Six Chapters Interpreted.

SIX CHAPTERS INTERPRETED OF

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

ST. MATTHEW.

CHAPTER 1.

(1-17.) The gospel begins with a beautiful litany of names which I always ensure I read, like John Ruskin, for their euphony. Salmon, Booz of Rachab, Ozias, and Manasses, are my favourites in this list, but my favourite name in all the Bible remains Tidal king of nations. Of course it has been observed by many that the impressive lineage of Joseph, husband of Mary, is of no great importance since he is not considered the father but only the guardian of Jesus.  

(18-25.) However it is of interest that there is no lineage provided for Mary. Perhaps theologically this might imply that Mary's lineage was as common and base as could be, so that there was a truly marvellous union of the very lowest and the very highest in Mary and the Holy Ghost. By common and base of course I mean in the eyes of ancient society, for there never was a rarer and more refined legend of a woman in the history of this earth than that of notre dame the beata Maria. I love and admire the beautiful European images of Mary very much, and it is pleasant to think of this graceful mother as the epitome of all womanhood. Sometimes I have wondered at the pride and the pains this poor yet rich mother must have undergone for the sake of her Son, who is the exalted subject of my present study.

   Joseph wins the affection of all kind readers through the ages by his immediate decency to his young wife with child. It is perhaps the first sign in our beloved Authorised English Bible that this is a New Testament indeed when we find the suspicion of adultery treated, not with curses and penalties of death but, with understanding. I shall always feel a warmth, akin to the hay which had been slept upon by the donkeys in the manger, for the name of Joseph. Of course, though Mary may have attempted with a beseeching and tearful passion to persuade her husband that she was neither deceitful nor faithless, that she was yet a virgin, Joseph may have had other notions in his mind. He yet loved her however and would meditate on what to do.

   Thus meditating, he is informed through a dream of the identity of the father in question, namely the Holy Ghost. I like the word ghost for it sounds better to my ear than spirit. Spirit is a tinny word, as Graham Chapman might suggest. In fact, ghost had the same meaning as spirit in the time of the Authorised English Bible. It is only lately that a man wearing a sheet with eye holes has asserted itself too much as an image upon that weighty old term. The Holy Ghost I construe as the force in those particularly suggestive things or happenings, which reveal God more noticeably than others. I think I detect intellectually the Ghost of God in all things seen and unseen throughout existence entire, but certainly I feel it more fully in myself when I am witness to or think on such great things as cathedrals, holy literature, holy music, holy deeds, holy personalities. This very sense of importance about Mary's conceived child, this paternity and fidelity of Joseph, this thought that a purpose is at hand, is itself suggestive of the Holy Ghost in my eyes. 

   We never can know if the Christian narratives are literal—if they were literally written as the writers believed events to have occurred, and words to have been uttered—for we never can know even if our closest friends exist. We tend to laugh at the notion of solipsism, but my thoughts at least are more substantially real-seeming to me than even the face and words of my own twin brother. I believe in his existence, I do not know it. I believe in Jesus Christ, I never knew him. Anyone who studies a case in a court of law may realise how utterly disparate a single event may seem to witnesses; two people, though describing the same event, have different personalities, different lives, different thoughts, and different perspectives. A good example of this would be the man who raises his arm; the witness behind him says he raised his right arm and the witness in front says he raised his left, and so on and so forth. Yet can anyone say the gospel narratives are perfect? Certainly, perfectly themselves. Moreover, to empiricists who will dwell on tiring points of reference and logistics, not even to have been present at all the events they describe would be perfect, for neither is human perception perfect knowledge. How often is it the case that a politician may analyse his tenure in government with a clarity which he admits he never possessed at the time? We must not think that we necessarily are worse off in our knowledge of past events than those who lived through them. I personally feel I know more about the year 1940 than the year 2020, and I think many ancient Egyptians would be astonished to read in an encyclopædia about all they did. What is demonstrable in Christian works and experience is the magnitude and force of the events I am considering.

   Thus it is settled by the Holy Ghost, the boy shall be named JESUS and he will have power to save people from their sins. All of this is a happy fulfilment of prophecy, 'a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us'. May God remain with us also.

   So Joseph trusted to the Holy Ghost, to the events of which he was now a willing part, and we doubt not that he cared well for Mary during her pregnancy, and that she remained a virgin until the birth of her first child, who was named JESUS.

 

CHAPTER 2.

(1-11.) In Bethlehem Jesus was born. G.K. Chesterton wrote that the name of Bethlehem is perhaps one of the dearest and most evocative in all the world, and I agree with him. We are informed that at this hallowed time there appeared wise men, by tradition three, three kings and Magi, who were come from the east to Jerusalem. Magi were priests of the first known monotheistic religion Zoroastrianism, sprung from the strange and romantic land of Persia, with a reputation for astrology and sorcery. I cannot say if this is intentional, but there is a beautiful symmetry to my mind in these representatives of monotheism's earliest form coming to meet the One who would bring it to its morally supreme refinement. In legend they have excellent names: Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar. There are good scenes in the 1959 film of Ben-Hur with wise old Balthazar.

