giving up the career of purely non-political preacher, teacher, and
healer, to assume the career of _Christ_ and Son of David, fully
conscious as he was of all the dangers it implied, was neither
ignorant of the Isaian ideal, nor out of sympathy with it. When he
rode into Jerusalem accepting the acclamation: "Blessed be the kingdom
that cometh, the kingdom of our father David," he was not betraying
the national hope; he was lifting it toward ultimate realization at
the cost of Calvary.
It is true that he avoided suicidal collision with Roman authority on
the one side, as prudently as he forestalled the sweeping off of his
following into the insane fanaticism of the Zealot nationalists on the
other. The prophet's method of a symbolic purifying of the temple was
exactly suited to this purpose. In the temple Roman authority
explicitly renounced control. The policing of this combined fortress,
sanctuary, and treasure house was left, even to the power of life and
death, in the hands of the Sadducean hierocracy. It was administered
by a numerous and efficient Levite police commanded by a "captain of
the temple." On the other hand, Sadducean control was notoriously and
infamously corrupt. The abuses by which (with their connivance) money
was extorted from the worshippers made it so hateful that a worthy
reformer might be sure of popular support strong enough to cow "the
hissing brood of Annas" into an interval of "fear of the people." And
the reform might even be accomplished without unchaining the red
fool-fury of the Zealot mob, if it was seen to be the work of a
prophet, by authority "from heaven" and not "of men," consistent, even
if regarded as a messianic act, with the course of one who had come
"meek and lowly and having salvation, riding upon an ass, and on a
colt the foal of an ass."
It is of vital importance to a historical appreciation of Jesus' sense
of his mission to realize fully and adequately what he meant by this
one public overt act of his career; for by it he signalized to all
Israel assembled at the Passover his purpose to achieve a national
deliverance such as the feast commemorated. From it every loyal
Israelite might infer that the hope of "the kingdom of David" was now
about to be realized. Jesus thus entered deliberately upon the stormy
and dangerous seas of messianistic agitation, as a claimant to
leadership in the achievement of the national hope.
To herald such a reform as Jesus proposed, reviving the national
ideal, the purification of the temple was a symbolic act worthy of the
greatest of prophets. It was exactly fitted to raise and define the
issues at stake. It would convey just the right impression to the
multitude, whose attention could be reached by this time-honored
method, and by this method alone. It was also free from the worst
dangers of messianistic agitation. It would avoid on the one hand the
Scylla of needless collision with Roman authority, and on the other
the Charybdis of Zealot turbulence. The calm and fearless "authority
from heaven" with which it was effected overawed resistance, so that
even while asserted _by force_ it attained its result with the
shedding of no other blood than the Messenger's own.
To show the exact meaning to contemporary Jewish minds of this act of
the Prophet of Nazareth we must recall not merely the Isaian ideal of
the "Davidic" reign as a universal kingdom of righteousness and peace
based on divine law going forth from Zion, but also the later
apocalyptic hopes. We must remember that all expectation in Jesus'
time was focussed on the prophecies of Malachi, which made the
purified temple the scene of Jehovah's visitation of his people, after
they should have been brought to a "great repentance" by the coming of
Elias. A rabbinic parable of the period will give us the point of
view. It is an answer to the reproach so bitterly resented by Isaiah,
"Israel is a wife forsaken," and is based on Malachi 1:6-14, and
3:1-12 interpreting the designation "Tent of Witness" applied to the
tabernacle in Exodus 38:21:
A king was angry with his wife and forsook her. The neighbors
declared, "He will not return" (cf. Isa. 49:14). Then the king sent
word to her (Mal. 1:10 ff): "Cleanse my palace, and on such and
such a day I will return to thee." He came and was reconciled to
her. Therefore is the sanctuary called the Tent of "Witness"--a
witness to the Gentiles that God is no longer wroth.[4]
Jesus' act was the assertion of authority "from heaven" to make
Jehovah's will supreme upon earth, beginning at his own sanctuary. It
was effected by direct appeal to the conscience of the masses, which
to the extent of their understanding responded overwhelmingly. Jesus
did not expect his act to be more than "a witness to the peoples." But
on the other hand, for the time being at least, he sacrificed no life
save his own. One close parallel could be cited from modern times if
the demonstration could be freed from its unfortunate association with
really fanatical revolt and real intention to provoke a servile
insurrection. In keeping his demonstration in the temple free from
entangling alliance with Zealot nationalism, Jesus showed a moderation
and foresight which were unfortunately lacking to the demonstration of
John Brown at Harpers Ferry; otherwise the two have many points of
affinity. It was while the governor of Virginia was still hesitating
to sign the death warrant of the champion of negro emancipation, long
before his martyr spirit marched on before great armies of liberation,
that Ralph Waldo Emerson, once himself a non-resistant pacifist, wrote
in his journal:
If John Brown shall suffer, he will make the gallows glorious like
the cross.
