The State
Matt. x. 18.
xii. 25.
xv. 24.
xvii. 24-27.
xviii. 23-35.
xxii. 1 -14.
xxiv. 6.
Mark ii. 14-17.
iii. 24.
iv. 19.
vi. 8, 9.
vii. 27.
viii. 36, 37.
ix. 33-37-
x. 17-3i» 33*
34, 35-45-
xi. 15-19, 27-33.
xii. 1-44.
xiii. 7-12,32-37.
xiv. 3-1 1, 62.
XV. 2.
Luke iv. 16-32.
v. 4*7, 27-32.
vi. 3, 4, 30.
vii. 1-10, 25.
viii. 14.
ix. 3-5, 22.
x* 4, 7, 41,
xi. 3, 17.
xii. 11-30.
xiii. 1 6, 34, 35.
xiv. 18, 19, 31-
xvi. 1 -3 1.
xvii. 7-10.
xviii. 18-32.
XIX.
1-27,
, 41-44.
XX.
i-8, 9
9, 10,
xxii. 35.
xxiv. 47.
HOWEVER much a Christian may dwell in an ideal world, yet it is ordained by nature herself that he must touch the earth. Man may not live by bread alone, but, on the other hand, he cannot live without bread. However he may make even the act of eating sacramental by accompanying it with the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” yet the necessity of eating tethers everyone to this material world. Still more when a man has to provide for others does this necessity urge itself as irresistible. When asked for bread, a father cannot give a stone; he must have where¬ with to satisfy the hungry mouths that call to him for the means of subsistence. Clothing has to be provided as well as food; and the shelter of a roof is also, in most parts of the globe, a necessity, and often one far from easy to provide. For these reasons man must sow and reap, weave and build.
In ages long before the point at which human records begin, it must have been discovered that the provision of the elementary necessities can be
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facilitated by the division of labour. From this it was but a step to the exchange of the values which labour had produced. Then came the invention of money as a substitute and tender for articles. And, with these three attainments, man was on the path to that vast multiplication of tasks of which modern society consists. Society is an organism in which every individual ought to find his own place and do his own part of the general work.
As society thus develops, its members are not content with the satisfaction of the elementary necessities. Not only food is desired, but good food; not only a garment, but a beautiful one; not only a house, but a comfortable one. Besides, the work reacts on the worker, who is healthy and happy in proportion as he is usefully occupied, and grows in personal refinement the finer the thought and the more sustained the pains he puts into the labour of his hands. The earth, as a whole, assumes forms of beauty in proportion to the care bestowed on its cultivation; and by degrees there arises in the mind of the race the conception of the whole planet, which is its habitation, transmuted into a scene of happiness through the joint action of all its inhabitants.*
There are many sayings of Jesus which show how deep was His insight into this side of human
* This is very nearly the conception of the ethical vocation of the race as a whole expounded by Schleiermacher and Rothe. life. The nobleman, in the parable, about to travel into a far country divides his means among his servants, who are to trade with his money in his absence; the husbandman, in like manner, leaves his vineyard in charge of the vinedressers, with strict orders to be able to deliver the fruits in their season. In the parable of the Talents the observation is made prominent that some are gifted for tasks and positions for which others are unfit, and that from each will be demanded service in proportion to his abilities. From the same parable and from other sayings of Jesus we gather that He looked upon nothing with more dislike than the failure to make use of talents. There are to be no drones in the social hive. It is possible, indeed, that, through the favour of fortune, some may be relieved from the common tasks in which others have to toil without ceasing; but, if so, they must find other occupations in which they may be helpful in promoting the general weal. While the less favoured may find it excuse enough for idleness, that no man hath hired them, the more highly favoured ought to be able to find employment for themselves.*
* Most of the modern writers on Christian Ethics are very strong in the demand that everyone must have a sphere to fill and a work to do, idleness being criminal. See, for instance, the latest great work published in Germany on the subject, Lemme’s Christliche Ethik, 11., pp. 39 ff. So Dorner, Christliche Sittenlehre, p. 526, “Es dart keinen Stand geben, dessen Arbeit nur der Genuss ist.”
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At all events, when the final account is made up, a full equivalent in work for all talents bestowed will be demanded.
