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CONCERNING
. CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

"I give theft Books
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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

• ••-,

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Edited by JOHN H. KERR, D. D.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS
CONCERNING
CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

Andrew C. Zenos, D. D.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
CONCERNING
HIS OWN MISSION. Frank H. Foster. Ready.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE CHURCH.
Geerhardus Vos. Ready.
GOD THE FATHER Archibald Thomas Robertson. "
THE SCRIPTURES. David James Burrell.
THE HOLY SPIRIT. Louis B. Crane
CHRISTIAN CONDUCT. Andrew C. Zenos "
HIS OWN PERSON  In preparation.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 
THE FUTURE LIFE 
THE FAMILY 
A Series of volumes on the " Teachings of Jesus "
by eminent writers and .divines.
Cloth bound. i2mo. Price 75 cts. each postpaid.
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS

CONCERNING

CHRISTIAN CONDUCT

By
Andrew C. Zenos, D.D.

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY
150 NASSAU STREET
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1905, by
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY

TO MY WIFE
WHOSE CONSISTENT CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP
HAS THROWN A FLOOD OF LIGHT ON
THE SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK.

PREFACE
rHE subject of this little book
will be at once recognized as a
very large and important one.
Broadly defined, it has often been made
the theme of full and detailed treatment.
The justification for a new presentation
of it does not lie in the fact of a need for a
thorough and extensive reinvestigation of
it, but rather of a call for a condensed and
brief restatement in popular form of the
essentials of Jesus' thought. In such an
effort, the processes by which results are
reached are necessarily left out of sight.
Notes have been carefully avoided, ex
cept in two or three instances where their
vii

viii Preface
insertion seemed to be more than usually
illuminative. Of course, it will be easily
understood that exhaustiveness could not
have been expected, and has not been
aimed at in such a brief treatment of the
subject. The general principles alone
are given. The reader who is desirous
of pursuing the subject into minuter de
tails will know where to find these ade
quately treated.

Introductory.  i
The Christian Man : Presupposi
tions of Christian Conduct. . 14
The Antecedents of Christ's
Teaching on Conduct. ... 29
The Mainspring of Christian
Conduct  43
The Comprehensive Rule of Con
duct : The Golden Rule. . . 60
Self-Culture  71
The Sabbath  85
The Christian in Social Relations. 97
The Christian in the State. . .112
The Christian in the Family. . 123
The Christian in Business. . . .136
The Christian in the Church. . 146
Summary  158
Indices  163

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY*
The Sources.
rHE critical questions regarding
the Gospels are, for good or for
ill, before the Christian public,
and it does not become those who wish
to have a perfect knowledge of the mind
of Christ to ignore them. It is not nec
essary, however, in the study of a special
department of the teaching of Jesus to
rehearse the processes by which results
are reached. The results, no doubt, de
pend largely on the methods employed,
and the methods are complex, taking for

2 Christian Conduct
granted in many instances what stands in
need of ample demonstration. Partly on
account of their complexity, leaving it
open to the critic to emphasize some
elements or stages in them and minimize
or pass over others, and partly because of
personal points of view, the results
reached by different critics and schools
of criticism differ widely.
On the one side stand those who can
find nothing in the Gospels of what Jesus
said with the possible exception of a few
colorless utterances,* on the other those
who regard everything reported by the
evangelists as spoken verbatim et literatim
by the Lord Himself ; and between these
many shades and varieties of interpreters.
The success of our own task depends less
on our reaching the exact phraseology of
our sources and more on a thorough ap
preciation of the general spirit and prin
ciples of Jesus. There can be no ques
tion regarding the great moral change
* Schmiedel, in Encycl. Bibl., art., " Gospels."

Introductory 3
which He wrought in the conduct of
His disciples ; and indirectly through the
contagion of their example, as well as
through the force of their teachings,
upon multitudes of others in the apostolic
generation. Even those who can see no
more than nine, more or less, genuine
sayings of Jesus in the Gospels must ad
mit that the Master uttered such things
as those reported. In what words He
uttered them is a matter of comparatively
less importance to those who attempt to
identify the general outline and spirit of
His teaching rather than its precise forms
and ramifications.
To avoid misunderstanding, however,
we may say that we hold the evangelists
to be correct reporters of Jesus' word.
There is a certain uniqueness about these
words, a certain characteristic ring, which
it is impossible to believe the simple and
uneducated men the Apostles are known
to have been, could have infused into
them. There is, moreover, a verisimili-

4 Christian Conduct
tude in the theory that these reports are
generally speaking verbal reproductions
of what Jesus said. The time and the
place were propitious for the reception
and repetition of maxims and parables
such as we find in the evangelic narra
tives. The practice was common in the
schools for the teacher to frame his
thought in some striking, carefully-
balanced sentence or similitude and thus
profoundly to impress it on the minds of
"his disciples. The disciples could, and
did, then go forth and repeat His utter
ance with literal exactness. In the Wis
dom form of the "Saying" (Logion),
a special literary vehicle was developed,
admirably suited to this end. It em
bodied in a symmetrical and rhythmical
couplet or triplet, a teaching worthy of
being remembered and disseminated.
The Wisdom form may not have been
used by Jesus Himself as extensively as
some scholars would have us believe* but
* Briggs, Ethical Teaching of Jesus.

Introductory 5
it was manifestly used by all the public
teachers of the day. That many utter
ances of Jesus had been preserved in the
form of the "Saying" is put beyond
question, apart from the Gospels them
selves, by the groups of Sayings (Logia)
of Jesus recently brought to light by
Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt.
Upon the whole the critical considera
tions support the belief that the words as
cribed to Jesus in the Gospels are His,
and that we have in them no mythological
growths but actual historical speeches
embodying His distinctive thought.*

* Wernle, who cannot be accused of leaning towards the tra
ditional or anticritical views on questions of criticism in the
New Testament, says of Matthew: " Without any additions of
bis own, merely by selecting the words of eternal life, he has
bequeathed to us a picture of all that is essential in Christian
ity, which is striking in its grandeur " {Beginnings of Chris
tianity^, pp. 148, 149). Jiilicher, another representative of
thorough-going criticism in the New Testament sphere, says :
" The true merit of the synoptists is that, in spite of all the
poetical touches they employ, they did not repaint, but only
handed on the Christ of history." And again, " As a rule, there
lies in all the synoptic Logia a kennel of individual character

6 Christian Conduct
But when the four Gospels are com
pared with one another, even in the most
casual manner, there emerge certain ques
tions concerning their mutual relations.
The first three and the fourth are at once
seen to stand upon different levels. The
first question, therefore, is as to the origin
and meaning of this difference. The first
three again are seen to be more similar
in language and plan of arrangement than
could be accounted for by the mere fact
that they were dealing with one common
subject. The second question is thus as
to the origin and meaning of the similar
ities of the first three. As these three
are called the Synoptic Gospels, this second
question has been called the Synoptic
Problem. To enter at all adequately into the dis
cussion of the Synoptic problem would
take us too far from our immediate theme
and require more space than can possibly
so inimitable and so fresh that their authenticity is above all
suspicion." (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 371, 372.)

Introductory 7
be given to it in our little treatise. To
treat of it but casually would be useless.
It is far better to dismiss the subject with
the affirmation of our conviction that the
net result of the discussion will be a
clearer conception of the teaching of Jesus
and a fuller knowledge of what He
thought, planned and did.
The relation of the Gospel of John to
the Synoptic Gospels is also a larger sub
ject than can be properly treated in as
brief a way as our space permits. Never
theless, this can be said, that whatever
differences may emerge elsewhere be
tween the first three and the fourth Gos
pels, in the sphere of ethical teaching, ab
solutely no differences have been pointed
out. The Jesus of John holds up the
same ideals, illustrates the same funda
mental principles, and rouses the same
impulses and motives of conduct as the
Jesus of the Synoptists. If the Fourth
Gospel presents the conduct of the fol
lower of Jesus in a clearer light, it is not

8 Christian Conduct
because the author has added anything
essential of his own creation to the Mas
ter's ideas, but because he was writing at
a time when experience had enabled him
to realize more of their infinite stretch
and richness, and to see deeper into their
inner life and more broadly into their
bearing. Jesus Interest in Conduct
Another point in question may be dis
missed with a single word. It is that
of the exact outlook of Jesus into the
future. It is held on one side that
Jesus saw the Kingdom of God which
He preached as in the future (not in the
distant future, but in the immediate) as a
consummation to be realized by a sudden
manifestation of the power of God, carry
ing with it the destruction of the world-
powers and the establishment of the
Messianic reign. It is held on the other
side that Jesus looked upon the Kingdom
as already established by His own a>ming

Introductory g
into the world, and that He foresaw for
it a long development upon earth. Our
own view coincides more nearly with the
latter position ; but whether one or the
other of these positions be true, His teach
ing on conduct is not materially affected.
It remains true that Jesus commended
to His disciples the same kind of moral
conduct whether the world were to last
ten milleniums or twenty-four hours.
They were to live the same kind of life
whether they expected the Kingdom to
be ushered in some time in the future, no
matter how soon or how late, or accepted
it as already in operation and calling upon
them to obey its laws.
But did Jesus after all concern Himself
with conduct at all ? Was He not rather
a Teacher of truth, a Revealer of God and
heaven, and of the way of eternal life ?
If by conduct be meant simply a manner
of outward bearing towards those with
whom one has to do in earthly relations,
and ii this manner of acting is conceived

10 Christian Conduct
of as beginning and ending with these
relations, then we may say that Jesus was
but little concerned with mere conduct.
But if conduct is the fruit of an inner
knowledge of self and of God and of one's
destiny, then it was not possible for Jesus
to disregard or minimize it. The ques
tion, Did Jesus lay down a law of conduct,
or did He teach a doctrine of God ? be
comes in this light an irrelevant one.
"Conduct" says Matthew Arnold, "is
three-fourths of life." If so, it is the
three-fourths that is exposed to view.
The other fourth is not in itself open to
observation. But its existence and nature
must necessarily be evinced by that
which is visible. Neither the visible
three-fourths nor the invisible one-fourth,
however, can be separated from one an
other. To put the case in other words, we
may say that Jesus is concerned first of
all and throughout with the salvation of
men. He teaches truth : He stimulates

Introductory 1 1
desire ; He arouses aspirations ; He
awakens loves and hatreds, love of that
which is noble and good, hatred of that
which is mean and destructive ; He calls
to repentance and He promises forgive
ness ; and all in order that men may be
brought to the saving knowledge of God
the Father, and received into the Kingdom
He had established. The impartation
of knowledge has a very important func
tion in the bringing about of this result;
so has the quickening of desire and aspira
tion. But only when these burst out in
to the blossom and fruit of conduct, does
the full revelation of the work of Jesus
come. His own description of His mission is
given in the words " I came that they
may have fife " (John x. 10). The nature
and results of this life He further de
scribes in the allegory of the Vine and
the Branches. As the life of the branches
is tested by their fruit-bearing, so the life
of His followers is tested by right think-

12 Christian Conduct
ing about Him and His teaching, and by
right conduct under His guidance.
Conduct and Life
( What now is the sphere of Christian
Conduct and how is it differentiated from
that of Christian Life ? Life is a term
which does not easily lend itself to clear
definition. And yet, on the other hand,
it is a term whose meaning is not easily
mistaken. The Christian life is the whole
spiritual movement which begins with
the appearance of Christ before the soul,
and the soul's acceptance of Him as the
revelation of God the Father. This
movement necessarily includes an inner
and an outer development. As an inner
movement, it begins with the quickening
of spiritual insight, the apprehension of
Christ as the Redeemer from sin, and
the surrender of one's will and affections
to Him as the Lord.
As an outward movement, it consists
in regulating one's relations to God and

Introductory 13
to the world of animate and inanimate
beings, so as to carry out certain ideas
and actualize certain ideals which have
entered into one's purview through Christ.
And this is Christian conduct. Our in
quiry will, therefore, take the direction
of a search for the guidance which Jesus
furnishes to His followers as they strive
to conform their outward actions to the
new and distinctively Christian ideals. }

CHAPTER II
The Christian Man : Presupposi
tions of Christian Conduct.
rHAT man's ideal of conduct will
depend in a large measure on his
conception of his origin, nature
and destiny, is hardly open to question.
No ethical teacher who has failed to
ground his system on firm foundations
in these matters has succeeded in fur
thering the cause of ethical culture and
development. Jesus is not an exception
to the rule. There is a difference, how
ever, between Jesus and other ethical
teachers, and it lies in the fact that
whereas they build theories of psychology

The Christian Man 15
as a substructure for their ethics, He
goes deeper and grounds His teaching on
the religious nature of man. He relates
the moral nature directly with God.
Synthetic View of Man
It is one of the most obvious features
of Jesus' view of man that it is synthetic
and not analytic. Man is not to Him a
complex being, consisting of body, soul
and spirit ; intellect, sensibility and will ;
cognitive and motive powers ; affections,
desires and conscience ; but a unitary
organism. The distinctions carried in
these terms are not necessarily wrong or
misleading : neither does Jesus ignore
them altogether. The distinction be
tween body and soul is indeed so far
from being ignored in His teaching that
it is quite clearly brought into the fore
ground, when He urges His disciples
not to "be afraid of them that kill the
body, but are not able to kill the soul "
(Matt. x. 28 ; Luke xii. 4). But it is not

1 6 Christian Conduct
wrought out into a psychological theory.
It is simply made the ground of a practi
cal appeal in behalf of conduct worthy
of the child of God. Similarly, with
the so-called "faculties of the mind,"
while the varied activities designated by
them are assumed to exist, they are no
where enumerated, classified, defined or
distinguished from one another with a
view to scientific precision.
Neither does Jesus take any special in
terest in the question of the origin of the
soul. There were those in His day who
like the Essenes and the followers of
Philo held that every human soul had a
prenatal existence in a most subtle,
ethereal form, that it was dragged down
and entangled in the body, as in a prison
cell, and held there until the time of its
liberation.* The more prevalent view,
basing itself on the Old Testament, pre
sented each soul as a special creation of
*Jos. de Bell.Jud. II, viii, n ; Philo, Mund. Op., 22 P,I5] ;
4° [1, 32].

The Christian Man 17
God. But Jesus takes no notice of these
discussions. Conduct Grounded in Religion
It is otherwise with the deeper lying
rock of the religious nature. On this
Jesus builds His ethics. About it there
fore He has something definite to say.
Whatever the origin or the inner consti
tution of the soul, or its relation to the
body may be, man as man, either stands
or is capable of standing in the relation
of a child to God. Without entering
into the question whether all human be
ings are the children of God by creation,
or may become so by faith in Jesus
Christ (a question which the more it is
studied, the more it appears to possess a
merely verbal importance), we may as
sert that the whole course of a human
being in this life and in the life to come
is determined by his willingness to live in
the relation of a child to God.

