“Matthew and Luke,” said Scaurus, “go even beyond Mark in the inculcation of a doctrine, beautiful after a fashion, but unjust, and impracticable. Mark says, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself.’ Surely, that is as far as reason can let us go. I should say it is farther. But Matthew and Luke say, ‘Love your enemies.’ Now I can recall one passage where Epictetus says that the Cynic must love the men that thrash him, but I am sure that his general view is this, ‘The man that treats me thus behaves like a beast, or like a mere scourge in the hand of Zeus, whose pleasure it is thus to try me. How can I hate a beast? Or how can I hate a scourge?’”

Then, after reminding me how he had declared that Epictetus borrowed from the Christians, he said, “This, I think, is an instance. The Christian really loves the beast-like man because he believes the man to be made in the image of God and degraded by Satan. The Christian really pities him; he is troubled for the man’s sake. Christ says ‘Pray for him’; and the Christian honestly prays, ‘This man is behaving like a beast. God help him!’ The Epictetian does not recognise prayer or pity; he recognises his own peace of mind as God’s supreme gift. ‘This man,’ he says, ‘is behaving like a beast. But it is no evil to me. I must see that it does not interfere with my peace of mind. I must beware of pitying him.’ Elsewhere Epictetus says that when you are reviled you are to make yourself a ‘stone,’ whereas Christ says, ‘Bless them that curse you.’ This exceptional sentence, then, in which Epictetus speaks about ‘loving one’s cudgellers’ appears to me a case where our friend, while cutting away the Christian foundation, has tried to keep the Christian superstructure. Perhaps the view of Epictetus (at all events in word and in appearance) is somewhat selfish. But certainly the Christian precept is contrary to justice and common sense. One ought no more to love the wicked than to admire the ugly.”

This seemed at first convincing, or, at all events, overpowering. But he went on to connect it with the doctrine of forgiveness, which Matthew and Luke included in the Lord’s Prayer. “This doctrine,” said Scaurus, “I have mentioned above, as being in Mark, although he does not give the Lord’s Prayer. It is, in fact, intended by Christ to be the very basis of his community. Now of course, Silanus, you and I and all reasonable people are agreed that we ought to be patient, and equable, and to condone faults to our equals, and not to lose our temper with our inferiors, if (as Epictetus says) a slave ‘brings us vinegar instead of oil.’ And a magnanimous man will put up with much greater offences than these, sometimes with injustice or fraud, sometimes even with insults, if he feels that his honour is not touched by them, or that society does not require a prosecution of the offence. But there is all the world of difference between this—which any gentleman would do, philosopher or no philosopher—and the extraordinary dishonesty—for I can call it by no other name—reduced to a system by the Christians, of ‘letting people off’ in the hope that God may ‘let you off.’ I do not want to be ‘let off’ by God. I should prefer to say (as Epictetus says to the tyrant) ‘If it seem advisable, punish me’.”

As soon as Scaurus used this argument, I perceived that he confused the remission of penalty with the forgiveness of sin, that power of “bearing the burdens” of others, and of “restoring” others, which, as I have shewn above, Paul recognised as a fact and which Paul made me recognise as a fact, though a very mysterious fact. Hence, reasoning backward, I saw that this faculty of discerning the image of God in the most sinful of sinners, and of pitying the sinner, yes, and even of loving him, might belong to God Himself, and to men in so far as they are like God. If so, the existence of this power of loving one’s enemies was a reality, just as the power of forgiving was a reality. “Scaurus himself,” I said, “has and uses this power. He often sees good in people where most men would fail to see it. He likes those in whom others see nothing to like. I can conceive that a Son of God might not only possess but impart a power of this kind, increased to such a degree that it might be justly called a new power.”

“The curious thing,” said Scaurus, “about this doctrine of loving and forgiving is this. Although it appears unpractical and paradoxical, yet the ‘kingdom’ (to use the Christian word) based on this doctrine is, I must confess, not unpractical at all, but on the contrary a very solid and inconvenient fact in a great number of our largest cities and among the poorest and most squalid of the populace. Note the difference between the kingdom of the Christian and that of the Stoic. The Christian missionary cries aloud like a herald, ‘Repent ye; the kingdom of God is at hand,’ the Cynic says ‘I am a king,’ or—to quote Epictetus exactly—‘Which of you, having seen me, does not recognise in me his natural king and master?’ The former prays, and teaches his proselytes to pray, looking up to a God in heaven, ‘Thy kingdom come’; the latter neither prays nor enjoins prayer of any kind.