III
That Jesus intended to raise the standard of David by his public act
at the Passover is certain. His pacifism was of the type of Micah's
and Isaiah's. That he meant the act to convey a religious sense
differentiating it from the merely political ideal of the Zealots is
also certain. His doctrine of reliance on spiritual methods in the
pursuit of the God-given aim exalts forbearance _as a means_ in
terms not less noble than the foremost champions of non-resistance. We
may question whether he actually counted upon his own only too
probable fate of crucifixion at Roman hands as destined to serve the
precise end which it actually has subserved in human history. Those
who see it with the wisdom of retrospect know that it has furnished to
all devotees of Israel's ideal of the Kingdom of God, in all races,
unto all successive generations, a rallying point and a symbol of
final victory. But Jesus was looking forward with the eye of faith,
not backward with the eye of knowledge. He believed that even through
death God would give victory to those who sacrificed life and all to
his kingdom's cause, and that it would be given ere their generation
had passed into oblivion. How much further than this his prophetic
insight into the ways of God with men extended is a question which
will be variously answered in accordance with varying views of his
personality. It need be no matter of surprise, however, to any
discerning mind, that the fourth evangelist should also look backward
at the significance of the cross, interpreting it in the light of its
actual results. The fourth evangelist is the successor of Paul at
Ephesus. Like Paul he naturally emphasizes its effect in
"reconciliation," a twofold atonement, "breaking down the enmity"
between man and God, and also that between man and man; and the great
barrier of Paul's experience was that erected by the Mosaic law
between Jew and Gentile. By the cross, says Paul to the Ephesians,
Christ who is "our peace"[5]
made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having
abolished in his flesh the enmity; even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the
twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in
one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity
thereby.
No wonder Paul thinks of God as "the God of peace," the gospel as "the
gospel of peace" and Christ as "our peace" proclaimed to the nations
near and far.
That is the pacifism of Christianity. No wonder Paul's great successor
at Ephesus compares this healing and reconciling cross to the token of
forgiveness and faith which Moses lifted up in the wilderness, and
repeatedly presents as its divinely appointed aim the "gathering into
one the children of God that are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52).
The fourth evangelist devotes the closing section of his story of the
public ministry to this great question, Why Jesus came forward as the
Christ? The scene he chooses is Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication,
that festival which commemorated the death and resurrection of the
Maccabean martyrs who had given their lives for the national ideal.
The story begins with the Jews' demand of Jesus that he "tell them
plainly" whether he is the Christ. It ends with the mystical utterance
of the high priest:
that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for that nation only,
but that he might gather together into one the children of God which
are scattered abroad.
To show what alternative lay before him we are told of a delegation of
Greeks who wait upon Jesus, apparently to invite him to "go to the
Gentiles and teach them," but who receive as their answer, after a
momentary soul-conflict paralleling the scene of Gethsemane, that
Jesus "must be lifted up," and thus through his martyr death "will
draw all men unto him." The central scene of the raising of Lazarus is
of course directed to the resurrection theme appropriate to this
feast, the theme of the Christ who as Messenger of God brings life and
immortality to light. But the whole section rests back on an opening
parable, that of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the
sheep (John 10:11-18). Our concern is with this parable; for it is
not an invention of the fourth evangelist, but an authentic comparison
of Jesus attested by the preceding evangelists,[6] and merely
developed in the later interpretative gospel along the lines of the
original prophecy,[7] and with special reference to the cross as a
token of unity in estranged and warring humanity evoked by loyalty to
a common higher ideal.
