Essays

Contents

Page AN ESSAY ON ERNEST RENAN'S "LIFE OF

JESUS." 9

AN ESSAY ON DE TUNZELMANN'S " ELECTRIC- ITY IN MODERN LIFE." . . . 79 AN ESSAY ON MIVART'S *' CHRISTIANITY AND

Introduction

Page 49. We are glad to see here that the Gospel of Luke cannot be doubted to have been written by him. As St. Luke was a physician.

he could testify to the truth of the Gospel account of the birth of Christ.

P^g^ S^' "As they thought th :5 end of the world near, no one cared to write books for the future." What reason had they to think this? Jesus had told them that no one but God knew when the world would end.

Page 62. Renan doubts if John, the simple fisherman, could have written the Gospel bearing John's name, and yet it was after the apostles had received the gift of the Holy Ghost that they spoke in tongues which, before, were unknown to them.

Page 70. We do not think that it is possible that so soon after the death of Jesus the apostles could fall into mysteries which were of no use. There is a spiritual mystery in all the words of Jesus, and therefore in the written words of the Gospels, which it is our duty to find out.

Page 75. Renan tells us here that many a book, once thought to be heretical, has forced its way into the church and become a book of faith ; this being so how vigilant those in the church should be, for Satan, whose world we are on, will, to the end, fight the Kingdom of God, which is in our souls.

Page 89. This comparison between the Gospels and Napoleon's soldiers' writing a history of Napoleon's life, we think is in very bad taste, to say the least of it. The disciples of Jesus were undoubtedly helped in their account of Jesus' life by the Spirit within them, that is in writing it they were able to see some of the spiritual meaning.

Page 103. How can Renan speak in the same breath of the religions of Jesus and Mahomet ? The first lived by giving us the true life ; the second lived by taking life.

Page 104. '' God has revealed himself before Jesus, God will reveal himself after him." We think not, for the God of the Jews was according to their showing cruel^ the God in Christ was love.

Page 105. Renan ends his introduction by saying that the manifestations of God, hid in the human conscience, are all the same, but we think this can only be so since Christ lived among us.

We knew not God in that way until we knew Jesus ; we must not forget that Jesus showed us God as we never saw him before, the Jewish history proves that this is so, but, as Renan says, Jesus belongs to every one in whom is a human heart.

THE CHAPTERS ON THE LIFE OF

JESUS.

Page 2. " As soon as man found himself different from mere animal, he became religious, that is, he saw in nature something beyond the reality, and for himself something beyond death." This was when mankind was evolved from animal, at the time when the Bible tells us that man began to call upon Go

Page i^. "The unknown author of the book of Daniel, in any case, had a decisive influence on the religious events which were going to transform the world." All of which must refer to the time of Jesus* life on this earth.

Page 21. We do not see anything difficult in understanding that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and not in Nazareth, for when we come to the question of paying a tax, it removes all doubt.

Page 23. And yet the generation is given in Matthew and Luke.

Page 30. This idea of a church built at Nazareth is a Roman Catholic Church idea, for the building would soon become the idol, and Christ would be forgotten ; for it was Christ who told us that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and not at a spot of land called Nazareth or at Jerusalem.

Page 32. " It is, however, doubtful that Jesus understood the Hebrew writings in their original language." We read that Jesus, as a child, was able to ask questions and give answers to the scribes in the temple; but, if what Renan says were so, then it is a greater proof that Jesus, by the Spirit within him, knew all things.

Page 36. Here Renan tells us that in those days no one studied Greek, or very few did so ; that Greek studies, which we understand to mean Greek writings, were hardly good enough to be worn even by the women on their garments. Now we think that if the women had on their garments Greek writings they must have tried to understand the writings, and perhaps they gained some knowledge of the prophesies of Christ that way.

Page 42. Jesus could not have been in all things like other children, for he knew exactl}^ what kings, and those in earthly power, were inwardly.

Page Af}^. We do not agree here with Renan, for, as we in the flesh are the children of the devil, the maladies of the flesh are of the devil. How could Jesus not believe in the devil, when he had come to this earth to take the body of flesh, and in it to fight the devil, the father of the body of flesh, and to dwell among the children of the devil? He came for the sake of the spark from Heaven which lived still in these bodies of flesh and blood, to show them the way to overcome the flesh and enter Heaven again through the only door open to them — that door is Jesus Christ.

