_THE LIMITS OF COMPREHENSION._
EZRA iv. 1-5, 24.
The fourth chapter of the Book of Ezra introduces the vexed question
of the limits of comprehension in religion by affording a concrete
illustration of it in a very acute form. Communities, like individual
organisms, can only live by means of a certain adjustment to their
environment, in the settlement of which there necessarily arises a
serious struggle to determine what shall be absorbed and what
rejected, how far it is desirable to admit alien bodies and to what
extent it is necessary to exclude them. The difficulty thus occasioned
appeared in the company of returned exiles soon after they had begun
to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. It was the seed of many troubles.
The anxieties and disappointments which overshadowed the subsequent
history nearly all of them sprang from this one source. Here we are
brought to a very distinguishing characteristic of the Persian period.
The idea of Jewish exclusiveness which has been so singular a feature
in the whole course of Judaism right down to our own day was now in
its birth-throes. Like a young Hercules, it had to fight for its life
in its very cradle. It first appeared in the anxious compilation of
genealogical registers and the careful sifting of the qualifications
of the pilgrims before they left Babylon. In the events which followed
the settlement at Jerusalem it came forward with determined insistence
on its rights, in opposition to a very tempting offer which would have
been fatal to its very existence.
The chronicler introduces the neighbouring people under the title "The
adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"; but in doing so he is describing
them according to their later actions; when they first appear on his
pages their attitude is friendly, and there is no reason to suspect
any hypocrisy in it. We cannot take them to be the remainder of the
Israelite inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom who had been permitted
to stay in their land when their brethren had been violently expelled
by the Assyrians, and who were now either showing their old enmity to
Judah and Benjamin by trying to pick a new quarrel, or, on the other
hand, manifesting a better spirit and seeking reconciliation. No doubt
such people existed, especially in the north, where they became, in
part at least, the ancestors of the Galileans of New Testament times.
But the men now referred to distinctly assert that they were brought
up to Palestine by the Assyrian king Esar-haddon. Neither can they be
the descendants of the Israelite priests who were sent at the request
of the colonists to teach them the religion of the land when they were
alarmed at an incursion of lions;[27] for only one priest is directly
mentioned in the history, and though he may have had companions and
assistants, the small college of missionaries could not be called "the
people of the land" (ver. 4). These people must be the foreign
colonists. There were Chaldæans from Babylon and the neighbouring
cities of Cutha and Sepharvaim (the modern _Mosaib_), Elamites from
Susa, Phoenicians from Sidon--if we may trust Josephus here[28]--and
Arabs from Petra. These had been introduced on four successive
occasions--first, as the Assyrian inscriptions show, by Sargon, who
sent two sets of colonists; then by Esar-haddon; and, lastly, by
Ashur-banipal.[29] The various nationalities had had time to become
well amalgamated together, for the first colonisation had happened a
hundred and eighty years, and the latest colonisation a hundred and
thirty years, before the Jews returned from Babylon. As the successive
exportations of Israelites went on side by side with the successive
importations of foreigners, the two classes must have lived together
for some time; and even after the last captivity of the Israelites had
been effected, those who were still left in the land would have come
into contact with the colonists. Thus, apart from the special mission
of the priest whose business it was to introduce the rites of
sacrificial worship, the popular religion of the Israelites would have
become known to the mixed heathen people who were settled among them.
[27] 2 Kings xvii. 25-28.
[28] _Ant._, XII. v. 5.
[29] The "Osnappar" of Ezra iv. 10.
These neighbours assert that they worship the God whom the Jews at
Jerusalem worship, and that they have sacrificed to Him since the days
of Esar-haddon, the Assyrian king to whom, in particular, they
attribute their being brought up to Palestine, possibly because the
ancestors of the deputation to Jerusalem were among the colonists
planted by that king. For a century and a half they have acknowledged
the God of the Jews. They therefore request to be permitted to assist
in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem. At the first blush of it their
petition looks reasonable and even generous. The Jews were poor; a
great work lay before them; and the inadequacy of their means in view
of what they aimed at had plunged the less enthusiastic among them
into grief and despair. Here was an offer of assistance that might
prove most efficacious. The idea of centralisation in worship of which
Josiah had made so much would be furthered by this means, because
instead of following the example of the Israelites before the exile
who had their altar at Bethel, the colonists proposed to take part in
the erection of the one Jewish temple at Jerusalem. If their previous
habit of offering sacrifices in their own territory was offensive to
rigorous Jews, although they might speak of it quite naively, because
they were unconscious that there was anything objectionable in it and
even regard it as meritorious, the very way to abolish this ancient
custom was to give the colonists an interest in the central shrine. If
their religion was defective, how could it be improved better than by
bringing them into contact with the law-abiding Jews? While the offer
of the colonists promised aid to the Jews in building the temple, it
also afforded them a grand missionary opportunity for carrying out the
broad programme of the Second Isaiah, who had promised the spread of
the light of God's grace among the Gentiles.