1 8 Christian Conduct
Immortality
But if a child of God, man has the
pledge of immortality. Immortality is
not to be mistaken for eternal life. That
expression is used in the Fourth Gospel
as the broad equivalent of all the bless
ings brought to man by Jesus Christ
through His revelation of God the
Father. Immortality is simply the death-
lessness of personality. Eternal life is
the life lived even before bodily death by
him who has come to the true knowl
edge of God through Jesus Christ (John
xvii. 4). Immortality is associated with
the resurrection of the dead. It is only
as He is approached with the question of
the Sadducees regarding the resurrection
that Jesus teaches immortality. They
thought they would perplex Him with
the implications of a second life. He
answered : The second life is not only
not difficult to account for when one di
vests the idea of it of merely earthly

The Christian Man 19
elements, but it is a fact apart from the
reembodiment of the departed soul.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are now liv
ing; for God, who said that He was
their God, could not have done so unless
they were immortal. " God is not the
God of the dead, but of the living "
(Matt. xxii. 32). When God pledges
Himself to such a relation of intimacy to
mankind, the pledge means that He has
made men different from the brute cre
ation and endowed them with deathless-
ness. There is nothing inconsistent in this
with the Apostle's dictum that "the
King of kings and Lord of lords . . .
only hath immortality " (I Tim. vi. 15).
For it is the immortality that is conveyed
by the Creator to the creature, not the
immortality of the absolute and uncon
ditioned being that is asserted of man. In
one sense, there is no immortality out
side of God ; for only God is in Himself
deathless, but those whom God chooses

20 Christian Conduct
to make deathless are certainly such.
Without putting it into an academic
formula, Jesus thus plainly declares the
doctrine of human immortality.
Inestimable Value of Man
And if man is immortal, he is of ines
timable value. He may not, must not
think too meanly of himself. Nay, he
will find it hard to think of himself
highly enough. The temptation which
assails most human beings is to think too
highly of themselves in comparison with
others and too unworthily in comparison
with the ideal for them designed by the
Creator. It was because they thoroughly
yielded to this temptation that the Phar
isees of Jesus' day on the one hand
looked upon the publicans and sinners
as so far inferior to themselves that they
gave up all hope of rescuing them from
their evil manner of life, and on the
other hand thought so unworthily of
themselves that they were satisfied with

The Christian Man 21
hollow externalism and fell easily into
the snares of hypocrisy and pride. They
were indeed in their own judgment on a
different and a vastly higher level than
the reprobates whom they called sinners
(Am Haaretz), but they did not value
themselves highly enough to aim at the
best within their reach.
Jesus' view of the dignity of human
nature was revolutionary. It found a
priceless jewel in what was looked upon
as a useless rubbish heap. It called men
in the lowest depths of degradation to
rise to sublime heights and gave them
the promise of help if they would only
try to soar. It made it worth while for
every one without exception to make
the effort to live a better life.
But Jesus did not ignore sin or mini
mize the greatness and difficulty of the
task of regeneration. Nor did He lower
ideals of the divine law and underestimate
the seriousness of transgressing it. Sin
as sin is vastly more abhorrent to Him

22 Christian Conduct
than it is to the Pharisee who gathers his
skirts about him lest by touching the
sinner he should become contaminated.
Jesus came to save that which was lost.
He was so thoroughly possessed by the
infinite moment of the difference be
tween the lost and the saved that He was
willing " to give His life a ransom for
many" (Matt. xx. 25; Mark x. 45).
The havoc wrought by sin even in the
physical man, the tears and groans and
soul-anguish it caused in this fife, always
stirred Him to sympathy for its victims,
to hatred for the evil itself and to saving
deeds of supernatural power. Sinners
were lost — lost to God, lost to themselves,
lost to their fellow-creatures, and He
would do all that it was possible to save
them. Jesus and Utilitarianism
Thus Jesus tied conduct to a faith in
God, and in man's nature and destiny as
related to God. He infused into it the life

The Christian Man 23
of motives drawn from the eternal sphere.
It is needless to say that His standpoint is
the very opposite of utilitarianism. It
has indeed often been presented as essen
tially utilitarian. But the presentation is
nothing more than a caricature. " Do
right that you may receive a reward in
heaven," is reported to be the sum and
substance of its philosophic basis. But
while Jesus does hold eternal rewards
and penalties in prospect, He does so not
in order to induce men to do right and
eschew evil, but in order to help them
bear the hardships which a utilitarian
world will impose upon them when they
attempt to follow the path of duty. It
is only to counteract the manifest paralyz
ing effects of persecution and suffering,
and steel His followers to endurance that
He points to what lies beyond (Matt. x.
28, ff. ; xix. 29 ; John xvi. 33). So far
from inculcating a utilitarian ethics, Jesus
is constantly warning His disciples that
He has nothing to promise them and

24 Christian Conduct
nothing to give them for their pains but
the hatred of the world and the burden
of the cross. Jesus and Intuitional Ethics
On the other hand, Jesus does not call
on men to do right just because it is
right. Philosophically, that may be a
tenable position. At any rate, it is a
fairly debatable thesis. It is quite true,
in a certain sense, that right must be
loved and done for its own sake. But
Jesus lifts the curtain from behind that
flat and perspectiveless proposition, and
reveals a world of personalities with which
moral conduct is inextricably associated.
" Do right because you love God and
God loves you, and you are eternally re
lated to Him in the closest of all relation
ships," is His answer to the basal ques
tion of ethics.
Without, therefore, discrediting theo
retical ethics as a science, but rather
making it all the more necessary and in-

The Christian Man 25
teresting by the enthusiasm which He
creates in the whole subject, Jesus de
votes Himself primarily and almost ex
clusively to the practical side of morality.
He has no word to say as to whether
conscience is a single and separate faculty
or a complex of tendencies and powers
in man. The question, Did man receive
his moral nature by a direct ab extra en
dowment, or by a subconscious evolu
tion and gradual development, does not
emerge in the part of the field which He
has chosen to occupy. These and all
other kindred matters are left to the in
tellect of man as legitimate regions for
exploration and investigation, just as the
mechanism of the heavens or the knowl
edge and uses of the great nature powers
are. It is a privilege given to men to
investigate, discuss and use what they
can find in these spheres. As for Jesus,
He is bent upon the more vital task of
begetting living children of God. To
this end He quickens the consciousness

26 Christian Conduct
of kinship with God, and with it the im
pulses towards a complete and completely
holy life. " Ye therefore shall be per
fect, as your heavenly Father is perfect "
(Matt. v. 48). Jesus the Ideal
One more aspect of Jesus' general at
titude towards conduct must be men
tioned, that He enforces by living ex
ample what He imparts in oral teaching.
Here, too, He differs from all other
teachers. Some in His own day He had
reason to reproach as "loading men with
burdens grievous to be borne," and them
selves not touching the burdens " with
one of their fingers " (Luke xi. 46). In
all ages there have existed imitators and
predecessors of these, men who could
easily and fluently discourse on the beauty
of virtues which they did not even try to
practice. At the most, they could only
make attempts to live up to their ideals
and confess when they had done their

The Christian Man 27
best that they had come short of actual
izing them in their lives (video meliora de-
teriora sequor). Jesus, on the contrary,
taught nothing which He did not illus
trate with His perfect example. Indeed,
because His teaching is expressed in
human language, and human language
is interpreted by those who hear or
read it according to the best there is in
them, the mere oral teaching of Jesus
would have conveyed a much less ade
quate idea of what He designed His fol
lowers to be, had not He Himself placed
the highest interpretation upon that
teaching by His own life. The example
of Jesus may thus be said from the point
of view of the disciples to transcend His
teaching. As one who knew Him
closely through all the days of His min
istry declared " He did no sin, neither
was guile found in His mouth ; who,
when He was reviled, reviled not again ;
when He suffered, He threatened not"
(I Pet. ii. 22, 23).

28 Christian Conduct
It was impossible, speaking even from
the merest human point of view, and
without regard to the presence of the
Holy Spirit, that teaching framed with
such unerring insight into the nature of
the subject, adapted so marvellously to
the needs of men, and carried with such
a living force of example, should totally
fail. Coming into the hearts of men
full of frailty, and working against mighty
forces of evil deeply rooted, it has never
indeed been fully realized in the life of
any single man besides the one who gave
it to the world. But as an ideal it has
commanded unbounded admiration, chal
lenged comparison with the best the
world has had to offer, and drawn count
less multitudes out of degradation and
misery into nobility and godlikeness.

CHAPTER III
The Antecedents of Christ's Teach
ing on Conduct.
JESUS spoke to men who were al
ready measurably equipped with
ethical conceptions. He did not
assume that the minds of His disciples
were blank tablets on which anything
might be written. He spoke with due
regard to the effect which His own teach
ing might have on these preconceptions,
and to the reciprocal effect of the pre
conceptions on His teaching. He found
them familiar with a definite law of life,
which was upon the whole sound and
helpful. No law of life adopted by a
29

30 Christian Conduct
large section of humanity is ever totally
devoid of a sound kernel at its core, no
matter how much error and unwhole-
someness may have grown about it. But
the law governing the people with whom
Jesus had direct dealings was no mere
human law, adopted or developed as a
consequence of ordinary experience. It
was given from above, and, though de
signed for crude ages, it contained prin
ciples of eternal validity. And it was
ever the way of Jesus to lay hold of that
which was sound, and work it out into
its fullness. He " did not come to de
stroy, but to fulfill."
Moreover, in doing so, He adapted
His work, as already said, to the condi
tions and circumstances. He did not
scatter seed irrespective of the prospects
of growth. He taught the uselessness of
casting pearls before swine. The law of
adaptation was always before Him. He
did not believe in putting new wine into
old wine skins. Contrary as it might ap-

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 31
pear to expectation, He held that even
moral regulations must be suited to the
capacities of those who are to receive and
live by them. " The hardness of their
hearts " did lead to the adaptation of the
law of marriage to the men of the Old
Testament, and to the permission of
divorce upon conditions where the ideal
could not be appreciated and enforced.
And if there was that which was relative
and changeable in the old conditions,
there was the possibility of advance upon
it. It was at least rudimentary and could
be developed. " Ye have heard that it
was said," He declared with reference to
the old ; and then set over His own more
perfect thought in the formula, " But I
say unto you."
The Old Testament Law of Conduct
What then was the Old Testament
law of conduct, which Jesus used as a
starting-point? It was a law in which
God was recognized as supreme, and

32 Christian Conduct
conformity to His expressed will as the
norm for the faithful Israelite. God's
will moreover had been definitely re
vealed in a series of explicit command
ments, the Ten Words of the Decalogue.
But the Decalogue bears on its very face
the marks of a preparatory stage. It is
the code of a society in its infancy. It
prescribes the duty of the individual, but
it does so in the negative form of pro
hibition. It hedges the path on every
side with a "Thou shalt not." It is in
deed based upon a comprehensive and
unified view of the sphere of duty ; but
this unity is conventional ; it is imposed
by the framer of the commandment ; it
does not inhere in the subject itself. The
subdivision and arrangement of the law
in the Ten Commandments are only such
as to help in the grasping and holding of
their content by a people in the earlier
stages of civilization. It is this feature
of it that makes the Decalogue so per
manently valuable in the instruction of

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 2>2>
the young, and will continue to give it
vitality as a pedagogical instrument as
long as there shall be undeveloped minds
in the world. But it is significant at the
same time of its elementary character.
And so it is to the Decalogue that Jesus
goes to illustrate the contrast between the
old and the new morality, for here He
finds the germ of the true which also,
however, is in need of development.
Apart from this development it is quite
inadequate. Two characteristics distinguish the con
duct prescribed for the Old Testament
saint. First, he was never to forget that
he was an Israelite. In his conscious
ness, there should always be vivid the
thought of the special favor he was en
joying as a member of God's chosen
people. First as a member of a tribe,
then as of a nation, the descendent of
Abraham must live worthily of his privi
leges. But in the days of Jesus, the time
had become ripe for the passing from

34 Christian Conduct
this nationalism to the consciousness of
the unity of the human race. It is not
meant, of course, that the average Jew
realized this change, but that the history
immediately preceding had brought the
world to the point where a conduct could
be held up as ideal in which the con
sciousness of merely national relation
ships should fade into comparative indif
ference. Secondly, the Israelite viewed every
detail of conduct as consisting of two
sides, a Godward and heavenward, and a
manward and earthward side. And the
Godward was symbolized in a ceremo
nial religious act. It was not simply that
the religious ceremonial stood as a con
stant expression of the religious nature,
but that each part of a human life's
whole make-up had its particular cere
monial. Birth and death, work and rest,
morning and evening, peace and strife,
the home and the market, were associ
ated with special ceremonial symbols.

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 35
If a man committed a trespass against
his neighbor, it was not enough that he
should make restitution. The act of
restitution must be accompanied by a
special sacrifice to Jehovah.
Both of these features were done away
with by Jesus. The consciousness of
nationalism disappeared as He practiced
His kindnesses to non-Israelites, such as
the Syro-Phcenician woman, the Roman
centurion, and the Samaritans with whom
He came in touch during the course of
His ministry. The ritual element was
put away even more summarily because
it had come to be a source of many seri
ous abuses. The ceremonial accompani
ment originally intended to indicate
God's presence and share in every rela
tion of life was practically emptied of its
holiness, and in its jejune form it usurped
the place of the moral principles of life.
Hence Jesus sent men to the prophets
to learn " what that means, I will have
mercy and not sacrifice."

36 Christian Conduct
So far then as the Old Testament is
concerned, Jesus recognizes it as the
preparation and basis for His own teach
ing. He finds in it some special provi
sions meant to be effectual for a time and
meet passing conditions. With the dis
appearance of these conditions, those
provisions were to lapse. He finds,
however, also, some principles which
could not pass away because they are
valid for all time. The primitive and
ideal was unchangeable, the prescriptive
was temporary. " From the beginning
it was not so."
Though it may be true in one sense
that the ethics of Jesus are a develop
ment of the Old Testament ethics, in
another sense this is not the case.
Neither the Old Testament nor the en
vironment can account for Jesus. He is
" a divine miracle in that age and envi
ronment" (Wellhausen). His relation
to His age is that of the transcendent per
sonality, who, emerging in it stands above

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 37
it. He is in it to mould it, not to be
affected by it.
Pagan Ethical Teaching
Does Jesus owe anything to pagan
teachers for His ideas on conduct ? If
the question has reference to a direct in
debtedness based upon a first-hand con
tact with the great masters of heathen
thought, it can only be answered in the
negative. If it refer to the filtering
in of Greek, Hindoo, or even Persian
and Babylonian elements into Jewish
thought, it is a question of the indebt
edness of Judaism to paganism, not one
of a relation of Jesus to heathen teachers.
Jesus stands towards the pagan elements
of thought as He does towards those
originally developed within Judaism.
They are the conditions He recognizes
and with reference to which He frames
the form of His teaching. So far as they
are true and sound, they are the germs
which He fosters and develops. They

38 Christian Conduct
are the materials which He organizes
and vitalizes into a living entity. They
are never the things which He borrows
and retails even though in a modified
form as the Stoics did the thoughts of
Socrates and Plato.
As a matter of fact, there were some
rich and valuable ethical teachings gath
ered together in ancient heathendom.
Not to speak of the mechanical maxims
of Confucius, and the more dynamic
ethical precepts of Buddha, as being too
far removed from Palestine to enter into
vital connection with anything that Jesus
may have taught, there were in Greece
and Alexandria moral conceptions current
which exerted a strong influence through
out the Judaic world. Virtue, temper
ance, wisdom and justice had been
preached by Plato himself as the four
sides of a perfect character. The Stoics
seizing on one of these, that of temper
ance, or self-control, had wrought out a
perfect ideal of a life of calmness and

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 39
strength. The Epicureans in their turn,
by turning the Platonic wisdom into the
practical sphere had set the goal of hap
piness as the test and end of all conduct.*
With these ideals and systems of the
Greeks, the teaching of Jesus was des
tined to come into contact by and by.
But in its origin it was entirely indepen
dent of them. Its historical connection
leads back rather into Hebrew prophecy.
If we use this term to cover broadly the
ethical content of the Old Testament, we
shall find that conduct is defined here
either as a matter of requirement by God
Himself, as in the Decalogue, and by the
prophets in the stricter sense, or as a
matter of the highest prudence, as in the
Book of Proverbs, or in the Wisdom
Literature in general.
Righteousness
The watchword of Hebrew prophecy
was righteousness. Those who were
* Cf. W. D. Hyde. " From Epicurus to Christ" chs. I, and 2.

