"the bible," dr. farrar says, "is inextricably mingled with all that is greatest in human history." this is a fair specimen of his roystering style. we presume he has contracted it through long years of preaching from the coward's castle of the pulpit, where a man can exaggerate as much as he pleases without the slightest fear of contradiction. dr. farrar does not say that the bible is mixed up with much of the greatest in human history; no, it must be mixed up with all the greatest—which is a transparent falsehood and a no less transparent absurdity. what did greece and rome owe to the bible? absolutely nothing. there is no evidence that they were acquainted with any part of the old testament, and greece had become a mere name before a line of the new testament was written. some of the greatest things in the world were done and said by the "heathen." greek philosophy, greek literature, greek art, are imperishable. roman jurisprudence and roman government are the basis of every civilised polity. plutarch's heroes are all pagans, and let dr. farrar match them if he can in the history of christendom.
dr. farrar calls the bible "the statesman's manual," but he judiciously refrains from showing that statesmen ever act upon its teaching; indeed, he spends a great deal of time in showing that they ought not to act upon its teaching, unless they carefully avoid the obvious "letter," and allow themselves to be influenced by the recondite "spirit." for instance, it is perfectly clear that the bible does not contain a single word against slavery; it is also perfectly clear to all who possess a tincture of scholarship that many of its references to slavery are fraudulently translated. "servants obey your masters" really means "slaves obey your owners." moreover, the bible contains precise regulations of slavery. god did not tell the jews that holding slaves was infamous, that man could never have honest property in human flesh and blood. he allowed them to buy and sell gentiles at their pleasure. he permitted them to enslave their own countrymen for a period of seven years, and in certain cases "for ever." even in the new testament we find st paul sending back a runaway slave to his master. true, he sent with the slave a touching letter to the slave-owner, but sending him back at all was giving a sanction to the institution. dr. farrar admits that american pulpits "rang with incessant scriptural defences of slavery." he quotes from a southern bishop, who described slavery as "a curse and a blight," yet declared it to be "recognised by the bible," so that "every man has a right to his own slaves, provided they are not treated with unnecessary cruelty." dr. farrar asks whether there was ever "a stranger utterance on the lips of a christian bishop." he calls this "distorting the bible." but he does not prove the distortion. he calmly assumes it. he cannot deny the existence of all those slavery texts in the bible. all he can do is to say that what was "relatively excusable" among the jews is at present "execrable," and is now "absolutely and for ever wrong." very good; but how was that discovered? not by reading the bible. the jews read the bible, the early christians read the bible, just as well as dr. farrar, but they did not find that it condemned slavery. dr. farrar lives in a later age, in the light of a higher civilisation. he therefore reads into the bible whatever it ought to contain as the word of god. he does not scruple to override explicit texts by more or less arbitrary deductions from vague maxims and ejaculations. he pretends that the "spirit" of the bible in some way wrought the abolition of slavery. but every well-informed student is aware that the abolition of slavery depended upon economical conditions. we outgrow slavery by advancing beyond it in the process of industrial development, and when we have outgrown it we regard it with abhorrence. when the institution is in the way of being supplanted by a higher form of productive labor, the moral revolt against it begins, growing in strength and intensity as the economical change approaches its climax. it was natural that the anti-slavery movement in america should take place in the northern states, where the conditions favourable to slavery did not exist as they did in the southern states. we may be pardoned for supposing that if dr. farrar's lot had been cast in a southern state he would have defended slavery as a bible institution. he is preaching now after its abolition, when denunciation of it is cheap and easy, and is no particular credit to the preacher's religion. while slavery existed in america, it was at first justified by the bible in all parts of the union. northern abolitionists at last found that the bible did not teach slavery after all; but this did not alter the view of the southern slaveholders and the southern churches. here again we see the force of the catholic taunt that protestants can prove anything, and disprove anything, by appealing to texts in such a composite book as the bible. here again we also see that the bible never instigates any step in the march of human improvement.
dr. farrar waxes eloquent, after his special fashion, over the glories of england in the age of elizabeth. he attributes them all to the "open bible," which was then placed in the hands of the people. of course they had nothing to do with the new astronomy, the discovery of america, and the invention of printing! such paltry causes as these cannot enter into competition with the might and majesty of the bible! still, we may venture to remind dr. farrar that these englishmen of the elizabethan age, with the "open bible" in their hands, went and started the african slave trade. evidently they did not read in it then, as dr. farrar does now, any condemnation of that horrible business. they worked it for all it was worth. england, with the "open bible" in its hand, continued to do so for another two hundred years. one of the chief centres of the slave trade was the pious city of bristol. it grew rich on the abominable traffic. slavery has been abolished, but the old odor of piety still clings to the city of bristol. its merchants fattened on the slave trade with the "open bible" in their hands. they now subscribe to missionary societies to convert the blacks, and they still stick to the "open bible." it was good for upholding black slavery, and it is still good for upholding white slavery.
all that we have said about slavery applies in its degree to polygamy. both institutions are sanctioned by the bible, and the pleas of the "higher criticism" in relation to the one are just as hollow as they are in relation to the other. we may go farther and say that the bible is very far from being woman's best friend, as it is often represented. it starts by making her the devil's first customer, and the introducer of sin and death; it continues to hold her as inferior and subject to man, lumping her in the tenth commandment with the house, the ox, and the ass, as the man's property; and, finally, in the new testament, it expressly tells her that her duty is to be silent and submissive, for the husband is the head of the wife as christ is the head of the church.
we need not follow dr. farrar in his rhapsodical references to the various achievements of the bible. we may remark, however, that his reference to japan is singularly unhappy. that country has accepted the leading ideas of western civilisation, but it has not accepted christianity. nor is dr. farrar well advised in laying so much stress on the pilgrim fathers. he says that they had a preference for the "pure, unadulterated lessons of the bible." perhaps they had. but what were those lessons as illustrated by their actions? certainly intolerance was one of them. they had no conception of religious liberty. "the pilgrim fathers," as sir walter besant remarks in his little book on the rise of the empire, "believed that everybody should think as they themselves thought. had they achieved their own way, they would have sent laud himself, and all who thought like him, across the ocean with the greatest alacrity." they also believed in witchcraft, probably because dr. farrar was not at hand to explain that the bible did not mean what it said; and they tortured and burnt witches with remarkable gusto.
it would also be a waste of time to correct all dr. farrar's statements about the influence of the bible in other directions. we will take a single illustration of his fantastical method. he tells us that the bible "inspired the pictures of fra angelico and raphael, the music of handel and mendelssohn." perhaps he will tell us whether it inspired raphael's picture of the fornarina, and why it did not inspire the music of beethoven and wagner. both those great composers, as a matter of fact, were "infidels."
nothing could be more absurd than orthodox talk about the bible "inspiring" great poets, artists, and musicians. men of genius are inspired by nature. their inspiration is born with them. it cannot be made; it can only be utilised. all that religions have done is to employ the genius they could not create. every religion has done this in turn. the genius was there always as a natural endowment. it existed before all the world's religions, and it will outlive them.
