Religion -- its prophets and its false prophets

Front matter

I

JAMES BISHOP THOMAS

Book

Contents

Introduction. The Professional vs. the Amateur. §1. Temptations to Professionalism in Religion. §11. Opportunities for Exploitation of Religion. §111. Prophets, the Foes of the Religious Exploiters. §IV. The Conflict in Old Testament Passes into History of Christianity. §V. The Object of this Book. §VI. Jesus and the Prophetic Religion. §VII. Rival Claimants to the Sanction of Jesus' Authority. §VIII. Our Subject Is Vital to the World's Greatest Issue Today. . . .Pages xvii-xxii

Chapter I. Rise of the Jewish Priesthood. Introductory. §1. Religion of the Nomad Semites. §11. A Lay Religion. §111. Sources of the Prophetic and Priestly Religions — Pia Fraus. §IV. Rise of Priestly Caste Pages 1-12

Chapter II. The Rise of Prophetism. §1. Its Hereditary Origin. §11. Its Conflict with Its Opposite. §111. The Resulting Type of Prophetic Consciousness Pages 13-28

Introduction

The highest types of human activity, spiritual, mental or physical, proceed from an inward constraint as their sufficient motive. Aspiration seeks attainment; thought impels to expression; the idea becomes the architect of its own enduring habitation. Virtue is not only its own reward but is its alone satisfying reward. It craves no other pay. It resents the offer of material reward as an affront — as imputing a hireling's motives to a true prophet.

But besides his incentives to creative or co-creative activity man has secondary and conditional requirements. These are commonly called the "necessities of life." They are the necessities of physical life. The higher forms of activity — religious, mental and artistic — often attract material rewards — and as these material things are required — and are often very gratifying — the man is under the constant temptation to regard the higher forms of activity as the legitimate means of procuring the material satisfactions. He is moved to make merchandise of the commodities of the spirit and if he yields he becomes a false prophet.

A subtle simony becomes his pursuing demon. He has made his compact with Mephistopheles and has sold his own soul. The artist turns peddlar and exchanges his spiritual integrity for the flesh pots;

2 xvii xviii Introduction

the philosopher turns sophist — wins popular favor and loses his self-respect ; courtly love turns courtesan, and, most tragic of all, the prophet turns wizard and divines for hire.

The task of spiritualizing life consists primarily in placing all human activity and forms of service however humble in direct alignment with a central compelling spiritual motive that shall leaven the whole lump of individual and social activity. The professional or hireling must give place to the amateur or true lover. Ruskin has thus stated the issue: "It is the whole distinction in a man; distinction between life and death in him, between heaven and hell for him. You cannot serve two masters; you must serve one or the other. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your master and the Lord of work, Who is God. But if your fee is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee who is the Devil; and not only the Devil, but the lowest of Devils — 'the least erected fiend that fell.' So there you have it in brief terms: work first — you are God's servants; fee first — you are the Fiend's." 1

In the following book I seek to state and trace the issue between the disinterested prophets of religion and those who have sought or been led to professionalize religion as a means to a career. I try to show the type of religion developed by its true and enlightened lovers in contrast to the type of religion developed under the more or less uncon-

iRuskin, "The Crown of Wild Olive"— Lecture I.

Introduction xix

scious or conscious "will to exploit" to the ends of personal, political, economic and caste aggrandizement.

The resultant analysis reveals a pure and unmixed type of a universal religion which is the core of Christianity. It separates the fundamental religion from its accessories and foreign adhesions and shows it in action against the enemies of mankind. This work should thus have an emancipating effect upon the religious spirit of many who are bound by the fetters of a hampering traditionalism. It should also move to a reconsideration of the central claims of religion those who have swept out the priceless jewel with the dust.

I

The key to an understanding of historic and social movements is to be found in the phenomena of leadership. On the higher plane, even democratic and co-operative enterprises, whose leaders are not imposed from above but brought forth from within, understand the importance of intelligent oversight and direction, however much they may seek to place restrictions upon the personal powers of their appointed heads. On a lower plane, the tribe, the clan, the band of marauders (at certain stages these words are synonyms) will follow the leadership of the one best qualified to help them attain their objects.