40 Christian Conduct
called to preach it were also given the
vision of its eternal bearings. They saw
it grounded in the nature of God and
they watched its issues in a judgment of
the ages. If Israel prospered, it was to
be by righteousness. If the heathen were
to be brought to nought, it was because
of their lack of conformity to it. If they
turned to Jehovah, and took His law as
their guide, they should be saved by
righteousness. This is the ethical key to
the puzzling Book of Jonah, as well as
the underlying thought of many an ob
scure passage in the rest of the Old Testa
ment. This law is individualized. The right
eous one shall be saved by his faithfulness
(Hab. ii. 4). All the scathing denunciations
of Amos and Isaiah, all the complaints of
Ezra and Jeremiah, all the urgent appeals
of Hosea and Haggai and Zechariah are
occasioned by the lapse from, or the fail
ure to realize, this law of God in private as
well as in civic life. Old Testament the-

Christ's Teaching on Conduct 41
ology with its doctrines of the unity and
holiness of God, the election of a people
to be holy, the expression of that holiness
in a ceremonial system, the Messiah, the
Remnant, the Great Day of Jehovah, is
nothing but a series of deductions from
the central thought of righteousness in
God and man.
Jesus takes up the lesson just where
the prophets left it. He takes it up where
they found the conditions and their own
limitations incapacitating them from con
tinuing it. He clears the ground, prunes
off foreign accretions, and infuses a new
life into the plant. It is true His own
message and work are more than ethical ;
but they are ethical before they are any
thing more. fThe Kingdom of God was
the realization of long cherished ideals of
a perfect order in which men would deal
with one another as God would have
them do, /. e., righteously. Jesus' law
of conduct is then a continuation, purifica
tion and expansion of the law of perfect

42 Christian Conduct
righteousness given to Abraham, to
Moses and the prophets. What was
dimly seen as a flickering light by the
earlier of God's messengers was shown
by Him in its full and constant blaze. In
this, as in all other parts, of Revelation,
" God, having of old time spoken unto
the fathers in the prophets by divers por
tions and in divers manners, hath at the
end of these days spoken unto us in His
Son " (Heb. i. 1).

CHAPTER IV
The Mainspring of Christian
Conduct.
/T was said above that the key word of
Old Testament morality is Right
eousness. Righteousness as conduct,
however, may spring from a perception
of results. The fact that it produces
happiness for its votary or that it issues
in perfection, harmony and beauty of
character, or that it secures recognition
and standing among men, or that its op
posite is the source of frightful ravages,
or that there are penalties attached to the
doing of unrighteousness, may lead to
its practice. Righteousness may also
43

44 Christian Conduct
spring from a knowledge and genuine
and spontaneous love of Him who is the
source of it. The Old Testament had
given the commandments which should
yield righteousness, but had not exhibited
the inner unity and harmony of these
commandments in any one of these roots.
One of the points at which Jesus tran
scends the Old Testament conception is
just this idea of morality as a unity, con
trolled by one living and moulding prin
ciple. The Great Commandment
When the Pharisees incited one of
their own number, a lawyer, to test
His knowledge of the Old Testament
Law, with the question, " Which is the
great commandment in the law ?" He
promptly answered : " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou

Its Mainspring 45
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On
these two commandments the whole law
hangeth and the prophets " (Matt. xxii.
35-39). These two commandments were quo
ted from the Old Testament law, but
they were taken from different parts of
it. Under the Old Testament, their
connection was not apparent. Each in
its place was recognized as proper and
effective. It did not seem necessary to
join them together under one principle.
Neither was their universal sweep clearly
seen. "Thou shalt love Jehovah thy
God" meant the God of thy nation, the
God who saved thee " out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
That the same Jehovah should be the
object of love for all men of every land
and every age, the Old Testament saint
did not realize. " Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself," meant, Thou shalt
have regard for and do good unto the
Israelite with whom thou art in daily re-

46 Christian Conduct
lation. In the days when national life
broke up merely local lines of relation
ship, and men came into frequent touch
with strangers, and these presently estab
lished themselves in the places of neigh
bors, the question, "Who is my neigh
bor ? " could not fail to rise and puzzle
the conscience. In the parallel but
slightly varying account of Luke (x. 25),
this question actually follows, with its
magnificent answer in the parable of the
True Neighbor, commonly called the
Good Samaritan.
That answer means simply that the
love at the root of conduct must be uni
versal. All artificial distinctions must
melt before it. The Jews were not
quite ready to have their national prerog
atives annulled by such universalism.
More than this, within the nation, a
special class had been formed with the
claim to special privileges before God
and men. And they based this claim on
their very relation to the Law. By de-

Its Mainspring 47
fining the Law as He did, Jesus put
Himself into the position of implacable
hostility to the Pharisaic standpoint.
Defectiveness of Pharisaic Righteousness
He declared the Pharisaic ideal to be
totally inadequate. Quite deliberately
and dispassionately, He said to His fol-
owers : " For I say unto you, that ex
cept your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Phari
sees, ye shall in no wise enter into the
kingdom of heaven (Matt. v. 20).
I. It Exalts Human Authority above Di
vine
More particularly, Jesus criticised the
Pharisaic idea of morality first of all for
subordinating the divine to human au
thority. " Ye leave the commandment
of God, and hold fast the tradition of
men." And of this He gave a familiar il
lustration. The fifth commandment of

48 Christian Conduct
the Decalogue had enjoined in explicit
terms the rendering of honor to father and
mother, but the Pharisees taught other
wise. " If a man shall say to his father
or his mother, that wherewith thou
mightest have been profited by me is
Corban, that is to say, Given to God, Ye
no longer suffer him to do aught for his
father or his mother ; making void the
word of God by your tradition " (Mark
vii. 8-13). Here was a case of the mani
fest reversal of the intent of the law.
The law was of divine authority. The
tradition which annuls it was of human
origin ; and yet when it came to a choice
between the two, the preference was
given to the human rather than the di
vine. Such tampering with conscience
as this involved would only result in the
deadening of the moral nature.
II. Prefers External to Internal Elements
Another point at which Jesus found
the current ideal defective was its prefer-

Its Mainspring 49
ence for the external rather than the in
ternal. The moral law is a mere abstrac
tion if it do not issue in outward
application. And in the application of
it outwardly, questions must necessarily
arise. A strong, healthy nature will
answer these questions for itself ; but the
weak have always clamored for prescrip
tions, defining the law in detail, and
making it unnecessary for them to grapple
with these questions. It was this that
led to the formation of the so-called
Hedge of the Law. The Hedge was
nothing but a series of precepts covering
every imaginable combination of circum
stances that may arise. It aimed to ex
ternalize the spirit of the law, and
render its observance or violation easy of
discernment. In a certain way, the Hedge accom
plished its purpose. The multitude of its
prescriptions could be easily grasped ;
they were outward rules. As a matter
of inner right, for instance, the law pro-
D

50 Christian Conduct
vided for the payment of tithes, but it
was not easy to decide what sort of prod
ucts should be tithed. So many of
them appeared to be too insignificant or
too much aside from the main channels
of life for the law to take notice of them.
The Rabbis undertook to say just what
the law meant to cover in this respect.
Garden herbs, such as mint, anise and
cummin must be tithed. The difficulty
was removed. The plain man could now
observe the law as to tithes, without puz
zling his mind. But the process by
which the difficulty was removed raised
an external and subordinate matter to the
level of the internal and primary matters
of " judgment and the love of God." No
sooner raised to this level, however, the
external, from the nature of the case,
overshadowed and eclipsed the internal.
The weightier matters were completely
lost sight of. Men were so busy about
making " clean the outside of the cup
and platter " that they could not perceive

Its Mainspring 51
that their " inward parts were being filled
with ravening and wickedness. "
III- Deprives Morality of Motive
Akin to the criticism for laying undue
emphasis on the outward, is that for de
priving the moral of its true significance
by ignoring the motive and fixing upon
the performance of action as the alone
sufficient thing ; or, worse still, upon its
performance from selfish and unworthy
motives. In either case, morality ceases
to exist. If good is done perfunctorily,
it has no ethical character and value ; it
has settled to the level of mechanical
action. If it is done from other than
the motive furnished by conscience, it is
not the offspring of the moral nature,
but of the intellectual. It becomes a
matter of calculation and self-interest.
The state of things which Jesus found
partook of both of these evils. Men
obeyed the law either perfunctorily (the
common people), or from love of osten-

52 Christian Conduct
tation (the more zealous Pharisees). In
both cases, they deserved rebuke and
correction. IV. Multiplies Precepts
Still another fault of the moral system
of the Pharisees was its breaking into a
vast multitude of disconnected precepts.
Behind this feature, there was doubt
less the laudable desire to be exhaustive.
Every portion of the law must be care
fully guarded with rules, making it im
possible for the loyal Israelite to trans
gress it. But the result was a burden
some code with an enormous number
of specifications, impossible to grasp
and hold in the mind. It is to this
that Jesus refers when He speaks of the
Pharisees as binding " heavy burdens and
grievous to be borne and laying them
on men's shoulders" (Matt, xxiii. 4).
Evidently, the only remedy for this state
of things was to sum up the whole moral
system in one great principle ; and Jesus

Its Mainspring 53
does this in the Law of Love with its two
phases, the Godward and the manward.
The Righteousness of the Kingdom
Over against the righteousness which
is inadequate, Jesus places the righteous
ness of God (Matt. vi. 33). It is the
great and ultimate aim of the disciple to
approve himself a worthy child of the
Father who is in heaven. To this end,
he must begin by knowing God aright.
For only in the character of God will he
find a normal expression of the law of
right conduct for himself. His righteous
ness must be the same in its principle and
pattern as the righteousness of God.
The phrase itself, "righteousness of
God," is liable to be misunderstood, be
cause it is used by the Apostle Paul in a
slightly different sense. It is not, how
ever, on that account to be assumed as
not used by Jesus at all. It certainly ex
presses His genuine thought and sets it
over against the teaching of the rabbis of

54 Christian Conduct
His day. They conceived of God as a
lawgiver, and of man's relation to Him as
essentially a legal one. Obedience out
of proper regard for or without proper
regard to the personal element in the
case was the essence of righteousness.
Jesus' conception of God as Father in
volved the retirement of law into the
background because of the more potent
and effective consciousness of the filial
relation. Therefore this view yields
better fruit. It achieves all that respect
for law aims at and much more. ( Moral
ity is to do the will of God and God is
the Father.
But if the consciousness of filial relation
lies at the root of the moral life, the
moving and shaping force of it can be
nothing less than the principle of love,
and so we return to Jesus' enunciation of
the Great Commandment (Matt. xxii.
35-39). The mainspring of all conduct
must be love.
Love is not a virtue among other vir-

Its Mainspring 55
tues, but the spirit and life of all the vir
tues. In a certain aspect of it, love is
broader than righteousness. Yet practi
cally the two conceptions are coextensive.
Even if it be not true to say, love is right
eousness, it is correct to say, righteousness
is the expression of love. It would be
quite possible, and in fact an easy task,
were it not entirely superfluous, to show
by an exhaustive examination of the teach
ings of Jesus that every one of them rec
ognizes the centering of all good around
the vital point of love. Pure abstract
good may exist in reality, but Jesus leaves
it out of account in His ideal of conduct. )
Inwardness of Morality : Spontaneity of
Conduct
The qualities of morality which Jesus
inculcates are, therefore, lofty ideality in
combination with regard for common,
practical ends. First, and above all else,
this morality is a spontaneous outgrowth.
Commonly, this feature of it is called in-

56 Christian Conduct
wardness. So far as the term refers to
the fact that Jesus finds the seat of merit
and demerit not in the outward action
but in the inner thought or feeling from
which the action springs, it is truly de
scriptive. Moreover, it distinguishes the
ideal of Jesus from the Pharisaic ideal,
which, as already shown, lays undue stress
on mere outward observances. But if in
wardness is to be understood as pointing
back to a hidden source within man, a
mysterious something beneath the surface
that cannot be probed, it were better to
set the term aside and use the word spon
taneity instead.
It must be clearly understood, how
ever, that spontaneity is not causelessness,
but rather naturalness and freedom from
constraint from without. Moral conduct
is from this aspect of it not mechanical
obedience to an external law, but the glad.
expression of a willing spirit. Compliance
to the will of God makes up the essence
of spontaneous loving righteousness.

Its Mainspring 57
Freedom
Spontaneity, moreover, means not
merely inwardness or freedom from ex
ternal restraint, but also positive ability to
determine one's own moral course. Jesus
would have His disciples decide the ques
tions of conscience for themselves, without
asking for authoritative pronouncements
by rabbis, whether living or ancient. Help
from external sources is not only permis
sible, but may be in given circumstances
even necessary. But the gulf between
help and authority must be always held
as impassable. Where love does its per
fect work, it may contribute to others
the light necessary for the better under
standing of ways and means, and the bet
ter expression of self, but it will not be at a
loss as to whether it shall give vent or not.
It is only fear that seeks for human au
thority to prescribe to it its narrow path.
When this principle is fully understood,
no difficulty will be felt with reference

58 Christian Conduct
to the independent attitude which Jesus
assumed and imparted to His disciples in
all matters pertaining to the outward
practices of fasting and prayer, of cere
monial purifications and abstinences, and
of the observance of Sabbatic times and
seasons. These practices are, to be sure,
more ceremonial than moral ; and yet
the principle involved in them is equally
applicable to the moral sphere. It means
that Jesus aims at the development of a
self-directed power in His follower.
Breadth
With freedom, the moral ideal of Je
sus introduces the element of breadth.
Righteousness is not merely the keeping
of one's self free from blame for doing
some things, but also for leaving undone
certain others. Where any other motive
than that of love rules, neglect and omis
sions will be natural and frequent. To
scrupulous but loveless Pharisees, who
punctiliously observed the requirements

Its Mainspring 59
of an external law, but overlooked the
subtler and spiritual obligations of life,
Jesus said, "These ought ye to have done
and not to leave the other undone." His
ethical ideal was comprehensive of all of
man's conduct. The litde and insignifi
cant things like the tithing of anise, mint
and cummin, as well as the great and
momentous things of righteousness and
the love of God must be included, and
will be, where the disciple is moved by
the true motive and takes God's desire as
his rule. There is no sphere or depart
ment of human life into which the subtle
element of love may not penetrate and
infuse its power. Hence the outward
and inner man, the acts of ritual or spirit
ual nature, of Godward or manward di
rection can and must all be pervaded and
governed by it if the ethical ideal of Jesus
shall be realized. All relations, whether
to the world of nature, to men or to God,
must be sanctified and vitalized by its uni
versal and pervasive sway.

