15
It has been said that the science of today lives only in so far as it supersedes9 the science of yesterday. Whatever may be true of science (and the statement is certainly not true without large qualifications—the science of Newton and Darwin has not been “superseded”—and it may even come to pass that outreachings of a more ancient science frustrated10 at the time will hereafter be taken up anew with fairer results than formerly11 were attainable), in religion at all events there is no such thing as the bare substitution of the new for the old. The religions of the past, at least the more advanced religions, are not simply to be cast on the scrap12 heap, or treated as exploded superstitions13. There is in all of them a certain fund of truth which may not be allowed to perish, but should be rescued out of the wreck14.
On the other hand, even the most advanced religions contain a large admixture of error, survivals of primitive15 taboos16, mythological17 elements having their root in polytheism, while the very truths which I have just admitted to be infinitely18 precious require to be restated so as to fit them into a larger synthesis.
It is not easy to define my attitude toward the Old Masters, I mean the Old Masters in religion, the incomparably great religious teachers of the past, who tower above us like giants. My attitude is one of profoundest reverence—toward the Hebrew prophets and Jesus especially. The Hebrew religion first sounded the distinctively20 spiritual note. Zoroaster had emphasized the struggle of the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness, but the conception of light in his16 system remained to a considerable extent materialistic21. Buddha22 emphasized Enlightenment in the sense of escape from Illusion, and in conjunction with it sympathy for all who remain under the spell of illusion. Confucius endeavored to walk, and taught his followers23 to walk, with equipoise in the Middle Path; he emphasized what he thought to be the cosmic principle of balance or equilibrium24. Plato, taking his stand on the highest terrestrial platform, caught, or believed himself to have caught, sight of transcendental beauty as the ultimate principle in things. But the prophets of Israel assigned to the ethical25 principle the highest rank in man’s life and in the world at large. The best thing in man, they declared, is his moral personality; and the best thing in the world, the supreme26 and controlling principle, is the moral power that pervades27 it.
The predominance of the ethical principle in religion dates from the prophets of Israel. The religious development of the human race took a new turn in their sublime28 predications, and I for one am certainly conscious of having drawn29 my first draught30 of moral inspiration from their writings.6
17
But nevertheless I found myself compelled to separate from the religion of Israel. Now why was it necessary for me to take this step? Why not continue along the path first blazed by the Hebrew prophets—smoothing it perhaps and widening it? Why not separate the dross31 from the gold, the error from the truth, explicating what is implicit32 in that truth, and adapting it to the needs and conditions of the modern age? The answer is that the truth contained in the Hebrew, and as I shall presently show, in the Christian33 religion, is not capable of such adaptation. It claims finality. I have mentioned that there is an element of permanent value in both the Hebrew and the Christian religion, and that it should be restated and fitted into a larger synthesis. But this is impossible unless the Hebrew or Christian setting be broken, unless the element to be preserved is taken out of its context, and treated freshly and with perfect freedom. A religion like the two I am concerned with is a determinate thing. It is a closed circle of thoughts and beliefs. It is capable of a certain degree of change but not of indefinite change. The limits of change are determined34 by its leading conceptions—the monotheistic idea in the one case, and the centrality of the figure of Christ in the other. Abandon these, and the boundaries by which the religion is circumscribed35 are passed.
The great religious teachers are men who see the spiritual landscape from a certain point of view, including whatever is visible from their station, excluding whatever is not. The religion which they originate is thus both inclusive and sharply exclusive. What they see with their rapt eyes they describe with a trenchancy18 and fitness never thereafter to be equaled.7 But in order to progress in religion it is necessary to advance toward a different station, to reach a different, a higher eminence36, and from that to look forth37 anew upon the spiritual landscape, comprehending the outlook of one’s predecessors38 in a new perspective, seeing what they saw and much besides.
Religious growth may also be compared to the growth of a tree. To expect that development shall continue along the Hebrew or Christian lines is like expecting that a tree will continue to develop along one of its branches. There is a limit beyond which the extension of a branch cannot go. Then growth must show itself in the putting forth of a new branch.
