 
addressed exclusively to the lost sheep 
of the house of ,israel4 ,when a woman  
of ,canaan begged ,jesus to cure her    

daughter1 he first refused to speak to  
her1 and then told her brutally that ,it
 is not meet to take the children's     
bread and cast it to the dogs4 ,but when
 the woman said1 ,truth1 ,lord2 yet the 
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from  
their master's table1 she melted the    
,jew out of him and made ,christ a      
,christian4 ,to the woman whom he had   
just called a dog he said1 ,o woman1    
great is thy faith3 be it unto thee even
 as thou wilt4 ,this is somehow one of  
the most touching stories in the gospel2
 perhaps because the woman rebukes the  
prophet by a touch of his own finest    
quality4 ,it is certainly out of        
character2 but as the sins of good men  
are always out of character1 it is not  
safe to reject the story as invented in 
the interest of ,matthew's determination
 that ,jesus shall have nothing to do   
with the ,gentiles4 ,at all events1     
there the story is2 and it is by no     
means the only instance in which        
,matthew reports ,jesus1 in spite of the

 charm of his preaching1 as extremely   
uncivil in private intercourse4         
,,the ,,great ,,change4  ,so far the    
history is that of a man sane and       
interesting apart from his special gifts
 as orator1 healer1 and prophet4 ,but a 
startling change occurs4 ,one day1 after
 the disciples have discouraged him for 
a long time by their misunderstandings  
of his mission1 and their speculations  
as to whether he is one of the old      
prophets come again1 and if so1 which1  
his disciple ,peter suddenly solves the 
problem by exclaiming1 ,thou are the    
,christ1 the son of the living ,god4 ,at
 this ,jesus is extraordinarily pleased 
and excited4 ,he declares that ,peter   
has had a revelation straight from ,god4
 ,he makes a pun on ,peter's name1 and  
declares him the founder of his ,church4
 ,and he accepts his destiny as a god by
 announcing that he will be killed when 
he goes to ,jerusalem2 for if he is     
really the ,christ1 it is a necessary   
part of his legendary destiny that he   

shall be slain4 ,peter1 not             
understanding this1 rebukes him for what
 seems mere craven melancholy2 and      
,jesus turns fiercely on him and cries1 
,get thee behind me1 ,satan4  ,jesus now
 becomes obsessed with a conviction of  
his divinity1 and talks about it        
continually to his disciples1 though he 
forbids them to mention it to others4   
,they begin to dispute among themselves 
as to the position they shall occupy in 
heaven when his kingdom is established4 
,he rebukes them strenuously for this1  
and repeats his teaching that greatness 
means service and not domination2 but he
 himself1 always instinctively somewhat 
haughty1 now becomes arrogant1          
dictatorial1 and even abusive1 never    
replying to his critics without an      
insulting epithet1 and even cursing a   
fig-tree which disappoints him when he  
goes to it for fruit4 ,he assumes all   
the traditions of the folk-lore gods1   
and announces that1 like ,john          
,barleycorn1 he will be barbarously     

slain and buried1 but will rise from the
 earth and return to life4 ,he attaches 
to himself the immemorial tribal        
ceremony of eating the god1 by blessing 
bread and wine and handing them to his  
disciples with the words ,this is my    
body3 this is my blood4 ,he forgets his 
own teaching and threatens eternal fire 
and eternal punishment4 ,he announces1  
in addition to his ,barleycorn          
resurrection1 that he will come to the  
world a second time in glory and        
establish his kingdom on earth4 ,he     
fears that this may lead to the         
appearance of impostors claiming to be  
himself1 and declares explicitly and    
repeatedly that no matter what wonders  
these impostors may perform1 his own    
coming will be unmistakable1 as the     
stars will fall from heaven1 and        
trumpets be blown by angels4 ,further he
 declares that this will take place     
during the lifetime of persons then     
present4     ,,jerusalem ,,and ,,the    
,,mystical ,,sacrifice4  ,in this new   

frame of mind he at last enters         
,jerusalem amid great popular curiosity2
 drives the moneychangers and sacrifice 
sellers out of the temple in a riot2    
refuses to interest himself in the      
beauties and wonders of the temple      
building on the ground that presently   
not a stone of it shall be left on      
another2 reviles the high priests and   
elders in intolerable terms2 and is     
arrested by night in a garden to avoid a
 popular disturbance4 ,he makes no      
resistance1 being persuaded that it is  
part of his destiny as a god to be      
murdered and to rise again4 ,one of his 
followers shows fight1 and cuts off the 
ear of one of his captors4 ,jesus       
rebukes him1 but does not attempt to    
heal the wound1 though he declares that 
if he wished to resist he could easily  
summon twelve million angels to his aid4
 ,he is taken before the high priest and
 by him handed over to the ,roman       
governor1 who is puzzled by his silent  
refusal to defend himself in any way1 or

 to contradict his accusers or their    
witnesses1 ,pilate having naturally no  
idea that the prisoner conceives himself
 as going through an inevitable process 
of torment1 death1 and burial as a      
prelude to resurrection4 ,before the    
high priest he has also been silent     
except that when the priest asks him is 
he the ,christ1 the ,son of ,god1 he    
replies that they shall all see the ,son
 of ,man sitting at the right hand of   
power1 and coming on the clouds of      
heaven4 ,he maintains this attitude with
 frightful fortitude whilst they scourge
 him1 mock him1 torment him1 and finally
 crucify him between two thieves4 ,his  
prolonged agony of thirst and pain on   
the cross at last breaks his spirit1 and
 he dies with a cry of ,my ,god3 why    
hast ,thou forsaken me8     ,,not ,,this
 ,,man ,,but ,,barrabas  ,meanwhile he  
has been definitely rejected by the     
people as well as by the priests4       
,pilate1 pitying him1 and unable to make
 out exactly what he has done 7the      

blasphemy that has horrified the high   
priest does not move the ,roman7 tries  
to get him off by reminding the people  
that they have1 by custom1 the right to 
have a prisoner released at that time1  
and suggests that he should release     
,jesus4 ,but they insist on his         
releasing a prisoner named ,barabbas    
instead1 and on having ,jesus crucified4
 ,matthew gives no clue to the          
popularity of ,barabbas1 describing him 
simply as a notable prisoner4 ,the later
 gospels make it clear1 very            
significantly1 that his offence was     
sedition and insurrection2 that he was  
an advocate of physical force2 and that 
he had killed his man4 ,the choice of   
,barabbas thus appears as a popular     
choice of the militant advocate of      
physical force as against the           
unresisting advocate of mercy4     ,,the
 ,,resurrection4  ,matthew then tells   
how after three days an angel opened the
 family vault of one ,joseph1 a rich man
 of ,arimathea1 who had buried ,jesus in

 it1 whereupon ,jesus rose and returned 
from ,jerusalem to ,galilee and resumed 
his preaching with his disciples1       
assuring them that he would now be with 
them to the end of the world4 ,at that  
point the narrative abruptly stops4 ,the
 story has no ending4     ,,date ,,of   
,,matthew',s ,,narrative4  ,one effect  
of the promise of ,jesus to come again  
in glory during the lifetime of some of 
his hearers is to date the gospel       
without the aid of any scholarship4 ,it 
must have been written during the       
lifetime of ,jesus's contemporaries3    
that is1 whilst it was still possible   
for the promise of his ,second ,coming  
to be fulfilled4 ,the death of the last 
person who had been alive when ,jesus   
said ,there be some of them that stand  
here that shall in no wise taste death  
till they see the ,son of ,man coming in
 his kingdom destroyed the last         
possibility of the promised ,second     
,coming1 and bore out the incredulity of
 ,pilate and the ,jews4 ,and as ,matthew

 writes as one believing in that ,second
 ,coming1 and in fact left his story    
unfinished to be ended by it1 he must   
have produced his gospel within a       
lifetime of the crucifixion4 ,also1 he  
must have believed that reading books   
would be one of the pleasures of the    
kingdom of heaven on earth4     ,,class 
,,type ,,of ,,matthew',s ,,jesus  ,one  
more circumstance must be noted as      
gathered from ,matthew4 ,though he      
begins his story in such a way as to    
suggest that ,jesus belonged to the     
privileged classes1 he mentions later on
 that when ,jesus attempted to preach in
 his own country1 and had no success    
there1 the people said1 ,is not this the
 carpenter's son8 ,but ,jesus's manner  
throughout is that of an aristocrat1 or 
at the very least the son of a rich     
bourgeois1 and by no means a            
lowly-minded one at that4 ,we must be   
careful therefore to conceive ,joseph1  
not as a modern proletarian carpenter   
working for weekly wages1 but as a      

master craftsman of royal descent4 ,john
 the ,baptist may have been a ,keir     
,hardie2 but the ,jesus of ,matthew is  
of the ,ruskin-,morris class4  ,this    
haughty characterization is so marked   
that if we had no other documents       
concerning ,jesus than the gospel of    
,matthew1 we should not feel as we do   
about him4 ,we should have been much    
less loth to say1 ,there is a man here  
who was sane until ,peter hailed him as 
the ,christ1 and who then became a      
monomaniac4 ,we should have pointed out 
that his delusion is a very common      
delusion among the insane1 and that such
 insanity is quite consistent with the  
retention of the argumentative cunning  
and penetration which ,jesus displayed  
in ,jerusalem after his delusion had    
taken complete hold of him4 ,we should  
feel horrified at the scourging and     
mocking and crucifixion just as we      
should if ,ruskin had been treated in   
that way when he also went mad1 instead 
of being cared for as an invalid4 ,and  

we should have had no clear perception  
of any special significance in his way  
of calling the ,son of ,god the ,son of 
,man4 ,we should have noticed that he   
was a ,communist2 that he regarded much 
of what we call law and order as        
machinery for robbing the poor under    
legal forms2 that he thought domestic   
ties a snare for the soul2 that he      
agreed with the proverb ,the nearer the 
,church1 the farther from ,god2 that he 
saw very plainly that the masters of the
 community should be its servants and   
not its oppressors and parasites2 and   
that though he did not tell us not to   
fight our enemies1 he did tell us to    
love them1 and warned us that they who  
draw the sword shall perish by the      
sword4 ,all this shows a great power of 
seeing through vulgar illusions1 and a  
capacity for a higher morality than has 
yet been established in any civilized   
community2 but it does not place ,jesus 
above ,confucius or ,plato1 not to      
mention more modern philosophers and    

moralists4      ,,mark4  ,,the ,,women  
,,disciples ,,and ,,the ,,ascension4    
,let us see whether we can get anything 
more out of ,mark1 whose gospel1 by the 
way1 is supposed to be older than       
,matthew's4 ,mark is brief2 and it does 
not take long to discover that he adds  
nothing to ,matthew except the ending of
 the story by ,christ's ascension into  
heaven1 and the news that many women had
 come with ,jesus to ,jerusalem1        
including ,mary ,magdalene1 out of whom 
he had cast seven devils4 ,on the other 
hand ,mark says nothing about the birth 
of ,jesus1 and does not touch his career
 until his adult baptism by ,john4 ,he  
apparently regards ,jesus as a native of
 ,nazareth1 as ,john does1 and not of   
,bethlehem1 as ,matthew and ,luke do1   
,bethlehem being the city of ,david1    
from whom ,jesus is said by ,matthew and
 ,luke to be descended4 ,he describes   
,john's doctrine as ,baptism of         
repentance unto remission of sins3 that 
is1 a form of ,salvationism4 ,he tells  

us that ,jesus went into the synagogues 
and taught1 not as the ,scribes but as  
one having authority3 that is1 we infer1
 he preaches his own doctrine as an     
original moralist is instead of         
repeating what the books say4 ,he       
describes the miracle of ,jesus reaching
 the boat by walking across the sea1 but
 says nothing about ,peter trying to do 
the same4 ,mark sees what he relates    
more vividly than ,matthew1 and gives   
touches of detail that bring the event  
more clearly before the reader4 ,he     
says1 for instance1 that when ,jesus    
walked on the waves to the boat1 he was 
passing it by when the disciples called 
out to him4 ,he seems to feel that      
,jesus's treatment of the woman of      
,canaan requires some apology1 and      
therefore says that she was a ,greek of 
,syrophenician race1 which probably     
excused any incivility to her in ,mark's
 eyes4 ,he represents the father of the 
boy whom ,jesus cured of epilepsy after 
the transfiguration as a sceptic who    

says ,lord1 ,i believe3 help thou mine  
unbelief4 ,he tells the story of the    
widow's mite1 omitted by ,matthew4 ,he  
explains that ,barabbas was lying bound 
with them that made insurrection1 men   
who in the insurrection had committed   
murder4 ,joseph of ,arimathea1 who      
buried ,jesus in his own tomb1 and who  
is described by ,matthew as a disciple1 
is described by ,mark as one who also   
himself was looking for the kingdom of  
,god1 which suggests that he was an     
independent seeker4 ,mark earns our     
gratitude by making no mention of the   
old prophecies1 and thereby not only    
saves time1 but avoids the absurd       
implication that ,christ was merely     
going through a predetermined ritual1   
like the works of a clock1 instead of   
living4 ,finally ,mark reports ,christ  
as saying1 after his resurrection1 that 
those who believe in him will be saved  
and those who do not1 damned2 but it is 
impossible to discover whether he means 
anything by a state of damnation beyond 

a state of error4 ,the paleographers    
regard this passage as tacked on by a   
later scribe4 ,on the whole ,mark leaves
 the modern reader where ,matthew left  
him4      ,,luke4     ,,luke ,,the      
,,literary ,,artist4  ,when we come to  
,luke1 we come to a later storyteller1  
and one with a stronger natural gift for
 his art4 ,before you have read twenty  
lines of ,luke's gospel you are aware   
that you have passed from the chronicler
 writing for the sake of recording      
important facts1 to the artist1 telling 
the story for the sake of telling it4   
,at the very outset he achieves the most
 charming idyll in the ,bible3 the story
 of ,mary crowded out of the inn into   
the stable and laying her newly-born son
 in the manger1 and of the shepherds    
abiding in the field keeping watch over 
their flocks by night1 and how the angel
 of the ,lord came upon them1 and the   
glory of the ,lord shone around them1   
and suddenly there was with the angel a 
multitude of the heavenly host4 ,these  

shepherds go to the stable and take the 
place of the kings in ,matthew's        
chronicle4 ,so completely has this story
 conquered and fascinated our           
imagination that most of us suppose all 
the gospels to contain it2 but it is    
,luke's story and his alone3 none of the
 others have the smallest hint of it4   
,,the ,,charm ,,of ,,luke',s            
,,narrative4  ,luke gives the charm of  
sentimental romance to every incident4  
,the ,annunciation1 as described by     
,matthew1 is made to ,joseph1 and is    
simply a warning to him not to divorce  
his wife for misconduct4 ,in ,luke's    
gospel it is made to ,mary herself1 at  
much greater length1 with a sense of the
 ecstasy of the bride of the ,holy      
,ghost4 ,jesus is refined and softened  
almost out of recognition3 the stern    
peremptory disciple of ,john the        
,baptist1 who never addresses a         
,pharisee or a ,scribe without an       
insulting epithet1 becomes a            
considerate1 gentle1 sociable1 almost   

urbane person2 and the ,chauvinist ,jew 
becomes a pro-,gentile who is thrown out
 of the synagogue in his own town for   
reminding the congregation that the     
prophets had sometimes preferred        
,gentiles to ,jews4 ,in fact they try to
 throw him down from a sort of ,tarpeian
 rock which they use for executions2 but
 he makes his way through them and      
escapes3 the only suggestion of a feat  
of arms on his part in the gospels4     
,there is not a word of the             
,syrophenician woman4 ,at the end he is 
calmly superior to his sufferings2      
delivers an address on his way to       
execution with unruffled composure2 does
 not despair on the cross2 and dies with
 perfect dignity1 commending his spirit 
to ,god1 after praying for the          
forgiveness of his persecutors on the   
ground that ,they know not what they do4
 ,according to ,matthew1 it is part of  
the bitterness of his death that even   
the thieves who are crucified with him  
revile him4 ,according to ,luke1 only   

one of them does this2 and he is rebuked
 by the other1 who begs ,jesus to       
remember him when he comes into his     
kingdom4 ,to which ,jesus replies1 ,this
 day shalt thou be with me in ,paradise1
 implying that he will spend the three  
days of his death there4 ,in short1     
every device is used to get rid of the  
ruthless horror of the ,matthew         
chronicle1 and to relieve the strain of 
the ,passion by touching episodes1 and  
by representing ,christ as superior to  
human suffering4 ,it is ,luke's ,jesus  
who has won our hearts4     ,,the       
,,touch ,,of ,,parisian ,,romance4      
,luke's romantic shrinking from         
unpleasantness1 and his sentimentality1 
are illustrated by his version of the   
woman with the ointment4 ,matthew and   
,mark describe it as taking place in the
 house of ,simon the ,leper1 where it is
 objected to as a waste of money4 ,in   
,luke's version the leper becomes a rich
 ,pharisee2 the woman becomes a ,dame   
aux ,camellias2 and nothing is said     

about money and the poor4 ,the woman    
washes the feet of ,jesus with her tears
 and dries them with her hair2 and he is
 reproached for suffering a sinful woman
 to touch him4 ,it is almost an         
adaptation of the unromantic ,matthew to
 the ,parisian stage4 ,there is a       
distinct attempt to increase the        
feminine interest all through4 ,the     
slight lead given by ,mark is taken up  
and developed4 ,more is said about      
,jesus's mother and her feelings4       
,christ's following of women1 just      
mentioned by ,mark to account for their 
presence at his tomb1 is introduced     
earlier2 and some of the women are      
named2 so that we are introduced to     
,joanna the wife of ,chuza1 ,herod's    
steward1 and ,susanna4 ,there is the    
quaint little domestic episode between  
,mary and ,martha4 ,there is the parable
 of the ,prodigal ,son1 appealing to the
 indulgence romance has always shown to 
,charles ,surface and ,des ,grieux4     
,women follow ,jesus to the cross2 and  

he makes them a speech beginning        
,daughters of ,jerusalem4 ,slight as    
these changes may seem1 they make a     
great change in the atmosphere4 ,the    
,christ of ,matthew could never have    
become what is vulgarly called a woman's
 hero 7though the truth is that the     
popular demand for sentiment1 as far as 
it is not simply human1 is more manly   
than womanly72 but the ,christ of ,luke 
has made possible those pictures which  
now hang in many ladies' chambers1 in   
which ,jesus is represented exactly as  
he is represented in the ,lourdes       
cinematograph1 by a handsome actor4 ,the
 only touch of realism which ,luke does 
not instinctively suppress for the sake 
of producing this kind of amenity is the
 reproach addressed to ,jesus for       
sitting down to table without washing   
his hands2 and that is retained because 
an interesting discourse hangs on it4   
,,waiting ,,for ,,the ,,messiah4        
,another new feature in ,luke's story is
 that it begins in a world in which     

everyone is expecting the advent of the 
,christ4 ,in ,matthew and ,mark1 ,jesus 
comes into a normal ,philistine world   
like our own of today4 ,not until the   
,baptist foretells that one greater than
 himself shall come after him does the  
old ,jewish hope of a ,messiah begin to 
stir again2 and as ,jesus begins as a   
disciple of ,john1 and is baptized by   
him1 nobody connects him with that hope 
until ,peter has the sudden inspiration 
which produces so startling an effect on
 ,jesus4 ,but in ,luke's gospel men's   
minds1 and especially women's minds1 are
 full of eager expectation of a ,christ 
not only before the birth of ,jesus1 but
 before the birth of ,john the ,baptist1
 the event with which ,luke begins his  
story4 ,whilst ,jesus and ,john are     
still in their mothers' wombs1 ,john    
leaps at the approach of ,jesus when the
 two mothers visit one another4 ,at the 
circumcision of ,jesus pious men and    
women hail the infant as the ,christ4   
,the ,baptist himself is not convinced2 