CHAPTER V
The Comprehensive Rule of Conduct :
The Golden Rule. V
rHERE is another statement of
duty besides the Great Command
ment to which Jesus attaches the
expression "This is the law and the
prophets." It is the Golden Rule.*
We pass by all critical discussions such as
Ewald's contention that this verse is mis
placed and should have occurred after
v. 44. The difference between the two
summaries of the law and the prophets
is the difference between the principle
and the rule. The one presents the
*Matt. vii. 12.
60

The Golden Rule 61
essence and life, the other the form of
the same thing.
Originality of the Golden Rule
As pertaining to the form and body
rather than to the spirit and life of the
moral law, the Golden Rule must take a
secondary place. It does not give the
thought of Jesus at its highest and best.
It was customary to claim upon this
point that in the gift of the Golden Rule
to His disciples and to the world, Jesus
had made the most valuable contribu
tion to the moral progress of the human
race. As against this position, it was
claimed on the other side that the same
truth had been taught long before the
days of Jesus by others* As a matter of
fact more than one parallel to the Gold
en Rule has been pointed out in heathen
literature. f
*Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 54, n.
tConfucius taught, " Do not to others what you do not wish
done to yourself" (Legge, Chinese Classics,! 192L) Isocrates
advises," What ye resent when suffering at the hands of others,

62 Christian Conduct
To meet the implications of these paral
lels, the counterclaim has been set up that
whereas in them the law is stated in a neg
ative form, it was put by Jesus on its ag
gressive and positive side. If Confucius
said : " Do not do to others what you
would not wish done to yourself," it was
because of his rudimentary conception of
a principle which Jesus grasps and gives
in its fullness and maturity. This is per
fectly true. There is a marked difference
between the parallels. But should it af
fect our ideas of the originality of Jesus
if we were to discover that the law had
been enunciated even in its positive form ?
We cannot think so. The originality of
Jesus does not consist in teaching pre-
do not do to others "( Nicocl, 12). The Stoic maxim was " Quod
tibi fieri, non vis alteri non feceris." A familiar story has it
that an inquirer demanded of Shammai to be taught the Law
while he stood on one foot. Shammai sent him away with
indignation. He went to Hillel and made the same request.
With keener insight, this teacher promptly replied : " What
soever thou wouldest that men should not do to thee, that do
not thou to them. All our Law is summed up in this saying.
All the rest is only comment upon it."

The Golden Rule 63
cepts never heard by men previously, but
in revealing the true nature of God. His
life in the world, His claim to be obeyed
perfectly, and His gracious purpose to
wards those who having failed to do their
best might still come to Him for forgive
ness and strength for a new endeavor.
Originality does not consist in bringing
into existence new materials of thought,
but in infusing a new life into those al
ready at hand. And Christ the revela
tion of God does transform all the golden
rules ever taught by others into a new
law. Distinctiveness of Jesus' Form of It
Nevertheless, the Golden Rule, as
given by Jesus, is a far more vital and
vitalizing guide to conduct than its pre
decessors. Lurking in its background,
there lies the thought of a motive power.
If it makes no mention of the law of
love, it assumes it as at the root of the
conduct it prescribes. Had Jesus never

64 Christian Conduct
spoken a single word regarding the
springs of all action in love, this reading
of the motive in the background might
have been called unwarranted ; but in
view of the fact that He called the law
of love the sum and substance of the an
cient law and the prophets, and further,
in view of the fact that He lived and
died in conformity to a richer and larger
conception than the measure of doing to
others as He would have had others do
to Himself, it is perfectly legitimate to
read the Golden Rule as His conception
of what conduct should be in the con
crete, when it is actuated by the love He
shows as necessary to all true sonship of
God. The Essential Element in It
The pith of the Golden Rule is the
principle of mutualism. It recognizes
the necessity of social relations, and the
equality of the related parts in the social
organism. The temptation in social life

The Golden Rule 65
is to regard self as the center, and all that
ministers to self as proper and right. For
all things this temptation holds out one
end and aim, self. All other things or
persons are mere means. The gospel of
altruism, at least in some of its forms,
goes to the opposite extreme. It re
duces self to a means and other persons
and things (as in Buddhism) to ends.
The Golden Rule is the golden mean be
tween natural utilitarianism and Utopian
altruism. It regards all personality as an
end in itself. Kant gave expression to
the truth embodied in it when he said :
" So act as to treat humanity, whether in
your own person, or in that of another,
in every case as an end, and never as a
means only."
The Golden Rule is, therefore, the
necessary solvent of all social complica
tions. Without a considerable obser
vance of it, society becomes a hard thing
to move. If it were to cease being re
garded altogether, society must come to

66 Christian Conduct
a standstill. It is like air to sound. If
the air becomes thin, as in the upper
strata of the atmosphere, sound becomes
faint; and when perfect vacuum is
reached, sound is impossible. Its neces
sity is so manifest, that one does not
wonder at its being discovered before
Christ's day.
The Golden Rule is the expression of
all genuine sympathy. To put one's self
in the place of another, is to feel as he
does and to feel with him ; and to feel
with him is to rouse in one's self the mo
tives which will treat him as one would
treat one's self, or would have one's self
treated. If one would turn a sensitive
ear unto his own heart, he would hear
there the pleadings of the claims of
others. The Golden Rule in Operation
But sympathy is a feeling. Its spon
taneous rise may be encouraged or re
pressed. In any case, it is in need of

The Golden Rule 67
guidance and control ; and the Golden
Rule is intended to furnish its guide.
First of all, it does not touch those cases
in which the good of others or their ill
are not dependent upon the action of self.
In such cases sympathy may exist, but it
can only result at most in a bare expres
sion in word or deed. Secondly, where
action is called for, more than the mere
expression of sympathy is demanded by
the rule, in fact nothing less than the
wisest and kindest action. The mere
impulse moving along the line of the
least resistance would often dictate that
which is pleasing to the other. But the
rule demands what is most profitable.
Mere sympathy for instance would lead
to the bestowment of help direcdy ; a
wise regard for the highest welfare of the
person to be helped would suggest the
special kind of help which would render
him able to help himself.
One would not wish for flattery for
himself where criticism would be more

68 Christian Conduct
beneficial ; one would not wish a gratuity
where the opportunity to earn by work
ing would be of much greater benefit in
the long run ; one would not wish a
meretricious reputation for virtue or ca
pability where the unvarnished statement
of facts would prove of more lasting value.
Therefore, in practicing the Golden Rule
one is called upon not to regard the pass
ing comfort of pleasure, but the perma
nent well-being of his neighbor.
But suppose the neighbor is blind and
blunt and incapable of wishing the things
that one sees plainly to be the best ?
That has nothing to do with one's action.
It is not what the other would desire,
but what one would desire with the bet
ter light which he possesses for himself
were he in the place of the other that
one must promote. Whatever wisdom
and kindness one has gathered that is over
and above the others, he is to put at the
service of the other.
The distinction between want and wish

The Golden Rule 69
may help to throw light on the subject.
It is not what the other wishes, but what
he wants ; it is not what one wants to do,
but what one would wish to have done
for himself in the same circumstances
that is prescribed as his duty.
But is this not the same as the law of
love ? Does it not amount to loving one's
neighbor as one's self ? It is, but with a
difference. And the difference consists
in this, that the law of love underlies the
rule of conduct. ( If one is possessed by
the law of neighborly love as defined by
Christ, he will practice the Golden Rule.
If he fails to practice the rule, it will be
because his love is defective. If he prac
tice the rule without the underlying and
actuating motive of love, his obedience
will not be Christian ; it will scarcely rise
to the level of the ethical. In other
words, the law of love gives us a principle,
the Golden Rule shows the practical
working of that principle./
The effect of the observance of the

70 Christian Conduct
Golden Rule cannot but lead to some
thing more than a cold moralism. And
this is the difference between Christian
and non-Christian ethics. In the one,
altruism and even mutualism, are purely
expediential, in the other all conduct
springs from an inexhaustible fountain-
head. In the one, the moment it ceases
to be expedient to treat others right,
right conduct loses its force ; in the other
it always remains valid. Not only so,
but it educates toward a higher and a
purer character.

CHAPTER VI
Self-Culture.
rHE great principle of regard for
personality as an end in itself calls
attention not only to those with
whom one finds himself in social relations,
but to one's self also. This is implicit in
the Law of Love, as framed and expressed
in both of the utterances of Jesus just
considered. The law of love to one's
neighbor sets up a standard of measure
ment. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." That takes for granted, of
course, that one love one's self. Neither
the Old Testament nor any other system
7i

72 Christian Conduct
of morals knows of a specific command
ment, " Thou shalt love thyself."
On the contrary, paradoxically enough,
the neglect and even the apparently un
loving treatment of one's self have often
been inculcated as moral excellencies.
The reasons for this are not far to seek.
Human nature stands in no need of the
exhortation to self-regard. It is rather
sorely in need of restraints and limitations
to its natural tendencies in that direction.
The Care of Self Provided for in Human
Nature
Through a wise provision in the human
constitution, the care of self is abundantly
secured by means of a series of imperative
instincts and appetites. So strong are
these that the problem of the welfare, and
even of the existence, both of the indi
vidual and of society depends upon their
proper regulation and control. Less
compelling they could not have been
made without the risk of failing to ac-

Self-Culture 73
complish their end, /. e., self-preservation
and race-preservation. More lively they
could not have been made without de
feating their own end. But being such
as they are, they demand not a general
commandment, " Thou shalt love thy
self, " but a series of ideals which will
lead to their use without abuse.
The need for such restraining ideals
has been universally recognized and will
be, in spite of occasional protests against
them, like that of Friedrich Nietzche in
our own days. To what extent it was
Jesus' thought that the appetites and in
stincts should be restrained is to be ascer
tained from a careful examination of all
His utterances. It would be quite easy
to take isolated sayings and interpret
them * in the light of certain ideas and
practices current in a limited and local
way in His own day, and thus make Jesus
appear an advocate of asceticism. This
* An instance can be pointed out in the case of Origen and
his misinterpretation of Matt. xix. 12.

74 Christian Conduct
has indeed been done in a rather thor
oughgoing way.
Self-Realization, a Duty
The sum and essence of a complete
view of Jesus' thought regarding one's
duty to himself is that, as a child of God,
every human being should give due at
tention to the development of all his
powers and capacities, physical, intellec
tual and spiritual, in accordance with the
relative importance of each as a part or
aspect of the whole man.
Self-Knowledge the First Step in Self-
Culture
This involves first of all the duty of
self-knowledge. Jesus did not use the
language of the ancient schools ; but His
meaning is just as plain on this point as if
among His sayings there had been pre
served something similar to the Delphic
" Know thyself," which Socrates was so
fond of repeating. No one can rise to

Self-Culture 75
the sphere of privilege revealed by the
Master without coming to appreciate at
the same time something of his own pos
sibilities, and of the estimate which God
Himself puts upon him. What has been
said of Jesus' view of human nature as a
presupposition of His ethical teaching
must become in some measure or form
the individual Christian's view of him
self. Self-Discovery
Standing upon this platform, we may
say that Jesus is not only the revealer of
God to man, but also of man to himself.
Indeed, He could not be the one without
being the other in the same fact. If He
was to reveal God the Father, He must
reveal also man the child. The revelation
is a revelation of relation, and both terms
must come into light if it shall be com
plete and effective for its purposes. In
the parable of the Prodigal, the lost son
first " comes to himself." He finds him-

76 Christian Conduct
self, /. e., comes to realize who he is,
what he might have been, and what he
may still be. The step of self-discovery
is so inherently necessary that it cannot
be regarded as forcing the parable to find
it pictured in this feature of the prodigal's
imaged experience. Self-Study
But it is more than a self -disco very that
man needs. What is discovered must be
appreciated. The duty of self-knowledge
must result in self-study. Human nature
is a complex and ever-changing subject.
It does not show its whole content at the
moment of discovery. It can neither be
grasped at a single glance in one act of
self-discovery, nor can it be held in a
steadfast and continuous view, like an im
movable picture fixed upon canvas once
for all. The depths and variations of the
soul's life must be constantly and closely
kept under scrutiny. In a sense, the dic
tum " the proper study of mankind is

Self-Culture 77
man " expresses a genuine thought of
Jesus. This sort of self-study will be at once
recognized as a very different thing from
the morbid introspection sometimes prac
ticed and commended in the history of
Christianity. It is not a self-examination
which looks for and terminates with the
finding of the evil in the heart, and thus
fills one with gloom and despair ; nor is it
the self-examination that pulls up each
growing good impulse by the roots in
order to ascertain how much vitality it has
gained. It is rather that calm and sober
appreciation of capacities and tendencies
which culminates in a healthy self-esteem
in general.
The child of the honorable parent, no
matter how severely he may reproach
himself for falling into low habits and
keeping company with unworthy persons,
must have with the returning sense of his
high birth, a correct appreciation of his
dignity. He must know the difference

78 Christian Conduct
between what he ought to be and what
he is. And to know this difference is to
honor his own ideal self, and to attempt
to realize it.
" Could'st thou in vision see
The man that God hath meant
Thyself, thou would' st not be
The man thou art content."
Self-Mastery
But self-knowledge is not complete
until it has passed into self-mastery. It
would, in fact, be a source of unhappi-
ness if it were nothing more than the
consciousness of powers and conditions
within, which one could not bend and
utilize, whose victim and slave one must
therefore remain. Whatever else a person
may not be able to control, he can con
trol himself ; he can grasp the reins of his
powers and tendencies with a firm hand
and direct them into the paths of his
own choice ; if driven to the last re
sort, he can " cut off and cast from " him-

Self-Culture 79
self an offending part ; he can cause the
polluting stream of " evil thoughts, mur
ders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false
witnesses, railings " to dry up within his
heart. Of the virtue which modern
Christendom calls temperance, either in
its narrower sense, as abstinence from in
toxicants, or in its older and broader sense
of pure self-control, Jesus does not dis
course extensively. An occasional allu
sion to drunkenness, among other evils,
shows that He held this form of sin as
much in abhorrence as others. But His
whole view of conduct is based on a
theory of self-mastery which must inevi
tably lead to temperance in all its senses.
A Sense of Proportion in Estimating Differ
ent Elements in Self
Another duty growing from the com
plexity of human nature is the relative
and proportionate estimating of its differ
ent parts and powers. They are not all
of equal importance. There is that in

80 Christian Conduct
man which is worth more than the whole
world, at least to himself : " For what
shall a man be profited if he shall gain
the whole world and forfeit his life ? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his
life " *(Matt. xvi. 26). And there is that in
him with which he can dispense if nec
essary (Matt. v. 29). His aim should be
undoubtedly to preserve himself com
plete. All his powers are talents (the use
of the word "talent" as the equivalent
of power or "faculty," though of late
origin, is quite true to the thought of
Jesus) which he must use and develop.
But if in the stress of the conflict he
should lose or find it necessary to suppress
or discard one in order that the rest of
his manhood may be preserved, and put
to the best use, he is acting both faith
fully and wisely. Jesus' appeal is always
* It makes little difference for our purposes whether the
word " soul " is retained here with the A. V., or the more cor
rect " life " of the R. V. be accepted. The main point is that
there is in man that which is incomparable in value to any
thing else.

Self-Culture 81
to the personality as a whole and in be
half of the personality as a whole.
The sense of proportion necessary in
the distribution of self-regard He shows
only in its most general bearing. Its
special applications must be adjusted in
harmony with the general principle
pointed out. The bodily life and the
inner life are the two specially contrasted.
The Kingdom of God, whether regarded
as the sudden appearance upon earth in
an apocalyptic fashion of the divine reign
with its heavenly hierarchy of officers, or
as a gradual evolution through natural
processes and stages, of a moral dispensa
tion, is of vastly more importance than
mere earthly welfare. Its bearings are
eternal ; therefore, it is the first thing to
be sought. All other things will be
added to him who is absorbed in seeking
for it. Care for Bodily Needs
And care of the body may be relegated

82 Christian Conduct
into the place of secondary importance
all the more cheerfully because there is
abundant provision made for it in the wise
orderings of nature itself, which is noth
ing but the workmanship of the heavenly
Father. " Is not the life more than the
food, and the body than the raiment?"
(Matt. vi. 25 f . ) It is hardly necessary to
repeat the commonplace remark that
there is no intention here to encourage
idleness, recklessness or fanaticism. It is
not labor and prudence that are depre
cated. These are a part of the equip
ment of the world ; through them the
heavenly Father supplies the needs of
His creatures. Even " the fowls of the
air " and " the lilies of the fields," though
" they sow not, neither do they reap, nor
gather into barns ;" though "they toil
not, neither do they spin," yet do each that
which is appointed as the proper means
for attaining to the end held in view for
them by the Father which is in heaven.
None of them would be fed or clothed

Self-Culture 83
with glory greater than Solomon's if some
work were not lavished on them some
where by creature agencies. It was not
the due use of forethought, but the un
due exaltation of the secondary to the
level of the primary concerns of life that
Jesus designed to rebuke through His
words in this connection. He who seeks
first the Kingdom of God will find it easy
to gain through the means appointed
thereto the other necessary things.
But what a meaning is added by mod
ern scientific knowledge to these words
of Jesus about the part of God in the
arrangements and provisions of the uni
verse. Life with its infinite variety and
complication, and in its inextricably intri
cate adjustments is seen in the light of
physical and biological research to require
a care nothing short of divine. To him
who has the confidence that it is his
Father's house, the world will be fuller
of interest and each of its provisions the
more reassuring because of that conn-

84 Christian Conduct
dence. While we may not cease to care
for the health and welfare of the body,
he will not waste his precious life on
worrying about these matters.
The supreme element, however, in
self-regard, is the culture and full realiza
tion of the true self, the heavenly element
in man which allies him to eternity.
Jesus has much to say of this. But as
this self rises into the eternal sphere, the
teaching of Jesus about it also passes from
the ethical to the spiritual, from the
sphere of conduct to the sphere of the
inner life. There it may be left to be
studied more appropriately.

CHAPTER VII
The Sabbath.
JTZ HATEVER may have been the
py understanding of the ancient
Hebrew about the origin and
design of the Sabbath, it cannot be reason
ably questioned that the observance of
the commandment resulted in a high
type of self-culture. The fourth com
mandment by its very phraseology aims
at two good things, first, rest from rou
tine and drudgery, and second, touch with
the sphere of the infinite and eternal.
The latter of these brings as an inevitable
consequence the deepening and enlarg
ing of the idea of holiness. As the idea
85

86 Christian Conduct
of holiness is in the Old Testament the
inseparable correlate of divinity, to sanc
tify anything is to consecrate it to God,
and use it as He wills ; or in other words,
to honor Him through it. To hallow a
portion of time can, then, only mean so
to use it as to do honor to God and be
come partaker in His holiness. This
part of the Sabbath law thus passes into
the inner life.
The other, side of the good aimed at
by the fourth commandment is more ex
ternal. It is secured through the cessa
tion for a while of those activities that
wear and tear, and the opportunity to re
plenish and repair the wasted energies.
So patent is the benefit of rest that
thoughtful men of all schools and types
have never failed to admire and praise the
provision for it found in this elemental
law of the Old Testament moral code.
The Sabbath under the Old Testament
In the nature of the case, the provi-

The Sabbath 87
sions made in the Old Testament for the
securing of the advantages of the Sabbath
laws were minute and prescriptive. It
could not have been otherwise. The de
gree of progress in intellectual and moral
ideas was not compatible with anything
less than a system of detailed directions
intended to safeguard the institution of
the Sabbath and guarantee its benevolent
operation. The analogies of all other
spheres of life called for these statutory
provisions. But for these the law must
dissolve into a vague tradition and vanish
away. Rabbinical Sabbath-Legislation
It was intended undoubtedly that as
intelligence and moral vigor were devel
oped, a freer use of the privileges of the
law of rest should take the place of these
detailed prescriptions ; that individual
judgment should be trusted to adapt this
means of moral and spiritual culture to
individual needs. But the course of

88 Christian Conduct
events took exactly the opposite turn.
Instead of a freer, there prevailed a more
burdensome Sabbath law. Rabbinical
ingenuity found here a favorite ground
for its inventiveness. The Talmud con
tains a whole tractate, twenty-four chap
ters in length, entitled " The Sabbath," in
which these prescriptions are elaborated
into wearisome minutiae. An ass might
not be led out on the road with its cover
ing on unless such had been put on the
animal previous to the Sabbath ; but it
was lawful to lead the animal about in
this fashion in one's own courtyard. The
same rule applied to a pack-saddle pro
vided it was not fastened by girth or
backstraps.* Instead of a help, the Sabbath law was
made a burden. And the strange thing
about it is that the burdensomeness of
these regulations was felt and confessed
even by the rabbis themselves. Com-
Cf. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. ii,
App. xvii.

The Sabbath 89
menting upon the above-mentioned regu
lation, one of them is reported as burst
ing into the indignant exclamation that
" such laws were like mountains sus
pended by a hair." Jesus in a series of
inevitable controversies (Matt. xii. 11 ff. ;
Mark ii. 26 ff. ; Luke vi. 9 ; xiii. 3, 14 ;
John viii. 22) recalled His followers from
them to the primitive principle and design
of the law. The pith of His thought is
given in the declaration : " The Sab
bath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath, so that the Son of man is
Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark ii. 27,
28). Man needs the Sabbath
This means in the first place that man
needs the Sabbath. It is not an arbitrary
enactment designed to torment him or
to test his obedience, but a beneficent
provision to help him to the fullest real
ization of what is best in himself. There
may be commandments of God which

90 Christian Conduct
must be simply obeyed with the implicit
faith which asks not why, and takes it
for granted that the Heavenly Father has
ordained all things in love. But the
Sabbath commandment is not one of
these. Its reason is not only rooted in
the needs of human nature, but becomes
apparent without a very long and labori
ous search.
In fact the Sabbath law is exactly on
the same basis as the other nine com
mandments of the Decalogue, so far as in
herent grounds for their existence are
concerned. The only difference between
it and them is that they are readier to
show the good they are meant to accom
plish, while the beneficence of the Sab
bath law, though not hard to discover,
does require some study and experience
to make itself felt. In the last analysis,
however, the law of rest can no more be
violated with impunity than the laws of
respect for life, property, truth and chaste
relations between the sexes.

The Sabbath 91
Sabbath Observance Adaptable to
Changing Conditions
Secondly, if the Sabbath law is rooted
in a human need and its observance re
sults in good to man, it follows that the
manner of its observance must depend
on the form that this need may take from
time to time. The perfect keeping of
the Sabbath law is a matter of adaptation
to conditions. Under the Old Testa
ment, conditions demanded a rather ex
tensive code of statutory provisions with
severe penalties attached to violation.
Under the New, the conditions are more
favorable for a freer, and, to employ a
philosophical word, a more teleological
use of the law.
It will not be necessary here to enter
into the question whether Jesus Himself
commanded the change of the day from
the seventh to the first of the week. It
is nearly certain that He did not. But it
is sufficient to point out that if the change

92 Christian Conduct
ministers to the need which the Sabbath
law is designed to meet more effectively
than the preservation of the original day
of the week, then it is more than justified.
But who will deny that for the disciple
of Jesus Christ, the risen Redeemer, it
must necessarily minister more abundantly
by putting him in touch with the great
historical fact of his Saviour's triumph
over the last great enemy ?
Change in Method of Sabbath Observance
not Unlimited
Does this view of the Sabbath give
men too much freedom with a divine or
dinance ? Does it seem to reduce a great
and fundamental law into a matter of
mere convenience ? In answer it may be
said that the range of freedom given by
Jesus, though absolute from one point
of view, is practically limited and ade
quately safeguarded. If the Sabbath was
made for man and man remains essentially
the same, the manner of its helping him

The Sabbath 93
cannot change very much. In fact the
changes in the means that minister to man
at any part of his being cannot be very
radical. If man's body, for instance, needs
a fixed quantity of starchy and nitrogenous
foods, he will not be obeying the law of
his being if he depart very far from the
habit of using these elements of nourish
ment. Neither will he be justified if he
should complain that his freedom is not
real when he finds that he cannot extend
the variety and range of his diet so as to
include minerals and metals. But within
the range prescribed by nature, he may
move with a considerable freedom, and
command the elements to support and
strengthen him. The principle applies to
the case of the Sabbath law. Though set
free from prescription and allowed to
adapt it to his spiritual as well as physical
and intellectual health and welfare, man is
not set free from the obligation of using
the Sabbath for his edification and re
freshment in accordance with the dictates

94 Christian Conduct
of the highest wisdom, as reached in the
experience of his fellow beings.
The Social Element in Sabbath-Observance
There is, moreover, a social element in
the observance of the Sabbath law which
cannot very well be neglected. Though
the benefits of the Sabbath observance
must come to the individual as he observes
it, yet the observance is from the nature
of the case made either more or less ef
fective as a means towards this end accord
ing as men undertake it in harmony with
one another, or at cross purposes. It is as
a law of the Kingdom ; and the King (the
Son of man) is Lord even of the Sabbath.
But if it be affected by the fact that men
must live in society, a certain element of
conventionalism necessarily enters into
the practical working of it. What one
might have a right to do or not to do if
he were alone in the world, he might
find it not only inexpedient but even
wrong to do or not to do as he came to

The Sabbath 95
act with reference to those with whom
he is cooperating.
Restatement of the Sabbath-Law
A very helpful way of stating Jesus'
thought regarding the Sabbath is to lay
down the general law that the Christian
should rest one day out of the seven in
the week and devote it to the cultivation
of his spiritual life, that he should do no
work on it " except works of necessity
and mercy." This is clear and easily un
derstood. But the pith and essence of
the matter might be put even better, i. e.,
more comprehensively and scientifically
in the formula that whatever promotes
the spiritual welfare of men, whether
through ministering to the imperative
necessities of the body or directly to the
higher nature may be done. " For the
Sabbath was made for man and not man
for the Sabbath."
In addition to the undisputed sayings
of Jesus on the Sabbath, the Cambridge

96 Christian Conduct
manuscript of the Gospels* contains an
insertion after Luke vi. 4, as follows :
" On the same day, having seen one work
ing on the Sabbath, he said to him, O
man, if indeed thou knowest what thou
doest, blessed art thou ; but if thou
knowest not, thou art accursed, and a
transgressor of the law." Whether, as
Bishop Westcott says, "the saying must
rest on some real incident" or not, it shows
that very early in the history of the Chris
tian community, the full meaning of
Jesus' teaching on the Sabbath began to
be realized. * Known as Codex D.

CHAPTER VIII
The Christian in Social Relations.
/N the Golden Rule, Christ gave a
comprehensive guide to conduct as
it might affect others. Men would
cease to be human, however, if they did
not need and ask for explanations and il
lustrations of a general law. And Jesus
must have been very much less consider
ate of the weakness of His disciples than
He was had He declined or neglected to
supply them with these illustrations and
explanations. The Law of Love Concretely Illustrated
I The Sermon on the Mount is indeed
g 97

98 Christian Conduct
nothing more nor less than the answer of
Jesus to these implicit appeals for light
upon the practical operation of His fun
damental principles. It begins with the
Beatitudes ; and the Beatitudes show the
law of love analyzed just as a beam of
sunlight is analyzed into the colors of the
spectrum when passed through a prism.
But the Beatitudes present an ideal citizen
of the Kingdom of God. In order to
attain to that ideal, the disciple may have
to pass through many a perplexing situa
tion. Jesus does not hesitate to select
some typical applications of His principle
in such puzzling experiences.
First and most frequent in its recur
rence is the question of the treatment of
personal offences, whether real or imagi
nary. They are the most common of the
violations of love. That the question of
offences occurred soon after Jesus had
announced His central and governing
principle of love, appears from the fact
that Peter directly asks : " How oft shall

In Social Relations 99
my brother sin against me and I forgive
him ? Until seven times ? " (Matt, xviii.
21). The query is based upon a measur
ably firm grasp of the thought of Jesus.
But it shows also how novel that thought
must have appeared to Peter.
The Law of Retaliation
But the question shows at the same time,
how hard it is for those who first heard
the commandment of love to fathom its
full depth. They were accustomed to
a very different ideal under the law of
retaliation. It must be remembered,
however, in justice to the ethics of the
Old Testament, that the law of retaliation
itself was given not as a means of en
couraging the feeling of revenge, but as
a check and regulator. When one re
ceives an injury, the natural propensity is
to return evil for evil, not according to
the amount or kind of the injury suffered,
but without limitation. Anger is a blind
ing passion ; it will not calculate. The

ioo Christian Conduct
moment one takes time to estimate the
damage done him and plan to inflict pro
portionate damage upon its perpetrator,
the moment one stops to weigh and
measure and calculate, that moment he
furnishes his passions an opportunity to
evaporate. The lex talionis was designed
to accomplish this very end. It was
friendly to justice as against the unjust
and unmeasured infliction of vengeance
so natural to the human heart. Hence,
"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,"
means, Be careful you do not go beyond.
Justice you may have a right to demand ;
your pound of flesh you may require and
have ; but not the smallest fraction of an
ounce more than the pound shall go with
it ; not a drop of blood are you entitled
to take.
The Old Testament law of retaliation
is a vast stride forward from the impulses
of nature. When men are unprepared
for the higher principles of Jesus, it is
found greatly to lessen the savageries and

In Social Relations 101
cruelties to which blind passion might
lead men to give vent. It is in the in
terest not only of strict justice but also of
humanity that it is inserted in the Old
Testament system.
From Retaliation to Unlimited Forgiveness
But the change from unrestrained ven
geance to retaliation does not compare in
its radical character and effects to that
from retaliation to love. No wonder
that the disciples were taken aback and
wished to know exactly how such a
method of dealing with offences would
work. Jesus in answer reiterates the
principle of love with more amplitude
and emphasis : " I say not unto thee un
til seven times seven ; but until seventy
times seven." "The quality of mercy
is not strained." Strict justice may mod
erate natural inhumanity and make an
approach toward humanity, but the es
sence of godlike humanity goes far be
yond strict justice. In this sense it is

102 Christian Conduct
the only perfectly humanizing princi
ple. Reconciliation with a Supposed Offended
Brother
The first concrete, though hypotheti
cal, case, through which Jesus illustrates
His principle of love, is that of a sus
pected grievance on the part of another.
" If thou rememberest that thy brother
hath aught against thee . . ." It may
be a mere suspicion, it may be a matter
of common rumor, the brother's feeling
may be unwarranted, it may lack suffi
cient grounds for existence, still if he
only thinks that it is well founded, it
breaks the force of loving relations, and
must not be allowed to stand. And the
effort to remove it must take precedence
of everything else. Even on such a
sacred occasion as religious worship, so
jealously to be guarded against intrusion,
if one should call to mind the existence
of a possible violation of love in his rela-

In Social Relations 103
tions, he should not allow the solemnity
of the religious service to go on, but
should first have that root of bitterness
removed. " First, be reconciled to thy
brother." We cannot but believe that
this is meant only as an illustration of a
large class of similar cases.
Non-Resistance to Evil
The next case that may be properly
taken up at this point is that in which ill
feeling has passed from the stage of a
lurking suspicion into an open expression,
where, moreover, the place of its appear
ance is not the neighbor's or brother's
heart, but one's own. This is the reverse
of the preceding. It is not, " if thy
brother hath aught against thee," but
" if thou hast aught against thy brother."
But like the preceding case, hypotheti-
cally, it is : " When thy brother has of
fended thee " (Matt. v. 39 ff.). " Who
soever smiteth thee on the right cheek,
turn to him the other also." What does