“I suppose no Greek or Roman philosopher would apply the title of king to God quite as freely and naturally as Hebrew and Jewish writers do; for when we Romans say ‘king,’ we think of ‘tyrant.’ But apart from that (which is only a superficial difference of word) our philosophers have little or none of that expectation which underlies the words ‘Thy kingdom come.’ The Christians assert (supported by Matthew and Luke) that Christ himself taught them to pray thus. They anticipate a new kingdom—new family, if you prefer the term—where all the world will be brothers and sisters doing the will of the Father. When they pray ‘Thy kingdom come,’ they mean ‘Thy will be done.’ Indeed Matthew has inserted ‘Thy will be done’ in his version of the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps it was a paraphrase, which Luke has rejected because it was not a part of the original. But in any case, ‘Thy will be done’ is well adapted to make the meaning of ‘kingdom’ clear in the churches of the west. If a Christian philosopher were to write a gospel, I should not wonder if he were to go still further and drop the word ‘kingdom’ altogether, because it is calculated to give a false impression to all that are unacquainted with the Hebrew or Jewish method of speech.” Scaurus was nearly right here. When I came to study the fourth gospel, I found that Jesus is represented as never using the word except in explanations to Nicodemus and Pilate.

“Now,” said Scaurus, “I do not deny that there are advantages in this scheme of a kingdom over the whole world, where the king is not a despot but a beneficent ruler to whom all may feel heartily and permanently loyal. As compared with Christ, such Epictetian ‘kings’ as Socrates, Diogenes, and Zeno, pass before us like solitary champions, fighting, so to speak, each for his own hand. Or we may liken them to torchbearers, lighting up the darkness for a time but not succeeding in transmitting the torch to a successor. They depart. There is a momentary wake of light. It disappears. Then we have to wait for a new torchbearer, or a new champion; and the fighting, or the torch-waving, has to begin all over again. Take notice of my qualification—‘as compared with Christ.’ Even thus qualified, perhaps my remarks about Socrates are too strong. For assuredly his light has not gone out. But to tell the truth, resuming my study of these half-forgotten gospels in the light of Paul’s epistles, I find myself sometimes admiring rather to excess that visionary letter-writer and practical church-builder. Our philosophers do not consolidate a kingdom. The Christians do. I am impressed by what Paul calls somewhere their ‘solid phalanx.’ There is something about it that I cannot quite fathom.”

I too was impressed by Scaurus’s confession that he had somewhat changed his mind about the gospels in consequence of Paul’s epistles. It seemed to me to explain some inconsistencies in his letters. Also I noted that Paul’s phrase was “the solid phalanx of your faith,” and that perhaps “faith” explained “phalanx.” Scaurus now passed to the doctrine of New Birth. “I call it thus,” said he, “for brevity. Mark expresses it ambiguously, saying that no man can enter into the kingdom unless he receives it ‘as a little child.’ Now this might mean ‘as he receives a little child.’ And this interpretation is rather favoured by the fact that, somewhat earlier, Mark has a doctrine about ‘receiving one of such little children.’ I suspect some mystical doctrine is concealed in Mark. But Matthew has, ‘unless ye turn and become as little children.’ There is no mistaking that. Now I say, in the first place, this is impossible; in the second place, it is wrong. First, it is impossible. The Father of heaven, says Horace, may send fair weather to-day and foul tomorrow. But not even He—

You must agree with me. Jupiter cannot cause what has been done to have been not done. In the next place, it is wrong. A full-grown man has no right to divest himself of full-grown faculties. How much better is the doctrine of Epictetus, ‘My friend, you have fallen down. Get up. Try again.’ This is possible. This is encouraging. But tell the same man, ‘Become a little child,’ ‘Be born again’! He will think you are playing the fool with him.”

