Coi2cernii2g Wealth
Ceroid D. tictiver

•itaiuE-^MVEiasirinf-

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
Estate of
The Reverend Orville A. Petty

The Teachings of Jesus
Concerning Wealth

The Teachings of Jesus
Concerning Wealth

By
GERALD D. HEUVER
With Introhuction
Br HERRICK JOHNSON, D. D.

1

: * p'-A M

Chicago New York Toronto i
Fleming H. Revell Company-
London and Edinburgh
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rxi9

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbott, Lyman, "Christianity and Social Problems."
Chalmers, Thos., "Christian and Economic Polity of
a Nation, with Especial Refer
ence to the Large Towns."
"Rich and Poor in the New Testa
ment."
"Social Aspects of Christianity."
"The World as a Subject of Re
demption."
Gladden, Washington, "Applied Christianity."

Cone, Orello,
Eli, Richard F.,
Freemantle, Canon,

Gore, Charles,
Harnack, A.,
Herron, G.,
Herron, G.,
Hill, D. J.,
Hobson, J. A.,

Hodges, George,
Holtzman, H.,
Holtzman, O.,
James, Henry,
Kuyper, A.,
Laveleye, E.,

"The Social Doctrine of the Sermon
on the Mount."
"What is Christianity?" (Pp.79-102.)
"The Message of Jesus to Men of
Wealth."
"The New Redemption."
"Social Aspects of Christianity."
"The Social Philosophy of the Char
ity Organization Society." (On
Matt. v. 42.)
"The Heresy of Cain."
"Die ersten Christen und die So-
ziale Frage."
"Jesus Christus und das Gemein-
schaft Leben der Menschen."
"Society of the Redeemed Form of
Man."
"DeChristus ende SocialeNooden."
"Primitive Christianity."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leslie, Stephen,
Mathews, Shailer,
Maurice, F. D.,
Nathusius, von. M.,

Nauman,Newton, Heber,
Nitti,
Peabody, F.,

Rogge, C,
Root, T.,
Todt, R.,

Uhlhorn, G.,
Weiszacker,
Wendt, H. H.,

Westcott,

"Social Rights and Duties."
"The Social Teaching of Jesus."
"Moral and Metaphysical Philos
ophy." (Vol. II.)
"Die Mitarbeid der Kirche an der
Losung der Sozialen Frage."
Pp. 132-158.
"Was heist Christlich Sozial."
"Social Studies."
"Catholic Socialism."
"Jesus Christ and the Social Ques
tion."
"Der irdische Besitz im Neuen Tes
tament."
"The Profit of the Many."
"Der radikale deutsche Sozialis-
mus und die Christliche Gesell-
schaft." (Pp. 395-483-)
"Christian Charity in the Ancient
Church."
"The Apostolic Age." (Pp. 52 sg.)
"Das Eigentum nach Christlicher
Beurteilung." (Evang. soz. Kon-
gress, 1897.)
"Social Aspects of Christianity."

PREFACE
This little volume is part of a thesis submitted to
the Divinity Faculty of the University of Chicago in
candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
As originally submitted, it contained also a study of
the teachings of the apostles and the early fathers.
The omission of this from the present publication is
due to the author's desire to study it more thor
oughly. On the basis of investigations already made,
however, he feels justified in saying that the interpre
tation of the teaching of Jesus by the earlier fathers
is in substantial accord with that set forth in this
treatise. Certainly not until the latter part of the
third century do divergent interpretations appear.
The thesis is offered to the public in the belief
that there is still room and need for a further expo
sition of the subject of which it treats. The prob
lems of property are very perplexing, and their
solution is vital to national welfare. Any help in it
that might be had from Jesus, the Christian world
should eagerly receive.
Thus far the attitude of Jesus to property has
not to any great extent received the attention of
specialists in English-speaking countries. The dis
cussions of the subject by Professor F. G. Peabody,
in his book "Jesus Christ and the Social Question,"

4 PREFACE
by Professor Shailer Mathews, in his "Social Teach
ing of Jesus," and by Dr. E. T. Root, in his work,
"The Profit of the Many," are all very helpful, but
are rather brief. The very able work by Dr. Chris
tian Rogge, "Der irdische Besitz im Neuen Testa
ment, ' ' the more popular discussion of the subject by
Dr. Abraham Kuyper in his monograph, ' ' De Christus
en de Sociale Nooden," and the recent publication
by Professor O. Holtzman, "Jesus Christus und
das Gemeinschaf t Leben der Menschen, ' ' are not
generally accessible to English readers.
The treatise is almost wholly based upon original
sources of information. This explains the scarcity
of its references to the modern authorities. A re
arrangement of its material since its acceptance as a
thesis has been made in order to make it more read
able. Instead of retaining the historic it has been
given a topical form.
The author desires to acknowledge his indebted
ness to Dr. Christian Rogge, whose work, especially
where it touches on questions of criticism, is as
sagacious as it is original. He also wishes to ex
press his obligation to Professors E. D. Burton and
Shailer Mathews, whose suggestions and criticisms
he found invaluable.
That the discussion in the treatise may cast some
light upon the subject in hand, and that its deficien
cies and errors may stimulate others to write more
masterfully on it, is the sincere hope of the author.

INTRODUCTION
Unto what is the kingdom of God like? It is
"not eating and drinking." It does not consist in
externalities. It is "righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost." It is inwardness, not out
wardness. It is like unto leaven hid in a great
measure of meal. But the kingdom must come to
visibility, just as the leaven does. If the leaven
stay hid in the meal, it is not leaven. If the king
dom do not come to outwardness, it has no inward
ness. "In the world, yet not of the world" — this is
the perpetual fact of the kingdom of heaven; not con
forming to the world, but transforming it — this is
the kingdom's law of operation.
Now, to help keep these balances and to help
obey this law, it must be an immeasurable advan
tage to get "back to Christ" in this historic sense,
that we view Christ as He actually lived among men
day by day; that we get Him before the mind in the
precise setting of His time; that we see just what
conditions — social, ceremonial, civic, and personal —
He daily faced, and how He met those conditions.
Was He a theorist, exploiting views so far away
from the realities or possibilities of life, that He was
utterly unpractical and impracticable? Was He a

INTRODUCTION

socialist, so radical in His social and economic views
as to threaten the disruption of the family and of
society? Was He a revolutionist, bent on the over
throw of established government, and the destruction
of the states? Or did He utterly ignore social con
ditions, in His supreme purpose to establish a king
dom? Did He have nothing whatever to say as to
the disposition to be made of wealth? Did He lay
down specific rules of conduct in connection with
civic, monetary, and social matters? Or did He
enunciate broad, fundamental principles for guid
ance not only in spiritual concerns, but in things
pertaining to society and civil government? In fine,
did Christ teach anything concerning social, eco
nomic, and property questions that can be used,
and that should be used, to make God's kingdom
come now and here, in the midst of the business and
the pleasure of this work-a-day world, as well as
hereafter in the glories and activities of the life of
heaven? The following pages are an attempted answer to
these questions so far as they apply to the posses
sion, accumulation, and use of riches. They set
forth "the teachings of Jesus concerning wealth."
They are far and away the most intensely realistic
presentation of the subject within my knowledge;
for, combined with an evident familiarity with the
sources, and a quite, thorough study of the field,
and a judicial poise in treating of controverted points

INTRODUCTION

of exegesis, and of significant "variations between
the Gospels, ' ' there is a rare simplicity and lucidity of
style, that lets the reader see the realities of Pales
tinian conditions, the failure of the Jewish Church
to improve the people's social state, the Humani-
tarianism of a Righteous Remnant in the days of
Jesus, and Christ's walk and talk with men, very
much as if he were an eye-witness to the scenes and
events described, and a hearer of the very words of
the divine teacher.
The reader is likely to rise from the reading of
these pages, convinced of three things, viz.: that
"Jesus was tremendously interested in people's eco
nomic conditions"; that "He sought to better
people's material conditions by. making the people
themselves better"; and that He "planned to make
men better through the agency of the Church." It
will thus be seen that though Jesus "thought in
ages," He thought also for the man of His time;
that though He exalted the individual He glorified
society; that though His kingdom is "not of this
world," it is the most real thing this world holds;
that though He claimed absolute priority in, and
lordship over, every affection of heart and home, He
gave to home and love and marriage their sweetest
amenities and sanctities; and that though the only
true riches are the riches of God, worldly wealth can
be put to great uses in helping God's kingdom
come. Herrick Johnson.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Economic Advantages in Palestine
in the Days of Jesus - - ii
II. The Unhappy Condition of the Pales
tinian People in the Days of Jesus - 25
III. The Humanitarian Laws and Teach
ings of the Old Testament - 43
IV. The Failure of the Jewish Church in
Jesus' Day to Improve the People's
Social Condition - 57
•» V. The Humanitarianism of a Righteous
Remnant in the Days of Jesus - 77
VI. The Variations between the Gospels
Touching Jesus' Teaching on Wealth 91
VII. The Purpose of Jesus' Ministry - 109
VIII. The Economic Teachings of Jesus' Life 125
IX. The Teachings of Jesus Concerning
the Possession of Property - 139
X. The Teachings of Jesus Concerning
the Worship of Mammon - - 155
- XI. The Teachings of Jesus Concerning
the Accumulation and Use of Riches 171
-XII. The Progressive Conservatism of Jesus 189

THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF
PALESTINE IN THE DAYS
OF JESUS

" For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land,
a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, spring
ing forth in valleys and hills ; a land of wheat and barley,
and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of oil,
olives, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread with
out scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land
whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest
dig brass." (Deut. viii. 7, 8.)

CHAPTER I
THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF PALESTINE
IN THE DAYS OF JESUS
Palestine is a most peculiar country. Roughly
speaking, it consists of four strips of territory run
ning parallel to each other from north to south.
Each strip has its own peculiar features, climate,
and produce. Two of them are high and two of
them low, and the low and the high alternate.
The western strip, which runs along the Mediter
ranean Sea, is low. Save for the promontory of
Carmel, which cuts across it in the north, its surface
is uniform, being everywhere level or gently rolling.
The ground is naturally rich and capable of raising
the finest of wheat.
The next parallel section is the highland strip.
It is the most important strip in Palestine. It con
tains more places of historic interest than all the
other strips combined. Within its area lie Jerusa
lem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Samaria, Shiloh, Shechem,
Sychar, Cana, and Nazareth.
The northern part is very rough and densely
timbered, but scattered through it are fertile plains,
which when attended to yield excellent harvests.
Going south one strikes the beautiful plain of

H THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Esdraelon. Esdraelon is the best plain in Palestine,
and is famous alike for its fertility and for having
been the battle-ground of so many different people.
" Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Emirs and Arsacids,
Judges and Consuls, have all contended for the
mastery of that smiling tract." Farther south the
ground gradually rises, and the plains grow smaller.
All are rich, however, and when cultivated yield
good crops of wheat. The hillsides are well adapted
for grape culture and all sorts of orchards, and the
ridges make good pasturage for cattle and sheep.
Still farther south the ground grows more hilly,
but is still fertile, and capable of producing the best
grapes in the world. It was from this part of the
land that the spies sent out by Moses cut the branch
with the cluster of grapes which they bore upon a
staff between two. (Numbers 13, 23.)
In the extreme south and to the southeast of this
strip the ground is very desolate. It abounds in sav
age cliffs and naked ravines, and has neither trees,
streams, nor fountains.
The third parallel strip is the enormous chasm
through which the Jordan — the descender — tumbles.
From its source in the waters of Merom to its ter
minus in the Dead Sea, a straight distance of one
hundred and thirty-six miles, it falls three thousand
feet. The Lake of Galilee, through which it passes,
lies seven hundred feet below the Mediterranean Sea,
and the Dead Sea, into which it empties, thirteen

PALESTINE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS 15
hundred feet. The valley is not of much impor
tance. Its average width is only eight miles, and
because of its excessive heat the people who live in
it are indolent. No great man — prophet or warrior
— ever came from the Jordan Valley. Jericho was
its largest city, but though Jesus must have passed
through this city several times, he did not work in
it. Having little time for gathering a nucleus for
his kingdom, he preferred to give all his time to the
hardier people from the hills.
The fourth strip is the eastern table-land, a pla
teau which lies some three thousand feet above the
level of the sea. It is made up of wooded hills and
grassy plains, excellently adapted for grazing, is well
watered, and will produce all kinds of fruit.
The different altitudes of the strips produce a
great variety of climate. A traveler passing in a
direct line from east to west through Jerusalem and
Jericho would pass through all kinds of climate.
On the low coast the temperature is high. Palms
are growing there, and he would likely want to
shade himself from the rays of the sun beneath their
leafy tops. On the Judean hills the climate is tem
perate, the nights are always cool, and refreshing
winds blow generally during the day. If he traveled
in the winter he might run into snow, as snow is
known to have fallen there to a depth of five feet and
remained on the ground for several days. He might
even see the shimmering ice, as the pools around

16 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Jerusalem have been covered with it. Going into
the Jordan Valley he would enter a region of continu
ous hot weather, while on the plateau beyond it is
always cold. All this variety of climate can be
found in a journey of scarcely seventy miles.
This great variety of climate occasions a variety
\ of products. Dr. Post, of Beirut, has said that no
other country in the world yields so large a number
of food products. All the cereals and leguminous
plants commonly used for food, whether native or
imported, will grow and yield good harvests.
Early records of the land speak of its great fertil
ity. In several places in the Old Testament it is
called a "good land" (Ex. iii. 8, Deut. i. 25, vi.
18), "a land flowing with milk and honey" (Ex.
xiii. 5, Ex. xxxiii. 3), "a fat land" (Nehemiah, ix.
25), "a land of brooks of water, fountains, and
depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land
of wheat and barley, and vine and figs, and pome
granates; a land of oil, olives, and honey; a land
where people can eat bread without scarceness and
lack for nothing." (Deut. viii. 7, 8.)
Records of Jesus' day also tell of great fertility.
If we divide the land west of the Jordan into three
equal parts, and draw the lines from west to east,
and call the third to the north Galilee, the central
third Samaria, and the southern third Judea, and
divide that on the east side of Jordan into two parts,
running the lines in the same direction, and then call

PALESTINE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS 17
the southern half Perea, our designations would
approximately cover the divisions of the lands that
go by these names.
Of Galilee Josephus says that it was very rich.
It was full of plantations of trees of all sorts, and
every part of the soil was carefully tilled. (Jos.
Wars, 3, 3, 2.) In some parts of the land, pre
sumably in Galilee, judging from a parable of Jesus,
the produce of the grain-fields was sometimes a hun
dred-fold. (Matt. xiii. 23.)
Samaria was nearly as ^rich. All the land was
good, and capable when cultivated of producing a
fine crop of wheat. The hillsides were fit for vine
culture, orchards of all kinds abounded, and the
ridges were good for pasturing small cattle and
sheep. Perea had some desert land, and much that was
rough and hard to work, but was well watered, and
produced all kinds of fruit. (Jos. Wars, 3, 3, 3.)
Judea, too, was fertile. Trees were abundant,
water was plenty, grasses were good, and the cities
were full of people. (Jos. Wars, 3, 3, 4.) Espe
cially fruitful was the part of Judea around Jericho.
(Jos. Wars, 1, 6, 6.) The balsam of that region
and the beautiful palm-trees that grew there were
reckoned to be the most important products of
Palestine, and its dates were the best in the world.
(Tacitus, Historia, 5, 6; Pliny, Historia, Natur-
alis, 13, 4, 44-)

18 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Even those parts of Judea where nature had done
least were productive. The forbidding-looking
steppes supported many goats and sheep. Small
cattle and sheep grazed on the ridges of the ragged
hills, while the sunny side of their rocky slopes had
in several instances been covered with soil and made
to bear choice grapes.
The population of Palestine was very dense.
With an area of only eleven thousand square miles
it contained five million people. The densest part
was lower Galilee, especially that portion of it that
lay around its lake. Josephus declares that there
were two hundred and four villages (or townships),
the smallest of which had a population of over
fifteen thousand people. (Jos. Wars, 3, 3, 2.)
Galilee was the home of Jesus. There he spent
the greater part of his wonderful childhood and
youth (John iv. 44; Matt. ii. 23), and the greater
part of his public ministry. There, too, he found
the greater number of his disciples. (Acts i. 11,
ii. 7.) The whole country was carefully cultivated.
Where one sees now bare and desolate hills, there
were in Jesus' time fruitful fields and blossoming
orchards; where there are now broken pillars and
crumbling walls, the ruin of ancient homes, there
were then smiling cottages and thriving cities and
towns. One might almost say that agriculture was
a passion with the Hebrews. There never was a

PALESTINE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS 19
people that loved it more. The greatest men de
lighted in it. Gideon, Samson, Saul, David, Elijah,
Uzziah — all great men — had been engaged in it, and
by their example had given it dignity and protection.1
The most famous rabbis were glad to hold the
plow.2 Some would take their students to the field
and work with them at heavy labor (Sabbath, 54),
and none have said more beautiful words in praise
of agriculture than they.3 "If there was a king who
ruled from one end of the world to another and
occupied himself with agriculture, he would have
done something, if not, he would have done noth
ing." (Jebamoth, 63 a.)
Commerce was fairly active. The prophets and
wise men of old had been opposed to it, as they
feared that it would corrupt the people. The rabbis,
too, disliked it. They also feared its seductive
influence.* But love of gain is stronger than fear of sin.
Besides, Palestine had a most excellent location for
1 Gen. xxvi. 12; Ex. xxii. 4-6; Lev. xix. 19, xxvi. 5; Deut. xxviii.;
Prov. xii. 11, xviii. 19, xxxi. 16; 1 Kings iv. 25; 2 Kings xviii. 31; Isaiah
iii. 14, xxxvi. 16, lxii. 8, 9; Micah iv. 4.
2 Among those to whom husbandry was especially dear were Rabbi
Ishmael (Berachoth, 35), Rabbi Eliezer Ben Azaria (Sabbath, 54),
Rabbi Gamliel, and Rabbi Simon of Mispa. (Pea, 2.)
3 "One only knows what comfort is when he lives on the produce
of his own estate." (B. Mesiah, 107a.)
" "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hands, he
liveth to oppress." (Hosea xii. 7.) "A merchant shall hardly keep him
self from doing wrong; and a huckster shall not be freed from sin."
(Eccles. xxvi. 29.) "Diminish trade." (Aboth, 4.) "Religion is pro
moted by making traffic little." (Aboth, 6.) "While the dust is yet on
your feet, sell your purchases." (Pesachim, 113.) "Let one make no
profits in Palestine with the objects needed for the support of life."
(B. Bathra, 91.)

20 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
commerce. Situated at the junction of three con
tinents, and crossed by roads which formed about the
only connection between Asia and Africa, its com
mercial development was inevitable. Commerce had
also had the help of the country's ablest rulers.
Simon the Maccabee and Herod the Great both
built harbors, Simon the harbor of Joppa (i Mace.
xiv. 5), and Herod the harbor of Cassarea. Of
this harbor Josephus says that it was larger than the
Pyreum at Athens. "To protect vessels against the
impetuous south winds, vast stones, of above fifty
feet in length and not less than eighteen feet in
breadth and nine in depth, were let down in twenty
fathoms of water, and a safe and beautiful harbor
was constructed where nature had done nothing."
(Ant. 15, 9, 6; Jos. Wars, 1, 21, 5.)
What constituted the bulk of the trade we have
no means of knowing. Dye-works, glass-furnaces,
potteries, and fisheries were in the cities, but to
what extent such wares were exported we cannot
tell. From Acts XII. 20 we learn that there was an
export of food products. Schurer mentions several
articles that were sold at Jerusalem some time after
our period. He mentions Median beer, Edomite
vinegar, Babylonian sauce, Cicilian groats, Bithynian
cheese, Greek pumpkins, Spanish kolios, Persian
nuts, Pelusian and Indian linen and cotton fabrics,
Laodicean sandals, Egyptian ladders, baskets, and
rope, Tyrian ladders, Sidonian dishes, Roman arm-

PALESTINE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS 21
chairs, and Corinthian candlesticks. (Schurer 2, 2,
142-145.) It is not likely that trade was more
active then than in Jesus' time. Commerce received
undoubtedly great help from the thousands of pil
grims who went up to Jerusalem to the feasts.
These pilgrims brought in many new commercial
ideas. They also brought push, enterprise, and
ambition, as they were generally wide-awake, pro
gressive, intelligent men, whose influence upon the
youth of Palestine could not fail to be helpful.
The presence of a large foreign population would
also help trade. The majority of these were Greeks,
but there were also Arabs, Syrians, and Phoenicians.
Schurer enumerates thirty-five cities which they con
trolled. Among those mentioned are Gaza, Askelon,
Dora, Csesarea, Apollonia, and Ptolemais, which are
coast cities; and Geresa, Gadara, Scythopolis, Pella,
Abila, Hippos, Bethsaida, Julius, Antipatris, Ti
berias, Caesarea, Philippi, Phasselis, and Sepphoris,
which lie at or near the Lake of Galilee.
These foreigners were desirable settlers, espe
cially the Greeks. The Greeks were the most culti
vated people of the time. The Romans are said to
have been more practical, but this is debatable.
The influence of the Greeks was great. It is seen
especially in their impression upon the country's
architecture, amusements, customs, and language.
Several of the public buildings were modeled after
Greek designs. Of course Herod's palace was, but

22 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
so were even parts of the temple. Almost all the
ruins that remain from that time show the Greek
style of building. There was in Jerusalem a theater
and an amphitheater (Jos. Ant. 15, 8, 1), and also
a stadium and a hippodrome. (Jos. Wars, 2, 3, 1;
Jos. Ant. 17, 10, 2.) They also had these in Jericho
(Ant. 17, 6, 3, 5), and of course in the Greek-gov
erned cities. Members of the poorer class, the class
least open to foreign innovations, bore Greek names,
as two of Christ's disciples, Andrew and Philip.
Many other terms, and nearly all the terms in the
department of civil government or connected with
military life, were Greek or Grecianized. (Schurer
2, 1, 32.)
Had Jesus lived in a land as isolated as Norway,
or in a barren and bleak land like Iceland, or in a
rich and tropical land like Cuba, or amid a civiliza
tion as backward as that of Thibet or Siam, his
teachings on economic questions would be far less
important to us. The background would have been
so utterly different from what ours is. But he met
with a civilization and conditions not so very differ
ent from our own; a mixed, progressive people in
touch with the whole world, and he spent most of
his time amid the busiest and most progressive por
tion of them, the Galileans, those who most felt the
quickening influences of the foreign immigrants. To
what extent the vexed and complicated economic
problems affected them we have not the means to

PALESTINE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS 23
determine. We do read of labor organizations, such
as "Ass Drivers' Associations" "Fullers' Unions,"
and "Fishermen's Clubs." We also have an in
stance recorded in Josephus of a man cornering the <
wheat market, but this is all. We may, however,
be sure that whatever Jesus said concerning eco
nomic affairs, he said with a full consciousness of
their intricacy, to an enlightened people, and it
deserves as such our most careful study.

THE UNHAPPY CONDITION OF THE
PALESTINIAN PEOPLE IN THE
DAYS OF JESUS

"See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and
death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the
Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his com
mandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou
mayest live and multiply, and that the Lord may bless thee
in the land whither thou goest in to possess it. But if thine
heart turn away, and thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn
away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce
unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish; ye shall not
prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over
Jordan to go in to possess it." (Deut. xxx. 15-18.)

