And here perhaps, before I go on to the question of Conduct, is the place to define a relationship to that system of faith and religious observance out of which I and most of my readers have come. How do these beliefs on which I base my rule of conduct stand to Christianity?
They do not stand in any attitude of antagonism2. A religious system so many-faced and so enduring as Christianity must necessarily be saturated3 with truth even if it be not wholly true. To assume, as the Atheist4 and Deist seem to do, that Christianity is a sort of disease that came upon civilization, an unprofitable and wasting disease, is to deny that conception of a progressive scheme and rightness which we have taken as our basis of belief. As I have already confessed, the Scheme of Salvation5, the idea of a process of sorrow and atonement, presents itself to me as adequately true. So far I do not think my new faith breaks with my old. But it follows as a natural consequence of my metaphysical preliminaries that I should find the Christian1 theology Aristotelian, over defined and excessively personified. The painted figure of that bearded ancient upon the Sistine Chapel6, or William Blake’s wild-haired, wild-eyed Trinity, convey no nearer sense of God to me than some mother-of-pearl-eyed painted and carven monster from the worship of the South Sea Islanders. And the Miltonic fable7 of the offended creator and the sacrificial son! it cannot span the circle of my ideas; it is a little thing, and none the less little because it is intimate, flesh of my flesh and spirit of my spirit, like the drawings of my youngest boy. I put it aside as I would put aside the gay figure of a costumed officiating priest. The passage of time has made his canonicals too strange, too unlike my world of common thought and costume. These things helped, but now they hinder and disturb. I cannot bring myself back to them . . .
But the psychological experience and the theology of Christianity are only a ground-work for its essential feature, which is the conception of a relationship of the individual believer to a mystical being at once human and divine, the Risen Christ. This being presents itself to the modern consciousness as a familiar and beautiful figure, associated with a series of sayings and incidents that coalesce8 with a very distinct and rounded-off and complete effect of personality. After we have cleared off all the definitions of theology, He remains9, mystically suffering for humanity, mystically asserting that love in pain and sacrifice in service are the necessary substance of Salvation. Whether he actually existed as a finite individual person in the opening of the Christian era seems to me a question entirely10 beside the mark. The evidence at this distance is of imperceptible force for or against. The Christ we know is quite evidently something different from any finite person, a figure, a conception, a synthesis of emotions, experiences and inspirations, sustained by and sustaining millions of human souls.
Now it seems to be the common teaching of almost all Christians11, that Salvation, that is to say the consolidation12 and amplification13 of one’s motives14 through the conception of a general scheme or purpose, is to be attained15 through the personality of Christ. Christ is made cardinal16 to the act of Faith. The act of Faith, they assert, is not simply, as I hold it to be, BELIEF, but BELIEF IN HIM.
We are dealing17 here, be it remembered, with beliefs deliberately18 undertaken and not with questions of fact. The only matters of fact material here are facts of experience. If in your experience Salvation is attainable19 through Christ, then certainly Christianity is true for you. And if a Christian asserts that my belief is a false light and that presently I shall “come to Christ,” I cannot disprove his assertion. I can but disbelieve it. I hesitate even to make the obvious retort.
I hope I shall offend no susceptibilities when I assert that this great and very definite personality in the hearts and imaginations of mankind does not and never has attracted me. It is a fact I record about myself without aggression20 or regret. I do not find myself able to associate Him in any way with the emotion of Salvation.
I admit the splendid imaginative appeal in the idea of a divine-human friend and mediator21. If it were possible to have access by prayer, by meditation22, by urgent outcries of the soul, to such a being whose feet were in the darknesses, who stooped down from the light, who was at once great and little, limitless in power and virtue23 and one’s very brother; if it were possible by sheer will in believing to make and make one’s way to such a helper, who would refuse such help? But I do not find such a being in Christ. I do not find, I cannot imagine, such a being. I wish I could. To me the Christian Christ seems not so much a humanized God as an incomprehensibly sinless being neither God nor man. His sinlessness wears his incarnation like a fancy dress, all his white self unchanged. He had no petty weaknesses.
