preparatory and relative. He bought the church by the sacrifice of
Himself to obtain unimpeded rights over her, because He loved her and
in order to make her morally {217} perfect. The atonement has its
value because it is the removal of the obstacles to Christ working His
positive moral work in her.
We observe again that the sacrifice of Christ is spoken of as offered
for the church, not for the world. Christ does indeed 'will that all
men shall be saved': He did indeed 'take away,' or take up and expiate,
'the sin of the world' in its totality[7]. But the divine method is
that men shall attain their salvation as 'members of Christ's body.'
Thus, if Christ's ultimate object in the divine sacrifice is the world:
His immediate object is the church through which He acts upon the world
and into which He calls every man. 'I pray,' He said, 'not for the
world, but for them whom thou hast given me.' 'He gave himself for us
that he might redeem us ... and purify unto himself a people for his
own possession[8].'
Once more we notice in this passage a significant hint as to St. Paul's
conception of baptism. There is no doubt of the spiritual efficacy
which he assigns to it. And we observe in germ a doctrine of 'matter'
and 'form' in connexion with the sacraments. Baptism is a 'washing of
water' accompanied by a 'word.' The word {218} or utterance which St.
Paul refers to may be the formula of baptism 'into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,' or the 'word of faith' of
which confession is made by the person to be baptized--the confession
that 'Jesus is the Lord[9]'; but in either case the word gives the
rational interpretation to the act. It sets apart what would be
otherwise like any other act of washing, and stamps it for a spiritual
and holy purpose. 'Take away the word, and what is the water but mere
water? The word is superadded to the natural element and it becomes a
sacrament.' So says St. Augustine[10], in the spirit of St. Paul.
This is what is meant by the later theological term 'form[11],' the
'form' being that which differentiates or determines shapeless 'matter'
and makes it have a certain significance or gives it a certain
character. Thus the form of a sacrament is the word of divine
appointment which gives it spiritual significance; and the form and
matter together are essential to its validity. The matter of baptism
is the washing by water: the form is the defining phrase 'I {219}
baptize (or wash) thee into the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost.'
Lastly, we notice that the spiritual union of Christ and His church,
though it is perfect in the divine intention from the first, is in fact
only consummated at the point where the church is freed from the
imperfection of sin and has become the stainless counterpart of Christ
Himself. The love of Christ--the removal of obstacles to His love by
atoning sacrifice--the act of spiritual purification--the gradual
sanctification--the consummated union in glory: these are the moments
of the divine process of redemption, viewed from the side of Christ,
which St. Paul specifies.
2. We come back to St. Paul's conception of marriage to dissipate
misconceptions. It is indeed absurd to speak as if St. Paul were, in
this passage, mainly emphasizing the subjection of the woman, whether
this be done from the conservative side 'to keep women in their place':
or from the point of view of those who desire her emancipation, in
order to represent St. Paul, and so Christianity as a whole, as giving
to women a servile position. Over against the subjection of women, he
sets, and indeed gives more space to emphasize, the self-sacrifice
{220} and service which is due to her from the man. You cannot tear
the one from the other. Like St. Peter so St. Paul would have the
husband 'give honour to the wife--as to the weaker vessel' indeed, but
also as 'joint heir of the grace of life[12].' In essential spiritual
value men and women are equal. 'In Christ is neither male nor female.'
St. Chrysostom rightly bases on this passage a powerful appeal to
husbands to overcome their selfishness in their relation to their
wives. There is nothing servile in the subordination required of the
woman[13]. If 'the husband is the head of the wife, the head of the
husband is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.' Christ even is
subordinate. And the character of the headship of the husband {221}
altogether excludes the idea that women are to be married in order to
serve men's selfish interests or gratify their passions.