Page i\\. Renan here thinks that Jesus had a strong faith in the connexions between mankind and God, and that the belief of Jesus in the power of man was exaggerated. We think that

OK ERNEST RENAN^S LIFE OF JEStJS. 23

lime has proved that this is not as Renan thinks, for man has the power which Jesus said he would have. Science, which is of God, proves that this is so. A man of science must have faith in his work, he must have an inward conviction that what he attempts to do can be done, otherwise he would not persevere until he succeeds. The physician and the chemist are not yet half way on the road of knowledge. Jesus knew all knowledge. Jesus was not as other children, and when he attained the age to begin his vocation, it was right to break away from earthly relations, who did all they could to prevent him from following his vocation. Where would we be, had Jesus cared more for the relations of the body than the relations of his soul ? And how could Jesus think more of the body of flesh and blood, which he came to dwell within for our sakes, and which was also animal, the same as our body, when he, Jesus, knew whence his Spirit was? He was Spirit from Heaven. Are we to think more of the clothes which cover our bodies, than of our bodies themselves?

Page 48. Renan tells us that Jesus was not a theologian, if this word means knowledge of God. We think we only know God by what Jesus has told us; but we agree that Jesus had no dogmas in system, that he had a fixed personal resolution, which, being stronger than any other created wish, still guides human destiny.

P<^g(^ 55- Here Renan speaks of a noble woman, the mother of the Maccabees. He does not see the women of the Bible in the light in which we see them.

Page 58. Jesus did not^attach any importance to the politics of his time, and Renan thinks that Jesus may have been misinformed about them. We think Jesus knew all about what was passing, for in his teachings he shows that this was so. He certainly took no interest in worldly things.

Page 64. In Galilee they despised this life, but before this the Jews and others thought the greatest blessing was a long life on this earth.

Page 75. Jesus was a carpenter by trade. Renan says this was not a humbling position. We say no, truly, for Jesus has told us that God worked, therefore he ivorked ; this he said in reference to his work for our souls, but his example in working we should follow.

Page 75. Renan here makes the mistake of not understanding that passion is not the Bible love which was in Jesus. Jesus came to be with those who sin, so as to prove that they can be saved.

Page yy. " Jesus had a high idea of the Divinity, which he did not get from the Jewish religion.'* Jesus had been with God before he came to us, so his idea of God was true, and therefore high.

Page 78. Renan tells us that Jesus does not say that he is God — not for a moment even ; he believes himself in communication with God, and that he is God's son; and the highest conception of God, among human beings, was Jesus' conception of God. We think that here Renan shows that he felt or understood the double nature of Jesus.

Page 84. Refers to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, 2nd verse, — supposed to foretell of Jesus. We think this means that Jesus was without the

2^ Ajf sssAr

earthly beauty of an earthly kingdom, and not the person of Jesus, for that must have been perfect.

Pagf go. " A pure religion, without priests, and without outward practice, resting all on the sentiments of the heart, and on the imitation of God." How are we to know zi'/iat God is so as to imitate him, but by the life and words of Jesus? Are we to imitate the God of the old Jewish nation ? That would be a very diflferent thing from the God which Jesus made us know.

Pa^e 94. ** No one was less the priest than Jesus. No one was more the enemy of forms, which smother religion, under the pretence of defending it, than Jesus. Into this world has come, through Jesus, a totally new idea of religion, founded on the purity of the heart and kindness to all. This idea of Jesus is so high that the Christian church has not been able to follow it, though given by its Master, and even in these days only a few souls could understand it." After reading these words we have thought, as Renan has told us that Jesus was a Jew,

ON" ERNEST BENAn's LIFE OF JESTTS. 2T

born in the Jewish country, with all the surroundings of the Jewish nation, beliefs, traditions, customs and teachings of the scribes, and the Jew ish idea of God, that it is a \ery surprising fact that this high, pure and God-like idea of the true religion should come to one whose life, so far, was no different from those among whom Jesus lived. We think these words alone of Kenan's prove that Jesus was more than a human man ; and that Jesus' second nature — or rather, first nature — was Divine, and such must have been Kenan's thought of Jesus when he wrote these words. Why, then, as he continues the chapter, does Kenan fall back to think of Jesus as only a man — human, like himself? and then again, as he reasons, he realizes that Jesus was more than man, — "for Jesus was strong and powerful in words and actions for what is good, and with the price of his blood he made good triumph, and in that respect he has no equal ; his glory remains whole and will always be renewed."