for at quite a late period in his former
 disciple's career he sends two young   
men to ask ,jesus is he really the      
,christ4 ,this is noteworthy because    
,jesus immediately gives them a         
deliberate exhibition of miracles1 and  
bids them tell ,john what they have     
seen1 and ask him what he thinks now3   
,this is in complete contradiction to   
what ,i have called the ,rousseau view  
of miracles as inferred from ,matthew4  
,luke shows all a romancer's            
thoughtlessness about miracles2 he      
regards them as signs3 that is1 as      
proofs of the divinity of the person    
performing them1 and not merely of      
thaumaturgic powers4 ,he revels in      
miracles just as he revels in parables3 
they make such capital stories4 ,he     
cannot allow the calling of ,peter1     
,james1 and ,john from their boats to   
pass without a comic miraculous         
overdraft of fishes1 with the net       
sinking the boats and provoking ,peter  
to exclaim1 ,depart from me2 for ,i am a

 sinful man1 ,o ,lord1 which should     
probably be translated1 ,i want no more 
of your miracles3 natural fishing is    
good enough for my boats4  ,there are   
some other novelties in ,luke's version4
 ,pilate sends ,jesus to ,herod1 who    
happens to be in ,jerusalem just then1  
because ,herod had expressed some       
curiosity about him2 but nothing comes  
of it3 the prisoner will not speak to   
him4 ,when ,jesus is ill received in a  
,samaritan village ,james and ,john     
propose to call down fire from heaven   
and destroy it2 and ,jesus replies that 
he is come not to destroy lives but to  
save them4 ,the bias of ,jesus against  
lawyers is emphasized1 and also his     
resolution not to admit that he is more 
bound to his relatives than to          
strangers4 ,he snubs a woman who blesses
 his mother4 ,as this is contrary to the
 traditions of sentimental romance1     
,luke would presumably have avoided it  
had he not become persuaded that the    
brotherhood of ,man and the ,fatherhood 

of ,god are superior even to sentimental
 considerations4 ,the story of the      
lawyer asking what are the two chief    
commandments is changed by making ,jesus
 put the question to the lawyer instead 
of answering it4  ,as to doctrine1 ,luke
 is only clear when his feelings are    
touched4 ,his logic is weak2 for some of
 the sayings of ,jesus are pieced       
together wrongly1 as anyone who has read
 them in the right order and context in 
,matthew will discover at once4 ,he does
 not make anything new out of ,christ's 
mission1 and1 like the other            
evangelists1 thinks that the whole point
 of it is that ,jesus was the long      
expected ,christ1 and that he will      
presently come back to earth and        
establish his kingdom1 having duly died 
and risen again after three days4 ,yet  
,luke not only records the teaching as  
to communism and the discarding of hate1
 which have1 of course1 nothing to do   
with the ,second ,coming1 but quotes one
 very remarkable saying which is not    

compatible with it1 which is1 that      
people must not go about asking where   
the kingdom of heaven is1 and saying    
,lo1 here6 and ,lo1 there6 because the  
kingdom of heaven is within them4 ,but  
,luke has no sense that this belongs to 
a quite different order of thought to   
his ,christianity1 and retains          
undisturbed his view of the kingdom as a
 locality as definite as ,jerusalem or  
,madagascar4      ,,john4     ,a ,,new  
,,story ,,and ,a ,,new ,,character4     
,the gospel of ,john is a surprise after
 the others4 ,matthew1 ,mark and ,luke  
describe the same events in the same    
order 7the variations in ,luke are      
negligible71 and their gospels are      
therefore called the synoptic gospels4  
,they tell substantially the same story 
of a wandering preacher who at the end  
of his life came to ,jerusalem4 ,john   
describes a preacher who spent          
practically his whole adult life in the 
capital1 with occasional visits to the  
provinces4 ,his circumstantial account  

of the calling of ,peter and the sons of
 ,zebedee is quite different from the   
others2 and he says nothing about their 
being fishermen4 ,he says expressly that
 ,jesus1 though baptized by ,john1 did  
not himself practise baptism1 and that  
his disciples did4 ,christ's agonized   
appeal against his doom in the garden of
 ,gethsemane becomes a coldblooded      
suggestion made in the temple at a much 
earlier period4 ,jesus argues much more2
 complains a good deal of the           
unreasonableness and dislike with which 
he is met2 is by no means silent before 
,caiaphas and ,pilate2 lays much greater
 stress on his resurrection and on the  
eating of his body 7losing all his      
disciples except the twelve in          
consequence72 says many apparently      
contradictory and nonsensical things to 
which no ordinary reader can now find   
any clue2 and gives the impression of an
 educated1 not to say sophisticated     
mystic1 different both in character and 
schooling from the simple and downright 

preacher of ,matthew and ,mark1 and the 
urbane easy-minded charmer of ,luke4    
,indeed1 the ,jews say of him ,how      
knoweth this man letters1 having never  
learnt8     ,,john ,,the ,,immortal     
,,eyewitness4  ,john1 moreover1 claims  
to be not only a chronicler but a       
witness4 ,he declares that he is the    
disciple whom ,jesus loved1 and that he 
actually leaned on the bosom of ,jesus  
at the last supper and asked in a       
whisper which of them it was that should
 betray him4 ,jesus whispered that he   
would give a sop to the traitor1 and    
thereupon handed one to ,judas1 who ate 
it and immediately became possessed by  
the devil4 ,this is more natural than   
the other accounts1 in which ,jesus     
openly indicates ,judas without         
eliciting any protest or exciting any   
comment4 ,it also implies that ,jesus   
deliberately bewitched ,judas in order  
to bring about his own betrayal4 ,later 
on ,john claims that ,jesus said to     
,peter ,if ,i will that ,john tarry til 

,i come1 what is that to thee82 and     
,john1 with a rather obvious mock       
modesty1 adds that he must not claim to 
be immortal1 as the disciples concluded2
 for ,christ did not use that           
expression1 but merely remarked ,if ,i  
will that he tarry till ,i come4 ,no    
other evangelist claims personal        
intimacy with ,christ1 or even pretends 
to be his contemporary 7there is no     
ground for identifying ,matthew the     
publican with ,matthew the ,evangelist72
 and ,john is the only evangelist whose 
account of ,christ's career and         
character is hopelessly irreconcilable  
with ,matthew's4 ,he is almost as bad as
 ,matthew1 by the way1 in his repeated  
explanations of ,christ's actions as    
having no other purpose than to fulfil  
the old prophecies4 ,the impression is  
more unpleasant1 because1 as ,john1     
unlike ,matthew1 is educated1 subtle1   
and obsessed with artificial            
intellectual mystifications1 the        
discovery that he is stupid or          

superficial in so simple a matter       
strikes one with distrust and dislike1  
in spite of his great literary charm1 a 
good example of which is his            
transfiguration of the harsh episode of 
the ,syrophenician woman into the       
pleasant story of the woman of ,samaria4
 ,this perhaps is why his claim to be   
,john the disciple1 or to be a          
contemporary of ,christ or even of any  
survivor of ,christ's generation1 has   
been disputed1 and finally1 it seems1   
disallowed4 ,but ,i repeat1 ,i take no  
note here of the disputes of experts as 
to the date of the gospels1 not because 
,i am not acquainted with them1 but     
because1 as the earliest codices are    
,greek manuscripts of the fourth century
 ,a4,d41 and the ,syrian ones are       
translations from the ,greek1 the       
paleographic expert has no difficulty in
 arriving at whatever conclusion happens
 to suit his beliefs or disbeliefs2 and 
he never succeeds in convincing the     
other experts except when they believe  

or disbelieve exactly as he does4 ,hence
 ,i conclude that the dates of the      
original narratives cannot be           
ascertained1 and that we must make the  
best of the evangelists' own accounts of
 themselves4 ,there is1 as we have seen1
 a very marked difference between them1 
leaving no doubt that we are dealing    
with four authors of well-marked        
diversity2 but they all end in an       
attitude of expectancy of the ,second   
,coming which they agree in declaring   
,jesus to have positively and           
unequivocally promised within the       
lifetime of his contemporaries4 ,any    
believer compiling a gospel after the   
last of these contemporaries had passed 
away1 would either reject and omit the  
tradition of that promise on the ground 
that since it was not fulfilled1 and    
could never now be fulfilled1 it could  
not have been made1 or else have had to 
confess to the ,jews1 who were the      
keenest critics of the ,christians1 that
 ,jesus was either an impostor or the   

victim of a delusion4 ,now all the      
evangelists except ,matthew expressly   
declare themselves to be believers2 and 
,matthew's narrative is obviously not   
that of a sceptic4 ,i therefore assume  
as a matter of common sense that1       
interpolations apart1 the gospels are   
derived from narratives written in the  
first century ,a4,d4 ,i include ,john1  
because though it may be claimed that he
 hedged his position by claiming that   
,christ1 who specially loved him1       
endowed him with a miraculous life until
 the ,second ,coming1 the conclusion    
being that ,john is alive at this       
moment1 ,i cannot believe that a        
literary forger could hope to save the  
situation by so outrageous a pretension4
 ,also1 ,john's narrative is in many    
passages nearer to the realities of     
public life than the simple chronicle of
 ,matthew or the sentimental romance of 
,luke4 ,this may be because ,john was   
obviously more a man of the world than  
the others1 and knew1 as mere           

chroniclers and romancers never know1   
what actually happens away from books   
and desks4 ,but it may also be because  
he saw and heard what happened instead  
of collecting traditions about it4 ,the 
paleographers and daters of first       
quotations may say what they please3    
,john's claim to give evidence as an    
eyewitness whilst the others are only   
compiling history is supported by a     
certain verisimilitude which appeals to 
me as one who has preached a new        
doctrine and argued about it1 as well as
 written stories4 ,this verisimilitude  
may be dramatic art backed by knowledge 
of public life2 but even at that we must
 not forget that the best dramatic art  
is the operation of a divinatory        
instinct for truth4 ,be that as it may1 
,john was certainly not the man to      
believe in the ,second ,coming and yet  
give a date for it after that date had  
passed4 ,there is really no escape from 
the conclusion that the originals of all
 the gospels date from the period within

 which there was still a possibility of 
the ,second ,coming occurring at the    
promised time4     ,,the ,,peculiar     
,,theology ,,of ,,jesus4  ,in spite of  
the suspicions roused by ,john's        
idiosyncrasies1 his narrative is of     
enormous importance to those who go to  
the gospels for a credible modern       
religion4 ,for it is ,john who adds to  
the other records such sayings as that  
,i and my father are one2 that ,god is a
 spirit2 that the aim of ,jesus is not  
only that the people should have life1  
but that they should have it more       
abundantly 7a distinction much needed by
 people who think a man is either alive 
or dead1 and never consider the         
important question how much alive he    
is72 and that men should bear in mind   
what they were told in the #hbnd ,psalm3
 that they are gods1 and are responsible
 for the doing of the mercy and justice 
of ,god4 ,the ,jews stoned him for      
saying these things1 and1 when he       
remonstrated with them for stupidly     

stoning one who had done nothing to them
 but good works1 replied ,for a good    
work we stone thee not2 but for         
blasphemy1 because that thou1 being a   
man1 makest thyself ,god4 ,he insists   
7referring to the #hbnd psalm7 that if  
it is part of their own religion that   
they are gods on the assurance of ,god  
himself1 it cannot be blasphemy for him1
 whom the ,father sanctified and sent   
into the world1 to say ,i am the son of 
,god4 ,but they will not have this at   
any price2 and he has to escape from    
their fury4 ,here the point is obscured 
by the distinction made by ,jesus       
between himself and other men4 ,he says1
 in effect1 ,if you are gods1 then1 a   
fortiori1 ,i am a god4 ,john makes him  
say this1 just as he makes him say ,i am
 the light of the world4 ,but ,matthew  
makes him say to the people ,ye are the 
light of the world4 ,john has no grip of
 the significance of these scraps which 
he has picked up3 he is far more        
interested in a notion of his own that  

men can escape death and do even more   
extraordinary things than ,christ       
himself3 in fact1 he actually represents
 ,jesus as promising this explicitly1   
and is finally led into the audacious   
hint that he1 ,john1 is himself immortal
 in the flesh4 ,still1 he does not miss 
the significant sayings altogether4     
,however inconsistent they may be with  
the doctrine he is consciously driving  
at1 they appeal to some sub-intellectual
 instinct in him that makes him stick   
them in1 like a child sticking tinsel   
stars on the robe of a toy angel4  ,john
 does not mention the ascension2 and the
 end of his narrative leaves ,christ    
restored to life1 and appearing from    
time to time among his disciples4 ,it is
 on one of these occasions that ,john   
describes the miraculous draught of     
fishes which ,luke places at the other  
end of ,christ's career1 at the call of 
the sons of ,zebedee4     ,,john        
,,agreed ,,as ,,to ,,the ,,trial ,,and  
,,crucifixion4  ,although ,john1        

following his practice of showing       
,jesus's skill as a debater1 makes him  
play a less passive part at his trial1  
he still gives substantially the same   
account of it as all the rest4 ,and the 
question that would occur to any modern 
reader never occurs to him1 any more    
than it occurred to ,matthew1 ,mark1 or 
,luke4 ,that question is1 ,why on earth 
did not ,jesus defend himself1 and make 
the people rescue him from the ,high    
,priest8 ,he was so popular that they   
were unable to prevent him driving the  
money-changers out of the temple1 or to 
arrest him for it4 ,when they did arrest
 him afterwards1 they had to do it at   
night in a garden4 ,he could have argued
 with them as he had often done in the  
temple1 and justified himself both to   
the ,jewish law and to ,caesar4 ,and he 
had physical force at his command to    
back up his arguments3 all that was     
needed was a speech to rally his        
followers2 and he was not gagged4 ,the  
reply of the evangelists would have been

 that all these inquiries are idle1     
because if ,jesus had wished to escape1 
he could have saved himself all that    
trouble by doing what ,john describes   
him as doing3 that is1 casting his      
captors to the earth by an exertion of  
his miraculous power4 ,if you asked     
,john why he let them get up again and  
torment and execute him1 ,john would    
have replied that it was part of the    
destiny of ,god to be slain and buried  
and to rise again1 and that to have     
avoided this destiny would have been to 
repudiate his ,godhead4 ,and that is the
 only apparent explanation4 ,whether you
 believe with the evangelists that      
,christ could have rescued himself by a 
miracle1 or1 as a modern ,secularist1   
point out that he could have defended   
himself effectually1 the fact remains   
that according to all the narratives he 
did not do so4 ,he had to die like a    
god1 not to save himself like one of the
 princes4 99      99 ,jesus himself had 
refered to that psalm 7,,lxxii7 in which

       men who have judged unjustly and 
accepted the persons of the       wicked
 7including by anticipation practically 
all the white       inhabitants of the  
,british ,isles and the ,north ,american
       continent1 to mention no other   
places7 are condemned in the            
words1 ,i have said1 ye are gods2 and   
all of ye are children       of the     
,most ,high2 but ye shall die like men1 
and fall like       one of the princes4 
,the consensus on this point is         
important1 because it proves the        
absolute sincerity of ,jesus's          
declaration that he was a god4 ,no      
impostor would have accepted such       
dreadful consequences without an effort 
to save himself4 ,no impostor would have
 been nerved to endure them by the      
conviction that he would rise from the  
grave and live again after three days4  
,if we accept the story at all1 we must 
believe this1 and believe also that his 
promise to return in glory and establish
 his kingdom on earth within the        

lifetime of men then living1 was one    
which he believed that he could1 and    
indeed must fulfil4 ,two evangelists    
declare that in his last agony he       
despaired1 and reproached ,god for      
forsaking him4 ,the other two represent 
him as dying in unshaken conviction and 
charity with the simple remark that the 
ordeal was finished4 ,but all four      
testify that his faith was not deceived1
 and that he actually rose again after  
three days4 ,and ,i think it            
unreasonable to doubt that all four     
wrote their narratives in full faith    
that the other promise would be         
fulfilled too1 and that they themselves 
might live to witness the ,second       
,coming4     ,,credibility ,,of ,,the   
,,gospels4  ,it will be noted by the    
older among my readers1 who are sure to 
be obsessed more or less by elderly     
wrangles as to whether the gospels are  
credible as matter-of-fact narratives1  
that ,i have hardly raised this         
question1 and have accepted the credible

 and incredible with equal complacency4 
,i have done this because credibility is
 a subjective condition1 as the         
evolution of religious belief clearly   
shows4 ,belief is not dependent on      
evidence and reason4 ,there is as much  
evidence that the miracles occurred as  
that the battle of ,waterloo occurred1  
or that a large body of ,russian troops 
passed through ,england in #aiad to take
 part in the war on the western front4  
,the reasons for believing in the murder
 of ,pompey are the same as the reasons 
for believing in the raising of         
,lazarus4 ,both have been believed and  
doubted by men of equal intelligence4   
,miracles1 in the sense of phenomena we 
cannot explain1 surround us on every    
hand2 life itself is the miracle of     
miracles4 ,miracles in the sense of     
events that violate the normal course of
 our experience are vouched for every   
day3 the flourishing ,church of ,christ 
,scientist is founded on a multitude of 
such miracles4 ,nobody believes all the 

miracles3 everybody believes some of    
them4 ,i cannot tell why men who will   
not believe that ,jesus ever existed yet
 believe firmly that ,shakespear was    
,bacon4 ,i cannot tell why people who   
believe that angels appeared and fought 
on our side at the battle of ,mons1 and 
who believe that miracles occur quite   
frequently at ,lourdes1 nevertheless    
boggle at the miracle of the            
liquefaction of the blood of ,st4       
,januarius1 and reject it as a trick of 
priestcraft4 ,i cannot tell why people  
who will not believe ,matthew's story of
 three kings bringing costly gifts to   
the cradle of ,jesus1 believe ,luke's   
story of the shepherds and the stable4  
,i cannot tell why people1 brought up to
 believe the ,bible in the old literal  
way as an infallible record and         
revelation1 and rejecting that view     
later on1 begin by rejecting the ,old   
,testament1 and give up the belief in a 
brimstone hell before they give up 7if  
they ever do7 the belief in a heaven of 

harps1 crowns1 and thrones4 ,i cannot   
tell why people who will not believe in 
baptism on any terms believe in         
vaccination with the cruel fanaticism of
 inquisitors4 ,i am convinced that if a 
dozen sceptics were to draw up in       
parallel columns a list of the events   
narrated in the gospels which they      
consider credible and incredible        
respectively1 their lists would be      
different in several particulars4       
,belief is literally a matter of taste4 
,,fashions ,,of ,,belief4  ,now matters 
of taste are mostly also matters of     
fashion4 ,we are conscious of a         
difference between medieval fashions in 
belief and modern fashions4 ,for        
instance1 though we are more credulous  
than men were in the ,middle ,ages1 and 
entertain such crowds of fortunetellers1
 magicians1 miracle workers1 agents of  
communication with the dead1 discoverers
 of the elixir of life1 transmuters of  
metals1 and healers of all sorts1 as the
 ,middle ,ages never dreamed of as      

possible1 yet we will not take our      
miracles in the form that convinced the 
,middle ,ages4 ,arithmetical numbers    
appealed to the ,middle ,ages just as   
they do to us1 because they are         
difficult to deal with1 and because the 
greatest masters of numbers1 the        
,newtons and ,leibnitzes1 rank among the
 greatest men4 ,but there are fashions  
in numbers too4 ,the ,middle ,ages took 
a fancy to some familiar number like    
seven2 and because it was an odd number1
 and the world was made in seven days1  
and there are seven stars in ,charles's 
,wain1 and for a dozen other reasons1   
they were ready to believe anything that
 had a seven or a seven times seven in  
it4 ,seven deadly sins1 seven swords of 
sorrow in the heart of the ,virgin1     
seven champions of ,christendom1 seemed 
obvious and reasonable things to believe
 in simply because they were seven4 ,to 
us1 on the contrary1 the number seven is
 the stamp of superstition4 ,we will    
believe in nothing less than millions4  

