On the Prospects of Christianity: Bernard Shaw's Preface to Androcles and the LionShaw, Bernard
Religion
On the Prospects of Christianity: Bernard Shaw's Preface to Androcles and the Lion
Shaw, Bernard
Christianity; Essays; Prefaces
There are some other novelties in Luke's version. Pilate sends Jesus
to Herod, who happens to be in Jerusalem just then, because Herod
had expressed some curiosity about him; but nothing comes of it:
the prisoner will not speak to him. When Jesus is ill received in a
Samaritan village James and John propose to call down fire from heaven
and destroy it; and Jesus replies that he is come not to destroy lives
but to save them. The bias of Jesus against lawyers is emphasized, and
also his resolution not to admit that he is more bound to his relatives
than to strangers. He snubs a woman who blesses his mother. As this is
contrary to the traditions of sentimental romance, Luke would presumably
have avoided it had he not become persuaded that the brotherhood of
Man and the Fatherhood of God are superior even to sentimental
considerations. The story of the lawyer asking what are the two chief
commandments is changed by making Jesus put the question to the lawyer
instead of answering it.
As to doctrine, Luke is only clear when his feelings are touched. His
logic is weak; for some of the sayings of Jesus are pieced together
wrongly, as anyone who has read them in the right order and context
in Matthew will discover at once. He does not make anything new out of
Christ's mission, and, like the other evangelists, thinks that the whole
point of it is that Jesus was the long expected Christ, and that he will
presently come back to earth and establish his kingdom, having duly died
and risen again after three days. Yet Luke not only records the teaching
as to communism and the discarding of hate, which have, of course,
nothing to do with the Second Coming, but quotes one very remarkable
saying which is not compatible with it, which is, that people must not
go about asking where the kingdom of heaven is, and saying "Lo, here!"
and "Lo, there!" because the kingdom of heaven is within them. But Luke
has no sense that this belongs to a quite different order of thought to
his Christianity, and retains undisturbed his view of the kingdom as a
locality as definite as Jerusalem or Madagascar.
JOHN.
A NEW STORY AND A NEW CHARACTER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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