   Immediately the three wise men make known unto King Herod of Judea their knowledge of the newborn babe who is to bear the title, which was indeed to be given him amidst taunting and agony, King of the Jews. Edward Gibbon was about as professed an admirer of Herod the Great as he was a pointed critic of Christianity. Gibbon however had too much imbibed the air of Voltaire's France, when satire was nourished like the ugly sisters and philosophic depth was neglected into rags and bones. Dr. Johnson, the mightier mind, always paid considerable regard to tradition's consensus. Nevertheless, it is apparent that Herod was at least liberal in the expenditure of his wealth upon grand building works.

   So following the same star sighted from their eastern territories, the three kings are brought to Jesus. They see the beautiful Mary with her newborn and fall down in worship. Once more I will say, who am I or who is anyone to judge whether this event occurred or no? If it never did it should have, and now it is so celebrated a tale that to all the world it as though it certainly did happen. Two thousand years ago the mystery of existence was felt more keenly. It is still as much a mystery in our time as it was then, but now the average citizen has more luxury than a mediæval king, and is sooner distracted. He is also talked down to and silenced by scientists who pretend to a clarity they cannot humanly possess. Legend tells that Alexander, returning from one of his victorious campaigns, stopped to see the vagrant Diogenes of Sinope. Diogenes was offered anything he could think to ask of the great king and emperor, but answered, 'step out of the way of the sunlight'. As Alexander left he is said to have remarked, 'if I were not Alexander I should like to be Diogenes'. If I ever were a king, I should like to be such a king as would travel thousand-mile distances in order to worship the Son of God, and to present Him with treasures for offerings.

 

(12-23.) The Magi intuit that Herod is no friend of theirs and return another way; for the same reason Joseph is told to depart for Egypt by the angel of the Lord. He does so. We are then reminded of the bloody tale in Exodus of the original Passover, but without appended justification, as it is written that Herod ordered the murder of all infants aged two and under in Bethlehem, for which event the Feast of the Holy Innocents is held in many churches. Historically it seems this event is more doubted than believed. I am undecided but I do not think it completely improbable. As portrayed at least in the gospels, the family of Herod was not without spirituality. It was a Jewish family though Romanised and Herod's son at least, the Tetrarch, appears to have been interested in the prophecies. He respected and feared both John the Baptist and Jesus, nor was he, in common with Pontius Pilate, a villain devoid of sympathy. Yet he and his father were villains all the same.

   More prophecy is therefore fulfilled and Herod dies soon afterwards. Joseph consequently brings his family at last 'into the parts of Galilee', another beautifully evocative place name, to the city of Nazareth. It is apparently a remarkably verdant place for the region, picturesque and quiet with rolling hills and beautiful sunsets, a pleasant location for Jesus to spend the unchronicled days of his youth.

 

CHAPTER 3.

(1-6.) The mythic figure of John the Baptist, a titan obscured in shadows and mists, becomes visible in Matthew's swiftly accelerated narration. He calls on repentance and attracts by personal fascination all the land of Judea to Jordan's banks. He was a hermit, an ascetic. I have always thought such a way of life very voracious, it consumes scarcity and is addicted to the effect of it. Biologically it might be true that in such circumstances the brain releases endorphins, so that an addictive quality might be present to an otherwise painful existence. I observe this also in exercise addicts, though they should break their bones in the drive for increasingly extreme highs, they continue to seek exhilaration. Gautama Buddha was right when he realised that utter solitude and self-denial did not overcome suffering, though it prevent the disgust of satiety. John however coloured his self-denial with inspiration, and presented a banquet greater than the emperor's to the imagination. There is little worse famine than the famine of inspired thought. The one crying in the wilderness of which prophecy foretold, making straight the paths of the messiah, had appeared baptising with water.

   The ritual of baptism is a very logical symbolism. Does not water wash away that which dirties the body? Might not water wash away that which stains the soul? It is the body which is immersed in water it is true, but when the immersion is become a baptism the mind also is brought before waters, but these the infinite waters of devotion and understanding, 'the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God'. Now the nature of ritual is possibly the greatest point of actually theological contention between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but I confess I cannot see why. The main issue of course is in the sacrament of the Last Supper, but baptism is another of the most vital ceremonies. It seems to me that there are broadly two ways in which a Christian may interpret these rituals, in a literal fashion or a symbolic. Those who tend towards the literal interpretation confuse  me, for it is clear that the soul is not a literal thing in the sense that other things are considered literal or material things. It is not an organ, though Descartes thought it was somehow mediated by the pineal gland, a surgeon cannot perform an operation on the soul. It cannot be physically touched with an object, thus water, however blessed by an holy person, is not going to cleanse the soul as a shirt is cleansed on a washboard. There is another kind of literal interpretation however, that holds a man cannot be a Christian until he is baptised. Does that mean Jesus was not Christian until he was baptised? Certainly not, baptism is one of those metaphorical processes by which the soul or essence of a man can feel as though it is cleansed, and to feel something is seven tenths towards being something. It is a means, not an end, as is the sacrament of communion. This is not to devalue it but to understand it. Most of the doings of society constitute some ritual or other, as I believe I have previously written. 