,a medieval doctor gained his patient's 
confidence by telling him that his      
vitals were being devoured by seven     
worms4 ,such a diagnosis would ruin a   
modern physician4 ,the modern physician 
tells his patient that he is ill because
 every drop of his blood is swarming    
with a million microbes2 and the patient
 believes him abjectly and instantly4   
,had a bishop told ,william the         
,conqueror that the sun was             
seventy-seven miles distant from the    
earth1 ,william would have believed him 
not only out of respect for the ,church1
 but because he would have felt that    
seventy-seven miles was the proper      
distance4 ,the ,kaiser1 knowing just as 
little about it as the ,conqueror1 would
 send that bishop to an asylum4 ,yet he 
7,i presume7 unhesitatingly accepts the 
estimate of ninety-two and nine-tenths  
millions of miles1 or whatever the      
latest big figure may be4               
,,credibility ,,and ,,truth4  ,and here 
,i must remind you that our credulity is

 not to be measured by the truth of the 
things we believe4 ,when men believed   
that the earth was flat1 they were not  
credulous3 they were using their common 
sense1 and1 if asked to prove that the  
earth was flat1 would have said simply1 
,look at it4 ,those who refuse to       
believe that it is round are exercising 
a wholesome scepticism4 ,the modern man 
who believes that the earth is round is 
grossly credulous4 ,flat ,earth men     
drive him to fury by confuting him with 
the greatest ease when he tries to argue
 about it4 ,confront him with a theory  
that the earth is cylindrical1 or       
annular1 or hour-glass shaped1 and he is
 lost4 ,the thing he believes may be    
true1 but that is not why he believes   
it3 he believes it because in some      
mysterious way it appeals to his        
imagination4 ,if you ask him why he     
believes that the sun is ninety-odd     
million miles off1 either he will have  
to confess that he doesn't know1 or he  
will say that ,newton proved it4 ,but he

 has not read the treatise in which     
,newton proved it1 and does not even    
know that it was written in ,latin4 ,if 
you press an ,ulster ,protestant as to  
why he regards ,newton as an infallible 
authority1 and ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas or 
the ,pope as superstitious liars whom1  
after his death1 he will have the       
pleasure of watching from his place in  
heaven whilst they roast in eternal     
flame1 or if you ask me why ,i take into
 serious consideration ,colonel ,sir    
,almroth ,wright's estimates of the     
number of streptococci contained in a   
given volume of serum whilst ,i can only
 laugh at the earlier estimates of the  
number of angels that can be            
accommodated on the point of a needle1  
no reasonable reply is possible except  
that somehow sevens and angels are out  
of fashion1 and billions and            
streptococci are all the rage4 ,i simply
 cannot tell you why ,bacon1 ,montaigne1
 and ,cervantes had a quite different   
fashion of credulity and incredulity    

from the ,venerable ,bede and ,piers    
,plowman and the divine doctors of the  
,aquinas-,aristotle school1 who were    
certainly no stupider1 and had the same 
facts before them4 ,still less can ,i   
explain why1 if we assume that these    
leaders of thought had all reasoned out 
their beliefs1 their authority seemed   
conclusive to one generation and        
blasphemous to another1 neither         
generation having followed the reasoning
 or gone into the facts of the matter   
for itself at all4  ,it is therefore    
idle to begin disputing with the reader 
as to what he should believe in the     
gospels and what he should disbelieve4  
,he will believe what he can1 and       
disbelieve what he must4 ,if he draws   
any lines at all1 they will be quite    
arbitrary ones4 ,st4 ,john tells us that
 when ,jesus explicitly claimed divine  
honors by the sacrament of his body and 
blood1 so many of his disciples left him
 that their number was reduced to       
twelve4 ,many modern readers will not   

hold out so long3 they will give in at  
the first miracle4 ,others will         
discriminate4 ,they will accept the     
healing miracles1 and reject the feeding
 of the multitude4 ,to some the walking 
on the water will be a legendary        
exaggeration of a swim1 ending in an    
ordinary rescue of ,peter2 and the      
raising of ,lazarus will be only a      
similar glorification of a commonplace  
feat of artificial respiration1 whilst  
others will scoff at it as a planned    
imposture in which ,lazarus acted as a  
confederate4 ,between the rejection of  
the stories as wholly fabulous and the  
acceptance of them as the evangelists   
themselves meant them to be accepted1   
there will be many shades of belief and 
disbelief1 of sympathy and derision4 ,it
 is not a question of being a ,christian
 or not4 ,a ,mahometan ,arab will accept
 literally and without question parts of
 the narrative which an ,english        
,archbishop has to reject or explain    
away2 and many ,theosophists and lovers 

of the wisdom of ,india1 who never enter
 a ,christian ,church except as         
sightseers1 will revel in parts of      
,john's gospel which mean nothing to a  
pious matter-of-fact ,bradford          
manufacturer4 ,every reader takes from  
the ,bible what he can get4 ,in         
submitting a precis of the gospel       
narratives ,i have not implied any      
estimate either of their credibility or 
of their truth4 ,i have simply informed 
him or reminded him1 as the case may be1
 of what those narratives tell us about 
their hero4     ,,christian ,,iconolatry
 ,,and ,,the ,,perils ,,of ,,the        
,,iconoclast4  ,i must now abandon this 
attitude1 and make a serious draft on   
the reader's attention by facing the    
question whether1 if and when the       
medieval and ,methodist will-to-believe 
the ,salvationist and miraculous side of
 the gospel narratives fails us1 as it  
plainly has failed the leaders of modern
 thought1 there will be anything left of
 the mission of ,jesus3 whether1 in     

short1 we may not throw the gospels into
 the waste-paper basket1 or put them    
away on the fiction shelf of our        
libraries4 ,i venture to reply that we  
shall be1 on the contrary1 in the       
position of the man in ,bunyan's riddle 
who found that the more he threw away1  
the more he had4 ,we get rid1 to begin  
with1 of the idolatrous or iconographic 
worship of ,christ4 ,by this ,i mean    
literally that worship which is given to
 pictures and statues of him1 and to    
finished and unalterable stories about  
him4 ,the test of the prevalence of this
 is that if you speak or write of ,jesus
 as a real live person1 or even as a    
still active ,god1 such worshippers are 
more horrified than ,don ,juan was when 
the statue stepped from its pedestal and
 came to supper with him4 ,you may deny 
the divinity of ,jesus2 you may doubt   
whether he ever existed2 you may reject 
,christianity for ,judaism1             
,mahometanism1 ,shintoism1 or ,fire     
,worship2 and the iconolaters1 placidly 

contemptuous1 will only classify you as 
a freethinker or a heathen4 ,but if you 
venture to wonder how ,christ would have
 looked if he had shaved and had his    
hair cut1 or what size in shoes he took1
 or whether he swore when he stood on a 
nail in the carpenter's shop1 or could  
not button his robe when he was in a    
hurry1 or whether he laughed over the   
repartees by which he baffled the       
priests when they tried to trap him into
 sedition and blasphemy1 or even if you 
tell any part of his story in the vivid 
terms of modern colloquial slang1 you   
will produce an extraordinary dismay and
 horror among the iconolaters4 ,you will
 have made the picture come out of its  
frame1 the statue descend from its      
pedestal1 the story become real1 with   
all the incalculable consequences that  
may flow from this terrifying miracle4  
,it is at such moments that you realize 
that the iconolaters have never for a   
moment conceived ,christ as a real      
person who meant what he said1 as a     

fact1 as a force like electricity1 only 
needing the invention of suitable       
political machinery to be applied to the
 affairs of mankind with revolutionary  
effect4  ,thus it is not disbelief that 
is dangerous in our society3 it is      
belief4 ,the moment it strikes you 7as  
it may any day7 that ,christ is not the 
lifeless harmless image he has hitherto 
been to you1 but a rallying centre for  
revolutionary influences which all      
established ,states and ,churches fight1
 you must look to yourselves2 for you   
have brought the image to life2 and the 
mob may not be able to bear that horror4
     ,,the ,,alternative ,,to           
,,barrabas4  ,but mobs must be faced if 
civilization is to be saved4 ,it did not
 need the present war to show that      
neither the iconographic ,christ nor the
 ,christ of ,st4 ,paul has succeeded in 
effecting the salvation of human        
society4 ,whilst ,i write1 the ,turks   
are said to be massacring the ,armenian 
,christians on an unprecedented scale2  

but ,europe is not in a position to     
remonstrate2 for her ,christians are    
slaying one another by every device     
which civilization has put within their 
reach as busily as they are slaying the 
,turks4 ,barabbas is triumphant         
everywhere2 and the final use he makes  
of his triumph is to lead us all to     
suicide with heroic gestures and        
resounding lies4 ,now those who1 like   
myself1 see the ,barabbasque social     
organization as a failure1 and are      
convinced that the ,life ,force 7or     
whatever you choose to call it7 cannot  
be finally beaten by any failure1 and   
will even supersede humanity by evolving
 a higher species if we cannot master   
the problems raised by the              
multiplication of our own numbers1 have 
always known that ,jesus had a real     
message1 and have felt the fascination  
of his character and doctrine4 ,not that
 we should nowadays dream of claiming   
any supernatural authority for him1 much
 less the technical authority which     

attaches to an educated modern          
philosopher and jurist4 ,but when1      
having entirely got rid of ,salvationist
 ,christianity1 and even contracted a   
prejudice against ,jesus on the score of
 his involuntary connection with it1 we 
engage on a purely scientific study of  
economics1 criminology1 and biology1 and
 find that our practical conclusions are
 virtually those of ,jesus1 we are      
distinctly pleased and encouraged to    
find that we were doing him an          
injustice1 and that the nimbus that     
surrounds his head in the pictures may  
be interpreted some day as a light of   
science rather than a declarations of   
sentiment or a label of idolatry4  ,the 
doctrines in which ,jesus is thus       
confirmed are1 roughly1 the following3  
#a4 ,the kingdom of heaven is within    
you4 ,you are the son of ,god2 and ,god 
is the son of man4 ,god is a spirit1 to 
be worshipped in spirit and in truth1   
and not an elderly gentleman to be      
bribed and begged from4 ,we are members 

one of another2 so that you cannot      
injure or help your neighbor without    
injuring or helping yourself4 ,god is   
your father3 you are here to do ,god's  
work2 and you and your father are one4  
#b4 ,get rid of property by throwing it 
into the common stock4 ,dissociate your 
work entirely from money payments4 ,if  
you let a child starve you are letting  
,god starve4 ,get rid of all anxiety    
about tomorrow's dinner and clothes1    
because you cannot serve two masters3   
,god and ,mammon4  ,s4 ,get rid of      
judges and punishment and revenge4 ,love
 your neighbor as yourself1 he being a  
part of yourself4 ,and love your        
enemies3 they are your neighbors4  #d4  
,get rid of your family entanglements4  
,every mother you meet is as much your  
mother as the woman who bore you4 ,every
 man you meet is as much your brother as
 the man she bore after you4 ,don't     
waste your time at family funerals      
grieving for your relatives3 attend to  
life1 not to death3 there are as good   

fish in the sea as ever came out of it1 
and better4 ,in the kingdom of heaven1  
which1 as aforesaid1 is within you1     
there is no marriage nor giving in      
marriage1 because you cannot devote your
 life to two divinities3 ,god and the   
person you are married to4  ,now these  
are very interesting propositions2 and  
they become more interesting every day1 
as experience and science drive us more 
and more to consider them favorably4 ,in
 considering them1 we shall waste our   
time unless we give them a reasonable   
construction4 ,we must assume that the  
man who saw his way through such a mass 
of popular passion and illusion as      
stands between us and a sense of the    
value of such teaching was quite aware  
of all the objections that occur to an  
average stockbroker in the first five   
minutes4 ,it is true that the world is  
governed to a considerable extent by the
 considerations that occur to           
stockbrokers in the first five minutes2 
but as the result is that the world is  

so badly governed that those who know   
the truth can hardly bear to live in it1
 an objection from an average           
stockbroker constitutes in itself a     
prima facie case for any social reform4 
,,the ,,reduction ,,to ,,modern         
,,practice ,,of ,,christianity4  ,all   
the same1 we must reduce the ethical    
counsels and proposals of ,jesus to     
modern practice if they are to be of any
 use to us4 ,if we ask our stockbroker  
to act simply as ,jesus advised his     
disciples to act1 he will reply1 very   
justly1 ,you are advising me to become a
 tramp4 ,if we urge a rich man to sell  
all that he has and give it to the poor1
 he will inform us that such an         
operation is impossible4 ,if he sells   
his shares and his lands1 their         
purchaser will continue all those       
activities which oppress the poor4 ,if  
all the rich men take the advice        
simultaneously the shares will fall to  
zero and the lands be unsaleable4 ,if   
one man sells out and throws the money  

into the slums1 the only result will be 
to add himself and his dependents to the
 list of the poor1 and to do no good to 
the poor beyond giving a chance few of  
them a drunken spree4 ,we must therefore
 bear in mind that whereas1 in the time 
of ,jesus1 and in the ages which grew   
darker and darker after his death until 
the darkness1 after a brief false dawn  
in the ,reformation and the ,renascence1
 culminated in the commercial night of  
the nineteenth century1 it was believed 
that you could not make men good by ,act
 of ,parliament1 we now know that you   
cannot make them good in any other way1 
and that a man who is better than his   
fellows is a nuisance4 ,the rich man    
must sell up not only himself but his   
whole class2 and that can be done only  
through the ,chancellor of the          
,exchequer4 ,the disciple cannot have   
his bread without money until there is  
bread for everybody without money2 and  
that requires an elaborate municipal    
organization of the food supply1 rate   

supported4 ,being members one of another
 means ,one ,man ,one ,vote1 and ,one   
,woman ,one ,vote1 and universal        
suffrage and equal incomes and all sorts
 of modern political measures4 ,even in 
,syria in the time of ,jesus his        
teachings could not possibly have been  
realized by a series of independent     
explosions of personal righteousness on 
the part of the separate units of the   
population4 ,jerusalem could not have   
done what even a village community      
cannot do1 and what ,robinson ,crusoe   
himself could not have done if his      
conscience1 and the stern compulsion of 
,nature1 had not imposed a common rule  
on the half dozen ,robinson ,crusoes who
 struggled within him for not wholly    
compatible satisfactions4 ,and what     
cannot be done in ,jerusalem or ,juan   
,fernandez cannot be done in ,london1   
,new ,york1 ,paris1 and ,berlin4 ,in    
short1 ,christianity1 good or bad1 right
 or wrong1 must perforce be left out of 
the question in human affairs until it  

is made practically applicable to them  
by complicated political devices2 and to
 pretend that a field preacher under the
 governorship of ,pontius ,pilate1 or   
even ,pontius ,pilate himself in council
 with all the wisdom of ,rome1 could    
have worked out applications of         
,christianity or any other system of    
morals for the twentieth century1 is to 
shelve the subject much more effectually
 than ,nero and all its other           
persecutors ever succeeded in doing4    
,personal righteousness1 and the view   
that you cannot make people moral by    
,act of ,parliament1 is1 in fact1 the   
favorite defensive resort of the people 
who1 consciously or subconsciously1 are 
quite determined not to have their      
property meddled with by ,jesus or any  
other reformer4     ,,modern            
,,communism4  ,now let us see what      
modern experience and modern sociology  
has to say to the teaching of ,jesus as 
summarized here4 ,first1 get rid of your
 property by throwing it into the common

 stock4 ,one can hear the ,pharisees of 
,jerusalem and ,chorazin and ,bethsaida 
saying1 ,my good fellow1 if you were to 
divide up the wealth of ,judea equally  
today1 before the end of the year you   
would have rich and poor1 poverty and   
affluence1 just as you have today2 for  
there will always be the idle and the   
industrious1 the thrifty and the        
wasteful1 the drunken and the sober2    
and1 as you yourself have very justly   
observed1 the poor we shall have always 
with us4 ,and we can hear the reply1    
,woe unto you1 liars and hypocrites2 for
 ye have this very day divided up the   
wealth of the country yourselves1 as    
must be done every day 7for man liveth  
not otherwise than from hand to mouth1  
nor can fish and eggs endure for ever72 
and ye have divided it unjustly2 also ye
 have said that my reproach to you for  
having the poor always with you was a   
law unto you that this evil should      
persist and stink in the nostrils of    
,god to all eternity2 wherefore ,i think

 that ,lazarus will yet see you beside  
,dives in hell4 ,modern ,capitalism has 
made short work of the primitive pleas  
for inequality4 ,the ,pharisees         
themselves have organized communism in  
capital4 ,joint stock is the order of   
the day4 ,an attempt to return to       
individual properties as the basis of   
our production would smash civilization 
more completely than ten revolutions4   
,you cannot get the fields tilled today 
until the farmer becomes a co-operator4 
,take the shareholder to his railway1   
and ask him to point out to you the     
particular length of rail1 the          
particular seat in the railway carriage1
 the particular lever in the engine that
 is his very own and nobody else's2 and 
he will shun you as a madman1 very      
wisely4 ,and if1 like ,ananias and      
,sapphira1 you try to hold back your    
little shop or what not from the common 
stock1 represented by the ,trust1 or    
,combine1 or ,kartel1 the ,trust will   
presently freeze you out and rope you in

 and finally strike you dead            
industrially as thoroughly as ,st4      
,peter himself4 ,there is no longer any 
practical question open as to ,communism
 in production3 the struggle today is   
over the distribution of the product3   
that is1 over the daily dividing-up     
which is the first necessity of         
organized society4     ,,redistribution4
  ,now it needs no ,christ to convince  
anybody today that our system of        
distribution is wildly and monstrously  
wrong4 ,we have million-dollar babies   
side by side with paupers worn out by a 
long life of unremitted drudgery4 ,one  
person in every five dies in a          
workhouse1 a public hospital1 or a      
madhouse4 ,in cities like ,london the   
proportion is very nearly one in two4   
,naturally so outrageous a distribution 
has to be effected by violence pure and 
simple4 ,if you demur1 you are sold up4 
,if you resist the selling up you are   
bludgeoned and imprisoned1 the process  
being euphemistically called the        

maintenance of law and order4 ,iniquity 
can go no further4 ,by this time nobody 
who knows the figures of the            
distribution defends them4 ,the most    
bigoted ,british ,conservative hesitates
 to say that his king should be much    
poorer than ,mr4 ,rockefeller1 or to    
proclaim the moral superiority of       
prostitution to needlework on the ground
 that it pays better4 ,the need for a   
drastic redistribution of income in all 
civilized countries is now as obvious   
and as generally admitted as the need   
for sanitation4     ,,shall ,,he ,,who  
,,makes1 ,,own4  ,it is when we come to 
the question of the proportions in which
 we are to redistribute that controversy
 begins4 ,we are bewildered by an       
absurdly unpractical notion that in some
 way a man's income should be given to  
him1 not to enable him to live1 but as a
 sort of ,sunday ,school ,prize for good
 behavior4 ,and this folly is           
complicated by a less ridiculous but    
quite as unpractical belief that it is  

possible to assign to each person the   
exact portion of the national income    
that he or she has produced4 ,to a child
 it seems that the blacksmith has made a
 horse-shoe1 and that therefore the     
horse-shoe is his4 ,but the blacksmith  
knows that the horse-shoe does not      
belong solely to him1 but to his        
landlord1 to the rate collector and     
taxgatherer1 to the men from whom he    
bought the iron and anvil and the coals1
 leaving only a scrap of its value for  
himself2 and this scrap he has to       
exchange with the butcher and baker and 
the clothier for the things that he     
really appropriates as living tissue or 
its wrappings1 paying for all of them   
more than their cost2 for these fellow  
traders of his have also their landlords
 and moneylenders to satisfy4 ,if1 then1
 such simple and direct village examples
 of apparent individual production turn 
out on a moment's examination to be the 
products of an elaborate social         
organization1 what is to be said of such

 products as dreadnoughts1 factory-made 
pins and needles1 and steel pens8 ,if   
,god takes the dreadnought in one hand  
and a steel pen in the other1 and asks  
,job who made them1 and to whom they    
should belong by maker's right1 ,job    
must scratch his puzzled head with a    
potsherd and be dumb1 unless indeed it  
strikes him that ,god is the ultimate   
maker1 and that all we have a right to  
do with the product is to feed his      
lambs4     ,,labor ,,time4  ,so maker's 
right as an alternative to taking the   
advice of ,jesus would not work4 ,in    
practice nothing was possible in that   
direction but to pay a worker by labor  
time so much an hour or day or week or  
year4 ,but how much8 ,when that question
 came up1 the only answer was as little 
as he can be starved into accepting1    
with the ridiculous results already     
mentioned1 and the additional anomaly   
that the largest share went to the      
people who did not work at all1 and the 
least to those who worked hardest4 ,in  

