A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD BY H. G. WELLS
37.THE TEACHING OF JESUS
It was while Augustus Cæsar, the first of the Emperors, was reigning in Rome that Jesus who is the Christ of Christianity was born in Judea. In his name a religion was to arise which was destined to become the official religion of the entire Roman Empire.
Now it is on the whole more convenient to keep history and theology apart. A large proportion of the Christian world believes that Jesus was an incarnation of that God of all the Earth whom the Jews first recognized. The historian, if he is to remain historian, can neither accept nor deny that interpretation. Materially Jesus appeared in the likeness of a man, and it is as a man that the historian must deal with him.
He appeared in Judea in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar. He was a prophet.
He preached after the fashion of the preceding Jewish prophets. He
was a man of about thirty, and we are in the profoundest ignorance of
his manner of life before his preaching began.
Our only direct sources of information about the life and teaching of
Jesus are the four Gospels. All four agree in giving us a picture of a
very definite personality. One is obliged to say, “Here was a man.
This could not have been invented.”
But just as the personality of Gautama Buddha has been distorted and
obscured by the stiff squatting figure, the gilded idol of later
Buddhism, so one feels that the lean and strenuous personality of Jesus
is much wronged by the unreality and conventionality that a mistaken
reverence has imposed upon his figure in modern Christian art. Jesus
was a penniless teacher, who wandered about the dusty sun-bit country
of Judea, living upon casual gifts of food; yet he is always
represented clean, combed and sleek, in spotless raiment, erect and
with something motionless about him as though he was gliding through
the air. This alone has made him unreal and incredible to many people
who cannot distinguish the core of the story from the ornamental and
unwise additions of the unintelligently devout.
We are left, if we do strip this record of these difficult accessories,
with the figure of a being, very human, very earnest and passionate,
capable of swift anger, and teaching a new and simple and profound
doctrine—namely, the universal loving Fatherhood of God and the coming
of the Kingdom of Heaven. He was clearly a person—to use a common
phrase—of intense personal magnetism. He attracted followers and
filled them with love and courage. Weak and ailing people were
heartened and healed by his presence. Yet he was probably of a
delicate physique, because of the swiftness with which he died under
the pains of crucifixion. There is a tradition that he fainted when,
according to the custom, he was made to bear his cross to the place of
execution. He went about the country for three years spreading his
doctrine and then he came to Jerusalem and was accused of trying to set
up a strange kingdom in Judea; he was tried upon this charge, and
crucified together with two thieves. Long before these two were dead
his sufferings were over.
The doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was the main teaching of
Jesus, is certainly one of the most revolutionary doctrines that ever
stirred and changed human thought. It is small wonder if the world of
that time failed to grasp its full significance, and recoiled in dismay
from even a half apprehension of its tremendous challenges to the
established habits and institutions of mankind. For the doctrine of
the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus seems to have preached it, was no less
than a bold and uncompromising demand for a complete change and
cleansing of the life of our struggling race, an utter cleansing,
without and within. To the gospels the reader must go for all that is
preserved of this tremendous teaching; here we are only concerned with
the jar of its impact upon established ideas.
The Jews were persuaded that God, the one God of the whole world, was a
righteous god, but they also thought of him as a trading god who had
made a bargain with their Father Abraham about them, a very good
bargain indeed for them, to bring them at last to predominance in the
earth. With dismay and anger they heard Jesus sweeping away their dear
securities. God, he taught, was no bargainer; there were no chosen
people and no favourites in the Kingdom of Heaven. God was the loving
father of all life, as incapable of showing favour as the universal
sun. And all men were brothers—sinners alike and beloved sons alike—of
this divine father. In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus cast
scorn upon that natural tendency we all obey, to glorify our own people
and to minimize the righteousness of other creeds and other races. In
the parable of the labourers he thrust aside the obstinate claim of the
Jews to have a special claim upon God. All whom God takes into the
kingdom, he taught, God serves alike; there is no distinction in his
treatment, because there is no measure to his bounty. From all
moreover, as the parable of the buried talent witnesses, and as the
incident of the widow’s mite enforces, he demands the utmost. There are
no privileges, no rebates and no excuses in the Kingdom of Heaven.