104 Christian Conduct
Jesus mean by these words ? They seem
to enjoin the doctrine commonly called
non-resistance of evil. But when one
considers the fact that Jesus often ex
pressed His thoughts in a vivid and rhe
torically exaggerated way, not in the way
of the pedant ; and when one still fur
ther takes into account the fact that He
did not Himself practice literally what He
says here (John xviii. 22, 23), the injunc
tion can scarcely be taken as intended in
the cold pedantic way of the letter.
And after all, it may fairly be ques
tioned whether the policy of passive non-
resistance which has been deduced from
these words can be made to consist with
Jesus' cardinal principle of love. Can it
be the truest and highest form of love to
encourage a second act of injustice by
actually turning the other cheek to the
hardened hand which has already com
mitted one act of brutality ? Can it
further the ends of love to enable one
who has dishonestiy taken a coat to add

In Social Relations 105
to his dishonesty a confused notion of a
distinction between " mine " and " thine "
by giving to him also one's cloak ?
Would it help the true and godlike man
hood to encourage the parasitic borrower
by giving him what he asks every time ?
How could it help to advance brother-
liness to yield to the selfish and arbitrary
demand to go a mile by going with him
two ?
Nay, as against these absurd extremes,
one may very well say that it is possible
to do exactly the opposite of what the
words of Jesus apparently convey, and
carry out the real intent of what He does
say. To those who misunderstood Him
by such literalism, He says Himself : " It
is the spirit that giveth life : the flesh
profiteth nothing : the words that I have
spoken unto you are spirit, and are life "
(John vi. 63).
What then does Jesus mean by urging
non-resistance to evil ? He means that
by the display of supreme and genuine

106 Christian Conduct
love His disciples should melt the hatred
of those who hate them wherever this is
possible. There is only one method for
the cure of all evil, and it is not the homoe
opathic cure of evil by evil, but the allo
pathic one of evil by good. Unkindness
can be turned into kindness only by love ;
dishonesty, greed, sensuality, are the
demons that can be cast out only by the
breath of love.
Literal Non-Resistance may be Best in Some
Instances
Just how this love is to be most wisely
administered in each separate case must
always remain for the Christian himself
to decide. It may be that there will
arise cases in which the literal turning of
the other cheek shall prove the best way
of exhibiting the love which Jesus in
culcates. If the offending person could
only be made aware that it was love for
him that moved the offended one to his
course, and not some wily form of sel-

In Social Relations 107
fishness, seeking to secure ulterior ends,
to gain an advantage in the game, nor
craven cowardice and weakness, it might
easily be seen that non-resistance would
be the precise conduct proper to adopt.
But in any case it is not so much just
what is done as that what is done ex
presses one's love for the offender and is
best calculated to win him from hatred
to love. " Blessed are the Peacemakers "
And, as in the case of one's own per
sonal relations, so in that of the conduct
and relations of others. The disciple's
instinctive attitude should be towards the
extinction of all hatred and strife. So
abhorrent indeed should he hold every
breach of the law of love that he should
spare no effort to heal such breach. In
doing this, he will illustrate his true rela
tion to God Himself. " Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they shall be called sons
of God."

108 Christian Conduct
Rebuke of Anger
As to the positive outbreaks which
raise the question of resistance or non-
resistance, Jesus nowhere expresses Him
self more severely and more explicitly
than against them. " Everyone that is
angry with his brother (without a cause)
shall be in danger of the judgment : and
whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council : and
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be
in danger of the hell of fire " (Matt. v. 22).
" Judge not"
Jesus is manifestiy not content to wait
until lovelessness has reached an open
outbreak. He would watch its begin
nings, and pluck it out like a foul weed
before it has come to produce its poison
ous fruit. He searches for it in the
depths of the heart. " Every one that
is angry shall be in danger of the judg
ment " even before he has expressed his
anger in the first word. " Judge not that

In Social Relations 109
ye be not judged." Censoriousness is
the first step in the steep downward
course. Positive Expression of Love
Thus far, we have taken into account
only the cases in which the law of love is
violated or is in danger of violation.
These are a part, possibly the smaller
part, of its whole sphere of operation.
After all, the experience of man includes
more peace than warfare, more harmony
than conflict, the pessimist to the contrary
notwithstanding. Jesus would have all
these more normal stages suffused and
glorified by the control of a positive love.
But this portion of the field was not de
batable ground, and Jesus does not go
out of His way to speak of it simply
in order to make an academically com
plete thesis on the subject. He takes
it for granted that where the provocations
to violate the requirement do not emerge,
the law of love will be observed.

no Christian Conduct
Love's Many Forms
Love is not indiscriminate ; but it is
not exclusive. In other words, as there
are different kinds and degrees of it, dif
ferent individuals coming into touch with
the follower of Christ will claim each
what is appropriate to himself. The
kinsman will have a right to the love of
kinship, the friend to the love of friend
ship, the distressed and needy to the love
of compassion, and the prosperous to the
unenvying love of congratulation. But
there must be love for all, even the en
emy and the persecutor, the love which
wishes the highest welfare, and will not
deny those who bear these relations to
one's self any needed blessing. This is
the type of the love which God the
heavenly Father lavishes. " For He
maketh His sun to rise on the evil and
the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust."
Finally, love must be aggressive. It

In Social Relations 1 1 1
must not wait for an occasion which shall
call it forth in order to make itself felt.
It must seek, we may go further and say,
it must create such occasions. This is
undoubtedly to be gathered from the in
cident of the feet washing ( John xiii).
Here, Jesus shows in an acted parable
the spirit of humble service. The time
has perhaps passed for insisting on not
taking the incident in a literal sense, either
as establishing a sacrament or as defining
with precision the actual performance of
such a duty simply in token of humility.
Yet the spirit of the teaching, inculcating
as it does the expression of love, in the
self -abasing service of others, has not been
and is not likely to be outgrown.

CHAPTER IX
The Christian in the State.
rHE attitude of Jesus to the civil
government of His day was a
matter of the deepest interest and
keenest concern to His own contempo
raries. The ideal relation of the loyal
Israelite to the world-powers was differ
ently conceived by representatives of dif
ferent factions. It was a many-sided
question. Should the faithful refuse to
tolerate foreign rule and actively engage
in schemes designed to terminate it?
Should he accept the status quo under
protest, but patiently wait the apocalyptic
112

The Christian In the State 1 1 3
establishment of the divine order? Or
should he consent to take it as the ex
pression of the divine will, and by sub
mission to it as unto God's righteous
visitation for national sin, help to expiate
that sin and bring the evil to an end ?

Interest in Jesus' Political Views
What would Jesus say and teach the
people on these questions ? They sent a
deputation to Him to find out. They
had a general idea that His view was not
sound, and hoped He would explicitly
commit Himself to an extreme state
ment. It were better that His statement
should be explicit and extreme rather
than mediating and ambiguous ; for in
the former case, by charging Him with
seditious teaching and proving Him
guilty, they could be rid of his irritating
activity. It is very plain that they meant
to use any anti- Roman expressions in this
way ; for their chief lever in moving

1 1 4 Christian Conduct
Pilate to His crucifixion was just the
charge of treason against Caesar. " If
thou release this man, thou art not
Caesar's friend : every one that maketh
himself a king speaketh against Caesar "
(John xix. 12).
The question, Where does Jesus stand
in politics? has not lost its interest and
importance through the change from
Roman imperial domination to modern
democratic conditions. What did Jesus
say of the ideal state ? is still being asked,
and still variously answered. The be
liever in the unrighteousness of all gov
ernment claims Jesus on his side ; and
the advocate of the strict authoritative
organization of human society, with the
definite commission of authority from
above into the hands of rulers, asserts
that his view is inevitably deduced from
the principles of Jesus. The one may
plead the absolute freedom which Jesus
preached for all who were imbued with
the spirit of filial love to God and

The Christian In the State 1 1 5
brotherly love to man for his side of the
case. The sons of God need no con
straints of authority. But the other may
plead the fact that Jesus recognized
Caesar as having legitimate authority
(Matt. xxii. 21).
Jesus does not theorize on the State. His
Double Relation to It
Happily, we are not concerned with
the question so far as it is a question of
theory. This may be said, however, by
way of a passing remark, that neither of
the political schools alluded to have an
unqualified right to cite Jesus as a sup
porter of their tenets. Jesus bears to
ward the state a double relation in the
sphere of conduct. As far as His own
personal actions are concerned (and let it
be remembered that He would have all
His disciples as nearly like Himself as
possible), state authority did not exist and
does not exist. That there is a govern-

116 Christian Conduct
ment at some central place in the land,
watching over all, and preserving for all
their rights and privileges, adds nothing
and takes away nothing from His char
acter. It is not meant that the safety
and the right of the Christian to live in
accordance with his Christian convictions
are not secured by an ideal state, as they
would not be where no government ex
isted ; but that as far as His conduct is
concerned it would be neither less right
eous if the state were not there, nor is
it more so because it is there.
The other side of Jesus' relation to the
state is that of the guardian of the
brother's welfare. Since humanity is not
in its ideal state, since, that is to say, there
are in it those who are "lost," it is a
part of the law of love to reduce to the
least the harm which such may do to
themselves and to their fellow-beings.
From this point of view, Jesus and His
disciples become auxiliaries, even counter
parts of the state as such. They have a

The Christian In the State 1 1 7
definite duty to perform. It belongs to
them to restrain, and, as far as possible,
to abolish the outcropping of loveless
ness. It cannot be reiterated too often that
the root and essence of all the evils from
which mankind is suffering is loveless
ness. When these evils assume outward
and glaring forms, the state interferes to
counteract them. Its work is necessarily
outward. It is none the less in the same
interest as the work of the Christian dis
ciple, and may rightfully claim his en
couragement and active support. The
state's function properly exercised curbs
and removes the excesses of that which
the Christian opposes, not simply as an
excess, but in its every stage and form —
"root and branch." The Christian,
therefore, cannot be indifferent to the
state's efforts to suppress and abolish all
open evils since he himself is aiming to
suppress and abolish not only all open but
also all secret evil.

1 1 8 Christian Conduct
The Christian Citizen
The conduct of the Christian in the
state is not then to be limited to the
mere recognition of the government as a
necessity to be outgrown. He cannot be
a mere apathetic and quiescent law-
abiding citizen. That he must be and
will be, not as a Christian but as a citizen.
As a Christian he will so act as never to
be aware from his own experience that
there are laws to obey, except perhaps
unrighteous ones. His Christianity and
his citizenship will coalesce up to this
point as a matter of course.
The Christian citizen, however, will be
much more than this. He will be a man
interested in every measure of public
welfare. He will throw himself actively
into the purification of politics. He will
endorse and support all efforts calculated
to lessen vice and to send that remnant of
it which may not be exterminated into
comparatively innocuous hiding. He

The Christian In the State 119
will sympathize with those who are strug
gling with the problems of social reform
and amelioration, and, if he be not him
self an active participant in these struggles,
he will give substantial encouragement
and financial backing to those who are.
In a word, everything that will tend
to make government thoroughly Chris
tian, everything that will tend to produce
such legislation as will raise the person of
man to a pinnacle, everything that will
lead men to regulate their relations to one
another upon the basis of fraternity,
everything that will infuse the spirit of
love into the administration of justice and
will train the citizens to recognize in each
other the image of the heavenly Father,
must call for the enthusiastic approval and
active co-operation of the disciple of Jesus
Christ. Christian Citizenship and the Christian
Nation
There is still another side to the civic

120 Christian Conduct
life of the disciple of Jesus. As the leaf
has stamped on itself the pattern of the
tree, so the individual has on himself the
pattern of the community or nation of
which he is a member. It is often said
that corporations have no souls. If this
is true, it is because the souls of the in
dividuals that make them up are in some
way defective, and their totality in the
corporation results in the lack of a cor
porate soul big enough to make its pres
ence known. One man with a great
soul has many a time made an honorable
exception to the rule by infusing his own
soul-force into its affairs. What is true
of the corporation is equally true of the
nation. A nation of true Christians could
not help being a Christian nation.
It has been said that " Christianity has
been a powerful influence in the personal
life of men, but it has failed equally to
control the commercial and political life. "
There is a large grain of truth in this
criticism, but it holds not against the ideal

The Christian In the State 121
Christianity, but against men's failure to
actualize it. Let the law of Jesus be prac
tised in its integrity and completeness by
individuals, and the result must inevitably
be a nation possessed of and controlled by
a Christian national conscience. And a
nation acting out among nations the life
which is ideally Christian will be exactly
like an individual living his faith in Christ
and his acceptance of Christ's teaching
among individuals. The next step in
the development of Christianity in the
world's history should be the appearance
of a thoroughly Christian nation to Chris
tianize international relations.
The Christian Citizen and International
Relations
All this points to the final goal for all
civic activity on the part of the disciple
of Jesus ; it is the establishment of frater
nal relations among all the races and na
tions and tribes of mankind. The disciple

122 Christian Conduct
as an individual may appear impotent be
fore such a tremendous task. But it is
as each individual disciple does what he
can towards its accomplishment that the
task will eventually be accomplished,
and the kingdoms of the world become
the kingdom of our Lord. Whatever,
therefore, makes for peace and helpful
ness in international relations, whatever
conduces to fairness, frankness and frater
nity in diplomacy, whatever diminishes
the oppression of the weaker races by the
stronger, whatever tends to the taking of
the burdens of the inferior by the supe
rior upon themselves, calls for the cor
dial approval and help of the disciple of
Jesus.

CHAPTER X
The Christian in the Family.
rHERE are no relations in life
which bring into clearer view the
beauties of a character formed
upon the basis of the principles of Jesus,
than those which center about the home.
Here, on account of the controlling pres
ence of natural affection, there is a
beginning of loving service and self-
sacrifice, even before the teaching of
Jesus has come. But here, too, there
are possibilities of a contrary tendency,
such as appear nowhere else. The re
lations are close and at the same time
123

124 Christian Conduct
compulsory. Should the natural affec
tion which is depended on to make them
healthy and helpful prove weak or fail,
the home is changed from a haven of
rest and happiness into a place of fearful
torment.

The Home a Legitimate Sphere for
Christian Love
Accordingly, the home, where the
love preached by Jesus might have ap
peared to be unnecessary, stands all the
more in urgent need of that love. For
this purer and holier love supplements the
weakness of natural affection, making it
constant and firm when it is in danger of
failing ; it sanctifies and enhances it when
sufficiently strong and imparts to all its
workings the afflatus and aroma of divinity
itself ; it takes up the fines created by the
home, adopts them into the spiritual
sphere, and fastens them on the eternal
life of God Himself. It makes God a

The Christian in the Family 1 25
constant member and witness of the ex
periences of the home. In a true though
spiritual sense, the commandment of love
erects an altar in every household that
may adopt it as its governing principle.

