‘That might be well enough if all men were such as they describe their Teacher as having been. But that is not and cannot be so. Men are evil and subject to passions. That play of passions and the conflicts caused by them are what keep men in the social condition in which they live. The barbarians know no restraint, and for the satisfaction of his desires one such man would destroy the whole world if all men submitted as these Christians do. If the gods implanted in men the sentiments of anger, revenge, and even of vindictiveness against the wicked, they did so because these sentiments are necessary for human life. The Christians teach that these feelings are bad, and that without them men would be happy, and there would be no murders, executions, and wars. That is true, but it is like supposing that people would be happy if they did not eat food. There would then indeed be no greed or hunger, or any of the calamities that result from them. But that supposition would not change human nature. And if some two or three dozen people believed in it, and did actually refrain from food and die of hunger, it would still not alter human nature. The same is true of man’s other passions: indignation, anger, revenge, even the love of women, of luxury, or of the pomp and grandeur characteristic of the gods and therefore unalterable characteristics of man too. Abolish man’s nutrition and man will be destroyed. And similarly abolish the passions natural to man and mankind will be unable to exist. It is the same with ownership, which the Christians are supposed to reject. Look around you: every vineyard, every enclosure, every house, every ass, has been produced by man under conditions of ownership. Abandon the rights of property and not one vineyard will be tilled or one animal raised and tended. The Christians say that they have no property, but they enjoy the fruits of it. They say that they have all things in common and that everything is brought together into a common pool. But what they bring together they have received from people who owned property. They merely deceive others, or at best deceive themselves. You say that they themselves work to support themselves, but what they get by work would not support them if they did not avail themselves of what men who recognize ownership have produced. Even if they could support themselves it would be a bare subsistence, and there would be no place among them for the sciences or arts. They do not even recognize the use of our sciences and arts. Nor can it be otherwise. Their whole teaching tends to reduce them to a primitive condition of savagery – to an animal existence.
‘They cannot serve humanity by our arts and sciences, and being ignorant of them they condemn them. Nor can they serve humanity in any of the ways which constitute man’s peculiar prerogative and ally him to the gods. They have neither temples nor statues nor theatres nor museums. They say they do not need these things. The easiest way to avoid being ashamed of one’s degradation is to scorn what is lofty, and that is what they do. They are atheists. They do not acknowledge the gods or their participation in human affairs. They believe only in the Father of their Teacher, whom they also call their Father, and the Teacher himself, who they think has revealed to them all the mysteries of life. Their teaching is a pitiful fraud! Consider just this. Our religion says: The world depends on the gods, the gods protect men, and in order to live well men must respect the gods, and must themselves search and think. In this way our life is guided on the one hand by the will of the gods, and on the other by the collective wisdom of mankind. We live, think, search, and thus advance towards the truth.
‘But these Christians have neither the gods, nor their own will, nor the wisdom of humanity. They have only a blind faith in their crucified Teacher and in all that he said to them. Now consider which is the more trustworthy guide – the will of the gods and the free activity of collective human wisdom, or the compulsory, blind belief in the words of one man?’
Julius was struck by what the stranger said and particularly by his last words. Not only was his intention of going to the Christians shaken, but it now appeared to him strange that, under the influence of his misfortunes, he could ever have decided on such an insanity. But the question still remained of what he was to do now, and what exit to find from the difficult circumstances in which he was placed, and so, having explained his position, he asked the stranger’s advice.
