Shaw on the Origins of Christianity
This play, set in Imperial Rome, is the story of a Christian being thrown to the lions. However, the play is a lot more than just a poor defenceless soul being ripped apart by a ravenous beast, nor is it an attack upon Christianity, but rather a critical look at the church in modern times. The intention of the play seems to be to remind Christians of where they have come from and what they have become.
The play was released in 1913, during a time when the Church still had a significant influence over society, though it was beginning to face attacks from scientific rationalism and modernism. It was the eve of World War I: a war in which both sides claimed divine support which resulted in one of the bloodiest wars humanity had experienced. However this relates more to the time in which the play was written rather than the play itself because at the time nobody actually believed that they were on the brink of war.
The book in which the play was published contains one of Shaw's characteristic prologues, and in fact the prologue to this play is longer than the play itself. In this prologue Shaw examines each of the gospels and concludes that Jesus was an exceptional man who had a lot to say regarding the way humans lived. However it is clear that he did not accept Christ's divinity, nor does he accept the resurrection but rather he believes that the true teachings of Christ were lost with the crucifixion and where then manipulated by the early apostles, with a particular focus on Paul, for their own purposes. What Shaw does not realise was that Paul, up until his conversion, was a very devout Jew who went around persecuting Christians. Paul was not the type of person to have radically changed his beliefs without some form of epiphany upon which there was some factual basis.
The play is based on an earlier story where the hero, Androcles, runs away from his master and hides in a cave where he meets a lion. He removes a thorn from the Lion's foot and bandages it and as a result the lion becomes his friend. Years later Androcles returns to Rome, is arrested as a runaway slave, and thrown to the lions. It turns out that the lion in the arena is the same lion that Androcles helped in the past and as a result the lion does not attack him: thus Androcles is spared.
Shaw uses this tale as a vehicle for his philosophy and analyses true religious values: which he believes is earnestness and lack of hypocrisy. While the lack of hypocrisy is important, and Jesus has much to say to the hypocrites of his day, the earnestness is not clearly something that is helpful. The key to Christianity is faith is an objective truth. It is all well and good to have faith, but if one has faith in something that is not true, then that faith comes to nothing. A great example is of an aeroplane. We may get onto the plane convinced that the plane will take us where we want to go, but no amount of faith is going to stop the plane's engines from exploding if there is a fault in those engines. Simply ask somebody who has survived a plane crash.