 

(7-12.) John denounces the established of Judaism, as Jesus is later to do, signifying that a new authority—a new testament—is come. Repentance is the matter at hand, necessary and good, and reform the injunction. Spinoza thinks repentance as fully a passion as any other which, though it should be, does not disqualify it for a useful force. Though Byron took the matter too far and held passion the only real and virtuous thing on earth, I nevertheless believe it can be an excellent thing if governed. It might perhaps be defined as a form of extravagant energy which, if correctly directed, can be a harbinger of the finest works of humanity. But Spinoza meant the passions that bind us rather than the interests which enthuse.

 

(13-17.) Jesus appears and wishes to be baptised, but John replies with an emotion that emanates from the page as freshly as though I were there to hear it, 'I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?' 'Suffer it to be so now' replies Jesus, and He is baptised. Then is written, in words which convey more powerfully than any less theoretically impeachable statement, the effect of this wonderful baptism. It is similar to the feeling I had when I was confirmed, 'the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased'.

 

CHAPTER 4.

(1-11.) As gold is tried in the furnace Jesus imposes on himself a time of fasting in the wilderness, and is tempted in His imagination of Satan. There follow several trials. It is natural to suppose that these were penned by the author or invented by a disciple, for there could be no means of their knowing precisely what Christ experienced alone in the wilderness. Perhaps He related these matters to them, but it occurs to me that these various tests which Satan gives Jesus are the same questions that unbelievers often put to Him. Particularly I recall the words of the malefactor on the cross who died with Him, 'If thou be Christ, save thyself and us'. It is Satan however who challenges Him now, 'If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:' the dark voice commands, 'for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee'. A similar point again is made later in the gospel by His detractors, 'the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save'. I have sometimes wondered as to that line, whether cannot could be made to mean must not in the context of Christian theology. But I do forget myself.

   Our Lord replies to all of Satan's tests with the same wit and insight he used to reply to the conniving Pharisees, when they asked Him as to paying tribute to Caesar, and with authority he doubles the meaning of the original questions. In the first, Satan wishes for a practical man's proof of godhead, 'command that these stones be made bread', a thing the hungered Jesus most would wish to accomplish at that time. Ah! but Jesus takes issue with the very notion that it is so crude a thing which He or any man really needs at such a time, 'It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone'. Secondly, the aforementioned test of jumping from a great height was given Jesus to which he adroitly replied, 'it is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God'. This quotation would seem to count as a mighty case against those who have attempted to argue that it was only St. John who claimed godship for Jesus. Lastly, the most interesting test is made of the Messiah in my eyes, 'the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him', with a righteous violence I can see captured in the page, 'Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.' In this last trial we are presented with the entire moral dilemma of human life; the struggle between the Machiavellian and the loving tendencies of man. I have observed before that Jesus had ample opportunity for political and military power, He could have accepted the devil's bargain, the sinner's plea, and used His incomparable charisma and powers of persuasion to selfish ends if He had been fashioned other than He was. But what business had the Son of Man with worldly comforts? That alone to Him would be the path of torture, to know that his actions were so utterly at odds with his thoughts. Living thus He could find no pleasure in meat or drink. Better to suffer, if necessary to the end, than to enjoy so poisoned a chalice. Jesus resisted, and the devil turneth away when he finds no answer.

 

(12-22.) Jesus begins to form his disciples among the balmy climes 'upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim', where evidently there was no great reputation for philosophy or religion, for of these regions the prophet had written, 'the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up'. The cynic within me has at times suggested that Jesus preferred the company of these uneducated souls because they least challenged Him, whereas if He had dared the test which St. Paul undertook in preaching before the philosophers of the Areopagus in Athens, He might have met with more resistance. Naturally, I do not think Jesus would have been incapable of countering stoics and Epicureans, but actually I doubt whether he would have thought fit to talk with them at all, as in His great encounter with the unfortunate Pilate. Of course, in making no reply to Pilate Jesus was also fulfilling Isaiah, but I must admit I should like to have a record of Jesus encountering a Platonist or some such other cobweb weaver. His piercing purity of vision would have been blinding to those cave dwellers.

   Truth be told, I would give up almost everything I own to walk by the sea with Jesus in person, though in a most inhospitable land, to feel His presence and listen to His words. It is no surprise that the fishers 'Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother' immediately followed Him, for it must have been self-evident at first glance that this was an extraordinary man, that no money in the world or experience in history could match his companionship, though even for a short period of time, though even at the expense of immense grief and terrible suffering. Two other fishermen, the brothers James and John, do the same, and feeling doubtless the same also.

 

(23-25.) So we are made aware that the itinerant Jesus is now teaching and preaching, though we are not told as yet quite what is the matter of His teaching. Further, He is capable of healing sickness and disease, so it is written. In those days I think it must have been difficult for a charismatic person not to be designated a healer. We must recollect that the state of medicine at that time amongst such people was almost nil. To choose to believe in healing miracles in those circumstances is not only understandable, it is estimable, for much of modern medicine is engaged in the same process. Especially in psychoactive drugs, the placebo effect is considered to be one of the single most important aspects to a prescription. I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus Christ did heal people, both physically and spiritually. He continues to do so now simply by the power of His memory and example. Whether he literally cured blindness or leprosy I cannot say, I will not say, but in the context of the narrative I am reading I assume with a swelling heart that He did. Frankly I well can imagine there were some so exalted by meeting Him that their immune systems were heartened and strengthened into curing their diseases. For this reason I think militant atheists are actually malicious people. If they had their way a vast number of people would become far more unwell and unhappy.