,england nine-tenths of the wealth goes 
into the pockets of one-tenth of the    
population4     ,,the ,,dream ,,of      
,,distribution ,,according ,,to ,,merit4
  ,against this comes the protest of the
 ,sunday ,school theorists ,why not     
distribute according to merit8 ,here one
 imagines ,jesus1 whose smile has been  
broadening down the ages as attempt     
after attempt to escape from his        
teaching has led to deeper and deeper   
disaster1 laughing outright4 ,was ever  
so idiotic a project mooted as the      
estimation of virtue in money8 ,the     
,london ,school of ,economics is1 we    
must suppose1 to set examination papers 
with such questions as1 ,taking the     
money value of the virtues of ,jesus as 
#ajj1 and of ,judas ,iscariot as zero1  
give the correct figures for1           
respectively1 ,pontius ,pilate1 the     
proprietor of the ,gadarene swine1 the  
widow who put her mite in the poor-box1 
,mr4 ,horatio ,bottomley1 ,shakespear1  
,mr4 ,jack ,johnson1 ,sir ,isaac        

,newton1 ,palestrina1 ,offenbach1 ,sir  
,thomas ,lipton1 ,mr4 ,paul             
,cinquevalli1 your family doctor1       
,florence ,nightingale1 ,mrs4 ,siddons1 
your charwoman1 the ,archbishop of      
,canterbury1 and the common hangman4 ,or
 ,the late ,mr4 ,barney ,barnato        
received as his lawful income three     
thousand times as much money as an      
,english agricultural laborer of good   
general character4 ,name the principal  
virtues in which ,mr4 ,barnato exceeded 
the laborer three thousandfold2 and give
 in figures the loss sustained by       
civilization when ,mr4 ,barnato was     
driven to despair and suicide by the    
reduction of his multiple to one        
thousand4 ,the ,sunday ,school idea1    
with its principle to each the income he
 deserves is really too silly for       
discussion4 ,hamlet disposed of it three
 hundred years ago4 ,use every man after
 his deserts1 and who shall scape       
whipping8 ,jesus remains unshaken as the
 practical man2 and we stand exposed as 

the fools1 the blunderers1 the          
unpractical visionaries4 ,the moment you
 try to reduce the ,sunday ,school idea 
to figures you find that it brings you  
back to the hopeless plan of paying for 
a man's time2 and your examination paper
 will read ,the time of ,jesus was worth
 nothing 7he complained that the foxes  
had holes and the birds of the air nests
 whilst he had not a place to lay his   
head74 ,dr4 ,crippen's time was worth1  
say1 three hundred and fifty pounds a   
year4 ,criticize this arrangement2 and1 
if you dispute its justice1 state in    
pounds1 dollars1 francs and marks1 what 
their relative time wages ought to have 
been4 ,your answer may be that the      
question is in extremely bad taste and  
that you decline to answer it4 ,but you 
cannot object to being asked how many   
minutes of a bookmaker's time is worth  
two hours of an astronomer's8           
,,vital ,,distribution4  ,in the end you
 are forced to ask the question you     
should have asked at the beginning4     

,what do you give a man an income for8  
,obviously to keep him alive4 ,since it 
is evident that the first condition on  
which he can be kept alive without      
enslaving somebody else is that he shall
 produce an equivalent for what it costs
 to keep him alive1 we may quite        
rationally compel him to abstain from   
idling by whatever means we employ to   
compel him to abstain from murder1      
arson1 forgery1 or any other crime4 ,the
 one supremely foolish thing to do with 
him is to do nothing2 that is1 to be as 
idle1 lazy1 and heartless in dealing    
with him as he is in dealing with us4   
,even if we provided work for him       
instead of basing1 as we do1 our whole  
industrial system on successive         
competitive waves of overwork with their
 ensuing troughs of unemployment1 we    
should still sternly deny him the       
alternative of not doing it2 for the    
result must be that he will become poor 
and make his children poor if he has    
any2 and poor people are cancers in the 

commonwealth1 costing far more than if  
they were handsomely pensioned off as   
incurables4 ,jesus had more sense than  
to propose anything of the sort4 ,he    
said to his disciples1 in effect1 ,do   
your work for love2 and let the other   
people lodge and feed and clothe you for
 love4 ,or1 as we should put it         
nowadays1 for nothing4 ,all human       
experience and all natural              
uncommercialized human aspiration point 
to this as the right path4 ,the ,greeks 
said1 ,first secure an independent      
income2 and then practise virtue4 ,we   
all strive towards an independent       
income4 ,we all know as well as ,jesus  
did that if we have to take thought for 
the morrow as to whether there shall be 
anything to eat or drink it will be     
impossible for us to think of nobler    
things1 or live a higher life than that 
of a mole1 whose life is from beginning 
to end a frenzied pursuit of food4      
,until the community is organized in    
such a way that the fear of bodily want 

is forgotten as completely as the fear  
of wolves already is in civilized       
capitals1 we shall never have a decent  
social life4 ,indeed the whole          
attraction of our present arrangements  
lies in the fact that they do relieve a 
handful of us from this fear2 but as the
 relief is effected stupidly and        
wickedly by making the favored handful  
parasitic on the rest1 they are smitten 
with the degeneracy which seems to be   
the inevitable biological penalty of    
complete parasitism1 and corrupt culture
 and statecraft instead of contributing 
to them1 their excessive leisure being  
as mischievous as the excessive toil of 
the laborers4 ,anyhow1 the moral is     
clear4 ,the two main problems of        
organized society1 how to secure the    
subsistence of all its members1 and how 
to prevent the theft of that subsistence
 by idlers1 should be entirely          
dissociated2 and the practical failure  
of one of them to automatically achieve 
the other recognized and acted on4 ,we  

may not all have ,jesus's psychological 
power of seeing1 without any            
enlightenment from more modern economic 
phenomena1 that they must fail2 but we  
have the hard fact before us that they  
do fail4 ,the only people who cling to  
the lazy delusion that it is possible to
 find a just distribution that will work
 automatically are those who postulate  
some revolutionary change like land     
nationalization1 which by itself would  
obviously only force into greater       
urgency the problem of how to distribute
 the product of the land among all the  
individuals in the community4           
,,equal ,,distribution4  ,when that     
problem is at last faced1 the question  
of the proportion in which the national 
income shall be distributed can have    
only one answer4 ,all our shares must be
 equal4 ,it has always been so2 it      
always will be so4 ,it is true that the 
incomes of robbers vary considerably    
from individual to individual2 and the  
variation is reflected in the incomes of

 their parasites4 ,the commercialization
 of certain exceptional talents has also
 produced exceptional incomes1 direct   
and derivative4 ,persons who live on    
rent of land and capital are            
economically1 though not legally1 in the
 category of robbers1 and have          
grotesquely different incomes4 ,but in  
the huge mass of mankind variation ,of  
income from individual to individual is 
unknown1 because it is ridiculously     
impracticable4 ,as a device for         
persuading a carpenter that a judge is a
 creature of superior nature to himself1
 to be deferred and submitted to even to
 the death1 we may give a carpenter a   
hundred pounds a year and a judge five  
thousand2 but the wage for one carpenter
 is the wage for all the carpenters3 the
 salary for one judge is the salary for 
all the judges4     ,,the ,,captain     
,,and ,,the ,,cabin ,,boy4  ,nothing1   
therefore1 is really in question1 or    
ever has been1 but the differences      
between class incomes4 ,already there is

 economic equality between captains1 and
 economic equality between cabin boys4  
,what is at issue still is whether there
 shall be economic equality between     
captains and cabin boys4 ,what would    
,jesus have said8 ,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 ,york1 or to         
manoeuvre a fleet and carry powder from 
the magazine to the gun1 then you need  
give no more than a shilling to the     
cabin boy for every pound you give to   
the more expensively trained captain4   
,but if in addition to this you desire  
to allow the two human souls which are  
inseparable from the captain and the    
cabin boy1 and which alone differentiate
 them from the donkey-engine1 to develop
 all their possibilities1 then you may  
find the cabin boy costing rather more  
than the captain1 because cabin boy's   
work does not do so much for the soul as
 captain's work4 ,consequently you will 

have to give him at least as much as the
 captain unless you definitely wish him 
to be a lower creature1 in which case   
the sooner you are hanged as an         
abortionist the better4 ,that is the    
fundamental argument4     ,,the         
,,political ,,and ,,biological          
,,objections ,,to ,,inequality4  ,but   
there are other reasons for objecting to
 class stratification of income which   
have heaped themselves up since the time
 of ,jesus4 ,in politics it defeats     
every form of government except that of 
a necessarily corrupt oligarchy4        
,democracy in the most democratic modern
 republics3 ,prance and the ,united     
,states for example1 is an imposture and
 a delusion4 ,it reduces justice and law
 to a farce3 law becomes merely an      
instrument for keeping the poor in      
subjection2 and accused workmen are     
tried1 not by a jury of their peers1 but
 by conspiracies of their exploiters4   
,the press is the press of the rich and 
the curse of the poor3 it becomes       

dangerous to teach men to read4 ,the    
priest becomes the mere complement of   
the policeman in the machinery by which 
the countryhouse oppresses the village4 
,worst of all1 marriage becomes a class 
affair3 the infinite variety of choice  
which nature offers to the young in     
search of a mate is narrowed to a       
handful of persons of similar income2   
and beauty and health become the dreams 
of artists and the advertisements of    
quacks instead of the normal conditions 
of life4 ,society is not only divided   
but actually destroyed in all directions
 by inequality of income between        
classes3 such stability as it has is due
 to the huge blocks of people between   
whom there is equality of income4       
,,jesus ,,as ,,economist4  ,it seems    
therefore that we must begin by holding 
the right to an income as sacred and    
equal1 just as we now begin by holding  
the right to life as sacred and equal4  
,indeed the one right is only a         
restatement of the other4 ,to hang me   

for cutting a dock laborer's throat     
after making much of me for leaving him 
to starve when ,i do not happen to have 
a ship for him to unload is idiotic2 for
 as he does far less mischief with his  
throat cut than when he is starving1 a  
rational society would esteem the       
cutthroat more highly than the          
capitalist4 ,the thing has become so    
obvious1 and the evil so unendurable1   
that if our attempt at civilization is  
not to perish like all the previous     
ones1 we shall have to organize our     
society in such a way as to be able to  
say to every person in the land1 ,take  
no thought1 saying ,what shall we eat8  
or ,what shall we drink8 or ,wherewithal
 shall we be clothed8 ,we shall then no 
longer have a race of men whose hearts  
are in their pockets and safes and at   
their bankers4 ,as ,jesus said1 where   
your treasure is1 there will your heart 
be also4 ,that was why he recommended   
that money should cease to be a         
treasure1 and that we should take steps 

to make ourselves utterly reckless of   
it1 setting our minds free for higher   
uses4 ,in other words1 that we should   
all be gentlemen and take care of our   
country because our country takes care  
of us1 instead of the commercialized    
cads we are1 doing everything and       
anything for money1 and selling our     
souls and bodies by the pound and the   
inch after wasting half the day haggling
 over the price4 ,decidedly1 whether you
 think ,jesus was ,god or not1 you must 
admit that he was a first-rate political
 economist4     ,,jesus ,,as            
,,biologist4  ,he was also1 as we now   
see1 a first-rate biologist4 ,it took a 
century and a half of evolutionary      
preachers1 from ,buffon and ,goethe to  
,butler and ,bergson1 to convince us    
that we and our father are one2 that as 
the kingdom of heaven is within us we   
need not go about looking for it and    
crying ,lo here6 and ,lo there62 that   
,god is not a picture of a pompous      
person in white robes in the family     

,bible1 but a spirit2 that it is through
 this spirit that we evolve towards     
greater abundance of life2 that we are  
the lamps in which the light of the     
world burns3 that1 in cohort1 we are    
gods though we die like men4 ,all that  
is today sound biology and psychology2  
and the efforts of ,natural             
,selectionists like ,weismann to reduce 
evolution to mere automatism have not   
touched the doctrine of ,jesus1 though  
they have made short work of the        
theologians who conceived ,god as a     
magnate keeping men and angels as ,lord 
,rothschild keeps buffaloes and emus at 
,tring4     ,,money ,,the ,,midwife ,,of
 ,,scientific ,,communism4  ,it may be  
asked here by some simple-minded reader 
why we should not resort to crude       
,communism as the disciples were told to
 do4 ,this would be quite practicable in
 a village where production was limited 
to the supply of the primitive wants    
which nature imposes on all human beings
 alike4 ,we know that people need bread 

and boots without waiting for them to   
come and ask for these things and offer 
to pay for them4 ,but when civilization 
advances to the point at which articles 
are produced that no man absolutely     
needs and that only some men fancy or   
can use1 it is necessary that           
individuals should be able to have      
things made to their order and at their 
own cost4 ,it is safe to provide bread  
for everybody because everybody wants   
and eats bread2 but it would be absurd  
to provide microscopes and trombones1   
pet snakes and polo mallets1 alembics   
and test tubes for everybody1 as        
nine-tenths of them would be wasted2 and
 the nine-tenths of the population who  
do not use such things would object to  
their being provided at all4 ,we have in
 the invaluable instrument called money 
a means of enabling every individual to 
order and pay for the particular things 
he desires over and above the things he 
must consume in order to remain alive1  
plus the things the ,state insists on   

his having and using whether he wants to
 or not2 for example1 clothes1 sanitary 
arrangements1 armies and navies4 ,in    
large communities1 where even the most  
eccentric demands for manufactured      
articles average themselves out until   
they can be foreseen within a negligible
 margin of error1 direct communism      
7,take what you want without payment1 as
 the people do in ,morris's ,news ,from 
,nowhere7 will1 after a little          
experience1 be found not only           
practicable but highly economical to an 
extent that now seems impossible4 ,the  
sportsmen1 the musicians1 the           
physicists1 the biologists will get     
their apparatus for the asking as easily
 as their bread1 or1 as at present1     
their paving1 street lighting1 and      
bridges2 and the deaf man will not      
object to contribute to communal flutes 
when the musician has to contribute to  
communal ear trumpets4 ,there are cases 
7for example1 radium7 in which the      
demand may be limited to the merest     

handful of laboratory workers1 and in   
which nevertheless the whole community  
must pay because the price is beyond the
 means of any individual worker4 ,but   
even when the utmost allowance is made  
for extensions of communism that now    
seem fabulous1 there will still remain  
for a long time to come regions of      
supply and demand in which men will need
 and use money or individual credit1 and
 for which1 therefore1 they must have   
individual incomes4 ,foreign travel is  
an obvious instance4 ,we are so far from
 even national communism still1 that we 
shall probably have considerable        
developments of local communism before  
it becomes possible for a ,manchester   
man to go up to ,london for a day       
without taking any money with him4 ,the 
modern practical form of the communism  
of ,jesus is therefore1 for the present1
 equal distribution of the surplus of   
the national income that is not absorbed
 by simple communism4     ,,judge ,,not4
  ,in dealing with crime and the family1

 modern thought and experience have     
thrown no fresh light on the views of   
,jesus4 ,when ,swift had occasion to    
illustrate the corruption of our        
civilization by making a catalogue of   
the types of scoundrels it produces1 he 
always gave judges a conspicuous place  
alongside of them they judged4 ,and he  
seems to have done this not as a        
restatement of the doctrine of ,jesus1  
but as the outcome of his own           
observation and judgment4 ,one of ,mr4  
,gilbert ,chesterton's stories has for  
its hero a judge who1 whilst trying a   
criminal case1 is so overwhelmed by the 
absurdity of his position and the       
wickedness of the things it forces him  
to do1 that he throws off the ermine    
there and then1 and goes out into the   
world to live the life of an honest man 
instead of that of a cruel idol4 ,there 
has also been a propaganda of a soulless
 stupidity called ,determinism1         
representing man as a dead object driven
 hither and thither by his environment1 

antecedents1 circumstances1 and so      
forth1 which nevertheless does remind us
 that there are limits to the number of 
cubits an individual can add to his     
stature morally or physically1 and that 
it is silly as well as cruel to torment 
a man five feet high for not being able 
to pluck fruit that is within the reach 
of men of average height4 ,i have known 
a case of an unfortunate child being    
beaten for not being able to tell the   
time after receiving an elaborate       
explanation of the figures on a clock   
dial1 the fact being that she was       
short-sighted and could not see them4   
,this is a typical illustration of the  
absurdities and cruelties into which we 
are led by the counter-stupidity to     
,determinism3 the doctrine of ,free     
,will4 ,the notion that people can be   
good if they like1 and that you should  
give them a powerful additional motive  
for goodness by tormenting them when    
they do evil1 would soon reduce itself  
to absurdity if its application were not

 kept within the limits which nature    
sets to the self-control of most of us4 
,nobody supposes that a man with no ear 
for music or no mathematical faculty    
could be compelled on pain of death1    
however cruelly inflicted1 to hum all   
the themes of ,beethoven's symphonies or
 to complete ,newton's work on fluxions4
     ,,limits ,,to ,,free ,,will4       
,consequently such of our laws as are   
not merely the intimidations by which   
tyrannies are maintained under pretext  
of law1 can be obeyed through the       
exercise of a quite common degree of    
reasoning power and self-control4 ,most 
men and women can endure the ordinary   
annoyances and disappointments of life  
without committing murderous assaults4  
,they conclude therefore that any person
 can refrain from such assaults if he or
 she chooses to1 and proceed to         
reinforce self-control by threats of    
severe punishment4 ,but in this they are
 mistaken4 ,there are people1 some of   
them possessing considerable powers of  

mind and body1 who can no more restrain 
the fury into which a trifling mishap   
throws them than a dog can restrain     
himself from snapping if he is suddenly 
and painfully pinched4 ,people fling    
knives and lighted paraffin lamps at one
 another in a dispute over a            
dinner-table4 ,men who have suffered    
several long sentences of penal         
servitude for murderous assaults will1  
the very day after they are released1   
seize their wives and cast them under   
drays at an irritating word4 ,we have   
not only people who cannot resist an    
opportunity of stealing for the sake of 
satisfying their wants1 but even people 
who have a specific mania for stealing1 
and do it when they are in no need of   
the things they steal4 ,burglary        
fascinates some men as sailoring        
fascinates some boys4 ,among respectable
 people how many are there who can be   
restrained by the warnings of their     
doctors and the lessons of experience   
from eating and drinking more than is   

good for them8 ,it is true that between 
self-controlled people and ungovernable 
people there is a narrow margin of moral
 malingerers who can be made to behave  
themselves by the fear of consequences2 
but it is not worth while maintaining an
 abominable system of malicious1        
deliberate1 costly and degrading        
ill-treatment of criminals for the sake 
of these marginal cases4 ,for practical 
dealing with crime1 ,determinism or     
,predestination is quite a good working 
rule4 ,people without self-control      
enough for social purposes may be       
killed1 or may be kept in asylums with a
 view to studying their condition and   
ascertaining whether it is curable4 ,to 
torture them and give ourselves virtuous
 airs at their expense is ridiculous and
 barbarous2 and the desire to do it is  
vindictive and cruel4 ,and though       
vindictiveness and cruelty are at least 
human qualities when they are frankly   
proclaimed and indulged1 they are       
loathsome when they assume the robes of 