This realm of duties, which society is, has, for its counterpart, a realm of rights, which society is like¬ wise. He who plucks the fruit eats it, and much more is he who grows it entitled to do the same. He who goes a-fishing finds, through his vigilance and skill, enough not only for himself but for his household. Each one’s enjoyment is not, however, confined to what he can himself grow or catch. He who has made a catch of fish may be said to have captured fruit also; for the possessor of the fruit will be happy to let him have part of it for part of the fish. Thus may all the inhabitants of the earth be said to have among them not only its products but its potentialities; and by labour well directed, in which everyone bears his own part, there should be enough for all.
But here comes in the difficulty of determining the shares. Some, because they have better talents or more conscientiousness, and so render more service, are entitled to a larger or finer share. Besides, the principle of heredity causes the share of some to accumulate from generation to generation, so that the later-born obtain the advantage of the virtue of their predecessors. Some have dreamed of over¬ looking both of these distinctions; but society must beware of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The larger and finer share given to the one who contributes more than others of labour and duty is a stimulus to work; and so is the hope of leaving what has been gained to those who come after. Indeed, these are the two principles upon which the forward and upward movement of society depends.
It is, however, a very different thing when the powerful, by mere violence and injustice, appropriate that which they have never earned, and transmit it to their offspring. This has been the great blot on human history: the powerful have forgotten their duties and forgotten their brotherhood, and thought of nothing but possession and enjoyment. Hence the tears of which the centuries have been full, and hence the wrongs which have so accumulated that no man can say fully what is right and what is wrong in the actual condition of the world.
With this side of human life, also, the sayings of Jesus prove Him to have been profoundly conversant. In so many words He says, “The labourer is worthy of his hire”; and, in one of the parables, a husbandman, hiring labourers for his work, says to those standing in the market-place, “Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.” In other parables He represents honest and faithful work as being handsomely rewarded, and success in one function as opening up the way to employment more remunerative. This principle is expressed with emphasis in a saying of which
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He appears to have been specially fond — the observation that, to him who hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but that from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. To some minds this may seem a cruel arrangement, especially the latter part of it; but it is a fact of of everyday occurrence; and Jesus was true to natural law.
He is sometimes supposed to be speaking in the opposite sense when, in a parable already alluded to, He represents the rest of the labourers, what¬ ever has been the length of their day’s work — even though they have only laboured a single hour — as receiving exactly as much as those who have borne the burden and heat of the day. Here, it is con¬ tended, He is teaching a novel economical principle, to the effect that the labourers were sufficiently excused for their idleness by the fact that no man had hired them, and that all willing to work are entitled to the like wage, because the true rule is, From each, work according to his powers; to each, pay according to his necessities. It is certainly interesting that the teaching of Jesus is capable of being aligned in this way along with the most recent theories; but it must remain questionable if this was His meaning. The very point of His teaching seems rather to be, that God can act with a generosity which is neither, as a rule, possible nor even desirable in human affairs. It is of similar import with another deep word, in which Jesus advises His disciples, after they have done their very utmost, to say, “We are unprofitable servants: we have done what it was our duty to do.” Claims of right extend from man to man, not from man to God.
Thus is human life a twofold realm of duties on the one hand and rights on the other; and the State is a device for watching over the whole, with a view to see that all are doing their duties and that all are obtaining their rights. Like the family, the State is not a creation of Christianity: it existed long before the appearance of our Lord on earth. It is not even religious in origin, but seems to be a primitive product of human nature. Among philosophers there has, indeed, been the utmost diversity of opinion as to how it has actually arisen, some taking an optimistic and others a pessimistic view of its origin. At the opposite extremes are Hegel and Augustine: Hegel called the State the realisation of the moral ideal; Augustine said that states were magna latrocinia. The State is a kind of rough and elementary morality. Its soul is law; and its instruments are punishments. The law of the State is a rough copy of the law of the conscience. Hence those who live according to conscience have little or nothing to do with the law, of the very existence of which they may not think once in a twelvemonth. Those who have to do with it are the lawless and
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disobedient, who are thinking about it all the time. But the law of the State is ever changing; and so it may be brought closer and closer to the law of conscience. The less of law the better, some think; the State, according to such thinkers, has only negative functions; it is only intended to secure the well-doing from interference.* Others ascribe to it much wider functions; and the tendency at present is to allow it to encroach on the territory of the family and the Church. Hobbes in the Leviathan represented the State as an official, in whose hands all men had placed all their possessions, when they found they were like to destroy one another in the struggle for them, empowering him to distribute to all according to his own judgment and will. But too often has this authority betrayed his trust; for he has used for his own purposes the goods which he ought to have administered for the general welfare.