Then we must notice that St. Paul is impressing upon us a moral ideal
of which the two parts are inseparable. St. Paul says nothing to
indicate that where the relations are not ideal--where the husband is
selfish or brutal--law should not step in to protect the interests of
the wife and secure her against the insults or cruelties or frauds of
the husband. He is expressing a moral ideal[14]; while law must be
largely content with preventing outrage and securing a background on
which ideals can become possible. And just as St. Paul tells
Christians that they are to obey magistrates as God's
ministers--leaving it to be understood that when they command what is
contrary to God's will, 'we ought to obey God rather than men'; so in
the same way he speaks of the wife's (or child's or slave's) duty of
subjection, leaving a similar reservation likewise to be tacitly
understood. Obedience is to be 'in the Lord.'
3. But no doubt St. Paul does emphasize the subordination of women to
men. He will {222} not ordinarily[15] permit the woman 'to teach (in
the public assembly) nor to have dominion over a man[16].' He clearly
does not think the difference of male and female is merely physical,
but perceives that the characteristic moral perils of the sexes[17] are
different: he assigns to man the governing and authoritative position,
and to woman the more retired and 'quieter[18]' functions. It may
indeed be argued that in certain details St. Paul's injunctions are for
his time only, and no more of perpetual obligation than his prohibition
of second marriages to the clergy is assumed to be, or his
quasi-recognition of slavery. But this argument carries us but a
little way. The most of what St. Paul says of men and women is based
on a principle which he conceives to be divine, and which all history
and experience confirms. The position of women in Christendom has
often fallen far short of what is truly Christian: but no attempted
rectification will be found otherwise than disastrous which ignores the
fundamental principle. All through the animal kingdom mental
differences accompany the physiological difference between the sexes.
Experience teaches {223} that women, as a whole, are superior to men in
certain moral qualities--in self-sacrifice, sympathy, purity, and
compassion, and in religious feeling, reverence and devotion: but
inferior to them in the moral qualities which are concerned with
government--in justice, love of truth and judgement, in stability and
reasonableness. Intellectually women have very often greater quickness
of apprehension and memory, greater power in learning languages,
greater artistic sensibility. But they are conspicuously inferior in
the constructive imagination, in creative genius, in philosophy and
science. It is sometimes said that if women had been as well educated
as men--and assuredly on Christian principles they ought to be, if
differently, yet equally well educated--they would have created as
much. Why, then, have almost no women been poets of the first order,
or musical composers, or painters? For in these artistic walks of life
their education has been in many countries better and more continuous.
To maintain that men and women are only physiologically different is to
run one's head against the brick wall of fact and science, no less than
against St. Paul's and St. Peter's principles[19].
{224}
It remains true that
'women is not undevelopt man
But diverse ... seeing either sex alone
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies
Nor equal, nor unequal[20].'
4. It is necessary to add something about the position assigned by St.
Paul, in other epistles, to unmarried women; and to notice the relation
of his 'theory of women' to earlier Jewish ideas and those current in
general society.
Nothing could well exceed the influence or nobility of the position of
the Jewish wife and mistress of the household, as it is given, for
example, in the Book of Proverbs[21]. That position St. Paul can
perpetuate and deepen, but hardly augment. And the Old Testament
recognized an altogether exceptional position in certain women endowed
with the gift of prophecy, like Miriam and Deborah and Huldah, who in
virtue of their gift exercised a public and {225} quasi-political
ministry. Thus in the Christian community also there were
prophetesses, and St. Paul, in the same epistle in which he forbids
women in general to teach in public, seems to leave room for such
exceptional women to 'pray or prophecy' in the Christian congregation
with their heads covered[22]. Thus in fact all down Christian history
there have been at intervals exceptional women with unmistakable gifts
for guiding souls in private and directing public policy, like St.
Catherine of Siena, or with gifts of government like St. Hilda, whom
the Church has rightly accepted as divinely endowed. Where
Christianity appears to have made a fresh departure in regard to women
was in the organized consecration of the gift of female ministry. The
deaconesses like Phoebe, and women like Lydia and Priscilla, are most
characteristic Christian figures; and they have a long line of
successors in later deaconesses and 'widows,' and sisters of mercy, and
nurses and teachers. It was the ignominy of the Church of England that
for so long she narrowed down the functions of women to those which
belong to wives and daughters at home. Multitudes of {226} women need
other than domestic spheres and are happier away from home; and we may
thank God that--apart from the specially political and judicial
functions which are proper to men--the widest sphere of influence and
service is now again being thrown open to women.
