MATHETΩN

There is an idea in much religion of a metaphysical foundation upon which practical action can be taken. For example, Islam erects the “Five Pillars”

Profession (of the creed),
Prayers,
Charity,
Fasting,
Pilgrimage (to the holy cities).

And ancient Jewish rabbis proposed seven precepts upon which all the world should base behavior; they are the Noachide Laws:

Monotheism,
No murder,
No robbery,
Sexual purity,
No blasphemy,
Kindness to animals,
Just courts.

Another example are the various Catholic religiouses, who generally profess four vows:

Poverty,
Celibacy,
Obedience,
and the fourth varies (e.g., stability, silence, loyalty to the pope).

The Religious Society of Friends has its “testimonies”, which by now have been narrowed to

Honesty,
Simplicity,
Non-violence,
Abstinence from nicotine, alcohol, or recreational drugs.

The Amish – Mennonites among whom I grew up base their copious lifestyle-laws on a three-cornered platform, viz.:

Nonconformity (to American life),
Uniformity,
Obedience.

Perhaps it is my knowledge of these religions that has gotten me thinking: What “pillars” could I discern in Jesus’s and his Envoys’ teaching upon which to base my life’s acts? To list them accurately, I would need to put out of my head all Christian dogma, to read thoroughly but sweepingly, to think systematically. Here, tentatively, is what I propose (roughly in the order the reader can find them):

Slavery,
Poverty,
Love and non-resistance,
Honesty,
Liberty,
Chastity (with a special meaning for the married).

In Jesus and the Envoys’ time, slavery was everywhere and they used it, and its related customs, laws, and emancipation, as a central image — probably the central image — of their teaching. Nowadays we have no slavery and very little idea of it. What could serve as a nowadays analogous image in our teaching? As I puzzle this out, as I look around me, my mind turns more and more to — addiction …

“The third and main part of [Christian] literature is School Divinity. … A certain learned man called it ‘a twofold discipline, as of the race of the centaurs, partly proceeding from divine sayings, partly from philosophical reasons’.

“A thousand of their questions they confess, themselves, to be noways necessary to salvation, and yet, many more of them they could never agree upon but are and still will be in endless janglings about them. The volumes that have been written about it a man in his whole age, though he lived very old, could scarce read; and when he has read them all, he has but wrought himself a great deal more vexation and trouble of spirit than he had before. … But a man of a good upright heart may learn more in half an hour, and be more certain of it, by waiting upon God and his Spirit in the heart than by reading a thousand of their volumes. …

“Methinks the simplicity, plainness, and brevity of the Scriptures themselves should be a sufficient reproof for such a science; and the apostles being honest, plain, illiterate men may be better understood by such kind of men now than with all that mass of scholastic stuff, which neither Peter nor Paul nor John ever thought of.”

Doctrine, as it is used in the Bible, means simply “teachings”. “When Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine” (Mat vii.28): Jesus’s doctrine is his teachings and parables and is recorded in the Gospels. When the apostles speak of doctrine in their writings, they speak of these teachings of Jesus’s—as indeed they term it (“doctrine of Christ”: Tit ii.10; Heb vi.1; II Joh i.9). It was, then, the teachings of Jesus for which Paul and Peter and John stood steadfast and to which they would brook no contradiction.

Now the teachings of Jesus (God be thanked in his wisdom) are no more accessible to a theologian than to a twelve-year-old child—perhaps indeed less so. For all that is necessary to grasp them (God be thanked in his mystery) are ears that hear and eyes that see (Mar viii.18). Then “where is the wise? where is the mighty? where is the disputer of this world?” Was not Paul a scholar, trained at the feet of sages? Yet says he: I preach the teachings of Jesus “not with wisdom of words,” for “God has chosen the foolish … to confound the wise; … the weak … to confound the mighty.” (See the first letter to the Corinthian believers, chapter one.)

If there be any merit at all in the argument of so-called religious men, it will show itself in several signs. It will be humble and self-deprecating, as Paul’s, which he termed “foolishness” (I Cor i.21). It will freely admit that the teachings of Jesus are not “of any private interpretation” (II Pet i.20) and thus always yield interpretation of Jesus’s teachings to himself and to his Spirit. It will not deny any who claim Jesus, for (said Jesus) “he who is not against us is for us” (Luk ix.50); nor will it embrace any who repudiate him, for (said Jesus) “he who is not with me is against me” (Luk xi.23). It will not turn the body of Jesus against itself (Gal v.15; Php iii.2) nor recognize another head to it than him (Col i.18). It will not teach “for doctrine the commandments of men” (Mat xv.9; Col ii.22) nor forbid that which God allows (Col ii.21; I Tim iv.3) nor speak in hypocrisy—which things stifle and scar the true conscience, the Spirit of Jesus (I Tim iv.2). It will bring neither titillation to the hearer (II Tim iv.3) nor glory to the speaker (I Cor i.29).

Above all, teaching of any merit will be in the words of Jesus, in the Spirit of Jesus, in the mouth of an imitator of Jesus. “Be you followers of me,” Paul taught, “as I also am of Christ” (I Cor xi.1). Such was not John Calvin, I venture—who confessed not Jesus’s kingdom within us (Luk xvii.21; see also Joh xviii.36: “My kingdom is not of this world”), but assumed dictatorship de facto of Geneva, preaching “[the church] must hold sway over high and low … to accuse and to annihilate the refractory.” Such was not John Calvin—who urged Geneva’s judges to burn alive his theological rival. (“Me auctore [it was my doing],” Calvin wrote a friend when his rival was arrested, “and I pray he is condemned to death.”) Rather heed the martyr than the murderer! (See entries John Calvin and Miguel Servetus in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge [Baker Book House 1950] for more information.)

The weak soul desires to revere a human person and hear his human words, so that it may handle and gaze upon that in which it believes and so that it may unburden itself of the duties of choice and thought. The proud soul desires to speak arcane teachings and hold contentious doctrines, so that it may contemn duller souls and so that it may gain the Kingdom by words and not deeds. But the wise soul desires to see with a single shining eye (Mat vi.22) and to feel with a burning heart (Luk xxiv.32) and to perceive with Another’s mind (Php ii.5), so that it may hear what cannot be heard and see what cannot be seen—and understand what cannot be explained (Joh v.37; Mat xiii.15), and so that it may learn to love impossibly and die—and live (I Joh iii.16).