CHAPTER II
THE UNHAPPY CONDITION OF THE PALES
TINIAN PEOPLE IN THE DAYS OF JESUS
Notwithstanding all the advantages which Pales
tine had in Jesus' time, advantages of soil, climate,
location, commerce, and immigrants, the people
were_v£ryjx>or. The background of Jesus' teach
ing is one of business depression, panics, and
poverty. We read of debtors going to prison, of
creditors discounting bills, of a man trying to build
a tower which he was not able to complete for lack
of funds, and of a woman whose whole living was
only two mites. "In one of Jesus' parables, every
body except the king is bankrupt; the steward is in
debt to the king, the servant to the steward."
(Matt, xviii. 23-35.)
The question what to eat and to wear created
much anxiety (Luke xii. 22.) And this, too,
among those who dwelt, not amid the barren crags
of southern Judea, nor among the chilly hills of
Perea, but in prosperous Galilee!
In another of Jesus' parables, a woman is pic
tured as having lost a drachma, and on recovering it,
inviting all her friends and neighbors to share in her
joy, (Luke xv. 8-10.) And Jesus asked what
27

28 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
woman would not do just that! It would scarcely
occur to the average American woman to even so
much as notice the loss of a drachma.1 In the
prayer which Jesus taught his disciples the daily
bread is the first petition.
For this condition of things three parties were
generally blamed— the Romans, the Herods, and the
rich — though some blamed their own sin for it.
The Romans were the ruling power. In 63 B.C.
Palestine became a feudal state of the Roman Em
pire. Pompey, called to settle a dispute between
two Jewish princes, brothers, Aristobulus II. and
Hyrkanus II., both aspirants to the throne, con
cluded to take the country for Rome. This occa
sioned no end of confusion. Of course the Jews
resisted. Any people but the most cowardly would
have done that. Several attempts were made to
shake off Roman rule, but all were unsuccessful.
These attempts to regain independence cost
money. The soldiers had to be supported. While
they served in the army they were withdrawn from
profitable pursuits. Habits were formed which
made it hard for them to resume the normal activi
ties. With some they proved to be too strong.
These gave themselves up to freebooting, guerrilla
warfare, and robbery. Every man who did this
withdrew himself from the ranks of producers and
obstructed the free intercourse of business activities.
* A drachma is about sixteen cents.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 29
The Roman soldiers also had to be paid, for Rome
did not wage war for charity. Wars are waged for
revenue. A study of them shows that economic
motives prompted nearly all of them, even the so-
called religious wars.
In course of time Rome established a feudal king
over them, a man named Herod, an Idumean, i. e.,
a descendant of Esau. He was a son of Antipater,
who during the high priesthood of Hyrkanus II. had
managed to get control into his own hands. Herod
was one of the worst men that ever lived. He had
ability, dash, daring, strategy, recourse, and execu
tive power, but he had no character.
Herod was a fiend. One of his first acts was
the murder of forty-five prominent Pharisees for a
cause amounting next to nothing. He then mur
dered all the Asmoneans, the most beloved house in
Palestine, descendants of the noble Mattathias I.,
the man who had dared to resist the Syrian tyrant,
and through whom and his five brave sons the land
had gained its freedom. Herod did not even spare
his own wife, who belonged to that house, nor her
two sons, his own children, all because he feared
that they might some day aspire to his crown. To
hate such a man is a credit to a people, a virtue in
which the Jews did not fail. They hated him with
a passionate hatred.
The outlawry and robbery which the confused
state of the country had begotten, and which had

30 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
been nourished by hatred for the ruler, Herod suc
ceeded in suppressing temporarily. But it broke
out again as soon as he was dead. His sons, Herod
Antipas, who ruled Galilee and Perea, and Arche-
laus, who ruled Judea and Samaria, were just as
mean as the father had been, but they were not as
able. So the robbers had breathing room once
more, and resumed activities. Judas, the son of the
arch-robber Hezekias, began to terrorize Galilee
(Jos. Ant. 17, 10, 5); two thousand of Herod's
soldiers spread consternation through Idumea (Jos.
Wars, 2, 3, 4) ; a Simon and his band intimidated
the inhabitants of Perea (Jos. Wars, 2, 4, 2), while
a certain Athronges and his giant brothers frightened
the people in Judea. (Jos. Wars, 2, 4, 3.) How
long this was kept up we cannot certainly say, but
it was still going on when Jesus taught. Robbers
stole and killed and destroyed (John x. 10), climbed
over the stockades and robbed the folds, and made
traveling, except in company, unsafe. (Luke x. 30.)
The taxes imposed by Herod were enormously
heavy. Herod had been a great builder, as well as
a great warrior. His wars and extravagance as a
builder created great expense Not since the day
of Solomon had Israel had a king who spent so much
on building. Augustus liked him for it, but the
people did not. They knew who had to pay for it.
He rebuilt Samaria, and named it Sebaste (Jos.
Ant. 15, 8, 5); Capharsaba, and named it Antipatris;

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 31
Anthedon, and called it Agrippaeum (Jos. Wars, I,
21, 8); Strato's Tower, and named it Csesarea (Jos.
Ant. 15, 9, 6). In the Jordan Valley, north of Jericho,
he founded Phasselis. (Ant. 16, 5, 2.) Indifferent
parts of the country he built strongholds to strengthen
the country's defenses. He spent much money out
side of Palestine. Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Berytus,
Tripolis, Ptolemais, Damascus, Chios, Nicopolis,
Antioch; even Athens and Lacedsemon were beau
tified by his gifts. He built theaters and amphi
theaters, galleries and aqueducts, hippodromes and
palaces, and at great cost laid out parks and gardens.
(Jos. Wars, 5, 4, 4; Jos. Ant. 15, 8, 1.) The
temple at Jerusalem he reconstructed on so grand a
scale that in comparison with it, "even the famous
temple built by Solomon appeared poor and insig
nificant." (Jos. Wars, 1, 21, 1.) Besides these
building enterprises he spent lavishly on games.
His son, Herod Antipas, was also a builder.
He rebuilt on a larger scale the city of Sepphoris,
fortified Betharamphtha, and built an entirely new
city on the western shore of the lake of Galilee,
which he called Tiberias. Archelaus, too, was fond
of building. A richer country than Palestine would
have been drained by such extravagances.
How large the taxes were will probably never be
known. Shortly after Herod's death a committee
of Jews stated to the emperor that Herod had scan
dalously treated them, had filled the nation full of

32 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
poverty, that they had borne more calamities from
Herod in a few years than their fathers had during
all the interval of time that had passed since they
had returned from Babylon in the reign of Xerxes.
(Jos. Wars, 2, 6, 2.) It is said that he exacted
about three million dollars from the people. His
children did not receive quite that amount,1 but to
raise what they received and what the Roman gov
ernment demanded, nearly everything had been
taxed. There was a tax on the produce of land,
one-tenth for grain and one-fifth for wine and fruit.
(Jos. Ant. 15, 9, 1. Edersheim, Jewish Social Life,
p. 54.) There was a tax of one denarius on every
person, exempting only aged people over sixty-five
years, and girls and boys under the age of twelve and
fourteen respectively (Hamburger N. S. p. 965.)
Then there was an income tax. If the same rate
which was paid in Syria maintained in Palestine, it
amounted to one per cent. (Jos. App. Syr. 50.)
There were also taxes levied on trades, such as that
of hosier, weaver, furrier, and goldsmith, and on
movable property, such as horses, oxen, asses, ships,
and slaves. (Marquandt, Staatsverwaltung, II, p.
226.) The duties paid on imported goods varied
from two and one-half to twelve per cent. (Eder-
1 Herod Antipas received two hundred talents from Galilee;
Archelaus had received about double that amount from Judea, Idumea,
and Samaria; Philip, another son, drew from Batanea, Trachinitis, and
Auranitas about half as much; while a daughter, Salome, received sixty
talents from the cities of Jamnia, Ashdod, and Phasaelis. (Jos. Wars 2,
6, 3.) This amounts to only about a million dollars, but this was at a
time when a laborer earned about sixteen cents a day.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 33
sheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 55.) Then the homes
were taxed, at least the city homes (Jos. Ant. 19,
6, 3), and there was bridge money and road money
to be paid. There was also a tax on what was pub
licly bought and sold, for the removal of which tax
the people plead with Archelaus, apparently in vain.
(Jos. Ant. 17, 8, 4.) Besides this, every city had
its local administration and raised money to pay its
officials, maintain and build synagogues, elementary
schools, public baths, and roads, the city walls,
gates, and other general requirements. (Hamburger
U. S. pp. 429-43 1 •)
How much the Roman government collected
cannot be ascertained, but there came no relief to
Judea with the deposition and banishment of Arche
laus in 6 A. D., and with its incorporation with
Syria as a Roman province. Tacitus relates how
the discontent occasioned by the burdensome taxa
tion in the year 17 A. D. assumed a most threaten
ing character not only in Judea, but also throughout
Syria. (Tacitus Annals II. 42, 43. Comp. for year
33 A. D. Annals VI. l6, 17.) This discontent would
not have come had direct Roman taxation been an
improvement upon that which prevailed under
the Herods.
The fiscal arrangements of the empire were very
poor. Taxes were farmed out to the highest bid
ders, who in turn would farm them out again. They
who got the contract were not paid by the govern-

34 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
ment from the taxes they collected, so that their
support, or income, must be added to the taxes.
How large that was we cannot know, but it was
very large, as the collectors would, taking advan
tage of their position, often be very extortionate.
Amid these unfortunate economic conditions — an
archy, war, extravagance, and taxation — the people
grew poorer and poorer. Business became more
and more interrupted, and want, in growing fre
quency, showed its emaciated features.
Of course the people felt bitter towards the
Herods and the Romans, and they felt as bitter
towards the rich. It was a bitter world into which
the Saviour came. "To pass through the literature
of the time," says Rogge, "is like passing through
Dante's Inferno, except that nowhere appears any
trace of that divine pity which the great Italian
permits." Evidences of hatred toward the rich are espe
cially frequent in the book of Enoch, in the part of
it which was written a little before the birth of Jesus.
"Woe unto you," it reads, "who heap up silver
and gold and say we are growing rich, we have
acquired everything we desire  Like water
your lies will flow away, your riches will not abide
with you, but shall suddenly disappear, for you have
acquired it all in unrighteousness, and you shall be
given over to great condemnation. (Enoch lxxxxvii.
8-IO.) Woe unto you sinners, for your riches made

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 35
you appear like the righteous, but your hearts con
vict you of being sinners  Woe unto you
who devour the finest of the wheat .... and
tread under foot the lowly with your might. (Enoch
Ixxxxvi. 4-5.) Woe unto you, for you have trusted
in your riches, and from your riches ye shall depart,
because ye have not remembered the most high God
in the days of your riches, you have committed blas
phemy and unrighteousness, and become ready for
the day of slaughter and the day of darkness and the
day of great judgment." (Enoch Ixxxxiv. 7-9.)
See also Enoch lxxxxviii. 3; lxxxxix. 13; ciii. 5.
There was good reason for this hatred, judging
from the stories in the Gospels. The rich were
very hard. We read of one who dressed in purple
and fared sumptuously every day, and who had a
beggar lying near his gate to get some of the table
crumbs which were cast into the street for the dogs.
(Luke xvi. 19.) Blind and lame people sat by the
roadside or at the door of the temple endeavoring to
get alms. (Acts 8, 3; Luke xviii. 35.) They that
were slow in coming, we can gather from the means
employed to get them, as feigning to be blind or
lame (Pea. 8, 9). Philo complains bitterly of the
indifference of the wealthy to the poor, who were
appropriating, he says, "The whole of nature's liber
ality themselves and giving no share of their wealth
to any one." (Philo on the Three Virtues, III. 8.)
Organized endeavor to help the poor there was none.

3*5 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Not until after the destruction of Jerusalem, when
practically the whole nation was steeped in poverty
and the former privileged classes felt the pinch of
poverty themselves, was such a thing attempted. In
courts of law a poor man's rights were not regarded.
Jesus tells us of a widow whom the judge shame
fully neglected, presumably because she * had no
bribe to offer, until her persistency won where the
righteousness of her cause was impotent. (Luke
xviii. 1-3.)
Without bribes or gifts wrongdoers were seldom
brought to trial, unless the offense was committed
against Rome. A few years before Christ's time a
commission of Jews that waited upon the Emperor
Augustus, against the appointment of Archelaus as
Herod's successor, stated that Herod had forced
them to give presents; that there was no way of
obtaining freedom from unjust violence without
giving gold and silver for it; that he had upon un
just pretext slain several of the nobility whose prop
erty had then been appropriated; and that he had
condemned unjustly others to the forfeiture of what
they possessed. (Jos. Ant. 17, II, 2.)
How hard the debtor class fared we gather from
Jesus' warning against the creditor. "Agree with
thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way
with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee
to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer,
and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee,

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 37
Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou
hast paid the uttermost farthing." (Matt. v. 25-26.)
Rich men who remitted to their debtors were rare,
the unmerciful creditors with the bailiff at hand were
frequent. In one parable one of the debtors is
threatened with being sold, and his wife and chil- y'
dren with him, and another debtor is strangled.
(Matt, xviii. 25, 28.) If one was so unfortunate as
to be sold, he could be subjected to all the indignities
to which the slave class is liable. Male and female
slaves were beaten (Luke xii. 46) and severely
scourged. (Matt. xxiv. 51.) From Philo we gather
that slaves were yoked to the plow, like oxen, and
loaded down with burdens, and reduced by threats
and punishment "to painful despondency." (Ten
Festivals, Vol. III. p. 274, Yonge's Ed.)
If the people as a class felt bitter towards -the
Romans, the Herods, and the rich, as the authors of v
their misfortunes, there were a few who blamed
themselves. They believed that if Israel would re
pent their troubles would cease, that economic and
political difficulties have a moral and a spiritual
source. They appealed to the scripture, where
prosperity is promised to the upright. (Deut. 28.)
Some of these made the unfortunate mistake of giv
ing the Bible promises to the nation an individualistic
interpretation. Individual misfortunes were held to
indicate sin. This added to the existing unhappi-
ness. "Rabbi," asked the disciple, "who did sin,

38 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
this man or his parents, that he should be born
blind?" (John ix. 2.) Blindness, accidents, pov
erty, and disease, it was thought, were due to sin.
(Luke xiii. 1-5.) The lesson of Job's sufferings had
not been well learned. "Whoever," asked Eliphas,
"perished being innocent, or when were the right
eous cut off? According as I have seen, they that
plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same." (Job
iv. 7-8.) His friends Bildad and Zophar said vir
tually the same (Job viii. 6), and God said that their
reasonings were wrong. But Israel had not grasped
this fact, and so these poor unfortunate people bore
in addition to the discomforts occasioned by their
oppression and poverty, the imputation and sus
picion of guilt.
The need of improvement was certainly great.
As the natural economic advantages of the country
were many, the opportunities for improvement were
splendid. If they could only get rid of certain evils:
"The Herodian house," said one, "taxation," said
another, "disorder," remarked a third. "What
the country needs is a return to the laws of the
scripture," said a fourth. Each reformer had his
panacea. What was Christ's, or had he none?
It cannot escape one that it was not any of the
specifics which the average reformer would have
urged. There is not a word in his teachings about
the evil and expensiveness of war, or the cost of
extravagance; not a syllable against taxation, or the

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE 39
Herodian or Roman governments; not a whisper
against the cruelty of slavery, or the distractions of
anarchy and robbery.
But before considering what his remedy was, it
is necessary to look at the economic laws of the
scriptures, since it is to these that the teachings of
Jesus are most closely related.

THE HUMANITARIAN LAWS AND
TEACHINGS OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT

"For what great nation is there, that hath God so nig
unto them as the Lord our God is whensoever we call upc
him ? And what great nation is there, that hath statutes an
judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set befoi
you this day?" (Deut. iv. 7, 8.)

CHAPTER III
THE HUMANITARIAN LAWS AND TEACHINGS
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The laws and teachings which God gave Israel
and which are contained in the Old Testament are
surprisingly beautiful. Outside of those contained
in the New Testament, none have ever been devised
which are better calculated to further a people's
happiness. Indeed, this is their purpose, their con
trolling purpose.
The New Testament books look out upon a
future life, and the supreme purpose of their authors
is to lead men to prepare for that; the Old Testa
ment books have no such outlook. With the excep
tion of a few of the later books, the interests of the
Old Testament is centered in the life here. To get
an ideal state, a state in which everything is done in
harmony with God's will, is its great purpose.
One of the most important things which the Old
Testament teaches towards attaining an ideal state
is its teaching concerning work. Work in Oriental
states, and even in some modern states, was held in
dishonor. When Plato portrayed his ideal republic,
he had such an aversion to work that he considered
men who labored unfit to have a voice in its manage-
43

44 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
ment. Aristotle, too, regards it with contempt.
(Aris. Polit. 8, 3.) Among the Hebrews to work
was noble, because the Bible had ennobled it. The
Old Testament tells of the manual activities of
Israel's greatest men. It tells of the activities of
Abraham moving from spot to spot to feed his
cattle; of Jacob serving Laban, his uncle, for wages;
of Joseph toiling for Potiphar, and in the prison of
Egypt; of Moses herding sheep for a Median priest;
of Samuel doing the work of a chore-boy; of Saul, the
king, farming; and of the prophet Amos herding cattle
and gathering wild figs. It tells us how God labored,
and inspired Bazaleel and Aholiab to work in gold,
silver, brass, stone, and wood, just as he inspired
Isaiah and Ezekiel to prophesy. (Ex. xxxi. 1-5.)
In the book of Proverbs we have drawn the por
trait of an ideal woman. She is described as rising
early while it is yet night, to provide for her house
hold, and busy all day buying, selling, spinning,
weaving, and working in the vineyard, that her house
might be clothed and her husband be honored. (Prov.
xxxi. IO-31.)
The good man eats the labor of his own hand
and is busy like the ants all day long, while he who
is a sluggard is spoken of with contempt.1 The
rights of labor were nobly respected. On no occa
sion were the wages of a laborer to be withheld, not
1 Ps. cxxviii. 2; Prov. vi. 6-n; Prov. x. 26; Prov. xv. 19; Prov. xviii.
9; Prov. xx. 13; Prov. xxiv. 33, 34; Ecc. x. 18.

 HUMANITARIAN LAWS 45
even for one day. The laborer was worthy of his
hire. Oppression of a laborer must in nowise be
allowed, no matter what his origin, and to sell one
into slavery was to be punished with death. (Deut.
xxiv. 7.)
Such a healthy view of work is of the utmost
importance. Labor is the basis of character and the
security of the state, without which the best inter
ests of a people can neither be secured nor main
tained. Though the Old Testament knew slavery, it is of
the mildest character. There is nothing like it in
other Oriental countries. It is always remembered
that the slave is a man who has worth for his own
sake, and is before God the equal of others. When
the sabbath dawned with its rest for the weary, the
slave was exempted from work, and on feast-days he
was to be kindly remembered. (Deut. v. 14.) The
abuse of slaves was not to be tolerated. Bodily
injuries, such as were inflicted upon slaves in Rome
and other countries much later, would purchase him
freedom. (Ex. xxi. 26.) Degrading terms were not
applied. In Rome he was called amancipium; that
is, a captured article; in Greece a SSvAos; that is,
a bondsman — from Sim to bind: but in Israel he
was called an "OS — a servant. He bore a name
involving no disgrace, for the name servant was
borne by Israel's most distinguished men, as Abra
ham (Ps. cv. 6), David (Ps. xviii. 1), Joshua (Jos.

46 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
xxiv. 29), Eliakim (Isa. xxii. 20), and Zerobbabel
(Haggai ii. 23.)
No Hebrew could be enslaved for all his life,
unless he requested it himself. (Ex. xxi. 6.) He was
to be freed the seventh year, which was called the
Sabbatic year. On the day on which he obtained
his freedom he had to be liberally provided with
treasures from his master's flocks, wine-press, and
threshing-floor. (Deut. xv. 12-14. )'
For the weak and the dependent the Old Testa
ment laws make the kindest provisions. Duty, not
right, is their spirit, and it is the word most often
upon the lips of the Old Testament teachers.
Among the Romans a father had absolute right as
over against his wife and children. It was not un
common for a Roman father to sell his child into
slavery, or expose it to be brought up by another.
In this the law protected him. Among the Hebrews
it was wholly different. Children were a heritage
of the Lord (Ps. cxxvii. 3); that is, they belonged
to the Lord, and were intrusted to man to develop.
To judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow
was a commendable virtue. (Isaiah i. 17.)
Men speak of the beautiful Roman laws. There
are none. The so-called beautiful Roman laws are
Roman laws revised by Justinian, who was a Chris-
1 Compare with this the teachings of Aristotle. "The slave may
be annoyed without the risk of punishment." (Nic. v. 8.) "No justice
exists in relation to slaves." (Nic. v. 10.) "There is no talk of love and
justice towards them [slaves] any more than towards an ass or a horse."
(Nic. viii. 13.)

HUMANITARIAN LAWS 47
tian. They are beautiful because they were made
to accord in spirit with the laws of the Old Testa
ment, which made the teachings of Jesus a possibility.
Then there is no book in which the poor are so
nobly remembered. Nowhere is there such stress
laid upon the importance of charity. Its material,
whether it is of a legislator, a psalmist, a sage, like
the author of Job or Proverbs, or a prophet, throbs
with care for the needy. If a farmer reaped his
grain he had to leave to the poor the corners of his
field (Lev. xiv. 9), his reapers had to let fall hand-
fuls for them to glean (Lev. xxiii. 22), and when he
hauled his sheaves and one was forgotten he could
not go back for it, it was to be the poor man's sheaf.
(Deut. xxiv. 19.) The gleanings of the olive
orchards and vineyards were also for the poor.
(Deut. xxiv. 20-21.) Injunctions to considerate-
ness for the poor are many, and all sorts of blessings
are promised to the generous, while the niggardly
are threatened with curses. (Ps. xii. 1, 2; Prov.
xxviii. 27; Prov. xxix. 7.) The prophet Isaiah
represents God as saying that fasting and prayer are
unavailing unless one is kind to the toilers, the
hungry, and the poor (Isaiah lviii. 3-8) ; while Daniel
says that giving alms (translated righteousness) and
showing mercy to the poor cancels one's iniquities.
(Dan. iv. 27; Hebrew Dan. iv. 26.)
Nor is any book so considerate of a poor man's
interest. It urges charity, but as a last resort. It

48 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
seeks rather to help the poor to become independent
of it. To that end it urges helping the poor with
loans. God's favor is promised to such as are
generous in loaning. Other inducements are not
held out. It is assumed that God's favor is enough.
Interest-taking was forbidden. It was too much
like profiting by a poor man's adversity. Borrow
ing money in order to make money, i. e., for busi
ness purposes, was not known. Society had not yet
sufficiently developed for that. Men only borrowed
because they were poor. To charge them interest
under such circumstances was grievously wicked.1
All the books that touch on interest-taking forbid it,
prophetical, legal, philosophical, or poetical. It is
forbidden in every code. (Ex. xxii. 25; Deut. xxiii.
19; Lev. xxv. 37-39.) Ezekiel classes it with idol
atry, robbery, murder, bloodshed, and anarchy
(Ezek. xviii. 12-13), and gives its prevalence as one
of the causes of Jerusalem's downfall. (Ezek. xxii.
12.) The author of Proverbs says that it forfeits
God's blessing and turns prayers into curses (Prov.
xxviii. 8-10.) The psalmist says that he who takes
no interest shall sojourn in God's tabernacle, i. e.,
enjoy God's presence and favor. (Ps. xv. 1-5.)
See also Jer. xv. 10.
If a loan was made and the person who received
1 The Phoenicians being traders, borrowed money for speculative
purposes. It is probably partly on that account that the Israelites
could charge them interest. (Deut. xxiii. 19, 20.) Since they helped
them in their speculations it seemed right that they should share in
tbe profits that came from them.

HUMANITARIAN LAWS 49
it could not pay it back at the time promised, no
violent measures were allowed in the collection. No
poor man was to be so pressed as to suffer for life's
necessities. To enter a house and forcibly fetch
one's due is expressly forbidden. (Deut. xxiv.
IO-13.) Moreover, should one after the lapse of
seven years still be unable to repay the loan it was
canceled. (Deut. xv. 1-3.) No man should suffer
from having a debt hang over him all his life. If he
had not paid it in seven years it was presumed that
he could not pay it. This assumes an honesty which
many debtors do not now possess. Neither did they,
in course of time, in Israel, and the law was re
pealed as impractical. This was not done, however,
until the time of Hillel, about fifty years before
Jesus' period.
The Old Testament is full of love of honesty,
and praise of justice between man and man. It
hates the false balance, the lying tongue, the over
reaching spirit. Its pages bristle with threats against
the oppressor. Nowhere are there sterner denunci
ations of the traducers of justice than in the Psalms
and in the Prophets. The woes against such as
crush the needy and oppress the poor, withhold
wages and deceive in trade, that they may prosper,
lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon
couches in costly castles, eating the choicest foods
and sipping high-priced wines to the sound of song
and instruments of music, the woes pronounced

5° THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
against such people is terrible. (Amos ii. 6, 7; iv.
1-3, v. ii; vi. 1-8; Jer. xxii. 13-17.) Their sin
will be avenged (Ps. xii. 5), their crimes remembered
(Amos viii. 7), their power broken (Ps. xxxvii. 14,
15), their habitation laid low (Micah iii. 9, 12), their
city become a heap (Micah iii. 12), and their land
ruined (Amos viii. 8).1
The laws of the Bible concerning wealth are
most noble. They make property sacred, and do
not allow its accumulation into the hands of a few.
Moreover, they seek to secure a fair and equitable
¦ distribution of it for all.
Wealth consisted mainly in land, and every fiftieth
year there was to be a redistribution of this. This
fiftieth year was called the year of jubilee. The old
families that had lost their land could then return to
their inheritances. (Lev. xxv. 10.) With this year
in view land was not sold in perpetuity. (Lev. xxv.
1-23.) Only the use of the land or the crops were
sold. (Lev. xxv. 15, 16.) If the year of jubilee
was fifty years off, the use of the land could be sold
for fifty years; if it was only one year off, it could be
sold for only one year. If, after having sold it, one
was helped by a friend, or enabled in some other
way to raise the requisite price, the law provided
that he could get it back again. (Lev. xxv. 25-26.)
Capital was carefully protected and stealing was
1 Other places in which oppressors are denounced are Ezek. xviii.
18; Ezek. xxii. 23-311 Ezek. xxxiv. i-iij Ezek. xiv. 9, lo; Jer. v. 27-29;
Jer. vii. 5-7; Jer. xxii. 13-17; Isa. x. 1-3.

HUMANITARIAN LAWS 51
severely punished. The thief was compelled to
make restitution, sometimes four and five fold (Ex.
xxii. 1), and sometimes sevenfold (Prov. vi. 31).
If the thief could not make restitution, he could be
sold into slavery, and if he was put to death, his
slayer could not be punished. (Ex. xxii. 2, 3.) The
absolute ownership of capital was, however, never
acknowledged. God was the owner of everything.
(Ps. xxiv. 1; Ps. 1. 12; Job xii. 11 ; Deut. x. 14.)
As regards one's fellow-men, ownership was abso
lute, certainly absolute enough so that infringements
upon it could be severely punished.
Because love of money is so apt to occasion op
pression and other evils, the Old Testament endeav
ors earnestly to curb it. Riches, it teaches, make
people proud and tempt men to forget God (Deut.
viii. II-14), are temporary and of no value after
death (Ps. xlix. 16-17). Neither does one know
who will gather them after he is gone. (Ps.
xxxix. 6.)
It further declares that they are unsatisfying,
intoxicating, enslaving, of value only for the eye to
look at, but that they bring neither rest nor right
eousness (Ecc. v. 10-17). The ideal condition is
described as being one of neither wealth nor poverty,
but of sufficiency. (Prov. xxx. 8-10.)
Nor is there anywhere a literature in all Oriental
life in which the power of the king is so limited, or
in which he is so freely criticised when he dared to

5 2 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
be oppressive. In other states men existed for the
king, in Israel the king was for the people. Go to
Egypt, look at the great pyramids, on one of them
— the largest — one hundred thousand men are said
to have worked by forced labor for twenty years.
A hundred thousand men driven by force through
twenty years to build a tomb for a king! Pass from
Egypt to the valley of the Euphrates. The king
can muster thousands of men at once and throw
them away, and their loss was not considered to be
theirs, but his. Man as man has no worth except
for the king and his ends. But among the Hebrews,
how different! The Old Testament taught that
men had worth for their own sake, that every man
of Israel was precious in God's sight, that the
humblest citizen was the king's brother and not his
slave. God made man in his image. The king as
God's representative was to bless them and not to
exploit them, and his rights and duties were care
fully defined by statutory law. (Deut. xvii. 14-20.)
With such regulations generally obeyed, the
Israelites could not fail of being a happy people,
and while they obeyed they were happy. Prosper
ous, free, honest, God-fearing, peaceable, they sat
each man under his own vine and under his own fig-
tree, enjoying his Maker's goodness. They were
the happiest people in antiquity. The gloom that
is so characteristic of other Oriental people, and of
the non-Christian people now, as is illustrated by

HUMANITARIAN LAWS 53
their songs, did not hang over Israel. Sometimes
we find Psalms that seem sad, yet how often the
minor key in which the first part is written is
changed toward the close into a paean of victory!
What a pity that they should ever have ignored these
noble laws and teachings. But again and again they
did it, and never more than in the days of Jesus.
Nor was there any likelihood that matters would im
prove. The church leaders had strayed with the
people and the people with the leaders, to what
extent will be considered in the following chapter.