But let me now state with somewhat greater particularity the reasons that compelled me to depart from the faith of Israel, and to leave my early religious home, cherishing pious39 memories of it, but nevertheless firmly set in my course towards new horizons.8
19
1. The difficulty created by the claim that Israel is an elect people, that it stands in a peculiar40 relation to the Deity41. This claim, at the time when it was put forth, was neither arrogant42 nor unfounded. It was not arrogant because the mission was understood to be a heavy burden not a privilege: or if a privilege at all, then the tragic43 privilege of martyrdom, a martyrdom continued through generations. And the claim was not unfounded or preposterous44 at the time when it was put forth because the Hebrews were in reality the only people who conceived of morality in terms of holiness. It was not absurd for them to assert their mission to be the teachers of mankind in respect to the spiritual interpretation45 of morality, since there was something, and that something infinitely important, which they actually had to teach. Moral thinking and moral practices of course had existed from immemorial times everywhere, but the conception of morality as divine in its source, as spiritual in its inmost essence,—this immense idea was the offspring of the Hebrew mind. On the other hand, I asked myself, has not the task of Israel in this respect been accomplished46? Have not its Scriptures47 be20come the common property of the civilized48 nations? And does not that teacher mistake his office who attempts to maintain his magisterial49 authority after his pupils have come to man’s estate, and are capable of original contributions? The “nations” are not to be looked upon in the light of mere50 pupils. The ethical message of Israel so far as it is sane51 is universalistic. It is founded on the conviction that there is a moral nature in every human being, and that the moral nature is a spiritual nature. And if this be so, then the utterances52, the insights, the new visions with which the spiritual nature is pregnant, cannot be supposed to be restricted to members of the Jewish people. If the teaching function is to be maintained it must be exercised by all who have the gift. If there is to be an elect body (a dangerous conception, the meaning of which is to be carefully defined), it must consist of gentiles and Jews, of men of every race and condition in whom the spiritual nature is more awakened54 than in others, peculiarly vivid, pressing towards utterance53.
2. Aside from the spiritual interpretation of morality, the mission of the Jewish people has been said to consist in holding aloft the standard of pure monotheism as against trinitarianism. But pure monotheism is a philosophy rather than a religion. Taken by itself it is too pure, too empty of content to serve the purposes of a living faith. The attributes of omniscience55, omnipotence56, etc., ascribed to Deity are highly abstract, too abstruse57 to be even thinkable, save indirectly58, and they certainly fail to touch the heart. As a matter of fact it was the image of the Father projected upon21 the background of these abstractions, that made the object of Jewish piety59. Jahweh is the heavenly spouse60; Israel is to be his faithful earthly spouse. The Children of Israel are pre-eminently his children. Other nations likewise are his children,—some children of wrath61 to be cast out and destroyed like the rebellious62 son in Deuteronomy, others to be eventually gathered into the patriarchal household. But this view comes back to the same general conception of the relations of Israel to other nations which has just been discussed. Moreover, the Father image, as representing the divine life in the world, even when extended so as to include all mankind on equal terms, is open to a serious objection.9
22
3. If, nevertheless, the Jews have a mission, is it perhaps this: to rehabilitate63 the prophetic ideal of social justice? Is it not social justice that the world is crying for today? Were not the prophets of Israel the great preachers of righteousness in the sense of social justice? Did they not affirm that religion consists in justice and in its concomitant mercifulness, but above all in justice? Did not Isaiah say: “When ye come to tread my courts, who has demanded this of you? Go wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil that is in your hands. Cease to do evil; learn to do good.” And later on, “That ye let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke.” These are solemn, marvelous words assuredly! They have been ringing down through the ages, and still find their echo in our hearts. And yet the justice idea of the prophets is inadequate64 to serve the purpose of social reconstruction65 today. To go back to it would mean repristination, not renovation66. It is sound as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. It is negative, rather than positive; it is based on the idea of non-violation67. What we require today is a positive conception, and this implies a positive definition of that holy thing in man that is to be treated as inviolable. To the mind of the prophets justice meant chiefly resistance to oppression, since oppression is the most palpable exemplification of the forbidden violation. The prophets in their outlook on the external relations of their people stood for the weak, the oppressed, against the strong, the oppressor. They stood for their own weak little nation, the Belgium of those days, against the two over-mighty empires, Egypt and Assyria, that bordered it on either side. In the internal affairs of Israel they espoused68 the cause of the23 weak against the rich and strong: “Woe unto them that add house to house and field to field, that grind the faces of the poor.” Ever and ever again the same note resounds69, the same intense, passionately70 indignant feeling against violation in the form of oppression. But this aspect of justice, as I have said, is the negative aspect,—inestimably important, but insufficient71. Where oppression does not occur, have the claims of justice ceased? Is there not something even greater than mere non-infringement, greater than mercifulness or kindness, which in justice we owe to the personality of our fellows, namely, to aid in the development of their personality? Righteousness, yes, by all means,—but does the righteousness of the prophets of Israel exhaust or begin to exhaust the content of that vast idea?
