MATHETΩN

One of the anonymously-compiled “Seven Deadly Social Sins” is: “Worship without sacrifice”. I will pass over my immediate reaction to reading this — America! Christianity! — and spare what would be a bored readership. Instead, I will limn some later thoughts I had: that this description touches a seminal difference between Jesus and the religions.

In most religions, they who are called the good are who refrain from bad. Here are capsules of several major religions:

“Do nothing to others that would hurt you if it were done to you” (Mahabharata v.1517).

“Do not offend others, since you would not want to be offended” (Udanavarga v.18).

“The rule of goodness: That which we do not wish to be done to us, we do not do to others” (The Analects of Confucius xv.23).

“That which you do not wish for yourself, you shall not wish for your neighbor” (Talmud Shabbat 31).

Fundamentalist Christianity is likewise characterized by what its good members must not do or must not think.

In contrast, Jesus said, first, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone,” and ceaselessly anathematized the religious who called themselves, or wished to be called, the good. Second, he offered this capsule:

“And as you wish men to do by you, so do by them” (Luke vi.31).

There we have it: The religious are to be called the good by doing no bad. Jesus was called the devil’s son while doing good, and he taught doing the good.

“On his way [back from the temple Jesus] saw a man who had been blind from birth. And his followers questioned him, saying, ‘Teacher, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to be born blind?’ Jesus answered:

” ‘Neither he nor his parents sinned; it was so the workings of God might be made manifest in him. We must do the work of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’

“So saying, he spat on the ground and made mud out of the spittle, and put mud on the man’s eyes, and said to him: ‘Go and wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which translated means the one who has been sent). So he went and washed, and came away seeing.

“So his neighbors, and those who had seen him before when he was a beggar, said: ‘Is not this the man who sat and begged?’ — Some said: ‘It is he.’ Others said: ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ — But he said: ‘It is I.’

“Then they said to him: ‘How were your eyes opened?’ — He answered: ‘The man called Jesus made mud and smeared it on my eyes and said to me: “Go to Siloam and wash.” So I went and washed, and I saw.’ — And they said to him: ‘Where is he?’ — He said: ‘I do not know.’ Then they took the man who had once been blind to the [churchmen].

“The sabbath was the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes. Then the [churchmen] in turn asked him how he had got his sight. And he told them: ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ — And some of the [churchmen] said: ‘This is no man from God, since he does not keep the sabbath.’ But others said: ‘How can a sinful man work such miracles?’ And there was division among them. So they said, once more, to the blind man: ‘What do you have to say about him, because he opened your eyes?’

“He said: ‘He is a prophet.’

“But the [churchmen] did not believe it about him, that he had been blind and got his sight, until they called in the parents of the man who had got his sight and questioned them, saying: ‘Is this your son, who, you say, was born blind? How is it that he can now see?’ — His parents answered and said: ‘We do not know how it is that he now can see, and we do not know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age and he will tell you about himself.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the [churchmen], because the [churchmen] had agreed that anyone who confessed that he was Christ should be excommunicated. That is why his parents said: ‘He is of age, ask him.’

“Thus for the second time they summoned the man who had been blind, and said to him: ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is sinful.’ — The man answered and said: ‘Whether he is sinful I do not know. One thing I do know, that I was blind and now I see.’ — Then they said to him: ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ — He answered them: ‘I told you before, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Could it be that you want to be his followers?’ — And they reviled him and said: ‘You are his follower. We are followers of Moses. We know God talked with Moses; but we do not know where this man is from.’

“The man answered and said to them: ‘Here is what is astonishing, that you do not know where he is from and he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if someone is pious and does his will, to that man he listens. From the beginning of time it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind; if this man were not from God, he could not have done anything.’

“They answered and said to him: ‘You were born all in sin; and you are teaching us?’ And they excommunicated him.

“Jesus heard that they had excommunicated him, and he found him and said: ‘Do you believe in the son of God?’ — The man answered: ‘Who is that, Lord? so that I may believe in him.’ — Jesus said to him: ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is talking with you.’ — And he said: ‘I believe, Lord.’ And he worshipped him.

“And Jesus said: ‘I have come into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may go blind.’

“The [churchmen] who were with him heard this, and they said to him, ‘Surely, even we are not blind?’ — Jesus said to them: ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say: We see. Your sin remains.’ “

* * *

We read this passage of Goodnews yesterday at a small gathering for worship. Forthwith the churchmen who were present leapt to render it irrelevant. The first pastor, whom I shall name Gaspar, summed his singsong: “Gee! the Pharisees sure were weird! Jesus was doing something cool here; why couldn’t they dig it?” The second, whom I shall name Goliath, added gravely, “So we see God wants us to accept his salvation with grateful hearts.”

Ah Christians! Yet perhaps they are not the only people who can read without reading, and speak without saying anything at all.

Here is some of what I saw in the passage: sin, work; light, blind; and at the end an astonishing mating of these theses and antitheses — a mating that bends the mind.

Sin: everyone but Jesus is talking about sin all through the passage. His followers: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to be born blind?” The churchmen: “This is no man from God, for he does not keep the sabbath,” “How can a sinful man work such miracles,” “We know that this man is sinful …”, “You were born all in sin.” The man born blind: “Whether he is sinful I do not know”, “We know that God does not listen to sinners.”

Jesus meanwhile talks of: Work. “It was so the workings of God might be made manifest in him,” “We must do the work of him who sent me while it is day,” “The night is coming when no one can work.” And then others catch his refrain: “How can a sinful man work such miracles?” “What did he do to you,” “If someone is pious and does his will”, “… he could not have done anything.”

And Light, which is sight — which is Jesus: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” The blind man, healed, now has “seen [the son of God].”

Last, Blindness — here we come to the astonishing conclusion, the mating of thesis and antithesis a way no one could predict and only Jesus could give sight to:

To begin with he, as always, upends the world: “I have come into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may go blind.” Eagerly the churchmen, goaded as always by the prick of their authority to damn themselves, ask: “Surely, even we are not blind?”

Oh you are not blind, says Jesus: You are guilty. You have got light, O religious; but what is light for? “We must do the work … while it is day.” You speak evermore of sin, which is merely blindness, suffering: merely work for healers to do. You are not sinners, are not blind, do not suffer: therefore, you are lighted and unlike those you hate. Then you use not the light for working, for doing, and so you alone of humankind are the damned. “If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say: We see. Your sin remains.”

I venture that, to conduct his great war with Jesus, Nietzsche relied upon a false proposition: a false definition of “to will”. He said that the great soul faced with life’s suffering rebels, viz., does affirm his will, but that Jesus faced with suffering submitted, viz., did annul his will. In truth, Jesus taught: Rejoice in suffering, i.e., will so to rejoice, when you of all men understand its purpose. If there be a war, then, it is this:

Whether, in suffering, to will perversely or to will rationally –

Both the follower of Nietzsche and the follower of Jesus will, but the former without purpose and the latter with a long purpose.