dr. farrar stumbles, on one occasion, against the true theory of the bible. having to furnish an excuse, if not a justification, for the outrageous crudity of a good deal of its language, he reminds us that decorum changes with time and place. "the rigid external modesty and propriety of modern and english literature," he observes, "is disgusted and offended by statements which gave no such shock to ancient and eastern readers." and he adds that "the plain-spokenness of orientals involved no necessary offence against abstract morality." this is true enough, but the argument should be developed. what is urged in extenuation of the grossness of the scripture is really applicable all round—to its mythology, its legends, its religion, its philosophy, its ethics, and its poetry. the bible is an oriental book. and this one statement, when properly understood, gives us the true key to its interpretation, the real criterion of its character, and the just measure of its value.
it has been well remarked that the ordinary christian in this part of the world appears to imagine that the bible dropped down from heaven—in english. even the expounders of the higher criticism, in our own country, read it first in their mother tongue; and although they afterwards read it in the original greek, and sometimes in the original hebrew, they are under the witchery of early impressions, and their apologetics are almost entirely founded upon the vernacular bible. thus they lose sight, and their readers never catch a glimpse, of the predominant element, the governing factor, of the problem.
all the bibles in the world, like all the religions in the world, came from the east. "not one of them," as max müller remarks, "has been conceived, composed, or written down in europe."*
* max müller, natural religion, p. 538.
he classes the pilgrim's progress among the "many books which have exercised a far greater influence on religious faith and moral conduct than the bibles of the world"; but bunyan's originality was artistic and not religious; he absorbed the puritanism of his age, and reproduced it in the form of a magnificent allegory. religious originality does not belong to the western mind, which is too scientific and practical. every one of the fashionable crazes that spring up from time to time, and have their day and give place to a successor, is merely a garment from the old wardrobe of superstition. this is true of theosophy, for instance; all its doctrines, ideas, and jargon being borrowed from india. "there are five countries only," max müller says, "which have been the birthplace of sacred books: (1) india, (2) persia, (3) china, (4) palestine, (5) arabia." all come from the east, and all have a generic and historic resemblance. not one of them was written by the founder of its religion. moses did not write the pentateuch, christ did not write a line of the new testament, mohammed did not write the koran, zoroaster did not write the avesta, the buddhist scriptures were not written by buddha, and the vedic hymns are far more ancient than writing in india. all these sacred books embody the accepted beliefs of whole peoples; all of them are canonical and authoritative; all contain very much the same ethical groundwork, in the form of elementary moral prohibitions; all of them are held to be of divine character; all of them become a kind of fetish, which is worshipped and obeyed at the expense of the free spirit of man, who is told not to be wise above what is written. ecclesiastical or kingly authority has generally given these books their final form and character. their establishment takes place in open daylight, but their origin is more or less shrouded in mystery. "it is curious," max müller says, "that wherever we have sacred books, they represent to us the oldest language of the country. it is so in india, it is the same in persia, in china, in palestine, and very nearly so in arabia."* according to max müller, the veda was referred to in india fifteen hundred years before christ. consequently it precedes by many centuries even the earliest parts of the bible:—
"the vedic hymns come to us as a collection of sacred poetry, belonging to certain ancient families, and afterwards united in one collection, called the rig-veda-samhita. the names of the poets, handed down by tradition, are in most cases purely imaginary names. what is really important is that in the hymns themselves the poets speak of their thoughts and words as god-given—this we can understand—while at a later time the theory came in that not the thoughts and words only, but every syllable, every letter, every accent, had been communicated to half-divine and half-human prophets by brahma, so that the slightest mistake in pronunciation, even to the pronunciation of an accent, would destroy the charm and efficacy of these ancient prayers."**
* natural religion, p. 295.
** max müller, ibid, p. 558.
with a slight variation of language, to suit the special circumstances, nearly all this would apply to the bible.
christianity, like brahmanism, like buddhism, like mohammedanism, is a book religion. it is "god-given," or revealed, and its bible has been elevated to a position of infallibility, above the reach of human reason, precisely like the bibles of other oriental faiths. this sanctification of every thought and word and letter is declared by max müller to have been "the death-blow given to the vedic religion," destroying its power of growth and change. a similar observation is made by sir william muir respecting the petrified gospel of the koran:—
"from the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed, the religion of mohammed cannot emerge. it has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest days. hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves, to the varying circumstances, the wants and developments of mankind."*
how curious it is, after reading this strong passage, to come across a diametrically opposite one in the work of another eminent writer on the same subject. professor arnold closes his important book on the propagation of the muslim faith with a reference to "the power of this religion to adapt itself to the peculiar characteristics and the stage of development of the people whose allegiance it seeks to win."** historically, it is perfectly certain that mohammedanism has been found compatible with a high degree of civilisation. many instances might be given, but a single one is sufficient. the mohammedan civilisation in spain was far superior to the christian civilisation which, after terrible bloodshed and enormous destruction, was established upon its ruins. the truth is, that religions always change when they must change, and never otherwise. when the necessity arises, learned divines will always be found to make the requisite accommodations. this, indeed, is the explanation of the labors of dr. farrar and other exponents of the higher criticism. they are simply accommodating christianity, and the bible with it, to the serious changes that have taken place in educated opinion and sentiment, in consequence of the development of physical science, the progress of historical criticism, and the growth of moral culture. all the truth in sir william muir's impeachment of mohammedanism is no less applicable to christianity. the bible, like the koran, and like every other revelation, stereotyped old ideas, and gave them a factitious longevity. dr. farrar himself not only admits, but contends, that the bible has been invoked against every advance in science, politics, and sociology. what more could be said of the koran or any other sacred book?