In the parable of the Good Shepherd, as elsewhere, the fourth
evangelist shows that his view of the tragedy of Calvary is determined
by its actual result. The function of the Shepherd is to gather a
flock now scattered, and which includes "other sheep that are not of
this fold." The aim is "that there may be one flock; one Shepherd," an
aim suggested by Paul. But primarily the parable is simply an
adaptation of Ezekiel's famous indictment of the hireling shepherds of
Israel, who had first exploited Jehovah's flock, and then abandoned it
to the ravening of wild beasts. Because of this, the prophet declares,
Jehovah himself will seek out the scattered and bleeding remnant and
will set up over them a worthy shepherd, the son of David.
The special application made by the fourth evangelist is to the
gathering of a flock already scattered, bleeding, and torn of beasts,
because of the faithlessness of hireling shepherds. Such was in truth
the task imposed by the conditions of the time. Such was in the
experience of Paul and his generation the actual effect of the cross.
But primarily and in Jesus' mind it was simply the token of the last
supreme measure of devotion which he, and all who would follow him,
must be prepared to pay in loyalty to the Kingdom of God. Its
comparison is purely and simply a contrast between two types of
leadership. On the one side is he who lays down his life in defence of
the helpless, be it in conflict, as when David the shepherd lad with
sling and stone rescued his sheep "out of the paw of the lion and the
bear," or be it in search for the lost lamb upon the mountainside. On
the other side is he who "when he seeth the wolf coming leaveth the
sheep and fleeth." The special need of the time, that which appealed
to Jesus as the supreme need of those to whom he was sent, was his
people's need of a standard and leadership, rescue of the scattered
and lost.
When he saw the multitude he had compassion on them because they
were distressed and scattered as sheep that have no shepherd.
He gave them the needed rallying point, a sign in which afterward they
should conquer. He also gave them the needed leadership. The former
was the need of the first age of the Church. The second need is ours;
for defence of the flock is as much a shepherd's task as seeking out
the lost. They who abandon it in the face of wolfish attack need
expect no approval from the Son of David.
IV
There is a certain magnificence of logical consistency in the
non-resistance doctrine of the pacifist who chooses the Empire of
China (!) as the example of its perfect work in the field of
international relations.[8] With the blessed example of the Celestial
Kingdom before us we are asked:
What did it avail Belgium to marshal her armies and hold her forts
against the irresistible advance of the German legions?[9]
The question has an extraordinary resemblance to that addressed by the
Kaiser to King Albert in _Punch's_ famous cartoon: "Don't you see
that Belgium has lost everything?" And Albert's answer is taken from
Christ's own lips: "She has not lost her soul." The Celestial Empire
on the other hand seems to this champion of the pacifism of Lao-tse to
have practically realized the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Peacefully non-resistant under the corrupt domination of its Manchu
conquerors it had attained the climax of earthly felicity. It had a
name to live, and was dead.
The Chinese and the Quakers, each in their own way, are finished
products. What they are is all they ever can be. Which means from
the standpoint of national idealism, that non-resistance is the
"saving element."[10]
This eulogy of China, however, was written before the new Republic of
China, stirring the long dormant instincts of Chinese patriotism, had
roused to new hopes and visions of world achievement the body that had
become as one dead, insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But
non-resistant pacifism is ever rich in paradox. Today China herself,
so long inert, blessed for so many centuries with all the felicity of
submission, has thrown off the Manchu yoke of domination. And in the
first surge of new-found strength she declares war against Attila and
his Huns, and in the declaration itself avows that she is "fighting to
establish peace." To such inconsistency does non-resistance seem fated
as soon as life triumphs over death, as soon as the Christian gospel
of a world kingdom of righteousness and peace triumphs over Buddha's
pessimistic obliteration of desire and hope together in the gray
_nirvana_ of extinction. "Eternal life" through death-defying
loyalty to a divine ideal begins at last to seem preferable, even in
China, to mere indefinite "survival."