THE FAILURE OF THE JEWISH
CHURCH OF JESUS' DAY TO
IMPROVE THE PEOPLE'S
SOCIAL CONDITION

"His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowl
edge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark: dreaming,
lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs,
they can never have enough; and they are shepherds that
cannot understand; they have all turned to their own way,
each one to his gain, one and all." (Isaiah Ivi. 10, II.)
"And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and tempting
him asked him to show them a sign from heaven. But he
answered and said unto them, when it is evening ye say, It
will be fair weather, for the heaven is red; and in the morn
ing, It will be foul weather to-day, for the heaven is red and
lowering. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven;
but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. An evil and
adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall
no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah. And he left
them, and departed." (Matt. xvi. 1-4.)

CHAPTER IV
THE FAILURE OF THE JEWISH CHURCH OF
JESUS' DAY TO IMPROVE THE PEOPLE'S
SOCIAL CONDITION
The period of Jesus' life fell in a dark age of
Judaism. The Apostle Paul, writing from what he
had seen, declares:
"There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none that understandeth;
There is none that seeketh after God.
They have turned aside, they are together become un
profitable;
There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one :
Their throat is an open sepulchre.
With their tongue they have used deceit.
There is no fear of God before their eyes."
— (Rom. iii. 10-18.)
Religious life was at a low ebb. There were
places in which people were hired to attend the syna
gogue, that the worship of God might continue.
(Mathews, New Testament Times; p. 160.) The
voice of prophecy had been silent for centuries, and
when it was heard near the waters of Bethany and
Jordan, the people thought it was the voice of a
demon. (Luke vii. 33.) Domestic life was bad.
57

58 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
The easiness with which people secured a divorce re
minds one of the corrupt days of the Roman Empire.
According to the school of Hillel, a man could put
away his wife if she spoiled his food, while a later
rabbi, R. Akiba, would let a man do it if he found
one better looking (Gitten 9, 10). How shocked
the disciples were when Jesus said that there was
only one proper ground on which divorce could be
allowed! Why, they said, if that is so, if there is
no other way out of marriage, a man had better not
marry at all. (Matt. xix. 3-10.)
Of the prevailing poverty, cruelty, suffering, and
oppression, we have already spoken in a previous
chapter. There was no truth, nor mercy, nor knowl
edge of God in the land. There was naught but
swearing and breaking faith and killing and stealing
and committing adultery; they broke out and blood
touched blood, and therefore the land mourned and
the people languished, and the Roman power bore
rule, and hard by the Holy Temple perched the
eagle, the symbol of that power. Some of the more
earnest people had grown so tired of the condition
of society that they moved away from it. They
were the Eaaaiot or 'Eaorjvul or Essenes. The origin
of the name is obscure, but probably comes from
the Hebrew #!0T\ ghesee, which means pious.
Tired of the corruption of the cities, the strife
over riches, the cruelty of slavery, the jealousies of
domestic life, and the deceptions of commerce, they

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 59
resolved on founding a community where these
things could not enter. To that end many went to
the Desert of Engedi, near the Dead Sea (Pliny,
Hist. Nat. v. 17), though some continued to reside
in villages and towns. (Jos. Wars, 2, 8, 4.) Here
they formed a brotherhood, a society in which there
should be no individual wealth, nor commerce, or
slaves, and as few women as possible.1
Their occupation was largely confined to agricul
ture (Jos. Wars, 2, 8, 4), though several other kinds
of work were carried on. Commerce was forbidden
as leading to covetousness, and so was smith-work
in armory by which men are injured. (Philo, The
Virtuous Free, 12.)
There were many admirable features about that
sect. Their life was beautifully gentle, the aged
and sick and those in need they waited upon like
1 "A regulation with them is that an individual coming forward to
join this sect must sell his possessions and present the price of them
to the community, and on receiving the money, the head of the order
distributes it to all according to their necessities." (Hippolytus, "Refu
tation of all Heresies" 9: 14. The tenets of the Esseni.) "They will
not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common,
so that a rich man enjoys no more of his wealth than he who has noth
ing at all." (Jos. Ant. 18: 1-5.) "There is no one who has a home so
absolutely his own property that it does not in some way also belong to
every one; for besides that they all dwell together in companies, the
house is open to all those of the same notion who come to them from
other quarters; then there is one magazine among them all, their ex
penses are all in common, their garments belong to them all in com
mon their food is in common, since they eat all in messes; for there is
no other people among which you can find a common use of the same
house, a common adoption of one mode of living, and a common use of
the same table more thoroughly established, in fact, than among this
tribe. And is this not natural? For whatever they, after having been
working during the day, receive for their wages, they do not retain as
their own, but bring it into the common stock, and give any advantage
that is to be derived from it to all who desire to avail themselves of
it." (Philo Treatise, Virtuous Free, 12. See also Hyppolytus Adv,
Hear, g: 14.)

60 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
sons and daughters, they were pure, truthful, kindly,
chaste, and very hospitable. But they were utterly
impractical. Society can never be improved by
people who run away from it. John the Baptist
might do it and do good, but he bade for audiences.
Elijah the Tishbite might do it and do good, but he
would make occasional excursions to the centers of
population. But the Essenes did neither. There is
no evidence that they gave the improvement of soci
ety any thought. They escaped from society, not to
improve it by organizing a better one, but to improve
themselves. "If the Pharisees avoided as much as
possible all intercourse with the unclean Am-haarez,
the Essene completely separated himself from the
multitudes and formed exclusive societies in which
similarity of disposition and endeavor afforded the
possibility of realizing the ideal of a life of absolute
ceremonial cleanness." (Schurer 2, 2, 210.)
There have been those who claimed that the
Essenes were the first Christians. This, among
others, is stated by so great a scholar as Greatz. A
more unwarranted statement can hardly be imagined.
Christ, who lived in the midst of society, and whose
first public act was to hallow a marriage, an Essene !
The differences between Jesus and the Essenes are
radical. The Essenes were impractical, while Jesus
was practical; they were sticklers for law, while
Jesus never was; they hated and despised women,
while Jesus mingled much in company of women;

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 61
they would only eat food prepared by a member of
their order, while Jesus ate wherever he was invited ;
they avoided the temple, Jesus was there often; they
objected to animal food, while Jesus never said a
word against it. And there are other differences,
as their denial of the resurrection of the body, their
opposition to animal sacrifices, their prohibition of
the use of oil, and the secrecy of their teachings.
Jesus taught publicly, received anointings gratefully,
affirmed the resurrection of the body, and at least
once commanded a man he had healed to offer a
sacrifice. (Luke v. 14.) In spirit especially, Jesus
and the Essenes were wholly unlike.
That they were kind, peaceable, gentle, hospit
able, and advocates of equality is no more proof
that Jesus was an Essene than that Buddha was one.
These are moral truths, are the natural outgrowth
of the moral sense, and are indigenous wherever
there are good and great men.
The most influential people of Jesus' time were
the Pharisees. The name Pharisee is probably a
nickname, like Protestant and Methodist, and was
later adopted as their real name. It means separa
tion, or separatists. To what sort of a separation,
whether from unclean things or unclean men, the
name owes its origin is not known, probably to a
separation from both
To this party belonged most of the scribes, some
times also called lawyers. These men were the

62 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
copyists and interpreters of the scriptures As the
legal code was embodied in the Old Testament,
jurisprudence among the Jews was a part of the
ology. Sometimes the scribes are also called Rab
or Rabbi, the meaning of which is master, or my
master- The picture we get of these scribes and Pharisees
in the gospels is very unattractive. John the Baptist
called them a generation of vipers. (Matt. iii. 7.)
Luke calls them lovers of money. (Luke xvi. 14.)
The other evangelists, too, show their dislike, but
call them nothing, while Jesus goes seemingly out of
his way in denouncing them. He accuses them of
vanity, loving salutations in the market-places, the
chief sects in the synagogue, and the uppermost
rooms at feasts; of cruelty and oppression, devour
ing the substance of widows; of insincerity in making
long prayers for pretense (Mark xii. 30-40), of pride,
in making broad their phylacteries (Matt, xxiii. 5),
and of destroying the Word of God by making it of
none effect through their traditions. (Mark vii. 13.)
He calls them hypocrites (Matt, xxiii. 13, 14, 15,
23, 27-29), whited sepulchers (Matt, xxiii. 27),
proselyters, making of their converts children of hell
as they were themselves (Matt, xxiii. 15), blind
guides of the blind (Matt, xxiii. 24), full of extor
tion, excess, hypocrisy, and iniquity (Matt, xxiii. 25,
28), a generation of vipers (Matt. xii. 34), children
of the devil, whose will they did (John viii. 44), and

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 63
he said to his disciples that unless their righteous
ness exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees
that they could in nowise enter into the kingdom of
heaven. (Matt. v. 20.)
The most fundamental error of the Pharisees was
their excessive ceremonialism. They emphasized
the less important things at the expense of the more
important. "Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and
cummin and have left undone the weightier matters
of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; but these
things ye ought to have done, and not to have left
the other undone." (Matt, xxiii. 23.)
To what extent they did this we gather from the
Talmud.1 In this we see that questions which re
lated to social welfare received comparatively little
attention. The keeping of the sabbath, ablutions,
prayers, tithes, sacrifices, and feasts — these are the
matters that engaged their thoughts.
This would not have been so harmful had it not
been for their love of detail. The pharisaic scribes
were not content with stating a principle, they had
also to state all the possible applications of it. They
would leave nothing to conscience, nothing to the
leadings of God. To regulate every detail of life
was their unwearied endeavor.
Thus, not content to state that a man must rest
from his labor on the sabbath, they enumerated the
1 For the material of the part of this chapter which deals with the
ceremonialism of the Pharisees, I have very largely relied on the inves
tigations of Schurer. (Schurer 2, 2, 91-125.)

64 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
kinds of labors from which he had to rest Some
how they had grouped these under thirty-nine differ
ent heads. How they came to limit it to that
number baffles ingenuity. These thirty-nine differ
ent heads were indefinitely divided and subdivided.
One of the forbidden labors was the kindling of
fire. Immediately the question arose, What kind of
a fire is meant, and does it include the lighting of a
lamp? When it was agreed that it did, the prohi
bition was also extended to extinguishing it. But
there are times when lamps must be lit or extin
guished, as in seasons of sickness. When this was
admitted there were other problems. For all these
separate emergencies separate laws were framed,
which the student of law had to memorize.
Another forbidden labor was to tie or untie a
knot. But it was speedily recognized that there
were different kinds of knots. Might a woman on
the sabbath tie a knot when she puts on a cap, or
strap on her sandals? Here was a perplexity. So
after discussing the question, a list of the knots that
might be safely tied was made out, and also a list of
the forbidden ones. The circumstances, too, under
which they were tied or untied were considered.
It was forbidden to prepare food on the sabbath.
This law included the heating of food. But people
loved warm meals on the sabbath. This led them
to put the hot food away in substances in wliich its
heat was retained. It was known that certain sub-

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 65
stances, like oats, would steam or heat, and that food
put away in them could be kept hot or be heated.
This, of course, required special legislation, as it was
dangerously near like cooking, so a long list of the
substances in which food might be kept and also a
list in which it might not be kept was prescribed.
It was forbidden to carry burdens on the sabbath.
But what constituted a burden? It was decided
that an article as light as a dry fig, a quantity of
milk enough for one swallow, of water sufficient to
moisten eye salve, and of ink enough to write one
letter was a burden. This, one would suppose, was
definite enough. But no. The question soon arose,
suppose a house is on fire on the sabbath, how much
might one carry in rescuing his property. Three
meals if it happened in the evening, two if in the
forenoon, and one if in the afternoon, was the
answer. And this was not all. Laws were passed forbid
ding things which were likely to lead to breaking the
sabbath. For instance, it was forbidden a tailor and
a writer to carry their needle and pen in their gar
ments on Friday after their work, as they might for
get to remove them, and so carry them on the sabbath
day. It was forbidden a man to read on the sab
bath by lamplight, lest the light being dim, he should
forget himself and trim it. We read in the gospels
how they murmured if Jesus healed people on the
sabbath, and how they took counsel to kill him for it.

66 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
(Matt. xii. II-14; Mark iii. 1-6.) If a man received
a sprain on the sabbath, he might not even bathe it
with water; if he broke a limb the doctor might not
set it. The most that was allowed was assistance
to women in labor.
But even deeper in its influence upon the daily
life of the people were the laws relating to what was
clean and unclean. A law in Num. xix. 15, provides
that any open vessel which is in the house in which
a person dies is unclean. The question with the
rabbis was what kind of a vessel was meant, was it
a leather vessel, a wood vessel, or an earthen vessel?
Then how could it be purified? It was concluded
that a flat plate without a rim would contract no
defilement, neither could a coal-shovel or a gridiron.
A hollow earthen vessel would, however, be so de
filed that it could only be cleansed by destruction.
A portion so small that it could only hold oil enough
to anoint a little toe was still unclean. It was to
these exaggerated purifications that Jesus referred
when he said that they cleansed the outside of the
cup and platter. (Matt, xxiii. 25.)
Even prayer was regulated. When to pray and
what to pray was carefully defined. It was the cus
tom of a house-father to pray and give thanks over
his meals. For this, too, forms were prescribed.
And the various articles partaken of, like bread,
vegetables, vinegar, unripe fruit, cheese, required
each its particular blessing.

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 67
Likewise the strictest attention was paid to ap
parel. A good Pharisee was careful about the num
ber of threads and knots he had in his phylactery,
and how long it was. With such puerilities and
fatuities they busied themselves, and in these the
children of the pious were carefully trained. It is
the boast of Josephus that the training of children
was so carefully attended to (Vita 2), and he also
says that many had such proficiency in the law, as
to shame their elders. (Contra Apion. 112.) Con
sidering how the knowledge of the law was a matter
of memory, and how much more retentive the mem
ory is in children than in later life, this is not at all
surprising. But of what value was it? Even the absurd
training which the learned in China receive is more
valuable; at any rate it does not cause so much
dejection, heart throbbings, and restlessness as this
did. As there was a tendency to regard all the laws
of equal importance, and as it was impossible to
keep them all, conscientious people were very un
happy. Who can conceive the misery of such an
earnest man as Paul? Knowing the bondage in
which the law held people, it is no wonder he speaks
of it so often, and glories so much in the freedom in
Christ.1 And it was probably worse later on. The
Talmudic laws had not yet been developed in all
1 The other New Testament writers had not studied these laws as
Paul had. It is not at all certain that they had paid much attention to
them.

68 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
their detail when Paul complained of the law. But
their development had gone a sadly long way. The
regulations pertaining to fasts and cleansings had
already been carried to such an absurd extent that
Jesus considered the original scriptural laws as hope
lessly lost, and so he swept them away. It was his
custom, if he could not reform the abuses of a law,
to sweep the law itself away. (Mark vii. 1-19;
Matt. ix. 14, 15.)
This emphasis on ceremonial law caused the neg
lect of the moral and social laws. They left undone
the weightier matters of the law, judgment and
mercy and faith. (Matt, xxiii. 23.) These laws,
our Saviour says, are more important than the cere
monial. Showing mercy is of more value than sacri
fice. (Matt. xii. 7.) The aim of religion is good
ness. The keeping of the ceremonial laws is an aid
to attain to goodness, while keeping the moral law is
the thing itself. The Pharisees did not see this.
Hence when a young Pharisee asked Jesus which
law he was to keep, Jesus mentioned only moral
laws. That this young man had kept the sabbath,
and made no graven image, and reverenced God's
name, was certain enough; it was not so certain that
his life had been pure, or that he had not borne false
witness, or dishonored his parents, or failed to love
his neighbors. (Matt. xix. 18, 19.) We recall how
Jesus rebuked this party for indifference to parents.
(Matt. xv. 5.) We are also familiar with the story

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 69
of how they brought a woman to Jesus who was
guilty of adultery and how not one of them was
chaste. (John viii. 1-11.)
History illustrates over and over that when atten
tion is given to ceremonial truths, morality declines.
Jesus called them whited sepulchers full of unclean
ness, hypocrisy, and iniquity. (Matt, xxiii. 27-28.)
Josephus also relates how they deceived the women
at Herod's court, pretending that God had inspired
them to foretell the future. (Jos. Ant. 17, 2-4.)
It can be truthfully said that the religion of the
Pharisees was virtually heathen. The distinctive
feature of the Old Testament religion — that which
distinguished it from heathen religions — was its
moral character. God, it taught, was holy, and his
worshipers were to be holy like he. (Lev. xi. 44.)
The gods of the other Oriental people were often
most unholy, and holiness was not asked of their
worshipers. To be pious among them did not mean
to be good. To be deeply religious did not mean to
be honorable. He was looked upon as the most
religious person who was most careful to observe the
ceremonial requirements. So among the Pharisees.
Hence Christ declared that they could not, as Phari
sees, enter heaven. All the heaven that they would
get they had already. "Verily I say unto thee they
have received their reward." (Matt. vi. 16.) The
praise of men, the opinion of the spiritually stupid,
the prominent seats at feasts, were their rewards.

7o THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
When they were not engaged in quibbling over
ceremonial laws, they would exercise their wits in
speculative discussions. "The heavenly world, the
nature and attributes of God, heaven as his dwelling-
place, the angels as his servants, the whole fullness
and glory of the heavenly world — such were the
objects to which learned reflection and inventive
fancy applied themselves with special predilection.
Philosophic problems were also discussed: how the
revelation of God in the world was conceivable, how
an influence of God upon the world was possible
without his being himself drawn into the finite, how
far there was room for evil in the world created and
governed by God, and the like." (Schurer 2, 1,347.)
They also speculated a great deal on eschatological
subjects, such as the glory of the Messianic kingdom,
and there were some who cultivated theosophy.
"Of ideas of reformation, which Jewish self-love
would so willingly have us believe in, there is not, as
we see, a single word." (Schurer 2, I, 362.) With
vital problems they were simply not concerned. The
nearest they came to it was when they discussed the
lawfulness of taxation, which did no good, and only
fanned the flames of revolution in which the nation
was finally devoured.
Upon the vast horde of suffering, erring human
ity they looked with bitter scorn. They called
themselves the Caberimj that is, neighbors, or "fel
low-citizens," and all who were not of their mode

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 71
of living and thinking were unclean. Even the
Sadducees were unclean (Nidda 4, 2), much more
the ignorant masses. The people who knew not the
law were cursed (John vii. 49), and when Jesus
sought to help these they murmured.
We read of a woman who had been helped by
Jesus. She came behind him to anoint his feet as
he was at the home of a Pharisee. Overcome by
emotions of gratitude, she moistened Jesus' feet with
her tears, which she hastily wiped away. Instead
of being touched by that, the Pharisee said to him
self that Jesus could be no prophet for allowing it,
because the woman was a sinner. (Luke vii. 39.)
Not a woman of ill-repute, for the assumption of
that there is no warrant; but one of the common
people, and therefore a sinner. When large throngs
of publicans pressed around Jesus to hear him speak,
the Pharisees murmured. (Luke xv. 2.) When he
ate a meal with them they were angry and shocked.
(Luke v. 33.) From such a party it is evident no
improvement in the economic condition of the people
could be expected.
There was another party called the Sadducaic.
The origin of the name Sadducee is in doubt, as is
that of Essene and Pharisee, but it probably comes
from Zadok, a. priest in the days of Solomon. The
characteristic feature of the Sadducees was their
social position. (Schurer 2, 2, 10.) They were the
nation's aristocrats. As the greater portion of

72 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
the scribes were Pharisees, the greater portion of the
priests came from the ranks of the Sadducees. All
the aristocratic priests did. (Jos. Ant. 13, 10, 6.)
As we come in touch with this party in the gospels
and Acts (Matt. xxvi. 62-65; Mark xiv. 60-74; Luke
xxii. 50; John xi. 49, 50; Acts iv. 1-21; v. 17-28),
it strikes us as made up of selfish, unjust, coarse,
and cruel people. The Mishnah speaks of them as
being as low as the Samaritans, and in many respects
on a level with the Gentiles. (Nidda 4, 1-2; 7, 3-5.)
Josephus tells of the cruelty of the high priest
Annas. He would send out his servants to the
threshing-floors, and take away by violence the
tithes that belonged to the priests, with the result
that some of these priests, having depended upon
these tithes for their support, died from want. (Jos.
Ant. 20, 9, 2.)
The best feature about the Sadducees was their
rejection of the traditions of the fathers. Unfortu
nately their motive for this was not because these
traditions obscured the scriptures, but that they were
hard to keep.
That this party would do little to lift the people's
burdens need scarcely be stated. The evidence for
this is the general attitude of this class of people to
the poor, and also the hostility which the poor felt
to them. (Jos. Ant. 18, I, 4.)
Thus neither party had the social spirit. Each
cared for itself. The needy were let alone. The

THE PEOPLE'S SOCIAL CONDITION 73
hope of the nation was left to perish, for with the
poor a nation's hope rests. Luther knew this, so
did Wesley and Whitfield, and so does General
William Booth. The fashion of the world passes
away, and so do the fashionable, and that often very
quickly. Flowers that bloom are nigh to destruc
tion. Their hfe days are numbered. But with the
shoot which just emerges from the bulb is the long
life. And it is this upon which the wise gardener
bestows his greatest care. The shoots are our low
est classes, just emerging, and those leaders or those
nations which care best for them will do humanity
the most lasting service.

THE HUMANITARIANISM OF A
RIGHTEOUS REMNANT IN
THE DAYS OF JESUS

"Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elijah? how he
pleadeth with God against Israel; Lord, they have killed
thy prophets, they have digged down thine altars; and I am
left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer
of God unto him? I have left for myself seven thousand
men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Even so then
at this present time also there is a remnant according to the
election of grace." (Rom. xi. 2-5.)

CHAPTER V
THE HUMANITARIANISM OF A RIGHTEOUS
REMNANT IN THE DAYS OF JESUS
If the mass of the people of Jesus' day and the
bulk of their leaders were corrupt, proud, selfish,
impractical, oppressive, and insincere, they were not
all that way.
There were a few exceptions. Who they were
and how great their number and influence was we
have no means of knowing. The literature of the
period is scant. There is very little descriptive of
the period outside of what is found in the New
Testament. The works of Josephus do not cover it.
Josephus almost passes it over, as if it had not been.
Philo wrote from Egypt, and is so Hellenized that
he hardly represents the Jews. The older Jewish
literature, the Mishna, popularly regarded as a part
of the Talmud, dates from a hundred years later.
Eleven-twelfths of the citations are from rabbis who
lived in the first half of the second century. Yet,
from these the main evidence for the existence of a
righteous remnant in the days of Jesus is obtained.
The Talmud is not enjoyable reading. It is like
walking through a desert, very dry work. Yet here
and there among the arid wastes are green oases of
77

78 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
really beautiful utterances. These are the sayings
of the righteous few.
In their discussions these men cover nearly every
topic that bears upon economic welfare which is
found in the Old Testament. Judged by these cita
tions they were men of breadth, judgment, and piety.
First of all they have the scriptural conception of
work.1 This, however, was not peculiar with them.
The Jews were never indolent. An idle aristocracy
did never thrive with them. We read of prominent
rabbis who were farmers, wood-cutters, needle-
smiths, blacksmiths, tailors, butchers, millers, shoe
makers, and carpenters. (Joma 35; Gittim 67.)
Then we find them again and again urging parents
to have their sons learn a trade, and recognizing its
moral as well as its economic advantages.2 There
was ground for fear that they over-emphasized the
value of manual labor and that spiritual labors would
suffer from it. (Barachoth35.) Men like that could
not disdain the toilers. They were brothers to them
— brothers in toil, in craft, and in blood. For their
interests they were jealously watchful. Prompt pay,
fair play, and kind treatment are the things they
enjoined. (Baba Meziah 110c; Baba Meziah 112a.)
Perhaps the duties of the toilers are urged some-
1 "He who lives on the toil of his hands is greater than he who
indulges in idle piety." (Berachoth 8a.)
2 "He who does not teach his son a trade is as if he had brought
him up for robbery." (Kidduschin 29a.) "Let one always see to it that
his son learns a light trade." (Kidduschin 82.) "How great is handy
craft, it honors its master." (Nedarim 40 c.)

HUMANITARIANISM 79
what more than the Old Testament does, such as
promptness (Baba Meziah 83c), diligence, and an
appreciation of an employer's kindness (Baba
Meziah 89a), but this is never done in a humiliat
ing way. Nothing unfair is asked of them, though
some of the regulations prescribed are, after the
manner of the rabbis, somewhat trifling. (Baba
Meziah 83c; Taanith 23c; Barachoth 16a.)1
Very little is said about slavery. The Hebrews
were not at this time in a position to hold many slaves.
This is also discouraged. (Baba Meziah 60c.) Giv
ing them freedom is urged, and so is considerate
treatment. (BabaBathra8.) But much is said con
cerning beneficence. Indeed, so much is said of its
importance that suspicions of self-interests are
aroused. For some of the rabbis were very poor,
so poor as to suffer for the necessaries of life.
(Taanith 24 ; Pesachim 11.) Of a very noted one,
Rabbi Akiba, it is said that he had scarcely straw
enough for bedding. (Taanith 25. )2 But "love
thinketh no evil." Where one can only suspicion,
he should not accuse.
The value of beneficence is put above that of the
1 Instances of detailed regulations are to the carpenter to keep the
shavings, but not the chips (Baba Kamma 10: 10), and to the gardener
stating how much he might eat of the fruit of his employer's orchard
or vineyard. (Baba Meziah 8oa.)
* Rabbi Jochanan, the son of Gudgada, and Rabbi Simon, the son
of Abba, both very learned, had often no bread. (Pesachim 11.)
Rabbi Eleazar, too, was often in need of the daily necessities. He
was once found sick, with nothing in the house but a little piece of
garlic. (Taanith 24.)

So THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
other virtues; in fact, it is said to be as valuable as
all other virtues put together.1
Some sayings make one think of Jesus. What
means this commandment, "Ye shall walk after the
Lord your God," asked Rabbi Chana, referring to
Deuteronomy xiii. 4; and he answered, It means,
you must imitate God." "As he clothes the
naked (Gen. iii. 21), so must you clothe the naked;
as he provides for the sick (Gen. xviii. 1), so
must you care for them; as he comforts the sad
(Gen. xxv. 11), so must you comfort them; as he
buried the dead, so must you bury the dead."
(Sota 13.)
All the good things of life are promised to the
beneficent. If one loved property, he had the prom
ise that God would bless his property (Baba Bathra
96), if he was spiritually minded, he had the prom
ise of God's presence (Baba Bathra 11), if he was
burdened with sin, he was assured that beneficence
would atone for it, if he longed for heaven, benefi
cence, it was said, would insure one's entrance, and
make his presence there more blessed.
During a famine Monabaz, a converted prince,
divided his property and that of his father among
the famine sufferers. His brothers objected to this:
1 "The works of charity have more value than sacrifices. They
are equal to the performance of all religious duties." (Succah 4ga.
Baba Bathra ga.) "The value of fasting consists in beneficence."
(Barachoth 6.) "God feeds the world in consequence of beneficence."
(Barachoth 7.) "The virtue of beneficence weighs as heavy as all the
other virtues put together." (Baba Bathra ga.)

HUMANITARIANISM 81
"Your father," they said, "multiplied the treasure,
but you add nothing to it, and even spend the same."
Against this he answered, "I also accumulate treas
ure, but with this difference, they gathered here
below, I above; they brought together uncertain
treasures, but I store mine where no human hand
reaches; what they gathered brought forth small
fruit, what I gather brings forth fruit manifold;
they preserved gold and silver, I human lives; they
heaped up treasures for this world, I for the world
to come. Beneficence goes before you in the glories
of the eternal future." (Baba Bathra 10.) Cp.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the
earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and
where thieves break through and steal; but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither
moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves
do not break through and steal." (Matt. vi.
19-20.) Refusal to give alms, when one was able to do
it, was called the sin of sins, as bad as idolatry.
(Kethuboth 61, 68a.) Even to postpone it was to
run the risk of God's curses. (Taanith 21.)
If there were those in Jesus' day who gave alms
to be seen of men, such probably were also found
about this time, but it was explicitly forbidden. A
man who did that, the Mishna said, should be re
garded as a sinner. (Chagiga 4.) Rabbi Janai said
that it was better not to give at all than do it pub-

82 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
licly. (Chagiga 5.) Only heathen displayed their
beneficence. (Baba Bathra 10. )"
But best of all they recognized that alms should
spring from love. Not the fact of giving, nor the
amount of the gift (Baba Bathra 1 6c), but the spirit
in which the gift was made was said to determine its
value. Gifts should be prompted by love, and be
accompanied with words of advice, encouragement,
and sympathy. (Succah 49c.) "Blessed is he who
gives from his substance to the poor, twice blessed
is he who accompanies his gift with kind and com
forting words." 2
As regards loans and interest they hold to the
teachings of the scripture. Making loans is earn
estly enjoined, especially with a view to helping a
man to help himself. For while giving alms is en
couraged, their reception is not. Receiving alms,
the Bible said, was the lot of the children of the
wicked, or those too indolent to work (Ps. cix. 10;
Job xx. 10; Prov. xx. 4), and was held in peculiar
abhorrence.3 It always was among the Jews, was then, is now,
1 "True beneficence is that which is done unobserved." (Baba
Bathra inc.)
3 "The merit of charitable works is in proportion to the love with
which they are practiced." (Succah 4ga.) Other references to citations
about charity are found in Sotah 14a, Kethuboth 66c, Succah 2gc,
Baba Bathra ga, ic, Baba Kamma 16c.
3 "To curtail your needs, turn sabbath into week day. Better to
work on the sabbath than beg." (Pesachim 112,) "Take hold of any
V kind of work, however humble, so as to avoid the need of taking alms."
4* (Baba Bathra no). "He to whom alms are offered, but refuseth them,
will see the day he will be able to bestow them." (Fea. 8c, 9.)

HUMANITARIANISM 83
and we hope ever shall be. Therefore, they urged
men to be careful in bestowing charity (Baba Bathra
9a), and declared that the noblest charity of all was
to enable the poor to earn their own livelihood. (Sab
bath 63 a.) This loans would often accomplish, and
therefore their importance. There are several say
ings in which this appears; the most notable ones
are found in Sabbath 63a, and Jebamoth 62c.
Interest on such loans was forbidden the same as
in the Old Testament. They who took it were
called deniers of God, and threatened with terrible
curses, but judging from the praise bestowed
upon those who did not take it, these were not
many.1 Debt-burdened people were kindly remembered.
A man's necessities of life could not be taken for
debt, no matter how great it was. (Baba Meziah
115a.) They were especially considerate of wid
ows, and of the wife and children of a debtor (Baba
Meziah 115a; 118a), and such was the protection
afforded to the feelings of the honest debtor that
the creditor was ordered to keep as far as possible
out of his way. (Baba Meziah 75c.)
What they say concerning riches accords with
the scripture. Riches are disparaged as bringing
care and trouble and some gave all their riches away,
1 "Come see how blind increase takers are, they are deniers of
God " (Baba Meziah 71.) "The transgression of the increase taker
is a fivefold one, as the command against taking increase was fivefold."
(Baba Meziah 75.) "He who puts out his money upon interest will see
no blessings upon his labor." (Baba Meziah 71a.)

84 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
enough of them to call for a law to stop it. (Erachin
8, 14.) If we now turn two or three centuries back, to
the time of the Apocrypha, we find a righteous
remnant there, giving utterance to sentiments re
garding social welfare that are very similar to those
of the rabbis. The Apocryphal books were written by
pious men. They could not otherwise have held their
place in the Catholic Church as sacred literature.
That some of them are practical and spiritual, all they
who have read them know. So far as they touch on
economic interests they evince the tenderest humanity.
As in the Mishna, so here, there is much said
concerning beneficence. Almsgiving is earnestly
urged, especially in Sirach and in Tobit, the former
written about 170 B. C. and the latter somewhat later.
"Help the poor for the commandment's sake,"
writes Sirach; "and turn him not away because
of his poverty." "Lose thy money for thy brother
and thy friend, and let it not rust under a stone to
be lost." (Eccles. xxix. 9-10.) Tobit says, "It is
better to give alms than to lay up gold; for alms
deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin."
(Tobit xii. 8, 9.) Both these authors teach the same
error which' the Mishna does, that alms atone for
iniquity. Tobit teaches it very explicitly, but Sirach
also held it.1
1 "Water will quench a flaming fire, and alms maketh an atonement
for sins." (Eccles. iii. 30.) Both also teach that almsgiving will be re
warded in heaven. (Eccles. xii. 2; Tobit iv. 9. )

 HUMANITARIANISM  85
The danger and care occasioned by riches are also
emphasized; in fact, all the laws and teachings that
aim at social welfare are honored.1
In Ecclesiastics we have one of the sweetest
passages of its kind respecting the treatment of
slaves: "If thou hast a servant, let him be unto thee
as thyself, because thou hast bought him with a
price. If thou hast a servant entreat him as thy
brother." (Eccles. xxxiii. 30, 31.)
Coming down to Jesus' day we find words almost
as tender in the works of Philo. Philo was so per
meated with Hellenic culture that we are not always
sure that he represents Hebrew life and thought
correctly, but we may be certain that it is not Greek
thought he reflects when he writes of slavery, "O
man, he is a hireling who is called a slave, having a
most sublime relationship to you, inasmuch as he is
of the same nation as yourself and perhaps he is
even of the same tribe." (Philo, Ten Festivals, Vol.
III. p. 274, Yonge Ed.) In this same paragraph
he objects to calling slaves Sookoi, that is bondmen;
they should, he says, be called tfij-res, that is ser
vants; and he urges the observance of the sabbatic
year which required their release, and their endow
ment with enough property to give them a fair start.
(Deut. xv. 14.)
Knowing that there were pious men, teaching
1 "Watching for riches consumeth the flesh, and care thereof
driveth away sleep. Gold hath been the ruin of many and their
destruction was present." (Eccles. xxxi. 2-6, viii. 2; xiii. 3-8.)

86 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
noble truths, a hundred years after Jesus, and know
ing also that there were pious men teaching noble
truths a hundred years before Jesus, it is inevitable
that we infer that there were noble truths and noble
men in his time. Of the existence of noble men
there is evidence in the New Testament. We read
of righteous men like Zacharia and Joseph and of
women like Elizabeth and Mary and of devout
Simeon and pious Anna. (Luke ii. 25-37.) The
shepherds, too, were godly men, and doubtless they
were also found among the rabbis. We are almost
sure that Rabban Gamaliel the elder, the teacher of
Paul, was one. (Acts v. 34; xxii. 3.) It was said
some years after his death, "Since Rabban Gamaliel
the elder died there has been no more reverence for
the law, and purity and abstinence died out at the
same time." (Sota 9, 15.)
If we had a record of the sayings of the rabbis
of the first half of the first century, we would prob
ably find utterances among them as noble as we do
among the sayings of those of the first half of the
second century. But their teaching is almost wholly
lost, only a few sentences of the leading ones being
preserved. If we had it, it would no doubt be
wearisome reading, the bulk of it given up to the
petty ceremonial regulations, but with here and
there a few sayings worth remembering.1
1 Twice as many treatises of the Mishna deal with ceremonial
matter as deal with moral truths.

 HUMANITARIANISM  87
During the Civil War, when slaves escaped from
the South to Canada, they were helped on their way
by Abolitionists. Along a road of hostile or indiffer
ent people they would find here and there a friend,
by whom they were helped on to another friend.
By such a method truth has come to us. In a world
of hostile or indifferent people, it has met friends,
who handed it on to other friends, and so it has come
down to the ages, from generation to generation.
Such friends truth found in Jesus' time, who handed
it down from the Apocryphal days to the days of the
Talmud. No, Jesus did not come into a world in which
everybody was a hypocrite or a formalist. There
was a remnant left. But the influence of that rem
nant was small. Their names are forgotten. They
were, however, of great help to Jesus, as with the
aid they gave him, he gathered the people who sub
sequently formed the nucleus of his church.
If the distressed conditions of the period moved
Jesus to sympathy, and roused the desire to remove
this distress, there was not only plenty that he might
do, but plenty that would never be done unless he
did it. The leaders as a class cared not for the
people, and the few who did lacked power. That
it moved Jesus we cannot doubt, that he determined
to improve the sad conditions, we can as little
doubt. Just how he went about this improvement
must be considered later.

THE VARIATIONS IN THE GOSPELS
TOUCHING JESUS' TEACHINGS
ON WEALTH

"Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same
Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the same
God, who worketh all things in all. But to each one is
given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal."
(I. Cor. xii. 4-7.)

CHAPTER VI
THE VARIATIONS IN THE GOSPELS TOUCH
ING JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH
Before we can consider the attitude of Jesus to
his country's unhappy condition and his plan for its
social redemption, if he had such a plan, it is neces
sary to give some thought to certain variations that
are found in the gospels. No one who has carefully
read them has failed to notice the different impres
sions they give as to Jesus' attitude to questions of
material possession. If he reads John's gospel, he
gets the impression that he paid no attention to it.
If he reads the gospel of Mark, he concludes that
he paid some attention to it. Matthew's gospel
leads one to believe that his interest in it was very
considerable, while in Luke's gospel questions of
property are given a prominent place.
The gospel of Luke contains practically every
thing that relates to material possession which is
found in the other gospels. In addition to that, it
tells concerning the birth of Christ in a manger;
the sacrifice by his parents of two young pigeons,
which was the poor people's sacrifice; the song of
Mary, containing the sentiment, "He hath put down
the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low
91

92 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich he hath sent empty away" (Luke i.
52, 53); the sermon at Nazareth, in which Jesus said
that he came to preach the gospel to the poor (iv.
16-20); the saying that the laborer is worthy of his
hire (x. 7) ; the injunction to the Pharisees to give
alms of such things as they could (xi. 41); the com
mand, "Sell that thou hast and give alms" (xii.
33); the principle, "Whosoever he be of you that
renounceth not all that he hath cannot be my dis
ciple" (xiv. 33); the parable of the two debtors (vii.
36-50); that of the rich man who boasted of his
goods and was condemned for it (xii. 16-21); the
refusal of Jesus to be an arbiter between two broth
ers who strove about an inheritance (xii. 13-16);
the parable of the good Samaritan (x. 25-38); the
parable of the marriage feast, in connection with
which Jesus advised his hearers to invite the poor,
the maimed, the blind, the halt, to their feasts (xiv.
7-24) ; the parable of the lost piece of money (xv.
8-10); the prodigal son (xv. 11-32); the unjust
steward (xvi. 1-13); and that of the rich man and
Lazarus (xvi. 19-21).
Then, too, we find where this evangelist records
the same events or addresses which are also recorded
by the other evangelists, that Jesus' sympathy for
the poor and for poverty is more pronounced. In
recording the preaching of John the Baptist, Luke
alone states how John charged the publicans not to

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 93
extort, the soldiers to be content with their pay, and
the rich to share their garments with the poor.
(iii. 1 1-1 5 .) In describing the call of Peter, Andrew,
James, and John, it is he again who tells us that
they left all. The other evangelists do not mention
that. (Matt. iv. 22 ; Mark i. 20; Luke v. 1 1 .) The
same is true of the account of the call of Matthew,
or Levi. (Matt. ix. 9; Mark ii. 14; Luke v. 28.)
Comparing the reports of the Sermon on the
Mount as given by Luke with that given by Matthew,
the same facts are noticeable. Where Matthew has
"Blessed are the poor in spirit," Luke has "Blessed
are ye poor." (Matt. v. 3; Luke vi. 20.) Where
Matthew has "Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness," Luke has "Blessed are
ye that hunger now." (Matt. v. 6; Luke vi. 21.)
Where Matthew has "Give to him that asketh
thee," Luke has "Give to everyone that asketh
thee." (Matt. v. 42; Luke vi. 30.) Where Mat
thew has "Love your enemies and pray for them that
persecute you," Luke has "Love your enemies and
do them good, and lend, never despairing." (Matt.
v. 44; Luke vi. 35.)
Then he inserts material in that sermon for which
there is nothing corresponding in Matthew; as, "Woe
unto you that are rich" and "Woe unto you, ye that
are full now! for ye shall hunger." (vi. 24, 25.)
The same is noticeable in other parts of the gospel.
In the story of the rich young man, Matthew has

94 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
"Sell that thou hast," Luke has "Sell all that thou
hast." Matthew tells us that "the rich youth went
away sorrowful," Luke says that "he became exceed
ing sorrowful"; Matthew states that he had "great
possessions," Luke tells us that "he was very rich."
(Matt. xix. 21, 22; Luke xviii. 22, 23.)
In recording Jesus' charge to the twelve on the
occasion of their mission, Mark represents him as
allowing them the use of a staff on their journey,
while Luke, in common with Matthew, represents
him as allowing them nothing. (Mark vi. 8; Matt.
x. 9; Luke ix. 3.)
Much has been made of these differences, but
they amount to little.
That John should say anything concerning ques
tions of wealth is not to be expected. He wrote
his gospel to strengthen belief in the divinity of Jesus.
(John xx. 21.) Discussions of Jesus that bore on
questions of wealth would not be in the line of his
purpose. Nor is it strange that such discussions are not
found in Mark. According to Papias, this gospel is
based upon reminiscences of Peter. The consensus
of biblical criticism is that this statement is reliable,
except that not the present gospel, but an older
gospel upon which it is based, was formed from
these reminiscences. Peter was a genial, frank, im
pulsive, large-hearted man, a good talker, and a
splendid witness, but had a somewhat limited edu-

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 95
cation. Upon a person of that type deeds rather
than speeches would make an impression, and these
we find in the gospel of Mark, and they are told in
a realistic, rough, racy, unvarnished,, truly Petrine
way. Both John and Mark must be supplemented
by a record, or records, which take note of the
speeches of Jesus, which John omitted because of his
purpose, and Mark because of his source.
Such records we have in the gospels of Matthew
and Luke. Both record several discussions of Jesus
that bear on matters of property. That Luke's
record should be much the fuller of the two, and
that he should paint the Saviour's love for the poor
and his fear of riches in much stronger colors than
Matthew, is not strange, in view of his position and
character. Luke was a dear friend (Col. iv. 14) and fellow-
laborer of the apostle Paul (Philem. 24). Paul had
counted all things but loss for the excellency of
Jesus. (Phil. iii. 8.) It is extremely likely that
Luke had done the same. Indeed it is almost
certain. His calling before he began to preach was that
of a physician. This ranked him with the educated
and respected class. As a preacher of the gospel
and a co-laborer with Paul he was made as "the
refuse" of the world. (1 Cor. iv. 13.) He had
sacrificed far more for his Master than had Matthew,
at least than the original Matthew, who was only a

96 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
publican. Sayings of Jesus which set forth the
value of sacrifice would seem to such a man to be
exceedingly dear and important.
The people to whom he wrote were such as would
more likely be impressed with the benevolence and
sympathy of Jesus than with anything else concern
ing him. Luke was a gentile Christian (Col. iv.
10-14) who wrote to gentile Christians. He ad
dressed his gospel to Theophilus. This man was
probably the wealthy Theophilus of Antioch, Syria,
of whom Clement makes mention. (Clementine
Recognitions X. 71.) He was at any rate Luke's
fatronus libri, the man whose wealth enabled him
to publish his gospel. Through the assistance of
this man he sought to reach the churches of the
Greek world, and commend the Saviour to such
Greeks as did not yet believe in him. The Greeks
we know revered and extolled the perfect man, the
man of beauty, power, and sympathy. Whoever
sought to convert them to Jesus would have to keep
these national characteristics in mind, and like a
wise and tactful man Luke did this.
Incidents which might possibly be taken as re
flecting on the majesty or love of Jesus, such as his
despairing cry on the cross (Matt, xxvii. 46; Mark
xv. 34), or his seeming unwillingness at first to help
the Canaanitish woman (Matt. xv. 26; Mark vii. 27),
he leaves out of his narrative. Incidents which
would most likely commend the Saviour, such as set

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 97
forth his sympathy and thoughtfulness for the needy,
he made as much of as possible. This is strikingly
seen in his stories of Christ's miracles. He alone
will tell us, for instance, when Jesus raised a child,
that it was an only child (viii. 42), when he healed
a son, that it was an only son (ix. 38), when he
healed a hand, that it was the right, the one most
needed (vi. 6).
He gathered his material from a people among
whom the sympathy of Jesus for the poor was fondly
cherished. Luke was not an eye-witness of what he
wrote. He could not describe what he had seen and
heard as John could. (1 John i. 1.) He had to
depend in part upon the statements of those who
from the "beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers
of the word. (Luke i. 1 .) To meet these men he
probably traveled to Palestine, as many of them
must have lived in that country. At any rate, he got
some of his information from Palestinian sources.
We learn this from the many Hebraisms in the first
two chapters of his gospel. The presence of vari
ous strange words in the section of his gospel pecu
liar to it — from chapter ix. 51 to chapter xviii. 14 —
also points that way. These strange words are
absent when Luke relates what his gospel has in
common with the others. A translation from a
foreign tongue, like the Aramaean, gives a natural
explanation for them.
From thirty to fifty years after Jesus, when Luke

98 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
collected the material for his history, the sayings of
Jesus in the interest of the poor must have been
peculiarly cherished. The Palestinian Christians
were generally very poor. The book of Acts and
the epistles of Paul show their need of constant
help. (2 Cor. viii. 4-13; ix. 12; Gal. ii. 10.) Such
sayings of Jesus as were most to their interest were
naturally much discussed.1 With glowing enthusi
asm these people would tell Luke of Christ's
interest in them, and describe the state of the
church, fresh from the influence of her risen Lord,
when the needy were kindly remembered, when a
beautiful spirit of fellowship bound all the Christians
together as one family, when no one said that aught
had was his own, but when all things were held in
common.2 Thus it came to pass that Luke has given us a
different view of Jesus' attitude to matters of prop
erty than we gather from the gospels of Mark and
of John, or even from Matthew.
Is this view that Luke gives us of Jesus' attitude
to property an accurate one? Do not the various
influences — the bias, if you please — that wrought
upon his mind in the production of his gospel cast
suspicion upon its trustworthiness? Why should it?
1 The epistle of James, which arose among them, suggests an
unfriendly feeling among them toward the rich. (James v. i-6.) This
epistle has the same characteristics which are found in the gospel of
Luke. 2 See the influence of these Palestinian informants, or sources, in
the first part of the book of Acts. (Acts ii. 43-47; iv. 32-37.)

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 99
How do we know that these influences were not the
very things needed to picture the Saviour accurately?
Luke's own liking, that of the people for whom he
wrote, and that of those from among whom his
material was collected, for a Christ who made much
of the poor, and who was deeply interested in mat
ters of property, might have been the agencies of
God to give the world a symmetrical view of its
Lord. If God makes the wrath of man to praise
him (Ps. Ixxvi. 10), he can certainly make use of a
people's likings.
At any rate, the veracity of a gospel is not to be
impunged because its author is a deeply sympathetic
and tactful man, if he is otherwise thorough. To
object to Luke on that ground is practically equiva
lent to saying that he was too good a man to be
an evangelist. To claim that the poor Christians
of Palestine idealized Christ's sympathy for them
and that their traditions of his interest in economic
affairs were not true, is sheer assumption.
There is another variation found in the gospels
that solicits our attention. It is between Luke and
Matthew as regards the place where one of Jesus'
discussions was given, and also as regards a differ
ence in their phraseology where they relate the same
addresses. Biblical critics are virtually agreed that we have
in the sixth chapter of Luke an account of the same
sermon which is more fully recorded in the fifth,

ioo THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew.1 There is
some difference between these accounts. The ques
tion is, Which of the two is the more accurate?
The probability is that Matthew's gospel is the
older. This is in itself not of much value, but it has
a certain weight in Matthew's favor. So has the
fact that he was an eye-witness of the events which
he describes. So, too, has the unity that runs
through his record of the discourse. It is defensive
throughout, and successively deals with themes which
Jesus, as we learn from other parts of the gospel,
esteemed most vital. This order and unity would
hardly exist had it been delivered in that detached
and fragmentary manner which Luke suggests.
In the interest of harmonizing details as to the
location — Matthew giving the mountain as the place,
and Luke the plain — and also to account for the
somewhat loose connection of some of the sayings in
the latter part of Matthew's discourse, Professor
Bruce has suggested that the various themes were
discussed on successive days during an outing which
Jesus took with his followers; perhaps the beatitudes
on one day, the righteousness of the kingdom on
another day, and prayer on a third, some of the dis
cussions taking place on the mountain and some at
1 There are some conservative scholars who believe that they are re-
fiorta of separate discourses, one given at the commencement, another
ater in the ministry. Popular teaching requires repetition of the same
forms, and to varying multitudes. Jesus, it is claimed, would often re
peat his discourses. This theory obviates the difficulty of the difference
in the phraseology.

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 101
its base. This is not improbable. Indeed, it is so
probable, and the divergence as to the location is
such an insignificant matter, that it need not further
detain us.
The divergencies in phraseology, where they
affect the teachings of Jesus, as where Matthew repre
sents him as saying "Blessed are the poor in spirit,"
while Luke says that he said "Blessed are ye poor,"
are more serious (Cp. Matt. v. 3, 4, 5; Luke vi. 20,
21). On this divergence Godet, in his commentary
on Luke, says: "The text of Matthew presents here
two important differences: First, he employs the
third person instead of the second; 'Blessed are the
poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'; 'They
that mourn, for they shall be comforted,' etc. The
beatitudes which in Luke are addressed directly to
the hearers, are represented here under the form of
general maxims and moral sentiments. Second, in
Matthew these maxims have an exclusively spiritual
meaning; 'The poor in spirit, they who hunger after
righteousness.' . . . Two things appear evident to
us: (1) That the direct form of address in Luke,
'Ye,' can alone be historically accurate. Jesus was
speaking to his hearers, not discoursing before them;
(2) That this first difference has led to the second;
having adopted the third person and given the beati
tudes that Maschil form, so often found in the
didactic part of the Old Testament (Psalms and
Proverbs), Matthew was obliged to bring out ex-

103 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
pressly in the text of the discourse those moral aims
which are inherent in the very persons of the poor
whom Jesus addressed directly in Luke, and without
which these words, in this abstract form, would have
been somewhat too unqualified." (Godet, Gospel
of Luke, p. 201.)
The explanation of the variation appears to be
this : On account of various ceremonial rules, most
of them having reference to purifying, the conscien
tious Jew could not profitably carry on business.
There were several days when it was impossible.
This turned to the advantage of the less conscien
tious element, the class which ignored ceremonial
regulations. As a result, they got the business and
the capital, while the good became poor. From
these the larger number of the hearers of Jesus came.
He acted like a magnet in Judaism, drawing the
morally better to him. Hence he could say that if
one heard and saw him, and believed not, that he
stood by his unbelief condemned, as one who loves
darkness rather than the light, because his works are
evil. (John iii. 19.)
These people were not only poor, but were also
perplexed. They believed that poverty and riches
came directly from God, and that his faithful ser
vants were rewarded with earthly possessions. How
to reconcile their poverty with such a conception of
God's government was exceedingly puzzling. It
bewildered them. Why were the unrighteous so

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 103
prosperous, and they so poor? What had they done
to deserve it? Is it not natural that Jesus should
have opened his discourse with comforting words
for these people? They certainly needed them,
needed to know that their poverty instead of being
a sign of God's disapproval was rather an evidence
of their acceptableness, and so adapting his words
to their need, Jesus said, "Blessed are ye poor, for
yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that
hunger now, for ye shall be filled .... but woe
unto you that are rich, for ye have received your
consolation." "Woe unto ye that are full, for ye
shall hunger." (Luke vi. 20; xxi. 24, 25.) These
latter sayings suggest that among his hearers were
also some of the wealthy ones. Well-to-do, sleek,
self-satisfied, and proud, they were as much in need
of discomposure as were the poor of comfort.
Another argument in favor of the phraseology of
Luke is, that the less spiritual saying — such as his
is — would not likely be substituted for the more
spiritual saying of Matthew. What, then, are the
results? That Luke's phraseology isJugt;qricajljMth_e
more accurate and that Matthew, has simply, given
us an interpretation i,pj itj ^ndjh^t^ th^tw^G^o^gels
are in perfect accord in^heir Jeachjgg.
If we may assume that these words were in the
original apostolic Matthew, and there is no reason
why we should not, Matthew, a native of Palestine,
a disciple of Jesus, knowing the character of the

104 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
poor to whom Jesus addressed the sermon, as people
who hungered and thirsted for righteousness, and
recognizing that the sayings of Jesus were apt to
give a wrong impression when they were generally
applied, changed their phraseology and gave us their
meaning instead of their form, Luke, who was a
foreigner, less acquainted with the character of
Jesus, had no other recourse but to write literally
what was told him, or what he found in his sources.
The other variations in the phraseology do not
affect the teaching, and may be passed over in
silence. The accusation has been made against Luke that
he colors his material; that he describes things that
were exceptional as universal; that he is given to
exaggeration, and to converting the language of en
thusiasm into a sober record of facts. He relates,
they say, in one place how Jesus declared to a great
multitude that unless they forsook all they could not
be his disciples (xiv. 33), whereas, in another place
he shows that Jesus had disciples who had property
(viii. 3) ; that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that all the inhabited earth should be taxed (ii. 1),
whereas, we know that it only concerned the Roman
Empire; that all who believed had all things in com
mon (Acts ii. 44; iv. 32), whereas, he instances
Barnabas as being phenomenally self-sacrificing
(Acts iv. 36); that the five thousand or more Chris
tians (Acts ii. 41; iv. 4) were all of one heart and

JESUS' TEACHINGS ON WEALTH 105
soul (Acts iv. 32), whereas, we know, from his own
story, that they were much divided (Acts vi. 1).
Sifting this down, it simply shows that Luke
might, as an eloquent historian, have used an occa
sional universal for a particular, but more cannot be
proven; and who can prove that Augustus did not
speak of his realm as embracing the inhabited earth,
or that Jesus did not make that severe demand of a
fickle crowd, or that the early disciples were not at
first all united, but in the course of time disagreed?
When the opportunity for testing the historicity of
Luke is offered he stands the test well. We are
greatly indebted to him for the valuable light that he
has thrown on the life and teachings of Jesus, and
any account of Jesus which depreciates Luke is to
that extent incomplete,
Each gospel makes its contribution toward help
ing us to estimate Jesus' teachings. To each we
owe a special debt. For the variations that exist
between them we are grateful. They make the
Saviour better known. They blend together like
prismatic colors, into the white light of a perfect
revelation.