   The Master's fame spreads abroad, and now in touchingly simple words we hear of this same healing power of His, 'all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.' I remember once, years ago, reading a similar passage after the Sermon on the Mount, and I was so smitten with the pathos of the moment that I genuinely cried, for I can well imagine the plight of the lepers with their terrible sores and the outcast lives they led. Jesus' curing the mental distress of his followers was undoubtedly one of the greatest of His contributions to the immediate society in which He lived. It is a fact that a calm and peaceful religion often helps the mentally distressed, I think primarily by reassuring such people, of whom I am certainly one, that all is not lost nor purposeless in this distressing world.

   Thus at the close of this chapter the reader is informed that Jesus had accrued a great following as He travelled from place to place. There must have been a period at least of months for this to have occurred, but the pace of the gospel leaves little time for idle thoughts of idle questions.

 

CHAPTER 5.

(1-37.) The foundation in three chapters of all the world's civilisations to-day: Jesus Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps it is not sufficiently understood that prior to the coming of Jesus, though there were extraordinary civilisations of nations and mighty empires, human beings were as yet mere animals in our modern eyes. Certainly after Christ men have continued to sin, they have continued to commit errors, they have continued to cause one another harm, but since Christ they have ever done so with remorse. That remorse is as a single thorn left from His crown, forever and painfully set in the universal conscience, which smarts us when we know we have erred, but recedes when we are conscious of righteous doing. Whosoever reads the histories of Greece and Rome, of Egypt or Assyria, even of Israel, will gather that it was not common in those days for kindness to be considered a virtue. Strength and courage were the virtues of those times, and perhaps indeed they had to be, for those were men who had to fight for their existence with but very few defences against storm and tempest, famine and disease, wars and rapine. Out of that military existence the rudiments of society were fostered; agriculture, building works, poetry, polytheism, and philosophy. Politics in those days were as lawless as the men concerned in them, shifting from republics to monarchies with a wild inconstancy. Rome, so lauded for its majesty and sustained existence, was ruled by one almost unbroken thread of intrigue, assassination, jealousy, feud, and warfare. Its character is epitomised by its greatest ruin: the colosseum, where men slew beasts and each other to the raucous cheering and jeering of an intoxicated crowd. Greece was little different but, hampered by a difficult geography, was fractured across several states and lacked the military focus of the Romans. Yet here there grew up a skill in eloquence and thinking so profound that only very occasionally has it been equalled since. Nevertheless, the Greek tragedies are remorseless, and the epics of Homer strain the Christian soul with their catalogues of bloodshed. Theirs was a harsh world, but so was Christ's.

   For there was no particular reason why this Jesus of Nazareth, a peasant, a pauper, a roaming vagabond, dishevelled and alone, save for the few kindred disciples he acquired on his way, should have fostered in his unassuming head an eternal and limitless morality, impossible for mortals fully to realise, which would become the foundation not only of Rome, but of all future civilisations thereafter. It must be dishonest for anyone to pretend that the entirety of to-day's civilised world is not already Christian in fact, though it should not be so in name. Everything which has sprung from the fourth century onwards, all systems of economy, politics, science, philosophy, and of the arts, have been mingled indissolubly with the Christian influence, and this is not to say in an airy way as all things are so mingled with one another, on the contrary, Christianity has represented the primary influence in thought and form over the whole world since the reign of Constantine. Even Islam is partly Christian, for Islam is the younger religion and holds Jesus for a prophet. True it is that China, Japan, and India, continued on independently for a long while, but these reached their limits, and this is shown by the fact that when the Christian powers met these Asiatic powers it was the Christian structure of society which was imitated, at least in a political, military, technological, and scientific, sense. Even in the arts too, for the men's suit is still a thriving fashion in the Orient. Indeed, once the Christian nations grew like Topsy into empires, they made of undiscovered continents further Christian lands. Certainly in Africa, America, and Australia, the Christian religion itself was fully exported, but even in the Arabian lands, even in Asia, where the full body of Christianity's religion may not have planted itself entire, its culture and structures were successfully germinated and cultivated everywhere, till we have reached the present time and see China striding in contest with America.

   All of these things turned upon this occasion of Jesus climbing atop a mountain in order to address the multitude of people who had followed him unbidden. I always tend to imagine it occurring during a long sunset, in the gloaming's warmth, perhaps as the awed and hushed listeners plucked and eat olives from the nearby groves.

   'Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.' Up to this moment Christ may well have simply been naming the various types he saw thus gathered together to hear him, but His supreme idealism now gathers pace, 'Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.'