,justice4 ,which1 ,i take it1 is why    
,shakespear's ,isabella gave such a     
dressing-down to ,judge ,angelo1 and why
 ,swift reserved the hottest corner of  
his hell for judges4 ,also1 of course1  
why ,jesus said ,judge not that ye be   
not judged and ,if any man hear my words
 and believe not1 ,i judge him not      
because he hath one that judgeth him3   
namely1 the ,father who is one with him4
  ,when we are robbed we generally      
appeal to the criminal law1 not         
considering that if the criminal law    
were effective we should not have been  
robbed4 ,that convicts us of vengeance4 
,i need not elaborate the argument      
further4 ,i have dealt with it          
sufficiently elsewhere4 ,i have only to 
point out that we have been judging and 
punishing ever since ,jesus told us not 
to2 and ,i defy anyone to make out a    
convincing case for believing that the  
world has been any better than it would 
have been if there had never been a     
judge1 a prison1 or a gallows in it all 

that time4 ,we have simply added the    
misery of punishment to the misery of   
crime1 and the cruelty of the judge to  
the cruelty of the criminal4 ,we have   
taken the bad man1 and made him worse by
 torture and degradation1 incidentally  
making ourselves worse in the process4  
,it does not seem very sensible1 does   
it8 ,it would have been far easier to   
kill him as kindly as possible1 or to   
label him and leave him to his          
conscience1 or to treat him as an       
invalid or a lunatic is now treated 7it 
is only of late years1 by the way1 that 
madmen have been delivered from the     
whip1 the chain1 and the cage2 and this1
 ,i presume1 is the form in which the   
teaching of ,jesus could have been put  
into practice47     ,,jesus ,,on        
,,marriage ,,and ,,the ,,family4  ,when 
we come to marriage and the family1 we  
find ,jesus making the same objection to
 that individual appropriation of human 
beings which is the essence of matrimony
 as to the individual appropriation of  

wealth4 ,a married man1 he said1 will   
try to please his wife1 and a married   
woman to please her husband1 instead of 
doing the work of ,god4 ,this is another
 version of ,where your treasure is1    
there will your heart be also4 ,eighteen
 hundred years later we find a very     
different person from ,jesus1           
,talleyrand to wit1 saying the same     
thing4 ,a married man with a family1    
said ,talleyrand1 will do anything for  
money4 ,now this1 though not a          
scientifically precise statement1 is    
true enough to be a moral objection to  
marriage4 ,as long as a man has a right 
to risk his life or his livelihood for  
his ideas he needs only courage and     
conviction to make his integrity        
unassailable4 ,but he forfeits that     
right when he marries4 ,it took a       
revolution to rescue ,wagner from his   
,court appointment at ,dresden2 and his 
wife never forgave him for being glad   
and feeling free when he lost it and    
threw her back into poverty4 ,millet    

might have gone on painting potboiling  
nudes to the end of his life if his wife
 had not been of a heroic turn herself4 
,women1 for the sake of their children  
and parents1 submit to slaveries and    
prostitutions that no unattached woman  
would endure4  ,this was the beginning  
and the end of the objection of ,jesus  
to marriage and family ties1 and the    
explanation of his conception of heaven 
as a place where there should be neither
 marrying nor giving in marriage4 ,now  
there is no reason to suppose that when 
he said this he did not mean it4 ,he did
 not1 as ,st4 ,paul did afterwards in   
his name1 propose celibacy as a rule of 
life2 for he was not a fool1 nor1 when  
he denounced marriage1 had he yet come  
to believe1 as ,st4 ,paul did1 that the 
end of the world was at hand and there  
was therefore no more need to replenish 
the earth4 ,he must have meant that the 
race should be continued without        
dividing with women and men the         
allegiance the individual owes to ,god  

within him4 ,this raises the practical  
problem of how we are to secure the     
spiritual freedom and integrity of the  
priest and the nun without their        
barrenness and uncompleted experience4  
,luther the priest did not solve the    
problem by marrying a nun3 he only      
testified in the most convincing and    
practical way to the fact that celibacy 
was a worse failure than marriage4      
,,why ,,jesus ,,did ,,not ,,marry4  ,to 
all appearance the problem oppresses    
only a few exceptional people4          
,thoroughly conventional women married  
to thoroughly conventional men should   
not be conscious of any restriction3 the
 chain not only leaves them free to do  
whatever they want to do1 but greatly   
facilitates their doing it4 ,to them an 
attack on marriage is not a blow struck 
in defence of their freedom but at their
 rights and privileges4 ,one would      
expect that they would not only demur   
vehemently to the teachings of ,jesus in
 this matter1 but object strongly to his

 not having been a married man himself4 
,even those who regard him as a god     
descended from his throne in heaven to  
take on humanity for a time might       
reasonably declare that the assumption  
of humanity must have been incomplete at
 its most vital point if he were a      
celibate4 ,but the facts are flatly     
contrary4 ,the mere thought of ,jesus as
 a married man is felt to be blasphemous
 by the most conventional believers2 and
 even those of us to whom ,jesus is no  
supernatural personage1 but a prophet   
only as ,mahomet was a prophet1 feel    
that there was something more dignified 
in the bachelordom of ,jesus than in the
 spectacle of ,mahomet lying distracted 
on the floor of his harem whilst his    
wives stormed and squabbled and         
henpecked round him4 ,we are not        
surprised that when ,jesus called the   
sons of ,zebedee to follow him1 he did  
not call their father1 and that the     
disciples1 like ,jesus himself1 were all
 men without family entanglements4 ,it  

is evident from his impatience when     
people excused themselves from following
 him because of their family funerals1  
or when they assumed that his first duty
 was to his mother1 that he had found   
family ties and domestic affections in  
his way at every turn1 and had become   
persuaded at last that no man could     
follow his inner light until he was free
 from their compulsion4 ,the absence of 
any protest against this tempts us to   
declare on this question of marriage    
there are no conventional people2 and   
that everyone of us is at heart a good  
,christian sexually4     ,,inconsistency
 ,,of ,,the ,,sex ,,instinct4  ,but the 
question is not so simple as that4 ,sex 
is an exceedingly subtle and complicated
 instinct2 and the mass of mankind      
neither know nor care much about freedom
 of conscience1 which is what ,jesus was
 thinking about1 and are concerned      
almost to obsession with sex1 as to     
which ,jesus said nothing4 ,in our      
sexual natures we are torn by an        

irresistible attraction and an          
overwhelming repugnance and disgust4 ,we
 have two tyrannous physical passions3  
concupiscence and chastity4 ,we become  
mad in pursuit of sex3 we become equally
 mad in the persecution of that pursuit4
 ,unless we gratify our desire the race 
is lost3 unless we restrain it we       
destroy ourselves4 ,we are thus led to  
devise marriage institutions which will 
at the same time secure opportunities   
for the gratification of sex and raise  
up innumerable obstacles to it2 which   
will sanctify it and brand it as        
infamous2 which will identify it with   
virtue and with sin simultaneously4     
,obviously it is useless to look for any
 consistency in such institutions2 and  
it is only by continual reform and      
readjustment1 and by a considerable     
elasticity in their enforcement1 that a 
tolerable result can be arrived at4 ,i  
need not repeat here the long and       
elaborate examination of them that ,i   
prefixed to my play entitled ,getting   

,married4 ,here ,i am concerned only    
with the views of ,jesus on the         
question2 and it is necessary1 in order 
to understand the attitude of the world 
towards them1 that we should not        
attribute the general approval of the   
decision of ,jesus to remain unmarried  
as an endorsement of his views4 ,we are 
simply in a state of confusion on the   
subject2 but it is part of the confusion
 that we should conclude that ,jesus was
 a celibate1 and shrink even from the   
idea that his birth was a natural one1  
yet cling with ferocity to the          
sacredness of the institution which     
provides a refuge from celibacy4        
,,for ,,better ,,or ,,worse4  ,jesus1   
however1 did not express a complicated  
view of marriage4 ,his objection to it  
was quite simple1 as we have seen4 ,he  
perceived that nobody could live the    
higher life unless money and sexual love
 were obtainable without sacrificing it2
 and he saw that the effect of marriage 
as it existed among the ,jews 7and as it

 still exists among ourselves7 was to   
make the couples sacrifice every higher 
consideration until they had fed and    
pleased one another4 ,the worst of it is
 that this dangerous preposterousness in
 marriage1 instead of improving as the  
general conduct of married couples      
improves1 becomes much worse4 ,the      
selfish man to whom his wife is nothing 
but a slave1 the selfish woman to whom  
her husband is nothing but a scapegoat  
and a breadwinner1 are not held back    
from spiritual or any other adventures  
by fear of their effect on the welfare  
of their mates4 ,their wives do not make
 recreants and cowards of them3 their   
husbands do not chain them to the cradle
 and the cooking range when their feet  
should be beautiful on the mountains4   
,it is precisely as people become more  
kindly1 more conscientious1 more ready  
to shoulder the heavier part of the     
burden 7which means that the strong     
shall give way to the weak and the slow 
hold back the swift71 that marriage     

becomes an intolerable obstacle to      
individual evolution4 ,and that is why  
the revolt against marriage of which    
,jesus was an exponent always recurs    
when civilization raises the standard of
 marital duty and affection1 and at the 
same time produces a greater need for   
individual freedom in pursuit of a      
higher evolution4 ,this1 fortunately1 is
 only one side of marriage2 and the     
question arises1 can it not be          
eliminated8 ,the reply is reassuring3 of
 course it can4 ,there is no mortal     
reason in the nature of things why a    
married couple should be economically   
dependent on one another4 ,the          
,communism advocated by ,jesus1 which we
 have seen to be entirely practicable1  
and indeed inevitable if our            
civilization is to be saved from        
collapse1 gets rid of that difficulty   
completely4 ,and with the economic      
dependence will go the force of the     
outrageous claims that derive their real
 sanction from the economic pressure    

behind them4 ,when a man allows his wife
 to turn him from the best work he is   
capable of doing1 and to sell his soul  
at the highest commercial prices        
obtainable2 when he allows her to       
entangle him in a social routine that is
 wearisome and debilitating to him1 or  
tie him to her apron strings when he    
needs that occasional solitude which is 
one of the most sacred of human rights1 
he does so because he has no right to   
impose eccentric standards of           
expenditure and unsocial habits on her1 
and because these conditions have       
produced by their pressure so general a 
custom of chaining wedded couples to one
 another that married people are        
coarsely derided when their partners    
break the chain4 ,and when a woman is   
condemned by her parents to wait in     
genteel idleness and uselessness for a  
husband when all her healthy social     
instincts call her to acquire a         
profession and work1 it is again her    
economic dependence on them that makes  

their tyranny effective4     ,,the      
,,case ,,for ,,marriage4  ,thus1 though 
it would be too much to say that        
everything that is obnoxious in marriage
 and family life will be cured by       
,communism1 yet it can be said that it  
will cure what ,jesus objected to in    
these institutions4 ,he made no         
comprehensive study of them3 he only    
expressed his own grievance with an     
overwhelming sense that it is a         
grievance so deep that all the          
considerations on the other side are as 
dust in the balance4 ,obviously there   
are such considerations1 and very       
weighty ones too4 ,when ,talleyrand said
 that a married man with a family is    
capable of anything1 he meant anything  
evil2 but an optimist may declare1 with 
equal half truth1 that a married man is 
capable of anything good2 that marriage 
turns vagabonds into steady citizens2   
and that men and women will1 for love of
 their mates and children1 practise     
virtues that unattached individuals are 

incapable of4 ,it is true that too much 
of this domestic virtue is self-denial1 
which is not a virtue at all2 but then  
the following of the inner light at all 
costs is largely self-indulgence1 which 
is just as suicidal1 just as weak1 just 
as cowardly as self-denial4 ,ibsen1 who 
takes us into the matter far more       
resolutely than ,jesus1 is unable to    
find any golden rule3 both ,brand and   
,peer ,gynt come to a bad end2 and      
though ,brand does not do as much       
mischief as ,peer1 the mischief he does 
do is of extraordinary intensity4       
,,celibacy ,,no ,,remedy4  ,we must1 ,i 
think1 regard the protest of ,jesus     
against marriage and family ties as the 
claim of a particular kind of individual
 to be free from them because they      
hamper his own work intolerably4 ,when  
he said that if we are to follow him in 
the sense of taking up his work we must 
give up our family ties1 he was simply  
stating a fact2 and to this day the     
,roman ,catholic priest1 the ,buddhist  

lama1 and the fakirs of all the eastern 
denominations accept the saying4 ,it is 
also accepted by the physically         
enterprising1 the explorers1 the        
restlessly energetic of all kinds1 in   
short1 by the adventurous4 ,the greatest
 sacrifice in marriage is the sacrifice 
of the adventurous attitude towards     
life3 the being settled4 ,those who are 
born tired may crave for settlement2 but
 to fresher and stronger spirits it is a
 form of suicide4 ,now to say of any    
institution that it is incompatible with
 both the contemplative and adventurous 
life is to disgrace it so vitally that  
all the moralizings of all the ,deans   
and ,chapters cannot reconcile our souls
 to its slavery4 ,the unmarried ,jesus  
and the unmarried ,beethoven1 the       
unmarried ,joan of ,arc1 ,clare1        
,teresa1 ,florence ,nightingale seem as 
they should be2 and the saying that     
there is always something ridiculous    
about a married philosopher becomes     
inevitable4 ,and yet the celibate is    

still more ridiculous than the married  
man3 the priest1 in accepting the       
alternative of celibacy1 disables       
himself2 and the best priests are those 
who have been men of this world before  
they became men of the world to come4   
,but as the taking of vows does not     
annul an existing marriage1 and a       
married man cannot become a priest1 we  
are again confronted with the absurdity 
that the best priest is a reformed rake4
 ,thus does marriage1 itself            
intolerable1 thrust us upon intolerable 
alternatives4 ,the practical solution is
 to make the individual economically    
independent of marriage and the family1 
and to make marriage as easily          
dissoluble as any other partnership3 in 
other words1 to accept the conclusions  
to which experience is slowly driving   
both our sociologists and our           
legislators4 ,this will not instantly   
cure all the evils of marriage1 nor root
 up at one stroke its detestable        
tradition of property in human bodies4  

,but it will leave ,nature free to      
effect a cure2 and in free soil the root
 may wither and perish4  ,this disposes 
of all the opinions and teachings of    
,jesus which are still matters of       
controversy4 ,they are all in line with 
the best modern thought4 ,he told us    
what we have to do2 and we have had to  
find the way to do it4 ,most of us are  
still1 as most were in his own time1    
extremely recalcitrant1 and are being   
forced along that way by painful        
pressure of circumstances1 protesting at
 every step that nothing will induce us 
to go2 that it is a ridiculous way1 a   
disgraceful way1 a socialistic way1 an  
atheistic way1 an immoral way1 and that 
the vanguard ought to be ashamed of     
themselves and must be made to turn back
 at once4 ,but they find that they have 
to follow the vanguard all the same if  
their lives are to be worth living4     
,,after ,,the ,,crucifixion4  ,let us   
now return to the ,new ,testament       
narrative2 for what happened after the  

disappearance of ,jesus is instructive4 
,unfortunately1 the crucifixion was a   
complete political success4 ,i remember 
that when ,i described it in these terms
 once before1 ,i greatly shocked a most 
respectable newspaper in my native town1
 the ,dublin ,daily ,express1 because my
 journalistic phrase showed that ,i was 
treating it as an ordinary event like   
,home ,rule or the ,insurance ,act3 that
 is 7though this did not occur to the   
editor71 as a real event which had      
really happened1 instead of a portion of
 the ,church service4 ,i can only       
repeat1 assuming as ,i am that it was a 
real event and did actually happen1 that
 it was as complete a success as any in 
history4 ,christianity as a specific    
doctrine was slain with ,jesus1 suddenly
 and utterly4 ,he was hardly cold in his
 grave1 or high in his heaven 7as you   
please71 before the apostles dragged the
 tradition of him down to the level of  
the thing it has remained ever since4   
,and that thing the intelligent heathen 

may study1 if they would be instructed  
in it by modern books1 in ,samuel       
,butler's novel1 ,the ,way of ,all      
,flesh4     ,,the ,,vindictive          
,,miracles ,,and ,,the ,,stoning ,,of   
,,stephen4  ,take1 for example1 the     
miracles4 ,of ,jesus alone of all the   
,christian miracle workers there is no  
record1 except in certain gospels that  
all men reject1 of a malicious or       
destructive miracle4 ,a barren fig-tree 
was the only victim of his anger4 ,every
 one of his miracles on sentient        
subjects was an act of kindness4 ,john  
declares that he healed the wound of the
 man whose ear was cut off 7by ,peter1  
,john says7 at the arrest in the garden4
 ,one of the first things the apostles  
did with their miraculous power was to  
strike dead a wretched man and his wife 
who had defrauded them by holding back  
some money from the common stock4 ,they 
struck people blind or dead without     
remorse1 judging because they had been  
judged4 ,they healed the sick and raised

 the dead apparently in a spirit of pure
 display and advertisement4 ,their      
doctrine did not contain a ray of that  
light which reveals ,jesus as one of the
 redeemers of men from folly and error4 
,they cancelled him1 and went back      
straight to ,john the ,baptist and his  
formula of securing remission of sins by
 repentance and the rite of baptism     
7being born again of water and the      
spirit74 ,peter's first harangue softens
 us by the human touch of its exordium1 
which was a quaint assurance to his     
hearers that they must believe him to be
 sober because it was too early in the  
day to get drunk2 but of ,jesus he had  
nothing to say except that he was the   
,christ foretold by the prophets as     
coming from the seed of ,david1 and that
 they must believe this and be baptized4
 ,to this the other apostles added      
incessant denunciations of the ,jews for
 having crucified him1 and threats of   
the destruction that would overtake them
 if they did not repent3 that is1 if    

they did not join the sect which the    
apostles were now forming4 ,a quite     
intolerable young speaker named ,stephen
 delivered an oration to the council1 in
 which he first inflicted on them a     
tedious sketch of the history of        
,israel1 with which they were presumably
 as well acquainted as he1 and then     
reviled them in the most insulting terms
 as stiffnecked and uncircumcized4      
,finally1 after boring and annoying them
 to the utmost bearable extremity1 he   
looked up and declared that he saw the  
heavens open1 and ,christ standing on   
the right hand of ,god4 ,this was too   
much3 they threw him out of the city and
 stoned him to death4 ,it was a severe  
way of suppressing a tactless and       
conceited bore2 but it was pardonable   
and human in comparison to the slaughter
 of poor ,ananias and ,sapphira4        
,,paul4  ,suddenly a man of genius1     
,paul1 violently anti-,christian1 enters
 on the scene1 holding the clothes of   
the men who are stoning ,stephen4 ,he   

persecutes the ,christians with great   
vigor1 a sport which he combines with   
the business of a tentmaker4 ,this      
temperamental hatred of ,jesus1 whom he 
has never seen1 is a pathological       
symptom of that particular sort of      
conscience and nervous constitution     
which brings its victims under the      
tyranny of two delirious terrors3 the   
terror of sin and the terror of death1  
which may be called also the terror of  
sex and the terror of life4 ,now ,jesus1
 with his healthy conscience on his     
higher plane1 was free from these       
terrors4 ,he consorted freely with      
sinners1 and was never concerned for a  
moment1 as far as we know1 about whether
 his conduct was sinful or not2 so that 
he has forced us to accept him as the   
man without sin4 ,even if we reckon his 
last days as the days of his delusion1  
he none the less gave a fairly          
convincing exhibition of superiority to 
the fear of death4 ,this must have both 
fascinated and horrified ,paul1 or      