In view of these considerations we cannot but read the account of the
absolute rejection of the offer by Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of
the twelve leaders with a sense of painful disappointment. The less
pleasing side of religious intensity here presents itself. Zeal seems
to be passing into fanaticism. A selfish element mars the picture of
whole-hearted devotion which was so delightfully portrayed in the
history of the returned exiles up to this time. The leaders are
cautious enough to couch their answer in terms that seem to hint at
their inability to comply with the friendly request of their
neighbours, however much they may wish to do so, because of the
limitation imposed upon them in the edict of Cyrus which confined the
command to build the temple at Jerusalem to the Jews. But it is
evident that the secret of the refusal is in the mind and will of the
Jews themselves. They absolutely decline any co-operation with the
colonists. There is a sting in the carefully chosen language with
which they define their work: they call it building a house "unto
_our_ God." Thus they not only accept the polite phrase "Your God"
employed by the colonists in addressing them; but by markedly
accentuating its limitation they disallow any right of the colonists
to claim the same divinity.
Such a curt refusal of friendly overtures was naturally most offensive
to the people who received it. But their subsequent conduct was so
bitterly ill-natured that we are driven to think they must have had
some selfish aims from the first. They at once set some paid agents to
work at court to poison the mind of the government with calumnies
about the Jews. It is scarcely likely that they were able to win Cyrus
over to their side against his favourite _protégés_. The king may have
been too absorbed with the great affairs of his vast dominions for any
murmur of this business to reach him while it was being disposed of by
some official. But perhaps the matter did not come up till after Cyrus
had handed over the government to his son Cambyses, which he did in
the year B.C. 532--three years before his death. At all events the
calumnies were successful. The work of the temple building was
arrested at its very commencement--for as yet little more had been
done beyond collecting materials. The Jews were paying dearly for
their exclusiveness.
All this looks very miserable. But let us examine the situation.
We should show a total lack of the historical spirit if we were to
judge the conduct of Zerubbabel and his companions by the broad
principles of Christian liberalism. We must take into account their
religious training and the measure of light to which they had
attained. We must also consider the singularly difficult position in
which they were placed. They were not a nation; they were a Church.
Their very existence, therefore, depended upon a certain
ecclesiastical organisation. They must have shaped themselves
according to some definite lines, or they would have melted away into
the mass of mixed nationalities and debased eclectic religions with
which they were surrounded. Whether the course of personal
exclusiveness which they chose was wisest and best may be fairly
questioned. It has been the course followed by their children all
through the centuries, and it has acquired this much of
justification--it has succeeded. Judaism has been preserved by Jewish
exclusiveness. We may think that the essential truths of Judaism might
have been maintained by other means which would have allowed of a more
gracious treatment of outsiders. Meanwhile, however, we must see that
Zerubbabel and his companions were not simply indulging in churlish
unsociability when they rejected the request of their neighbours.
Rightly or wrongly, they took this disagreeable course with a great
purpose in mind.
Then we must understand what the request of the colonists really
involved. It is true they only asked to be allowed to assist in
_building_ the temple. But it would have been impossible to stay here.
If they had taken an active share in the labour and sacrifice of the
construction of the temple, they could not have been excluded
afterwards from taking part in the temple worship. This is the more
clear since the very grounds of their request were that they
worshipped and sacrificed to the God of the Jews. Now a great prophet
had predicted that God's house was to be a home of prayer for all
nations.[30] But the Jews at Jerusalem belonged to a very different
school of thought. With them, as we have learnt from the genealogies,
the racial idea was predominant. Judaism was for the Jews.
[30] Isa. lvi. 7.
But let us understand what that religion was which the colonists
asserted to be identical with the religion of the returned exiles.
They said they worshipped the God of the Jews, but it was after the
manner of the people of the Northern Kingdom. In the days of the
Israelites that worship had been associated with the steer at Bethel,
and the people of Jerusalem had condemned the degenerate religion of
their northern brethren as sinful in the sight of God. But the
colonists had not confined themselves to this. They had combined their
old idolatrous religion with that of the newly adopted indigenous
divinity of Palestine. "They feared the Lord, and served their own
gods."[31] Between them, they adored a host of Pagan divinities, whose
barbarous names are grimly noted by the Hebrew historian--Succoth-benoth,
Nergal, Ashima, etc.[32] There is no evidence to show that this heathenism
had become extinct by the time of the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.
At all events, the bastard product of such a worship as that of the Bethel
steer and the Babylonian and Phoenician divinities, even when purged of
its most gross corruption, was not likely to be after the mind of the
puritan pilgrims. The colonists did not offer to adopt the traditional
Torah, which the returned exiles were sedulously observing.
[31] 2 Kings xvii. 33.
[32] 2 Kings xvii. 30, 31.
Still it may be said, if the people were imperfect in knowledge and
corrupt in practice, might not the Jews have enlightened and helped
them? We are reminded of the reproach that Bede brings so sternly
against the ancient British Christians when he blames them for not
having taught the gospel to the Saxon heathen who had invaded their
land. How far it would have been possible for a feeble people to
evangelise their more powerful neighbours, in either case, it is
impossible to say.