THE PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to
the poor:
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
—(Luke iv. 18, 19.)

CHAPTER VII
THE PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY
Did the unhappy economic conditions of Pales
tine touch Jesus, and did he endeavor to improve
them, or had his ministry a different end in view?
That the unhappy conditions of the people pained
him no one who reads the gospels can possibly fail
to notice. His first recorded sermon shows it. It
was based on a text from Isaiah, every word of which
throbs with sympathy for the unfortunate. "The
spirit of the Lord is upon me; Because he hath
anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He
hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty
them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord." (Is. lxi. I, 2; Luke iv. 18, 19.)
When a few months later John the Baptist wanted
to know if he were the Messiah, he gave the fact of
his sympathy and helpfulness toward the unfortu
nate as proof: "Go your way," he said to John's
messengers, "and tell John what things you have
seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good
tidings preached to them." (Luke vii. 22.) The
109

no THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
welfare of the unfortunate class, such as the sick,
the blind, and the poor, lay close to his heart.
It was on this account that the poor were so
devoted to him. They were his most devoted fol
lowers. When he delivered the largest discourse
that has been recorded, they formed the bulk of his
hearers. Otherwise the words with which he opened
this discourse would be devoid of meaning. "Blessed
are ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall be
filled. Blessed are ye that weep now; for ye shall
laugh .... but woe unto you that are rich; for
ye have received your consolation." (Matt. v. 3; iv.
6; Luke vi. 20, 21-24.) Some of those who fol
lowed him worried about their daily necessities.
"Be not anxious," he said to them, "for your life,
what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on; for the life is more than food and the
body than raiment." (Luke xii. 22, 23.)
It must not be inferred from this, as has some
times been done, that his love for the poor was to
the exclusion of his love for the rich. He was no
partisan. He never played the role of a demagogue.
Class feeling was already too bitter, he would remove
it, not intensify it. How far Renan and others are
wrong, in representing Jesus as an enemy of the rich,
is seen from the number of well-to-do people that he
gathered around him. There was Joanne, the wife
of Chusa, Herod's steward (Luke viii. 2), Mary, the

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY m
mother of James, and Salome, who brought spices
to anoint him in the sepulcher (Mark xvi. i), Mary
Magdalene, who offered to take charge of his burial
(John xx. 15), and the sisters of Bethany, who
opened their homes for his entertainment (Luke x.
38-42). All these were people of more or less
wealth. Mary anointed Jesus with an ointment
which, according to the estimates of the apostles,
was worth three hundred denarii, equivalent to the
wages of a laborer for a whole year (Matt. xx. 2.)
She had been used to luxury, or else she would not
have thought of such an expensive ointment. It
shocked the simpler tastes of some of the disciples.
There were other disciples who had money. The
scribe to whom Jesus said, in answer to his offer
to follow him, that he had no pillow for his head,
was used to comfort, else Jesus would have used
some other method to test his sincerity. (Matt. viii.
19.) Of the young ruler we are plainly told that he
was very rich. (Luke xviii. 23; Matt. xix. 21.)
Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man. (Matt. xxvi.
57.) Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews and prob
ably had means. (John xix. 39.) To these we must
add John the apostle, the dearest of all his friends.
John's father was an employer of labor (Mark i. 20),
and he was himself a man of influence. It was
strong enough at the home of the high priest to
secure admittance for him and his friend Peter at
Jesus' trial. (John xviii. 15, 16.) Peter also had

112 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
some means. (Matt viii. 14.) Matthew had means
enough and a home large enough to spread a feast
for a great company of publicans and Jesus and his
disciples, who all sat down together. (Matt. ix.
10; Mark ii. 15; Luke v. 27.)
Jesus was the friend of all. He had his follow
ers among all ranks of life. His great heart beat
with sympathy for everybody. His affection was
too great to be focused on a single class. The
Pharisee who invited him to dine at his house was
as dear to him as the penitent sinner who bathed and
kissed his feet. (Luke vii. 36-50.) He accepted
the invitation of Simon the Pharisee at whose home
he met the Pharisees, the nation's pride, as gladly as
that of Matthew the publican, at whose board he
met the publicans, who were the nation's shame.
(Matt. ix. 10.)
Did Jesus seek to improve the existing conditions?
Indeed he did. It was in his mind from the begin
ning of his ministry. "Now after that John was
delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the
gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and
the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe
in the gospel." (Mark i. 14, 15.) The mean
ing of the term the "Kingdom of God" has been
much discussed, but scholars are not of one mind as
to its full significance. That it had a social meaning
is generally admitted. The term was not a new one.
Jewish teachers had used it before it was used by

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY 113
Jesus. It denoted in their mouth a kingdom of the
saints with the Messiah at their head. This kingdom
was to be very blessed. The reign of the Messiah
would make an era of universal gladness. Some
pictured its glories most glowingly. War, strife,
discord, and quarrels would cease, and peace, love,
righteousness, and faithfulness prevail. Wild beasts
would lose their enmity. The old would be as vigor
ous as the young. Men's age would be increased to
nigh upon a thousand years. Sorrow and sickness
would cease, and men would no more grow weary
at their work. Even the deceased Israelites were to
participate in the glories of this era, and to that end
were to arise. (Sibylline Oracles, Baruch and Book
of Jubilees.) Jesus used the term repeatedly. He never inti
mated that he did not use the term in the commonly
accepted sense. Of course this does not mean that
he meant to encourage the hope that all that had
been said respecting it should be realized; but it
does mean that he encouraged belief in the main
facts which the use of the term suggested — that
there was to be inaugurated a kingdom of saints of
wliich the Messiah was to be the head, and that there
would be a great improvement in people's social
welfare. His interest in people's social welfare was inevit
able, because of his sympathy. He was very tender
hearted. The least suffering on the part of others

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

pained him. He was moved with compassion for
those who were hungry. (Matt. xv. 32.) He was
filled with pity for such as were weary. (Matt. ix.
36.) He breathed the spirit of the great Father.
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," he
said. (John xiv. 9.) The Father pitied suffering
sparrows, much more did he pity suffering men.
(Luke xii. 6.)
But there was a deeper reason than sympathy
and pity. Jesus believed that social well-being
here has an influence on one's well-being in the
hereafter, and to promote that was the great pur
pose of his ministry. Jesus thought in ages. He
lived in the presence of eternity. The future life
was ever before his vision. On no subject is his
teaching so full as on life after death. A hundred
references to it are scattered through the gospels.
The gospel of Luke, whose author is sometimes
called the "Socialist Evangelist" (Rogge, p. 10),
because of his marked love for the poor and his
delight to picture Jesus' love for them, reports
twenty-nine. Some of these references in the gos
pels relate to the resurrection, of which Jesus is to
be the agent (John xi. 25); some to the judgment,
at which Jesus is to preside (Matt. xxv. 32-41); some
to the glories upon which those who are approved
shall enter (Luke xx. 36); some to the miseries
which such as are rejected shall endure (Luke x.
13, 14; xiii. 25-28).

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY 115
The ethical truths, obedience to which was urged
by Jesus, have the future life for a background.
He urged people to believe in order that they might
have life eternal (John vi. 40) ; to obey that they
might not see death (John viii. 51); to forgive that
the Father might not deliver them up for punishment
(Matt, xviii. 15-35); to be benevolent that they
might make friends in heaven (Luke xvi. 9); to be
humble that they might gain glory hereafter (Luke
xviii. 17); to watch and pray so as to stand before
the son of man (Luke xxi. 36); to repent so as to
escape from woe (Luke x. 14); to be discreet and
meek and believing so as to escape in the judgment
(John xii. 48; Matt. xii. 36; v. 22).
The same is true of economic truth. The great
obstacles to the progress of truth are care and world-
liness. "The care of the world and the deceitfulness
of riches choke the word." (Matt. xiii. 22.) Who
is more liable to care than he who is anxious what
to eat and to drink, and who are so liable to worship
wealth as the rich? He urged upon men the faith
ful use of money, that they might obtain great
spiritual riches in the life that follows. (Luke
xvi. 10-12.) He instructs them to be kind to
the needy, so they may not land in gehenna. (Luke
xvi. 19-23.) Our riches are a trust, their faithful
use will merit God'6 "Well done," their unfaithful
use will be met with his terrible "Depart." (Luke
xix. 7.)

116 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
If earthly misfortunes created by unfortunate
wealth conditions grieved him, they did not hurt him
half as much as that some men would not obey God,
and therefore be miserable in the life which is to
come. If he grieved because men were poor, he
grieved more because they were wicked. If he was
troubled because they suffered hunger and cold, he
was more troubled because they were not properly
taught — they were like sheep not having a shepherd.
(Matt. ix. 36.) If he was grieved at the multitudes
because of their physical distress, he was more
grieved to see them live in sin, and go to death and
judgment unrepentant, and therefore unprepared.
He did not agonize over people because they were
poor, he did not weep over them because they did
not have enough to eat, but he agonized and wept
because they rejected God's mercy. The tears of
Olivet and the bloody sweat of Gethsemane were not
poured out because the multitudes experienced the
hardships of poverty. "The worm that never
dieth," "The unquenchable fire," "The eternal
torments," "Hell," these were in the estimation of
Jesus by far the worst evils from which men could
suffer. Compared with these, the evils of poverty
are small. In fact, Christ would account them a
blessing, if they served to soften the heart and lead
a man to goodness and God. "What shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world, and lose his soul"
(Matt. xvi. 26), expresses the* views of Jesus as to

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY "7
the comparative importance of welfare in the present
or in the future hfe.
In all his endeavors to help the poor he sought
more than their earthly welfare. In all his activities
for men the desire to promote their spiritual welfare
was prominently present. If he desired a greater
equality in the distribution of riches, he desired it
not simply that the poor might have more comforts,
but also and mainly, that being freed from dis
tracting cares, they might be more ready to receive
the gospel. If he urged the rich to give, he desired
not simply to relieve the necessities of the recipient,
but also and mainly, that the poor being freed
from anxiety and the hearts of the rich being soft
ened through giving, they might both be more
amenable to truth. He made the lame walk to
remove their infirmity, but also and mainly, that
their feet might be directed to walk the path of life.
He opened the eyes of the blind to enable them to
share in the blessings of vision, but also and mainly,
that their eyes might be opened to the goodness
and love of God. So he fed the poor, and pitied
them, not simply because they were hungry, but that
he might feed their souls on the bread of life. So
he gave gifts to the poor, not simply to help them
in their temporal needs, but that they might be more
ready to receive him, the great gift of God. Be
tween the seriousness of earthly discomforts and the
sufferings of the spirit world, there was, in Jesus'

ti8 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
view, no comparison. Better lame, he says, than to
be lost. Better blind than to miss entering heaven.
"If thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is
good for thee to enter into life halt, rather than
having two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine
eye cause thee to stumble, cast it out;, it is good for
thee to enter into the kingdom of heaven with one
eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into
hell." (Mark ix. 45-47.) Better hungry all one's
earthly life than fail of life eternal.
His methods for securing better wealth conditions
were for that time unique. Until then people had
generally sought to improve the wealth conditions by
the enactment of better laws, by combinations, and
organizations; in short, by the purely economic
methods. This is the favored way yet. Labor
leaders, professors, reformers, and agitators depend
almost exclusively upon them.
But with purely economic measures Jesus had
nothing to do. He urged no economic reforms.
To call Jesus a "Social agitator," the Sermon on
the Mount "A treatise on political economy," or to
speak of him as designing an "industrial democracy"
is absolutely unwarranted. (The New Redemp
tion, Herron, pp. 34, 80.) Concerning questions of
production Jesus said nothing. On questions of
exchange he hardly touched. To problems of distri
bution he gave only a little thought. The subjects
of labor, whether it should be free or slave, of

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY "9
wages and hours of wages, of rent, interest, and
taxation, are never discussed. Though himself a
carpenter and the son of a carpenter (Mark vi. 3;
Matt. xiii. 55), he never said aught on the question
of a workingman's pay. All that is recorded is that
he once said that a laborer is worthy of his hire.
(Luke x. 7.) Of the existence of master and slave
he speaks in the most matter-of-fact way. (Matt. x.
24.) He takes for granted that the slave does what
his master orders him to do, and he implies that
herein lies his duty. (Lukex vii. 7-10.) The theo
retic discussions about taxation he avoided. When
they tried to get his opinion he gave it, but not until
then. He told them that whereas they enjoyed the
privileges which the rule of Caesar conferred, that
they were bound to support it. (Mark xii. 14-17;
Matt. xxii. 15-22.) Obligations to the state, he
held, must be met as well as obligations to God.
He denounced deceit and oppression, but one
need not be an "economic agitator" to do that. It
must not escape one that his denunciation was prac
tically confined to what he saw in the leaders of reli
gion. (Matt. xxi. 31, 32; xxiii. 23; Mark xii. 38-40.)
His purpose was not that of an economist, or an
agitator, or a political or social reformer, but rather
that of the clergyman.
This accounts for his comparative peace with the
Sadducees. The Sadducees were the moneyed
classes, and filled the public positions. We read

120 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
that he predicted that the chief priests, who were
Sadducees, should have part in his crucifixion.
(Mark viii. 31; x. 33 .) We also read that they once
joined with the Pharisees in tempting him (Matt.
xvi. 1-6), but they generally left him alone. His
trouble was with the Pharisees, the leaders of reli
gion. They accused him of blasphemy,, of making
God his father, and of breaking the laws of Moses.
Had Jesus been a social agitator his troubles would
have been with the Sadducees. But they did not
disturb him until they feared his growing power.
Then Caiaphas, the chief priest and leader, advised
that Jesus be put out of the way, and put out of the
way he was. (John xi. 50).
In his desire to promote the social well-being of
the people, Jesus relied on moral means. Herein
lay the uniqueness of his method. It was an axiom
with Jesus that there could be no better social con
dition until the people were better. "The kingdom
of God is at hand, repent ye, and believe in the
gospel. " (Mark i. 14, 15.) There could be no king
dom of God until the people repented. Your life,
he said, has been a failure, your motives have been
wrong, your habits are bad. Change your life, alter
your motives, improve your habits, turn your
thoughts from self to God, seek his plans and live
accordingly. "If my people which are called by my
name shall humble themselves, and pray and seek
my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I

PURPOSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY 121
will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin, and
will heal their land" (2 Chron. vii. 14); so taught
an ancient prophet, and so taught Jesus as he went
up and down Palestine. The land might be healed
and the kingdom of God established, but not until
the people repented.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) Right conditions
are not possible unless a people walk in fellowship
with God. Men can be right economically only
when they are right religiously. Be meek, he says,
be pure, be benevolent, charitable, unselfish. "Be
ye merciful even as your Father is merciful."
(Luke vi. 36.)
It is the failure of not realizing the importance
of a moral transformation on the part of people that
constitutes the weakness of modern socialism.
Socialism makes no appeal to character. It never
urges purity or self-restraint or love as if they were
essentials. "Ah, your Fourier's failed,
Because not poet enough to understand
That life develops from within."
— (Aurora Leigh, Book II.)
Socialists also err in their reliance upon outward
conditions to change character. Jesus acknowledged
the influence of outward conditions on character, but
he did not recognize them as the proper agents by
which to change it.

122 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
It is also worthy of note that he dealt little with
men in masses. He dealt with men individually.
There are several instances of personal conversa
tions. He selected twelve men whom he trained to
be sent forth. He seems to have feared large
crowds. In this respect, too, he differs from the
socialists. But most of all he . differs from them in that
they make social welfare in this world an end. A
well-filled larder, a good bank account, a home,
with books and pictures, and a moderate amount of
time for rest and enjoyment is all they desire. Jesus
said that if one has all that, and has not developed
his soul, his life is a failure.
And yet with Jesus ana not with socialists do
social questions assume the greater importance. In
the one case the inconveniences and sufferings which
unjust conditions occasion are only for this hfe, as
far as the individual is concerned; in the other,
because of the bitterness, anxiety, and hardness
which they engender, and the bad effects of that on
the soul, they may follow him to the hereafter.

THE ECONOMIC TEACHINGS OF
JESUS' LIFE

"And many hearing him were astonished, saying,
whence hath this man these things? And, what is the wis
dom that is given unto this man, and what mean such mighty
works wrought by his hand? Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas,
and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And
they were offended in him." (Mark vi. 2, 3.)

CHAPTER VIII
THE ECONOMIC TEACHINGS OF JESUS'
LIFE.
Notwithstanding that the great purpose of Jesus
was the promotion of men's spiritual welfare, there
are a few topics, relative to questions of wealth,
concerning which he has left us instruction. The
selection of these topics by Jesus was probably de
termined by the great influence which one's attitude
to them has on his spiritual development. It will be
seen from their consideration that they are teachings
which men are prone to disregard. The first topic
to consider is the advantage of struggles in the
formative period of life. This is taught by Jesus'
example. That the life of Jesus, as well as his utterances,
teach lessons, the Christian world has universally
recognized. Each act in his life is important, each
experience suggests a truth, each feature is fraught
with meaning.
Not the least significant feature of that life is its
boyhood struggle with poverty. He grew up "as a
tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground — he
was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief." (Isaiah Iiii. 2, 3.) His
125

126 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
position in the social scale was that of a working-
man, and the reputed son of a workingman. The
leaders of society did not count him as of their
number. This feature of his life is all the more significant
because he chose it. It was not unintentional that
Jesus' life was with the working-classes. It was no
accident that he was not an heir to fabulous riches.
It was no chance that made his birthplace Bethlehem,
and the home of his boyhood Nazareth, instead of
some splendid city like Caesarea, Jericho, or Jerusa
lem. Of all who ever were born he only had his
choice of mothers, birthplace, riches, rank, and com
panionship. "Being originally in the form of God,
.... he emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant . ' ' (Phil . ii . 6, 7 . ) " Though he was rich for
our sake he became poor, that we through his pov
erty might be rich." (2 Cor. viii. 9.) "In the be
ginning was the word and the word was with God,
and the word was God, .... and the word be
came flesh, and dwelt among us." (John i. 1, 14.)
And when the word became flesh he chose a poor
girl for his mother, the country for his birthplace,
hardship for his boyhood and youth, laborers for his
companions, and though he was of royal blood, not
once referred to it.
He chose a poor girl for his mother. Mary, the
mother of Jesus, belonged to the humbler ranks of
life. The man to whom she was betrothed, and

TEACHINGS OF JESUS' LIFE 127
whom she married, was the village carpenter, an
upright man named Joseph. Both of them were
poor. This is evinced by all the acts and incidents
respecting them recorded in the gospels.
The first one is the manner of Jesus' birth. An
order from Augustus had driven them to Bethlehem.
The only inn in the village was full, and nothing but
a cave or stall was to be had for shelter. Had they
been people with money some other arrangement
would undoubtedly have been made, especially under
the circumstances. But a stall or stable was all they
could obtain, and there it was that they looked in
the face of Mary's first born child. Poor, lonely,
suffering strangers! The wealthy people of Bethle
hem gladdened them not with their calls, and the
leaders of the town probably took no notice of their
need. God alone remembered them. Watching their
flocks by night, some shepherds were startled by a
halo of light. In a vision in which the angel of the
Lord came to them they were told that the child in
the stable was the long-expected Messiah. With the
vision still burning in their minds they told the lonely
parents what they had seen and heard. So their
hearts were gladdened, and their faith waxed strong.
Another fact which indicates their humble con
dition is their sacrifice at Jerusalem. When Jesus
was forty days old they brought him to Jerusalem
for presentation to the Lord. It was customary on

128 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
such occasions for parents to offer something in
grateful acknowledgment for God's care of the
mother and for the gift of the child. The usual
offering was a lamb, the price of which was at this
time about a dollar, but in case the people were
poor, a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.
Grateful hearts like Mary's and Joseph's would make
the offering as large as their circumstances allowed.
But all they offered were the pigeons. They offered
the poor man's sacrifice.
The third fact which suggests their need are the
gifts of the Magi. Herod the king, crazed with
jealousy, had heard of the birth of a king. His plot
to murder all the babes in Bethlehem and vicinity
compelled the flight to Egypt. As if preparing
them for the flight, these Magi gave them gold and
spices. This act of the Magi has such a providen
tial aspect as to make it almost sure that it was a
case of the almighty provider caring for the needs
of his penniless children.
If he chose for a mother a godly woman, un
known to fame and riches, he chose for the place in
which to grow up the country. For Nazareth was
virtually country. Until the days of Jerome the place
is never mentioned. Its identity was very nearly lost,
its name forgotten, so that even now we are not cer
tain how it should be spelled; Nazareth, Nazaret,
or Nazara. These things would not have happened
had it had some size. It probably was the small-

TEACHINGS OF JESUS' LIFE 129
ness of the place more than its wickedness that
caused Nathanael's skeptical query, "Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?" (John i. 46.) It was
not a beautiless place. From a hill above the place,
five hundred feet high, the choicest part of Palestine
was visible. To the north lay the narrow and fertile
plain of Asochis, beyond which rose the wood-
crowned hills of Naphtali, with snow-capped Her
mon in the far horizon beyond. To the east rose
beautiful Tabor, clothed with terebinth and oak. To
the west his gaze could rest on Carmel, and on the
sea upon whose waters freighted vessels crossed.
Southward lay the plain of Esdraelon.
The place was as suggestive as beautiful. Espe
cially as he gazed to the south suggestive scenes
would stir his memory, for on the plain of Esdraelon
the greatest battles of the nation had been fought.
Nor was it isolated. Not far from Nazareth ran
several great routes. Over these passed many
travelers, pilgrims, caravans, and military expedi
tions. Clannishness, under these conditions, was
scarcely possible. "Nazareth was at the crossing-
place of nations, where commerce and military
changes gave daily familiarity with all the neighbor
ing races." (Geike, Life of Christ, p. 115.)
If he chose a humble mother and a humble birth
place, he also chose a humble occupation, and a life
of hard work. Tradition tells us that he was a
maker of yokes and plows, while the Bible calls

130 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
him a carpenter. "Is not this the carpenter, the son
of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and Judas
and Simon?" the people of Nazareth asked, aston
ished at his wisdom. (Mark vi. 3.) As he is never
called a carpenter by any other people but those of
Nazareth, it is presumed that his activities as a
mechanic were limited to that place. He did not
even do the finer, easier work that falls to the city
mechanic. It is probable that there was a shop at
or near the house, in which such things were wrought
as farmers and villagers ordered, but that most of
his work was done at the people's houses. This
work would include all sorts of mechanical labor,
there being no such subdivision of work as in the
larger cities, and it is easy to see how one tradition
represents him as making yokes and plows, while
another calls him a carpenter.
Because Joseph is never referred to in the gospels
it is surmised that he was dead. Tradition says
that he died in the Saviour's boyhood, and that
Jesus, being the oldest child in the home, assumed
the care of the household.
Choosing a boyhood and youth of hard work and
of comparative poverty, he did not have what men
would call the best educational advantages. He did
not sit at Gamaliel's feet, as did his great disciple
Paul. He never saw the inside of a college for the
purpose of study. Neither was he ever apprenticed
to any of the famous rabbis. "How knoweth this

TEACHINGS OF JESUS' LIFE 131
man letters, having never learned " (John vii. 15.)
What education he received came through his
mother, the parochial school, the synagogue, and
what he read and saw for himself. Being a woman
of a sweet, modest, unselfish spirit, very devout, and
naturally talented, and believing him to be Israel's
long-looked-for Messiah, his mother set him the
noblest example, and gave him the best instruction
she could. Living abidingly in the presence and
fellowship of God, she would lay much stress on
prayer. Believing the scriptures to be the word of
God, she would early teach him their meaning.
Many a pleasant evening they spent together, he
eager to learn, standing by her side while she was
reading to him and telling him bible stories.
The synagogue schools were quite general.
Schurer thinks that there were probably such schools
in nearly every town in Palestine, where boys from
six years and upward could be sent for the study of
the scriptures. (Schurer 2, 2, 49.) The emphasis
in this study was laid on the law of Moses. Accord
ing to Josephus, Moses had ordained that boys
should learn the most important laws.1 (Jos. Ant.
4, 8, 12.) The thoroughness with which this was
sometimes done is vouched for by this author when
1 "He commanded us to instruct children in the elements of
knowledge [reading and writing!, to teach them to walk according to
the laws, and to know the deeds of their forefathers. The latter that
they might imitate them, the former that growing up with the laws they
might not transgress them, nor have the excuse of ignorance." (Apion
2, 26.)