At times the leader by his superior strength, wisdom or craft may be able to exact tremendous toll xx Introduction

in return for his services. The opportunities for leadership are also opportunities for exploitation. In spite of his abuses of his position of advantage the leader may make himself felt as at least the lesser evil. He stands in the eyes of his followers between them and greater evils or dangers. His services and powers may even enable him to inspire a supreme loyalty — rising to hero-worship — and then his adherents become prepared to sacrifice to his obedience their dearest possessions — even life itself. In proportion as he can make himself indispensable in their eyes as a living condition of the attainment of of their highest aims or strongest desires, his opportunities for exploitation are multiplied.

The influence of a strong leader may persist and the power of his name may go on increasing after his death. The tradition of many tribes that their God was also their ancestor probably rests on an historic basis of fact. Through a process of deification the great leader of the past has come to be thought of as a living divine being or spirit still devoted to the cause of his people and exercising a divine guidance through his successors or through his representatives the priests and oracles of the tribal cult. 1 The taxes or the gifts which they paid or gave to their chief in his life are now offered in sacrifice to his spirit or paid to the guardians of his shrines.

1 His return to earth as a deliverer may come to be anticipated in times of trouble. (Cf. King Arthur and Barbarossa legends and others similar.)

Introduction xxi

II

In no field of human interest do men feel a greater need of leadership than in religion. Here their sense of ignorance and dependence is most complete.

Religion offers the most important and indispensable goods, — negatively, protection from threatened dangers of loss, sickness, premature death or from unknown dangers after death; positively, it offers consolation, guidance, hope, success, present power and perhaps an eternal heaven of bliss.

In religion the opportunities of leadership reach their climax — for good or for evil. The appeal made to the highest in man should lead to glorious attainments. But the appeal to ignorance, fear, superstition, credulity, cupidity, selfishness, — to the lower as well as to the better traits, — may be utilized by religious exploiters to their own advantage and to the everlasting detriment of those who are brought under their control.

Ill

With minor exceptions religion is organized on the group principle — it belongs to a tribe, a nation, a cult, or transcends national boundaries as a church. Its leaders seek and sometimes win a monopoly of its dispensation. Sometimes we see the struggle for this monopoly in process — now almost unopposed, again encountering fierce resistance. The opposition may come from either of two sources, from a rival "secular" or political leadership which also wishes a monopoly of exploitation, or from a difxxii Introduction

ferent type of religion truly devoted to the welfare of men and seeking to destroy the leadership of the exploiters and substitute a disinterested leadership, based upon a higher conception of the deity as the beneficent Guide of all mankind, a leadership aiming at the emancipation of the downmost common man and his highest social and spiritual elevation. This type of religion not only opposes the exploiting of religious leaders, but it opposes exploitation of every kind — whether by kings, the aristocracy, the military feudal caste, or the money power. 1

The religious leader of this type is known as the Prophet and he early made his appearance in the history of Israel. He is the spokesman of God and of the common people to whose cause God is devoted. He presents a theology incomparably higher than the theology which the priests have manipulated in the interests of their own power and control. He denies all their claims of monopoly, of their position as middlemen between the Producer of all benefits and the dependent consumer. He declares that the tickets of admission sold by the priests — their oracles, ceremonials, implements of divination, the sacrifices demanded by them, are fraudulent. He declares that no tickets are required — that every man has the right of free access to the God Who loves him and his fellows and wishes them well. In thus

1 Frequently priests and princes pool their interests in the game of exploitation. At times prophetic reformers have sought to co-operate with the " secular power " to limit religious exploitation.