   At once then it is apparent, this Jesus is no representative of the old world and its traditional virtues, where blessed was not to be any of these things He listed but blessed was to be strong, blessed was to be ruthless, blessed was to be cunning, for of such was the kingdom of earth. This voice so speaking soars higher still than the standards of this æra, for there is no escaping faction on earth. Many invoke Jesus to-day but they forget it was the kingdom of heaven he pointed towards, not the kingdom of earth. The medieval Christian civilisations of Europe felt this when they produced those great churches and cathedrals whose remnants we yet may see, built as a symbol of that same kingdom of heaven, as echoes or reflections of the Place they strove towards, when earthly society was but a means and never an end. Alas! to-day it is the other way about, when it seems too much of our worship is of ourselves and a consequent self-perpetuation. We must not forget ourselves; we will not be here forever; do we carry the standard on or tear it in twain? The Roman Catholics will have wondered the very same, and I lament for all which we did to their cathedrals in the name of reform. I will ever think the Reformation an excellent thing, I will never think iconoclasm aught but a scourge.

   'Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.'

   He was indeed to fulfil the better part of Judaism. The fulfilment of Isaiah was a pressing concern for many, and though I myself well accept Spinoza's view that a prophecy ever contributes to its own completion, I still think it extraordinary how coincidental many parts of Christ's life were with Isaiah's Wonderful Counselor. None of it can be explained away, perhaps some of it can be explained, but the rest is silence. There was a torsion in Judaism between one side wishing to move with the prophets and the other wishing to stay with the Pentateuch; that is why Jesus founded all of modern civilisation; it is also why He was crucified.

   'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' This is a golden thread in Christianity, that it is an appeal to the soul or to the essence of a man whose atmosphere is his thoughts. The Judaic law and all other forms of social law 'punish the action', as the proverb tells, 'God punishes the intention'. Spinoza answers the problem of lust in the same manner as most other appetites of the flesh, by the gradual improvement of character. That is what Christ intends to instil in this saying, that man must improve his character and not merely show prudence in his deeds.

   'And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.' I recall a number of good debates with my youngest brother over these passages, he being an atheist or perhaps an agnostic these days, and unwilling to interpret them metaphorically. I cannot be certain if Christ meant these sayings literally. If he did they would seem to act against his general antipathy to violence, such as He showed in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the great preponderance of His words and deeds in general. We have in our English idiom the mind's eye as well as the strong arm of the law, and I incline towards the intention of the words as a similitude. However barbarous the reputation of 30 A.D. or thereabouts, I still do not think anyone present at the Sermon on the Mount, truly felt commanded to sever a limb or pluck an eyeball for carnal thoughts or vicious inclinations. I believe Jesus meant that we should sever the metaphorical limbs and organs of evil that spring up and fester within our souls.

   Jesus speaks on marriage, and He is often maliciously quoted as such but He means, I trust, in saying 'whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery' simply that a marriage is a representation of the love and devotion to God, so that an easy attitude to it is thus an easy attitude to God. I fancy I can detect that Jesus was rebuking young men in this, for it seems to me there was then much free use or abuse of that holy institution. Yet He Himself recognises that there may be due cause for divorce. Some may wonder why marriage has been such a point of contention in history, when the sexuality of many of the ancient societies was exceedingly licentious, and when throughout the ages men and women between them seem to have been quite willing for there to exist a free interchange of pleasantries. The answer is somewhere in the Life of Johnson. In fine, marriage is the basis of all property. Without marriage there is no transference of name and therefore no inheritance of property. If all marriages were to be as brittle as chalk, society and society's property would also be so brittle. Nowadays there is so complicated a framework of law that the effect of property ownership can persist in spite of the slow decline in the institution of marriage. However, this could never have been the case in the past. This is one of the many places of friction to-day between civil and religious conceptions. In the past, and certainly in the time of Christ, there was hardly a distinction between the religious and the civil. I, in common with Spinoza, believe there should be an almost complete division between the two, and where I am offended at any particular policies of a church it is ever because they are showing a political streak. Why, for example, is it so common these days for a congregation to be asked to pray for political opinions? Tell me to pray for all mankind and I will say amen. Tell me to pray for a political group and I will walk out, not because I wish them ill, but because I wish religion to be religious. Only thus may all political groups be united, that there should be no politics in church, for only then will the congregation be united in religion, a thing infinitely greater than social faction. 'Render unto God the things that are God's.'

 

(38-48.) 'Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' To what extent is this advice to be followed? To some extent, of course. Other sayings of Christ however, and the general tenor of His mission which was to establish a new way in the world, would suggest that effort at least is not to be condemned. It may be that we are not to heap ill on ill, but that just resistance is an arrow in the quiver. Indeed, such is a good way of containing Christ's sayings, to keep them ready for their occasion. Not one will count in all circumstances, but all together they form an armoury indeed. Let us 'put upon us the armour of light'.

   'Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have we? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.'

   As I have already written, this sermon is the foundation of our civilisation, thank God.

 

CHAPTER 6.

 

(1-8.) Confucius say, the Superior Man may be kicked and derided, the Superior Man may be scorned and neglected, the Superior Man may be mocked and rejected, but he is still the Superior Man. The perception is not preferable to the reality. It is better to be charitable and not to be known as such than it is to be known as charitable and not to be so at all. The same is true of all the virtues, 'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly'. This is simply to say, be not a braggart in virtue. Who makes a show of virtue makes a vice of necessity. It should not be extraordinary for us to be good, it should be ordinary and naturally occurring. Those who evince ulterior motives in righteousness may be misunderstood, or they may be well understood. There is nothing evil of itself in success or praise, the trouble occurs in the pursuit of it, that for the sake of it many will stoop and compromise, and for the love of it many must grow forgetful. If being is higher than doing, it is certainly higher than showing.