,saul1 as he was first called4 ,the     
horror accounts for his fierce          
persecution of the ,christians4 ,the    
fascination accounts for the strangest  
of his fancies3 the fancy for attaching 
the name of ,jesus ,christ to the great 
idea which flashed upon him on the road 
to ,damascus1 the idea that he could not
 only make a religion of his two        
terrors1 but that the movement started  
by ,jesus offered him the nucleus for   
his new ,church4 ,it was a monstrous    
idea2 and the shocks of it1 as he       
afterwards declared1 struck him blind   
for days4 ,he heard ,jesus calling to   
him from the clouds1 ,why persecute me8 
,his natural hatred of the teacher for  
whom ,sin and ,death had no terrors     
turned into a wild personal worship of  
him which has the ghastliness of a      
beautiful thing seen in a false light4  
,the chronicler of the ,acts of the     
,apostles sees nothing of the           
significance of this4 ,the great danger 
of conversion in all ages has been that 

when the religion of the high mind is   
offered to the lower mind1 the lower    
mind1 feeling its fascination without   
understanding it1 and being incapable of
 rising to it1 drags it down to its     
level by degrading it4 ,years ago ,i    
said that the conversion of a savage to 
,christianity is the conversion of      
,christianity to savagery4 ,the         
conversion of ,paul was no conversion at
 all3 it was ,paul who converted the    
religion that had raised one man above  
sin and death into a religion that      
delivered millions of men so completely 
into their dominion that their own      
common nature became a horror to them1  
and the religious life became a denial  
of life4 ,paul had no intention of      
surrendering either his ,judaism or his 
,roman citizenship to the new moral     
world 7as ,robert ,owen called it7 of   
,communism and ,jesuism4 ,just as in the
 ,,xix century ,karl ,marx1 not content 
to take political economy as he found   
it1 insisted on rebuilding it from the  

bottom upwards in his own way1 and      
thereby gave a new lease of life to the 
errors it was just outgrowing1 so ,paul 
reconstructed the old ,salvationism from
 which ,jesus had vainly tried to redeem
 him1 and produced a fantastic theology 
which is still the most amazing thing of
 the kind known to us4 ,being           
intellectually an inveterate ,roman     
,rationalist1 always discarding the     
irrational real thing for the unreal but
 ratiocinable postulate1 he began by    
discarding ,man as he is1 and           
substituted a postulate which he called 
,adam4 ,and when he was asked1 as he    
surely must have been in a world not    
wholly mad1 what had become of the      
natural man1 he replied ,adam ,,is the  
natural man4 ,this was confusing to     
simpletons1 because according to        
tradition ,adam was certainly the name  
of the natural man as created in the    
garden of ,eden4 ,it was as if a        
preacher of our own time had described  
as typically ,british ,frankenstein's   

monster1 and called him ,smith1 and     
somebody1 on demanding what about the   
man in the street1 had been told ,smith 
is the man in the street4 ,the thing    
happens often enough2 for indeed the    
world is full of these ,adams and       
,smiths and men in the street and       
average sensual men and economic men and
 womanly women and what not1 all of them
 imaginary ,atlases carrying imaginary  
worlds on their unsubstantial shoulders4
  ,the ,eden story provided ,adam with a
 sin3 the original sin for which we are 
all damned4 ,baldly stated1 this seems  
ridiculous2 nevertheless it corresponds 
to something actually existent not only 
in ,paul's consciousness but in our own4
 ,the original sin was not the eating of
 the forbidden fruit1 but the           
consciousness of sin which the fruit    
produced4 ,the moment ,adam and ,eve    
tasted the apple they found themselves  
ashamed of their sexual relation1 which 
until then had seemed quite innocent to 
them2 and there is no getting over the  

hard fact that this shame1 or state of  
sin1 has persisted to this day1 and is  
one of the strongest of our instincts4  
,thus ,paul's postulate of ,adam as the 
natural man was pragmatically true3 it  
worked4 ,but the weakness of ,pragmatism
 is that most theories will work if you 
put your back into making them work1    
provided they have some point of contact
 with human nature4 ,hedonism will pass 
the pragmatic test as well as ,stoicism4
 ,up to a certain point every social    
principle that is not absolutely idiotic
 works3 ,autocracy works in ,russia and 
,democracy in ,america2 ,atheism works  
in ,france1 ,polytheism in ,india1      
,monotheism throughout ,islam1 and      
,pragmatism1 or ,no-ism1 in ,england4   
,paul's fantastic conception of the     
damned ,adam1 represented by ,bunyan as 
a pilgrim with a great burden of sins on
 his back1 corresponded to the          
fundamental condition of evolution1     
which is1 that life1 including human    
life1 is continually evolving1 and must 

therefore be continually ashamed of     
itself and its present and past4        
,bunyan's pilgrim wants to get rid of   
his bundle of sins2 but he also wants to
 reach yonder shining light2 and when at
 last his bundle falls off him into the 
sepulchre of ,christ1 his pilgrimage is 
still unfinished and his hardest trials 
still ahead of him4 ,his conscience     
remains uneasy2 original sin still      
torments him2 and his adventure with    
,giant ,despair1 who throws him into the
 dungeon of ,doubting ,castle1 from     
which he escapes by the use of a        
skeleton key1 is more terrible than any 
he met whilst the bundle was still on   
his back4 ,thus ,bunyan's allegory of   
human nature breaks through the ,pauline
 theology at a hundred points4 ,his     
theological allegory1 ,the ,holy ,war1  
with its troops of ,election ,doubters1 
and its cavalry of those that rode      
,reformadoes1 is1 as a whole1 absurd1   
impossible1 and1 except in passages     
where the artistic old ,adam momentarily

 got the better of the ,salvationist    
theologian1 hardly readable4  ,paul's   
theory of original sin was to some      
extent idiosyncratic4 ,he tells us      
definitely that he finds himself quite  
well able to avoid the sinfulness of sex
 by practising celibacy2 but he         
recognizes1 rather contemptuously1 that 
in this respect he is not as other men  
are1 and says that they had better marry
 than burn1 thus admitting that though  
marriage may lead to placing the desire 
to please wife or husband before the    
desire to please ,god1 yet preoccupation
 with unsatisfied desire may be even    
more ungodly than preoccupation with    
domestic affection4 ,this view of the   
case inevitably led him to insist that a
 wife should be rather a slave than a   
partner1 her real function being1 not to
 engage a man's love and loyalty1 but on
 the contrary to release them for ,god  
by relieving the man of all             
preoccupation with sex just as in her   
capacity of a housekeeper and cook she  

relieves his preoccupation with hunger  
by the simple expedient of satisfying   
his appetite4 ,this slavery also        
justifies itself pragmatically by       
working effectively2 but it has made    
,paul the eternal enemy of ,woman4      
,incidentally it has led to many foolish
 surmises about ,paul's personal        
character and circumstance1 by people so
 enslaved by sex that a celibate appears
 to them a sort of monster4 ,they forget
 that not only whole priesthoods1       
official and unofficial1 from ,paul to  
,carlyle and ,ruskin1 have defied the   
tyranny of sex1 but immense numbers of  
ordinary citizens of both sexes have1   
either voluntarily or under pressure of 
circumstances easily surmountable1 saved
 their energies for less primitive      
activities4  ,howbeit1 ,paul succeeded  
in stealing the image of ,christ        
crucified for the figure-head of his    
,salvationist vessel1 with its ,adam    
posing as the natural man1 its doctrine 
of original sin1 and its damnation      

avoidable only by faith in the sacrifice
 of the cross4 ,in fact1 no sooner had  
,jesus knocked over the dragon of       
superstition than ,paul boldly set it on
 its legs again in the name of ,jesus4  
,,the ,,confusion ,,of ,,christendom4   
,now it is evident that two religions   
having such contrary effects on mankind 
should not be confused as they are under
 a common name4 ,there is not one word  
of ,pauline ,christianity in the        
characteristic utterances of ,jesus4    
,when ,saul watched the clothes of the  
men who stoned ,stephen1 he was not     
acting upon beliefs which ,paul         
renounced4 ,there is no record of       
,christ's having ever said to any man3  
,go and sin as much as you like3 you can
 put it all on me4 ,he said ,sin no     
more1 and insisted that he was putting  
up the standard of conduct1 not debasing
 it1 and that the righteousness of the  
,christian must exceed that of the      
,scribe and ,pharisee4 ,the notion that 
he was shedding his blood in order that 

every petty cheat and adulterator and   
libertine might wallow in it and come   
out whiter than snow1 cannot be imputed 
to him on his own authority4 ,i come as 
an infallible patent medicine for bad   
consciences is not one of the sayings in
 the gospels4 ,if ,jesus could have been
 consulted on ,bunyan's allegory as to  
that business of the burden of sin      
dropping from the pilgrim's back when he
 caught sight of the cross1 we must     
infer from his teaching that he would   
have told ,bunyan in forcible terms that
 he had never made a greater mistake in 
his life1 and that the business of a    
,christ was to make self-satisfied      
sinners feel the burden of their sins   
and stop committing them instead of     
assuring them that they could not help  
it1 as it was all ,adam's fault1 but    
that it did not matter as long as they  
were credulous and friendly about       
himself4 ,even when he believed himself 
to be a god1 he did not regard himself  
as a scapegoat4 ,he was to take away the

 sins of the world by good government1  
by justice and mercy1 by setting the    
welfare of little children above the    
pride of princes1 by casting all the    
quackeries and idolatries which now     
usurp and malversate the power of ,god  
into what our local authorities quaintly
 call the dust destructor1 and by riding
 on the clouds of heaven in glory       
instead of in a thousand-guinea motor   
car4 ,that was delirious1 if you like2  
but it was the delirium of a free soul1 
not of a shamebound one like ,paul's4   
,there has really never been a more     
monstrous imposition perpetrated than   
the imposition of the limitations of    
,paul's soul upon the soul of ,jesus4   
,,the ,,secret ,,of ,,paul',s ,,success4
  ,paul must soon have found that his   
followers had gained peace of mind and  
victory over death and sin at the cost  
of all moral responsibility2 for he did 
his best to reintroduce it by making    
good conduct the test of sincere belief1
 and insisting that sincere belief was  

necessary to salvation4 ,but as his     
system was rooted in the plain fact that
 as what he called sin includes sex and 
is therefore an ineradicable part of    
human nature 7why else should ,christ   
have had to atone for the sin of all    
future generations87 it was impossible  
for him to declare that sin1 even in its
 wickedest extremity1 could forfeit the 
sinner's salvation if he repented and   
believed4 ,and to this day ,pauline     
,christianity is1 and owes its enormous 
vogue to being1 a premium on sin4 ,its  
consequences have had to be held in     
check by the worldlywise majority       
through a violently anti-,christian     
system of criminal law and stern        
morality4 ,but of course the main       
restraint is human nature1 which has    
good impulses as well as bad ones1 and  
refrains from theft and murder and      
cruelty1 even when it is taught that it 
can commit them all at the expense of   
,christ and go happily to heaven        
afterwards1 simply because it does not  

always want to murder or rob or torture4
  ,it is now easy to understand why the 
,christianity of ,jesus failed          
completely to establish itself          
politically and socially1 and was easily
 suppressed by the police and the       
,church1 whilst ,paulinism overran the  
whole western civilized world1 which was
 at that time the ,roman ,empire1 and   
was adopted by it as its official faith1
 the old avenging gods falling          
helplessly before the new ,redeemer4 ,it
 still retains1 as we may see in        
,africa1 its power of bringing to simple
 people a message of hope and           
consolation that no other religion      
offers4 ,but this enchantment is        
produced by its spurious association    
with the personal charm of ,jesus1 and  
exists only for untrained minds4 ,in the
 hands of a logical ,frenchman like     
,calvin1 pushing it to its utmost       
conclusions1 and devising institutes for
 hardheaded adult ,scots and literal    
,swiss1 it becomes the most infernal of 

fatalisms2 and the lives of civilized   
children are blighted by its logic      
whilst negro piccaninnies are rejoicing 
in its legends4     ,,paul',s           
,,qualities  ,paul1 however1 did not get
 his great reputation by mere imposition
 and reaction4 ,it is only in comparison
 with ,jesus 7to whom many prefer him7  
that he appears common and conceited4   
,though in ,the ,acts he is only a      
vulgar revivalist1 he comes out in his  
own epistles as a genuine poet1--though 
by flashes only4 ,he is no more a       
,christian than ,jesus was a ,baptist2  
he is a disciple of ,jesus only as      
,jesus was a disciple of ,john4 ,he does
 nothing that ,jesus would have done1   
and says nothing that ,jesus would have 
said1 though much1 like the famous ode  
to charity1 that he would have admired4 
,he is more ,jewish than the ,jews1 more
 ,roman than the ,romans1 proud both    
ways1 full of startling confessions and 
self-revelations that would not surprise
 us if they were slipped into the pages 

of ,nietzsche1 tormented by an          
intellectual conscience that demanded an
 argued case even at the cost of        
sophistry1 with all sorts of fine       
qualities and occasional illuminations1 
but always hopelessly in the toils of   
,sin1 ,death1 and ,logic1 which had no  
power over ,jesus4 ,as we have seen1 it 
was by introducing this bondage and     
terror of his into the ,christian       
doctrine that he adapted it to the      
,church and ,state systems which ,jesus 
transcended1 and made it practicable by 
destroying the specifically ,jesuist    
side of it4 ,he would have been quite in
 his place in any modern ,protestant    
,state2 and he1 not ,jesus1 is the true 
head and founder of our ,reformed       
,church1 as ,peter is of the ,roman     
,church4 ,the followers of ,paul and    
,peter made ,christendom1 whilst the    
,nazarenes were wiped out4     ,,the    
,,acts ,,of ,,the ,,apostles4  ,here we 
may return to the narrative called ,the 
,acts of the ,apostles1 which we left at

 the point where the stoning of ,stephen
 was followed by the introduction of    
,paul4 ,the author of ,the ,acts1 though
 a good story-teller1 like ,luke1 was   
7herein also like ,luke7 much weaker in 
power of thought than in imaginative    
literary art4 ,hence we find ,luke      
credited with the authorship of ,the    
,acts by people who like stories and    
have no aptitude for theology1 whilst   
the book itself is denounced as spurious
 by ,pauline theologians because ,paul1 
and indeed all the apostles1 are        
represented in it as very commonplace   
revivalists1 interesting us by their    
adventures more than by any qualities of
 mind or character4 ,indeed1 but for the
 epistles1 we should have a very poor   
opinion of the apostles4 ,paul in       
particular is described as setting a    
fashion which has remained in continual 
use to this day4 ,whenever he addresses 
an audience1 he dwells with great zest  
on his misdeeds before his pseudo       
conversion1 with the effect of throwing 

into stronger relief his present state  
of blessedness2 and he tells the story  
of that conversion over and over again1 
ending with exhortations to the hearers 
to come and be saved1 and threats of the
 wrath that will overtake them if they  
refuse4 ,at any revival meeting today   
the same thing may be heard1 followed by
 the same conversions4 ,this is natural 
enough2 but it is totally unlike the    
preaching of ,jesus1 who never talked   
about his personal history1 and never   
worked up an audience to hysteria4 ,it  
aims at a purely nervous effect2 it     
brings no enlightenment2 the most       
ignorant man has only to become         
intoxicated with his own vanity1 and    
mistake his self-satisfaction for the   
,holy ,ghost1 to become qualified as an 
apostle2 and it has absolutely nothing  
to do with the characteristic doctrines 
of ,jesus4 ,the ,holy ,ghost may be at  
work all round producing wonders of art 
and science1 and strengthening men to   
endure all sorts of martyrdoms for the  

enlargement of knowledge1 and the       
enrichment and intensification of life  
7that ye may have life more abundantly72
 but the apostles1 as described in ,the 
,acts1 take no part in the struggle     
except as persecutors and revilers4 ,to 
this day1 when their successors get the 
upper hand1 as in ,geneva 7,knox's      
perfect city of ,christ7 and in         
,scotland and ,ulster1 every spiritual  
activity but moneymaking and churchgoing
 is stamped out2 heretics are ruthlessly
 persecuted2 and such pleasures as money
 can purchase are suppressed so that its
 possessors are compelled to go on      
making money because there is nothing   
else to do4 ,and the compensation for   
all this privation is partly an insane  
conceit of being the elect of ,god1 with
 a reserved seat in heaven1 and partly1 
since even the most infatuated idiot    
cannot spend his life admiring himself1 
the less innocent excitement of         
punishing other people for not admiring 
him1 and the nosing out of the sins of  

the people who1 being intelligent enough
 to be incapable of mere dull           
self-righteousness1 and highly          
susceptible to the beauty and interest  
of the real workings of the ,holy       
,ghost1 try to live more rational and   
abundant lives4 ,the abominable         
amusement of terrifying children with   
threats of hell is another of these     
diversions1 and perhaps the vilest and  
most mischievous of them4 ,the net      
result is that the imitators of the     
apostles1 whether they are called ,holy 
,willies or ,stigginses in derision1 or1
 in admiration1 ,puritans or saints1    
are1 outside their own congregations1   
and to a considerable extent inside     
them1 heartily detested4 ,now nobody    
detests ,jesus1 though many who have    
been tormented in their childhood in his
 name include him in their general      
loathing of everything connected with   
the word religion2 whilst others1 who   
know him only by misrepresentation as a 
sentimental pacifist and an ascetic1    