I wondered why Scaurus did not see that here again he was inconsistent. He had forgotten the admissions he had made in view of Paul’s epistles. In the cities of Asia and Greece, some of the vilest among the vile had been told by Paul, “You must become new creatures in Christ,” “You must die to sin and rise again to righteousness.” They did not “think he was playing the fool.” They had (as Scaurus confessed) been morally “born again.” Moreover Paul had met his objection as to “full-grown faculties” by saying, “Be ye babes in respect of malice, but in understanding be full-grown men.” Still I was sorry that the gospels had expressed this obscurely. Neither of us had as yet read the fourth gospel. That makes the doctrine quite clear by shewing that what is needed is not to be “born over again”—for one might be “born over again” ten times worse than one was before—but to be “born from above.” This was quite different from “causing what has been done to have been not done.” It meant “created anew,” or “reshaped,” so that the Spirit of Christ, within the Christian, dominated the flesh. Both here and elsewhere, Scaurus’s criticisms would have been very different, if he had known the fourth gospel.

“The next point to be considered,” said Scaurus, “is the laws for the new kingdom. Matthew has grouped together a collection of precepts as a code. Some of these contrast what ‘has been said,’ or ‘has been said to men of old,’ with what Christ now says. Apparently Matthew intended this code of laws (uttered, he says, on a ‘mountain’) to correspond to the code promulgated on Mount Sinai. But Luke (who by the way omits the ‘mountain’ and makes the scene ‘a place on the plain’) while giving many of these precepts, scatters them about his gospel specifying various occasions on which several of them were uttered; and he never inserts the contrasting clause above-mentioned. The conclusion I draw is, that Christ promulgated no law at all. Law deals almost exclusively with actions. Christ dealt almost exclusively with motives, as the last of the Ten Commandments does. When Christ inculcates actions, they are often metaphorical or hyperbolical, as when he says, ‘If you are struck on one cheek, turn the other to the striker,’ ‘Let not your right hand know what your left hand does,’ ‘If a man takes your cloak, give him your coat too,’ and, ‘If anyone wants to make you go a mile with him, go two miles,’—to which last precept, by the way, Epictetus would say, No.”

I think Scaurus was referring to a passage where Epictetus said, “Diogenes, if you seized any possession of his, would sooner give it up to you than follow you on account of it.” Scaurus went on to say, “Matthew’s habit of grouping sentences makes it difficult to distinguish sayings uttered before the resurrection from those uttered after it. For example, he speaks of a power of ‘binding and loosing’ given to Peter, in connexion with a mention of the ‘church.’ On another occasion, a similar power is given to the other disciples, again in connexion with the ‘church.’ Now this ‘binding and loosing’ is not mentioned by any other evangelist. What does it mean? And when was this saying uttered?

“My rabbi tells me that ‘binding and loosing’ is regularly used by the Jews to indicate that a rabbi ‘forbids’ or ‘sanctions’ a certain action—for example, the eating of a particular food. Thus in the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord would be said by the Jews to ‘loose’ the eating of food that was before unclean, saying to Peter, ‘Arise, kill and eat.’ And I can conceive that a gospel might describe Jesus as saying to Peter, ‘I give thee this power of loosing unclean food, that thou and the rest of my disciples may henceforth eat with the Gentiles, and in their houses, asking no questions concerning the food.’ But I do not myself believe that Christ used the phrase ‘bind and loose’ in this sense. I think he connected it with that strange doctrine of forgiveness of sins on which he laid so much stress, and that it was uttered after the resurrection, when the term ‘church’ might be more naturally used.” Scaurus was so far right in this that I afterwards found in the fourth gospel a doctrine, not indeed about “binding and loosing,” but about “imprisoning and loosing” or “arresting and loosing”; and this was connected with “sins,” and Christ gave this power to the disciples after the resurrection.

Scaurus continued, “Look at Matthew’s words in one of these passages, ‘But if he refuse to hear the church, let him be unto thee as the heathen and the publican,’ and then, at some interval, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.’ Then look at the last words of Matthew’s gospel, uttered after the resurrection, ‘Behold I am with you always.’ Does not the saying, ‘I am there in the midst of you when you are gathered together,’ come more appropriately from Christ, appearing after the resurrection, than from Christ before the resurrection? I think so. The context indicates a tradition of some utterance made after the resurrection, conveyed through some apostle in a Jewish form, promising Christ’s presence to the disciples. Paul assumes such a presence, writing to the Corinthians ‘When ye are gathered together, and my spirit, together with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver over such a one to Satan.’ These last words about ‘Satan’ I do not profess to comprehend fully; but they seem to me to imply the opposite of ‘loosing’—some kind of’ ‘binding’ or ‘remanding to prison.’ And it is to take place in the presence of Christ, with Paul’s spirit, when the church of Corinth is ‘gathered together’.”