   'And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogue and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.'

   This is why I sometimes find the repetition of the prayer books to be wearing. Of course I hold the Book of Common Prayer in reverence, and it often reaches the sublime, but I see a pressing need for variation in church services, so I would like one day to compile the best prayer books together for yearly use. Naturally I would not touch any published after 1900 with a barge pole or a bilge water plunger. The Book of Common Prayer is an excellent basis from which to start, then I would incorporate the Whole Duty of Man, Dr. Johnson's Prayers and Meditations, passages from Donne's sermons, and so on. I ought to read more prayer books. There are many good passages from an old Roman Catholic calendar of the lives of the saints I once followed, and truly I felt the appeal of that church for a time, as also in Law's Serious Call, in Addison's works, and of course in the mighty Cloud of Unknowing — surely the best substantiation of the orthodoxy of pantheism, though to be sure I hate to call it pantheism for it is theism most truly conceived. What are these other theisms which define God as limited in some respects, outside the Universe, interventionist, not an interventionist? But I have forgotten the former part of my republic. Happily this country has a greater quantity of excellent Christian literature than almost any other, but these are by and large forgotten and must be sought at auctions and antiquarian book shops. It is not so much that I find the routine of a prayer book flawed but that, unless the enunciation prove so beautiful that it is a pleasure ever to hear the reader, the mind becomes fatigued with the remembrance of similarity.

   Now I would not have it thought that I consider churches at all a bad force in society, but they are conductors in common with all institutions, and so may gather and increase good things and ill. The rôle of a priest or clergyman is twofold, to be both an artist and a counsel for people. Were it confined solely to the artistic aspect I should like to be one myself, but I lack the temperament of a man who must be depended upon for unshakeable fidelity and evenness of manner. I have a great respect for those who must endure the heartbreak of performing weekly funeral services, who must minister to the sick and dying, to grieving relatives and hopeless cases. Whatever others might say, I do not hold that mere social workers, therapists, physicians, or friends, can supply the place of clergymen. They cannot offer anything beyond the room. I was present when my vicar ministered to my grandmother on her deathbed, and I shall ever remain in his debt for the service he performed.

   On the other hand I do think mysticism lacking to-day, which is a pity as I consider it to be truly vital to religion. It makes of pollen honey and soothes the ardour of fanaticism. How aggravating it is to hear people deride religion because of its fanatics! Do we hear the like said of the fanatically political? How often has it fallen on deaf ears that the most murderous and fanatical men in history have been atheists: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao? The great superannuated brigade of atheist television personalities always used to dismiss this point in the debates I saw, as though it were a pesky fly of an argument, a most mischievous mosquito of a truth, but could there be a more forceful proof of Chesterton's saying about great cliffs sobering us? I will print it: ‘People who say that an ideal is a dangerous thing, that it deludes and intoxicates, are perfectly right. But the ideal which intoxicates most is the least idealistic kind of ideal. The ideal which intoxicates least is the very ideal ideal; that sobers us suddenly, as all heights and precipices and great distances do. Granted that it is a great evil to mistake a cloud for a cape; still, the cloud, which can be most easily mistaken for a cape, is the cloud that is nearest the earth.’ HERETICS. How true! How startlingly true! Depend upon it, people are only ever truly calmed in this life when they are inspired, when they are presented with something they do not immediately understand, which sets their brains a'thinking and lights up the imagination's lantern in those assembled. We finite things never can fully understand God, that is why the religious experience is one of continued inspiration. If we sit in complacency, repeating again and again the same words, the flame of faith will dwindle almost to invisibility. True it is that Christ says our Father knoweth all that we need before we ask Him, and this indeed is certain if He is God, why then do we pray? To bring this reality to our minds, to focus our limited vision, and to bring our variable minds upon Him the Ultimate Object. By this token all other ritual is also justified, including baptism,  marriage, the blessed sacrament, and the funeral rites. Even transubstantiation, if its doctrine proves helpful in aligning the mind with God, is a noble belief to hold.

 

(9-13.) Now Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer freely, a thing more valuable than all the gold in Africa, which may very well prove the last utterance in history. Thy will be done is of course the key to the whole prayer, which Jesus Himself in utter sadness and despondency referred to at last during His agony in the garden, 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.' This must remain with all believers as the most significant reflection which the mind can conjure in itself. It is the most painful, the most difficult, but will always be the most important. We cannot control ninety-nine hundredths of the things which happen around us. Wisdom in peace is to accept this truth and look to the one hundredth. Folly is to strive against it, to twist and strain and injure one's self against the current. 'If thou bearest thy cross willingly, it will bear thee. If thou bearest it unwillingly, thou increasest thy load, and yet thou must bear it.’ THOMAS À KEMPIS.