Not Quakerdom itself seems able to maintain consistency with its
non-resistant ideals. Alas,
they were abandoned by those who could not and would not see the
connection between these principles and the uninterrupted peace
which had long blessed the Pennsylvania colony.
Becoming itself directly responsible for the order and security
hitherto guaranteed by the sovereign British power the Quaker
commonwealth followed the example of its neighbor states and girt on
the sword.[11] For this, doubtless, we may hold the influx of alien
immigrants more responsible than the genuine followers of Fox and
Penn. But it must at least be admitted that Quaker leaven showed
little power to work, so far as the doctrine and policy of
non-resistance are concerned.
Inconsistencies such as these on the part of the greatest modern
exemplars of non-resistance are saddening to its champions, but there
remains ever a more ethereal realm, where philosophy can build without
fear of the stern realities of life, the limbo of utopias.
V
Jesus, too, they tell us, though greatest of all non-resistants, was
also "inconsistent." Was he, then, inconsistent with himself? Or was
his pacifism the active pacifism of those who give their lives for
just and lasting peace, the peace that is real and not mere
devastation, not destruction and tyranny miscalled _Kultur_; not
might triumphant over right and unashamed; but a peace that endures
because justice and right have been enthroned?
Jesus closed his public teaching with the doctrine that all religion,
all duty to God and man, is summed up in the two commandments:
Unreserved, unqualified, unfaltering devotion to the One God of
Righteousness and Truth; unselfish devotion to the common weal of man.
One who in obedience to this law of love took up the succession of
Moses, David and the prophets, raising the standard of God's real
sovereignty on earth, and paying to it the last full measure of his
own devotion, has not deserved the accusation of inconsistency. Jesus
was sublimely consistent. That interpretation of his words which
refuses the witness of his heroic deeds to their true meaning is
guilty of the inconsistency.
It is true, as Tolstoy finely says, that Jesus' noble depiction in the
Sermon on the Mount of the forbearance of God as the standard of the
higher righteousness means that we should "never do anything
_contrary to the law of love_." But by what right does the great
Russian pacifist (or any other who claims for his theory the authority
of Jesus) omit from that law of love its "first and great
commandment"? How can we ignore the demand of supreme and unqualified
devotion to the God of Righteousness, whose kingdom of righteous peace
Jesus gave his life to establish, and limit our obedience to
acquiescence in the demands of men, be they righteous or the reverse?
The second commandment of the Law of Love is dependent on the first,
and in separation from it will assuredly be misconstrued. Equal love
of neighbor can be no requirement of _religion_, save as it
depends on the prior obligation of supreme devotion to a common
Father, whose forbearing, forgiving love extends equally to all.
Imitation of that Father's goodness and forbearance, overcoming the
evil of the world with good, is the one teaching, the comprehensive,
unifying principle, of the Sermon on the Mount. But the God whose
goodness this great discourse sets up as the standard of the
righteousness of all "sons and daughters of the Highest" is not a
_non-resistant_ God. It is the just and merciful God depicted in
those Scriptures wherein Jesus read his beneficent will and purpose
for the world.
It is not enough for the Christian merely "to do nothing contrary to
the law of love"; he must actively toil and suffer in its service,
fighting to the death. His personal enemy he may and must forgive.
Enemies have thus been won to the kingdom. The enemy of the weak and
defenceless brother he must resist. The enemy of God's kingdom he must
fight to the death. It is true that this foe of God is no human or
visible foe. Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; it is
against the principalities and powers of darkness in the heavenly
places. But we do not beat the air. This power of darkness finds
incarnation in human form at least as readily as the Power of light.
He fights with real and concrete weapons, and this reality is the
ultimate test. For the foe who thus incarnates the evil power the
Christian has no hatred as brother-man; only as agent of the evil
power. The hatred ceases when the man renounces the evil allegiance.
Hence the paradox of love that may necessitate a blow. Self-deception
is here all too easy, but absolutely selfless devotion may be trusted
even here not to substitute its own cause for God's.
The very paragraph from which the non-resistants draw their doctrine
has this conclusion:
Wherefore seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these (outward blessings) shall be added unto you.
