Is the Bible Indictable?

The New Testament has in it nothing at all approaching the obscenity of the Old, save two passages in Revelation. The story of Mary and Joseph is somewhat coarse, especially as told in Matt. i. 18–25. Rom. i. 24–27 is distinctly obscene, and 1 Cor. v. 1, vi. 9, 15, 16, 18, would all be judged indelicate by Her Majesty's Solicitor-General, who objected to the warnings given by Knowlton against sexual sin. The whole of 1 Cor. vii. might be thought calculated to arouse the passions, but the rest of Paul's Epistles may pass, in spite of many coarse passages, such as 1 Thess. iv. 3–7. Heb. xiii. 4 and 2 Peter ii. 10–18 both come into the same category, but it is useless to delay on simple coarseness. Revelation slips into the old prophetic indecency; Rev. ii. 20–22 and xvii. 1–4 are almost worthy of Ezekiel.

Can anyone go through all these passages and have any doubt that the Bible – supposing it to be unprotected by statute – is indictable as an obscene book under the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice? It is idle to plead that the writers do not approve the evil deeds they chronicle, and that it is only in two or three cases that God appears to endorse the sin; no purity of motives on the writers' parts can be admitted in excuse (Trial, p. 257). These sensuous stories and obscene parables come directly under the censure of the Lord Chief Justice, and I invite our police authorities to show their sense of justice by prosecuting the people who circulate this indictable book, thereby doing all that in them lies to vitiate and corrupt the morals of the young. If they will not do this, in common decency they ought to drop the prosecution against us for selling the “Fruits of Philosophy.”

The right way would be to prosecute none of these books. All that I have intended to do in drawing attention to the “obscene” passages in the Bible, is to show that to deal with the sexual relations with a good object – as is presumably that of the Bible – should not be an indictable misdemeanour. I do not urge that the Bible should be prosecuted: I do urge that it is indictable under the present ruling; and I plead, further, that this very fact shows how the present ruling is against the public weal. Nothing could be more unfortunate than to have a large crop of prosecutions against the standard writers of old times and of the present day, and yet this is what is likely to happen, unless some stop is put to the stupid and malicious prosecution against ourselves. With one voice, the press of the country – omitting the Englishman– has condemned the “foolish” verdict and the “vindictive” sentence. When that sentence is carried out, the real battle will begin, and the blame of the loss and the trouble that will ensue must rest on those who started this prosecution, and on those who shield the hidden prosecutor. The Christians, at least, ought to join with us in reversing the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice, since their own sacred book is one of those most easily assailable. The purity that depends on ignorance is a fragile purity; the chastity that depends on ignorance is a fragile chastity; to buttress up ignorance with prison and fine is a fatal policy; and I call on those who love freedom and desire knowledge, to join with us in over-ruling by statute the new judge-made law.