But, then, Christ was great on dicta, no matter if they were utterly opposed to each other. The interpreters claim that Christ had to make these concessions to the powers of his time. If that be true, this single compromise was sufficient to prove, down to this very day, a most ruthless weapon in the hands of the oppressor, a fearful lash and relentless tax-gatherer, to the impoverishment, the enslavement, and degradation of the very people for whom Christ is supposed to have died. Christ never takes the trouble to explain that. Righteousness does not come from the stars, nor because Christ willed it so.
Righteousness grows out of liberty, of social and economic opportunity and equality.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow. They knew too well that he who accepts a truth because of the bribe, will soon barter it away to a higher bidder. It contains everything in the way of orders and commands, but entirely lacks the very things we need most. How much more ennobling, how much more beneficial is the extreme individualism of Stirner and Nietzsche than the sick-room atmosphere of the Christian faith.