Jesus of Nazareth was so many-sided that each man and each age have
found in him the qualities in which they are most interested. He
has with truth been characterized as prophet, poet, philosopher,
physician, and saviour of men. In the eyes of his contemporaries
he was pre-eminently the teacher of the masses, the healer of the
sick, and the friend of sinners. The ascetic Middle Ages saw in him
only the man of sorrows, and pictured him as sad and anæmic. To the
Protestant reformers and the Puritans he was the supreme protestant
against the sins of mankind. The discerning thinkers of our present
social age are beginning to recognize in him the great social
psychologist, who not only analyzed the ills of society but also
provided for them a potent cure.
The majority of men, however, fail to appreciate Jesus' social
teachings, because they think of him as far removed from the complex
social programme presented by our highly developed civilization; but
the enlightened historian well knows that between the first century
in which Jesus lived and our own there are many startlingly close
analogies. In Jesus' day the old racial and national bonds had been
largely destroyed and many ancient traditions and customs had been
rudely shattered or else cast aside. Men were sharply divided into
classes separated by clashing interests. Industrial slavery held
great masses of men in a bondage that was both physical and moral.
Herded together in congested districts of the great cities that had
suddenly sprung into existence, they lived a life that was in many
respects worse than that of the beast. Lax divorce laws and looser
marital relations had undermined the integrity of the home. A great
wave of social immorality was destroying the physical and spiritual
health of the individual and of society.
At the same time mankind was beginning to feel its unity and to work
out its problems in universal terms. The yearning for brotherhood
and for vital bonds that would bind each man to his fellows was
strong. Consciously or unconsciously men everywhere were seeking for
a satisfying philosophy of life that would afford them peace and
happiness in this life and a definite hope of even greater joy in the
realm beyond. They were also longing for a social organization that
would give them freedom and an opportunity for each to live his life
to the full. Dissatisfaction with the outworn social programmes of
the past was expressed on every side. The expectancy of a dawn of a
new day was almost universal.
Practically every type of social programme known to us to-day was
found in that old Roman world. Rome, in name still a republic, was
in reality an imperial monarchy, ruled absolutely by the will of
one man. It was a typical representative of the ancient autocratic
idea of government. The old Hebrew commonwealth, like the city
states of Greece, was only a memory of the past, but it stood for
the democratic ideal--the rule of the people, by the people, for
the people--in which the ultimate authority was vested in a popular
assembly. Subject to the rule of Rome, the later Jewish hierarchical
form of government still survived in Jerusalem as a representative
of that peculiar type of social organization in which religious
and temporal authority are blended. The rule of the rabble, to be
instituted by violence and revolution and maintained by force, found
its protagonists in those bloody, relentless Bolshevists of the first
century, the Zealots. They only waited the leader and the opportunity
to fly at the throats of their Roman masters and to make a mad
attempt to overthrow all existing forms of government. On the ruins
of society they wished to set up a Jewish state that would rule the
rest of mankind with a rod of iron.
Down along the rocky banks of the brook Kedron, less than fifteen
miles from Jerusalem, lived the Essene brotherhoods. They represented
the purest type of communistic socialism. All property was held in
common. The results of the labor of each went into the common store.
All shared alike their possessions. It was also a nobler communism
than we know to-day, for its chief aim was not the division of the
products of human enterprise, but the lofty and unselfish ideals of
serving and uplifting humanity.
The learned scribes and Pharisees were dreaming of a far different
type of world state: one that was to be suddenly and miraculously
established. Jerusalem was to be its capital and a Jewish Messiah its
head. The faithful martyrs who had died for their religion were to
be reincarnated to share its glories. The heathen nations were to be
subdued and the rule of Israel's God was to be recognized throughout
the whole earth.
Only a few humble students of the prophets and psalmists were quietly
working and hoping for a society in which justice, good-will, and
mutual helpfulness were to be the compelling bonds and the will of
God the guiding authority. Autocracy and democracy, hierarchy and
anarchy, communistic socialism and nationalistic theocracy each found
enthusiastic devoted supporters in that vast laboratory of social
experimentation in which Jesus lived. Every type of social programme
that we know to-day was there represented.