The universalistic ethical idea in the Hebrew religion is bound up with and bound down by racial restrictions72. The issue between monotheism and trinitarianism is no longer a vital issue of our day. The Father image as the symbol of Deity raises expectations which experience does not confirm. The ideal of social justice as conceived by the prophets of Israel is a valid73 but incomplete expression of what is implied in social justice. These are weighty considerations that make it difficult to retain the belief in the elect character attributed to the people of Israel. There is one other, of very deep-reaching importance, that must be noticed. An elect people is supposed to be an exemplary people, one that sets a moral example which other nations are expected to copy. But it has become more and more clear to me that the value of example24 in the moral life has been overestimated74 and misunderstood. No individual, for instance, can really serve as an example to others so as to be copied by them. The circumstances are always somewhat different, the natures are different, and the obligations, finely examined, are never quite the same. In fact, the best that anyone can do for another by his example is to stimulate75 him to express with consummate6 fidelity76 his different nature in his own different way. I do not of course deny that there are certain uniformities, chiefly negative, in moral conduct, but I have come to think that the ethical quality of moral acts consists in the points in which they differ rather than in those in which they agree. The ideally ethical act, to my mind, is the most completely individualized act.
And what is true of individuals is no less true of peoples. No people can really be exemplary for other peoples, and in this sense elect. Every people possesses a character of its own to which it is to give expression in ways which I shall indicate in the last part of this work. But the way rightly adopted by one nation cannot be a law or a model for its sister nations. If the ideal of the modern Zionists were realized, if the Jews were to return to Palestine, to speak once more the language of the Bible, to cultivate their distinctive19 gifts, they would not therefore produce a pattern which could be copied in Japan, or among the 400 millions of China, or in the United States, or among the Slavic or Latin peoples.
In concluding these reflections, I may not conceal77 from myself or from others that the objection to the25 function of exemplariness, if sustained, affects at the root both the theology and the ethics78 of the past. If no individual can be in the strict sense an example to others, neither can an individual Deity be an example to be copied by men, neither can Christ be the perfect exemplar to be imitated. There can be no single perfect exemplar. Virtues79 that bear the same name are not therefore the same virtues. Often it is only the name that is the same, not the substance; and where they are in a broad way the same, yet there remains80 a difference of accent. The natures of men are unlike. Their moral destiny is to work out the unlikeness of each in harmony with that of the others. The moral equivalence of men, rather than their moral equality, is for me the expression of the fundamental moral relation.10
26
At the early stage of my career to which I am still adverting81 it was urgently put to me that with all the changes that had taken place in my inner life, I need not separate myself from the religion of the Fathers, nay82, that I might remain a servant and teacher of religion within the Jewish fold, gradually weaning away from the beliefs which they held those whom I might contrive83 to influence, and drawing them up—such was the phrase used—to my own “higher level.” But this advice was repelled84 by every inmost fibre of my being, and could not but be utterly85 rejected. I was to publicly represent a certain belief with the purpose of undermining it. I was to trade upon the simplicity86 of my hearers in order to rob them of what they, crudely and mistakenly perhaps, considered their most sacred truth, by feigning87 provisionally, until I could alter their views, to be in agreement with them. Would this be fair to them or to myself? Was I to act a lie in order to teach the truth? There was especially one passage in the Sabbath service which brought me to the point of resolution: I mean the words spoken by the officiating minister as he holds up the Pentateuch scroll88, “And this is the Law which Moses set before the people of Israel.” I had lately returned from abroad where I had had a fairly thorough course in Biblical exegesis89, and had become convinced that the Mosaic90 religion is so to speak a religious mosaic, and that there is hardly a single stone in it which can with certainty be traced to the authorship of Moses. Was I to repeat these words? It was impossible. I was certain that they would stick in my throat. On these grounds the separation was decided91 on by me, and became irremediable.
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1
wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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retaliate
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| v.报复，反击 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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7
consummated
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| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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supersedes
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| 取代，接替( supersede的第三人称单数 ) | |
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10
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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11
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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dross
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| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
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implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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44
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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45
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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46
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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47
scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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magisterial
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| adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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51
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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52
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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55
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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abstruse
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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rehabilitate
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| vt.改造(罪犯)，修复；vi.复兴，(罪犯)经受改造 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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renovation
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| n.革新，整修 | |
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violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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68
espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
resounds
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的第三人称单数 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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70
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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71
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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74
overestimated
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| 对（数量）估计过高，对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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79
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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80
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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81
adverting
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| 引起注意（advert的现在分词形式） | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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83
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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86
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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scroll
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| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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exegesis
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| n.注释，解释 | |
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mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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