The New Testament

If we seek for the reasons of the New Testament, we just need to read again and again the following verses from the Gospel of Luke where Jesus Christ unveils the apparent reasons:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke, 4: 18, 19; our Italics)

If Christ came for poor, brokenhearted, captives and such, this means that, in spite of the fact that these are the clear productions of the society, the society does not have the capability to accomodate them. However they are part of the Creation and the Creator cannot leave them without help. The deep, scientific reasons of the New Testament must therefore be found in the reasons of existence of society.

                If we wouldn’t choose to reject the regulations of God in the Garden of Eden, we would still live an edenic life, where the society is not necessary. But we chose to have our own experience, and this cannot be lived but outside Eden Garden, in an evolution made possible by the existence of society. For, outside we met the force instead of the primeval light and, while using it, we needed to overcome it, whence the reasons of existence of society.

                Indeed, we always need a force in order to do something. Even the simplest motion asks for considerable muscular force, to say nothing of some actions of wider scope. Among such actions of wider scope first and foremost comes obviously the survival on Earth, which is by itself enough to justify the emergence of the society as a necessity. Indeed, the human society emerged as a basis to overcome the forces, first those of Nature from which the human species issued and then those of the alterity inside the society itself.

                On this road of creation and perfection of the human society – legitimate mother and daughter of the force – many unnatural realities detached, among which that of social hierarchy provides the reasons quoted above by Jesus Christ. Indeed, the social hierarchy is a corrupt product of the social division of labour, due to the very human nature. At the level of an individual, i.e. the possessor of the body executing that labour, the hierarchy creates a stress and, as special recent studies clearly show, is maintained by that stress.

                Indeed, it is not hard to see that in a human society, unlike other biological societies, the individual carries a greater burden, if not by anything else, at least by the possibility of communicating impressions external to Nature, which are actually those leading to stress. A modern civilized society shows here its true superiority by the fact that it manages the stress the best possible way. In a word, the essential characteristic of the social division of labour was that it interposed the man between Man and Nature, facilitating thus another social division, this time in the form of hierarchy, that alienated the man from mother Nature.

                In the old times the society obviously survived at the expense of life of its individuals, continuously imperiled, not because of the inherent natural stress of any animal society, but because of the unnatural stress imposed by hierarchy. In any biological society the individual must support a natural stress by the very condition of its existence and of the society in the food chain. The humans, once installed at the top of the food chain didn’t have any need for the natural stress, for there was no competitor anymore. In a human society the individual relieved therefore from the natural stress of the species, has to stand the unnatural stress of the hierarchy, which kills in an unnatural way according to its very nature.

                In the old times though, the human society was not so far away from any biological society when it comes to the indifference with respect to its members. This is why it needed the ten commandments: to regulate the human social relationships in a human way. What then, we can ask, were the chances of survival of an individual weak, humble, sure victim of the unnatural killing stress? As in any other biological society, such an individual is destined to death. The reason, this unique privilege of the man which, at the individual level, forces us to evaluate the chances of survival, made its way through imagination, thus transforming the purely spiritual aspect of the problem into a political one. For, it was obvious that the humble and the stressed would surely die – this was just a common occurrence. Why then, not offer him a hope on the way he goes naturally? And the hope came naturally for the unnatural way of existing of society: if you cannot find proper accomodation in this world, don’t despair, you will have it in the “other” world! This is one of the first scientific attitudes: first imagine a world the way it should be, i.e. natural, then show that there is a real possibility to reach for that world: the more miserable you are here the happier you will be there, no matter how vague “there” appears. The whole problem is one of indoctrination, and with this were charged the different forms of political religions later on transformed into religious politics, in order to justify the annihilation of the competing alterity.

                It is in this general state, that the most developed among the old societies – whose development was, of course, due to the possession of force making thus possible to lay hands on everything – made possible the idea that, on the contrary, everybody can live in this world with the minimum stress, by just putting the stress on others outside the society – the alterity we are talking about. Imagination, keeping up with direct observation, created the idolatry, both for justifying the society with respect to other human societies – the suns of Ammun, the sons of Baal etc – and for the individual necessities: pray the idol and it will satisfy your prayer! This way the prayer was created.

                Meanwhile, let’s notice though that the humility, this mother and at the same time daughter of the continuous unnatural stress, not only wasn’t eliminated from the developed societies, but sublimated in forms not yet met before. The evolution didn’t go so far as to eliminate the humiliation as a method and the humility as its harvest. On the contrary, in the times of New Testament, the humble and meeks, these really superior and subtle products of the unnatural stress, were completely scooped out from the society, which brought them forth but was not able to accommodate them. The ones able to produce force were slaves, i.e. tools, the ones unable to produce force were cast off.

                It was just such a time when Jesus Christ came, to teach us how to behave in a realistic state, i.e. in life, not beyond it. Thus it should come as no surprise the fact that He addresses first and foremost to those cast away from the society, as the verses above show. This is altogether the most scientific attitude that allows us to say: He is the living God. For there is naturally a human condition in everyone, no matter of his physical and social status. The society alienated the man from God and from himself, giving him the idea that the position in society is everything. Vanity of vanities! Everything can easily go to dust in the blink of an eye.

                So it comes that, regarding the unnatural stress impugned by the society upon the individual, the recommendation of Jesus is that age-old one, to blend harmoniously in your place. Slaves obey your masters, women obey your husbands, don’t worry about tomorrow etc. And Jesus doesn’t follow here the old political religion, but purely the science. One doesn’t need quite an academic degree in order to see that these are ways to minimize the stress in order to extend the natural life, that much we can realize. But the explanation given to us by Jesus is way beyond the science of all days: to direct opposition there is always a direct opposition, and the individual has no chance against society. The one who raises the sword by the sword will perish! Notice the subtle matter: it is not that the one who raises the sword will kill his enemies etc. like in the old heroic poems, but a clear-cut “will perish” – and no argument here, it always happens. The starting idea? There is no natural alterity: as an individual the man is universal. Therefore look first at yourself, and judge others by yourself, not by what the society made you to be. The voluntary acceptance of the actual own situation (happy obeisance), and the comparison with the nature where you are a whole (the lilies of the valley, the birds of the sky) not with the society using you just as a part (the king Solomon “in all his glory”) are the first steps along the path of a life without stress. The retaliation does not have this virtue: the satisfaction of revenge invades, sooner of later, our life shaped as a danger.

            In order to comprehend these teachings of New Testament, would be sufficient to accept that all of us are in a state of humility, and all of us are under the spell of the same fate, making it thus worth to be meek. And, how is it possible to convince a king or, more recently, a finance tycoon for instance, that he can be submitted to humiliation too? In this respect the New Testament scientifically testifies of a reason superior to human one, first by its perfect harmony with the Old Testament, then by the choice of the people and of the historical moment of ministration and, finally, by the use of Nature according to its true laws.