Did he have a social plan, and was it adapted to the needs of the
twentieth as well as to those of the first Christian century? The
records of Jesus' work are so fragmentary that they have given to
most readers the impression that he was simply an itinerant preacher
and teacher without definite plan and method. Paul is ordinarily
regarded as the great organizer who gave Christianity its corporate
form. A more careful study of the facts, however, reveals a clearly
defined aim and a systematic, comprehensive plan underlying all of
Jesus' work.
It is important to remember that for more than three-fourths of his
life Jesus was an active business man and, therefore, in close touch
with the economic and social life of his age. He was a son of Joseph,
the _technôn_, that is, the constructor or builder. It is probable
that the early death of Joseph left Jesus, the eldest son, in charge
of this family firm of builders. The names of four other sons are
given. This added responsibility would mean that Jesus was not only a
manual laborer himself but was also accustomed to directing the work
of others. The conclusion that he was a master builder, who knew the
importance of a definite plan and method and of carefully counting
the cost, is confirmed by many of his teachings. "Who of you, if he
wishes to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the costs
to see whether he has money to complete it? Or what king, on going to
war with another king, does not first sit down and deliberate whether
with ten thousand men he can withstand the one who is coming against
him with twenty thousand?"
No one laid greater stress on foresight than did Jesus. At every
point he reveals familiarity with system, method, and organization.
In this respect he is more like the modern Occidental than the
Orientals of his day. His detailed directions to his disciples, when
he sent them out two by two to extend the bounds of his work, are
models of business efficiency. "Take nothing but a staff," which
makes long journeys on foot comparatively easy. "Take no extra
baggage," which impedes progress. "Do not stop to greet any one on
the road," for the elaborate Oriental greetings often consumed hours
of precious time. Commanded to take no food, they were dependent upon
that Oriental hospitality which opened wide the door and the heart of
those whom the disciples were to reach and to help. "Stop only at the
homes where you receive a hearty welcome," for there only can you do
efficient work. "Be content with the entertainment provided, and do
not go from house to house," for in this way will you avoid wasteful
distraction. "Go out two by two," for this is the best unit in doing
effective work (as our modern drives have amply demonstrated).
Directness, economy, and practical efficiency characterize each
of these commands. The principles underlying them are everywhere
accepted as standard in the scientific business world of to-day.
Jesus, as portrayed in the earliest records, was not an impractical
dreamer nor a wan ascetic, as ordinarily pictured in art and in
popular imagination, but a practical man of affairs with definite
plans and systematic methods of carrying them into execution.
The evidence that Jesus has a definite social plan is cumulative and
convincing. From the beginning of his public appearance his thought
and activities were shaped by it. It is the background of that
dramatic story of the temptation, which comes straight from the lips
of Jesus himself. Though its language is highly figurative, the story
throws a flood of light upon Jesus' purpose. The first temptation
suggests the vigor with which he rejected the natural inclination to
yield to the instinctive desire for ease and self-indulgence and
to use his divine powers for his own happiness rather than that of
society. The second and third temptations deal with the methods to
be used in carrying out his far-flung social programme. Should he
use sensational devices and by some miraculous act, such as throwing
himself down from the temple heights, gratify the popular demand for
divine credentials? Or should he realize his plan by compromise?
The breadth of his social outlook is clearly disclosed by this third
temptation; from the first his plan included "all the kingdoms of
the world and their glory." The tempting thought came to him that
these could easily be brought under his benign sway, if he would but
set aside his lofty ideals, if he would but be silent regarding the
crimes of the ruling powers, if he would but give up his exalted
conception of the rule of God and fulfil the current national
expectations that were beating strong in the hearts of the multitudes
that thronged about him. As the event proved, they were eager to hail
him as the popular Messiah. His temptation to bow down to Satan is
vividly illustrated in the dramatic scene where Peter professes his
faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and then tries to dissuade him from
going up into Jerusalem to face shame and probable death. "Away with
you, Satan," is Jesus' vehement exclamation, "for you are thinking
the thoughts of man, not of God!" This striking incident makes it
very clear that in the mind of Jesus there was a definite, practical
plan, far different from that which obsessed his race and in the end
lured them on to their ruin in the tragic years of 69 and 70. So
eager was he to see its early adoption, not only by his race but by
all nations, that short cuts and even compromises were to him very
real temptations. But his social plan was so clearly defined that the
specious doctrine that the end justifies the means could not swerve
him. He had no desire to build a social structure that would rise and
fall like the thousands that have been reared before and since--what
Henry Adams describes as "the perpetual building up of an authority
by force and the perpetual appeal to force to overthrow it."
Jesus' words to Peter, "On this rock I found my community," indicated
that he was seeking to build a structure that would endure, because
it was built on the solid rock of reality and in accordance with the
divine purpose. For this reason he keenly appreciated the importance
of building on the right foundations and with the right material.
The major part of his time and energy was devoted to preparing these
materials. Hence his intense interest in the saving and remaking of
men and women. Peter, the rock, was typical of the social citizens
that he was seeking to develop and out of which he planned to build
his new society.
Like Zoroaster, Confucius, and Gautama Buddha, Jesus was not content
with presenting merely an abstract social programme. He was eager to
incarnate it in flesh and blood, so that men could see it with their
eyes and participate in it. With all the enthusiasm and energy of his
kinetic personality, he went about laying the foundations for the
new society. This aim alone explains why at first he left Galilee,
went down into Judea, and allied himself with that courageous herald
of the new social order, John the Baptist. When the opposition of the
Jewish leaders and the cruel relentlessness of Herod Antipas closed
the doors of Jerusalem and Judea to Jesus he returned to Galilee
but not to Nazareth. He chose instead, as the scene of his future
work, the great Jewish metropolis of Capernaum. Its choice as the
centre of his public activity is exceedingly significant. Jesus was
by birth and training a peasant. He always felt most at home among
the tree-clad hills. City life had none of the attractions for him
that it had for Paul, the cosmopolitan. Going to a great city was
for Jesus a daring adventure. He went to Capernaum because it was
the largest centre of Jewish population in northern Palestine. As
the present ruins indicate, it extended for four or five miles along
the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee, from the point where the
Jordan enters the lake on the north to the borders of the plain of
Genneseret to the northwest. Across the Jordan was Bethsaida, and a
few miles to the north, at the head of a rocky gorge, was Chorazin,
another of the many populous suburbs of the greater Capernaum.
In this huge metropolis were crowded "the lost sheep of the house of
Israel" whom Jesus came to seek and to save. Jesus went down into the
sickness and crime-infected slums of Capernaum to transform them and
to make them the homes of happy, co-operating men and women. In that
large, typical suburban centre he aimed to establish the fraternal
community that was to be the corner-stone of the new social order
that he hoped would ultimately include "all the nations of the world."
He also chose the greater Capernaum because it was the focal
centre from which the great international highways radiated in all
directions. Past its western suburbs ran the main caravan road from
Egypt and Philistia to Damascus and Babylonia. Other roads ran
southward to Jericho and Jerusalem. Another great highway ran past
it from Arabia northwestward across the plain of Genneseret to Tyre
and Sidon, and then on to Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. It is
evident that Jesus, not Paul, initiated early Christianity's broad
policy of establishing fraternal communities in the great strategic
centres, and from there extending their influence to the smaller
cities and towns, and thence to the surrounding country districts.
This was clearly a part of his social plan, and the spread of these
Christian communities to Jericho, Damascus, Cæsarea, and Antioch
within the first decade after his death confirmed its practical
wisdom.
In Capernaum Jesus found all types of men, women, and children. Here
were presented superlative needs and superlative possibilities. Here
every phase of the social problem was in evidence. Here were the
rich and poor, learned and ignorant, honest and dishonest, happy and
unhappy, reputable citizens and outcasts, the well and the sick.
