There is still a great deal of legalism in the Old Testament idea of sin. The emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount is very differen...t from that in the commandments that Moses brought down from Sinai. The commandments have been translated into beatitudes. "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth," is not a sentence one could read in the Old Testament without a jolt, but by the time we reach it in the New Testament, we have been prepared for it. It is set in the context of the rest of Christ's life and teaching. Without that example the sentence carries little conviction because there is no evidence that the meek do or ever will inherit the earth. We have been turned away from a concern merely with our outward acts, to contemplate what lies most deep in our innermost selves, hidden from all but ourselves and God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Among most Christians the Old Testament is little read in comparison to the New Testament. Furthermore, much of what is read is of...ten distorted by prejudice. Frequently the Old Testament is believed to express exclusively the principles of justice and revenge, in contrast to the New Testament, which represents those of love and mercy; even the sentence, "Love your neighbor as yourself," is thought by many to derive from the New, not the Old Testament. Or the Old Testament is believed to have been written exclusively in the spirit of narrow nationalism and to contain nothing of supranational universalism so characteristic of the New Testament.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Need I add that in the whole New Testament there emerges only a single figure who commands respect? Pilate, the Roman governor. To... take a Jewish affair seriously--he does not persuade himself to do that. One Jew more or less--what does it matter?... The noble scorn of a Roman, confronted with an impudent abuse of the word "truth," has enriched the New Testament with the only saying that has value--one which is its criticism, even its annihilation: "What is truth?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The discipline of the Old Testament may be summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the discipline of the... New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am damnably sick of Italy, Italian and Italians, outrageously, illogically sick.... I hate to think that Italians ever did anyth...ing in the way of art.... What did they do but illustrate a page or so of the New Testament! They themselves think they have a monopoly in the line. I am dead tired of their bello and bellezza.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of course the New Testament is very small.... Its mouth opens four times as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster, yet somehow man-made....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotr...y with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular. To Christians, no less than Greeks and Jews, it is foolishness and a stumbling-block.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Yet the New Testament treats of man and man's so-called spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral and persona...l, to alone content me, who am not interested solely in man's religious or moral nature, or in man even.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those o...f the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give me one of these bibles, and you have silenced me for a while. When I recover the use of my tongue, I am wont to worry my neighbors with the new sentences; but commonly they cannot see that there is any wit in them. Such has been my experience with the New Testament. I have not yet got to the crucifixion, I have read it over so many times. I should love dearly to read it aloud to my friends, some of whom are seriously inclined; it is so good, and I am sure that they have never heard it, it fits their case exactly, and we should enjoy it so much together,--but I instinctively despair of getting their ears. They soon show, by signs not to be mistaken, that it is inexpressibly wearisome to them. I do not mean to imply that I am any better than my neighbors; for, alas! I know that I am only as good, though I love better books than they.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This teaching is not practical in the sense in which the New Testament is. It is not always sound sense in practice. The Brahman n...ever proposes courageously to assault evil, but patiently to starve it out. His active faculties are paralyzed by the idea of caste, of impassable limits of destiny and the tyranny of time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »