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Like all poetical natures, he loved ignorant people. He knew that in the soul of one who is ignorant there is always room for a great idea. But he could not stand stupid people, especially those who are made stupid by education—people who are full of opinions not one of which they can understand, a peculiarly modern type, and one summed up by Christ when he describes it as the type of one who has the key of knowledge, can’t use it himself, and won’t allow other people to use it, though it may be made to open the gate of God’s Kingdom. His chief war was against the Philistines. That is the war every child of light has to wage[120a]. Philistinism [120.1] was the note of the age and community in which he lived. In their heavy inaccessibility to ideas, their dull respectability, tedious orthodoxy, their worship of vulgar success, their entire preoccupation with the gross materialistic side of life, and their ridiculous estimate of themselves and their importance, the Jew of Jerusalem in Christ’s day was the exact counterpart of the British Philistine of our own. Christ mocked at the “whited sepulchers”[120.2] of respectability, and fixed that phrase for ever. He treated worldly success as a thing to be absolutely despised. He saw nothing in it all. He looked on wealth as an encumbrance to a man[120b]. He would not hear of life being sacrificed to any system of thought or morals. He pointed out that forms and ceremonies were made for man, not man for forms and ceremonies[120c]. He took Sabbatarianism as a type of the things that should be set at nought. The cold philanthropies, the ostentatious public charities[120d], the tedious formalisms so dear to the middle-class mind, he exposed with utter and relentless scorn. To us, what is termed Orthodoxy is merely a facile unintelligent acquiescence, but to them, and in their hands, it was a terrible and paralysing tyranny. Christ swept it aside. He showed that the spirit alone was of value[120e]. He took a keen pleasure in pointing out to them that though they were always reading the Law and the Prophets they had not really the smallest idea of what either of them meant. In opposition to their tithing of each separate day into its fixed routine of prescribed duties, as they tithed mint and rue,[120.3] he preached the enormous importance of living completely for the moment.
同一切有诗情的灵性一样，他爱无知的人。他知道，在一个无知的人的灵魂里，总是有地方容纳伟大的理念。但是他受不了愚蠢的人，尤其是那些被教育弄愚蠢了的人——那些一肚子意见可自己一条也不懂得的人，一个乖戾的现代类型，用基督的话概括，就是他说的那类人，手里拿着知识的钥匙，自己不知道怎么用，又不让别人用，尽管这钥匙可以用来开启上帝国度的大门。他首要的敌人是平庸的非利士人。这种人是每个明白人都得讨伐的[120a]。平庸是他生活的那个时代和社会的特征。那种孤陋寡闻、装腔作势，那种讨厌的正统规范、庸俗的好大喜功、忘乎所以地耽迷于物质生活、可笑的自视甚高，凡此种种，都使基督时代耶路撒冷的犹太人同我们英国自己出的庸人市侩如出一辙。基督挖苦那装腔作势为 “粉饰的坟墓”，这话遂成了千古定评。他视功名如粪土，视财富为拖累[120b]。他不愿听到生活成为哪个思想或道德体系的牺牲品。他指出，形式和礼仪是为人而设的，而不是人为形式和礼仪而生[120c]。他认为守安息日之类的作为算不了什么。冷冰冰的慈善捐输、招摇过市的当众施舍[120d]、让中产阶级推崇备至的繁文缛节，这些东西他嗤之以鼻，毫不留情地加以指斥。对于我们，所谓的正统不过是一种随便的不聪不明的默认，可在他们眼里，到了他们手上，就成了可怕的、令人不知所措的暴政。基督将它扫在一边，显明了有价值的只是精神[120e]。他乐得向那些人指出，虽然他们老是读《法律书》与《预言书》，却丝毫不懂这两者的意义。他们把每一天的十分之一交出来，按部就班地执行派定的事务﹐就像把薄荷和芸香献上十分之一那样；与此恰恰相反，基督宣讲的是完完全全为眼前一刻而活的无比重要性。
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