It is because Jesus sought _first_ the kingdom, which means
righteousness, peace and good will among men, sovereignty of right
over might, overthrow of the powers of darkness which claim as their
own the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, that he could
teach as the best means to its attainment forbearance and
loving-kindness to the limit. For a limit there is--the _divine_
limit of the welfare of all. Loyalty to this ideal led Jesus to crown
his sublime teaching with action sublimer still. When the scenes of
his earlier ministry were closed, he left the quiet paths of teacher
and healer in Galilee to tread the martyr's road, and to set up in his
own cross an ensign to rally the scattered and bleeding flock of God.
Because he sought "first the kingdom of God" Jesus held back his
disciples from the bloody and disastrous path of Zealot fanaticism,
and bade Peter return his futile sword to its sheath. For the same
reason and no other he depicted to his disciples the Good Shepherd
laying down his life in defence of the flock, and poured scorn upon
the hireling who "when he seeth the wolf coming, leaveth the sheep and
fleeth." It is for the same reason and no other that he also warned
them of days to come when it should be the duty of the disciple
unprovided with a sword to "sell his garment and buy one," days when
only he that endured unto the end, fighting to the death against the
powers of darkness, should be saved.
Jesus teaches _unlimited_ non-resistance where only personal and
selfish interests are at stake; but resistance unto blood for the sake
of the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. In this he _is_
inconsistent with non-resistant pacifism that can see no difference
between this doctrine and that of Buddha or Lao-tse. Jesus even
reverses that Bolshevist pacifism that to save its own skin throws to
the Turkish-Teuton wolves the bleeding remnant of the earliest
historic flock of Christ. He approves rather shepherds that give their
lives fighting in defence of their helpless charge. He _is_
inconsistent with the theories and philosophies of non-resistance; but
he is consistent, sublimely consistent, with his own gospel of the
sovereignty of God.
The rule of truly Christian pacifism is not hard to understand when we
approach it from the standpoint of those who after the precept and
example of Jesus seek _first_ the Kingdom of God. Men of this
type are ready like "all the saints who nobly fought of old" to lose
their lives in this high cause, that they may save them unto life
eternal. For individuals and for nations the rule is the same: "In
thine own cause strike never, not even in self-defence; in God's cause
strike when he bids thee strike and cease not, come victory or death."
There is, no doubt, an easy self-delusion, prone to identify its own
cause with God's. But against this blasphemous egotism human history
henceforth will ever set up the abhorrent warning of a certain
imperial attitudinizer whom we do not need to name. There is a time
for forbearance, patience, longsuffering, up to the limit of the
forbearance of that God who seeks only the good of all, and who seeks
it in wisdom and justice as well as in forbearance. The time is _up
to that limit_, and not beyond it. If the enemy can be won, win
him. Turn the other cheek, surrender tunic along with cloak. But
forbearance is not meant to play into the hands of the evil power.
There is also a time when it only gluts the ravenous maw of inhuman,
soulless tyranny, a time when incarnate evil sits in the very temple
of God, setting itself forth as God, a time when the law of violence
is openly avowed and exalted above the law of mercy and right, a time
of the beast and the false prophet, threatening to turn civilization
back again to the age of Lamech and Tubal-cain. That is a time to
remember also the commandment, "Let him that hath no sword sell his
cloak and buy one," and the promise: "He that overcometh, I will give
to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat
down with my Father on his throne."
[1] Rom. 12:20, citing Prov. 25:21-22.
[2] See below as to the fourth evangelist's explanation of Jesus'
claim to be the Davidic Shepherd of Israel only in the sense of
uniting the scattered flock of God.
[3] The citations are all from the unquestioned writings of the First
Isaiah, Isa. 2:2-4; 3:1-5; 9:2-7 and 28:1-6. The rendering is made
independently from the Hebrew.
[4] Mal. 3:1-4; 4:1-6.
[5] Paul is elaborating Isa. 57:19.
[6] Mk. 6:34; 14:27 and parallels.
[7] Ezek. 34.
[8] "New Wars for Old," pp. 252-258.
[9] _Ibid._ p. 223.
[10] _Ibid._ p. 258.