With each of these classes Jesus came into intimate contact. From
every rank he drew the followers who became members of the fraternal
community that he was seeking to found. A social plan that succeeded
in the greater Capernaum had world-wide possibilities. That great
metropolis, with its population of perhaps a quarter of a million,
was a fitting laboratory for the world's greatest social psychologist.
Into this great field Jesus threw himself with untiring zeal and
enthusiasm. His final words, as he left it to escape the treachery
of the Pharisees and of Herod Antipas, indicate clearly that he had
hoped to transform this huge city into one great fraternal community:
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For had the marvellous
deeds that have been performed in you been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes; I tell you it will
be better for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
Will you, Capernaum, be exalted to the sky? No, you will go down to
destruction. For had the marvellous deeds performed in you been done
in Sodom, it would have remained standing until this day."
To-day the site of the greater Capernaum is an uninhabited ruin. A
dread silence has settled down upon it. Yet no student of history
can for a moment doubt the implication of Jesus' pathetic words.
Capernaum might to-day and through the intervening centuries and
for all time have been "exalted to the sky" had its citizens in
the first Christian century responded to their great opportunity.
Then and there the problems common to all human society might have
been solved. There the whole world might have beheld the glorious
vision of a vast city in which sin and sickness and suffering had
been banished, and love and loyalty and zeal to serve the common
cause bound all together into one great fraternal community. There
the students of all nations and ages might have studied in concrete
form the principles and laws that lie at the foundation of a perfect
society. Within even the limits of the first century the Capernaum
plan might have been transplanted and developed in all the great
cities of the earth.
From the moment that Jesus entered Capernaum he went to work to
gather about him and train a band of helpers that would effect the
great transformation. He did not make the mistake of many later
social creators of trusting merely to external organization. He began
by remaking men and by training individual citizens. He personally
selected each of his helpers and first freed their bodies from
disease, their minds from error and prejudice, and their hearts
from hate and jealousy. In turn he filled their minds with a broad,
practical philosophy of life and their hearts with faith and love
and the desire to co-operate. After he had trained them by careful
teaching and thorough apprenticeship, he sent them forth under his
direction to become fishers of men--that is, to attract and train
definite men and women, so that they also might be prepared to become
worthy citizens in the fraternal community.
The plan was as simple as it was practical. It was in perfect accord
with all the laws, natural, social, and psychological, that later
scientific study has disclosed. That it met at once with partial
success is an established historic fact, for of the five hundred
disciples to whom Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 15:6, probably the
great majority, if not all, belonged to the Capernaum community.
But it is equally clear that Jesus' success at Capernaum was not
commensurate with his hopes and that his relative failure was
due to that which the Infinite has made a basic principle in the
universe--the freedom of the human will. The convincing common
sense, the radiant sympathy and love, and the attractive social plan
of the Master Teacher were not able to conquer the fixed habits
and prejudices and hatreds of a majority of the inhabitants of the
greater Capernaum. The wooden orthodoxy and the narrow jealousy of
the Pharisees led them to block and undermine, rather than support
his work. The opposition of these acknowledged religious leaders
confused the minds of the people. How electrical and far-reaching
would Jesus' great social experiment have been, had it met with the
immediate success he craved, only the imagination can picture. That
from Capernaum might have gone forth mighty influences that would
have quickly transformed human society as a whole is not beyond
the realm of practical possibility, for the world was closely knit
together in the first Christian century and nothing is more potent
in society than practical demonstration. Even as it was, the social
leaven that Jesus placed in greater Capernaum spread with remarkable
rapidity, so that before the close of the first Christian century
fraternal communities were found not only in Damascus, Cæsarea, and
Antioch, but in all the great cities and even the remote provinces of
the Roman Empire.
