f Temple, flee to the mountains.1 It is true that not much can be built on this saying; for it occurs in a highly problematical context, one which many scholars refuse to regard as recording the actual utterances of Jesus at all, and which even if authentic is not easily explained. Still, if it be a fact that Jesus anticipated a gentile attack on Judæa and Jerusalem, and bade his followers flee instead of resisting it, that fact is not without significance for the question before us. The second is the saying addressed to Peter in the garden of Gethsemane, when, in defence of his Master, he drew his sword and attacked the High Priest's servant. Jesus said to him: “Put back thy sword into its place for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword." 2 Here the circumstances and the prohibition -like all incidents in actual life are special: but, inasmuch as the grim truth on which the prohibition is founded is perfectly general, one might argue that the prohibition itself also is more than an order meant to meet a particular case, but has in it something of the universality of a general principle of conduct.3 Finally, the most natural interpretation, it is submitted, of the temptation of Jesus to do homage to Satan in order to obtain the kingdoms of the world as his own, strongly confirms the results at which we have arrived on independent lines. Without repeating here the arguments that have been adduced above, we may say that no other assumption so clearly explains both the temptation and the way it was met, than the assumption that Jesus felt that the one practical means of winning the lordship of the world speedily and completely, that is to say, the use of arms, was forbidden to him by that moral code which he called the Will of God, and which contained the laws of love and gentleness and the Golden Rule among its prime enactments. To have taken arms, therefore, would have been to him disobedience to God, and thus an act of homage to Satan. Hence his decision. All that we have seen of the teaching he gave to his disciples is in harmony with that decision. 1 Mt xxiv. 15-22||s: cf. Lc xvii. 31-37. 2 Mt xxvi. 51f. The question has been asked, how Peter came to be carrying a sword at all if his Master discountenanced the use of weapons (J. M. Lloyd Thomas, The Immorality of Non-resistance, ix; Prof. Sonnenschein, in The Hibbert Journal, July 1915, 865f). The answer is that Peter may very well have failed to understand his Master's real meaning (particularly perhaps the 'two swords' saying), and, apprehending danger, may have put on a sword without Jesus noticing it. See above, pp. 43f. CHAPTER VI JESUS AND THE FAMILY 1 JESUS HONOURS THE FAMILY.-Jesus displayed the greatest reverence for the institution and laws of family-life. The command to honour father and mother had, he said, been given by God Himself, and carried with it the obligation of supporting them in their old age. He appealed to the parental instinct as a sure and certain indication of God's attitude to His children. He acted with gracious and tender sympathy towards the concern of Jairus and his wife for their little daughter. He treated it as obvious that concord and unity are essential to the very existence of a household. He sanctioned and adopted as his own the Jewish usage of the word 'brother' to indicate the close and holy tie of a common religious faith. In his parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, even the former, amid the torments of Hades, has still sufficient family sentiment to be anxious about the salvation of his five brothers." Equally sacred in Jesus' eyes is the relation between man and woman as husband and wife: God in the beginning had made them male and female; they had become one flesh; and what God had joined together, man must not separate. The obligations imposed by the marriage-tie must not therefore be annulled by divorce or violated by illicit intercourse, in the form either of 1 Wendt i. 351-354; Mathews 79-106; Peabody (iii.) 49–65; Holtzm. Th. i. 239f; Troeltsch 48. 2 Mt xv. 4-6||, xix. 19||s: cf. Lc ii. 51 (Jesus subject to his parents as a boy). 3 Mt vii. 9-11; Lc xiv. 5. "God is a Father, man is his child; . . . the uninterrupted and watching care of the parent is the fairest earthly type of the unfailing forgiveness of God. The family is, to the mind of Jesus, the nearest of human analogies to that Divine order which it was his mission to reveal" (Peabody (iii.) 54f: cf. Holtzm. Th. i. 162). It had been anticipated as part of the task of John, that he would "turn the hearts of fathers to children," Lc 1. 17. 4 Mc v. 23f, 36, 40-43||s. Mc iii. 25||s. See above, pp. 7 n 3, 26 n 1, 29. Mc x. 2-12||; Mt v. 31f; Lc xvi. 18; 1 C vi. 16, vii. 1of; Peabody (iii.) 56f. Allen (DCG i. 484f) rightly argues that Jesus absolutely prohibited divorce to his followers, and that the modifications of this teaching in Mt permitting divorce (and presumably re-marriage) in case of unfaithfulness are due to the compiler of the Gospel and not to Jesus. On the Mosaic permission of divorce, see above, p. 49 n I. prostitution 1 purpose.3 or adultery 2 or by any lascivious deed or FAMILY OBLIGATIONS SUBORDINATE TO THOSE of the KingDOM. -Subject to the proviso that the prohibition of sexual vice is absolute, Jesus pronounced all the obligations of family life to be less important and binding than the duties owed to himself and to the Kingdom of God. As a boy of twelve, he had acted independently of his parents, and remained behind in Jerusalem, "in his Father's house," while they had started on their way home to Galilee. Two of his first disciples had, at his bidding, left their father in his fishing-boat with the hired servants, and followed him.5 Early in his ministry, his mother and brothers, hearing of his doings, came to the conclusion that he was out of his mind, and tried to get him under their control. When Jesus, amid a crowd of listeners, was told that his relatives had come and wanted to speak to him, he declared that his only real relatives were the disciples around him who were doing God's Will. To the would-be disciple, who asked to be allowed to bury his father before following Jesus, he replied: "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." To another who wanted to bid farewell to his household, the word was : 'No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fitted for the Kingdom of God." He once urged his host, whenever he gave a dinner or a supper, not to invite his own brothers and relatives who would be able to ask him back, but rather the poor and disabled who could not return the favour, adding that he would be rewarded at the resurrection of the just.9 8 The demands of the Kingdom of God might involve for some a life of celibacy. There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let him who is able to receive (it), receive (it)." 