Page:My Religion.djvu/52

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words "to judge" could be used as referring to a court of justice, to the tribunals from whose pun ishments so many millions have suffered.

Moreover, when the words, " Judge not, con demn not," arc under discussion, the cruelty of judging in courts of justice is passed over in silence, or else commended. The commentators all declare that in Christian societies tribunals are necessary, and in no way contrary to the law of Jesus.

Realizing this, I began to doubt the sincerity of the commentators; and I did what I should have done in the first place; I turned to the textual trans lations of the words which we render "to judge" and " to condemn." In the original these words are KpiVtu and Kara8tKa<o. The defective translation in James of KaraXoActu, which is rendered " to speak evil," strengthened my doubts as to the correct translation of the others. When I looked through different versions of the Gospels, I found Kcrra8iKato rendered in the Vulgate by condemnare, " to con demn "; in the Slavonian text the rendering is equivalent to that of the Vulgate; Luther has ver- dammen, u to speak evil of." These divergent renderings increased my doubts, and I was obliged to ask again the meaning of KpiVw, as used by the two evangelists, and of KaraSi/cuo>, as used by Luke who, scholars tell us, wrote very correct Greek.

How would these words be translated by a man

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