The strength of Jesus' social plan lay in its simplicity. Society in
the first century, as at present, had become hopelessly complex. The
individual was but a spoke in the wheel of things. He was so enmeshed
in a rigid social organization that he had few opportunities for
spontaneous self-expression. Jesus quietly set aside all this complex
social machinery and substituted a simple neighborhood organization,
so simple that its members were unconscious of any organization at
all. The warm, fraternal spirit of the fraternal community, which was
simply an extension of the high ideals and traditions of the Jewish
home, provided the atmosphere that every man, and especially "the
lost," the millions of detached men, women, and children in the old
Roman Empire, were craving. In these Christian communities they found
friendship and good-will. If they were needy, here they were sure
of help. If they were sad, they found sympathy and comfort. If they
stumbled and fell, they were tenderly lifted up, given counsel, and
guided in the way of life.
Here the deepest yearnings of their hearts were satisfied, for they
were taught to listen to the inward voice. The Master himself set
the example of devoting many hours in his crowded ministry to prayer
and meditation. Under his guidance they learned to enter the inner
chamber of their souls, and there to gain peace, joy, and inspiration
from communion with him who reveals himself to all who seek him in
sincerity and truth.
The fraternal community enabled each member to gratify his higher
desire for self-expression. Jesus also had the marvellous power
of arousing these desires. The needs and work of the community
gave each member, however great or however humble be his gifts,
abundant opportunity to use them. The humblest could enjoy the
proud consciousness of serving the community, even if it be only in
serving the food at the common meal. Those who possessed the gifts of
teaching or preaching or healing had ample opportunity to use them in
a social environment that was receptive and appreciative. If the task
be outside and attended with danger, those who served were always
sure of warm support and sympathy within the community.
Mark tells us that the life of the fraternal community that Jesus
founded at Capernaum was characterized by a joyousness that aroused
the harsh criticisms of the captious Pharisees. They complained that,
unlike John the Baptist, Jesus never taught his followers to fast.
The Master acknowledged the charge, and likened their lives together
to one continuous wedding-feast. When we recall that a wedding-feast
was the one event in the ancient East that brought joy and recreation
and amusement to all members of the community, we begin to gain
a true conception of the charm of that community life which Jesus
developed, and to understand why it appealed to young and old alike.
Here recreation and religion were perfectly blended. Here every man
found physical, mental, and spiritual life, and that in abundant
measure. Had not the Pharisees, as Jesus said, persistently blocked
the door, the masses would undoubtedly have sought admission to the
fraternal community in great numbers, for we are told that the common
people heard him gladly.
Jesus was not content merely to open wide the door to all who were
seeking fellowship and inspiration to fuller living. From the first
he began to train his disciples that they might go forth on a mission
of healing, preaching, and teaching. His social plan included an
aggressive, organized missionary propaganda. He not only himself
sought the lost, but also trained and taught his followers to do the
same. This fact explains not only the tremendous drawing, but also
the kinetic power of early Christianity.
To-day every individual is consciously or unconsciously longing for a
fraternal community in which he can find sympathy, good-will, and an
opportunity to serve his fellow-men. Capital and industry are groping
for a common basis of justice and co-operation, where they can forget
their present destructive feuds and hatreds and join in conserving
their mutual interests and in discharging their obligations to
society. All the nations of the earth are eager to perfect an
agreement which will eliminate the horrible wastage of hate and war
and enable them to dwell together as one great family. The Christian
Church is also seeking a way in which it may adequately meet the
crying needs of the individual and of society.
Is it not possible that Jesus' social plan is the true and only way
so to adjust the individual to his environment that he will find that
which he is seeking? Is it not possible that Jesus' plan provides the
only practical way to eliminate the disastrous hatreds and wastage
of modern industry, and to bring capital and labor into effective
co-operation? Is it not possible that his idea of the fraternal
community is the only satisfactory solution of our international
problems? Is it not true that his simple social plan represents the
historic commission of the Christian Church, and that the Church's
present divisions and most of its complex machinery are only
impedimenta? Is it not possible that a whole-hearted effort to carry
through his social plan in this plastic twentieth century might unite
not only his nominal followers, but also the many who are not now
reckoned as members of his fold? Upon the answers that the leaders
of this generation make to these fundamental questions depends
the future of our civilization. To the leaders in our Christian
institutions of learning we look to-day for affirmative answers.