If the law be, as has been stated above, an elementary morality, Christianity, the religion of conscience, must be akin to it and must be capable of being served by it. It is, accordingly, extra¬ ordinary how optimistic a view was taken by early Christianity of the law, as well as of the government by which it was administered, even when the law and government in question were those of pagan and cruel Rome. St. Paul suffered much at the hands of Roman officials, and, in all probability, he
* Nietzsche: “So wenig Staat wie moglich. * at last fell a victim to the fury of a persecuting government; yet even of this government he speaks in terms of profound respect, ordering Christians to render it obedience, because it is a minister for good, a terror to evildoers and a praise to them that do well, and calling upon them to pray for it, in order that, under its auspices, they may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty. St. Paul must have had a profound sense of how much better any strong government is than anarchy, as well as a painful experience of how dangerous it is to fall into the tender mercies of the mob, when he was able to speak thus of a system against which it would have been easy, from his own recollections, to construct a formidable indictment.
Not dissimilar is the attitude of Jesus. He lived under three governments — that of Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, that of the Romans, and that of the Jews — and painful it is to observe, as we follow His career step by step, that He is never brought into contact with any of these without suffering injustice. Pilate, the representative of the Roman power, indeed, tried to protect Him from the malice of the Jews; but it was only for a moment that law, in his hands, did honour to its native fairness and majesty; for, as soon as his own interests appeared to be threatened through the endeavour to protect the Innocent, he gave way to the fanaticism of the officials and the demands of the mob, and sur-THE ETHIC OF JESUS
rendered the Accused to the will of His persecutors. The final scenes were a travesty of justice and the gravest exhibition the world has ever seen of unrighteousness masquerading in the garb of legality. Nevertheless, the attitude of Jesus all along to law and government was one of respect. When He was challenged by the Zealots to say whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar — the intention being either to involve Him with the government if He answered the one way, or to deal a fatal blow at His popularity with the masses if He answered in the other — He did not hesitate to run the latter risk by making His famous reply, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” By Von Ranke this has been called the greatest of all the sayings of our Lord; this being an historian’s estimate; for the whole of modern history may be looked upon as a series of experiments to ascertain what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. It was singularly characteristic of Him who uttered it; for it did not directly and in so many words answer the question, but put His opponents into the hole into which they had tried to push Him. Still, it was full of respect, and even of a kind of awe, for the great power referred to. Similarly, when challenged to pay the temple tax to the local Jewish authority, He did so, although accompanying the act by an assertion of His right to refuse, expressed in terms in which the lightest banter was combined with a grave and solemn meaning.* The only lawful authority to which He displayed something like contempt was that of His own prince, whom He called “that fox,” when warned of his intention to kill Him, and whom He refused to grace with a single word of recognition, when He stood at his bar; but the behaviour of this unmanly tyrant to His friend and forerunner, the Baptist, is enough to explain and to justify the rebuke; and the silence of the Saviour was intended to speak louder than any words in the conscience of the husband of Herodias.f
Jesus was, indeed, well enough aware of the difference between the spirit which He had come to breathe into the atmosphere of humanity and that which generally inspires the conduct of kings — just as well as He was aware of the contrast between
* By taxation the State is supplied with the means necessary for carrying on its operations. Perhaps by nothing else is the enormous power wielded by the State made so manifest as by the money it can put into any scheme which it has on hand. Slow and laborious are the efforts of voluntary liberality in comparison with what can be done by those who are able to dip their hands into the public purse.
+ There was, however, a deeper reason. Herod was coming between Him and His duty to God; and He who had said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” had said also, “Render unto God the things which are God’s.” There is a region into which human law and government dare not intrude — the domain of conscience. Of freedom of conscience this great saying is the Magna Charta, observes Jacoby, Neutestamentliche Ethik, p. 130.