How pitiable it was that, in face of all Christian experience and of
the authoritative language of the New Testament, unmarried women should
have no prospect opened to them but such as was drearily summed up in
the phrase 'old maids.' St. Paul, if in this epistle he is glorifying
the married state, certainly also glorifies both for men and women the
freedom of the celibate life consecrated to the service of God--the
consecration of those who in a special sense are the virgin-brides of
Christ. We may be thankful indeed that now, if somewhat tardily, it
has received from the largest assembly of Anglican bishops ever
gathered together an altogether ungrudging recognition[23].
It has been very frequently observed that, especially in Asia Minor,
women in St. Paul's day were attaining in non-Christian society
positions of great influence and dignity. We find them {227} very
commonly holding priesthoods and public offices and magistracies. It
would appear, however, that too much may be made of this. The
populations of the Asiatic towns loved to be entertained with expensive
games and largesses of money and grain, and to have temples built and
endowed for them. Wealthy women of noble families were elected to
priesthoods and offices where they could exercise their acceptable
liberality in these ways. But the offices were rather of dignity than
of practical government, and were closely associated with priesthoods.
There is no evidence that women in Asiatic cities could assist at
assemblies, or give votes, or speak in public, or serve on legations,
or enter into political relations with the Roman authorities. There
were women among the Asiarchs, but probably only when they were
associated in an honorary manner with their husbands. In the early
Christian church the influence of women was put to far nobler uses than
in Asiatic cities; but their position relatively to men was not far
different from what would have been recognized in the general society
of that region[24]. In other parts of the empire the {228} women of
the Christian church were conspicuously in advance of those outside.
In somewhat later days of the Church there was some resentment at the
high and free position assigned to women in the New Testament
documents. Thus one celebrated MS. of the New Testament[25]--the Codex
Bezae--changes 'not a few of the honourable Greek women and of men'
(Acts xvii. 12) into 'of the Greeks and the honourable, many men and
women.' In xvii. 34 it cuts out Damaris. And in xvii. 4 it changes
the 'leading women' into 'wives of the leading men.' The spirit which
prompted these changes in an early Christian scribe and reviser, has
not been wanting in much later ages, though it had not a chance of
tampering with our sacred texts.
B. PARENTS AND CHILDREN. VI. 1-4.
[Sidenote: _Parents and children_]
After laying down the principles which determined the relation of wives
to their husbands, St. Paul turns to the relation of children to their
parents. The wives are to be _subordinate_ to their husbands.
Children are to be _obedient_ to their parents as part of their duty
'in the {229} Lord,' as members of His body. They are to show honour
to their parents as directed by the commandment which we call the
fifth, but which St. Paul here probably calls 'a commandment standing
first accompanied with promise.' It stands first among those which
refer to our neighbour grouped apart--as our Lord also says 'Thou
knowest the commandments,' and then specifies those six alone[26]. And
it is accompanied with a promise implied in the words 'that it may be
well with thee and that thou mayest live long in the land[27]'--a
promise that the prosperity and permanence of the nation shall be bound
up with the observance of the natural law of obedience to those from
whom we derive our life. I say the prosperity of the nation, and so no
doubt secondly of the individual; but all through the Ten Commandments
the individual is regarded only as part of the nation.
The other translation of these words--'which is the first commandment
with promise'--is one to which the original Greek does not seem to give
any preference, and which does not give a good sense, for the fifth
commandment has neither {230} more nor less of promise than the second,
and in what we now call 'the second table' it stands alone as having a
promise implied.