   'Our Father' (that is progenitor of us, as of all else, for in my view being identical with the same in totality) 'which art in heaven,' (Spinoza I think would happily call this great place 'the place of understanding' as in the Hebraic book, for him heaven was the state of perfect wisdom which, for a human being, is to be free of the bondage of passive or exterior eating forces. For God, it is simply to be God, to be in the supreme state of understanding, brooding over existence, or creation as it is termed) 'Hallowed be thy name.' (show reverence all ye) 'Thy kingdom come.' (as I intuit, to be known and therefore shown in the affairs of men, which through Christ it certainly was to be.)

   'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.' This is a pregnant verse indeed. Why should not the will of the Almighty be done in earth? Surely His will is all prevailing? Indeed it must be, and so it is His will that in human agency such a variety of actions (or creativity) is latent as to be actuated, and this the Christian calls free will. I call it variety, Nature's plenty. The notion of free will is tied to cause, that is, within the judgement of a personality in a moment we may resolve to eat an apple or an orange. The free will debate rather founders however if the alternatives are closed. Suppose there are only two possible actions in a universe, to eat an apple or an orange, and free will exists to choose either. Now suppose one of the possible actions is removed. The free will still exists, but the possibility of action is restrained. The free will wielding man chooses to eat the apple. Grant that he has yet more apples to eat. Now suppose the existence of hunger is subtracted from the equation, will he still choose to eat the apples? Perhaps for the flavour he will, but we see that this posited freedom is really a collusion of circumstances. He continues to eat the apples, due to free will let us suppose, but his actions are as though he never possessed free will at all. All of this is so to say, free will is perhaps the most tangled question in philosophy because it is the most tangled notion in philosophy. Free will is a feeling we have at times and a feeling we lack at times. When we have passed three days without drinking water, the free will theorist shall argue that we still have the freedom to refrain from drinking, but the reality is that ninety-nine in an hundred will feel they lack freedom of decision, they will drink because they must. The remaining hundredth will not drink for some reason or other, but the determinist will say that this last hundredth also are compelled not to drink, that the thoughts within them actually render them as unable to drink as though paralysed. Thus we see two opposite theories validated by the same actions. This is the surest indication that neither is satisfactory but that both should be collided, should destroy each other, and made to create a higher concept.

   Jesus does not speak of freedom but He does speak of will. God's will is done in heaven. To my mind this means God's will, in its timeless and infinite state of total understanding, is ever followed. Jesus appeals to us, not to God, for what is there which God needs us to say to Him? We alone require it of Jesus. His Prayer, His Life, short as they were, are each an appeal of the most concentrated kind to us. Notice that the Lord's Prayer addresses God but really speaks to its hearers, all of its implications are upon our lives and the actions taken in them. For Jesus, being the truest mystic, not only thought and spoke in mysticism but moved in mysticism as only a very few ever could. This is fulfilment of Spinoza's objective, 'the intellectual love of God'. For what is the sweetest emotion but love? What is the finest capacity but intelligence? What is the highest object but God? If I were asked to define religion I should say, it is that study of existence which breaks free of the framework of cause. It is the point at which all other studies converge when at last they realise, we can go no further. That is transcendence. Not of place, nor of time, but of reason. That is the effect of worship, that is the experience of religion. It is not the Christopher Hitchens moment when, with wine in hand and woman in arm, in a picturesque place and clime for a sunset, we feel satisfied. That is pure sense experience. No, no, this very transcendence might be experienced by one both deaf and dumb, so long as he had the power of thought. It is realisation. It begins where everything else ends. It is a surrender, but such a surrender as the Danish king made to Alfred when he baptised the Dane in Christ and pledged to be his godfather; it is such a surrender as the swimmer who learns to float without moving, it is the surrender of those angered lovers who tempestuous in a row, for some small matter of infinite humour, erupt into ecstatic laughter and forget the worser passion for the better. That is the will to which we choose to yield in the Lord's Prayer, that dissolves the traces of cause and effect like the hissing foam of a flowing wave. A finite conviction yields to Reality in its infinitude, and far from this reflection defeating the purpose of the subordinate studies, it justifies them, as showing that they are tending to promote in use the fulfilment of our powers, and that fulfilment's purpose is quite simply to recognise His.

   'Give us this day our daily bread.' (or, 'for at least a little while longer, O Lord, we should be glad as grateful for provision to subsist'; is this not also a promotion of fair sharing amongst brethren? Notice again that Jesus is addressing us via God). 'And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.' (this is surely a good instance of Christ's language being fuller than its appearance, and perhaps therefore a substantiation of my understanding of the 'arm dismembering' image). 'And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.' ('save us from others and ourselves by continual reflection upon our purpose which is, in very truth, Thy purpose, and our light which can only be, in its fullness, Thy light, O God, Amen.').

 

(14-21.) Jesus returns to His injunctions, dwelling and emphasising providence most particularly by that recurring observation that those who do the opposite 'have their reward'. For a reason obscure to me the eastern notion of karma has entered more commonly into parlance than the Christian notion of providence. That which is providential is often referred to as the merest boon or serendipity, rather than as an indication of the all-seeing purpose at work. Those who rationalise events in terms of providence surely abstract their minds from the Hall of Mirrors of earthly logic, and return nearer, my God, to Thee. Again Jesus dwells upon the matter in hand of being good rather than seeming good, and not yielding too much to the temptation of taking too much self-delight. Perhaps the legend of Narcissus is the prettiest dressing of this moral, although nowadays the psychologists have inflated that term to mean a whole Cyclops of monstrous characteristics, and somehow everyone I know seems also to be in close acquaintance with such a very narcissist. Aye, and all their houses are lit by gas too, in this day and age, how astounding!

