CHAPTER IV

ATTITUDE TO THE STATE1

STARTING-POINT AND TENDENCIES.-We may venture at the outset to lay it down as antecedently probable that whatever the early Christians believed on the subject of the State, they regarded as a legitimate interpretation or extension of their Master's own teaching. Now we have seen that Jesus' attitude to the State involved a certain dualism: he both approved of it, and disapproved of it. In both cases the judgment was both absolute and relative. Of the benevolent activities of the State, his approval would have been absolute. Of its crimes and abuses his disapproval was equally so. As to its attempt to restrain crime and foster morality by the use of physical coercion and penalties, his position embraced approval and disapproval, both being relative--the former, to the unenlightenment and spiritual immaturity of the governors in question-the latter, to the standpoint of himself and his followers. He regarded it as obedience to Satan to use violent methods himself, and he definitely forbade his followers to use them, either in a private or in a public capacity. As a means of checking wrongdoing, he substituted self-sacrificing love, and a willingness to risk temporary failure in the particular case for the sake of ultimate triumph. His expectation of this triumph involved therefore an expectation of the disappearance, sooner or later, of all governments founded on force.

We do not indeed find that the attitude of Jesus to the State was invariably or fully understood in this light by the early Christians; but its essential dualism (based on subjective differences in the two classes of agents concerned) is reflected not only in the thought of the period we have now to study, but in that of the whole pre-Constantinian era. Christian thought and feeling towards the State always sways between the two extremes of absolute condemnation and rejection on the one hand, and hearty approval and even co-operation on the other. It will perhaps

1 The main lines of Paul's attitude to the State, as set forth in the following pages, were suggested by me in an article on 'St Paul's Conception of the State,' in The Expositor, Aug. 1916, 135-147. Deissmann (LVO 288f) characterizes the political attitude of Paul and the early Church (and the humbler classes generally) as one of indifference.

conduce to clearness, if the somewhat copious and variegated materials before us are grouped together in due sequence as proximate stages between these two extremes.

CHRISTIAN ANTIPATHY TO THE STATE.-There are many indications that the hostile feelings of the early Church towards governments in general and the Roman Empire in particular went much deeper than a surface-view would lead us to imagine. While persecution served to emphasize this feeling, it did not create it. The causes of the antipathy lay deeper. Firstly, there was the general prejudice against the State as simply non-Christian. The great gulf fixed between Christian and heathen led the Christian to regard all that did not stand on his side of it as deeply imbued with evil. Even Paul, who is often regarded as a model of loyalty and even as an advocate of the Divine right of kings, took a very black view of the non-Christian world in general; and, however he may have qualified this view by the introduction of certain broader conceptions,1 yet he did not always forget or ignore it, when he spoke or thought of the political institutions of heathendom. He referred to the heathen magistrates in general as "the unrighteous," not apparently because they were bad of their kind, but simply because they were pagan. It is still less likely that many Christians, less sane and disciplined than he, would not want to carry such sentiments to their logical conclusion, and so, both in thought and action, adopt towards the State an attitude of settled antipathy. Secondly, there was the Jewish element in the Church. We cannot doubt that the churches up and down the Mediterranean contained a considerable proportion of Jews, though what that proportion was we cannot exactly say; and it is highly improbable that Jewish converts would wash off in the waters of baptism every particle of that violent hatred of the Roman Empire which marked their race. Thirdly, there was the element of social and economic dis

2

1 See above, pp. 71ff.

3

21 C vi. I (ènì Tŵv åòíkwv); cf. 6 (èπì áπíotwv). There is no point in differentiating between the denotation of τῶν ἀδίκων in I and τοὺς ἐξουθενημένους ἐν τῇ ékkλŋoia in 4, on the ground that the former refers to the heathen world and the latter to the tribunals only (cf. Robertson and Plummer 114).

3 Bigelmair 79f.

It seems to be generally agreed that Paul's inculcation in R xiii. 1–7 of submission to the government and payment of taxes was directed, in part at least, against the hostility of Jewish Christians to the Empire, though Mangold's argument (226-238) that it applied exclusively to these no longer finds favour. Cf. Holtzm. RS 22f (the section R xiii. 1-7 has naturally been understood "im Hinblicke auf das hochgradig erregte und leicht Feuer fangende Element welches das damalige, eben zum letzten Verzweiflungskampfe um die nationale Existenz sich rüstende, Judenthum darbietet. Auch in der römischen Gemeinde war das jüdische Element von zum Theil maassgebender

