Is it enough for
us to stop practicing evil?
In the text entitled
“Introduction of the Spirit’s
Book” that opens the translation
of The Spirit’s Bookpublished
by Publisher Lake, J. Herculano
Pires wrote:
“With this book, on April 18th,
1857, the spirit world was born.
In it was fulfilled the
evangelical promise of the
Comforter, the Paraclete or
Spirit of Truth. To say this
amounts to stating that The
Spirits' Book is the code of
a new phase of human evolution.”
Following, referring to
Spiritism as the third
revelation of divine law,
Herculano added:
"The Bible is the codification
of the first Christian
revelation, the Hebrew code in
which the sacred principles and
the great religious legends of
ancient peoples were fused. The
great synthesis of the efforts
of antiquity towards the spirit.
No wonder it is often
frightening and contradictory to
modern man. The Gospel is the
codification of the second
Christian revelation, which
shines at the center of the
triad of these revelations,
having in the figure of Christ
the sun that illuminates the two
others, which sheds its light on
the past and the future,
establishing between them the
connection required. But just as
the Bible was already proclaimed
in the Gospel, so it was also
the prediction of a new code,
that of the Spirit of Truth, as
seen in John, XIV. And the new
code came from the hands of
Allan Kardec, under the guidance
of the Spirit of Truth, just
when the world was prepared to
enter a higher phase of its
development. "
An unmentioned aspect of some of
the differences between the
three great revelations is
evident in the way in which they
emphasize the duties that we
should observe in the face of
the divine law.
In the Decalogue received at
Sinai by Moses, the "no"
particle is present in eight of
the ten commandments:
- Thou shalt not make a graven
image, nor any image of that
which is in heaven, or in the
earth beneath, or in the waters
under the earth. You shall not
worship them, nor serve them
sovereignly.
- Thou shalt not say in vain the
name of the Lord thy God.
- You will not kill.
- You will not commit adultery.
- You will not steal.
- Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbor.
- Thou shalt not desire thy
neighbor's wife.
- Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's house, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
of the things that are his.
Already in the teachings of
Jesus, actions of affirmative
character are clearly placed:
- Love your enemies, do good to
them who do evil to you, and
pray for them who persecute you.
- He that heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, shall
be likened unto a wise man that
built his house upon a rock.
- Not all that say unto me,
Lord! Sir! they shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven; only he
who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven will enter.
With the advent of Spiritism,
the above-mentioned lessons, in
the sense of the importance of
good practice, and not only of
abstention from evil, have
gained an even greater emphasis,
as the reader can verify in view
of the issues of The Spirits'
Book below reproduced:
"To please God and secure his
future position, will it suffice
for man not to do evil?" "No; it
is for him to do good at the
limits of his strength, because
he will answer for all evil that
results from not having done
good." (L.E., 642)
"Will there be those who, by
their position, can not do
good?" "There is none that can
not do good. Only the selfish
never finds the opportunity to
practice it. It is enough that
one is in relations with other
men so that one has an
opportunity to do good, and
there is no day of existence
that does not offer, to those
who are not blinded by
selfishness, opportunity to
practice it. For to do good is
not for man only to be
charitable, but to be useful, as
far as possible, whenever his
contest becomes necessary."
(L.E., 643)
- Do they have any merit before
God, who consecrate themselves
to the contemplative life, since
no evil do, and only in God do
they think? "No, because if they
do not do evil, they also do not
do good and are worthless.
Moreover, not doing good is
already evil. God wants man to
think of him, but he does not
want to think only of him, for
he has imposed duties on the
Earth. Whoever spends all his
time in meditation and
contemplation does nothing of
merit in the eyes of God,
because he lives a whole
personal and useless life to
Humanity and God will ask him
for accounts of the good that he
has not done." (L.E., 657)
Translation:
Francine Prado - francine.cassia@hotmail.com