Introduction xxiii

denouncing the powerful exploiting classes the prophet not only spurns the fees of religion but he encounters the gravest personal dangers. His only safety lies in the success of his appeal to the consciences of the wrong-doers in high places or in winning the backing of the people. Some prophets by these means have worked and taught in a measure of security, but as a rule the world-prophets have also been the world-martyrs because the exploiting classes have hardened their consciences and preferred to follow their exploitations rather than obey the Voice of God. Their favorite method has always been to discredit the prophet in the eyes of the people to whose cause he was devoted, by accusing him of being a heretic and a blasphemer — and then putting him out of the way by the death penalty — the people having been cowed and detached from their leader through superstitious fear of the hierarchy's claims, or well-grounded fear of its political power.

IV

The conflict between the prophetic and exploiting types of religion early passed over from Judaism into the history of Christianity. It represents a permanent alignment and is the religious issue the grasping of which is of supreme importance both to the intellectual apprehension of what Christianity is, and to its practical application as a program of human salvation, individual and social, economic and spiritual.

Naturally the question of supreme importance to xxiv Introduction

our study is the place of Jesus in relation to the prophetic type of religion. To the Christian as well as to the student of religion no questions can be more vital than (i) how Jesus stood in relation to the exploiters of religion in His Own day; (2) how He embodied and perfected the prophetic spirit of religion and expanded it to the widest reach of Catholicism (in its original sense of Universalism) ; (3) how He would by inference regard those who overlaid His prophetic initiation of the Kingdom of God by founding an exploiting ecclesiasticism based upon His Person as the God of a cult; (4) where and how the influence of Jesus is to be manifested in the present struggle between the prophetic and exploiting types of religion and in the extension of that struggle to the wider field of conflict between the people and their leaders who seek their emancipation from political, economic, social, intellectual and spiritual restrictions, on the one side, and those self-imposed leaders and masters who strive to increase the power of those restrictions that they and their class may continue to enjoy special privileges with their concomitant opportunities for exploitation, on the other.

V

The object of this book, as its title suggests, is a study of the historic conflict between the two types of religion which we have designated as prophetic and exploiting. It further seeks to ascertain the theological aspects and implications of the contest —

In t rodactio n xx v

to do justice to the theological permanence, veracity and breadth of vision of prophetism and to show how the theologies of hierarchies and ecclesiasticisms were influenced or manipulated in the interests of the will to exploit.

VI

In Jesus we find the supreme development of the prophetic type of religion. In order to vindicate this claim it has been necessary to show in how far some of even His earliest adherents misconceived or misrepresented Him. We have also been compelled, in this interest, to introduce what may seem to some on first sight as a diversion — namely, a careful analysis of that degenerate and bizarre metamorphosis of prophetism into apocalypticism — (the attempt of priestly writers to masquerade as prophets), and the assertion of certain modern critics that the Gospel of Jesus gave its adherence to this typical gospel of hate and despair.

In this study both psychology and criticism must be employed as effectively as the capacity of the student of these problems will permit.

VII

It is a great, sometimes an unconscious, tribute which men in every age and of the widest variety of opinions have paid to the moral leadership of Christ, by claiming Him as the embodiment or Advocate of their highest ideals and fondest dreams. How great is the range of these claimants ! The Cross of the Prince of Peace, on which He prayed for the xxvi Introduction

forgiveness of His enemies, was taken as the emblem of bloody conquest by the red-handed Constantine, and the term "Crusade," derived from the Cross, became the synonym for war, rape and rapine — the criminal agents being fortified with plenary indulgences! Weapons of destruction have been blest in the Name of the Crucified. At the opposite pole the anchorite, monk and friar have worshipped an ascetic Christ in their own image, renouncing present joy to save their souls for pleasures eternal. Even the Mohammedans have a Gospel of their own (a pseudepigraphical "Gospel of Barnabas") which gives the Mohammendan interpretation of Jesus. In it Jesus is made to say in the presence of the High Priest "I am Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, of the stock of David, a mortal man, and fear God and seek His honor and glory." He also disclaims the title of Messiah and foretells the coming of Mohammed. 1 Philosophical anarchists like Tolstoy, social reformers like Bouck White and Bernard Shaw, have found their own dreams in Jesus the Carpenter. More recently, the decadent George Moore 2 has invented a frankly fictitious Christ and in His mouth has placed expressions that reflect his own anti- Christian, futile philosophy, while H. G. Wells has read into Jesus' sympathy for "fallen women" a support for his own doctrine of sex license.