Pag-e loi. To think out any high thought or work, one must be alone. John the Baptist and

Jesus also were alone in the desert before they commenced their work.

Page 105. " The belief in resurrections." If mankind thought that resurrections were possible, tJie possible is far beyond what mankind is able to tJnnk.

Page III. " Jesus showed that he thought John the Baptist superior to himself." We do not see this in the Bible, for it was Jesus who said that John was the greatest of prophets, but that he who was least in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater than John.

Page 114. Renan thinks that Herodias was married to her uncle against her will ; we think her actions show that this was not so.

Page 119. We agree with this, that the Christian religion charmed the highest souls by being free from all outward form.

Page 120. " In this world, such as it is, it is evil which reigns. Satan is the king of this world, and all obey him." Here we agree, as we have tried to show before this in our essay on the " Origin of Sin."

Page 132. Renan says that the first thought of

Jesus — a thought so deep that probably it had no origin, but came from the very roots of his being — was that he was the son of God, intimate wuth the Father, and the executor of the Father's will ; all earthly things were only used by Jesus as instruments to advance the Kingdom of God. A new sky and a new earth will be created, peopled with angels of God. We understand this new earth to have a spiritual meaning ; the abode of the souls of the children of God, equal then to the angels of God.

Page 123. Jesus never tried to overthrow the government in any way — he submitted to the powers established. He despised the earth and all in it, so gaining the liberty of souls.

Page 125. It was truly the kingdom of souls which Jesus founded. Yes, this is so, but we are sorry to see that Renan speaks of the history of this world ; we think that history has nothing to do with it, for this world is Satan's, and his children's flesh and blood bodies; the souls are God's children.

Page 126. '' What was liberty for Jesus was the liberty of Truth, and when he gave us these words : * Render to Cassar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's,' he created something altogether different from politics, he created a refuge for souls in the midst of an empire of brutal force." How good this is, but when we come to these words : " Ciiristianity has compensated for the wrong it has done to civil virtues," we think this a strange idea, for are the " vertus civiles " of these da3-s different from those days, and are they virtues at all, even now, though much changed by the Christian religion ?

Page 127. " Jesus did not stop the current of the affairs of the earth of his da3% but he declared that politics were insignificant, and that country is not all, but man is first and above the citizen." We sa}-, not man, but man's soul ; the soul is not the body of flesh and blood, the soul does not live for this earth, or by the bread of this earth. But in this sentiment we agree with Renan ; this world, and all in it, is not worth the life of our soul, and the longer we live the more we see that the world is Satan's — there is so much that is disgusting and lowering in it; it is so animal, even lower than the animals ; we are prisoners here, — prisoners of Satan.

Page 129. ** Do not believe that with simple ideas of happiness or with individual morality we can shake the world ; the idea of Jesus was much deeper; it was the most revolutionary idea that ever came into the human mind." We would say that in Jesus the thought was not all human, it was the Spirit of God. Renan's thoughts of Jesus are hampered by his Roman Catholic early training, and, trying to throw this off, he sees Jesus only as a human man ; at times he is forced, by his study of Jesus, to confess that Jesus was something more than a mere man, though a great man.

Page \'}^\. "Jesus announced a great change, unequalled in human things, and in doing so he proclaimed the principles on which society has rested for eighteen hundred years." We think the change did commence, but that it has not yet reached its end ; it is slowly going on ; it has taken eighteen hundred and ninety-three years to effect some of it. The mistake is that we thought that it would come in our day, and those before us thought that it would come in theirs.

Page 132. Here Renan thinks that Jesus wished to put an end to riches and power. We do not think so, for Jesus would only wish this when they were used for evil. When he was on this earth he did good to the rich as well as to the poor. " Those who are to found the Kingdom of Heaven will not be the rich, nor the doctors, nor the priests ; they will be the women, and the humble ones." Renan seems, in a way, to agree with us, as we think the zuomcn were better able than the men to understand the teachings of Jesus.

P'-'^S^ 133- Where does Renan find this? Before this he has found that Jesus cared not for ''officials " one way or the other.