132 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
he says that boys could answer queries concerning
the law more easily than their name (Apion ii. 19),
and that when he was only fourteen years old the
leading men of the nation came to him to learn it.
(Vita 2.) Philo speaks in a similar vein, and though
both he and Josephus lived somewhat later than
Jesus, there is little doubt but what was true of the
slow-moving Orient in the days of Josephus and
Philo was also true a generation earlier.
Jesus' knowledge of the scripture displayed itself
early and was thorough. Luke tells us an event
that happened when Jesus was twelve years old. In
company with his parents and others he had gone to
Jerusalem. In some way he was parted from them
and lost, and when they found him after a three
days' search, he was sitting in the midst of the doc
tors in the temple, listening to their teaching and
astonishing them all by his wisdom. (Luke ii. 47.)
Outside of the parochial school he had so far as
we know no systematic instruction. Nor did he
have the advantage of a well-stocked library. Books
were few, and in a. small place like Nazareth there
was no library. Periodicals and papers were wholly
unknown. Probably the only bock he had was the
bible. He read this in both the original Hebrew
and in its Greek translation. This is brought out
by his recorded quotations from it. His grasp on
its underlying principles was very profound, far sur
passing that of the learned scholars of the schools.

TEACHINGS OF JESUS' LIFE 133
The disquisitions in the synagogue would not
assist him much. The synagogues are defined by Philo
as houses of instruction, in which the native philosophy
was studied and every kind of virtue taught. (Life
of Moses 3, 27.) Judging from the Mishna, the
philosophy was valueless, and the gospels give us a
poor opinion of the virtues. The service was made
up of the reading of a passage from the scriptures,
on which then a lecture or a sermon was based.
(Schurer, 2, 2, 82.) Though the services were
hollow, Jesus was wont to attend them. His
parents being adherents of the Pharisees, he prob
ably attended a synagogue of the pharisaic order.1
Outside of that, his books were nature and men.
And he knew both. His language teems with fig
ures drawn from nature. It tells of birds, lilies,
grass, grain, sowing, reaping, vine and olive cul
ture, of mustard, tares, leaven, sheep, a shepherd,
the growth of seed and different kinds of soil. Cer
tainly eighteen, probably twenty-nine, of the thirty-
three recorded parables are drawn from nature or life
in the country. And no man needed to tell him of
men, for he knew what was in men. (John ii. 24,
25.) The people whom he met in his youth were
unsophisticated. No social conventionalities sepa-
1 There were only two other religious parties with which they
could have sympathized, the Sadducees and the Essenes; but that
they were not Sadducees is evidenced from their openness to intima
tions by visions and dreams, at which the Sadducees laughed (Acts
xxiii. 8); and that they were not Essene is shown by their bringing a
bloody sacrifice at the time of Jesus' presentation, a thing which the
Essenes abhorred. (Luke ii. 24-}

134 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
rate men from men in the country as is the case in
the city. Nature lies barer to the observant eye,
and opportunities for studying it are better.
The men he chose to mingle with were generally
poor. Though he was the son of David and greater
than David, there were no princelings among his
associates, neither members of the Sanhedrin nor the
Herodian house. Who his" friends were in his boy
hood we know not, but probably men of the ranks
from whom he chose his disciples. He fellowshiped
with laborers. Several of the disciples were fisher
men — at least six of them — (John xxi. 2), and the
others were probably mechanics and peasants. One
was a publican. To these he intrusted the work of
carrying on his kingdom.
That he was neatly dressed, wore the garments
of a gentleman — a seamless coat which was deco
rated with tassels (Matt. ix. 20) — and mingled in
good society, does not deny the poverty of his boy
hood and youth, and the general poverty of his com
panions and followers.
Now, what is the meaning of this? Has it any
meaning of a social nature? Remember he had his
choice. He could take up his position wherever he
wished. He could have chosen a wealthy woman
for his mother, the capital for his birthplace, ease
for his boyhood and youth, capitalists for his com
panions, and noblemen for disciples. But he chose
the opposite. He chose to pass by the capital, the

TEACHINGS OF JESUS' LIFE 135
palace, and the home of the mighty, and take up his
abode with the humble, He the heir of David and the
king of the universe. What prompted him to do
it? Was it to move our hearts to good will at the
sight of his sacrifice? His death at Calvary is far
more apt to do that. Was it to show the poor that
he was their friend? But this he did by other acts
effectively. And why not be rich and show the rich
that he was their friend? Do they not need him?
Are they not tempted and burdened? But it is said
that by being poor he came more nearly being like
the majority of men, as the majority of men are
poor. Was it, then, not so much to be like the
poor, as to be like the majority? If so his being
born poor has in itself no lesson, for had the major
ity of men been rich, he would have been born rich.
It does not seem that the significance of his lowly
birth is thus explained. Jesus had in all things the
welfare of the inner life in view. It seems far more
reasonable to believe that in choosing a humble,
pious mother, a modest home in intimate touch with
nature, hard work, and what the world calls cramped
advantages, he intended to teach that under such
conditions the spiritual part of man receives its best
development. Is it not a fact that this is true? Have not
nearly all the world's great men thus developed?
Which of them developed amid luxury? Wesley,
Lincoln, Franklin, Livingstone, Booker Washington,

I36 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Michael Angelo, Agassiz, Handel, Bunyan, Booth,
whence came they? From the ranks of the toilers.
From little, humble cottages, from the country.
"It is not from the sons of the millionaire or the
noble that the world receives its teachers, its
martyrs, its inventors, its poets, or even its men of
affairs. We can scarcely read one among the few
immortals that were not born to die, or who has
rendered exceptional service to our race, who had
not the advantage of being cradled, nursed, and
reared in the stimulating school of poverty."
And is it not also true that men do not believe
this? Men fear hardships for their children. They
strive to leave them an ample competency. They
buy them books and pictures, seek to send them
through college, and if possible, abroad. They en
deavor to give them all the advantages that money
can buy. Such men's attention should be called to
the example of Jesus. "Stop this luxury," it
cries; "it injures your children's character. It
hurts their manhood and womanhood. It makes
them flabby and dependent, like potted plants, which
cannot support themselves. Make them win their
own spurs, and shift for themselves."
It was President Garfield's doctrine that "The
richest heritage a young man can be born to is pov
erty. ' ' To teach that very doctrine, Jesus chose the
mother he did, the modest home in the country, hard
work, what we call cramped advantages, and poverty.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CON
CERNING THE POSSESSION
OF PROPERTY

"He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in
much; and he that is unrighteous in a very little is unright
eous also in much. If, therefore, you have not been faithful
in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust
the true riches ? And if you have not been faithful in that
which is another's, who will give you that which is yo
own?" (Luke xvi. 10-12.)

CHAPTER IX
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CONCERNING
THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY
On no subject has Jesus been less understood
than on that of the possession of property. One is
distressed to read how widely his interpreters vary.
A German workman who studied Jesus' teachings
declares, "Christ was hated and persecuted as the
modern socialist, and if he had lived to-day, he
would, no doubt, be one of us." (Quoted by Pea-
body, New World, June 3, p. 324.) Naumann calls
him "A man of the people," "The enemy of
wealth," "A radical enemy of capital." (The
same.) Renan calls Jesus an "Ebionite"; that is,
one who taught that only the poor could be saved."
(Life of Christ, p. 170; tr. J. H. Allen.) Nitti
thinks the same. "Poverty," he says, "was an in
dispensable condition for gaining admission to the
kingdom of heaven." (Nitti, Catholic Socialism,
1895, p. 64.) So did the various mendicant sects of
the Middle Ages. Others have called Jesus a com
munist, as the Fratercelli, the Beghards, the Bon-
hommes, and the Humiliati. Among these are also
the Doukhabors of modern Russia. A sympathetic
writer says of them: "Quite naturally, a simple
i39

140 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
peasant folk, who take religion seriously, as some
thing important and intimately linked to daily life
and conduct, find themselves obliged either to look
out for a religion which shall suit them better than
that of Christ, or to bring their life more nearly into
conformity with his teachings. What, then, are the
Doukhabors doing towards carrying out Christ's
economic teachings? They disapprove of individu
alistic property and aim at communism." (The
Outlook, Dec. 10, 1898, p. 915.) Others, and
these constitute the great bulk of interpreters, claim
that Jesus never contemplated an economic revolu
tion, and that the present arrangements, with certain
improvements, meet his approval. They believe
that Jesus was an individualist, and that with such
isms as communism and socialism he had no sym
pathy. Such divergent views among able interpreters
suggest that the subject is very difficult. This is
not so, however. The subject is not difficult. If
one will calmly and carefully examine all the scat
tered sayings that bear upon it, he may get, at no
great cost, a very clear idea as to just what Jesus
taught. All the sayings of Jesus which those adduce, who
claim that he was opposed to wealth, have only a
limited bearing and cannot be generally applied.
The most important one is the conversation of
Jesus with the rich young man. "And as he was

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY 141
going forth into the way, there ran one to him, and
kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And
Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good?
None is good, save one, even God. Thou knowest
the commandments — Do not commit adultery, Do
not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do
not defraud, Honor thy father and thy mother.'
And he said unto him, Master, all these things have
I observed from my youth. And Jesus looking
upon him loved him, and said unto him, One thing
thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give
to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven;
and come, follow me." (Mark x. 17-22; Matt.
xix. 16-22; Luke, xviii. 18-22.)
That this was a special demand, made only of
this youth, is seen from the amazement of the dis
ciples at what Jesus said in comment on his riches.
(Mark x. 24.) Had Jesus been in the habit of ask
ing the abandonment of riches of every believer, the
disciples, instead of being amazed at him here, would
have bowed their assent, and it is almost certain that
the young man would have known of it, as the inci
dent occurred during the latter days of Jesus' minis
try. The case is simply this : Jesus loved this young
man (Mark x. 21), and hoped to make of him a very
useful servant. He knew of the importance which
he attached to riches. He trusted in his riches
(Mark x. 24), and as with Jesus the service of two

I42 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
masters is impossible, he bade him part with one.
It was heroic treatment; but he in whose eye the
loss of the most precious member of the body is
preferable to the failure of the best development of
the spirit life, who says, If thy hand cause thee to
stumble cut it off, if thy foot cause thee to stumble,
cut it off, if thine eye cause thee to stumble, pluck
it out, did not hesitate to ask the same in reference
to earthly possessions. (Mark ix. 43-47.)
"It is a situation familiar in modern life. A
young man, well born and well bred, winsome and
gallant, is withheld from the effective use of his hfe
by the weight of his possessions. If he could only
forget that he was rich and give himself to strenuous
work he might do gallant service. If some dra
matic summons, like that of an actual war, is heard
by him, the follies of his luxury and self-indulgence
drop away from him, and he becomes the most endur
ing and daring of soldiers. Meantime, however,
here he is, with hardly a fair chance for a useful life,
turning play into work, and sinking into a false and
foolish estimate of life and happiness. What hope
is there for such a young man except through some
radical change, curative though cruel, like the sur
geon's knife? It was thus that Jesus, loving the
young ruler, demanded much of him; and one can
imagine the loving pity with which Jesus, when the
young man shrank from the only operation which
could save him, looked around about and saith unto

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY 143
his disciples, "How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God. " (Professor
Francis G. Peabody, The Teachings of Jesus
Concerning the Rich, The New World, June, 1900,
P- 339-) Another important passage supposed to show
hostility to property is found in the gospel of Luke.
"Now there went with him great multitudes; and
he turned and said unto them, 'If any man cometh
unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come
after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you,
desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down,
and count the cost, whether he have wherewith to
complete it? .... So therefore, whosoever he be
of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he can
not be my disciple.' " (Luke xiv. 25-28, 33.)
The people to whom he said this were great multi
tudes. But what kind of multitudes? They were
made up of people who wholly misapprehended the
nature of Christ's work. They were going up to
Jerusalem with Jesus, expecting that Jesus would be
crowned instead of crucified. So, lifting up his
voice, Jesus told them that going with him would
require the sacrifice of affection, and cost them pain
ful humiliations, and excruciating sufferings. The
language is startling, but is just such as was needed

144 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
to shake such a crowd out of the belief that going
with him would bring them glory.
The other passages urged as teaching opposition
to property, he spoke to his apostles. "Fear not,
little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give
alms; make for yourselves purses which wax not old,
a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no
thief draweth near, neither moth destroyeth. For
where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also." (Luke xii. 32-34.)
It is unquestionably true that Jesus did not allow
the apostles to hold property. They had to give up
everything. They were to be always with him, that
he might send them forth to preach. (Mark iii. 14.)
This precluded the pursuit of their ordinary voca
tions. Entanglements in enterprises would interfere
with their mission, so would entanglements in riches.
Being always with him he organized them into a
brotherhood. Judas carried the purse. The organi
zation seems to have been of a communistic nature.
But that he organized the twelve into a brotherhood,
and allowed them no wealth is no proof that he
would not allow it to any of his followers. In fact,
it is not even evidence. The evidence is all the
other way. We know that some of his followers
had means. There are no passages anywhere which
show that they held it against his will. There is not
a verse which suggests that, outside of the twelve,

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY 145
he was in favor of communism. His attitude of
indifference to the Essenes, who were communists,
suggests that for general purposes, communism did
not have his approval.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that it
does not follow — if it be granted that Jesus did not
approve of communism in his day — that he would
never approve of it. Jesus moved in a society in
which private property was the rule, and he recog
nized its legitimacy, but he did nothing more. He
did not say to his disciples that private property
should forever maintain. In organizing his disciples
into a communistic society, he recognized the
legitimacy of communism as well.
The fact is simply this : Jesus was not a teacher
of economic science. To pronounce in favor of one
system of ownership as against another came not
within his sphere, and he never did it. Each com
munity must determine for itself what kind of an in
dustrial arrangement will further its interests best,
and whatever system will do this, is for that com
munity the one which Jesus desires it to have.
To determine the teachings of Jesus we must not
forget the Old Testament. Its teachings are in
general the teachings of Jesus, and in many instances
they throw much light on Jesus' meaning, where his
view is only partially recorded. "Think not," he
said, "that I came to destroy the law or the proph
ets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily

146 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
I say unto you, till heaven and earth shall pass away,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from
the law, till all things be accomplished. Whoever,
therefore, shall break one of these least command
ments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least
in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do
and teach them, he shall be called great in the king
dom of heaven. " (Matt. v. 17-20.)
It is only when laws have ceased to be generally
applicable or are perverted from their original intent
that Jesus sets them aside. Such was the case with
the laws respecting oaths, divorce, and revenge,
referred to in his first sermon. (Deut. xxiv. 1-4;
Numbers, xxx. 2; Lev. xix. 18; Matt. v. 21-24,
3J» 32i 33-37-) They had outlived their usefulness.
They had been turned from their purpose. Enacted
to restrict these evils, they were used to justify them.
Such also was the case with the laws respecting
fasting, clean meats, and washings. Their purpose
had been overlooked and was lost, and the reason
for their existence had consequently ceased. With
the exception of these laws, and such as are typical,
or have evidently only a local importance, the laws
of the scriptures had his cordial approval.
The fundamental principle of the Old Testa
ment's teaching concerning property is that God is
the owner. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof;
The world and they that dwell therein."
— (Ps. xxiv. 1.)

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY H7
"I will take no bullock out of thy house,
Nor he-goats out of thy folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
And the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains;
And the wild beasts of the field are mine.
If I were hungry, I would not tell thee :
For the world is mine, and the fullness thereof."
— (Ps. 1. 9-12. See also Job xii. ii; Deut. x. 14.)
This truth is also taught in the allotment of land.
God was the owner, and men acknowledged this by
giving one-tenth of its produce for the use of wor
ship. This might have been called rent.
This principle of the divine ownership of prop
erty was also fundamental with Jesus. With this in
mind, the parable of the unjust steward, which with
out it is so obscure, becomes easily intelligible.
"He that is faithful in very little is faithful also in
much : and he that is unrighteous in a very little is
unrighteous also in much. If, therefore, ye have
not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who
will commit to your trust the true riches? And if
ye have not been faithful in that which is another's,
who will give you that which is your own?" (Luke
xvi. 10-12.)
The goods we have (or the unrighteous mammon)
are not our own, but are the goods of another, of
God. Of these goods we are the stewards. If we
faithfully attend to this stewardship, we are to be
intrusted with the true riches, with heavenly treas-

148 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
ures — treasures far exceeding in value the best treas
ures of earth. If we are not faithful we shall obtain
no heavenly treasures at all.
Whatever possessions one has, are as many as
his ability warrants. "It is as when a man, going
into another country, called his own servants and
delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he
gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to
each according to his several ability; and he went
on his journey. " (Matt. xxv. 14, 15.) To inequal
ity in the possession of wealth our Saviour had no
objection. Inequality in earthly goods rests upon
inequality in capacity for managing earthly goods.
In the ideal place, in heaven, inequality will main
tain. Some are there to sit on the right hand, and
some on the left, some are to sit on thrones, some
are to have authority over ten cities and some over
five. (Luke xix. 18, 19.) These illustrations are
figures, but they are figures that teach truths.
Nor did Jesus object to one reasonably enjoy
ing his riches. He was not an ascetic. He was
far from what men like St. Francis of Assisi and
the followers of St. Anthony of Thebes have repre
sented him to have been. At the wedding feast in
Cana he did not scold the happy bridegroom for
treating his guests on wine instead of on water, and
save the cost of the wine for the use of the Temple
or for charity. (John ii. 1-11.) He was often
present at feasts, so often that some accused him of

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY 149
wine bibbing and gluttony. (Matt. xi. 19; Luke
vii. 34.) The somber, austere view of life which
deprecates enjoyments, and forbids the use of money
for any purpose but that of supplying life's barest
necessities is not of Jesus. At Bethany a woman
spent on one ointment three hundred denarii. (Mark
xiv. 3-9.) And Jesus did not even rebuke that.
This was left for Judas to do. Jesus defended the
woman. (John xii. 4.) Music, feasts, splendors,
flowers, these were not vanities with him to be
avoided. These obtain in heaven (Matt. xxii. 1-14;
xxv. 1-14), and what is just in heaven cannot be
wrong upon the earth. There are higher needs of
hfe than those of food and raiment. "Man cannot
live by bread alone." To furnish examples of
beauty and provide opportunity for rational enjoy
ment is as much a duty, where one is able to do it,
as to give money to charity.
Respecting this, Prof essor Peabody writes : "Ex
penditures of wealth on art, on education, on music,
on the opening of the sources of nature to the weary
life of cities, on the emancipation of mankind from
commercial standards, and the provision of sug
gestive and symbolic ways of pleasure is not only
justified through its elevating and educating effect,
but rests also on the explicit authority of the teaching
of Jesus Christ. It is not always better to spend for
such ends than to give to the poor, but it is equally
legitimate." (The New World, June, 1900, p. 344.)

150 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
If he was not opposed to a rational enjoyment of
wealth, he was ineradicably opposed to selfish and
indolent indulgence. With lazy people he had no
sympathy. Neither made it any difference if they
were the lazy rich or the lazy poor.
Dives was rich. He dressed in purple and he
fared sumptuously every day. He was evidently a
non-producer. He made no endeavor to increase
the talents — the money — intrusted to him, through
personal exertion. Daily feasting and dressing in
purple attire made labor impossible. For this non-
producer Jesus had only the torturing flames of the
gehenna fires. (Luke xvi. 23.)
For the bond-servant who was too indolent to
labor he has the outer darkness: "there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. xxv. 30.)
For the master of the household who squandered
his master's property by eating and drinking with
the drunkards, he had a similar doom. (Matt. xxiv.
48-5 1 .) For the faithful laborers, the faithful stew
ards (Matt. xxv. 21), the watchful porter (Matt.
xxiv. 46), and the scrupulous servant (Luke xii. 37),
he had the highest commendations.
But concerning no subject relating to property is
there so much misapprehension as concerning giving.
It was the teaching of the Old Testament that the
Israelites should give one-tenth of all that they pro
duced for worship. "All the tithe of the land,
whether of seed of the land or of the fruit of the

THE POSSESSION OF PROPERTY 151
tree, is the Lords; it is holy unto the Lord." (Lev.
xxvii. 30.) This requirement was complied with by
at least a part of the Pharisees, and it had the ap
proval of Jesus. (Matt, xxiii. 23; Luke xi. 42;
xviii. 12.) It is objected that the erection of this
Old Testament command of tithing into an absolute
rule for Christians to obey is un-Christian. Jesus,
it is said, loved spontaneity and freedom too much
to tolerate specific rules. He dealt with principles,
not rules. Grant the objection all the force it has.
Grant that Jesus would not approve the erection of
the command to tithe into an absolute rule, to the
principle upon which the command to tithe rested
he was unalterably loyal. God is the owner of all,
and we must recognize it by stated contributions.
In this way our goods, instead of being religiously in
jurious to us, become a bond which unite us to God.
Among Christian people, even among the reli
gious leaders, God's ownership is in practice very
generally denied. When a minister presents a need
to the people, religious or charitable, local or foreign,
he does not present it, as a rule, as if his hearers'
property was the Lord's. He does not state the
need, and then ask the people to confer with God
and see if he desires that any of his wealth shall be
used for that need. The minister asks for a contri
bution and coaxes the people, as if they can do what
they please with their money, instead of laying down
God's claims as contained in the scriptures. He

152 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
appeals for aid, while God asks for honor; he asks
for contributions, while God demands offerings; he
solicits donations, while God demands tribute; he
calls the people penurious, if they will not give,
while God will likely call them robbers.
There was a period in Israel's history when the
same sin was committed. God's ownership was not
acknowledged, and men withheld their offerings.
The church grew poor and spiritual life declined.
Men spoke of God as father, but refused him honor,
they called him master, but paid him no reverence.
(Mai. i. 6.) And morals grew lax. Every man dealt
treacherously against his brother, and against the
wife of his youth. (Mai. ii. 14.)
At this stage of affairs a prophet arose and cried,
"Will a man rob God? Yet ye rob me. But ye
say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and
offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse, for ye rob
me, even this whole nation. Bring ye the whole
tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in
mine house, and prove me now herewith sayeth the
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the window of
heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall
not be room enough to receive it." (Mai. iii. 8-10.)
Might it not be that the awakening to righteousness,
for which the church has hoped and prayed so long,
will come as soon as God's right to our goods is rec
ognized, and the Christian world shakes itself free
from the deadly avarice which paralyzes its progress?

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CON
CERNING THE WORSHIP
OF MAMMON

"No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate
the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
(Matt. vi. 24, 25.)
"And Jesus said unto his disciples, verily I say unto
you, it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
heaven." (Matt. xix. 23.)

CHAPTER X
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CONCERNING
THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON
Another topic upon which Jesus has said consid
erable is the worship of mammon. There are a
number of sayings in the Sermon on the Mount
which from their position in a sermon intended to
set forth the nature of the Christian society, derive
great importance.
The first, and the one most fundamental, is that
money as a power is unholy, and that its influence
upon earth has been opposed to God. Jesus called
it mammon. We know not the precise meaning of
this term "mammon," but it is claimed to have been
the name of a Syrian god which the people worshiped
when they were desirous of riches... There are those
who deny this origin of the term, most likely cor
rectly; but whatever it may be, Jesus used the term
mammon as the name of a god. And he put the
worship of this god as absolutely opposed to the
worship of the true God "No man can serve two
masters : for either he will hate the one and love the
other, or else he will hold to the one and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
(Matt. vi. 24.) i55

156 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
In another part of the gospel where money is
referred to, he called it not simply mammon, but
unrighteous mammon. (Luke xvi. n.) So much
unrighteousness had centered about its use and so
much money had been unrighteously obtained that
the very metal seemed to him to be tainted.
The position of Jesus was this: All the aspira
tions and labors of men had one of two objects:
the worship of God, or the worship of wealth.
In the case of many men the attempt was made
to worship neither the one nor the other ex
clusively, but to render homage to both, to God
perhaps upon the sabbath, and to mammon the rest
of the days. This attempt Jesus claimed was abso
lutely impossible. One must worship the one or the
other, Jehovah or mammon; the worship ofthe two
is diametrically opposed.
By this declaration of the absolute opposition of
the worship of mammon to the worship of God,
Jesus branded mammon worship as thoroughly sin
ful. No other sins, not even hypocrisy and unbelief,
against which he said so much, are put by him in
such a direct attitude of opposition to God. Mam
mon is unholy. One cannot be a Christian and
idolize riches.
The second saying regarding it is his advice, or
command, not to gather it, but gather heavenly treas
ures. "Lay not up for yourself treasures upon the
earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON 157
where thieves break through and steal; but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do
not break through and steal; for where your treas
ure is, there will thy heart be also." (Matt. vi.
19-21.) The words used are very drastic, startling. As
they read they absolutely forbid any kind of accumu
lation. It was Jesus' manner to be startling. Only
thus could he succeed in rousing his somnolent
hearers to the dangers before them. Things were
with them as they are now with us. To lay up
earthly treasures, secure houses, lands, become a
capitalist or merchant prince, was the aim or en
deavor of most of the people. By their success in
this, their life's success was judged. Such as suc
ceeded were feted and honored (Luke xiv. 12), such
as failed were ignored. This worldly spirit had even
entered the synagogues. If there came in one who
wore fine clothing he was set in a good place, if he
wore a shabby garment he was shoved away into a
corner. (Jas. ii. 3.)
All this was very abhorrent to Jesus. He set his
face against it. His followers should not live that
way. Their eyes should be fixed, and their energies
bent on spiritual riches, on building up their charac
ters after his own perfect example. And he gives
us his word that a society, individual, or nation,
which lives for riches, will perish spiritually.