include him in their general dislike of 
that type of character4 ,in the same way
 a student who has had to get up        
,shakespear as a college subject may    
hate ,shakespear2 and people who dislike
 the theatre may include ,moliere in    
that dislike without ever having read a 
line of his or witnessed one of his     
plays2 but nobody with any knowledge of 
,shakespear or ,moliere could possibly  
detest them1 or read without pity and   
horror a description of their being     
insulted1 tortured1 and killed4 ,and the
 same is true of ,jesus4 ,but it        
requires the most strenuous effort of   
conscience to refrain from crying ,serve
 him right when we read of the stoning  
of ,stephen2 and nobody has ever cared  
twopence about the martyrdom of ,peter3 
many better men have died worse deaths3 
for example1 honest ,hugh ,latimer1 who 
was burned by us1 was worth fifty       
,stephens and a dozen ,peters4 ,one     
feels at last that when ,jesus called   
,peter from his boat1 he spoiled an     

honest fisherman1 and made nothing      
better out of the wreck than a salvation
 monger4     ,,the ,,controversies ,,on 
,,baptism ,,and ,,transubstantiation4   
,meanwhile the inevitable effect of     
dropping the peculiar doctrines of      
,jesus and going back to ,john the      
,baptist1 was to make it much easier to 
convert ,gentiles than ,jews2 and it was
 by following the line of least         
resistance that ,paul became the apostle
 to the ,gentiles4 ,the ,jews had their 
own rite of initiation3 the rite of     
circumcision2 and they were fiercely    
jealous for it1 because it marked them  
as the chosen people of ,god1 and set   
them apart from the ,gentiles1 who were 
simply the uncircumcized4 ,when ,paul1  
finding that baptism made way faster    
among the ,gentiles than among the      
,jews1 as it enabled them to plead that 
they too were sanctified by a rite of   
later and higher authority than the     
,mosaic rite1 he was compelled to admit 
that circumcision did not matter2 and   

this1 to the ,jews1 was an intolerable  
blasphemy4 ,to ,gentiles like ourselves1
 a good deal of the ,epistle to the     
,romans is now tedious to unreadableness
 because it consists of a hopeless      
attempt by ,paul to evade the conclusion
 that if a man were baptized it did not 
matter a rap whether he was circumcized 
or not4 ,paul claims circumcision as an 
excellent thing in its way for a ,jew2  
but if it has no efficacy towards       
salvation1 and if salvation is the one  
thing needful--and ,paul was committed  
to both propositions--his pleas in      
mitigation only made the ,jews more     
determined to stone him4  ,thus from the
 very beginning of apostolic            
,christianity1 it was hampered by a     
dispute as to whether salvation was to  
be attained by a surgical operation or  
by a sprinkling of water3 mere rites on 
which ,jesus would not have wasted      
twenty words4 ,later on1 when the new   
sect conquered the ,gentile west1 where 
the dispute had no practical            

application1 the other ceremony--that of
 eating the god--produced a still more  
disastrous dispute1 in which a          
difference of belief1 not as to the     
obligation to perform the ceremony1 but 
as to whether it was a symbolic or a    
real ingestion of divine substance1     
produced persecution1 slaughter1 hatred1
 and everything that ,jesus loathed1 on 
a monstrous scale4  ,but long before    
that1 the superstitions which had       
fastened on the new faith made trouble4 
,the parthenogenetic birth of ,christ1  
simple enough at first as a popular     
miracle1 was not left so simple by the  
theologians4 ,they began to ask of what 
substance ,christ was made in the womb  
of the virgin4 ,when the ,trinity was   
added to the faith the question arose1  
was the virgin the mother of ,god or    
only the mother of ,jesus8 ,arian       
schisms and ,nestorian schisms arose on 
these questions2 and the leaders of the 
resultant agitations rancorously deposed
 one another and excommunicated one     

another according to their luck in      
enlisting the emperors on their side4   
,in the ,,iv century they began to burn 
one another for differences of opinion  
in such matters4 ,in the ,,viii century 
,charlemagne made ,christianity         
compulsory by killing those who refused 
to embrace it2 and though this made an  
end of the voluntary character of       
conversion1 ,charlemagne may claim to be
 the first ,christian who put men to    
death for any point of doctrine that    
really mattered4 ,from his time onward  
the history of ,christian controversy   
reeks with blood and fire1 torture and  
warfare4 ,the ,crusades1 the            
persecutions in ,albi and elsewhere1 the
 ,inquisition1 the wars of religion     
which followed the ,reformation1 all    
presented themselves as ,christian      
phenomena2 but who can doubt that they  
would have been repudiated with horror  
by ,jesus8 ,our own notion that the     
massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew's was an  
outrage on ,christianity1 whilst the    

campaigns of ,gustavus ,adolphus1 and   
even of ,frederick the ,great1 were a   
defence of it1 is as absurd as the      
opposite notion that ,frederick was     
,antichrist and ,torquemada and         
,ignatius ,loyola men after the very    
heart of ,jesus4 ,neither they nor their
 exploits had anything to do with him4  
,it is probable that ,archbishop ,laud  
and ,john ,wesley died equally persuaded
 that he in whose name they had made    
themselves famous on earth would receive
 them in ,heaven with open arms4 ,poor  
,fox the ,quaker would have had ten     
times their chance2 and yet ,fox made   
rather a miserable business of life4    
,nevertheless all these perversions of  
the doctrine of ,jesus derived their    
moral force from his credit1 and so had 
to keep his gospel alive4 ,when the     
,protestants translated the ,bible into 
the vernacular and let it loose among   
the people1 they did an extremely       
dangerous thing1 as the mischief which  
followed proves2 but they incidentally  

let loose the sayings of ,jesus in open 
competition with the sayings of ,paul   
and ,koheleth and ,david and ,solomon   
and the authors of ,job and the         
,pentateuch2 and1 as we have seen1      
,jesus seems to be the winning name4    
,the glaring contradiction between his  
teaching and the practice of all the    
,states and all the ,churches is no     
longer hidden4 ,and it may be that      
though nineteen centuries have passed   
since ,jesus was born 7the date of his  
birth is now quaintly given as #g       
,b4,c41 though some contend for #ajj    
,b4,c471 and though his ,church has not 
yet been founded nor his political      
system tried1 the bankruptcy of all the 
other systems when audited by our vital 
statistics1 which give us a final test  
for all political systems1 is driving us
 hard into accepting him1 not as a      
scapegoat1 but as one who was much less 
of a fool in practical matters than we  
have hitherto all thought him4     ,,the
 ,,alternative ,,christs4  ,let us now  

clear up the situation a little4 ,the   
,new ,testament tells two stories for   
two different sorts of readers4 ,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 day3 the story as it was accepted 
by the apostles4 ,and in this story the 
political1 economic1 and moral views of 
the ,christ have no importance3 the     
atonement is everything2 and we are     
saved by our faith in it1 and not by    
works or opinions 7other than that      
particular opinion7 bearing on practical
 affairs4  ,the other is the story of a 
prophet who1 after expressing several   
very interesting opinions as to         
practical conduct1 both personal and    
political1 which are now of pressing    
importance1 and instructing his         
disciples to carry them out in their    
daily life1 lost his head2 believed     
himself to be a crude legendary form of 
god2 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 world4 ,in this form1 the   
political1 economic and moral opinions  
of ,jesus1 as guides to conduct1 are    
interesting and important3 the rest is  
mere psychopathy and superstition4 ,the 
accounts of the resurrection1 the       
parthenogenetic birth1 and the more     
incredible miracles are rejected as     
inventions2 and such episodes as the    
conversation with the devil are classed 
with similar conversations recorded of  
,st4 ,dunstan1 ,luther1 ,bunyan1        
,swedenborg1 and ,blake4     ,,credulity
 ,,no ,,criterion4  ,this arbitrary     
acceptance and rejection of parts of the
 gospel is not peculiar to the          
,secularist view4 ,we have seen ,luke   
and ,john reject ,matthew's story of the
 massacre of the innocents and the      
flight into ,egypt without ceremony4    
,the notion that ,matthew's manuscript  
is a literal and infallible record of   

facts1 not subject to the errors that   
beset all earthly chroniclers1 would    
have made ,john stare1 being as it is a 
comparatively modern fancy of           
intellectually untrained people who keep
 the ,bible on the same shelf1 with     
,napoleon's ,book of ,fate1 ,old        
,moore's ,almanack1 and handbooks of    
therapeutic herbalism4 ,you may be a    
fanatical ,salvationist and reject more 
miracle stories than ,huxley did2 and   
you may utterly repudiate ,jesus as the 
,savior and yet cite him as a historical
 witness to the possession by men of the
 most marvellous thaumaturgical powers4 
,christ ,scientist and ,jesus the       
,mahatma are preached by people whom    
,peter would have struck dead as worse  
infidels than ,simon ,magus2 and the    
,atonement2 is preached by ,baptist and 
,congregationalist ministers whose views
 of the miracles are those of ,ingersoll
 and ,bradlaugh4 ,luther1 who made a    
clean sweep of all the saints with their
 million miracles1 and reduced the      

,blessed ,virgin herself to the status  
of an idol1 concentrated ,salvationism  
to a point at which the most execrable  
murderer who believes in it when the    
rope is round his neck1 flies straight  
to the arms of ,jesus1 whilst ,tom      
,paine and ,shelley fall into the       
bottomless pit to burn there to all     
eternity4 ,and sceptical physicists like
 ,sir ,william ,crookes demonstrate by  
laboratory experiments that mediums like
 ,douglas ,home can make the pointer of 
a spring-balance go round without       
touching the weight suspended from it4  
,,belief ,,in ,,personal ,,immortality  
,,no ,,criterion4  ,nor is belief in    
individual immortality any criterion4   
,theosophists1 rejecting vicarious      
atonement so sternly that they insist   
that the smallest of our sins brings its
 ,karma1 also insist on individual      
immortality and metempsychosis in order 
to provide an unlimited field for ,karma
 to be worked out by the unredeemed     
sinner4 ,the belief in the prolongation 

of individual life beyond the grave is  
far more real and vivid among           
table-rapping ,spiritualists than among 
conventional ,christians4 ,the notion   
that those who reject the ,christian 7or
 any other7 scheme of salvation by      
atonement must reject also belief in    
personal immortality and in miracles is 
as baseless as the notion that if a man 
is an atheist he will steal your watch4 
,i could multiply these instances to    
weariness4 ,the main difference that set
 ,gladstone and ,huxley by the ears is  
not one between belief in supernatural  
persons or miraculous events and the    
sternest view of such belief as a breach
 of intellectual integrity3 it is the   
difference between belief in the        
efficacy of the crucifixion as an       
infallible cure for guilt1 and a        
congenital incapacity for believing     
this1 or 7the same thing7 desiring to   
believe it4     ,,the ,,secular ,,view  
,,natural1 ,,not ,,rational1 ,,therefore
 ,,inevitable4  ,it must therefore be   

taken as a flat fundamental modern fact1
 whether we like it or not1 that whilst 
many of us cannot believe that ,jesus   
got his curious grip of our souls by    
mere sentimentality1 neither can we     
believe that he was ,john ,barleycorn4  
,the more our reason and study lead us  
to believe that ,jesus was talking the  
most penetrating good sense when he     
preached ,communism2 when he declared   
that the reality behind the popular     
belief in ,god was a creative spirit in 
ourselves1 called by him the ,heavenly  
,father and by us ,evolution1 ,elan     
,vital1 ,life ,force and other names2   
when he protested against the claims of 
marriage and the family to appropriate  
that high part of our energy that was   
meant for the service of his ,father1   
the more impossible it becomes for us to
 believe that he was talking equally    
good sense when he so suddenly announced
 that he was himself a visible concrete 
,god2 that his flesh and blood were     
miraculous food for us2 that he must be 

tortured and slain in the traditional   
manner and would rise from the dead     
after three days2 and that at his second
 coming the stars would fall from heaven
 and he become king of an earthly       
paradise4 ,but it is easy and reasonable
 to believe that an overwrought preacher
 at last went mad as ,swift and ,ruskin 
and ,nietzsche went mad4 ,every asylum  
has in it a patient suffering from the  
delusion that he is a god1 yet otherwise
 sane enough4 ,these patients do not    
nowadays declare that they will be      
barbarously slain and will rise from the
 dead1 because they have lost that      
tradition of the destiny of godhead2 but
 they claim everything appertaining to  
divinity that is within their knowledge4
  ,thus the gospels as memoirs and      
suggestive statements of sociological   
and biological doctrine1 highly relevant
 to modern civilization1 though ending  
in the history of a psycopathic         
delusion1 are quite credible1           
intelligible1 and interesting to modern 

thinkers4 ,in any other light they are  
neither credible1 intelligible1 nor     
interesting except to people upon whom  
the delusion imposes4     ,,the ,,higher
 ,,criticism4  ,historical research and 
paleographic criticism will no doubt    
continue their demonstrations that the  
,new ,testament1 like the ,old1 seldom  
tells a single story or expounds a      
single doctrine1 and gives us often an  
accretion and conglomeration of widely  
discrete and even unrelated traditions  
and doctrines4 ,but these               
disintegrations1 though technically     
interesting to scholars1 and gratifying 
or exasperating1 as the case may be1 to 
people who are merely defending or      
attacking the paper fortifications of   
the infallibility of the ,bible1 have   
hardly anything to do with the purpose  
of these pages4 ,i have mentioned the   
fact that most of the authorities are   
now agreed 7for the moment7 that the    
date of the birth of ,jesus may be      
placed at about #g ,b4,c42 but they do  

not therefore date their letters #aibc1 
nor1 ,i presume1 do they expect me to do
 so4 ,what ,i am engaged in is a        
criticism 7in the ,kantian sense7 of an 
established body of belief which has    
become an actual part of the mental     
fabric of my readers2 and ,i should be  
the most exasperating of triflers and   
pedants if ,i were to digress into a    
criticism of some other belief or       
no-belief which my readers might        
conceivably profess if they were erudite
 ,scriptural paleographers and          
historians1 in which case1 by the way1  
they would have to change their views so
 frequently that the gospel they        
received in their childhood would       
dominate them after all by its superior 
persistency4 ,the chaos of mere facts in
 which the ,sermon on the ,mount and the
 ,ode to ,charity suggest nothing but   
disputes as to whether they are         
interpolations or not1 in which ,jesus  
becomes nothing but a name suspected of 
belonging to ten different prophets or  

executed persons1 in which ,paul is only
 the man who could not possibly have    
written the epistles attributed to him1 
in which ,chinese sages1 ,greek         
philosophers1 ,latin authors1 and       
writers of ancient anonymous            
inscriptions are thrown at our heads as 
the sources of this or that scrap of the
 ,bible1 is neither a religion nor a    
criticism of religion3 one does not     
offer the fact that a good deal of the  
medieval building in ,peterborough      
,cathedral was found to be flagrant     
jerry-building as a criticism of the    
,dean's sermons4 ,for good or evil1 we  
have made a synthesis out of the        
literature we call the ,bible2 and      
though the discovery that there is a    
good deal of jerry-building in the      
,bible is interesting in its way1       
because everything about the ,bible is  
interesting1 it does not alter the      
synthesis very materially even for the  
paleographers1 and does not alter it at 
all for those who know no more about    

modern paleography than ,archbishop     
,ussher did4 ,i have therefore indicated
 little more of the discoveries than    
,archbishop ,ussher might have guessed  
for himself if he had read the ,bible   
without prepossessions4  ,for the rest1 
,i have taken the synthesis as it really
 lives and works in men4 ,after all1 a  
synthesis is what you want3 it is the   
case you have to judge brought to an    
apprehensible issue for you4 ,even if   
you have little more respect for        
synthetic biography than for synthetic  
rubber1 synthetic milk1 and the still   
unachieved synthetic protoplasm which is
 to enable us to make different sorts of
 men as a pastry cook makes different   
sorts of tarts1 the practical issue     
still lies as plainly before you as     
before the most credulous votaries of   
what pontificates as the ,higher        
,criticism4     ,,the ,,perils ,,of     
,,salvationism4  ,the secular view of   
,jesus is powerfully reinforced by the  
increase in our day of the number of    

people who have had the means of        
educating and training themselves to the
 point at which they are not afraid to  
look facts in the face1 even such       
terrifying facts as sin and death4 ,the 
result is greater sternness in modern   
thought4 ,the conviction is spreading   
that to encourage a man to believe that 
though his sins be as scarlet he can be 
made whiter than snow by an easy        
exercise of self-conceit1 is to         
encourage him to be a rascal4 ,it did   
not work so badly when you could also   
conscientiously assure him that if he   
let himself be caught napping in the    
matter of faith by death1 a red-hot hell
 would roast him alive to all eternity4 
,in those days a sudden death--the most 
enviable of all deaths--was regarded as 
the most frightful calamity4 ,it was    
classed with plague1 pestilence1 and    
famine1 battle and murder1 in our       
prayers4 ,but belief in that hell is    
fast vanishing4 ,all the leaders of     
thought have lost it2 and even for the  

rank and file it has fled to those parts
 of ,ireland and ,scotland which are    
still in the ,,xvii century4 ,even      
there1 it is tacitly reserved for the   
other fellow4     ,,the ,,importance    
,,of ,,hell ,,in ,,the ,,salvation      
,,scheme4  ,the seriousness of throwing 
over hell whilst still clinging to the  
,atonement is obvious4 ,if there is no  
punishment for sin there can be no      
self-forgiveness for it4 ,if ,christ    
paid our score1 and if there is no hell 
and therefore no chance of our getting  
into trouble by forgetting the          
obligation1 then we can be as wicked as 
we like with impunity inside the secular
 law1 even from self-reproach1 which    
becomes mere ingratitude to the ,savior4
 ,on the other hand1 if ,christ did not 
pay our score1 it still stands against  
us2 and such debts make us extremely    
uncomfortable4 ,the drive of evolution1 
which we call conscience and honor1     
seizes on such slips1 and shames us to  
the dust for being so low in the scale  

as to be capable of them4 ,the saved    
thief experiences an ecstatic happiness 
which can never come to the honest      
atheist3 he is tempted to steal again to
 repeat the glorious sensation4 ,but if 
the atheist steals he has no such       
happiness4 ,he is a thief and knows that
 he is a thief4 ,nothing can rub that   
off him4 ,he may try to sooth his shame 
by some sort of restitution or          
equivalent act of benevolence2 but that 
does not alter the fact that he did     
steal2 and his conscience will not be   
easy until he has conquered his will to 
steal and changed himself into an honest
 man by developing that divine spark    
within him which ,jesus insisted on as  
the everyday reality of what the atheist
 denies4  ,now though the state of the  
believers in the atonement may thus be  
the happier1 it is most certainly not   
more desirable from the point of view of
 the community4 ,the fact that a        
believer is happier than a sceptic is no
 more to the point than the fact that a 

drunken man is happier than a sober one4
 ,the happiness of credulity is a cheap 
and dangerous quality of happiness1 and 
by no means a necessity of life4        
,whether ,socrates got as much happiness
 out of life as ,wesley is an           
unanswerable question2 but a nation of  
,socrateses would be much safer and     
happier than a nation of ,wesleys2 and  
its individuals would be higher in the  
evolutionary scale4 ,at all events it is
 in the ,socratic man and not in the    
,wesleyan that our hope lies now4       
,,the ,,right ,,to ,,refuse ,,atonement4
  ,consequently1 even if it were        
mentally possible for all of us to      
believe in the ,atonement1 we should    
have to cry off it1 as we evidently have
 a right to do4 ,every man to whom      
salvation is offered has an inalienable 
natural right to say ,no1 thank you3 ,i 
prefer to retain my full moral          
responsibility3 it is not good for me to
 be able to load a scapegoat with my    
sins3 ,i should be less careful how ,i  