I thought Scaurus was probably right as to the date of this promise. But I was much more impressed by what he said concerning the tradition, in Luke, “Eat those things that are served up to you.” This, in Luke, was almost meaningless to me, but it had been full of meaning in Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians, where the apostle spoke about meat sold in Gentile markets: “If an unbeliever invites you, and ye desire to accept, eat everything that is served up to you, asking no questions.”

Scaurus said, “This tradition about ‘eating what is served up’ occurs nowhere in the gospels except in Luke’s account of the sending of the Seventy, beginning, ‘After these things the Lord appointed other seventy.’ Now this word ‘appoint’ does not in the least necessitate the conclusion that Christ appointed the Seventy before the resurrection. Look at the ‘appointment’ of the thirteenth apostle in the place of Judas. The Acts says ‘Lord, appoint him whom thou hast chosen.’ Then Matthias is ‘appointed.’ The Lord is supposed to ‘appoint’ him in answer to the prayer. Concerning this, Luke might say, ‘After these things the Lord appointed Matthias.’ If these words had been inserted in the gospel, they would have given the false impression that Jesus, while living, had appointed Matthias. Well, that is just the impression—a false one—that Luke gives as to the ‘appointment’ of the Seventy. The fact is that the Seventy (a number often used by the Jews to denote all the nations or languages of the world) represent the missionaries ‘appointed’ after the Lord’s death to go to the cities of the Gentiles to prepare them for the Coming of the Lord from heaven. These were to go into the houses of Gentiles. Though Jews, they were to eat of Gentile food—‘everything that is served up.’ Without this explanation, the tradition has no meaning—or, if any, an unworthy one, ‘Do not be fastidious. If you cannot have pleasant food, eat unpleasant food.’ This seems to me absurd. But with this explanation, the precept becomes intelligible and necessary.”

This convinced me. Moreover Luke’s use of “the Lord,” for “Jesus”—since “the Lord” would be more likely to be used than “Jesus” after the resurrection—seemed slightly to favour Scaurus’s conclusion. He passed next to a tradition of Matthew’s about abstinence from marriage “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” On this he said, “Looking at Paul’s advice to the Corinthians about celibacy and marriage, and at the distinction he draws between ‘advice,’ and ‘allowance’ and ‘command,’ and ‘not I but the Lord,’ I am convinced that Paul spoke on his own responsibility, except as to Christ’s insistence on the old tradition in Genesis, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ I mean that Christ upheld monogamy against polygamy and against that modified form of polygamy which arose from the husband’s unrestricted, or scarcely restricted, right of divorce. Soon after the resurrection, in the midst of persecutions, when the Christians expected that Christ might speedily return and carry them up to heaven, it was natural that the Corinthians should apply for advice to Paul, and other churches to other apostles.

“My belief is that Christ’s words extended to only the first half of Matthew’s tradition. The disciples complain, in effect, ‘If a man cannot divorce his wife when he dislikes her, it is best not to marry.’ To this Christ replies, as I interpret him, ‘Not all grasp the mystery of the true marriage contemplated from the beginning (namely, “the two shall become one”) but only those to whom it is given.’ This seems to me to have been explained in a wrong sense in the words that follow about ‘eunuchs.’ At all events, Paul twice quotes the words quoted by Christ (about the ‘two’ becoming ‘one’) as though they were the basis of his doctrine about marriage and also a type of the mysterious wedlock between Christ and the church. I do not think, however, that any confident conclusion is deducible. Christ elsewhere indicates—when dealing with an imaginary case where a woman has married seven brothers consecutively—that the marriage tie does not extend to the next life. By the Jews, marriage is, and was, regarded as honourable, and almost as a duty. But a Jewish sect called the Essenes, or some of them, practised celibacy; and you know how Epictetus inculcates celibacy on his Cynics of the first class. These facts, and the pressure of hard times, and Paul’s example, may not only have favoured abstinence from marriage among Christians but also have favoured some tampering with tradition in order to enjoin celibacy. A letter to Timothy speaks of certain heretics as ‘forbidding to marry.’ Perhaps the only safe conclusion about Matthew’s tradition is that no conclusion can be deduced from it.”

