A Few Words About the Devil Part 8

***** John xviii, 17.

****** Luke xxii, 57., Luke xxii, 58., Luke xxii, 61.

******* Mark xiv, 69.

The refutation of these paltry objections is simple, but as none but an infidel would need to hear it, we refrain from penning it. None but a disciple of Paine, or follower of Voltaire, would permit himself to be drawn to the risk of d.a.m.nation on the mere question of when some c.o.c.k happened to crow, or the particular spot on which a recreant apostle denied his master.

Two of the twelve apostles, whose names are not, given, saw Jesus after he was dead, on the road to Emmaus, but they did not know him; toward evening they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. In broad daylight they did not know him; at evening time they knew him. While they did not know him they could see him; when they did know him they could not see him. Well may true believers declare that the ways of the Lord are wonderful. One of the apostles, Thomas called Didymus, set the world an example of unbelief. He disbelieved the other disciples when they said to him "we have seen the Lord," and required to see Jesus, though dead, alive in the flesh, and touch the body of his crucified master. Thomas the apostle had his requirements complied with--he saw, he touched, and he believed. The great merit is to believe without any evidence-- "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned." How it was that Thomas the Apostle did not know Jesus when he saw him shortly after near the sea of Tiberias, is another of the mysteries of the Holy Christian religion. The acts of the apostles after the death of Jesus deserve treatment in a separate paper; the present essay is issued in the meantime to aid the Bishop of London in his labors to stem the rising tide of infidelity.

THE ATONEMENT.

"Quel est donc ce Dieu qui fait mourir Dieu pour apaiser Dieu?"

Adam's sin is the corner-stone of Christianity; the keystone of the arch. Without the fall there is no redeemer, for there is no fallen one to be redeemed. It is, then, to the history of Adam that the examinant of the atonement theory should first direct his attention. To try the doctrine of the atonement by the aid of science would be fatal to Christianity. As for the man, Adam, 6,000 years ago the first of the human race, his existence is not only unvouched for by science, but is actually questioned by the timid, and challenged by the bolder exponents of modern ethnology. The human race is traced back far beyond the period fixed for Adam's sin. Egypt and India speak for humanity busy with wars, cities and monuments, prior to the date given for the garden scene in Eden. The fall of Adam could not have brought sin upon mankind, and death by sin, if hosts of men and women had lived and died ages before the words "thou shalt surely die" were spoken by G.o.d to man. Nor could all men inherit Adam's misfortune, if it be true that it is not to one center, but to many centers of origin that we ought to trace back the various races of mankind. The theologian who finds no evidence of death prior to the offense shared by Adam and Eve is laughed to scorn by the geologist who point to the innumerable petrifactions on the earth's bosom, which with a million tongues declare more potently than loudest speech thai organic life in myriads of myriads was destroyed incalculable ages before man's era on our world.

Science, however, has so little to offer in support of any religious doctrine, and so much to advance against all purely theologic tenets, that we turn to a point giving the Christian greater vantage ground; and, accepting for the moment his premises, we deny that he can maintain the possibility of Adam's sin, and yet consistently affirm the existence of an All-wise, All-powerful, and All-good G.o.d. Did Adam sin? We will take the Christian's bible in our hands to answer the question, first defining the word sin. What is sin? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, "A sin is an evil which has its ground or origin in the agent, and not in the compulsion of circ.u.mstances...." An act to be sin must be original, and a state or act that has not its origin in the will may be calamity, deformity, or disease, but sin it can not be. It is not enough that the act appears voluntary, or that it has the most hateful pa.s.sions or debasing appet.i.te for its proximate cause and accompaniment. All these may be found in a madhouse, where neither law nor humanity permit us to condemn the actor of sin. The reason of law declared the maniac not a free agent, and the verdict follows, of course _Not guilty?_ Did Adam sin?

The bible story is that a Deity created one man and one woman; that he placed them in a garden wherein he had also placed a tree which was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. That although he had expressly given the fruit of every tree bearing seed for food, he, nevertheless, commanded them not to eat of the fruit of this attractive tree, under penalty of death. Supposing Adam to have at once disobeyed this injunction, would it have been sin?