committed them if ,i knew they would    
cost me nothing4 ,then1 too1 there is   
the attitude of ,ibsen3 that iron       
moralist to whom the whole scheme of    
salvation was only an ignoble attempt to
 cheat ,god2 to get into heaven without 
paying the price4 ,to be let off1 to beg
 for and accept eternal life as a       
present instead of earning it1 would be 
mean enough even if we accepted the     
contempt of the ,power on whose pity we 
were trading2 but to bargain for a crown
 of glory as well6 that was too much for
 ,ibsen3 it provoked him to exclaim1    
,your ,god is an old man whom you cheat1
 and to lash the deadened conscience of 
the ,,xix century back to life with a   
whip of scorpions4     ,,the ,,teaching 
,,of ,,christianity4  ,and there ,i must
 leave the matter to such choice as your
 nature allows you4 ,the honest teacher 
who has to make known to a novice the   
facts about ,christianity cannot in any 
essential regard1 ,i think1 put the     
facts otherwise than as ,i have put     

them4 ,if children are to be delivered  
from the proselytizing atheist on the   
one hand1 and the proselytizing nun in  
the convent school on the other1 with   
all the other proselytizers that lie    
between them1 they must not be burdened 
with idle controversies as to whether   
there was ever such a person as ,jesus  
or not4 ,when ,hume said that ,joshua's 
campaigns were impossible1 ,whately did 
not wrangle about it3 he proved1 on the 
same lines1 that the campaigns of       
,napoleon were impossible4 ,only        
fictitious characters will stand ,hume's
 sort of examination3 nothing will ever 
make ,edward the ,confessor and ,st4    
,louis as real to us as ,don ,quixote   
and ,mr4 ,pickwick4 ,we must cut the    
controversy short by declaring that     
there is the same evidence for the      
existence of ,jesus as for that of any  
other person of his time2 and the fact  
that you may not believe everything     
,matthew tells you no more disproves the
 existence of ,jesus than the fact that 

you do not believe everything ,macaulay 
tells you disproves the existence of    
,william ,,iii4 ,the gospel narratives  
in the main give you a biography which  
is quite credible and accountable on    
purely secular grounds when you have    
trimmed off everything that ,hume or    
,grimm or ,rousseau or ,huxley or any   
modern bishop could reject as fanciful4 
,without going further than this1 you   
can become a follower of ,jesus just as 
you can become a follower of ,confucius 
or ,lao ,tse1 and may therefore call    
yourself a ,jesuist1 or even a          
,christian1 if you hold1 as the         
strictest ,secularist quite legitimately
 may1 that all prophets are inspired1   
and all men with a mission1 ,christs4   
,the teacher of ,christianity has then  
to make known to the child1 first the   
song of ,john ,barleycorn1 with the     
fields and seasons as witness to its    
eternal truth4 ,then1 as the child's    
mind matures1 it can learn1 as          
historical and psychological phenomena1 

the tradition of the scapegoat1 the     
,redeemer1 the ,atonement1 the          
,resurrection1 the ,second ,coming1 and 
how1 in a world saturated with this     
tradition1 ,jesus has been largely      
accepted as the long expected and often 
prophesied ,redeemer1 the ,messiah1 the 
,christ4 ,it is open to the child also  
to accept him4 ,if the child is built   
like ,gladstone1 he will accept ,jesus  
as his ,savior1 and ,peter and ,john the
 ,baptist as the ,savior's revealer and 
forerunner respectively4 ,if he is built
 like ,huxley1 he will take the secular 
view1 in spite of all that a pious      
family can do to prevent him4 ,the      
important thing now is that the         
,gladstones and ,huxleys should no      
longer waste their time irrelevantly and
 ridiculously wrangling about the       
,gadarene swine1 and that they should   
make up their minds as to the soundness 
of the secular doctrines of ,jesus2 for 
it is about these that they may come to 
blows in our own time4                  

,,christianity ,,and ,,the ,,empire4    
,finally1 let us ask why it is that the 
old superstitions have so suddenly lost 
countenance that although1 to the utter 
disgrace of the nation's leaders and    
rulers1 the laws by which persecutors   
can destroy or gag all freedom of       
thought and speech in these matters are 
still unrepealed and ready to the hand  
of our bigots and fanatics 7quite       
recently a respectable shopkeeper was   
convicted of blasphemy for saying that  
if a modern girl accounted for an       
illicit pregnancy by saying she had     
conceived of the ,holy ,ghost1 we should
 know what to think3 a remark which     
would never have occurred to him had he 
been properly taught how the story was  
grafted on the gospel71 yet somehow they
 are used only against poor men1 and    
that only in a half-hearted way4 ,when  
we consider that from the time when the 
first scholar ventured to whisper as a  
professional secret that the ,pentateuch
 could not possibly have been written by

 ,moses to the time within my own       
recollection when ,bishop ,colenso1 for 
saying the same thing openly1 was       
inhibited from preaching and actually   
excommunicated1 eight centuries elapsed 
7the point at issue1 though technically 
interesting to paleographers and        
historians1 having no more bearing on   
human welfare than the controversy as to
 whether uncial or cursive is the older 
form of writing72 yet now1 within fifty 
years of ,colenso's heresy1 there is not
 a ,churchman of any authority living1  
or an educated layman1 who could without
 ridicule declare that ,moses wrote the 
,pentateuch as ,pascal wrote his        
,thoughts or ,d',aubigny his ,history of
 the ,reformation1 or that ,st4 ,jerome 
wrote the passage about the three       
witnesses in the ,vulgate1 or that there
 are less than three different accounts 
of the creation jumbled together in the 
book of ,genesis4 ,now the maddest      
,progressive will hardly contend that   
our growth in wisdom and liberality has 

been greater in the last half century   
than in the sixteen half centuries      
preceding3 indeed it would be easier to 
sustain the thesis that the last fifty  
years have witnessed a distinct reaction
 from ,victorian ,liberalism to         
,collectivism which has perceptibly     
strengthened the ,state ,churches4 ,yet 
the fact remains that whereas ,byron's  
,cain1 published a century ago1 is a    
leading case on the point that there is 
no copyright in a blasphemous book1 the 
,salvation ,army might now include it   
among its publications without shocking 
anyone4  ,i suggest that the causes     
which have produced this sudden clearing
 of the air include the transformation  
of many modern ,states1 notably the old 
self-contained ,french ,republic and the
 tight little ,island of ,britain1 into 
empires which overflow the frontiers of 
all the ,churches4 ,in ,india1 for      
example1 there are less than four       
million ,christians out of a population 
of three hundred and sixteen and a half 

millions4 ,the ,king of ,england is the 
defender of the faith2 but what faith is
 now ,,the faith8 ,the inhabitants of   
this island would1 within the memory of 
persons still living1 have claimed that 
their faith is surely the faith of ,god1
 and that all others are heathen4 ,but  
we islanders are only forty-five        
millions2 and if we count ourselves all 
as ,christians1 there are still         
seventy-seven and a quarter million     
,mahometans in the ,empire4 ,add to     
these the ,hindoos and ,buddhists1      
,sikhs and ,jains1 whom ,i was taught in
 my childhood1 by way of religious      
instruction1 to regard as gross         
idolators consigned to eternal          
perdition1 but whose faith ,i can now be
 punished for disparaging by a          
provocative word1 and you have a total  
of over three hundred and forty-two and 
a quarter million heretics to swamp our 
forty-five million ,britons1 of whom1 by
 the way1 only six thousand call        
themselves distinctively disciples of   

,christ1 the rest being members of the  
,church of ,england and other           
denominations whose discipleship is less
 emphatically affirmed4 ,in short1 the  
,englishman of today1 instead of being1 
like the forefathers whose ideas he     
clings to1 a subject of a ,state        
practically wholly ,christian1 is now   
crowded1 and indeed considerably        
overcrowded1 into a corner of an ,empire
 in which the ,christians are a mere    
eleven per cent of the population2 so   
that the ,nonconformist who allows his  
umbrella stand to be sold up rather than
 pay rates towards the support of a     
,church of ,england school1 finds       
himself paying taxes not only to endow  
the ,church of ,rome in ,malta1 but to  
send ,christians to prison for the      
blasphemy of offering ,bibles for sale  
in the streets of ,khartoum4 ,turn to   
,france1 a country ten times more       
insular in its pre-occupation with its  
own language1 its own history1 its own  
character1 than we1 who have always been

 explorers and colonizers and grumblers4
 ,this once self-centred nation is forty
 millions strong4 ,the total population 
of the ,french ,republic is about one   
hundred and fourteen millions4 ,the     
,french are not in our hopeless         
,christian minority of eleven per cent2 
but they are in a minority of           
thirty-five per cent1 which is fairly   
conclusive4 ,and1 being a more logical  
people than we1 they have officially    
abandoned ,christianity and declared    
that the ,french ,state has no specific 
religion4  ,neither has the ,british    
,state1 though it does not say so4 ,no  
doubt there are many innocent people in 
,england who take ,charlemagne's view1  
and would1 as a matter of course1 offer 
our eighty-nine per cent of pagans1 ,i  
regret to say the alternative of death  
or ,christianity but for a vague        
impression that these lost ones are all 
being converted gradually by the        
missionaries4 ,but no statesman can     
entertain such ludicrously parochial    

delusions4 ,no ,english king or ,french 
president can possibly govern on the    
assumption that the theology of ,peter  
and ,paul1 ,luther and ,calvin1 has any 
objective validity1 or that the ,christ 
is more than the ,buddha1 or ,jehovah   
more than ,krishna1 or ,jesus more or   
less human than ,mahomet or ,zoroaster  
or ,confucius4 ,he is actually          
compelled1 in so far as he makes laws   
against blasphemy at all1 to treat all  
the religions1 including ,christianity1 
as blasphemous1 when paraded before     
people who are not accustomed to them   
and do not want them4 ,and even that is 
a concession to a mischievous           
intolerance which an empire should use  
its control of education to eradicate4  
,on the other hand1 ,governments cannot 
really divest themselves of religion1 or
 even of dogma4 ,when ,jesus said that  
people should not only live but live    
more abundantly1 he was dogmatizing2 and
 many ,pessimist sages1 including       
,shakespear1 whose hero begged his      

friend to refrain from suicide in the   
words ,absent thee from felicity awhile1
 would say dogmatizing very             
perniciously4 ,indeed many preachers and
 saints declare1 some of them in the    
name of ,jesus himself1 that this world 
is a vale of tears1 and that our lives  
had better be passed in sorrow and even 
in torment1 as a preparation for a      
better life to come4 ,make these sad    
people comfortable2 and they baffle you 
by putting on hair shirts4 ,none the    
less1 governments must proceed on       
dogmatic assumptions1 whether they call 
them dogmas or not2 and they must       
clearly be assumptions common enough to 
stamp those who reject them as          
eccentrics or lunatics4 ,and the greater
 and more heterogeneous the population  
the commoner the assumptions must be4 ,a
 ,trappist monastery can be conducted on
 assumptions which would in twenty-fours
 hours provoke the village at its gates 
to insurrection4 ,that is because the   
monastery selects its people2 and if a  

,trappist does not like it he can leave 
it4 ,but a subject of the ,british      
,empire or the ,french ,republic is not 
selected2 and if he does not like it he 
must lump it2 for emigration is         
practicable only within narrow limits1  
and seldom provides an effective remedy1
 all civilizations being now much alike4
 ,to anyone capable of comprehending    
government at all it must be evident    
without argument that the set of        
fundamental assumptions drawn up in the 
thirty-nine articles or in the          
,westminster ,confession are wildly     
impossible as political constitutions   
for modern empires4 ,a personal         
profession of them by any person        
disposed to take such professions       
seriously would practically disqualify  
him for high imperial office4 ,a        
,calvinist ,viceroy of ,india and a     
,particular ,baptist ,secretary of      
,state for ,foreign ,affairs would wreck
 the empire4 ,the ,stuarts wrecked even 
the tight little island which was the   

nucleus of the empire by their ,scottish
 logic and theological dogma2 and it may
 be sustained very plausibly that the   
alleged aptitude of the ,english for    
self-government1 which is contradicted  
by every chapter of their history1 is   
really only an incurable inaptitude for 
theology1 and indeed for co-ordinated   
thought in any direction1 which makes   
them equally impatient of systematic    
despotism and systematic good           
government3 their history being that of 
a badly governed and accidentally free  
people 7comparatively74 ,thus our       
success in colonizing1 as far as it has 
not been produced by exterminating the  
natives1 has been due to our            
indifference to the salvation of our    
subjects4 ,ireland is the exception     
which proves the rule2 for ,ireland1 the
 standing instance of the inability of  
the ,english to colonize without        
extermination of natives1 is also the   
one country under ,british rule in which
 the conquerors and colonizers proceeded

 on the assumption that their business  
was to establish ,protestantism as well 
as to make money and thereby secure at  
least the lives of the unfortunate      
inhabitants out of whose labor it could 
be made4 ,at this moment ,ulster is     
refusing to accept fellowcitizenship    
with the other ,irish provinces because 
the south believes in ,st4 ,peter and   
,bossuet1 and the north in ,st4 ,paul   
and ,calvin4 ,imagine the effect of     
trying to govern ,india or ,egypt from  
,belfast or from the ,vatican6  ,the    
position is perhaps graver for ,france  
than for ,england1 because the          
sixty-five per cent of ,french subjects 
who are neither ,french nor ,christian  
nor ,modernist includes some thirty     
millions of negroes who are susceptible1
 and indeed highly susceptible1 of      
conversion to those salvationist forms  
of pseudo-,christianity which have      
produced all the persecutions and       
religious wars of the last fifteen      
hundred years4 ,when the late explorer  

,sir ,henry ,stanley told me of the     
emotional grip which ,christianity had  
over the ,baganda tribes1 and read me   
their letters1 which were exactly like  
medieval letters in their literal faith 
and everpresent piety1 ,i said ,can     
these men handle a rifle8 ,to which     
,stanley replied with some scorn ,of    
course they can1 as well as any white   
man4 ,now at this moment 7#aiae7 a vast 
,european war is being waged1 in which  
the ,french are using ,senegalese       
soldiers4 ,i ask the ,french            
,government1 which1 like our own        
,government1 is deliberately leaving the
 religious instruction of these negroes 
in the hands of missions of ,petrine    
,catholics and ,pauline ,calvinists1    
whether they have considered the        
possibility of a new series of crusades1
 by ardent ,african ,salvationists1 to  
rescue ,paris from the grip of the      
modern scientific infidel1 and to raise 
the cry of ,back to the ,apostles3 back 
to ,charlemagne6  ,we are more fortunate

 in that an overwhelming majority of our
 subjects are ,hindoos1 ,mahometans and 
,buddhists3 that is1 they have1 as a    
prophylactic against salvationist       
,christianity1 highly civilized         
religions of their own4 ,mahometanism1  
which ,napoleon at the end of his career
 classed as perhaps the best popular    
religion for modern political use1 might
 in some respects have arisen as a      
reformed ,christianity if ,mahomet had  
had to deal with a population of        
seventeenth-century ,christians instead 
of ,arabs who worshipped stones4 ,as it 
is1 men do not reject ,mahomet for      
,calvin2 and to offer a ,hindoo so crude
 a theology as ours in exchange for his 
own1 or our ,jewish canonical literature
 as an improvement on ,hindoo scripture1
 is to offer old lamps for older ones in
 a market where the oldest lamps1 like  
old furniture in ,england1 are the most 
highly valued4  ,yet1 ,i repeat1        
government is impossible without a      
religion3 that is1 without a body of    

common assumptions4 ,the open mind never
 acts3 when we have done our utmost to  
arrive at a reasonable conclusion1 we   
still1 when we can reason and           
investigate no more1 must close our     
minds for the moment with a snap1 and   
act dogmatically on our conclusions4    
,the man who waits to make an entirely  
reasonable will dies intestate4 ,a man  
so reasonable as to have an open mind   
about theft and murder1 or about the    
need for food and reproduction1 might   
just as well be a fool and a scoundrel  
for any use he could be as a legislator 
or a ,state official4 ,the modern       
pseudo-democratic statesman1 who says   
that he is only in power to carry out   
the will of the people1 and moves only  
as the cat jumps1 is clearly a political
 and intellectual brigand4 ,the rule of 
the negative man who has no convictions 
means in practice the rule of the       
positive mob4 ,freedom of conscience as 
,cromwell used the phrase is an         
excellent thing2 nevertheless if any man

 had proposed to give effect to freedom 
of conscience as to cannibalism in      
,england1 ,cromwell would have laid him 
by the heels almost as promptly as he   
would have laid a ,roman ,catholic1     
though in ,fiji at the same moment he   
would have supported heartily the       
freedom of conscience of a vegetarian   
who disparaged the sacred diet of ,long 
,pig4  ,here then come in the importance
 of the repudiation by ,jesus of        
proselytism4 ,his rule ,don't pull up   
the tares3 sow the wheat3 if you try to 
pull up the tares you will pull up the  
wheat with it is the only possible rule 
for a statesman governing a modern      
empire1 or a voter supporting such a    
statesman4 ,there is nothing in the     
teaching of ,jesus that cannot be       
assented to by a ,brahman1 a ,mahometan1
 a ,buddhist or a ,jew1 without any     
question of their conversion to         
,christianity4 ,in some ways it is      
easier to reconcile a ,mahometan to     
,jesus than a ,british parson1 because  

the idea of a professional priest is    
unfamiliar and even monstrous to a      
,mahometan 7the tourist who persists in 
asking who is the dean of ,st4 ,sophia  
puzzles beyond words the sacristan who  
lends him a huge pair of slippers72 and 
,jesus never suggested that his         
disciples should separate themselves    
from the laity3 he picked them up by the
 wayside1 where any man or woman might  
follow him4 ,for priests he had not a   
civil word2 and they showed their sense 
of his hostility by getting him killed  
as soon as possible4 ,he was1 in short1 
a thoroughgoing anti-,clerical4 ,and    
though1 as we have seen1 it is only by  
political means that his doctrine can be
 put into practice1 he not only never   
suggested a sectarian theocracy as a    
form of ,government1 and would certainly
 have prophesied the downfall of the    
late ,president ,kruger if he had       
survived to his time1 but1 when         
challenged1 he refused to teach his     
disciples not to pay tribute to ,caesar1

 admitting that ,caesar1 who presumably 
had the kingdom of heaven within him as 
much as any disciple1 had his place in  
the scheme of things4 ,indeed the       
apostles made this an excuse for        
carrying subservience to the ,state to a
 pitch of idolatry that ended in the    
theory of the divine right of kings1 and
 provoked men to cut kings' heads off to
 restore some sense of proportion in the
 matter4 ,jesus certainly did not       
consider the overthrow of the ,roman    
empire or the substitution of a new     
ecclesiastical organization for the     
,jewish ,church or for the priesthood of
 the ,roman gods as part of his program4
 ,he said that ,god was better than     
,mammon2 but he never said that         
,tweedledum was better than ,tweedledee2
 and that is why it is now possible for 
,british citizens and statesmen to      
follow ,jesus1 though they cannot       
possibly follow either ,tweedledum or   
,tweedledee without bringing the empire 
down with a crash on their heads4 ,and  

at that ,i must leave it4  ,,london1    
,december #aiae4