Scaurus next discussed the question whether Christ inculcated poverty on his disciples. He denied it. Not that he denied Luke to be more correct verbally in saying “Blessed are the poor” than Matthew in “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” But he asserted that Christ meant “poor in spirit.” Similarly (said Scaurus) Christ meant “hungering after righteousness,” as Matthew says, though Luke was right verbally in omitting “after righteousness.” For, according to Scaurus, “Christ hardly ever used such words as ‘bread,’ ‘leaven,’ ‘water,’ ‘hunger,’ ‘thirst,’ ‘fire,’ ‘salt,’ ‘treasure,’ and so on, except metaphorically.” Then he quoted the following instance out of Mark’s version of Christ’s instructions to the twelve apostles, where, he said, Mark’s metaphors had been misunderstood literally—and consequently altered—by Matthew and Luke.

“Mark,” said he, “has, ‘that they should take nothing for the journey, save a staff only, no bread, no wallet, no money for the purse.’ Matthew and Luke have ‘no staff.’ Now turn to Genesis, where Jacob thanks God for helping him on his journey, ‘I passed over Jordan with my staff.’ He means, ‘with my staff only.’ Philo explains this ‘staff’ metaphorically, as ‘training,’ i.e. the instruction or guidance given by God. David says to God, ‘Thy rod and thy staff are my help,’ or words to that effect—manifest metaphor. My rabbi shewed me a Jewish paraphrase of Jacob’s words, ‘I had neither gold, nor silver, nor herds, but simply my staff.’ He also told me that this ‘staff’ was supposed by the Jews to have been given by God to Adam from whom it descended to the patriarchs in succession. This shews that Jews might find no difficulty in Christ’s metaphor, ‘Go forth with nothing but a staff,’ i.e. the staff of Jacob, the rod and staff of God. But Greeks and Romans would naturally take the word literally as meaning ‘walking-stick.’ Then they would find a difficulty, asking, ‘Why should Jesus say, No bread, no wallet—only a walking-stick?’ Hence many, writing largely for Gentiles, might alter it into ‘no walking-stick.’ This is what Matthew and Luke have done. Similarly they altered Mark’s metaphor ‘but shod with sandals,’ i.e. with light shoes fit for the ‘beautiful feet’ of the preachers of the gospel, into ‘no boots,’ or words to that effect. The error is the same. Jewish metaphor has been in each case taken literally by Matthew and Luke.”

Scaurus added a few remarks on Christ as a historical character, “dimly traceable,” he said, “in the combined testimony of Mark, Matthew, and Luke”—where I thought he might have added, “and in the epistles of Paul.” His main thought was that, in spite of all the defects of these three writers, it was possible to discern in Christ a successor of Moses and Isaiah. “This man,” said Scaurus, “may be regarded in two aspects. As a lawgiver, he took as the basis of his republic a re-enactment, in a stronger form, of the two ancient laws that enjoined love of the Father and love of the brethren. As a prophet, he saw a time when all mankind—recognising in one another (man in man and nation in nation) some glimpse of the divine image, and of the beauty of divine holiness—would beat their swords into ploughshares, and go up to the City of peace, righteousness, and truth, to worship the Father of the spirits of all flesh. Isaiah had foreseen this. But this prophet was also possessed with a belief, beyond Isaiah’s, in the unity of God and man. He was persuaded that the true Son of man was the Son of God, higher than the heavens. I think also that he trusted—but on what grounds I do not know, unless it was an ingrained prophetic belief, found in all the great prophets, carried to its highest point in this prophet—that, as light follows on darkness, so does joy on sorrow, righteousness on sin, and life on death. A Stoic would say that these things alternate and that all things go round. But this Jewish prophet believed that all things in the end would go up—up to heaven. That is how I read his expectation. Feeling himself to be one with God, he placed no limits, except God’s will, to the mighty works that God might do for him in his attempt to fulfil God’s purpose of exalting men from darkness to light and from death to life.