content. The Christian communities consisted for the most part of the poorer classes in the large towns 1-people upon whom the imperial peace, supervening on an age of strife and turmoil, conferred little of that quiet prosperity which it brought to the upper ranks of society in general. Beneath the external appearance of general tranquillity and happiness, there was doubtless seething a good deal of discontent at the inequalities and injustices of the existing order of things in the State and in society. Fourthly, there was the tendency to misconstrue the new and valuable doctrine of the freedom of the Christian man into a refusal to submit to the ordinary obligations of social life, "a complete disregard of the principle of that mutual subordination of desires and actions which alone makes social life possible." Paul and Peter had frequently to warn their readers against such a tendency to abuse their Christian freedom. The error they were deprecating would naturally involve a perverse attitude of insubordination towards the existing government.

From all these reasons, therefore, we may conclude that, quite apart from the spur given to Christian prejudice by persecution, there was undoubtedly a considerable element of revolutionary radicalism to be found within the Christian communities. Injunctions to obey the magistrates and pay the government-taxes are meaningless, unless there was a considerable number of Christians who were more or less strongly disinclined to do

Bedeutung "); Carlyle 91-93 ("The first explanation which offers itself is, that they" [i.e. Paul and Peter] are anxious to counteract some Jewish antipathy to the Roman rule the suggestion is a reasonable one, that we might interpret the passages as being primarily intended to check any tendency on the part of the members of the Christian communities to adopt the national Jewish attitude towards the Roman Government. But we do not think that this explanation is really adequate," etc.). How readily the well-known Jewish antagonism to the Empire was charged upon Christians we can see from Ac xvi. 20f, xvii. 6-8, xxiv. 5, and from the accounts of the trial of Jesus (Mc xv. 2: cf. Lc xxiii. 2f; J xix. 12-16: Carlyle 92). Our belief that the charge was not always groundless is confirmed by the later evidence of the Apocalypse," in der freilich viel jüdischer Nationalhass noch übernommen ist "(Weinel SUS 13).

11 Ci. 26-29, vi. 9-11. See below, p. 129 n 4.

2 We are indebted to Weinel (SUS 11-13) for bringing this fact into due prominence, though possibly he has slightly exaggerated its significance. In the Christian literature, he says, spürt man noch deutlich den Druck und die Ausbeutung, die Hoffnungslosigkeit dieser Welt und allem staatlichen Dasein gegenüber." Cf. McGiffert 517.

3 Carlyle 93-97 (he characterizes these anarchical tendencies" as "an error which would have destroyed the unity of human life, and would have tended to put them" [the Christians] "into a ruinous opposition to the general principles of human progress"); cf. 157f.

4 G v. 13, I Th iv. 11f, v. 14, 2 Th iii. 6-12, 1 C vi. 12, x. 23f; 1 P ii. 15f.

so.1 Our impression that Christian hostility to the Empire went further, in the case of some believers, than the mere refusal of taxes and of honour or mere disobedience to government-orders, and almost amounted to positive revolt, is confirmed by the remarkable warning addressed by Peter to his readers: "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a revolutionary."2 While it is true that this warning was addressed to Christians smarting under persecution, it does not follow that the conduct forbidden. could occur only under those conditions, if at all: for it seems possible that, even before Nero's persecution had got under way, there were not wanting Christians at Rome who confessed to the charge of having set the City on fire.3

1 Hase, Kirchengeschichte (ed. 1886), 43 (“Die Ermahnung zum Gehorsam gegen die thatsächliche Obrigkeit um des Gewissens willen war nicht überflüssig für das neue königliche Priesterthum, dem die lange Geduld und Arbeit der geschichtlichen Entwickelung fern lag"); Weinel SUS 14f (“ Wir können einen revolutionären Radikalismus innerhalb der Christenheit nicht direkt belegen, sondern nur aus den Mahnungen und Verboten der vermittelnden und besonnenen Männer erschliessen, denen wir unsere neutestamentlichen Schriften und ihre Ueberlieferung verdanken. Aber der Schluss ist durchaus berechtigt. Denn einmal werden Verbote immer nur gegeben, wenn etwas zu verbieten ist "). The strong terms of Paul's defence of the State, Weinel goes on, "deutlich bezeugen, wie gross die Gefahr war.”

