CHAPTER V

MODERN AND SCIENTIFIC DOCTRINES

ODERN ideas of a future life, so far as they

Mo

affect western civilization, have been determined

by Christianity. That system was founded on two doctrines: (1) The immortality of the soul and (2) the brotherhood of man. The social scheme which was at first adopted to carry out the latter of these two doctrines was soon abandoned and there remained only the first one to dominate the thought of the church. Various subsidiary beliefs became attached to the system, assumed to be necessary to protect its validity and apparently the essential feature of it. But nevertheless they were to preserve the belief in immortality and salvation. A complete account of this would require the entire history of Christianity, but this cannot be given here. It is too complicated with sectarian variations from the original and these differ so much as to be almost diametrically opposed to each other in some of their characteristics. There seems to be more unity in the ancient religions, but that may be due to the paucity of historical material to show sectarian differences. At any rate we have abundant material for the study of Christianity and its sectarian ramifications. At the center of them, however, in spite of differences that are emphasized more than their common elements, is the immortality of the soul which has preserved its vitality for more than eighteen centuries, while its social scheme was relegated

to desuetude, to be revived in modern Socialism on an economic instead of an ethical basis.

Much can be said to dispute the view that the doctrine of immortality constituted the main doctrine of Christianity. Something, however, in this matter will depend on what we mean by "Christianity" and what we accept as authentic in the New Testament. If we are to define Christianity as the teaching of the Gospels or confine it to the period of Christ's teaching, we eliminate much that characterizes it to-day. This cannot very well be done after the term has come to mean so definite a thing to-day. But we can distinguish between primitive or original Christianity and modern Christianity. It is clear that the Gospels do not emphasize immortality as did the whole philosophical, theological and ecclesiastical schemes of later times. It is more implied than taught, and critics may raise the question whether legend and tradition may not have introduced much of it into the documents which we now possess. For instance, the story of the rich man and Lazarus is not found in Matthew and Mark, but in John and Luke, Mark is supposed to be the oldest Gospel and does not contain it. But in any case the story rather implies or takes immortality for granted. Its chief object is to teach human ethics and immortality is drawn in to enforce them. The doctrine of the resurrection which was a moot question between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and was referred to by Christ on one occasion, if we accept the account, implies it, but does not make it the central question about which the life and teachings of Christ revolved. The Sermon on the Mount is far more representative of this primitive Christian teaching than the doctrine of immortality. This doctrine received its chief interest and impetus from the death of its founder and the story of the actual resurrection. The ethical problem became subordinate, except as a means to the attainment of

But

salvation which was happiness in another life. however we may assert or assume that immortality was not the main doctrine of Christianity at first, it quickly became so, and remained the chief interest ever since. The practical problems of social ethics and healing were assigned a secondary place and human interest concentrated on immortality and salvation, often to be attained, not by brotherhood and ethical life, but by rituals and ceremonies.

It was the resurrection that turned the fortunes of Christianity. But the doctrine was developed after the death of Christ and took the form of the physical resurrection in later times. But opinion seems to have been divided in the apostolic age. Some seem to have believed in the resurrection of the physical body and some, especially St. Paul, in the resurrection of the "spiritual body." Thus early began the division between thinkers on the subject, but the doctrine of the resurrection of the physical body finally prevailed until comparatively recent times when it has been supplanted by most theologians who are acquainted with history and science. But it is clear that St. Paul believed in the existence of the "spiritual body" and that his interpretation of the resurrection applied to this "body" and not to the physical organism. The latter doctrine offended the philosophers almost as distinctly in that age as in the present, but the Pauline conception offered less resistance. Both views showed the emphasis which was laid upon immortality as the distinctive feature of the Christian religion, though the ethical teaching of Christ still held its place as a part of the system.

The Pauline doctrine of the "Spiritual body" does not explain itself, and it was not a new idea even in his time. The whole doctrine of the resurrection had rested upon it long before Christ. We have seen that many of the early Greek philosophers believed in "spirits" and that the doctrine which divided the

Pharisees and Sadducees was very old, in fact extending back to the time of Homer and Aeschylus. The earliest conception of the resurrection was thus one of apparitions and these apparitions were assumed to be exactly what they appeared to be; namely, some sort of physical organism, the double or counterpart of the physical. Even the Epicureans admitted its existence, sometimes calling it the "ethereal organism," but asserting that it perished at death. The idea was a very common one and in modern times is represented by the "astral body" of the Theosophists. They borrowed it from Hindu philosophers who seem never to have wholly lost sight of it. St. Paul simply picked it up from the philosophy of his time, and as he was acquainted with the "sect of the Epicureans" he may have taken it from them and simply affirmed its survival where they denied it.

All these views, however originated at the time that Christianity began to look to a philosophy to defend itself and to abandon the "miracles." After the death of Christ the "miracles" diminished or disappeared and the doctrine of immortality had to depend on something else than the repetition of the alleged resurrection to support it, especially the resurrection of the physical body. It was conceived at first in a scientific manner. Christianity in the person of Christ was not a philosophy nor a theology. It was an appeal to facts and moral precepts. In so far as the "miracles," which were, most of them, "spiritual healing," were concerned it was an appeal to facts. It was a scientific movement, not a metaphysical or a theological one. It appealed to facts quite as vehemently as Huxley or Tyndall, and it would have been wiser to have clung to this method instead of turning to Greco-Roman philosophy for its support, though there was no harm in doing this, if only it had remained by its earlier scientific spirit. It might have anticipated the scientific

revival in later times and have escaped the fatal conflict between science and religion which followed the discoveries of Copernicus and Newton. But the reversion to philosophy and the intellectual debauchery with a physical resurrection only helped to create the conflict, and progress lapsed for centuries.

But when Christianity began to face its difficulties, it had St. Paul to suggest a way out of them. His "spiritual body" was in line with the traditions of one school of philosophy and strange to say it was that of the materialists. Materialism or Epicureanism had finally triumphed in the last period of Greek reflective thought. It was not Plato or Aristotle that permeated the age of Christ, but Epicurus, on the one side, and the Neo-Platonists, on the other. The latter were not very intelligible, while the Epicureans were, and the generality of mankind will accept any philosophy that is clear in preference to one that is obscure and unintelligible. The Epicurean philosophy was clear and that sufficed to give it an advantage. It admitted the existence of a soul, but denied its survival. The attack on it was easy. All that its opponents had to do was to point to the fact of the "resurrection," the existence of apparitions which would seem to every man of common sense as a sufficient refutation of the materialistic claim that the soul perished at death.

The Epicureans did not see that they had no clear evidence of this annihilation. They had distinct and sensory evidence that the physical body disappeared at death, but no such evidence that the "spiritual body” was destroyed. Their belief in it was not based upon any sense perception of it during life and hence they had no such evidence of its destruction as they had of the physical body. Hence the believer in survival had only to point to apparitions to disprove the materialist. The only escape from him would be to resolve apparitions into hallucinations, and in later ages he did so.