* sir william muir, rise and decline of islam, pp. 40, 41.
** t. w. arnold, the preaching of islam.
bring any oriental religion into europe, and it must change or perish. christianity is not true, as mr. gladstone and so many orthodox apologists have argued, because the christian nations are at the top of civilisation. the caucasian mind led the world before the advent of christianity, and it is doing the same now. christians are apt to forget that greece and italy are in europe, and that athens and rome—two imperishable names in the world's history—were far-shining cities before a good deal of the old testament was written.
keep any oriental religion in the east, however, and there is no saying how long it will last unaltered. do not travellers talk of the unchanging east? the civilisation of china is almost what it was thousands of years ago. syrian life to-day is like a picture from the bible. and the old orient, as flaubert said, is the land of religions; and where asia looks upon europe, and the communication between them began of yore, you may sample all the faiths of antiquity. flaubert remarked that the assemblage of all the old religions in syria was something incredible; it was enough to study for centuries.*
* flaubert, correspondence, vol. i., p. 344.
asia spawned forth all the great religions, and produced all the great revelations. arabia is in africa, but the arabs are not africans; they belong to the semitic race, like the jews, and the koran embodies jewish and other semitic traditions.
the bible, then, is an oriental book, an asiatic book, in spite of the greek elements which are incorporated in the new testament, notably in the fourth gospel. it has never been in harmony with the real life of the west. when it has dominated the life of a particular locality, for a certain period, the result has been something typically non-european; as in the case of scotland under the despotism of the kirk, whose spiritual slaves prompted heine's epigram that the presbyterian scotchman was a jew, born in the north, who ate pork. modern civilisation is mainly a return to the spirit of secular progress which inspired the immortal achievements of greece and rome.
"the revival of learning and the renaissance are memorable as the first sturdy breasting by humanity of the hither slope of the great hollow which lies between us and the ancient world. the modern man, reformed and regenerated by knowledge, looks across it, and recognises on the opposite ridge, in the far-shining cities and stately porticoes, in the art, politics, and science of antiquity, many more ties of kinship and sympathy than in the mighty concave between, wherein dwell his christian ancestry, in the dim light of scholasticism and theology."*
* james cotter morison, the service of man, p. 178.
well, if we once fully recognise the bible as an oriental book, we are on the road to its complete comprehension. its grossness of speech, its gratuitous reference to animal functions, its designation of males by their sexual attributes even on the most serious occasions, its religious observances in connection with pregnancy and birth, its very rite of circumcision; all this, and much more, becomes perfectly intelligible. it is in keeping with all we know of the ideas, practices, and language of the east. moreover, we perceive why it is that similarities to the theology, the poetry, and the ethics of the bible have been so liberally disclosed by the progress of oriental studies. the bible, being brought from the east, has to be carried back there to be properly understood. it is true that christian divines have offered their own explanation of these similarities. at first they declared them to be satanic anticipations, devilish pre-mockeries, of god's own truth. then they declared them to be confused echoes of the oracles of jehovah. finally, they declare them to be evidences of the fact that, although god chose the jewish race as the medium of his special revelation, he also revealed himself partially to other nations. but these explanations are alike fantastic. they rest upon no ground of history or evolution. the real explanation is that the bible is one of the many sacred books of the east. its differences from the rest are not of kind, but of degree; and any superiority that may be claimed for it must henceforth be argued upon this basis.
this oriental bible is at utter variance with the vital beliefs, the political and social tendencies, and the ethical aspirations, of the present age. science has destroyed its naive supernaturalism; reason has placed its personal god—the magnified, non-natural man—in his own niche in the world's pantheon; philosophy has carried us far beyond its primitive conceptions of human society; our morality has outgrown its hardness and insularity, however we may still appreciate its finer ejaculations; even the most pious christians, with the exception of a few "peculiar" people, only pay a hypocritical homage to its clearest injunctions; and the higher development of decency and propriety makes us turn from its crude expressions with a growing sense of disgust, while the progress of humanity fills us more and more with a loathing of its frightful wars and ruthless massacres, its tales of barbaric cruelty, and its crowning infamy of an everlasting hell.
