Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 41

PRAYER.-On two hypotheses alone is there any sense in prayer, that not quite extinct custom of olden times. It would have to be possible either to fix or alter the will of the G.o.dhead, and the devotee would have to know best himself what he needs and should really desire. Both hypotheses, axiomatic and traditional in all other religions, are denied by Christianity. If Christianity nevertheless maintained prayer side by side with its belief in the all-wise and all-provident divine reason (a belief that makes prayer really senseless and even blasphemous), it showed here once more its admirable "wisdom of the serpent." For an outspoken command, "Thou shalt not pray," would have led Christians by way of boredom to the denial of Christianity. In the Christian _ora et labora ora_ plays the role of pleasure. Without _ora_ what could those unlucky saints who renounced _labora_ have done? But to have a chat with G.o.d, to ask him for all kinds of pleasant things, to feel a slight amus.e.m.e.nt at one's own folly in still having any wishes at all, in spite of so excellent a father-all that was an admirable invention for saints.

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A HOLY LIE.-The lie that was on Arria's lips when she died (_Paete, non dolet_(19)) obscures all the truths that have ever been uttered by the dying. It is the only holy _lie_ that has become famous, whereas elsewhere the odour of sanct.i.ty has clung only to _errors_.

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THE MOST NECESSARY APOSTLE.-Among twelve apostles one must always be hard as stone, in order that upon him the new church may be built.

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WHICH IS MORE TRANSITORY, THE BODY OR THE SPIRIT?-In legal, moral, and religious inst.i.tutions the external and concrete elements-in other words, rites, gestures, and ceremonies-are the most permanent. They are the body to which a new spirit is constantly being superadded. The cult, like an unchangeable text, is ever interpreted anew. Concepts and emotions are fluid, customs are solid.

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THE BELIEF IN DISEASE _QUA_ DISEASE.-Christianity first painted the devil on the wall of the world. Christianity first brought the idea of sin into the world. The belief in the remedies, which is offered as an antidote, has gradually been shaken to its very foundations. But the belief in the disease, which Christianity has taught and propagated, still exists.

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SPEECH AND WRITINGS OF RELIGIOUS MEN.-If the priest's style and general expression, both in speaking and writing, do not clearly betray the religious man, we need no longer take his views upon religion and his pleading for religion seriously. These opinions have become powerless for him if, judging by his style, he has at command irony, arrogance, malice, hatred, and all the changing eddies of mood, just like the most irreligious of men-how far more powerless will they be for his hearers and readers! In short, he will serve to make the latter still more irreligious.

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THE DANGER IN PERSONALITY.-The more G.o.d has been regarded as a personality in himself, the less loyal have we been to him. Men are far more attached to their thought-images than to their best beloved. That is why they sacrifice themselves for State, Church, and even for G.o.d-so far as he remains _their_ creation, their thought, and is not too much looked upon as a personality. In the latter case they almost always quarrel with him.

After all, it was the most pious of men who let slip that bitter cry: "My G.o.d, why hast thou forsaken me?"

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WORLDLY JUSTICE.-It is possible to unhinge worldly justice with the doctrine of the complete non-responsibility and innocence of every man. An attempt has been made in the same direction on the basis of the opposite doctrine of the full responsibility and guilt of every man. It was the founder of Christianity who wished to abolish worldly justice and banish judgment and punishment from the world. For he understood all guilt as "sin"-that is, an outrage against G.o.d and not against the world. On the other hand, he considered every man in a broad sense, and almost in every sense, a sinner. The guilty, however, are not to be the judges of their peers-so his rules of equity decided. Thus all dispensers of worldly justice were in his eyes as culpable as those they condemned, and their air of guiltlessness appeared to him hypocritical and pharisaical.

Moreover, he looked to the motives and not to the results of actions, and thought that only one was keen-sighted enough to give a verdict on motives-himself or, as he expressed it, G.o.d.

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AN AFFECTATION IN PARTING.-He who wishes to sever his connection with a party or a creed thinks it necessary for him to refute it. This is a most arrogant notion. The only thing necessary is that he should clearly see what tentacles. .h.i.therto held him to this party or creed and no longer hold him, what views impelled him to it and now impel him in some other directions. We have not joined the party or creed on strict grounds of knowledge. We should not affect this att.i.tude on parting from it either.

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SAVIOUR AND PHYSICIAN.-In his knowledge of the human soul the founder of Christianity was, as is natural, not without many great deficiencies and prejudices, and, as physician of the soul, was addicted to that disreputable, laical belief in a universal medicine. In his methods he sometimes resembles that dentist who wishes to heal all pain by extracting the tooth. Thus, for example, he a.s.sails sensuality with the advice: "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out."-Yet there still remains the distinction that the dentist at least attains his object-painlessness for the patient-although in so clumsy a fas.h.i.+on that he becomes ridiculous; whereas the Christian who follows that advice and thinks he has killed his sensuality, is wrong, for his sensuality still lives in an uncanny, vampire form, and torments him in hideous disguises.

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PRISONERS.-One morning the prisoners entered the yard for work, but the warder was not there. Some, as their manner was, set to work at once; others stood idle and gazed defiantly around. Then one of them strode forward and cried, "Work as much as you will or do nothing, it all comes to the same. Your secret machinations have come to light; the warder has been keeping his eye on you of late, and will cause a terrible judgment to be pa.s.sed upon you in a few days' time. You know him-he is of a cruel and resentful disposition. But now, listen: you have mistaken me hitherto. I am not what I seem, but far more-I am the son of the warder, and can get anything I like out of him. I can save you-nay, I will save you. But remember this: I will only save those of you who _believe_ that I am the son of the prison warder. The rest may reap the fruits of their unbelief."

"Well," said an old prisoner after an interval of silence, "what can it matter to you whether we believe you or not? If you are really the son, and can do what you say, then put in a good word for us all. That would be a real kindness on your part. But have done with all talk of belief and unbelief!" "What is more," cried a younger man, "I don't believe him: he has only got a bee in his bonnet. I'll wager that in a week's time we shall find ourselves in the same place as we are to-day, and the warder will know nothing." "And if the warder ever knew anything, he knows it no longer," said the last of the prisoners, coming down into the yard at that moment, "for he has just died suddenly." "Ah ha!" cried several in confusion, "ah ha! Sir Son, Sir Son, how stands it now with your t.i.tle?

Are we by any chance _your_ prisoners now?" "I told you," answered the man gently, "I will set free all who believe in me, as surely as my father still lives."-The prisoners did not laugh, but shrugged their shoulders and left him to himself.

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THE PERSECUTORS OF G.o.d.-Paul conceived and Calvin followed up the idea that countless creatures have been predestined to d.a.m.nation from time immemorial, and that this fair world was made in order that the glory of G.o.d might be manifested therein. So heaven and h.e.l.l and mankind merely exist to satisfy the vanity of G.o.d! What a cruel, insatiable vanity must have smouldered in the soul of the first or second thinker of such a thought!-Paul, then, after all, remained Saul-the persecutor of G.o.d.

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