10 Among those in the parable who decline the invitation to the Messianic Feast, is the man who has married a wife and therefore cannot come.11 The pre-occupations of married life had helped to render people insensible of 1 Mc vii. 21; Lc vii. 47. Mc vii. 22||, (viii. 38), x. 19||s; Mt v. 27f (xii. 39, xvi. 4). 3 Mc iv. 19, vii. 22 (άoyea); Mt v. 27f, xxiii. 25 (dxparía). As J. A. Hadfield (Psychology and Morals, 133 n) rightly points out, Mt v. 28 does not refer to the ordinary sex-feelings of men towards women, but to the intention to indulge a passion for a married woman. 4 Lc ii. 41-51. 5 Mc i. 20||. Mc iii. 21, 31-35. We are not told whether Jesus granted his relatives an interview on this occasion. Certainly he did not suffer them to lead him homeward. 7 Mt viii. 21f||. 10 Mt xix. 12, 8 Lc ix. 61f. 11 Lc xiv. 20, Lc xiv. 12-14. approaching judgment in the days of Noah and Lot, and would do so again in the days of the Son of Man.1 In the life of the righteous after death-a life so often joined in thought with the life of the Kingdom of God on earth-people neither marry nor are given in marriage. Jesus does not, however, exalt celibacy as an ideal state for men generally or even for his own disciples. To do so would have been to contradict his own words as to the Divine origin and sanction of marriage. But he does realize that, under the conditions then existing, not only the marriage-tie, but any family bond, might quite easily become a hindrance to loyal discipleship and zealous service of the Kingdom; and he insists with great emphasis on the relative subordination of such domestic claims. "Call no man your father on earth for one is your Father-the heavenly." "3 "Truly, I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and the Gospel's, but shall receive a hundredfold now in this present season, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age that is coming eternal life." 4 "If any one comes to me and hates not his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” 5 He does not contradict what he has said elsewhere concerning the duties owed to parents, brothers and sisters, children and wife. He simply puts these duties resolutely on a lower level than those concerned with the spreading of the Kingdom of God and obeying its laws. Such teaching, taken in conjunction with the striking originality of Jesus' message and the well-known slowness of relatives to enter into one another's religious enthusiasms, was bound to produce the strongest antipathies within family circles. Hence the close connection in his teaching between persecution and the hindrance of domestic ties, and the need of his challenging summons to those who would be his disciples to choose between loyalty to their kinsfolk and loyalty to himself." 1 Lc xvii. 26-30. 2 Mc xii. 25||s. 3 Mt xxiii. 9. Mc x. 29f||s. Lc inserts or wife so also do & C and versions in Mt (om. B D). Lc xiv. 26. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the passive participle of the Hebrew equivalent of μréw, is, in the O.T., " almost a technical term for the less favoured of two wives" (Skinner's note on Gen xxix. 31 in Intern. Crit. Comm. 385 (italics mine): cf. Deut xxi. 15-17). • Mc vi. 4||s. 7 Mt x. 34-37; Lc xii. 51-53; Mc xiii. 12f||s. CHAPTER VII JESUS AND PROPERTY 1 THE ACQUIREMENT AND POSSESSION OF PROPERTY.-Jesus recognized in a certain sense the need, utility, and rightfulness of personal property. He said, in regard to food and clothing, that "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things," and promised his followers that, if they sought first the Kingdom and righteousness of God, "all these things" would be added unto them.2 Simon seems to have retained his house and belongings after he had been called to follow Jesus.3 The apostolic company kept a small store of money for the supply of necessaries. Joseph of Arimathea was a disciple, and at the same time a rich man.5 One of the women who followed Jesus and contributed to his support was the wife of Herodes' steward or minister, and no doubt a person of considerable wealth. Jesus himself, up to the age of thirty, had worked for his livelihood as a builder, and his parables seem to show that he took a keen interest both in building and in agriculture." At the same time, Jesus deprecates the pursuit and possession of wealth as dangerous and harmful, and that on several grounds. Firstly, on account of the precarious tenure on which all material property is held. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." 8 The parable of the Rich Fool points the same moral : the man thought he was secure, because he had plenty of things stored up; but death robbed him of the use of them. "The things thou hast got together, whose shall they be? So fares the man who stores up for himself, and is not rich in (the things of) God." 9 Secondly, wealth is dangerous, because it tends to divert men from the interests of the Kingdom. Those who were absorbed in the pursuit or attached to the possession of it, had little affection left 1 1 Cf. Mathews 132-157; Rogge 18-68; Peabody (iv.-vi.) 66–110; Holtzm. Th. i. 234-240; Troeltsch 46-48. 2 Mt vi. 32f. Mc i. 16-18, 29, ii. 1 (with Swete M 32); Lc v. 1-11; J xxi. 3. Mc vi. 37||s; J iv. 8, xii. 6, xiii. 29. Mt xxvii. 57s. Lc viii. 3. Lc xii. 13-21. Mc vi. 3; O. Holtzmann, Life of Jesus (ET), 100–103. 8 Mt vi. 19. |