1 (Ch. 96.) Quoted in article in Journal of Theological Studies — April, 1902 — p. 446, "On the Mohammedan Gospel of Barnabas" by W. A. E. Axon, LL.D.

2 In "The Brook Kerith."

Introduction xxvii

VIII

In the modern age the cause of prophetism has received great furtherance and emancipation from dogmatic and ecclesiastical control through the triumphant progress of scientific, historical and literary criticism of the sources of the Old and New Testament, and the scientific study of Church history. We are thereby enabled to observe not only the decorated tombs of the prophets or to think of them as the merely temporary and subordinate foretellers of coming events, but as the real co-operators with God, who prepared the way for the coming of His reign on earth. Their message is thereby rescued from the scrap heap and given permanent value.

We are also enabled to see the inside of the less edifying process whereby the hierarchy of exploiters falsified history and perverted the teaching about the Nature and Will of God in the interests of their caste pre-eminence.

The extension of this process of study should by its emancipation of the prophetic spirit culminate in the present and future in the birth of a new race of prophetic leaders and the realization of the triumph of their cause, the cause of the People, the cause of Jesus, named by Him the Cause of the Kingdom of God.

Chapter I

There is a well grounded opinion that if we could know the stories of the rise of all the historic priesthoods we should find in them a marked similarity of movement. We are on fairly safe ground in taking the case of the Jewish priesthood as typical. It certainly shows analogies to what we know of the rise of the Christian priesthood.

Court "historians" in the Imperial East have written their epics to show that Emperors are lineal descendants of the gods (and in the West we have the ^Eneid of Virgil).

The official "Chroniclers" of priestly castes have written with a similar intention — to show the direct Divine origin of the priesthoods. In thus providing the parvenus with the desired lineage some historical facts were used in making a mosaic chart of the family tree.

In the Pentateuch (or Hexateuch) we have such a mosaic, and the Biblical antiquarian desiring to recover a true picture of the past has in his quest incidentally uncovered the literary devices employed by the priests to advance their own power and prestige.

By the help of the historical and literary critics we are enabled to get first a picture of the primitive democratic and decentralized religion — and then to see the movement of the priestly exploiters as it arose and developed into a centralized aristocratic theocracy.

I

When the ancestors of the Israelites were living in the nomadic stage — that is, in the "Age of the Patriarchs" — there was no established or centralized priesthood.

"Among the nomadic Semites, to whom the Hebrews belonged before they settled in Canaan, there has never been any settled priesthood. The acts of religion partake of the general simplicity of desert life. Apart from the private worship of household gods and the oblations and salutations offered at the graves of departed kinsmen, the ritual observances of the ancient Arabs were visits to the tribal sanctuary to salute the god with a gift of milk, firstfruits, or the like, the sacrifice of firstlings and vows, and an occasional pilgrimage to discharge a vow at the annual feast and fair of one of the more distant

holy places. These acts required no priestly aid.

"i

• • •

The stories of the Patriarchs in the earliest writings of the Hexateuch exhibit similar conditions. There were no Hebrew priests. From the Code

1 Article by Prof. W. R. Smith and Prof. A. Bertholet in Encyclopaedia Biblica, Vol. Ill, Col. 3839.

of the Covenant compiled in the 8th Century B.C. (the earliest written document of the Hebrew customary law — Ex. 20:20, 23:23), we find that the primitive nomadic ordinances continued in force for a long time after the settlement in Palestine. There is as yet no mention of a priestly caste. The head of the family naturally acted as the officiant, but any male member of the family might offer sacrifice when absent on a journey. The form of altar prescribed was such that it might be erected anywhere in a short time. It was to be made of unhewn stones or of earth. The offerings consisted of the first fruits of the fields, and first-born of the herds. It is nowhere implied that this early offering was regarded as an atonement for sins. 1 'The sacrifices and offerings were acknowledgments of the divine bounty and means used to insure its continuance . . . " 2 "Each man slew his own victim and divided the sacrifice in his own circle; the share of the god was the blood which was smeared upon or poured out beside a stone set up as an altar. ... It does not appear that any portion of the sacrifice was burned on the altar, or that any part of the victim was the due of the sanctuary. " 3

1 The commandment to offer the firstborn son as a sacrifice (Ex. 22:29) does not belong in this document. It was a later provision borrowed from the Assyrian cultus, and denounced by the prophets — (Micah 6:7).

