Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/212

Rh Even Matthew presents us with passages so inconsistent that the fragmentary character of this old Gospel becomes clear to the careful scholar.

Jesus, a young man full of genius for Religion, seems to have begun his public career with the narrow aim of reforming Judaism. He would put all human Piety and Morality into the venerable forms of Jewish tradition. He came not to destroy but to fulfil the Mosaic Law; that was eternal;—his followers were to observe and teach all the customs of the Scribes and Pharisees; the sick man on recovery must offer the Levitical sacrifice. Like John the Baptist, he preaches the coming of the Messiah and the Kingdom of Heaven. He would not labour for Mankind, but only for the children of Israel—for it is not meet to give the dogs the children's bread. But as he went on he found his new wine of Piety and Humanity burst the old wine-skins of Judaism; the old garments which Scribes and Pharisees had inherited from dead prophets could not be patched with new Philanthropy, and the nation be thereby clothed withal. He gradually breaks with Judaism, neglects the ceremonial fast, violates the Sabbath, speaks evil of the clerical dignities—they are covered pits in the highway, whereinto men fall and perish. He claims himself to be the Messiah; John the Baptist was the Elias who was to come and make ready. He had political plans that lie there indistinctly seen through the mythic cloud which wraps the whole. He reaches beyond Judea to Samaria at least, perhaps to other nations, and developes his religious scheme more freely than at first.

Religion is no longer fettered by conventional restraint; it is Love to God, Love to man; on this hang all the Law and the Prophets. There must be no revenge, but continual forgiveness, seventy times seven. In the next stage of life a man's eternal condition depends wholly on his natural morality and humanity in this. His commands and requisitions related to moral conduct, not belief or liturgical ceremonies; God preferring goodness to sacramental forms. He puts the substance of religion before its acci-