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the garb and fare of, the Baptist and the habits of those who live “delicately” in kings’ courts. “Ye know,” said He to the disciples, “that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so among you; but, whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and, whosoever is chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” This is one of the utterances which have turned the world upside down; it is performing this process still; and it will be doing so till the end of time. The dispute among the Twelve, occasioned by the ambitious request of James and John, abetted by their mother Salome, shows how foreign the sentiment was at the time even to the inner circle of those about Jesus, being the possession of Himself alone. But it shines by its own light; and, however slow may be the process by which it breaks through the mists of selfishness and evil custom, it is bound to win acceptance more and more. It is a new ideal of greatness. As embodied in the practice of kings and courts, great¬ ness was measured by the service which could be demanded and obtained from the largest number of inferiors, ready to bend the knee to the superior’s orders; but kingliness, according to Jesus, consists in the very reverse — in the amount of service anyone is able, in virtue of high position, to render, and the number of human beings he is able to benefit. What an inversion! Yet in every breast there is some¬ thing which responds to it; and, in every age since this was uttered, there have been those placed high in the social scale who have looked for greatness in no other direction. In this case, however, as in so many others, Jesus was the perfect fulfiller of His own maxim. In the wilderness He was tempted to seek greatness of the usual kind; on His trial He was able to answer in the affirmative when asked whether He were the King of the Jews; yet He steadily pursued Himself the course He laid down for others — that ol ministering, not being ministered unto — and He gave His life a ransom for many.
One aspect of the State which meant much for Jesus was its connection with a nation and a country. This brings into play the feelings of patriotism, which are nursed by such circumstances as the beauty of a country and the memories of great characters and noble actions enshrined in its history. It might have been thought, a priori, that Jesus was too spiritual for such si-‘ and some have represented Him as being too conscious of His identity with all humanity to stoop to any race or locality. But His words and acts have only to be recalled to prove the contrary. The beauty of the landscapes of Galilee glows forever in His words, and we have the same evidence that all
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the habits and customs of the population amidst which He grew up lived in His affectionate and admiring observation. Even in doing His peculiar work, He could, as has been remarked already, give it as a reason for exerting His powers that the victim of disease was a daughter or the victim of Pharisaic contempt a son of Abraham. The great names of the country’s past and the great scenes of its history were continually on His lips. But, if all other evidence of the kind were lacking, the dirge pronounced by Him over the capital of the country would be sufficient to prove how deeply the name of His native land was written on His heart: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that art sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!”
This preference for one country did not, however, in His mind imply any disparagement or enmity towards others. Whenever, during His short life, Jesus was brought into contact with foreigners, the impressions were mutually cordial. In almost His last words on earth He charged His disciples to evangelize all nations — that is, to bind them together in the bonds of the Gospel. But, as, among the countrymen of Jesus, the Mosaic command to love one’s neighbour was construed as if it were at the same time a permission to hate one’s enemy, so has love of one’s own country been supposed to be best evinced by hostility to all other countries, which were to be attacked and plundered whenever the opportunity occurred of doing so with success. One of the principal vocations of the State is acknowledged to be the defence of the territory of the nation from foreign invasion, the citizens being bound to sacrifice to this object not only their means and services but, if need be, their lives.* )( The raising of armies for this purpose has, however, often proved a pretext to cover designs of a totally different complexion; and the standing armies of modern states are a constant menace to the peace of the world. On the construction of arms and armaments the money produced by industry is poured out like water. Myriads of precious lives are abstracted from the blessed pursuits of peace and, in the army and navy, shut up in a strenuous idleness hardly better than was that of the monastery. On one war, begun in the last year of the nineteenth century, England spent more than she did on Foreign Missions during the whole of that century, though it is proudly called the Century of Missions. Could anything be more childish than the plea on which at the present moment the Christian countries — even the Protestant countries — are squandering millions on the building of armaments and battleships, the one doing it
* All that can be said by way of arrest on the obvious and petulant objections to war will be found in a sermon on War in Mozley’s University Sermo?is. simply because the other is doing it? This insane cultivation of the art of war is the reproach and breakdown of statesmanship. There was once a time when every man protected his own life and property, avenging his own wrong with arms in his hands; but civilisation has ended that condition of things, by taking the arms out of the hands of the individual and placing them in those of the State, which undertakes the individual’s righteous cause. Similarly, not so very long ago, the inhabitants of every few square miles of country were armed against all their surrounding neighbours and raided the adjoining lands at every opportunity. But civilisation has taken the arms out of the hands of the clans and compelled all living inside the State to trust their defence to the law. This is civilisation. But the relations of states to states are still on the basis of barbarism, the European nations confronting one another armed to the teeth. It is for statesman¬ ship to devise a remedy for this condition of things; and it is a shame that it has not been found long ago. It seems to lie in the direction of arbitration — that is, the organization of all the civilised nations into a high Areopagus, to decide the quarrels of individual states and enforce these decrees by the irresistible will of all. But no such device will ever be permanently success¬ ful without the diffusion through the communities to be thus united of the spirit of Him at whose birth the angels sang, “Peace on earth, good-will to men.”