158 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
"Where thy treasure is there will thy heart be
also." (Matt. vi. 21.) When the heart is on the
earth, because its treasure is there, it will grow un-
spiritual and earthly, and everything within it that is
noble and grand will perish.
But are earthly treasures not needed? Must
men not eat, drink, be clothed, have homes and com
forts? Is not the desire to lay in store for the future
a noble one? Is it not an instinct seen even in in
sects like ants, and can an instinct be sinful?
Food, clothing, homes, and comforts are
needed. To provide for them is not only right and
proper, but is a duty. The sin comes in when men
are not content with enough and become impatient
and greedy for more. Since in most societies men
are honored as they are wealthy, the temptation to
covet more than one needs is always exceedingly
strong. To arm against this Jesus gives three weapons:
First, he bids us temper our desire. This he does
by implication in the fourth petition of the Lord's
prayer, where he teaches his disciples to pray, "Give
us this day our daily bread." (Matt. vi. 11.) No
person hankering after the delicacies of luxury, or
after the wealth which makes these possible, can
honestly pray that prayer. In other words, he bids
us live plain, simple, sober, contented, trustful lives,
and thus by limiting our desires make ourselves free
from the temptations to mammon worship.

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON 159
Secondly, he bids us have faith in the Father in
heaven. "Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious
for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than the food, and the body
than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven,
that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are not ye of much more value than they? And
which of you by being anxious can add one cubit
unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concern
ing raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how
they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet
I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth
so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and
to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not, there
fore, anxious, saying What shall we eat? or What
shall we drink? or Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of
these things. But seek ye first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things shall be added
unto you. Be not, therefore, anxious for the mor
row; for the morrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." (Matt.
vi. 25-34; Cp. Luke xii. 22-31.)
Jesus never worried about his food. When he

160 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
began his ministry the first temptation which the
tempter tried was to get him to worry about his
living. He should, so he said, use his supernal
powers, so that his need of food should first be met.
(Matt. iv. 3.) But Jesus never doubted God's care.
His philosophy of life was this: To work at tasks,
whatever they were, which were in accordance with
God's will, and then trust God for support.
And this he enjoined on his followers. We are
to do God's will. God's will and not the obtaining
of a livelihood is to be the motive of our work, what
ever that work may be. If we so work, the Father
will provide. Whatever money comes to us in the
course of such work, we must receive and take care
of, but we must not do the work for that money.
So working we need not be afraid of want through
sickness or age. The Father's barns are ever full,
and his banks never fail, and he will never send one
engaged in his work away empty.
Thirdly, as a weapon against the temptation to
worship riches, he bids us put the need of the soul
above that of the body. "But seek ye first his king
dom and his righteousness." (Matt. vi. 33.) This
is before all, and all his teaching having reference
to wealth, whether plain affirmations, prohibitions,
commands, or recommendations, must be interpreted
in the light of their relation to the kingdom, or the
spiritual welfare of men.
These, then, are the principles which Jesus laid

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON 161
down in view of men's danger to become worshipers
of mammon. Mammon is unholy. His influence
in the world as a power has been against God. Do
not gather earthly treasures, rather gather heavenly
treasures, as these are more important. To make
us strong against the temptation to greed, he bids
us temper our desires, learn to live simply, and trust
God to provide (which he assures us God will do if
we will faithfully do his work) and to always put the
interest of the soul above that of everything else.
In other parts of the gospels these principles of
the sermon are confirmed and emphasized. The
unholy influence of money is set forth in the parable
of the sower. "The deceitfulness of riches chokes
the word and it becometh unfruitful." (Matt. xiii.
22; Mark iv. 19; Luke viii. 14.) The possession
of wealth is here declared to be an obstacle to the
truth. A more striking illustration of its harmful influ
ence is found in the case of the rich young man. In
the conversation of Jesus with this youth, the anti
thesis between the power of wealth and the kingdom
of God is direct. It was the young man's wealth
that barred his salvation. The incident teaches
clearly that the possession of riches, as soon as they
are great enough to be really noticeable, are an
obstacle in the path that leads to life eternal.
The comments of Jesus on the conduct of this
youth are still more striking. "Verily I say unto

162 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
you, it is hard for a rich man to enter into the king
dom of heaven. And again I say unto you, it is
easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
(Matt. xix. 23, 24.)
It is said that what this saying states was only
true in reference to that time. Jesus' death had
been determined upon, and wealthy people would
not stake their all upon what appeared to every one
to be a hopelessly lost cause. But this does not
interpret Jesus right. In Jesus' estimation it was
hard at any time. He does not deny the possibility.
If it was impossible, he could not have had rich
people as his disciples, which he certainly had,
although in a very small number. Whatever the
meaning of the proverb about the camel passing
through the eye of a needle might be, it cannot
mean to totally bar the rich from entering heaven.
"With God all things are possible."
In exactly the same spirit Jesus pictures the
fatal ending of a selfish capitalist: "And he spake a
parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain
rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought
within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I
have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he
said, This will I do; I will pull down my barns and
build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits
and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON 163
thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said
unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul
required of thee; and the things which thou hast
prepared, whose shall they be?" And then having
told the story, he solemnly adds: "So is he that
layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward
God." (Luke xii. 16-20.)
Poor old fool, giving so much thought to caring
for earthly possessions, which he imagined were his
own, as to neglect laying up treasures in heaven!
His fruits, his goods, his barns, and his building
enterprises cost him his soul.
Lastly, we see the unholy influence of money as
a power, in his charge to the people, when a man
desired his assistance in getting his share of an in
heritance. "Take heed and keep yourself from all
acquisitiveness: for a man's life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth.1 "
(Luke xii. 15.) It is as foolish as dangerous. So
much is needed for one's life, when one has enough
of that he should be satisfied, what he has more
brings no blessing.
If men have not understood the teachings of Jesus
concerning possessions, that concerning mammon v/
worship has not been believed. Men read the gos
pels and speak of their simple beauty, especially of
the Sermon on the Mount, but either they do not
1 The Greek word izXsovetiia, which signifies a desire for larger
holdings, is best translated by the English word acquisitiveness.

164 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
believe that Jesus meant what he said, when he
spoke of mammon worship, or they consider his
guidance in matters of money unsafe. Else why is
it that the Christian world has paid so little attention
to these teachings? Actually the love of money is
more marked in Christian nations than where the
Saviour's words are never heard. It almost seems
that the more Christian a nation is, the more fanati
cal a large number of its people are in the worship
of mammon. When Ian Maclaren published his "Impressions
on American Life," shortly after he had visited
several of our states a few years ago, he said: "The
friendly visitor to the United States, who is proud
of her achievements and delighted by her bright
ness, stands aghast at the open and unabashed front
of secularity. It seems to him as if not merely
coarse and unlettered men, whose souls have never
been touched, either, by religion or by culture, but
that all men, with a few delightful exceptions, bow
the knee to this golden calf, and do it homage.
Nowhere is there such constant and straightforward
talk about money, nowhere is such importance
attached to the amount of money wliich a man has
acquired or possesses, nowhere is it taken so abso
lutely for granted that the object of a man's work is
to obtain money, and that if you offer him money
enough he will be willing to do any work which is
not illegal; that, in short, the motive power with

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON . 165
almost every man is his wages. One is struck, not
so much by what is said in plain words (although a
dollar is a monotonous refrain in conversation), as
by what is implied, and what is implied is this: that
if you know the proper sum, any man can be in
duced to do what you want, even though his health,
and his rest, and his family, and his principles,
stand in the way." (Outlook, Vol. LXIII.
p. 117.) The only answer I have seen to this is that Eng
land is just as bad as America. It probably is, which
makes the matter just that much worse. It seems
to be the ruling passion in all the leading countries.
Had our Saviour said, How hardly shall they that are
poor, instead of "How hardly shall they that have
riches, enter the kingdom of God," the passion for
money throughout the Christian world could not well
be stronger. "The love of money is the root of all
kinds of evils." (1 Tim. vi. 10.) The oppression
of the feeble races, the indifference to fair dealings
with them on the part of the so-called civilized, war,
the "madness of anarchy, the brutality of trusts,
drink, gambling, impurity, political, corruption, un
belief, domestic infidelity, all grow on its stem.
Says Lyman Abbott: "The sin that is nearest the
root of our social disorder and unrest to-day is the
eminently respectable and deadly sin of covetousness,
tainting the life of the family and the church, as
well as of the state; the acquisitiveness whose sole

1 66 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
concern is making money, and growing fat on what
should be shared with others. Intemperance and
licentiousness are more disgusting, but covetous
ness, which often prompts them for gain, dwarfs
them both in the social detriment it works." (Out
look, Vol. LXIII. p. 149.)
It is love of money that is emptying our churches.
Men who have accumulated a great deal more money
than they will ever need, absent themselves from
worship because they are too tired from their en
deavors to get still more. Love of money is injur
ing our homes. Eager for money our women enter
the industrial arena with men, home life is more and
more going out of vogue, and when it is entered
upon, the choice of a husband or wife is frequently
dictated as much by money as by affection.
Love of money is destroying faith. It develops
the keenest industrial competition. Amid the stress
of this, men do and say what cannot bear the light.
Thus suspicion is engendered, and faith in man is
weakened, the power of faith declines through lack
of practice, and unbelief follows. For when faith in
man is lost, faith in God is impossible.
Love of money degrades our people. It creates
and maintains the dram-shops and the dives, through
which men of keen intelligence and great moral pos
sibilities are often reduced to a level as low as the
brutes. Men will steal, rob, deceive, oppress,
default, sacrifice the welfare of wife, children, and

THE WORSHIP OF MAMMON 167
friends; break any of God's commandments — do
anything for money.
Nor is the love of money likely to grow less.
Year by year extravagance increases, and men's
needs grow larger. The larger they grow, the more
will people stand in need of money, and the greater
its influence on the hearts of men will become.
The love of money is seen in our holiest places.
It is seen in our churches. It is seen in our colleges
and universities, and with some of them the money
question is paramount. Their presidents are more
and more becoming financial secretaries, and are
judged by the endowments they raise. The devel
opment of the money-making power in the student
gets more and more attention, while attempts to
mold the character are — at least in some schools —
less direct, and are in some entirely disavowed.
"If Jesus Christ is a man
And only a man, I say"
it may not matter much that people ignore what he
says of mammon worship. If Jesus Christ is not a
man, but God's own son, then the setting asiae of
his teaching concerning mammon is serious.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CON
CERNING THE ACCUMULATION
AND USE OF RICHES

"Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I
was hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye
gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked,
and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was
in prison, and ye came unto me  "
"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these, my brethren,
even these least, ye did it unto me." (Matt. xxv. 34-36, 40.)

CHAPTER XI
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CONCERNING THE
ACCUMULATION AND USE OF RICHES
Another topic upon which Jesus has said a great
deal is how money should be accumulated and used.
Jesus was a great friend of the unfortunate and
the fallen. It mattered not what one's misfortune
was, or how it was occasioned, Jesus gave help to
all who sought it. He gave the blind their sight,
healed lepers, cured the sick, restored the demoniacs
to sanity, and fed the hungry with bread. They
found him eating with publicans and scorned him for
it, and he replied, "They that are whole have no
need of a physician, but they that are sick." (Mark
ii. 16.) They saw him enter the home of Zaccheus,
and they murmured and said, "He is gone in to lodge
with a man that is a sinner." And he answered,
"The Son of man came to seek and to save that
which was lost. " (Luke xix 7, 11.)
This same friendship for that class Jesus asks of
those who become his disciples, "Follow me," he
says, "as the Father hath sent me, even so send I
you." (John xx. 21.) Espouse my cause, the
cause of the unfortunates, seek to recover the lost;
endeavor to make the unrespectable respectable,
171

I72 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
those not fit to survive fit. Strive to secure for all
men the opportunities of welfare — culture, health,
knowledge, and character. Though able to march
in the front rank of society, take your place in the
rear ranks and help the stragglers along.
These facts must be kept in mind in the accumu
lation and use of our riches. It cannot be that we
may sacrifice the interest of the downtrodden in the
accumulation of wealth, and further them in our
other activities. The bitterness with which Jesus
denounced the scribes and the Pharisees for their
dishonest accumulations is familiar. Nor can it be
that we must pray and speak for one thing, and
having money, use it for another thing. If we must
use our talents for redeeming men, then our money,
which forms a part of our talents, must be used for
that purpose. In all our activities the welfare of
men must be in our mind, in our financial activities
as well as in those which are supposed to be more
directly religious.
Concerning the methods for handling our money,
our Saviour has said little. It did not come within
his sphere, nor is it probable that specific directions
as to methods which would have suited his day
would suit us. Each age has its own problems and
must meet them in the spirit of Christian love.
There are three principles in the Sermon on the
Mount that relate to the accumulation and use of
money. The first forbids stubborn insistence on

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 173
rights; the second acting on the principle that busi
ness is business, and that generosity has no place in
the business world; and the third enjoins benefi
cence. The first and second principle will be dis
cussed together, they being so closely related.
The first we find in Matthew's account of the
sermon: "Ye have heard that it was said, An eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto
you, Resist not him that is evil; but whosoever
smitest thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other
also. And if a man would go to law with thee and
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go
with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and
from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away." (Matt. v. 38-42.)
The second saying is found in Luke's account.
"And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to re
ceive, what thank have ye? Even sinners lend to
sinners to receive again as much. But love your
enemies, and do them good, and lend, never despair
ing; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be
sons of the Most High; for he is kind toward the
unthankful and evil. Be ye merciful, even as your
Father is merciful." (Luke vi. 34-36.)
Both these sayings have occasioned a vast
amount of perplexity. Shall we erect them into
rules to be literally obeyed, or shall we look upon
them as setting forth great principles? If we do the

174 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
former, we involve ourselves in almost hopeless
difficulties. First of all, there is the fact that these sayings
are found in the Sermon on the Mount. In that
sermon Jesus Christ rebukes the Pharisees for failing
to grasp the principles of the scriptures and for
erecting statements holding principles into rules
which they literally obeyed. If we take these say
ings of Jesus as rules, we assume that he gave rules
in the midst of a discourse in which he discouraged
rules. This is inconceivable. The Doukhabors
and others who erect them into rules which they
literally obey do with the words of Jesus just what
the Pharisees did with the Old Testament, and what
Jesus rebuked.
Moreover, as rules, these sayings are wholly im
practical, and are absolutely unjust and unchristian?
Christ always had, and wills that we shall have, the
interests of the needy at heart, and certainly it is
not to the interest of a needy man to give him what
ever he asks. The poor must often be denied in
their own interest. Nor is it to the interest of
people's welfare for one to loan to every one what
ever is asked for. Should a business man loan
money to rivals without requiring interest, or should
he give his surplus money to a competitor who
asked for it, when there is no prospect whatever
that even the principal will be returned to him, his
business would greatly suffer; and should several

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 175
business men do this, in a strongly Christian com
munity, the interest of the public would suffer.
Could these loans be understood to refer to
friendly loans, made to an unfortunate man to tide
him over a temporary difficulty, it would occasion no
difficulty to take the sayings of Jesus literally. No
doubt it is Christian to make such friendly loans,
but it is not commanded here. The verb dave&w
(daneizo) makes this plain. This word is always
used for business loans, loans on interest, while for
friendly loans the verb xtyp-qju (kichremi) is em
ployed. (J. H. Thayer. Greek-English Lexicon
on the N. T., p. 125.) In addition to this, a literal
obedience to these sayings would entail gross injus
tice. It is unjust for one who has worked hard for
his belongings to be compelled to give them to
every one who asks for them, when those who ask
have probably done nothing.
Each saying holds a great principle: the first
one, referring to non-resistance, forbids us being so
insistent on our rights; the second, referring to loans
upon interest, or business loans, demands generosity
in business. Too firm insistence on property rights has occa
sioned much evil. It has prompted a great many
wars. It has caused much suffering. It always
sacrifices the interests of the weak. It has broken
up many homes and has alienated parents from
children, and children from each other. It has

I76 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
engendered a vast amount of bitterness, and bitter
ness is fatal to the growth of the soul, and souls are
better than gold. Jesus knew the evil it had done.
He saw it all about him, and so he says, "Be not
exacting, be yielding, don't insist so on your
rights. ' ' The language is sharp and startling, but
only by such language could he make his thought
impressive. Acting on the principle that business is business,
and that all is fair in love and in war, and that busi
ness is war, is also a great evil. It has filled our
land with bitterness. It begets no end of suspicion.
It kills faith. It divides class against class. It
crushes the weak. It ruins souls. Modern busi
ness methods cannot possibly be reconciled with
Christ's requirement. The combinations of capital
for the purpose of furthering self-interest, irrespect
ive of the suffering which it entails upon those from
whom the markets are taken, or those thrown out
of employment; the freezing out of competitors; the
pooling of interests, the shutting down of factories
or mines because the profits diminish a little, when
doing so causes the most acute suffering to helpless
women and children, is not generous, and violates
the principle embodied in Christ's saying about
business loans without interest.
The third principle relating to riches, in the
Sermon on the Mount, enjoins beneficence: "Take
heed that ye do not your righteousness before men,

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 177
to be seen of them; else ye have no reward with
your Father which is in heaven. When therefore
thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily,
I say unto you, they have received their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth; that thine alms
maybe in secret; and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall recompense thee." (Matt. vi. 1-4.)
This, it is true, is no command to give alms, but
the endeavor to improve the practice involves the
recognition of its importance.
It is interesting to notice how secret Jesus has
kept his own almsgiving. The naturalness with
which the eleven concluded that Judas had been
directed to go and give something to the poor, when
he departed from them (John xiii. 29), and the readi
ness with which they criticized Mary for not giving
the money which she spent in anointing Jesus for
swelling the poor fund (Matt. xxvi. 9), makes it
clear that Jesus gave alms, and had emphasized its
importance, yet no instance of it is recorded.
How full his heart was with love for the needy!
"When thou makest a dinner or a supper," he
says, "call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor
thy kinsmen, nor rich neighbors; lest haply they also
bid thee again and a recompense be made thee. But
when thou makest a feast bid the poor, the maimed,

I7S THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; be
cause they have not the wherewith to recompense
thee ; for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrec
tion of the just." (Luke xiv. 12-14.) These peo
ple need your inspiration, your sympathy, and the
influence of your example and presence. Checks
are not sufficient for them. They need the loving
look, the touch of the hand that is friendly, and the
heart that is sympathetic. It was for this reason
that he ate and drank with them so often and was
their companion and friend.
The story of the good Samaritan hardly needs
any comment. It speaks for itself. To analyze it
mars its beauty. "And behold, a certain lawyer
stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said unto
him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
And he, answering, said, Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and
thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him,
Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt
live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto
Jesus, And who is my neighbor?" (Luke x. 25-29),
and then comes the story. It is the account of a
traveler who fell among thieves, who robbed him and
beat him and left him half dead, whom a Samaritan
found and cared for, and putting him upon his own
beast, brought him to an inn, to the keeper of which

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 179
he gave the money required for the care of the
sufferer. Having told it Jesus said to the lawyer, "Go and
do likewise." One incident in this story should not be over
looked. It has often escaped the interpreter. It is
that the Samaritan did not give the money to the
sufferer, but to the keeper of the inn. And this
suggests the important truth, that help for the needy
can often be more wisely bestowed when given indi
rectly than directly, as when it is given to institu
tions wliich are founded for helping them.
In these days, when there are so many of these
institutions, it is almost always better. Giving alms,
especially to unknown men, is dangerous. Benefi
cence to the back-door tramps does harm. It should
not be practiced, no matter how good it may feel.
Money given to schools for the endowment of
scholarships to assist enterprising young people; to
hospitals to enable the needy to obtain good treat
ment at low cost; to libraries to bring downtrodden
people in touch with high-minded, inspiring authors;
to boards for the distribution of bibles, the establish
ment of churches, or to enable them to send out
Christian teachers and missionaries to fire men with
a realizing sense of their possibilities because of their
divine sonship; does usually much more good than
what is given in alms.
And may we not believe that Jesus would have

180 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
viewed the investment of capital in business enter
prise with the dominating thought of blessing, with
great joy? Undoubtedly we may. For he who in
vests in plants — factories, mines, etc. — giving work
to a large number of people, and paying these, not
with a view to keeping the largest possible share for
self, but with a view to giving the largest wage con
sistent with the safety of the plant, becomes exceed
ingly useful, and he meets the demands of Jesus as
truly as if he gave largely to charities, or schools,
or churches. Warnings against the selfish use of money are
contained in the following stories: There is first the
story of the sad death of a rich capitalist, who en
larged his barns to enjoy the fruit of his wide acres,
and suddenly died a spiritual pauper. (Luke xi.
1 6-2 1.) A second story is that of a rich man who
was clothed in purple and fared sumptuously every
day, but showed no concern for a pauper who lay
festering in sores and hungry at his gate. "And
the rich man also died, and was buried. And in
Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments."
(Luke xvi. 22, 23.)
A third story is that of the rich young man — in
some respects the saddest story of them all — who
was so anxious to inherit eternal life, but because he
was not willing to put the interests of God's king
dom before his wealth, failed to do so. (Matt. xix.
22.)

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 181
In order to encourage the unselfish use of wealth,
Jesus promised as a reward for it the treasures of
heaven (Luke xii. 33), and the friendship of the
saved. "And I say unto you, make to yourselves
friends by means of the mammon of unrighteous
ness; that when it shall fail, they may receive you
into the eternal tabernacles." (Luke xvi. 9.)
Gratitude survives the grave. What a stirring
thought it is, that a good man who uses his wealth
to help his fellow-men will be welcomed when he
enters the spirit world by those whom his benevo-
. lence blessed!
But more stirring still is the scene which Jesus
portrayed, and which he says shall be seen at the
judgment day. (Matt. xxvi. 31-46.) In this picture
he shows us how such as have fed the hungry, clothed
the naked, and visited the sick and the prisoners
shall be awarded with heaven, while those who have
failed to do this shall be condemned to perdition.
One almost fears to write what this story so
plainly teaches. So earnestly have we been taught
by catechism and teachers that salvation is of grace,
and that works cannot save us, that we have almost
come to believe that good works have no merit.
But the teaching is so plain, so direct, that we can
not possibly mistake it. Jesus says that he is the
friend of those who are his friends, the poor, the
hungry, the prisoners, and the sick, and that helping
these will do what doctrines, worship, church-going,

182 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
and prayer will sometimes fail to do, i. e., insure
one an entrance into heaven.
This truth, the importance of helping the needy,
of being humane, sympathetic, tender, is another
neglected truth. Everybody knows the importance
of it, everybody gives assent to it, but so few act
accordingly. The people in Jesus' day knew its importance.
They had the magnificent humanitarian laws and
teachings of the Old Testament. But they despised
the poor. (Jas. ii. 6.) They would occasionally
help them, but with money which they had first
extorted from them. At least this seems to be
taught by the ironical remark of Jesus to the Phari
sees to give alms of such things as were within their
cups and platters — things that were obtained by
extortion and wickedness. (Luke xi. 41.)
The people in Russia know its importance. Has
not the large Greek church the beautiful teachings
of Jesus? But the earthly existence of the great
mass of the people of that tremendous realm is posi
tively painful. They are hungry, filthy, oppressed,
enslaved, and ignorant, and the leaders of the church
mind it not.
The people of the Middle Ages knew its impor
tance. Those warring knights and feudal lords, who
were fired with zeal for the rescue of Christ's sepul-
cher from the hand of the Saracen infidels, but had
no pity for the suffering serfs.

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 183
The people of a hundred years or less ago knew
its importance. The churchmen who sent children
to labor in unhealthy mines, until the knowledge of
it roused Christian England's anger and stopped it,
and the slave-owner who shrank not from ignoring
domestic affection, selling boys and girls from out
of the reach of their parent's embrace.
And we know its importance, and while a great
deal has been done by us in obedience to Jesus'
command, how much there yet remains to be done!
What an amount of suffering there still is! What
sad tales one reads with every morning paper! And
if we will look for it, we might see sights that would
make sadder tales still.
The Christian world is still hard on the unfortu
nate. If one is down he is apt to be trampled lower.
Success is honored while hard words are reserved
for the failures. The children of the failures are
called riffraff, trash, scum, dregs. Poor things! It
is well for youth to battle with difficulties, but there
are some difficulties that crush. "Have not all a
chance in free America?" it is asked. Not all.
Such as possess a good environment and a healthy
body and brain have; but the others do not. The
child of the gutter has no chance. The child of
shiftless, drunken, impure parents, living in over
crowded, foul-smelling tenements, has not. He
cannot be anything but shiftless and drunken. To
rise unaided above a debased environment and a de-

184 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
praved hereditary tendency is impossible. To speak
of those who have had both of these disadvantages to
contend against as dregs and scum, riffraff, and
pariahs, is wrong. That is punishing them for
what they cannot help.
For these people far more should be done than as
yet has been done. There is a stirring passage in an
address by the late ex-Mayor Hewitt, of New York,
which he made about three years ago in New York
before a meeting to raise funds for the East Side
work of the Episcopal Church. "The rich," he
says, "have not even begun what they ought to do.
Men that I almost worship for their generosity and
solicitude for those that have less, are not giving in
proportion to their wealth the half that was given
by their families a generation ago. Have we a right
to take this wealth and do nothing to correct the
evils created in its production? Can you accept
these millions and shut your eyes to the evils which
weave themselves about the producers? Can any one
be content with such conditions? Good God ! can this
be the end to which we have been working all these
centuries? Is this the result of our industrial devel
opment, and must our prosperity as a nation be
purchased at such a staggering price? If these ter
rible tenements, these overcrowded districts, these
dark and foul-smelling places, and all the attending
miseries must go with industry, then I would to God
that every industrial center could be destroyed as

ACCUMULATION OF RICHES 185
were Sodom and Gomorrah of old, and men be
driven back to the land where they can at least have
the breezes and the green grass and the sunshine and
blue of heaven to look up to." (Outlook, Vol.
LXVII. No. 2, p. 89.)
Are these words too strong? I do not know that
they are. This is sure, that far more attention will
have to be paid to the redemption of these classes
than there yet is, before the Christian world can
expect to hear from the Judge in the final day:
"Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world  Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of
these my brethren, ye did it unto me."

THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM
OF JESUS

"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the proph
ets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say
unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things
be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall
be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever
shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your
righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
heaven." (Matt. v. 17-20.)