The fact that G.o.d had made the tree good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, would have surely been sufficient circ.u.mstance of justification on the G.o.d-created inducement to partake of its fruit. The inhibition lost its value as against the enticement. If the All-wise had intended the tree to be avoided, would he have made its allurements so overpowering to the senses? But the case does not rest here. In addition to all the attractions of the tree, and as though there were not enough, there is a subtle serpent, gifted with suasive speech, who, either wiser or more truthful than the All-perfect Deity, says that although G.o.d has threatened immediate death as the consequence of disobedience to his command, yet they "shall not die; for G.o.d doth know that in the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as G.o.ds, knowing good and evil." The tempter is stronger than the tempted, the witchery of the serpent is too great for the spellbound woman, the decoy tree is too potent in its temptations; overpersuaded herself by the honey-tongued voice of the seducer, she plucks the fruit and gives to her husband also. And for this their offspring are to suffer! The yet unborn children are to be the victims of G.o.d's vengeance on their parents' weakness--though he had made them weak; though, indeed, he had created the tempter sufficiently strong to practice upon this weakness, and had arranged the causes predisposing man and woman to commit the offense--if, indeed, it be an offense to pluck the fruit of a tree which gives knowledge to the eater. It is for this fall that Jesus is to atone. He is sacrificed to redeem the world's inhabitants from the penalties for a weakness (for sin it was not) they had no share in. It was not sin, for the man was influenced by circ.u.mstances pre-arranged by Deity, and which man was powerless to resist or control. But if man was so influenced by such circ.u.mstances, then it was G.o.d who influenced man--G.o.d who punished the human race for an action to the commission of which he impelled their progenitor.

Adam did not sin. He ate of the fruit of a tree which G.o.d had made good to be eaten. He was induced to this through the indirect persuasion of a serpent G.o.d had made purposely to persuade him. But even if Adam did sin, and even he and Eve, his wife, were the first parents of the whole human family, what have we to do with their sin? We, unborn when the act was committed and without choice as to coming into the world. Does Jesus atone for Adam's sin? Adam suffered for his own offense; he, according to the curse, was to eat in sorrow of the fruit of the earth all his life as punishment for his offense. Atonement, after punishment, is surely a superfluity. Did the sacrifice of Jesus serve as atonement for the whole world, and, if yes, for all sin, or for Adam's sin only?

If the atonement is for the whole world, does it extend to unbelievers as well as to believers in the efficacy? If it only includes believers, then what has become of those generations who, according to the bible, for 4,000 years succeeded each other in the world without faith in Christ because without knowledge of his mission? Should not Jesus have come 4,000 years earlier, or, at least, should he not have come when the ark on Ararat served as monument of G.o.d's merciless vengeance, which had made the whole earth a battle-field, whereon the omnipotent had crushed the feeble, and had marked his prowess by the innumerable myriads of decayed dead? If it be declared that, though the atonement by Jesus only applies to believers in his mission so far as regards human beings born since his coming, yet that it is wider in its retrospective effect, then the answer is that it is unfair to those born after Jesus to make faith the condition precedent to the saving efficacy of atonement, especially if belief be required from all mankind posterior to the Christian era, whether they have heard of Jesus or not. j.a.panese, Chinese, savage Indians, Kaffirs, and others, have surely a right to complain of this atonement scheme, which insures them eternal d.a.m.nation by making it requisite to believe in a Gospel of which they have no knowledge. If it be contended that belief shall only be required from those to whom the gospel of Jesus has been preached, and who have had afforded to them the opportunity of its acceptance, then how great a cause of complaint against Christian missionaries have those peoples who, without such missions, might have escaped d.a.m.nation for unbelief.

The gates of h.e.l.l are opened to them by the earnest propagandist, who professes to show the road to heaven.

But does this atonement serve only to redeem the human family from the curse inflicted by Deity in Eden's garden for Adam's sin, or does it operate as satisfaction for all sin? If the salvation is from the punishment for Adam's sin alone, and if belief and baptism are, as Jesus himself affirms, to be the sole conditions precedent to any saving efficacy in the much-lauded atonement by the Son of G.o.d, then what becomes of a child that only lives a few hours, is never baptized, and, never having any mind, consequently never has any belief? Or what becomes of one idiot born who, throughout his dreary life, never has mental capacity for the acceptance, or examination of, or credence in, any religious dogmas whatever? Is the idiot saved who can not believe?

Is the infant saved that can not believe? I, with some mental faculties tolerably developed, can not believe. Must I be d.a.m.ned? If so, fortunate short-lived babe! lucky idiot! That the atonement should not be effective until the person to be saved has been baptized is at least worthy of comment; that the sprinkling a few drops of water should quench the flames of h.e.l.l is a remarkable feature in the Christian's creed.