Now the essential trouble of my life is its petty weaknesses. If I am to have that love, that sense of understanding fellowship, which is, I conceive, the peculiar24 magic and merit of this idea of a personal Saviour25, then I need someone quite other than this image of virtue, this terrible and incomprehensible Galilean with his crown of thorns, his blood-stained hands and feet. I cannot love him any more than I can love a man upon the rack. Even in the face of torments26 I do not think I should feel a need for him. I had rather then a hundred times have Botticelli’s armed angel in his Tobit at Florence. (I hope I do not seem to want to shock in writing these things, but indeed my only aim is to lay my feelings bare.) I know what love for an idealized person can be. It happens that in my younger days I found a character in the history of literature who had a singular and extraordinary charm for me, of whom the thought was tender and comforting, who indeed helped me through shames and humiliations as though he held my hand. This person was Oliver Goldsmith. His blunders and troubles, his vices28 and vanities, seized and still hold my imagination. The slights of Boswell, the contempt of Gibbon and all his company save Johnson, the exquisite29 fineness of spirit in his “Vicar of Wakefield,” and that green suit of his and the doctor’s cane30 and the love despised, these things together made him a congenial saint and hero for me, so that I thought of him as others pray. When I think of that youthful feeling for Goldsmith, I know what I need in a personal Saviour, as a troglodyte31 who has seen a candle can imagine the sun. But the Christian Christ in none of his three characteristic phases, neither as the magic babe (from whom I am cut off by the wanton and indecent purity of the Immaculate Conception), nor as the white-robed, spotless miracle worker, nor as the fierce unreal torment27 of the cross, comes close to my soul. I do not understand the Agony in the Garden; to me it is like a scene from a play in an unknown tongue. The la t cry of despair is the one human touch, discordant32 with all the rest of the story. One cry of despair does not suffice. The Christian’s Christ is too fine for me, not incarnate33 enough, not flesh enough, not earth enough. He was never foolish and hot-eared and inarticulate, never vain, he never forgot things, nor tangled34 his miracles. I could love him I think more easily if the dead had not risen and if he had lain in peace in his sepulchre instead of coming back more enhaloed and whiter than ever, as a postscript35 to his own tragedy.
When I think of the Resurrection I am always reminded of the “happy endings” that editors and actor managers are accustomed to impose upon essentially36 tragic37 novels and plays . . .
You see how I stand in this matter, puzzled and confused by the Christian presentation of Christ. I know there are many will answer — as I suppose my friend the Rev38. R.J. Campbell would answer — that what confuses me is the overlaying of the personality of Jesus by stories and superstitions39 and conflicting symbols; he will in effect ask me to disentangle the Christ I need from the accumulated material, choosing and rejecting. Perhaps one may do that. He does, I know, so present Him as a man inspired, and strenuously40, inadequately41 and erringly presenting a dream of human brotherhood43 and the immediate44 Kingdom of Heaven on earth and so blundering to his failure and death. But that will be a recovered and restored person he would give me, and not the Christ the Christians worship and declare they love, in whom they find their Salvation.
When I write “declare they love” I throw doubt intentionally45 upon the universal love of Christians for their Saviour. I have watched men and nations in this matter. I am struck by the fact that so many Christians fall back upon more humanized figures, upon the tender figure of Mary, upon patron saints and such more erring42 creatures, for the effect of mediation46 and sympathy they need.
You see it comes to this: that I think Christianity has been true and is for countless47 people practically true, but that it is not true now for me, and that for most people it is true only with modifications48. Every believing Christian is, I am sure, my spiritual brother, but if systematically49 I called myself a Christian I feel that to most men I should imply too much and so tell a lie.
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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coalesce
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| v.联合，结合，合并 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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consolidation
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| n.合并,巩固 | |
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amplification
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| n.扩大，发挥 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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mediator
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| n.调解人，中介人 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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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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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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troglodyte
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| n.古代穴居者；井底之蛙 | |
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discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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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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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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erring
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| 做错事的，错误的 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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mediation
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| n.调解 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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