EARLY IDEAL PORTRAIT, IN GILDED GLASS, OF JESUS CHRIST IN WHICH THE
TRADITIONAL BEARD IS NOT SHOWN
EARLY IDEAL PORTRAIT, IN GILDED GLASS, OF JESUS CHRIST IN WHICH THE
TRADITIONAL BEARD IS NOT SHOWN
But it is not only the intense tribal patriotism of the Jews that Jesus
outraged. They were a people of intense family loyalty, and he would
have swept away all the narrow and restrictive family affections in the
great flood of the love of God. The whole kingdom of Heaven was to be
the family of his followers. We are told that, “While he yet talked to
the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring
to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy
brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered
and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my
brethren? And he stretched forth his hands towards his disciples, and
said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the
will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and
sister, and mother.?
THE ROAD FROM NAZARETH TO TIBERIAS
THE ROAD FROM NAZARETH TO TIBERIAS
_Photo: Fannaway_
And not only did Jesus strike at patriotism and the bonds of family
loyalty in the name of God’s universal fatherhood and brotherhood of
all mankind, but it is clear that his teaching condemned all the
gradations of the economic system, all private wealth, and personal
advantages. All men belonged to the kingdom; all their possessions
belonged to the kingdom; the righteous life for all men, the only
righteous life, was the service of God’s will with all that we had,
with all that we were. Again and again he denounced private riches and
the reservation of any private life.
DAVID’S TOWER AND WALL OF JERUSALEM
DAVID’S TOWER AND WALL OF JERUSALEM
_Photo: Fannaway_
“And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and
kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may
inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good?
there is none good but one, that is God. Thou knowest the
commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not
bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he
answered and said unto him, Master, all these things have I observed
from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him,
One thing thou lackest; go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, take up
the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away
grieved; for he had great possessions.
A STREET IN JERUSALEM
A STREET IN JERUSALEM
Along such a thoroughfare Christ carried his cross to the place of
execution
_Photo: Fannaway_
“And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God! And the
disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again, and
saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches
to enter into the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
Kingdom of God.”
Moreover, in his tremendous prophecy of this kingdom which was to make
all men one together in God, Jesus had small patience for the
bargaining righteousness of formal religion. Another large part of his
recorded utterances is aimed against the meticulous observance of the
rules of the pious career. “Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him,
Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders,
but eat bread with unwashen hands? He answered and said unto them,
Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honoureth me with their lips,
“But their heart is far from me.
“Howbeit in vain do they worship me,
“Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
“For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men,
as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such things ye do. And
he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye
may keep your own tradition.”
It was not merely a moral and a social revolution that Jesus
proclaimed; it is clear from a score of indications that his teaching
had a political bent of the plainest sort. It is true that he said his
kingdom was not of this world, that it was in the hearts of men and not
upon a throne; but it is equally clear that wherever and in what
measure his kingdom was set up in the hearts of men, the outer world
would be in that measure revolutionized and made new.
Whatever else the deafness and blindness of his hearers may have missed
in his utterances, it is plain they did not miss his resolve to
revolutionize the world. The whole tenor of the opposition to him and
the circumstances of his trial and execution show clearly that to his
contemporaries he seemed to propose plainly, and did propose plainly,
to change and fuse and enlarge all human life.
In view of what he plainly said, is it any wonder that all who were
rich and prosperous felt a horror of strange things, a swimming of
their world at his teaching? He was dragging out all the little
private reservations they had made from social service into the light
of a universal religious life. He was like some terrible moral
huntsman digging mankind out of the snug burrows in which they had
lived hitherto. In the white blaze of this kingdom of his there was to
be no property, no privilege, no pride and precedence; no motive indeed
and no reward but love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and
blinded and cried out against him? Even his disciples cried out when
he would not spare them the light. Is it any wonder that the priests
realized that between this man and themselves there was no choice but
that he or priestcraft should perish? Is it any wonder that the Roman
soldiers, confronted and amazed by something soaring over their
comprehension and threatening all their disciplines, should take refuge
in wild laughter, and crown him with thorns and robe him in purple and
make a mock Cæsar of him? For to take him seriously was to enter upon
a strange and alarming life, to abandon habits, to control instincts
and impulses, to essay an incredible happiness. . . .