The English author Wyndham Lewis wrote this (in a Foreword to Rotting Hill, a book of his stories published in 1951):

Socialism as a final product of bible-religion.

Conscience is at the root of the principle of Social Justice – without it what would be there? … It is all that remains of Protestant Christianity …

Let me try and show in a few words how absolutely impossible socialism would have been without the Christian religion. … Liberalism was an early stage of socialism. … The logical conclusion of … [the] preachers of social fair play, of social justice, was for the classes possessed of money and power to surrender them, and, of course, for England itself as a nation owning a quarter of the globe to surrender everything – as has recently been done in the case of England’s greatest possession, India – except this island; and even that must in the end not be looked upon with too possessive an eye.

Now, without the teaching of the New Testament – and we must not forget the Old, and that the Jews were the most moral nation the world has ever seen – or some similar teaching such as Stoicism (and there are exceedingly few teachings of this type), no man gives up anything he has acquired whether it be wealth or land or goods. Why should he? He will fight to defend them with desperation. If you informed him that “Property is theft” he would laugh at you. Such a saying, in the first instance, to be successful, had to appear with a supernatural sanction. To test the accuracy of what I am saying, you only have to consider whether you would give up anything but a small fraction of your property in order to share it with your less fortunate fellows. There are very few of us who would willingly do so. But a long process of religious conditioning (latterly operating through such words as “decency”, “fair play”, etc. etc.) has led us to a point at which we empower the State to deprive us of practically everything. This is the work of Jesus.

Actually, no, not Jesus. Though we agree with his point that Christianity bred socialism, we need to correct him there. It is the work of St. Paul.

St. Paul invented the sentimental morality of Christianity.

St. Paul invented Christianity.

St. Paul invented Jesus.

(See our ongoing series of essays on the origins and early history of Christianity: A man named Jesus or something like that (September 23, 2011); The invention of Christianity (October 28, 2011); Tread on me: the making of Christian morality (December 22, 2011); St.Paul: portrait of a sick genius (January 7, 2012); Pauline Christianity: a mystical salad (February 26, 2012); The fictitious life of Jesus Christ (April 7, 2012).)