The Family in the Age of Jesus
It is of the highest importance, then,
to ask, How did Jesus teach His disciples
to regard the home and himself as a
member of it ? The condition of affairs
in His day did not leave Jesus the option
of speaking or keeping silence upon this
subject. The question was fairly thrust
before His attention. Among the Ro
mans, the household had ceased to be
what it once was, a sacred unity. The
moralists and poets of the age give a sad
picture of the situation. The Christian
writers of a century or two later may be
considered prejudiced in favor of another
ideal, and therefore their accounts of
family life among the heathen may have

126 Christian Conduct
to be discounted ; but the heathen philos
ophers, speaking out of the midst of the
conditions themselves, give the same pic
ture in quite as clear lines and colors.
In the nearer circle of Judaism also,
the spirit of laxity had appeared. By
adopting a liberal interpretation of the
law in Deuteronomy the rabbis had in
culcated loose views of the marriage tie,
and without theorizing on the subject,
the Jews had practically settled to the
modern day doctrine that marriage is a
civil contract. The Family a Divine Institution
Here then, at the very root of the
whole matter, Jesus found it necessary
to strike the first blow. The foundation
of His teaching is that the home is a di
vine institution, not a result of gradual
development during the course of hu
man history. If that had been the case,
there would have been a time when the
human race lived and fulfilled the will of

The Christian in the Family 127
God without the family. And there
might be a time in a different stage of
evolution in the future, when the family
should be antiquated and outlived as a
matter of convenience. This, according
to Jesus, is impossible. " He who made
them from the beginning, made them
male and female, and said, For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife ; and the
two shall become one flesh " ( Matt.
xix. 4, 5).
The origin of the home, then, is to be
traced to a direct act of God. " From the
beginning," He had a definite plan on the
subject, and it was a plan to prevail and
last as long as mankind should. That
plan involved the union of one man with
one woman. Violations of this rule,
Jesus considers as departures from the
ideal. To this His age and generation
could not interpose any objection. Ju
daism had settled down to the general
conclusion that polygamy should be

128 Christian Conduct
abandoned. With very few exceptions,
no Israelite took advantage of the prece
dents given in the earlier history of the
Old Testament in favor of polygamy.
Jesus and Divorce
There was, however, another practice
which amounted to virtual polygamy,
/. e., easy divorce. The ancients had
entered into legalized relations with more
than one wife at the same time ; the men
of Jesus' age substituted for this, separa
tion from one wife upon slight grounds
and union with another. The appear
ance and responsibility of a polygamous
household were avoided ; but the essential
principle of the family as a divine ordinance
headed by one man and one woman, was
effectually set at nought. The difference
between the ancients and the contempo
raries of Jesus was simply that the former
did not put away one wife in order to
take another, and the latter did. Jesus,-

The Christian in the Family 129
of course, could not but denounce the
practice. " Everyone that putteth away
his wife and marrieth another commit-
teth adultery, and he that marrieth one
that is put away from a husband commit-
teth adultery " (Luke xvi. 18 ; Matt. v.
32). .Marriage was according to Jesus a life
long union. Divorce was not to be
thought of as included in this idea.
Neither state nor church could in the
strict sense grant a divorce. The only
person or persons that could accomplish
the breaking of the tie were the parties
united in marriage, and they could not
do so except by a heinous sin against the
law of God. A man " could put away
his wife for the cause of fornication only "
(Matt. xix. 9), which means that putting
away is simply a testimony against the
sin committed, a declaration that the tie
is broken. It is not divorce that breaks
up the marriage relation, but the sin
which precedes and furnishes ground for

130 Christian Conduct
it. The separation which takes place
and which may be called by the name of
divorce, or any other, is nothing more
than the recognition of the fact that the
bond has been broken. Divorce of an
innocent nature, /. e., divorce out of which
both parties emerge without sin before
God and men is unthinkable in the ideal
of Jesus.
The theory underlying this view seems
to be that when marriage is constituted
as an ordinance of God, it results in the
creation of a new unity, which is a new
organism. That organism cannot be
destroyed without offence to God any
more than a living human being can be
arbitrarily put to death. But when by a
transgression of this law it has been de
stroyed, as there are two parties constitut
ing it, the party that is blameless has the
right to have the rupture declared and
thus secure freedom.
He or she has this right. Jesus does
not, however, through His teaching make

The Christian in the Family 131
it obligatory on them to use it. It is a
permissive rather than a mandatory law.
In a case where the ground of divorce
recognized by Jesus as the only valid one
exists, and the aggrieved party is perf ecdy
satisfied that the sin has been sincerely
repented of, and desires to extend for
giveness and a continuation of the old re
lation, there is nothing in what Jesus has
said to forbid. Rather the opposite ; the
law of forgiveness and reconciliation
would dictate, or at any rate encourage,
this course.
When Marriage May Not Be Entered
This element of voluntariness in the
matter applies with equal force to the
whole subject of marriage. It is not ob
ligatory to marry. Rather than do so,
and violate the law of the Kingdom,
Jesus would have men made " eunuchs "
for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven
(Matt. xix. 12). The emphasis here is
upon the phrase " Kingdom of heaven."

132 Christian Conduct
The disciples had objected to His law re
garding marriage, that it made it prefer
able not to marry. He grants the posi
tion that it is better at times not to marry,
but explains that the ground for such
conduct should not be the impossibility
of dissolving the tie without sin, nor the
obligation to abide perpetually in the
covenant relationship, but other and
higher reasons. There are some who
by birth and natural endowment are shut
out to a single life. There are others
whom the exigencies of human affairs
compel to the same state. " They are
made eunuchs of men." There is a third
class consisting of those who voluntarily
adopt this mode of life " for the King
dom of heaven's sake. " In all cases, but
especially the last, the law of fraternal
love dictates this course.
Purity an Inner Quality
The same law of fraternal love guards
individuals against those offences which

The Christian in the Family 133
without breaking the marriage bond
directly, relax and lower this high ideal,
preached by Jesus. It is not necessary
that the act of adultery should have been
performed ; not even the act of fornica
tion, which may not involve an attack
upon the sanctity of a particular family ;
it is enough that the lustful thought
should have been encouraged in the
heart to call for the condemnation of
Jesus (Matt. v. 28).
Relations within the Home
The regulation of the relations of the
various members of the household to one
another and the prescription of their re
spective duties was not within the scope
of the mission of Jesus. On this matter,
as on all other matters of detail, He al
lowed the principles He taught to work
out their own practical bearings. It was
enough that the divine origin, the sacred
character and the lifelong duration of the
social bond of the family should be held

134 Christian Conduct
before the eye. If this was appreciated,
it could not but result in the engendering
of the constitutive power of love. Nay,
it must do more than that ; it must foster
and develop this motive by the healthy
result of the ideally organized household.
And where love rules, the prescription of
duties to husbands towards their wives, or
to wives towards their husbands ; to chil
dren towards their parents and to parents x
towards their children, to brothers and sis
ters towards one another, would be a work
of supererogation. Such' flagrant viola
tions of duty as that rebuked in Mark
vii. 10-13, would be absolutely impossible.
Jesus and Woman
The attitude of Jesus towards the ques
tion of woman's position in society is left
in the sources in such an indefinite form
that diametrically opposite views re
garding it have been propounded. On
the one side it has been said that Jesus
treated women as the rest of the Jews of

The Christian in the Family 1 35
His day did ; and this as a natural conse
quence of His acceptance of the Old
Testament system and its generally low
view of woman. Hence His teaching,
had He cared to give it explicitiy, would
not have been far above the level of that
of His contemporaries.
On the other hand, all that has gone
towards the emancipation and elevation
of woman to the position of equality with
her brother man has been read into His
teaching. The truth is that Jesus said
nothing explicitly ; but His personal atti
tude towards women, while little differ
ent perhaps outwardly from that of His
contemporaries, was in spirit exactly the
opposite, and by placing love and frater
nity at the center of the whole circle of
human activity, He set in motion the so
cial forces that were destined inevitably
to bring about a complete revolution and
lead to the later developments on this
point.

CHAPTER XI
The Christian in Business.
71 y^UCH of what Jesus says on busi-
ff_l ness affairs appears to be in
glaring contradiction with the
rules and practices of modern Christen
dom. And perhaps upon the whole
there is no department of human activity
into which it has been more difficult to
admit His influence than the industrial
and commercial world. If His precepts
were adhered to with even ordinary re
gard to their superficial sense, present-
day commerce and finance would have
to be radically reorganized.
136

The Christian in Business 137
General Character of Jesus Teaching on
Business
But it is quite possible on the other
hand to take these utterances of Jesus so
literally that they could not possibly be
put into execution as rules of conduct.
" Give to him that asketh of thee, and
of him that taketh away thy goods, ask
them not again." How long would a
man be in position to carry on business
transactions if he acted that out literally ?
The fact is, that in this matter, as in
the teachings regarding apparent non-
resistance to evil, Jesus is expressing em
phatically and impressively the cardinal
law of love. Philanthropy and business
are ordinarily supposed to be at the op
posite poles of the sphere. " You would
not expect a philanthropist to be a prac
tical man," says one who claims to repre
sent the latter type. And as Jesus' pre
dominant teaching had a philanthropic
tendency and result, even though it may

138 Christian Conduct
not come under that misused name as
commonly understood, it has occasionally
been charged with being visionary. But
Jesus is not a philanthropist of the type
found in works of fiction. If He does lay
stress on the altruistic side of all relations,
it is because men in His day, like men in
all ages, have more need of being driven
to see these than the selfish sides of the
same relations.
In fact there is that in business pursuits
which fosters and nourishes the selfish
instincts. " Not in the business for love,"
is a colloquialism showing how com
pletely business and love are supposed to
be separated from one another and irrec
oncilable in the same person. Men are
willing to be benevolent, but they do not
care to have their benevolence mixed
with their business. It is these condi
tions, the same in His day as now, that
determined the form of Jesus' expres
sions on this subject. But after we
realize that in order to reach His thought

The Christian in Business 139
we must seize upon the central principle,
and not upon the accidental and passing
features of the way He expressed it, we
shall have little trouble in seeing here, too,
the one dominant idea of love to men as
men to be the ruling principle of the
conduct prescribed by Jesus.
/ Jesus and the Question of Property
Here, for instance, is the question : Is
the disciple of Jesus permitted to hold
property ? The answer is, Only if he
can do so consistently with the law of
love. What a man is, is of more impor
tance than what he has or does. " A
man's life consisteth not in the abundance
of the things which he possesseth."
Jesus did not give every rich man that
came to Him the command to go and
sell all that he had and to distribute unto
the poor (Luke xviii. 22). In the case
in which He did give this command, the
event showed that that was precisely
what the young man needed to be told ;

140 Christian Conduct
without that self-stripping and self-con
secration, for him it was impossible to
attain Christ's condition for holding
wealth. Only as he was willing to re
nounce all, would he have proven him
self to possess the state of mind and heart
which would make him competent to
use it rightly.
Upon this condition, however, /. e., of
the ability to make proper use of prop
erty, Jesus bases the tacit but unquestion
able recognition of the right to acquire
and hold it. " Sell that ye have and give
alms " (Luke xii. 33), He says. But how
can one sell what he does not have a
right to own or use ? Zacchaeus was con
verted from an extortioner to a just man,
and declared that he would make restitu
tion of what he had unjustly taken.
Jesus did not require him to give up
everything. Among His friends there
were persons who owned houses, like
the family at Bethany ( John xii. 1-5),
also Peter (Matt. viii. 14), and means out

The Christian in Business 141
of which they ministered to him (Luke
viii. 3). He nowhere requires them to
relinquish their hold on these things. In
His parables, He repeatedly bases His
moral teachings upon the right use of
money. The word " talent " has come to
be so generally understood in the sense of
a natural gift or power, that we often for
get its primary meaning of a unit of
money (Matt. xxv. 14-30 ; Luke xix.
13-27 ; xvi. 1-13 ; xii. 16-31).
/ Spiritual Perils of Wealth
But if the acquisition of wealth is in
itself right and necessary, the temptations
and dangers that beset it are both nu
merous and serious. So are the dangers
attending the use of money. The first
and most obvious of these is the insidious
transference of wealth from the place of
a means to that of an end of life. Where
this takes place, and it does take place in
an incredibly large proportion of in
stances, the sin of covetousness has made

142 Christian Conduct
its appearance full-fledged, and against
covetousness Jesus has a definite warning
to give. "Take heed, and beware of
covetousness." This is what makes riches
such a hindrance in the effort to enter
the kingdom of heaven. " How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the
kingdom of God " (Luke xviii. 25).
Character above all Wealth
If riches are always to be regarded as
a means towards an end, and not an end
in themselves, the slightest blemish pro
duced in the soul in the process of their
acquisition and use is an incalculable loss.
" What shall a man give in exchange for
his soul?" must not be interpreted too
narrowly as referring simply to the total
loss of a person in eternity, but to all
weakenings and pollutions of the spiritual
life, to all sacrifice of spiritual interest,
for mere material advantage in the life
that now is. No amount of money can
pay for a blot on character.

The Christian in Business 143
The Right Use of Wealth
But this is a negative conclusion. Its
converse in the positive form is quite as
true and even more urgent. Wealth
must be transformed into manhood if it
shall serve its true and lawful purpose.
Otherwise, even though not abused, it is
no better than rubbish. It can be trans
muted into the pure gold of manhood
by being used in the expression of love '
or in the relief of distress and want.
Both of these uses are perfectly legiti
mate. Ordinarily, the latter is given the
preference. Its propriety is, of course,
more obvious. But there are circum
stances when the mere expression of
well-placed sentiment would rightfully
claim precedence. When they mur
mured because in the house of Simon
the leper at Bethany a woman poured
upon His head the precious ointment
from the alabaster cruse (Matt. xxvi. 7).
Jesus bade them not interfere with her,

144 Christian Conduct
and declared her act to be a good work ;
it expressed her devotion.
Jesus' Wholesome Reticence on Details.
It is becoming clearer as the modern
industrial evolution is rapidly presenting
the new phases of the problem of em
ployment, that there was a supreme wis
dom in the silence with which Jesus
treats the relations of the laboring men
of His day to their rich employers. Had
He pronounced judgment upon the facts
as existing in His day, it would have been
an easy matter to plead that the changed
conditions of modern life rendered His
judgments inapplicable and therefore val
ueless. As it is, He effectively reaches
all conditions of all ages by laying down
fundamental principles whose value and
applicability can never be outgrown.
Capitalist and laboring man will have
no difficulty in solving their problems, if
they will only go to Jesus and learn
from Him His law of love. There is no

The Christian in Business 145
crying evil in the situation which is not
provided for by some application of that
law. Were the law perfectly obeyed, dis
honesty either on a large scale or on a
small scale would utterly disappear. So
would cruelty and the sacrifice of purity
and honor. To diminish one's respect
for truth, to come out less kind and con
siderate from a business transaction for
the sake of any amount of material gain,
would be impossible.
J

CHAPTER XII
The Christian in the Church
JESUS not only outlined the ideal
which His followers should realize
in the world, but He also provided
a social organization which should enact
and enforce His ideals. The question,
did He do this in a formal and explicit
manner need not detain us. It is enough
that He gathered about Himself a band
of associates and followers, and that out
of that band there has arisen a large com
munity, held together by peculiar ties ;
it is enough that the Church exists as the
visible body of those who take Jesus
146

The Christian in the Church 147
Christ as their final authority on all
things. That fact must have inevitable
bearings on the conduct of those who
constitute the community. And if the
relations of the members of the church
to one another are in principle the rela
tions which the members of the original
band of His intimate followers sustained
to one another, His instructions to these
are in a sense the charter and constitution
of the church of the ages succeeding.
The Law of Love Adapted to the New
Community
But did not He give the same law of
love to His disciples to govern them in
their relations with one another as well
as to govern them in their conduct and
relations to the world ? He undoubtedly
did. Yet this law works into varying ex
pressions as it operates upon different
classes of relationships, just as the same
sunshine operates differently as it falls on
water or on the germ-laden soil in the

148 Christian Conduct
spring time ; the one it transforms into
vapor and scatters abroad, the other it
helps to integrate the forces imbedded in
it and push them to the surface in the
form of organized living, growing plants.
Let us look at the working of the law
of love within the community of those
who with one accord put themselves un
der its sway and undertake to harmonize
their conduct to its requirements. The
first visible result is that these at once rec
ognize in each other children of the same
heavenly Father. They are " brethren."
That is what they called each other in
the earliest days. And it was not a name
which they devised for themselves, though
they might have done so in the circum
stances, but one which they took in pur
suance of His desire and teaching. " And
all ye are brethren " (Matt. xiii. 8). And
they are His brethren ( John xx 17 ;
Luke viii. 21) ; but if His brethren, could
they be anything else than brethren to
one another ?