21 P iv. 15: μὴ γάρ τις ὑμῶν πασχέτω ὡς φονεὺς ἢ κλέπτης ή κακοποιός is ȧNoтpiεTÍOKOTOS. The last word does not occur elsewhere, and its exact meaning is therefore uncertain. The translation meddler,' 'busybody,' seems too weak for the context. Ramsay (CRE 293 n; cf. 348 n) thinks it refers to the charge of tampering with family relationships, causing disunion and discord, rousing discontent and disobedience among slaves, and so on." But these were things which no Christian on the look-out for converts could possibly avoid doing. The close proximity of strong terms like φονεύς and κλέπτης, and the analogy of ἀλλοτριοπραγεῖν (= nouas res moliri, Polyb. v. xli. 8), suggest the meaning of 'revolutionary.' See Bigg PJ 177-179; Moulton and Milligan, Vocab. of Greek Test., s.v.; Moffatt INT 325f (but he adopts the rendering revolutionary' in his translation of the N.T.). K. Erbes (in ZNTW xix. [1919–20] 39-44; cf. xx. [1921] 249) argues that ȧоTρLEπioкожOs means a bishop who misappropriated money entrusted to him for the care of the poor. Other suggestions are one who meddles in things alien to his calling" (Abbott-Smith), "a pryer into other men's affairs, by means of soothsayers, astrologers, etc." (Souter), "a delator" (Moffatt 1.c.; Jülicher, Einleitung [1894], 135-the latter, however, regards "den aufdringlichen Agitator" as a possible alternative).

"

3 This statement depends on the sense to be given to a clause in Tacitus (Annales, xv. 44). The context runs: Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia inuisos uulgus Christianos appellabat... Igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, inde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis conuicti sunt. Does this mean First of all those who confessed to being Christians were hurried to trial on the charge of arson," or "First of all some were seized, who confessed to having set the city on fire"? The question is handled by Ramsay CRE 238f; Hardy 65ff; Workman 53f; Moffatt INT 324 n 1; Weinel SUS 15. Of these only Ramsay and Hardy feel sure that the former interpretation is the right one, and Ramsay pronounces the latter

THE STATE CENSURED FOR IDOLATRY AND PERSECUTION.-Even those Christians who did not share the revolutionary sentiments manifested by some of their brethren, had to face the fact that the Roman government was avowedly polytheistic and idolatrous, and that it had hardly learned to distinguish Christianity from Judaism before it entered upon a regular policy of intolerance and persecution towards the new faith. This policy was inaugurated by the Emperor Nero's attack on the Christians shortly after the great fire at Rome in 64 A.D., that is to say, after most, probably all, of the extant Epistles of Paul were written; but even in them we get indirect traces of the antagonism aroused by idolatry and persecution. No occasion arose in Paul's own experience for a direct attack on the imperial government-for it showed itself to him personally as a protector rather than an oppressor, and he revered it as the bulwark against the advent of the Man of Lawlessness.1 It was rather upon his Jewish persecutors that the apostle poured out the vials of his wrath. But no Christian could forget the circumstances of his Lord's death. While the main burden of responsibility for it rested on the Jews, the Romans too had taken their own part in it. Roman, as well as Jewish, officials were among the rulers of this age" who had crucified the Lord of glory, showing that they had not known the wisdom of God, and who were in process of being disestablished.3 Further, Paul

con

incredible. But his view compels him to insert as implicit the thought "The Christians were sought out" before 'Igitur primum,' to regard the fession' as made on arrest, not at trial, and to assume that the majority of Christians were not known as such to their neighbours! Confession (profiteri or confiteri, not usually fateri) of course becomes later in Christian literature a technical term for admitting one's Christianity; but even so, it is always the admission made on trial before a magistrate, and it would be surprising to find it used by Tacitus in this sense with no further explanation. Some evidence of course had to be obtained as to who were Christians; but it was Nero who had to find it; no one at this stage would bring it on his own initiative. There is therefore no need to suppose that the majority of Christians kept their religion a secret from their neighbours: and, while the point must still be regarded as in a measure doubtful, it seems more natural to construe' fatebantur' with reference to the crime suggested by 'reos.' But even so this does not prove that Christians had actually fired Rome. Tacitus' report may be incorrect (so Weinel), or the evidence might have been false, either given by traitors or extorted under torture. But the possibility that it was the truthful avowal of enthusiasts remains open. See below, P. 172 n II.

1 2 Th ii. 6f; and see above, p. 89.

I

21 Th ii. 14-16; and see above, p. 96.

3 IC ii. 6-8. I find it hard to believe that these apxoUTES are meant to be angelic powers (so, e.g., Weinel SUS 24f) as Findlay very rightly says (Expositor's Greek Test., note ad loc.), " These super-terrestrial potentates could not, without explanation, be charged with the crucifixion of Christ." Similarly Robertson and Plummer 39f. Cf. the reference in Ac iv. 25-28 to the