Editorial 

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


 

 

 

     
     

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 Revista Semanal de Divulgação Espírita