in his passion but in the control and guidance of passion does his true greatness lie. It must be remembered that there was less need on Paul's part to advocate the bold assertive qualities of character. The age in which he lived was a militant age, and the people to whom he wrote belonged largely to countries which had been taught to believe that "might is right." The proud Roman, the self-sufficient Greek, the self-righteous Hebrew needed to be reminded rather of those aspects of character which their training would lead them to despise. Jesus and His apostles, therefore, put the moral emphasis of the Gospel on those obligations which human self-seeking is prone to pass over. Neither Paul's life nor his teaching was deficient in the militant virtues.1 But it was eminently true of him what Lessing has remarked of great souls: "we speak least of those virtues which are our truest possession." When, however, occasions arose-and they were not few in those "first Christian days"-for Christ's disciples to put their courage to the front, they did not lack a leader or a battle-cry. Something of "the stern joy which warriors feel" rings at such times in the words of the great apostle. "Quit you like men," he cries, "be strong." Note the calm strength, the quiet assurance of his message to the Philippian Church: "Stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel: and in nothing terrified by your adversaries . . . for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me and now hear to be in me." 2 These are some 1See the fine chapter on Courage and Perseverance in Howson's, The Character of St. Paul. 2 Paul is usually represented in ancient art as bearing a sword. thing more than "brave words." They are the fine and fit utterance of an essentially heroic soul. And they shatter the strange delusion that a morality which lays greater stress on passive endurance than on active virtue, is in any sense easier or demands less courage. There is a heroism of suffering as well as of doing. It sometimes costs more to restrain anger than to retaliate; and the trophies of peace and forgiveness are not less honourable than those of war and contention. Heroic devotion, it has been said, takes many forms-the Saviour's Cross, the martyr's stake, the soldier's glory, the patience of daily suffering-but the spirit of consecration in which the Lord gave His life for the world is at once the ideal and norm of all possible manifestations.1 (2) Once again in the matter of renunciation and affirmation the apostle maintains a beautiful proportion. Paul is Paul is debtor to the Greeks as well as to the Hebrews, and in his attitude to all the great questions of his time Greek culture has its place not less than Jewish restraint. We have already seen that Paul honours the intellect appealing repeatedly to judgment and reason in men, and this without disparagement to the lower powers. If he says, "I buffet my body and bring it in subjection," it is only that it may be the fitter instrument of higher service. If he enjoins renunciation of the world, it is only in so far as it is evil. The world of sense is to be conquered not by suppression but by redemption. Paul is no ascetic. Every gift of God is good if used wisely and with due regard to the welfare of others. Nowhere does he make morality consist in celibacy or abstention from meat or drink. Temperance is his ideal to be modified only at the clear call of altruism. We have 1Newman Smyth. already noted the resolute spirit in which he meets the ascetic tendencies of certain parties in Rome and Colosse. In his own case he deemed it better not to marry, but he lays down no general rule for all. Selfrenunciation is only a means to an end, and if at times he commends abstinence it is as a temporary service of love. Against the background of the earlier moral systems and especially of Stoicism, the grandeur of the Pauline ethics stands clearly revealed. Stoicism narrowed life by suppressing its freedom, while it aimed at the withering of the emotions and the suppression of the passions., Paul everywhere taught and enjoined development and self-expression as the true goal of life. The monastic ideal which prevailed in the earlier centuries of Christianity obtains no support from his teaching. The Buddhist conception-that redemption consists in the withdrawal of oneself from the things of this world-is entirely opposed to the spirit of the apostle.. "Use the world," he exclaims, "while not abusing it." "Ye have been called unto liberty," he writes to the Galatians. "All things are yours," he says to the Corinthians-"The world, life, death, things present, things to come-all are yours, and ye are Christ's and Christ is God's." (3) The same may be said with regard to the relation of the individual to the social virtues. Here, too, he strikes the balance. Each man is to bear his own burden, but the apostle is quick to add that we are to bear one another's burdens. While the individual has to cultivate his personal character, he can only do so by having regard to the affairs of his neighbour. For we are all parts of a larger whole, and just as the various members of the bodily organism find their exercise and use in the service of the entire body, so individuals must not live to themselves alone, but in mutual dependence and reciprocal devotion. 4. Note finally the comprehensiveness and universality of the apostle's moral ideal. Man exists in a variety of relationships. He is a member of the family, the state, the Church; he has duties to himself, to his fellow-men, and to God, and it will be found that the ideal which Paul proclaims extends to all these relations and touches life at every point. Co-extension with humanity is the necessary implicate of the Christian ideal. It will be our task later on to show that the ethic of Paul takes account of man's life in all his complex relationships and conditions. In the meantime, we content ourselves with affirming its sufficiency. It will be found that the ideal not only extends to every sphere of life, but embraces all the highest ends of being. In this organic comprehension of the ideal, social welfare not less than individual attainment is included. Nothing was too trivial or insignificant for the apostle to deal with. Work and pleasure, dress and ornament, eating and drinking, worship and common life, the position of woman, the relation of husband and wife, of parents and children, of masters and servants, of rulers and subjects-all the manifold interests and activities of life have a moral worth. There are no indifferent acts; no sphere of action or of thought is outwith the moral ideal or beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord of Life. "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of Christ." And the apostle's ideal is as universal as it is all-embracing. He appeals to man as man. He knows no aristocracy of rank or intellect. The Christian ideal is the same for all. "Admonishing every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ."1 In this respect we see at once 1 Col. i. 28. A race. the crucial contrast between the ethics of the Christian and the pre-Christian world. In general, classic morality does not escape the limitation of a particularistic conception of the good. It cleaves humanity in twain by an arbitrary line of separation. The Greek moralists divided the world into Greeks and Barbarians, masters and slaves, wise and illiterate: and the blessings of life were attainable by the favoured few alone, the aristocracy of the "The temper of Stoicism," says Lightfoot, "was essentially aristocratic and exclusive, while professing the largest comprehension it was practically the narrowest of all the philosophical castes."1 Zeno's remarkable prediction of one state has often been cited as an evidence of the universality of Stoicism. But how far the Stoic idea fell short of the Christian conception of the kingdom of God may be gathered from Plutarch's commentary upon it. "What Zeno only saw in a dream that has Alexander actually accomplished." As Neander has remarked, Zeno could not see how such a thought could ever be realized; and the great world-conqueror only attained the semblance of unity, a mere external peace, by the force of arms, by the subjugation of humanity under one sway. Nor did Plato and Aristotle ever get beyond the limitations of their time and country. Plato's ideal republic was bounded by the Greek state, while the ethics of Aristotle contemplated nothing greater or more exalted than the sphere of this earthly existence. The kingdom of humanity as conceived by Paul was an idea utterly foreign to the habit of mind of the great masters of Greek philosophy. It is true that the later Stoics preached a kind of cosmopolitanism and equality of man, but we have only to compare the negative, 1 Epistle to the Philippians, p. 322. Quoted by Neander. |