Here again in dealing with children St. Paul passes from the duty of
the subject to that of the authority. Fathers are exhorted not to
irritate their children, as in the Epistle to the Colossians they are
not to provoke them, or, as the word may perhaps mean, overstimulate
them so as to lead to their losing heart[28]. A broken spirit and a
sullen spirit are alike bad signs in youth. But this does not mean
that they are not to be disciplined; discipline is God's purpose for us
all through life, and in childhood and youth parents are the ministers
of God to discipline their children and put them in mind to obey God.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy
father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that
it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And,
ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the
chastening and admonition of the Lord.
We may notice in this passage the implication of infant baptism. The
children are addressed 'in the Lord,' that is as already members of the
{231} body of Christ. The children of any one Christian parent are, in
1 Cor. vii. 14, described as 'holy'--that is consecrated or dedicated
by the circumstances of their birth and the opportunity which it
supplies for Christian education--and thus fit subjects for baptism.
In fact it is probable that Christianity took from the Jews the
practice of infant baptism. Within their own race indeed there was no
need of a ceremony of incorporation. For the son of Jewish parents was
_born_ a member of the chosen people. But a proselyte was--certainly
before our Lord's time--made a Jew with a _baptism_[29] which was
regarded as his new birth, his naturalization into a new and higher
race. And if the proselyte had children they were baptized with him as
'little proselytes[30].' With a new depth of meaning this practice of
infant baptism was taken over by the Christian church in the case of
those already dedicated to God by the spiritual opportunities of their
birth and education, so that the beginnings of growth might be
sanctified, like our Lord's childhood, in the Spirit.
{232}
We must also take to heart in our day the lesson of the fifth
commandment, as re-enforced by St. Paul, with its converse in the duty
of parents. Domestic obedience is somewhat at a discount, it is to be
feared, in this generation in most classes of society; and this is a
very grave peril. Parents, wealthy as well as poor, are very commonly
disposed to make schoolmasters and schoolmistresses do the work of
discipline for them, while they retain for themselves the privilege of
spoiling their children. There are, however, of course, very many
exceptions. There are multitudes of homes where discipline is
exercised wisely and lovingly, and children find obedience always a
duty and mostly a joy. This is certainly the only divinely appointed
method by which we are to be prepared for the obedience and
self-discipline required of us when we grow to be what is falsely
described as 'our own masters.' And St. Paul's twofold admonition to
parents is full of wisdom: they are not to provoke their children so
that they become bad-tempered, and they are not to over-stimulate them,
by competition or otherwise, so that they become disheartened. But to
nourish them by appropriate food, mental and spiritual as well as
physical, so that they may grow to the full {233} stature and strength
which God intends for them.
C. MASTERS AND SLAVES. VI. 5-9.
[Sidenote: _Masters and slaves_]
St. Paul's method in dealing with slavery is well known. The slave is
in a position really, at bottom, inconsistent with human individuality
and liberty, as Christianity insists upon it. Thus, to go no further,
the male slave and his wife are liable (in all systems of slavery) to
be sold apart from one another. This puts in its plainest form the
inconsistency of slavery with Christianity. The slave is a living
rational tool of another man, and not his brother with fundamentally
the same spiritual right to 'save his life' or make the best of his
faculties. Thus where a slave _can_ obtain liberty St. Paul exhorts
him to prefer it[31]. And when he is dealing with the Christian master
Philemon, whose runaway slave, Onesimus, has become Christian under St.
Paul's influence, he exhorts him to receive him back, no longer as a
slave, but as a brother beloved[32]. But Christianity enlisted in no
premature crusade against slavery as an institution--premature, because
Christianity was not yet in the position to fashion a civilization of
{234} her own. It left it to be undermined by the Christian spirit.