“It is in some of these mysterious aspirations,” said Scaurus, “that I cannot follow this prophet of the Jews. At times he seems to me to act and speak (certainly Paul speaks thus) as though God had caused mankind to take (if I may say so) one disease in order to get rid of another. I am speaking of moral disease. God seems to Paul to have allowed man to contract the disease of sin in order to rise to a health of righteousness, higher than would have been possible if he had not sinned. On these and other mystical notions this Jewish prophet may perhaps base views of forgiveness, and of love, and of the efficacy of his own death for his disciples, all of which perplex me. Sometimes I reject them entirely. Sometimes I am in doubt.” These last words of Scaurus seemed to me to explain many inconsistencies in his letters. But how could I be surprised? Was I consistent myself? Was not my own mind at that instant fluctuating like a very Euripus? I could understand his doubts only too well.

He concluded by contrasting Christ with John the Baptist. “The one point,” said Scaurus, “in which these two prophets or reformers agreed, was that the Lord God would intervene for the people, if only the people would return to Him. But in other respects they appear to me to have altogether differed. John the Baptist seems to have desired to bring about a remission of debts in accordance with the Law of Moses, as insisted on by previous prophets. He also desired an equalisation of property. That is what I gather from the gospels themselves, interpreted in the light of the ancient Law of the Jews. Moreover Josephus told me that Herod the tetrarch put John to death on political grounds, because he seemed likely to stir up the people to sedition, nor did he ever mention the influence of Herodias as contributing to the prophet’s execution. Of course the story about the dancing and the oath may be true, and yet the oath may have been a mere excuse for getting rid of an inconvenient person. John was not unwilling (as I gather) to resort to the sword of Gideon or the fire of Elijah if the word of the gospel did not suffice to establish the new kingdom.

“Jesus, on the other hand, was absolutely averse to violence. Jesus was penetrated with the belief in the power of ‘little ones’ and ‘babes’ and ‘sucklings.’ How far he anticipated the future in store for himself I cannot say. Sometimes I am inclined to believe that he thought God would intervene at the last moment and deliver him from the jaws of death. Sometimes he seems to have deliberately faced death with the conviction that he would be swallowed up by it for a short time, emerging from it to victory.

“The Baptist certainly expected to be delivered by Jesus from the prison in which he was being kept by Antipas, and to have been disappointed by his friend’s inaction. It must have been a very bitter moment for the latter when John sent to reproach him, as good as saying, ‘Are you, too, a false Messiah? Will you leave me to perish in prison? Are you really our Deliverer, or must we, the whole nation, turn from you as a laggard, and wait for another?’ In my opinion, this was the very greatest temptation to which Jesus was exposed. In that moment—as I judge when I try to guess the eastern metaphor corresponding to western fact—Jews would say that Satan said to Christ ‘Worship me, and I will give you the empire of the world,’ or ‘Take the risk! Throw yourself down from the pinnacle! See whether God will save you!’ In plain words, the temptation was, ‘Appeal to the God of battles! Rouse the people to arms, first against Antipas, and then against the Romans!’ For a perfectly unselfish and noble nature, believing in divine interventions, this must indeed have been a great, a very great temptation.”

Scaurus finished this part of his letter by quoting a passage that I had long had in mind, but I had forgotten its context, “Do you remember, Silanus, how the old Egyptian priest says in the Timaeus, ‘Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always boys’? Then comes the reason, ‘You have not in your souls any ancient belief based on tradition from the days of old.’ Well, we Romans are in the same position as the poor Greeks. So are the Egyptians for the matter of that. For it is not antiquity alone, but divine antiquity, that counts. None of us have this divine antiquity of ‘tradition from the days of old’ going back to such characters as Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. I think we must put up with our inferiority. These things we had better leave to others. We have, as Virgil says, ‘arts’ of our own, the arts of war and empire. There, we are men, full-grown men. But as compared with Moses, Isaiah, and above all with this Jesus, or Christ, I must frankly confess I sometimes feel myself a ‘boy,’ and never so much as now. My conclusion is, I will keep to the things in which I am not a ‘boy.’ Do you the same.”