"One can't but think it somewhat droll Pump-water thus should cleanse a soul."

How many fierce quarrels have raged on the formula of baptism among those loving brothers in Christ who believe he died for them! How strange an idea that, though G.o.d has been crucified to redeem mankind, it yet needs the font of water to wash away the lingering stain of Adam's crime.

One minister of the Church of England, occupying the presidential chair of a well-known training college for church clergymen in the north of England, seriously declared, in the presence of a large auditory and of several church dignitaries, that the sin of Adam was so potent in its effect that if a man _had never been born, he would yet have been d.a.m.ned for sin!_ That is, he declared that man existed before birth, and that he committed sin before he was born; and if never born, would, notwithstanding, deserve to suffer eternal torment for that sin!

It is almost impossible to discuss seriously a doctrine so monstrously absurd, and yet it is not one whit more ridiculous than the ordinary orthodox and terrible doctrine that G.o.d, the undying, in his infinite love, killed himself under the form of his son to appease the cruel vengeance of G.o.d, the just and merciful, who, without this, would have been ever vengeful, unjust and merciless. The atonement theory, as presented to us by the bible, is in effect as follows: G.o.d creates man, surrounded by such circ.u.mstances as the divine mind chose, in the selection of which man had no voice, and the effects of which on man were all foreknown and predestined by Deity. The result is man's fall on the very first temptation, so frail the nature with which he was endowed, or so powerful the temptation to which he was subjected. For this fall not only does the All-merciful punish Adam, but also his posterity; and this punishment went on for many centuries, until G.o.d, the immutable, changed his purpose of continual condemnation of men for sins they had no share in, and was wearied with his long series of unjust judgments on those whom he created in order that he might judge them. That, then, G.o.d sent his son, who was himself and was also his own father, and who was immortal, to die upon the cross, and, by this sacrifice, to atone for the sin which G.o.d himself had caused Adam to commit, and thus to appease the merciless vengeance of the All-merciful, which would otherwise have been continued against men yet unborn for an offense they could not have been concerned in or accessory to. Whether those who had died before Christ's coming are redeemed the bible does not clearly tell us. Those born after are redeemed only on condition of their faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice offered, and in the truth of the history of Jesus's life. The doctrine of salvation by sacrifice of human life is the doctrine of a barbarous and superst.i.tous age; the outgrowth of a brutal and depraved era. The G.o.d who accepts the b.l.o.o.d.y offering of an innocent victim in lieu of punis.h.i.+ng the guilty culprit shows no mercy in sparing the offender: he has already satiated his l.u.s.t for vengeance on the first object presented to him.

Yet sacrifice is an early and prominent, and, with slight exception, an abiding feature in the Hebrew record--sacrifice of life finds appreciative acceptance from the Jewish Deity. Cain's offering of fruits is ineffective but Abel's altar, bearing the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, finds respect in the sight of the Lord. While the face of the earth was disfigured by the rotting dead, after G.o.d in his infinite mercy had deluged the world, then it was that the ascending smoke from Noah's burnt sacrifice of bird and beast produced pleasure in heaven, and G.o.d himself smelled a sweet savor from the roasted meats.

To reach atonement for the past by sacrifice is worse than folly--it is crime. The past can never be recalled, and the only reference to it should be that, by marking its events, we may avoid its evil deeds and improve upon its good ones. For Jesus himself--can man believe in him?

--in his history contained in anonymous pamphlets uncorroborated by contemporary testimony?--this history, in which, in order to fulfill a prophecy which does not relate to him, his descent from David is demonstrated by tracing through two self-contradictory genealogies the descent of Joseph who was not his father--this history, in which the infinite G.o.d grows, from babyhood and hus cradle through childhood to manhood, as though he were not G.o.d at all--this history, full of absurd wonders, devils, magicians, and evil spirits, rather fit for an Arabian Night's legend than the word of G.o.d to his people--this history, with its miraculous raisings of the dead to life, disbelieved and contradicted by the people among whom they are alleged to have been performed; but, nevertheless, to be accepted by us to-day with all humility--this history, with the Man-G.o.d subject to human pa.s.sions and infirmities, who comes to die, and who prays to his heavenly father (that is, to himself) that he will spare him the bitter cup of death--who is betrayed, having himself, ere he laid the foundations of the world, predestined Judas to betray him, and who dies, being G.o.d immortal crying with his almost dying breath, "My G.o.d! my G.o.d! why hast thou forsaken me?"