CHAPTER XII
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM OF JESUS
In certain treatises which deal with the social and
economic side of Jesus' teachings, he is spoken of as
a radical. This estimate does not accord with what
is said of him in the gospels. Instead of calling him
a radical it would be far truer to call him a conser
vative. To begin with, his conservatism is seen in his
attitude to the Old Testament. The student of
religion, engaged in the study of this book, finds
little in the teachings of Jesus that cannot be found
there. All the great doctrines of Christianity, such
as that of God, angels, Satan, providence, the judg
ment, the future life, sin, repentance, forgiveness,
faith, prayer, worship, are there; if not clearly
stated, are at least germinally present.
The same is true of his teachings referring to
economic conditions. All the economic topics upon
which Jesus is reported to have spoken are found in
the Old Testament; and what is more, those upon
which the Old Testament lays the greatest emphasis
do also get the most emphasis from Jesus.
This conservatism of Jesus comes out still more
in his attitude to the church. The church of that
189

19° THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
time had sadly apostatized. The teachings of God
contained in the Old Testament had been largely
replaced by the teachings of men. The comments
upon God's word took the place of the word itself.
The leaders of religion were corrupt, and this had
cost them the confidence of the people. The syna
gogues on the sabbath were comparatively empty,
and to neglect them was fashionable.
Yet Jesus did not join in this neglect. It was
his wont not only to attend them, but also to take
part in the services. (Luke iv. 16.) This he did
before his public ministry began, and he continued
it afterwards. "He went about all Galilee teaching
in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom." (Matt. iv. 23.) To the great feasts in
Jerusalem he was a frequent visitor, and as when a
boy of twelve, so as a public teacher, the place in
which he was most apt to be found was the temple.
A radical person would have left the church in
despair, or probably in disgust, and advocated the
substitution of something else in her place.
His conservatism is also seen in his attitude to
social institutions. The best illustration of this is
his attitude to the family. There is in his teaching
not a trace of that looseness of view respecting that
institution which is to-day so marked among our
social and economic writers, especially in Germany.
In all his utterances there is only one specific rule,
and this one is in the interest of the integrity of the

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 191
home. The ease with which the marital relations
could be broken received his express disapproval,
and the irreverence to parents which was tolerated
by the Pharisees got his merited rebuke.
Leaving the family, to look at his relation to the
state, we see the same conservatism there. There
is no attempt to interfere with established political
institutions. There is no evidence that he ever
said aught against the authority of the Romans,
Herod, or the local rulers. He always obeyed the
authorities and required it of his followers. (Matt.
xvii. 27; Luke xvii. 14; v. 14.)
That one should maintain a conservative attitude
in all his relations except the economic one would
be strange. The presumption is against it. Nor is
it true. Jesus was as conservative there as every
where else, as has already been proven. The eco
nomic conditions of many of the people were very
bad, which grieved him much; the temptation to use \
violent language concerning the greed of the rich,
and the injustice of the rulers was great, but he
never used it; nor did he ever advocate any drastic
measures looking towards a change.
His conservatism was, however, progressive.
There is the kind that retards progress, and there is
also that which furthers it. The conservatism of the
Pharisees was of the former kind, and this was one
of the causes why Christ came in conflict with them.
The Pharisees had no thought of progress.

I93 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Their look was backward, not forward. In all mat
ters of consequence they consulted the opinions of
the fathers, which were called the traditions of the
elders. Learning consisted in knowing what these
traditions were. The better one knew them, the
greater his fame. No one struck out upon new
lines of investigation, whence the sum total of
knowledge remained practically the same. Like
criminals in a treadmill, they walked continually the
same circle, and advanced nothing.
Jesus believed in progress. "I have yet many
things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them
now," he said to his disciples, implying that the
time would come when they could bear them.
(John xvi. 12.)
Taking no account of progress, the Pharisees
could not realize the meaning of changed conditions.
In this, too, they differed from Jesus. He recog
nized that institutions and laws might be wise for
certain people and be wholly unfit for other people,
or for the same people at a different time. This is
well illustrated in the first part of the Sermon on the
Mount. Jesus was accused by the Pharisees of destroying
the laws and the prophets. After entering a denial
of this, he instances six laws in support of the denial,
those concerning anger, adultery, divorce, oaths,
resistance, and hatred. These laws were enacted
to check evils — that concerning divorce to check

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 193
separation, the one concerning oaths to check un
truthfulness, while the law called lex talionis, requir
ing an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, was
intended to check private revenge. The existence
of these laws was a public declaration of the evil of
the things against which they were enacted.
Any one believing in moral progress is likely to
believe in the coming of a time when such evils shall
have ceased to exist, or at any rate when the period
for their regulation shall be past. But the Pharisees
did not believe in such progress. Years had passed
since these laws had been enacted — years of instruc
tion, discipline, and culture — and still they stood on
the statute books and they demanded the same
obedience to them which was demanded when they
were first enacted. If it was once right for a man
to put away his wife when he found something un
seemly in her, or hated her, it must always be right,
they argued. (Deut. xxiv. 1-4.) So with the other
laws. Thus they turned laws that were enacted to
check an evil into a justification of it. They made
of the law a license, just as is done with the laws
enacted to check the growth of the liquor industry.
When the law declares the business to be evil and
dangerous, requiring to be checked, men use it to
prove that the business is legal and right.
All this is wrong, said Jesus. The time has
come for men to be beyond such laws. Men ought
by this time to be so true that oaths shall be unne-

194 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
cessary, so pure that divorce regulations shall be
superfluous, so gentlemanly that the law requiring
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth might be
erased from the statute book. These laws were
enacted on account of the hardness of men's hearts.
Obedience to them was as much as could be expected
from a people just emerging from slavery, but it is
not enough for you. "Except your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees" — which is
such as might have existed a thousand years ago —
"ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
heaven." (Matt. v. 20.)
Not believing in progress the Pharisees did not,
of course, use the past in the interest of progress.
They used the past as a compass to determine the
location of their position. Jesus used it as a staff
wherewith to expedite progress.
It is said that workmen have labored at St.
Peter's Cathedral for more than three hundred years.
Several generations of laborers have been needed to
complete that beautiful structure. Each new gener
ation has added to the work of the generation that
preceded it. In this way the temple of truth is con
structed, each successive generation adding to the
work of the generation before.
But the Pharisees did not do this. They took
the bricks, the stones, the mortar, the joists, and
the beams which preceding generations had added
to the temple, and looked at them, examined them,

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 195
turned them over, and studied them again, but they
added not a brick.
Neither did the Sadducees. Instead of building
on to the structure they actually took its materials
away. The Sadducees were destroyers, skeptics;
and like the modern skeptics, they regarded the men
of the past who have believed as foolish, and con
gratulated themselves on having been wise enough
to discover this.
Nor did the Essenes further truth. They stood
aside from humanity, and like impractical monks, as
they were, let the temple of truth lie waste.
Jesus added to the temple. He came not to
destroy, as he said the scribes and Pharisees did, he
came to fulfil; i. e., to complete.
Men had some knowledge of God. They knew
him as just, merciful, forgiving, compassionate, and
sympathetic; they spoke of him as their rock, their
shield, their high tower, their father; but Jesus made
all that knowledge more full and real and clear,
especially his fatherhood. "Our Father who art in
heaven." Men had some knowledge of the future life.
They knew of the judgment day, the separation, the
punishments, and the rewards. Jesus enlarged that
knowledge. There is no record of any Hebrew
before his time who looked forward to death with
joy. The future was regarded as a gloomy place,
even the abode of the blessed. The saying of the

196 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
Grecian Achilles, that he would rather be a shepherd
in Greece than a ruler in hades, expressed the opinion
of the Hebrews. Jesus removed this gloom. He
brought immortality to light. "In my Father's
house are many mansions  I go to prepare
a place for you."
Men had knowledge of their duties; such as to
love, to have faith, to be merciful, patient, just, un
selfish, and gentle, but Jesus carried the knowledge
of these duties far higher. He did this by word and
by example. Nobody spoke so much of the impor
tance of faith, and nobody had ever exhibited so
much. No one was ever so urgent in emphasizing
the importance and power of love, and no one loved
like he. So with the other duties, he carried them
to loftier altitudes.
From his contemporaries Jesus stood quite aloof.
The attempt to prove that several of his ideas were
borrowed from the rabbis must end in failure. The
phrases that are now and then culled from them,
resembling some of Jesus' parables and sundry peti
tions of the Lord's prayer, are misleading. They
are sayings that were uttered by men who lived from
fifty to a hundred years after Jesus. Some lived
even later. The ideas which their sayings embody
are probably borrowed from Jesus, as the influence
of Christianity was early felt upon the Gentile world,
and probably as early on the Jewish. The contem
poraries of Jesus have left us no literature except a

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 197
few detached phrases, presumably because no more
was worth preserving.
But with the law-givers and the prophets of the
Old Testament Jesus' connection was close. This
caused him to be silent upon many topics concerning
which he otherwise would have spoken. This is
true of economic topics as well as of religious topics.
What had been said was enough. His sermons
dealt with subjects such as the need of the hour
demanded. His method was the practical one.
Only topics that needed to be re-emphasized engaged
his attention. How could his connection with the law-givers
and prophets be else than close? They were inspired
men. His own spirit had instructed them. He
himself had enlightened them, and if their words
were less full and clear than his own, that was only
because they were inferior as men. A perfect reve
lation requires a perfect vehicle. They were imper
fect, while Jesus was perfect. To assume that Jesus
was not closely related to the past, or that he broke
with the past, was a revolutionist instead of an evo
lutionist, a radical instead of a conservative, denies
the inspiration of the law-givers and the prophets,
which the scriptures so emphatically assert.
It is this close relation of Jesus to the past that
makes it so difficult to point out what there is new
in his teaching. Every now and then we think we
have something that is new which later we find to be

198 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
more or less clearly set forth in the Old Testament.
To attempt to point out the additions which Jesus
has made to truth is like endeavoring to show just
what each season has added to the growth of a boy.
It cannot be held up in a lump with the invitation,
"Here, look at it." All the organs of the boy are
better developed, are fuller, larger, and stronger
from the growth of the season, but no new organs
are added, and the additions to him cannot be sepa
rated and measured. It is thus with the teaching of
Jesus. The question might be asked, If Jesus is not
original. Not in the sense in which an inventor is,
producing what has never before been seen. His
is an originality like that of a famous artist. In
examining the artist's picture, one perhaps'does not
see an object which he has not seen painted before,
and probably equally well. Here is a hand, yonder
is a face, beyond that a brook, which another artist,
unknown to fame, has painted just as perfectly, but
this^does not reflect upon the originality of the artist.
His glory does not consist in that he painted what
no one has painted before, not even in the superior
ity with which he has painted each separate object
in the picture; it consists in the beautiful, harmoni
ous organization of the various parts into one glori
ous whole. So with Jesus. His glory consists not
in the new things which he said, but in the clearness
with which he stated old truths. In his wonderful

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 199
grasp upon fundamental principles, the evenness of
his temper, the judicial balance of his mind, his
intense practicalness, his deep sympathy for the
needs of the moment, the keenness with which he
would ask and answer questions which pierced
through all subterfuges to the root of things, and
flooded any subject to which they related with new
light; above all, in what he was — in his divine per
sonality — through which he was enabled to make
truth which was apparently dead vital and forceful,
in these, the greatness and originality of Jesus con
sisted. It is undoubtedly a great disappointment to
some not to find in Jesus' teachings an economic
system. But this could not be. It is not God's
way. He never does for us what we can do for
ourselves. Look at what he does for us through
nature. He gives us wheat, but he bakes us no
bread; he provides us with wool, but he makes us
no garments; he supplies us with trees, but he
builds us no houses; he furnishes us with fire and
water to make steam, but he does not show us how
to build a locomotive ; he stores the atmosphere with
electrical fluid, but he builds us no dynamos. So he
gives us no systems, he gives us truths, but we must
make the systems ourselves. It is better so. It is
thus that we grow.
Then, too, it would have been impossible for
Christ to have given us a system which would be

200 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
universally suitable. It is with economic institutions
as it is with political ones, what suits one people does
not suit another. A representative government is
probably very suitable for the people in Massachu
setts, but it would not suit the present population of
Mindanao. Similarly, such differently advanced peo
ple want different economic institutions.
There are three facts touching the subject of this
book that need special attention.
The first is, that Jesus was tremendously inter
ested in people's economic conditions. Consequently
no man is a true follower of Jesus who is indifferent
to the subjects that relate to people's material pos
sessions. The second fact is, that Jesus sought to better
people's material conditions by making the people
themselves better. The rationality of that appears
to all who observe what is going on in society, and
who take time to think Such as labor for the eco
nomic betterment of people, and do not aim to make
the people themselves better, are just like seamen
bailing water out of a sinking ship, leaving the
opening through which the water flows in unstopped.
The third fact is, that Jesus planned to make
men better through the agency of the church. He
worked to that end in connection with the Jewish
church as long as its leaders would let him, and
when they cast him out, he organized a church of
his own.

HIS PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM 201
Believing as we do in the divine wisdom of Jesus,
we cannot but believe that the future of society rests
with the Christian church. In proportion as that
organization is active, in obedience to Jesus, in sav
ing man from sin, will she be efficient in improving
people's economic conditions. Periods of great
spiritual awakenings have always been followed by
social uplifts. Men of great spiritual power who
worked through the church leave in their wake the
largest number of beneficent activities. The social
good done by Luther in alleviating the burdensome-
ness of poverty, by Calvin, Chalmers, and Wesley,
Edwards, Finney, and Beecher, Spurgeon, Brooks,
and Moody, cannot be paralleled by a like number
of equally able men who worked outside the
church. Sometimes one meets people who are really in
terested in beneficent activities, and extol Jesus for
his goodness and wisdom, but who at the same time,
almost in the same breath, slur his church. The
utter inconsistency of conduct like that, it is unneces
sary to state. If, as they say, the church has apos
tatized, it has certainly not done so to the extent to
which the Jewish church had done it, and which
Jesus never neglected. Nor are slurs and neglects
in order. Ministers might be rebuked, but then it
should be open and to their face, as Jesus rebuked
the Pharisees; but the institution should be kept
apart from the leaders. Not slurs and neglects,

202 THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS
but tears and prayers and correction and advice are
in order, for if the organization which Christ has
given us for the world's redemption fails, we must
despair of humanity, for there is no other agency
for its redemption left, nor has any been promised.

INDEX

Abbott, quoted, 165.
Aboth, Talmudic tract, 19.
Accumulation, 157.
Acts, writer of, friendly to the
poor, 98.
Agriculture, loved by the He
brews, 19.
main occupation of the Essenes,
59.
Akiba, R., 58, 79.
Alms, virtue in declining, 82.
should spring from love, 82.
Almsgiving, regarded by Jews as
meritorious, 80, 84.
urged by Jesus, 177, 178.
organized after the destruction
of Jerusalem, 36.
danger in, 179.
Amusements, Greek influence on,
22.
Annas the High Friest, violence
of, 72.
Apostles could hold no property,
144.
Archeiaus, 9.
Aristotle, 44, 46.
Ascetic, Jesus not an, 149.
Baba Bathra, Talmudic tract, 19,
79, 80, 81, 82, 83.
Baba Kamma, Talmudic tract,
79. 82.
Baba Meziah, Talmudic tract, 19,
78, 79, 83-
Balsam gardens at Jericho, 17.
Barachoth, Talmudic tract, 19, 78,
79.8o.

Baruch, 113.
Benevolence, urged in the Old
Testament, 47.
urged in the Apocrypha, 84.
urged in the Mishna, 78, 80, 81,
82.
urged by Jesus, 177-179.
as practiced to-day, 182, 183.
rewards of, 181.
Bitterness, social, in Jesus' day,
34-
Borrower, laws in the Old Testa
ment protecting him, 49.
Bruce, 100.
Building by the Herods, 31.
Business, generosity in, com
manded by Jesus, 176.
Business enterprises, Jesus' atti
tude to, 180,
Caberim, 70.
Csesarea, harbor of, 20.
Capital protected, 50, 51.
Ceremonialism, 63, 66, 67, 69.
Chagiga, Talmudic tract, 81, 82.
Children, training of, 46.
Church, Jesus' regard for, 190, 200.
Climate, 15.
Commerce, feared by Rabbis, 19.
excellent location for, 20.
extent of, 20.
forbidden by the Essenes, 59,
Communism, practiced by the
Essenes, 59.
existed among the Apostles, 144.
not approved by Jesus for gen
eral purposes, 145.

203

204

INDEX

Dead Sea, 14.
Debtors, protection of, in Old
Testament legislation, 49.
in rabbinical legislation, 83.
fared hard in Jesus' day, 36.
Dependent, the, remembered in
Hebrew legislation, 46.
Divine ownership, teaching of
the Old Testament regarding,
i47.
fundamental with Jesus, 147.
practically denied to-day, 151.
Divorce, easy to obtain in Jesus'
day, 58.
opposed by Jesus, 190.
Drachma, value of, 28.
Duty of the rich toward the poor,
182.
Earthly possessions, Jesus' atti
tude to, 141-145.
Ecclesiasticus, 84, 85.
Edersheim, 32.
Education among the Jews, 132.
Educational opportunities of Je
sus, 131-134.
Emperor, complaints against
Herod, made to, 36.
Enjoyment of wealth, 148.
Enoch, Book of, quoted, 34, 35.
Erachin, Talmudic tract, 84.
Esdraelon, Plain of, 14, 129.
Essenes, name of, 58.
communism of, 59.
radically different from Jesus,
60, 61.
impracticalness of the Essenes,
195-
Family, Jesus' regard for the, igo,
191.
Feasts, journeys to, helped the
culture of Palestine, 21.
Foreigners in Palestine, 21.

Future life, the, often in Jesus'
mind, 116, 117, 118.
Jesus enlarges our knowledge
of, 196.
Galilee, Lake of, 14.
fertility of, 17.
population of, 18.
Gamaliel, Rabban, the elder, 86.
Geike, quoted, 129.
Gitten, Talmudic tract, 58, 78.
God, the owner of all, 146, 147.
promises provision for such as
serve him, 160.
Godet, quoted, 101.
Gospels, variations in the, 91.
must be combined to under
stand Jesus, 105.
Greeks, influence of the, on Pal
estine, 21, 22.
Hamburger, 31, 32.
Harbors in Palestine, 22.
Hell, Christ's fear of, 116.
Herod Antipas, 31, 32.
Herod the Great, his character, 29.
hated by the Jews, 29, 36.
building enterprises of, 30, 31.
complaint against, 32.
Herron, 118.
Hewit, quoted, 184.
Hillel, the elder, 49, 58.
Holtzmann. 8.
Hyppolytus, 59.
Idumea, terrorized by robbers, 30.
Indolence, not characteristic of
the Jews, 78.
repugnant to J esus, 150.
Inequality in possessions not ob
jected to by Jesus, 148.
Interest, or usury, forbidden in
the Old Testament, 48.
not discussed by Jesus, ng.
disapproved by the rabbis, 83.

INDEX

205

James, Epistle of, its likeness to
the Gospel of Luke, 98.
Jebamoth, Talmudic tract, ig, 83.
Jericho, 15.
Jerusalem, 15, 36r
Jesus, lowly birth, 126-128.
lived in the country, 120-133.
had poor educational opportuni
ties, 131-134.
worked hard, 130, 131.
fellowshipped with laborers, 134-
13a.
the probable significance of his
lowly life, 134.
was the friend of all, 112.
was especially friendly to the
poor and the needy, log, 114,
171, 177.
sought to improve economic
conditions, 112, 113.
left no economic system, igg.
relied on moral means for mak
ing society better, 118, 120,
200.
his purposes spiritual, 116.
was much concerned about
men's future life, 114, 115.
his attitude to property, 147.
was no ascetic, 149.
was conservative, 189.
yet progressive, enlarged knowl
edge, 195.
relation of his teaching to his
contemporaries, 196.
his attitude to the Old Testa
ment, 197.
his loyalty to the church, igo.
the originality of Jesus, ig8.
Jewish church in Jesus' day, 190.
John the Baptist, 62.
John, Gospel of, its purpose, 94.
Joma, Talmudic tract, 78.
Joppa, harbor of, 20.
Jordan, valley of, 15.

Josephus, 17, 18, 20, 30, 32, 33, 36,
5g, 67, 72, 77, 131-
Jubilees, Book of, 113.
Judea, fertility of, 17.
Kethuboth, Talmudic tract, 81, 82.
Kiddushin, Talmudic tract, 78.
King, power of, in Old Testament
legislation, 52.
Kingdom of God, social signifi
cance of the term, 112.
Labor, respected by the Jews, 43,
44, 78.
organized, 23.
Laborer, the, his rights respected,
45-
not disdained, 78.
Law, the Jewish, superior to the
Roman law, 46.
was in the interest of the poor,
46, 4g.
emphasis on the study of, 131.
Lawlessness in Palestine, 30.
Loans, making of, in Old Testa
ment, 48.
in Mishna, 82.
what Jesus says of, 174-175.
Love, in giving alms, 82.
Luke, the evangelist, g5.
Luke, gospel of, addressed to
Greeks, g6.
its sources, 97, g8.
its fullness touching matters of
property, 90-94.
its author sympathetic towards
the poor, 92, gg.
the historicity of the Gospel,
104, 105.
Maclaren, Ian, quoted, 164.
Mammon worship, meaning of
term mammon, 156.
is a great sin, 155, 156.

2o6

INDEX

weapons against, 158-161.
is the sin of the present, 163-167.
Mark, Gospel of, characteristics
of, 94.
Marquandt, 32.
Marriage, loose view of, 58.
repudiation of it by the Essenes,
59-
sanctity of it in estimation of
Jesus, 119,
Mary, the mother of Jesus, 126,
131-
Mathews, Shailer, 8, 57.
Matthew, Gospel of, material of
it, 91.
cause of its variation from Luke,
9*9-103.
Mishna, date of, 77.
Monabaz, the benevolence of, 80.
Money, evil influence of, 161-163.
Naumann, 139.
Nazareth, its fine location, 129.
Nedarim, Talmudic tract, 78.
New Testament, the purpose of,
43.
Nidda, Talmudic tract, 71, 72.
Nitti, I3g.
Non resistance, 173, 174.
Old Testament, purpose of Old
Testament, 43.
humane laws of, 46-48.
its views of property, 146
Jesus' agreement with, 147.
Jesus' relation to, ig7.
Oppression denounced, 49, So.
Palestine, topography of, 13, 15.
climate various, 15.
products various, 16.
fertility great, 13-18.
large population in Jesus' day,
18.

Palestinian Christians generally
poor, 98.
Parable, the, of the rich farmer,
162, 180.
of the Good Samaritan, 178.
of the great supper, 177.
of the unjust steward, 147.
of the rich man and Lazarus, 150.
of the judgment day, 181.
Parents of Jesus, sympathized
with Pharisees, 133.
Paul, 67, 95.
quoted, 57.
Pea, Talmudic tract, ig, 35, 82.
Peabody, 7, 13g.
quoted, 143, 149.
Perea, fertility of, 17.
Pesachim, Talmudic tract, 19, 7g,
82.
Pharisees, origin of the name, 61.
influential with the people, 61.
denounced by Jesus, 62.
legalism of the, 63-67.
their neglect of the moral and
the social laws, 69.
speculations of the, 70.
their unprogressive conserva
tism, 192-194.
Philo, 35, 37, 59, 85, 132, T33.
Pilgrims, the, good influence of,
21.
Plato, 43.
Pliny, 17, 59.
Pompey, 28.
Poor, the, kindly remembered in
Hebrew legislation, 47.
neglected in Jesus' day, 87.
Jesus interested in them, 87.
Poverty, prevalence of it in Jesus'
day, 27, 28.
Prayer, regulations respecing, 66.
Priests, largely Sadducees, 72.
Property, property rights ac
knowledged, So, Si.

INDEX

207

God the real owner, 146, 147.
Public schools among the Jews,
-3".
Rabbis, the, their regard for labor,
19, 78.
Religion, low state of it in Jesus'
day, 57.
Renan, no, 139.
Rich, the, hard towards the poor,
35-
some rich who were friends of
Jesus, in.
Rich young man, the, 68, 141, 161,
180.
Riches, are held as a trust, 51.
are disparaged in the Old Tes
tament, 51.
are dangerous, 51.
are disparaged in rabbinic liter
ature, 83.
are disparaged by Jesus, 156.
Jesus fears their unholy influ
ence, 161-163.
He does not ask His followers
to abandon, 141-144.
but forbids a too firm insistence
on property rights, 175.
Rogge, 8, 114.
quoted, 34.
Roman Empire, the, fiscal ar
rangements of, 33.
Roman laws inferior to Hebrew
laws, 46.
Rome, the ruling power in Pales
tine, 28.
Root, Talmadge, 8.
Sabbath, strict observance of, 65,
66.
Sabbath, Talmudic tract, ig, 83.
Sabbatic year, 49.
Sadducees, origin of the name
Sadducee, 71.

an aristocratic party, 72.
Jesus not disturbed by them,
X20.
their skepticism, 195.
Samaria, fertility of the district,
17.
Schools, in nearly every town,
131.
Schurer, 21, 63, 71, 131, 133.
quoted, 60, 70.
Scribes, 61, 62.
Scriptures, the, Jesus' knowledge
of, 132.
Sermon on the Mount, g3, g4, 100-
104, 155, 172, 192.
Sibylline oracles, 131.
Simon the Maccabee, 20.
Slavery, how it was regulated in
Hebrew legislation, 45.
viewed by the rabbis and apoc
ryphal writers, 7g, 8$.
repudiated by the Essenes, 59.
not discussed by Jesus, 118.
Slaves, harsh treatment of, 37.
Social welfare, not the end of life,
122.
Socialism, errors of Socialism,
121.
relation of Socialism to Chris
tianity, 122.
Sota, Talmudic tract, 82, 86.
Soul, supreme value of the, 116.
Succah, Talmudic tract, 80, 82,
Suffering believed to be caused
by sin, 38.
Synagogue, value of the, 133.
Taanith, Talmudic tract, 79, 81.
Tacitus, 17, 33.
Taxation, complaint of, 33.
Taxes in Palestine, enumerated,
33-
Temple, beauty of it, 31.
Temptations of riches, 161.

208

INDEX

Thayer, 175.
Tithes, giving of, 151.
Tobit, Book of, quoted, 84.
Trades. Jewish youth taught, 78.
Usury, or interest, forbidden in
Hebrew legislation, 48.
Wealth, enjoyment of, 148.

Weapons, not wrought by the
Essenes, 59.
Work held in honor, 43.
Worship of mammon, fatal to the
worship of God, 155.
the extent of it to-day, 163-167.
Year, Jubilee, 50.
Year, Sabbatic, 49.

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