The Christian in the Church 1 49
The Love of the Brethren.
From the recognition of the relation
ships there naturally sprang a peculiar af
fection, that of brotherly love. It has
already been remarked (p. 46.) that Chris
tian love must be all-comprehensive ; but
all-comprehensiveness is by no means in
consistent with discrimination. To love
one's enemies is just as much a Christian
duty as to love one's friends. But it is as
impossible to bestow the same kind of af
fection alike on friends and enemies as it
is to think of one's enemies as friends and
of friends as enemies. Neither the prin
ciple nor the example of Jesus points to
a blotting out of all distinctions and the
dealing out of affection to all in equal
measure and of identical kind. Every
special relationship creates a special bond
whose strength and value depend upon
the conditions that call it forth.
The relationship created by community
of life and interest in the Kingdom of God

150 Christian Conduct
engenders a unique bond. Here the con
ditions for intimacy are so favorable that
the love for one another of those who
recognize in each other the special signs
of loyalty to a common Master takes a
new name. The early Christians called
it the "love of the brethren" (<j>L\a£e\<f>ia).
Its distinctive sign was its resemblance to
the love which Christ displayed for His
followers. 1 " A new commandment I
give unto you, that ye love one another ;
even as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another. By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love
one to another " (John xiii. 34, 35).
Distinctive Signs of Brotherly Love
What, then, was the character of His
love to them ? How did it differ from
other forms of love ? First of all, it was
spontaneous and not responsive. He
first loved them because His Father in
heaven wished to have them made the
recipients of a special blessing. His

The Christian in the Church 151
love sprang not from the discovery of
any ground or conditions in them. It
had its roots in the mere fact that they
were to enjoy the privileges of the chil
dren of God. That was sufficient. So
the Christian must love those who bear
the name of Christ before they have
done anything to show that they merit
that love. The mere fact that they have
identified themselves with the cause and
name of Christ should of itself be suffi
cient as an appeal to the Christian's heart,
to rouse in him the love of the brethren.
If this love shall be like Christ's, how
ever, it must, further, be a self-denying
love. It is easy to love when it costs
nothing. It is easier to love when love
produces satisfaction. Such love, how
ever, is more or less selfish. It is not so
easy to love when sacrifice of time and
comfort and life are sure to follow. But
that is the type of love that Christ leaves
as an example to His followers. " As I
have loved you."

152 Christian Conduct
Duties of Christian Brotherhood : Care for
the Brother s Soul
The duties which grow out of broth
erly love are pointed out quite clearly.
One of them is to do all that it is possible
towards helping the brother in the right
path. A case is supposed : If a brother
offend, the first duty is to give him an
opportunity in a private interview to cor
rect his offence. If this should prove in
sufficient, a second and more earnest
effort must be made. Before a limited
number of witnesses, he should lovingly
be called upon to recognize and make
amends for his fault. But if this also
prove a failure, a third and more im
pressive appeal to his conscience should
be made before the whole body of those
who love Christ, the Church. If he
prove intractable to all these influences,
then, and only then, may one cease to
regard him as a brother in Christ. All
this is evidently intended rather to secure

The Christian in the Church 153
the rescue of the sinning brother than to
guarantee the rendering of justice to the
one sinned against. It is rather the per
formance of the duty of guardianship
than that of the vindication of law.
77. Mutual Service
In a similar strain is the principle of
mutual service in the organization of be
lievers. An organization must have offi
cers and regulations subordinating some
to the authority of others. While this
is a necessity, those who are ambitious to
fill the places of office in the church
should see that their ambition is rooted
in the desire to serve not in the love of
authority. The lust for dominion is es
sentially a non-Christian sentiment. " Ye
know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord
it over them, and their great ones exer
cise authority over them. Not so shall
it be among you ; but whosoever would
become great among you shall be your
minister ; and whosoever would be first

154 Christian Conduct
among you shall be your servant " (Matt.
xx. 25-27 ; also Matt, xxiii. 8-10, " Be
ye not called Rabbi," etc.). In other
words, mutual helpfulness is the distin
guishing badge of the disciples in their re
lations with one another as disciples. Of
course, essentially, the disciple's conduct
towards all men, even those without the
circle to which he belongs, should be
one of self-sacrificing service. The dif
ference between his attitude towards
men at large and his attitude towards his
fellow-disciples is simply that with ref
erence to the latter, in the nature of
the case, a tenderer feeling pervades,
and an expectation of responsiveness
exists. 777. Submission to the Brethren in Love
For if it is incumbent to exercise a
certain watchful care over those who,
like him, bear the name of Christ, it is
also incumbent on him to receive from
his brethren the word of exhortation and

The Christian in the Church 155
admonition with fraternal trust in the
underlying love that prompts it.
Finally, the Christian owes a duty to
the Church as a whole. He must con
tribute all the service of which he is ca
pable towards its helpful life and expan
sion. It is his part to preserve it from
all corruption and make it the most
effective vehicle towards the carrying out
of Christ's desire to conquer the world
and bring it into subjection to God.
Jesus and Public Worship
Of worship, whether in the Church
or apart from its public function, Jesus
has little to say. It was a part of that
external sphere whose exact forms al
ways depend on changing conditions and
circumstances. Though He is not any
where recorded to have offered sacrifices
at the Temple, or fasted, He does not
forbid others from doing so. On the
contrary, He distinctly implies that life
would furnish emergencies for the ex-

156 Christian Conduct
pression of the spirit in fasting and self-
denial. He does, however, see and warn
against the danger of hypocrisy in such
matters. When religious practices are
actuated not by the impulse to express
the content of the heart, but by the de
sire for ostentation or by worse motives,
His denunciation of them is unmeasured.
On the other hand, nothing exceeds in
its cordiality and warmth His commenda
tion of simple acts of religious service
which truly represent a healthy spiritual
condition. The widow with her two
mites stands on a vastly higher plain than
all those who out of their abundance had
cast into the treasury their incomparably
larger offerings. He judged them all
not by what they gave, but by what they
had left. They had practically as much
as before they made their contributions.
Therefore, she excelled them.
But at this point, Christian conduct
once more ceases to be a mere matter of
external relationships and passes into the

The Christian in the Church 157
realm of the inner life. It issues in the
love of God and His Kingdom, runs the
whole circle of earthly relationships and
returns to the love for God and man,
which will not allow its possessor to re
main satisfied with his own assured bless
edness, but is destined to lead him to
communicate the good he has to others
as widely as possible.

CHAPTER XIII
Summary.
/T will be unnecessary, after what has
been said, to call special attention to
the absolute uniqueness of the ethi
cal teaching of Jesus. It differs from
every other system the world has ever
seen. Even what is called Christian
ethics must not be mistaken for Jesus'
idea of righteousness. Christian ethics
is an interpretation of the thought of
Jesus ; and, like all interpretations, it is
only an approximation. Christian ethics
is a growing science. It grows by the
addition through experience of the new
1 58

Summary 1 59
insight gained into the ideal at its core.
" If any man willeth to do His will, he
shall know of the teaching." As Chris
tians earnestly accept and practice the
principles of Jesus, they discover more
and more of the divine mind in them.
Meantime, the ideal remains always in
advance of the actual, whether that actual
be embodied in a theoretical statement
of what conduct should be, or in a prac
tical expression of conduct in life.
1 The chief features of Jesus' ideal of
conduct may be summed up in the fol
lowing :
1. Jesus shows conduct as the result
of a vital inner force. Conduct may be
produced mechanically, as when certain
unvarying rules are blindly obeyed. It
may be produced dynamically as when
some motive, be it selfish or altruistic,
actuates it ; but it may be the result of a
vital unifying, organizing and integrating
energy. In the ideal of Jesus it is this,
and the force which produces it is love.

160 Christian Conduct
2. Jesus shows conduct to be a matter
of divine concern. Its roots and its issue
are in eternity. No one who appreciates
the thought of the Master can live as if
what he did was his own business only.
Or that it began and ended in this earthly
existence. The picture of a great judg
ment and reward according to the deeds
done in the body is necessary to fill out
Jesus' idea of conduct as a whole.
3. Jesus not only tells what conduct
should be, but lives it; and He proves
thereby that it is no mere vision in the
clouds which cannot be brought down to
earth. But through this same feature of
it, He shows the perfection of the ideal.
Perfection includes the best quality in
the highest quantity and with absolute
proportion and harmony of parts. The
revelation of perfection in Jesus shows
the disciple what he ought to do, what
he can do, but what he has not done ;
it thus drives him to seek for his peace
of mind and his hope of blessedness not

Summary 161
in the sphere of outward conduct, but
in the inner life of his relation with the
Father. 4. Jesus gives a true starting-point and
standard for conduct in a just and sane
self-regard. Complete self-regard be
gins with self-discovery, proceeds with
self-study and self-mastery, rises to self-
esteem and culminates in self-culture,
including self-development and self-
realization. 5. Jesus unifies and universalizes the
social principle in conduct. Modern
science, through the spectroscope, re
veals the fact that the same ultimate ele
ments and the same forces are found
throughout the whole universe. Science
appears indeed to be coming to the con
clusion that all the various forces are
forms of but one energy, (Jesus antici
pates this conclusion of physical science
in the moral world. He posits at the
centre of all moral action the one law of
love. Whether in the state, in society,
K

1 62 Christian Conduct
in the home, in commerce and industry
or in the church, the one normal motive
for action is love.
6. Finally, Jesus shows the goal of all
conduct to be assimilation to the one
absolute and ultimate personality, the
heavenly Father. "Ye therefore shall
be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect." Man was made in the image
of God, and to possess this image in per
fection is the highest achievement of his
moral activities.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS
A
Adaptation in teaching, 29, 30.
Alexandrian psychology, 16.
Altruism, 65, 70.
Am Haaretz, 21.
Anger, 99, 108.
Arnold, Matthew, 10. B
Beatitudes, 98.
Body, care for, 81 ff.
Briggs, 4.
Brotherhood of Disciples, 148.
leads to mutual care, 152.
mutual service, 153.
submission to one another, 154.
Buddha, 38. C
Caesar's authority, 115.
Cambridge Ms. of Gospels, 95, 96. 163

164 Index of Subjects
Chastity, 132, 133.
Church, founded by Jesus, 146.
Commercial relations, 136 f.
Conduct, its importance, 10.
and life, 12, 84, 156.
and religion, 17.
Confucius, 38.
Conscience, 25. D
Decalogue, 32, 39, 90.
Divorce, Jesus on, 128. E
Edersheim, 88 n.
Epicureans, 39.
Essenes, 16.
Ethics, Christian, 158.
and psychology, 14.
of the Old Testament, 31, 32, 44,
of Paganism, 37 ff.
of Pharisees, 47 ff. F
Family of divine origin, 126, 127.
Fatherhood of God, 54.
Fourth Gospel, problem of, 7.

Index of Subjects 165
G
Genuineness of sayings of Jesus, 3.
Gibbon, 61 n.
Golden rule, 60.
originality of, 62.
pre-Christian forms, 61.
Gospel criticism, 1 ff.
Government, functions of, 116.
Grenfell & Hunt, 5. H
Hedge of the law, 49.
Hillel, 62.
Home relations in Jesus' day, 125.
ideal relations in, 133.
Hyde, W. D., 39. I
Immortality, 18.
Intuitional ethics, 24. J
Josephus, 16 n.
Julicher, 5. K
Kant, 65.
Kingdom of God, 8, 41, 81, 94, 132, 149, 157.

1 66 Index of Subjects
L
Legge, 6 1.
Lex talionis, ioo.
Love, the law of, 9, 44, 71.
root of all morality, 55, 117.
concretely illustrated, 97.
many-sided, no.
has a sphere in the home, 124.
in business life, 143.
adapted to the Church, 147.
Love of the brethren, 149, 150.
its distinctive signs, 150 ff.
M
Marriage, 129, 130, 132.
Morality, taught by Jesus, 55, 56.
inwardness of, 56.
freedom, 57.
comprehensiveness, 58.
Mutualism, 64, 70. N
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 73.
Non-resistance of evil, 103. O
Offences, 98.

Index of Subjects 167
Old Testament ethics, 31, 32, 44.
Old Testament Theology, 40, 41.
view of the Sabbath, 86.
P
Pagan ethics, 37 ff.
Parables, Good Samaritan, 46.
Prodigal, 75.
Personality supreme, 119, 142.
Pharisaic ethics, 47 ff.
Pharisee, 22, 52, 57.
Philo, views of the origin of man, 16.
Politics, Jesus' attitude towards, 113, 114.
Prophets, 35, 40, 41.
Property, Jesus' teaching on, 139.
R
Retaliation, 99.
Righteousness, 43. of God, 53. S
Sabbath, the, 85 ff.
adaptability, 91.
change of method of observance, 92,
man's need of, 89.
means of culture, 85.

1 68 Index of Subjects
Sabbath, means of holiness, 86.
Old Testament law of, 86.
Rabbinical legislation, 87.
Sadducees, 18.
Schmiedel, 2.
Self, love of, 72 ff.
provided for in nature, 72, 73.
knowledge of, 74 ff.
mastery of, 78 ff.
Sermon on the Mount, 97, 98.
Shammai, 62.
Socrates, 38.
Stoics, 38.
Synoptic problem, 6.

Utilitarianism, 22.

U

W

Wealth, its perils, 141.
right use of, 143.
subordinate to character, 142.
Wellhausen, 36.
Wernle, 5.
Westcott, 96.
Widow with two mites, 156.

Index of Subjects 169
Wisdom, form of teaching, 4.
Woman, Jesus' views of her position, 134 f.
Worship, 155. Z
Zacchaeus, conversion of, 140.

INDEX OF TEXTS.

Matthew v. 20

47

Matthew xx. 25

22

22

108

27

154

28

J33

xxii. 21

"5

29

80

32

*9

32

129

35,39

45,54

39 ff.

103

xxiii. 4

52

44

60

8

10

48

26

xxv. 14—30

141

vi. 25 ff.

82

xxvi. 7

J43

33

53

vii. 12

60

Mark ii. 26 ff.

89

viii. 14

140

27. 28

89

x. 28 ff.

15, 23

vii. 8-13

48

xii. n ff.

89

10-13

*34

xiii. 8

148

x. 45

22

xvi. 26

80

xviii. 21
99
Luke vi. 4
96
xix. 4, 5
127
9
89
9
129
viii. 21
148
12
73, I3I
x. 25
46
29
23
xi. 46
26
170
Index of Texts

171

Luke xii. 4
16-31
33
xiii. 3, 14
xvi. 1— 13
18
xviii. 22
25
xix. 13—27
John vi. 63
viii. 22
x. 10
xii. 1-5

15
141 140 89
141129 139
142 141105 89 n
140

Xlll.

passim

in

34, 35

150

xvi.

33

23

xvii.

4

18

xviii.

22, 23

104

xix.

12

114

XX.

*7

148

1 Timothy vi. 15 19

1 Peter ii. 22, 23 27

Hebrews i. 1

42