Thus St. Paul exhorts slaves to obey, and that in more forcible
language than he has applied even to children, 'with fear and
trembling'; that is with an intense anxiety to do their duty. They are
to perform their work as in God's sight, thoroughly--He being the
inspector of it who can infallibly tell good work from bad--and 'from
the heart,' that is, putting their will and mind into it. They are to
do it as to the Lord, knowing that no good work, however menial or
uninteresting, is wasted, but shall be received back, in its product or
legitimate fruit, as 'its own reward' from Christ's hand. In the
Epistle to Timothy, this additional reason for diligent service is
given, that if Christian slaves get a reputation for slackness they
will bring discredit upon the Christian name[33]. And in the same
passage a touch is added which shows what, even in its possible
perversions, the spirit of brotherhood really meant, 'They that have
believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren;
but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the
benefit are believers and beloved.'
{235}
And the masters are exhorted to remember that true principle of human
equality--that 'with God is no respect of persons,' that in God's sight
each man counts for one, and no one counts for more than one; each
having an equal claim and duty in the sight of the one Master under
whom all are servants. Thus they are to deal with their slaves in the
same spirit of duty as their slaves should have toward them, and they
are to treat them with the respect due to brother men 'forbearing
threatenings.'
Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your
masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto
Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as servants
of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing
service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men: knowing that whatsoever
good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the
Lord, whether _he be_ bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same
things unto them, and forbear threatening: knowing that both their
Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with
him.
Christianity has long abolished slavery so far as the legal status of
the slave is concerned. But the principles of mastership and service
are still to be learned in this brief section of St Paul's writing; and
if we really believed that 'with {236} God is no respect of persons'
there would be neither scamping of work and defrauding of employers,
nor on the other hand the 'sweating' of the employed and treating of
men and women as if they were tools for the profit of others, instead
of spiritual beings, with each his own divine end to realize.
[1] Is. liv. 5; Jer. iii. 14.
[2] _Prophecies of Isaiah_, vol. ii, p. 188.
[3] 1 Cor. vi. 17.
[4] This, it is well known, was read in the Old Version. It has
vanished (in submission to the verdict of the best MSS.) from the R. V.
But there seems to me to be some force in Alford's plea for the
originality of the words, as they stand in 'Western' and later texts.
[5] Acts xx. 28.
[6] 'Washing.' Marg. 'laver.'
[7] John i. 29.
[8] John xvii. 9; Tit. ii. 14.
[9] Rom. x. 9; cp. Acts xxii. 16.
[10] _In Joan, tract._ 80. Cf. Irenaeus _c. haer._ v. 2, 3.
[11] See St. Thom. Aq., _Summa_, Pars iii. Qu. lxx. art. 6 _ad_ 3.
[12] 1 Pet. iii. 7.
[13] It is noticeable that St. Paul does not (according to the Revised
Version which represents the original) exactly enjoin _obedience_ upon
wives (as upon children and slaves) but _subjection_: cf. Col. iii. 18;
1 Cor. xiv. 34; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 1. If however in the
use of the 'obey' in the vow of the wife our marriage service goes an
almost imperceptible stage beyond St. Paul, its general tone preserves
St. Paul's balance admirably. The husband 'worships' the wife and
endows her with all his worldly goods. The only other ecclesiastical
formula of ours in which the word worship is used of a purely human
relation, is the peer's oath of allegiance to the sovereign at the
coronation, 'I do become your liegeman of life and limb and of earthly
worship: and faith and troth I will bear unto you to live and to die
against all manner of folks.'
[14] How many husbands are capable of 'teaching their wives at home'
about religion? see 1 Cor. xiv. 35.
[15] See however below, p. 225.
[16] 1 Tim. ii. 12; 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.
[17] 1 Tim. ii. 8, 9.
[18] 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; cf. 1 Pet. iii. 4.
[19] All this has been admirably stated by George Romanes, whom no one
could accuse of misogyny, in his essay on 'the mental differences
between men and women.' See Essays (Longmans, 1897), pp. 113 ff. And
the statements of the text are supported by Mr. Havelock Ellis' _Man
and Woman_ (Contemp. Science Series). Mr. Ellis is sometimes less
decisive than Mr. Romanes. But see capp. xiii, xiv.