The Creation of God by Jacob Hartmann (color ebook reader TXT) đź“–
- Author: Jacob Hartmann
- Performer: -
Book online «The Creation of God by Jacob Hartmann (color ebook reader TXT) 📖». Author Jacob Hartmann
The Samaritan sect were already in existence when Ezra returned to Jerusalem. Hostilities led to conflicts, and there was little peace between them.
In Judea there were several sects, holding various opinions. Like so many political factions, each sought control, and tried to uphold its peculiar views and interpretations.
The Sadducees sprang into life about 244 B.C. This sect believed that the soul dies with the body; “nor do they regard the observance of anything besides that the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent; but this doctrine is received but by few, yet by those still of greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost anything of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise hear them” (Josephus).
This sect, one would judge, consisted of the wealthy and more enlightened class.
“The Pharisees live meanly, despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the contract of reason; and what that prescribes for them, as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates for practice. They also pay respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and, when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers and sacrifices, they perform them according to their directions; insomuch that the cities gave great attestation to them, on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and of their discourse also” (Josephus).
“The doctrine of the Essenes is this, that all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls and esteem that rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for, and when they send what they have dedicated to God unto the Temple, they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the Temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor Barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he that hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way; and neither have many wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the income of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men, and priests, who are to get their coin and their food ready for them. Of a fourth sect of Jewish philosophers, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that God is to be their only ruler and lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord” (Josephus).
These matters are quoted to show the changes and modifications religious opinions were undergoing, and must have undergone for many centuries previously, until they reached the present stage.
The arguments, discussions, and reasons given, as well as the beliefs adopted, differ only in degree and kind from those when Abraham and his father dissented from the mode of worship then extant in Chaldea, some one thousand nine hundred years previous, and from the modifications introduced by Moses, the greater part of which were adopted from the Egyptians—whence the Jews really got the first taste of civilization.
These religious notions of the Jews are the opinions, simply the opinions, of a small branch of the human family. There are a great many others.
During all these centuries little or nothing was known of the natural, of the more intimate relations of nature and nature’s forces. And of all nations the Jewish race knew the least. They were too much occupied with the supernatural to ever learn anything of the natural.
The supernatural idea sprang from the mire of ignorance and barbarism and savagery. Crime and outrage mark the centuries as it rolled along in the tide of human events, halting only when forced, and renewing its current when there was nothing to bar its way—struggling madly, conquering, fighting, subduing. Life was of no value, and everything was brutally crushed under this monstrous supernatural idea, until at length it was brought to halt by superior natural forces that in time crushed and subdued it.
After one thousand four hundred years of Jehovaism, of various shades and hues, this religion emerges from the past ages to the coming centuries in a new garb, slightly improved, somewhat milder in temper, and wearing altogether a new mask, so that neither Father Abraham nor General Moses would recognize his offspring.
We come to the beginning of the second two thousand years of modified Jehovaism, called the Christian era.
The Christian era, like the Chaldean-Abrahamic era, and like the Mosaic-Jehovistic era, was introduced in a mysterious manner. Both the Mosaic and the Christian were accompanied with miracles, differing in degree and intensity, as also corresponding with the changes and transitions of the times, the progress of intelligence, and the development of brain power.
If Moses had made the attempt to perform his miracles in Christ’s time, he would have been hooted. He could not have deceived these masses with his tricks as he did the ignorant horde he led out of Egypt. These people had no opinion, no idea, no intelligence. They were the obedient tools and slaves of anyone who exhibited superior skill to control them and keep them in subjection, as the Catholic and Greek church make the ignorant masses subservient to their will at this day.
The small end of the wedge of science had begun to make its way into the dense solid mass of ignorance and superstition, through the thick coating of Jehovistic supernaturalism. This thin end, however, opened a chink big enough to give us the first glimpse of the natural.
Men began to think, reason, calculate. Their past experience made them think and compare the various conditions of man and things in nature. Philosophy, arts, science, had taken root, in opposition to and in spite of any supernatural theory or any Jehovistic influence.
The natural is the proper antidote for this supernatural poison.
Greece was one of the first nations that helped to lift the heavy fog that obscured man’s intellectual vision:
These few citations I hope will be convincing proof of the progress made, thus showing that men were observing, reasoning, calculating, governed by demonstration and proof. It would have been impossible for Moses, or any other man, to perform miracles of the nature theologians believe, at the time of Christ.
Two conditions are always necessary for every miracle—profound ignorance on the one hand, and a clever fraud on the other.
There are, however, another class of miracles, that are at all times in order; that are played and plied on human failing and human weakness, always coupled with ignorance on the one side, and dishonest scoundrelism, a fraud by a priest or church mountebank, on the other.
In disturbances of nature, no one believes unless he has ocular proof and demonstration, knowing that these things are subject to natural laws and no one man could produce an earthquake or a thunderstorm. No man could stop the current of the Mississippi river either by praying or by throwing a stick over it.
What we can do, that has the appearance of a miracle, is to play upon the susceptibilities, failings, weaknesses, and imaginations of ignorant human nature.
These cure-alls, these medical wonder-workers, these spiritual charlatans, these theological miracle-mongers, these fanatical frauds, were introduced more prominently in the Bible story by the celebrated political agitators Elijah and Elisha.
The Christian form of religion is a modification of the Hebrew, mixed with either Greek or some other of the numerous doctrines existing at that period. The hero of this reformation is brought to our notice in what is scripturally called a miraculous manner.
Matthew introduces the subject by saying (i, 18): “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”
We have noticed how (Gen. vi, 2) the sons of God married the daughters of men—who the lady was, the mother of these sons, we do not know, or by what process they were brought into this world.
There are instances in the Bible when prayer had the effect of producing that interesting condition on woman.
We have also the example of Eli, that fat, lascivious priest (whose sons entertained themselves behind the altar with the ladies) who
Comments (0)