It cannot be denied, however, that in their refusal the Jews gave
prominence to racial and not to religious distinctions. Yet even in
this matter it would be unreasonable for us to expect them to have
surpassed the early Christian Church at Jerusalem and to have
anticipated the daring liberalism of St. Paul. The followers of St.
James were reluctant to receive any converts into their communion
except on condition of circumcision. This meant that Gentiles must
become Jews before they could be recognised as Christians. Now there
was no sign that the mixed race of colonists ever contemplated
becoming Jews by humbling themselves to a rite of initiation. Even if
most of them were already circumcised, as far as we know none of them
gave an indication of willingness to subject themselves wholly to
Jewish ordinances. To receive them, therefore, would be contrary to
the root principle of Judaism. It is not fair to mete out a harsh
condemnation to Jews who declined to do what was only allowed among
Christians after a desperate struggle, which separated the leader of
the liberal party from many of his brethren and left him for a long
while under a cloud of suspicion.
Great confusion has been imported into the controversy on Church
comprehension by not keeping it separate from the question of
tolerance in religion. The two are distinct in many respects.
Comprehension is an ecclesiastical matter; tolerance is primarily
concerned with the policy of the state. Whilst it is admitted that
nobody should be coerced in his religion by the state, it is not
therefore to be assumed that everybody is to be received into the
Church.
Nevertheless we feel that there is a real and vital connection between
the ideas of toleration and Church comprehensiveness. A Church may
become culpably intolerant, although she may not use the power of the
state for the execution of her mandates; she may contrive many painful
forms of persecution, without resorting to the rack and the
thumb-screw. The question therefore arises, What are the limits to
tolerance within a Church? The attempt to fix these limits by creeds
and canons has not been wholly successful, either in excluding the
unworthy or in including the most desirable members. The drift of
thought in the present day being towards wider comprehensiveness, it
becomes increasingly desirable to determine on what principles this
may be attained. Good men are weary of the little garden walled
around, and they doubt whether it is altogether the Lord's peculiar
ground; they have discovered that many of the flowers of the field are
fair and fragrant, and they have a keen suspicion that not a few
weeds may be lurking even in the trim parterre; so they look over the
wall and long for breadth and brotherhood, in a larger recognition of
all that is good in the world. Now the dull religious lethargy of the
eighteenth century is a warning against the chief danger that
threatens those who yield themselves to this fascinating impulse.
Latitudinarianism sought to widen the fold that had been narrowed on
one side by sacerdotal pretensions and on the other side by puritan
rigour. The result was that the fold almost disappeared. Then religion
was nearly swallowed up in the swamps of indifference. This deplorable
issue of a well-meant attempt to serve the cause of charity suggests
that there is little good in breaking down the barriers of
exclusiveness unless we have first established a potent centre of
unity. If we have put an end to division simply by destroying the
interests which once divided men, we have only attained the communion
of death. In the graveyard friend and foe lie peaceably side by side,
but only because both are dead. Wherever there is life two opposite
influences are invariably at work. There is a force of attraction
drawing in all that is congenial, and there is a force of a contrary
character repelling everything that is uncongenial. Any attempt to
tamper with either of these forces must result in disaster. A social
or an ecclesiastical division that arbitrarily crosses the lines of
natural affinity creates a schism in the body, and leads to a painful
mutilation of fellowship. On the other hand, a forced comprehension of
alien elements produces internal friction, which often leads to an
explosion, shattering the whole fabric. But the common mistake has
been in attending to the circumference and neglecting the centre, in
beating the bounds of the parish instead of fortifying the citadel.
The liberalism of St. Paul was not latitudinarian, because it was
inspired by a vital principle which served as the centre of all his
teaching. He preached liberty and comprehensiveness, because he had
first preached Christ. In Christ he found at once a bond of union and
an escape from narrowness. The middle wall of partition was broken
down, not by a Vandal armed with nothing better than the besom of
destruction, but by the Founder of a new kingdom, who could dispense
with artificial restrictions because He could draw all men unto
Himself.
Unfortunately the returned captives at Jerusalem did not feel
conscious of any such spiritual centre of unity. They might have found
it in their grandly simple creed, in their faith in God. But their
absorption in sacrificial ritual and its adjuncts shows that they were
too much under the influence of religious externalism. This being the
case, they could only preserve the purity of their communion by
carefully guarding its gates. It is pitiable to see that they could
find no better means of doing this than the harsh test of racial
integrity. Their action in this matter fostered a pride of birth which
was as injurious to their own better lives as it was to the extension
of their religion in the world. But so long as they were incapable of
a larger method, if they had accepted counsels of liberalism they
would have lost themselves and their mission. Looking at the positive
side of their mission, we see how the Jews were called to bear witness
to the great principle of separateness. This principle is as essential
to Christianity as it was to Judaism. The only difference is that with
the more spiritual faith it takes a more spiritual form. The people
of God must ever be consecrated to God, and therefore separate from
sin, separate from the world--separate unto God.
NOTE.--For the section iv. 6-23 see Chapter XIV. This
section is marked by a change of language; the writer adopts
Aramaic at iv. 8, and he continues in that language down to
vi. 18. The decree of Artaxerxes in vii. 12-26 is also in
Aramaic.