"Article "Priest" in Encyl. Biblica, cited above.

•Ibid.

The description of the Arab sacrificial customs seems to fit the conditions among the Israelites in their nomadic or early agricultural condition.

The Hebrews identified the blood with the life. This was, therefore, returned to the Life-giver as His portion. It was a sacrilege to eat the blood. This seems to indicate a reverence for the mystery of life — in itself an instinctive religious motive. It is probable that whenever an animal was killed for food this ceremony was a form of ' ' grace before meat."

II

The primitive Semitic religion was a lay religion. 1 The patriarchs were men of prayer. Such of their prayers as are contained in Genesis breathe a beautiful spirit of intimacy with Jehovah and a consciousness of His everpresent accessibility and guidance in regard to the practical affairs of life. A beautiful illustration is found in the story of Abraham's servant's quest for the right wife for Isaac 2 (a matter of vast importance in the eyes of later generations whose ancestress was about to be selected).

In this assumption of God's nearness and accessibility we find the roots of the democratic strain in the later Hebrew religion. Both the God-con-

x \t is interesting to recall that in Mohammedanism, though it became an exploiting religion, there is no provision for a sacerdotal caste. The original Arab democracy is safeguarded and perpetuated.

sciousness of the prophets and the devotional appeal of the Psalm-writers find their warrant here. Men who pray to the same God find in their common worship the strongest tie of solidarity. The group consciousness is strengthened and elevated at the same time.

Common prayer and worship beget the highest type of loyalty, become a source of strength and comfort, and tend to uplift the human spirit, even though the theological ideas of the worshippers may be crude and imperfect. The discovery of the law of self-suggestion by modern psychology shows how religious beliefs and practices, even when illfounded in objective facts, may automatically produce highly beneficial results. Of course the limitation of this primitive religion lay in the tribal conception. It produced or strengthened at best a sense of tribal solidarity and was divisive in relation to the solidarity of the human race. The latter doctrine had to wait till the belief in the tribal God had been superseded by the prophetical belief in the One God, the Creator and Source of all mankind.

Ill

As the prophetic religion had its historic roots in the patriarchical God-consciousness, so the exploiting religion grew up about the local sacred places scattered through the desert oases and the hill country. The early priestly families, represented by Melchisedec, Jethro, perhaps Balaam, and others, were guardians of the sacred places connected with early theophanies in which God had manifested Himself with particular vividness. Where God had once been so clearly shown, His Presence might again be sought with the best expectations. Moreover, the visitor at the shrine did not have to depend upon a private revelation which might be delayed or wholly withheld.

The guardians of the shrine had in their keeping certain sacred instruments of divination by means of which they professed to be able surely to ascertain from God the information desired. They claimed to be able to find the Divine Will and purpose registered in the flight of birds or the entrails of sacrificial animals. If the right omens were not found in the first sacrificial animal there was hope that they might occur in later victims after the number of the sacrifices had been able to effect a desired change of attitude on the part of the god. (Witness the unavailing persistence of Balak in his dealings with the priest Balaam. When a number of animals were thus sacrificed it would naturally follow that the priestly larder would be well stocked.) Moreover, the ability to manipulate the sacred lot opened an opportunity for influence on the part of the diviner which readily lent itself to exploitation.