Page 137. " Jesus cared most to be called the Son of Man." If so, we think it was because Jesus took man's human body, consented to be man, so as to save the race of mankind, and that we might understand that being man, he understood mankind.

Page 144. " The authorit}^ of the young

Master grew day by day ; the more they believed in him, the more he believed in himself." We would remark here that Jesus knew, long before they believed in him, who he was ; he knew this when he was but twelve years old, when he said he must do his Father's business, meaning God's.

Page 147. Speaking of the difficulty of finding the exact spot of the places mentioned in the Gospels, Renan says, "It "seems as if a deep design hid them, and that the places will never be found where humanity would wish to kiss the print of the feet of Jesus." Without knowing it, he gives us the reason that they are not to be found. It is because mankind so readily fall into idolatry that they would kiss the ground and worship such a thing, and forget that Jesus has told them to worship God alone. If they love Jesus and would show him their love, it is not to be done by kissing the ground around Jerusalem ; it is by seeing that Jesus is in the souls of their fellow-beings, and by doing good to these, that they let Jesus see that they love him.

Page 157. Here the women are mentioned,

34: AX ESSAY

Salome and others, who so readily understand and accept Jesus as the Son of God, and listen to all his teachings. These women were not thought to be unsexed because they followed with the men even to the death of Jesus. Renan does not see here what we see, that Jesus knew that women could understand his teachings, and were, in his sight, equal to men.

Page 158. We do not think that the seven demons which Jesus cast out of Mar}^ of Magdala, were the nervous diseases that Renan thinks they were. They were evils of character, heart and mind ; no doubt some, if not all, were inherited, and against them this Mar}^ must have struggled to rid herself. We doubt if Jesus would have helped her in this, had he not known that it was her earnest wish to be rid of these evils, and not her wish to be governed by them. It is this INIary who gives to the world the belief in the resurrection, for she was the first one to whom Jesus appeared after his death.

Page 160. " At this time we do not see the mother of Jesus near him ; the family of Jesus

ON ERNEST EENAn's LIFE OF JESUS. 35

was not much with him, and it was only after his death that his mother obtained a great reputation." We think, however, that his mother was the first to believe in Jesus. She pondered in her heart over the things connected with his birth, and she believed that he was able to turn the water into wine at the marriage feast.

Page i6i. Here we have a comparison which might have been left out. How can Renan descend from his many high thoughts of Jesus, and speak in the same breath of Mahomet ? In reading this book it seems to us that Renan descends from these high and noble thoughts of Jesus, for some hidden reason, as if he feared that his convictions were leading him to prove too strongly the Divine in Jesus, and the Divine in Jesus, not being human history, he, Renan, makes these descents in thought, all through his book, so as to keep zvithin history.

Page 169. Renan here tells us what he thinks was the cause of the success of Jesus in winning souls — *' one penetrating look, one word falling on a pure conscience." We think this is proof by itseU of the Divine in Jesus, for in both he

Spoke directl}^ to the soul or conscience of the soul. We are sorry to see Renan bring in Jeanne D'Arc here, for it was not affectation on the part of Jesus to bring to a person's mind a past circumstance in that person's life. Renan here proves that Jesus was superior to everything around him, that Jesus himself believed that the Spirit of God revealed these things to him, and that all believed that Jesus lived in a sphere inaccessible to others. We sa)' that as those around Jesus felt that this was so, we of these days feel within us that his life is also inaccessible to plain humanity, but can be followed by us in our souls. Page 171. Renan speaks of the great ignorance of those who followed Jesus — their ignorance was not ignorance of spiritual things — he thinks it strange that they believed in spirits. To believe in these things now, we think, is not a proof of ignorance, but just the reverse ; for in these days it is thought to be very intelligent. The spirits of the departed no doubt live, but Jesus has told us that did they appear and speak to us it would do us no good, for if we will npt believe

ON EKNEST ilENAN S LIFE OF JEStJfl. S7

Moses and the Prophets, we would not believe the spirits of the departed.

Page 174. Renan here tells us that Jesus, spoke in parables, that he did not get this from the Jewish system, but that it was Jesus* own idea.

Page 178. We do not agree here ; for we can enjoy seeing these things — the sunshine, flowers, grass, shade, trees, fine views, mountains — without owning them, and we think that others can do the same.