WERE ADAM AND EVE OUR FIRST PARENTS?

This question, Were Adam and Eve our first parents? is indeed one of most grave importance. If the answer be a negative one, it is, in fact, a denial of the whole scheme of Christianity. The Christian theory is that Adam, the common father of the whole human race, sinned, and that by his sin he dragged down all his posterity to a state from which redemption was needed; and that Jesus is, and was, the Redeemer, by whom all mankind are and were saved from the consequences of the fall of Adam. If Adam, therefore, be proved not to be the first man--if it be shown that it is not to Adam the various races of mankind are indebted for their origin, then the whole hypothesis of fall and redemption is dissipated.

In a pamphlet like the present it is impossible to give any statement and a.n.a.lysis of the various hypotheses as to the origin of the human race. I frankly admit that my only wish and intent is, to compel people to examine the bible record for themselves, instead of making it their fetich, bowing down before it without thought. I am inclined to the opinion that the doctrine of a plurality of sources for the various types of the human race is a correct one; that wherever the conditions for life have been found, there also has been the degree of life resultant on those conditions. My purpose in this essay is not to demonstrate the correctness of my own thinking, but rather to ill.u.s.trate the incorrectness of the Geneiacal teaching. Were Adam and Eve our first parents? On the one hand an answer in the affirmative to this question can be obtained from the bible, which a.s.serts Adam and Eve to be the first man and woman made by G.o.d, and fixes the date of their making about 6,000 years, little more or less, from the present time. On the other hand, it seems to me that science emphatically declares man to have existed on the earth for a far more extended period; affirms that, as far as we can trace man, we find him in isolated groups, diverse in type, till we lose him in the ante-historic period; and, with nearly equal distinctness, denies that the various existing races find their common parentage in one pair. It is only on the first point that I attack the bible chronology of man's existence. I am aware that compilations based upon the authorized version of the Old Testament Scriptures are open to objection, and that while from the Hebrew 1,656 years represent the period from Adam to the Deluge generally acknowledged, the Samaritan Pentateuch only yields for the same period 1,307 years, while the Septuagint version furnishes 2,242 years; there is, I am also informed, on the authority of a most erudite Egyptologist, a fatal objection to the Septuagint chronology--_i. e._, that it makes Methusaleh outlive the flood.*

The deluge occurred, according to the Septuagint, in the year of the world 2,242, and, by adding up the generations previous to Methusaleh's--

Adam..............................................230

Seth..............................................205

Enos..............................................190

Cainan............................................170

Malaleel..........................................165

Jared.............................................162

Enoch.............................................165

.................................................1287

* Sharpe's History of Egypt, page 196.

--we shall find that he was born in the year of the world 1,287. He lived 969 years, and therefore died in 2,256. But this is fourteen years after the deluge.

The Rev. Dr. Lightfoot, who wrote about 1,644, fixes the month of the creation at September, 5,572 years preceding the date of his book, and says that Adam was expelled from Eden on the day in which he was created.* In the London _Ethnological Journal_, for which I am indebted to the kindness of its Editor, an able ethnologist and careful thinker, the reader will find a chronology of Genesis ably and elaborately examined. At present, for our immediate purpose, we will take the ordinary. English bible, which gives the following result:

From Adam to Abraham (Gen. v and xi)............. 2008

From Abraham to Isaac (Gen. xxi, 5)............... 100

From Isaac to Jacob (Gen. xxv, 26).................. 60

From Jacob going into Egypt (Gen. xlvii, 9)......... 130

Sojourn in Egypt (Exod. xii, 41)..................... 480

Duration of Moses* leaders.h.i.+p (Exod. vii, 7; x.x.xi, 2). 40

Thence to David, about............................. 400

From David to Captivity, fourteen generations (27), about twenty-two reigns..........................478

Captivity to Jesus, fourteen generations, about...... 593

4234 Less disputed 230 years of sojourn in Egypt......230

4004 From Adam to Abraham the dates are certain, if we take the bible statement, and there is certainly no portion of the orthodox text, except the period of the Judges, which will admit any considerable extension of the ordinary Oxford chronology.

* Harmony of the Four Evangelists, and Harmony of the Old Testament.