Not only the rewards of the priests but also their influence was greatly enhanced as they came to be consulted in matters of growing importance. It seems a small matter that Rebekah should " inquire of God" (the technical expression for consuiting the oracle) about the meaning of the alarming symptoms of her pregnancy. But the smaller occasion might lead to the greater. Saul who goes to inquire about his father's strayed asses through Samuel finds, through the medium of the oracle, the kingship of the Israelites. He also finds the asses.

The sanctuary had long had its chief significance as the seat of judgment. The Hebrew law was a judge-made law. In quarrels, disputes, and dissensions, the parties laid their case before the priest whose decisions were theoretically the decisions of Jehovah Himself. Thus the law was regarded as a Divine law. 1 This was given especial prominence when Moses sat to judge the people. Later all the decisions, precedents, and even new decisions and innovations, came to be regarded as proceeding from him. The Mosaic tradition was claimed by the later highly developed priestly colleges and nothing was deemed authoritative unless it could claim the sanction of his name. After the monarchy the priests still retained their judicial powers and functions and this gave them their political influence. The claim to act as fountains of Divine judgment gave the priests an opportunity to sway affairs of state and that they sometimes used fraud even our records admit. Saul and David and later kings took no important steps without consulting the oracle. The sense of dependence even on the

x The word "Torah" — later applied to the whole Jewish law — is derived from a Hebrew word meaning to "cast a (sacred) lot. "

part of kings is shown in the case of Saul — who, when he could get no response through the disaffected priests " neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the soothsayers" (I Samuel 28 f), resorted in desperation to the " Witch of Endor. "

As to the use of fraud we are frankly told that Elisha, the man of God, sent a lying oracle to Benhadad king of Syria (II Kings 8: 8) — a thing held to be legitimate in dealing with an enemy. Moreover it is not only the soothsayer who is credited with the use of justifiable fraud — but even Jehovah Himself. This idea is not only found in that early account of Jehovah's making use of a lying spirit in order to mislead four hundred soothsayers that they might entice Ahab to his death 1 — but so high and late an authority as Ezekiel tells us that Jehovah Himself sometimes falsified the oracle. 2

If the priests (Ezekiel was of their number) could believe deception legitimate on the part of God — how should lying not also be justified as means to desired ends, on the part of God's representatives — i.e. themselves? Nothing could more conclusively discredit the priestly veracity than their conception of a God Who now and then resorted to lies. This is but a plain instance of men creating God in their own image. Moreover, it justified them, in their own eyes, in their falsification of theology and of history.

l \ Kings 22 — and II Chronicles 18.

2 "If the prophet be deceived, I, Jehovah, have deceived that prophet." (Ezek. 14: jn».)

IV

Before turning to the rise of the literary prophets in the Eighth Century B.C., let us rapidly sketch the emergence of the priestly caste after the settlement in Palestine and its growth as an exploiting power in the days of Amos who denounces it in unmistakable terms as an exploiting and corrupt hierarchy utterly faithless to God and to the Cause of His people.

A primitive account of the rise of an early line of priests is found in the story of Micah's " private chaplain" in Judges 17 and 18: Micah is a man of wealth and, as he can afford it, he is anxious to have a priest of his own to consult the oracle for him and so bring him knowledge whereby his prosperity may be still further increased. He has an image or images made of silver (with no consciousness that this would displease Jehovah Whose favor he is seeking) . He himself makes the ephod and teraphim — the instruments of divination. For the lack of a better he, though a layman, sets his own son apart as his priest. He thinks a visiting Levite from Bethlehem would make a better priest and so he deposes his son and consecrates the Levite in his place. He is immensely pleased with the new minister. But the latter for his part is serving his own interests. He is discovered by some Danites who are looking for a favorable place to found a settlement. They consult the oracle through him and get a favorable response.

io Religion: Its Prophets and False Prophets

Later they return with their fellow tribesmen, rob Micah of his whole ecclesiastical outfit, priest, images, ephod and teraphim. Thereby they secure the favor of Jehovah for themselves. The young priest is not outraged by the treatment of his former patron (whom for some reason he had not forewarned) but "his heart was glad" l at this "call to a larger field of usefulness."