Page 180. Here we think Renan has failea to see the spiritual meaning in the words of Jesus, for the Kingdom of God cannot be bought, as Renan says, with earthly money. All this has a deeper meaning. It means that the man who discovers the true life of his soul, places everything else in connection with the body, as being beneath the value of the life of his sou?, and will sacrifice all earthly things which in any way prevent the growing life of his soul.

Page 182. We do not agree with Renan here, for we have some in the Gospels who were rich yet good. We understand this to mean that being rich we may be indifferent to the suffer-

88 AN ESSAT

ings of others, thinking only of ourselves, and it also means unbelief in God, for the parable ends by saying that if we will not believe in what Moses and the Prophets have told us, we would not believe if one rose from the dead to tell us of God. Riches can only be gained honestly by someone working for them ; and Jesus has showed us that work is honorable ; it is not riches themselves but the use we put them to, in which is the good or the evil.

i^^^^ 183. " The parable of the rich entering into the Kingdom of Heaven and the camel passing through the eye of a needle." We think this means that because they are so well off they think not of God ; also they think that all things will go well with them.

Page 186. ''That the poor alone are saved." In all this Renan has lost the spiritual meaning — for one can be poor in this world's riches, and also be desperately wicked in heart ; it means poor or humble in spirit.

Page 191. Frangois d'Assise did not understand Jesus. We think so for the reason that Jesus never meant us to be idle and expect

ON ERNEST EENAN*S LIFE OF JESUS. 39

others to feed and clothe us, for Jesus set us the example of work, and those who work do not become beggars. Jesus told us that God worked and that he, Jesus, worked ; therefore here we do not agree with Renan, and we think that the true moralist should condemii this, for it is not the teaching of Jesus. Man shall not live by bread alone means that man's true life is his soul, and though the body must live its short life by bread, the soul does not live by the earthly bread.

Page 195. " The turning of the water into wine at the wedding." Renan does not see the spiritual in this at all. We think that the carnal marriage was raised to a higher plane, permitted and blessed by the presence of Jesus ; a new life was instilled into the human frame, making it more able to follow the teachings of the Spirit.

Page 198. Here Renan also thinks as we do, that women understood Jesus better than men.

Page 199. " We must become as children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." We understand this to be a child's faith, accepting what his father tells him, doubting nothing.

Renan also tells us here that the word Paradise is Persian, and means a lovely garden. In our " Oriofin of Sin " we wrote that we think the name, Garden of Eden, was given by those who wrote Genesis as the only way they could think of Heaven, that there never was such a garden on this earth, and that the word Eden means Heaven.

Page 218. Renan here names Nazareth as the birthplace of Jesus, making the same mistake that those of the days of Jesus also made. We see nothing hard to believe in the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, even if there was nothing strange in the manner of his birth, for taxation is a very sure and positive thing.

Page 243. " The Samaritan woman, or the woman of Sichem." We think that Jesus knew that this woman was capable of understanding the truths he told her. In a note here Renan says • " We cannot insist on the historic truth of this conversation, because either Jesus or the woman alone could repeat the words." We do not agree with this, because we are told that the woman went at once to the village and said to the

ON ERNEST Kenan's life oe jesxts. 41

men to come and see one who had told her these things, and that the people of the village said they believed in Jesus, not so much because of what she had told them, as because they were convinced themselves by Jesus. That God is a Spirit and we must worship him in Spirit, does not, in our mind, change the fact that Jesus will judge the men of this earth. Having lived in the flesh and blood body, having come to this earth to teach, suffer and die to save mankind, and to show us God's will, he is well fitted to judge us at the last. God's judgment alone, without the intercession of Jesus, could be only condemnation if we are the descendants of animals, the descendants through long evolution, of Satan, or the evil one, who was banished from Heaven.

Page 246. We understand this to be the Kingdom of Heaven, God's message to our souls, perhaps his nearness to our souls which came to us by Jesus — the one and only opening for our souls to return to God whence they came. This, however, could not be accomplished without violence, for the Father of our flesh and blood bodies, which Fatherhood dwells in our flesh, would make resistance even to violence, and that violence will continue so long as many human beings or mankind prefer the fatherhood in the flesh to the Fatherhood of the souls. There may be a personal devil, but who can doubt that the flesh is not itself of the devil? This flesh will fight the Kingdom of God, which is in our souls, as long as the world lasts. It was this that put Jesus to death.