   By reference to that kingdom of heaven, Jesus delineates the difference between the hollow treasures of this world which, in Pascal's words we so relish and love to 'lick', and the eternal treasures that are mystical, which 'neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal'. How true this observation is may be seen by any who have noticed, by news or by hearsay, that the wealthiest and the most celebrated in this world (and especially in this most raucous of ages) often seem, once glutted to their fill with all the pleasures of Mammon and Asmodeus, to be left not replete but empty, not satisfied but distracted, as vestiges merely, as 'shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion'.

(22-34.) 'The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!'

   Is it not extraordinary that Jesus can say more in a paragraph than generations of psychologists in thousands of books? Does this not summarise the whole matter? This excellent statement does beg a question to my mind however, namely, should one voluntarily go about pretending that one's eye is brimming with light when, in point of fact, there is darkness a'plenty there? I venture to suggest that one should, to a certain degree, as all Christians must be engaged in the imitation of their Master. Yet I mean mainly in matters of taste, Jesus was speaking of vital moral questions. This applies as readily in my view to the old debate between optimism or pessimism, and which should be supposed the truest lens through which we are to view the world or universe. Is either the one or the other in itself to be considered truer? Bertrand Russell was all for the harvest of facts and facts alone, 'not what you think might have beneficent social effects', but of course this is a robotic treatment of knowledge, presumptuous, and therefore natural of a mathematician, for if man is to think the universe not worth living in will he ever bother to gather even a fragment of a fact, e'en a morsel of observation? This question is also highly relevant in religion. That great Spinozist, Albert Einstein himself, said, 'I think the most important question facing humanity is, "Is the universe a friendly place?" This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.' Ultimately, although these might themselves deny it, atheism is a pessimistic lens because it implies rather that we are at war with the world around us. It says: the world means us harm, it is brute matter and that is brute fact. Theism however suggests that we are at home in this world, for the world is liker to our beings than we are inclined to admit, and it enjoys our presence as much as we enjoy its presence. Indeed, in this saying of Christ's, we might have the entirety of Pascal's Wager so contained, that excellent and misunderstood formula, which tells us to trust to feeling, to have faith, for it is faith which guides the first step and the last, knowledge only confirms these, and this same knowledge when brought to a complacency is an arrogance, defeating itself with its parent.

   '"What a lovely thing a rose is!"

   'He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.

   "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."' SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

   Jesus untiringly continues, 'Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?'

   And what may I add to so continuous a collection of precious jewels? Why bother I even to write about such words when they say all that is necessary in abundance of themselves? How many times I have quoted 'Is not the life more than meat?' I cannot count. This little question undoes everything which the materialist reductionists attempt to do to the human soul, the human being, and all our mutually confirmed subjective experiences. Once indeed, when I made the bold effort to walk with my mother early every morning for three months or so, we encountered a Quaker who said nevertheless that he was an atheist. He was a strange man, a very set man. My mother had encountered him before and knew he liked to discuss philosophical questions; she said to him, 'Orly's been telling me why parallel universes are impossible.' He looked at me very fixedly, and, I fancied almost with animosity, he asked, 'why?' I said I thought at least terminologically they were an absurd notion. If something is parallel it means it is separate or divided from the thing to which it is parallel. Yet the word universe means one existence, so the terms cancel each other out. I then proceeded to say that even physically the notion seems objectionable, for if these universes (which word never should be pluralised) are separated by each other, what are they separated by? A thing cannot be separated by itself, nor can it be separated by nothing, for nothing being nothing can displace nothing.

   The atheist Quaker was slightly impressed with my reasoning but replied, in a somewhat offhand and supercilious manner, that there were 'arguments against' what I said. Perhaps he had forgotten them, or thought me an unfit audience for them, for he chose not to make them. We told him we were burgeoning Christians of a sort, he said he had been thinking about the question for a very long time and knew that there was no God. I asked him, provocatively I admit, 'I suppose you believe all things are material?' He snapped at that, 'No, software isn't material.' I made a glance to my mother as much as to say, 'he himself has ended the debate with such a point as that'. For computer programmes are material except that we should admit that the perception of them, in our subjective experience, makes them something otherwise. But enough of the Quaker philosopher.

   'And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' O, read Chesterton's chapter entitled The Strangest Story in the World from his book The Everlasting Man, it is a profound religious experience to do so. Everyone knows this to be among the most sublime utterances in history.

   'But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'

   My dear late grandmother would often repeat this last line of the chapter to me, and it is therefore potent to me with memory and sore heartedness. How apt a reflection it is too, for if I were only to judge of this world by the daily round and daily portions I have so incessantly to intake, I might lose all patience with the ritual. But God is good in His mercy to grant me the ability to think whilst I am obliged to undergo these many tedious duties, so that I may be in spirit at His table and in His company, though I am alone over a poor enough plate of something or other, which I relish not again, for, 'Is not the life more than meat?'

 

 

God restore to England and her churches the spirit which created them.