CHAPTER IV

THE ETHICAL IDEAL OF ST. PAUL

THE subject of our last chapter prepares us for the theme which must now engage our attention. For psychology is the presupposition of ethic. Man's capacities involve his ideals. What he is indicates what he ought to be. This is the element of truth in the dictum of Kant as expressed by Schiller-" Thou canst therefore thou oughtest." Paul painted the moral degradation of the Gentiles in the darkest colours; and we have sufficient evidence that the reality was not less black than the picture. Paganism, like Christianity, must be judged by its performances as well as by its ideals. And Paul is justified of the historians. Yet his breadth of view appears in the fact that he has not lost hope even of those who answer to the terrible indictment of the first chapter in his letter to the Romans. He appeals to the reason and conscience of the natural man. Even if they are without any knowledge of the Old Testament, the heathen have the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts meanwhile excusing or accusing one another. Paul even goes so far as to acknowledge that by some in darkest heathendom the law was not only known but kept. This recognition of the divine in man involves some potency and promise

of spiritual attainment. And so we are led inevitably to the question-what, in the light of this view of the natural man, and of the facts and forces of Christianity, is Paul's conception of the moral ideal, the ultimate aim and end of human life, what is for Paul the highest good? This is, and has always been, for moralists the prime enquiry. Man being what he is, endowed with capacities of body and soul which point to something above and beyond his present attainment, must there not be some supreme goal or ideal for which he is fitted, and which, if he is to fulfil his being's end and aim, he must in some measure realize ? "The moral lawgiver," says Newman Smyth, "is always the man who has some pattern shown him on the Holy Mount."1 Wherever morality is a living power, it reveals itself in consciousness in the form of some vision of the ideal seeking incarnation in man. Whatever may be our theory as to the nature of the ultimate good, it is always a good to be made real, an ideal which demands fulfilment in the actual, a word to be made flesh. Aristotle began his ethics by accepting the definition of the good as that at which all things aim, and he remarked that "knowledge of this end must have a great influence on the whole conduct of life. Like archers shall we not be likely to attain that which is right, if we have a mark?" Life divorced from an ideal is ethically of no value. Man without vision or sense of a higher purpose is undistinguishable from the brute

creation.

2

"Unless above himself he can

Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man.' "3

Some conception of the supreme good is the imperative demand and moral necessity of man's being.

Hence

1 Christian Ethics, p. 49.

3 Vaughan.

2 Nic. Ethics, 1. 2. 2.

the chief business of ethics is to answer the question: what is that supreme good? For what should a man live? What is that largest and best to which all men's powers should be devoted? What, in short, is the ideal of life? It would have been indeed strange if Paul, in common with all the great moralists of ancient and modern times, had not conceived at the outset some definite end or ideal of life. That he did so is everywhere evident in his writings. The most superficial reader of his epistles cannot fail to perceive that at the living heart of all his expositions of truth, of all his appeals to communities and individuals, lay a high conception of the meaning and worth of life, an exalted idea of the duty of man.

What is the ruling conception?

What are the nature, contents and leading characteristics of the moral ideal of St. Paul?

I.

Here we

And first as to the nature of Paul's ideal. must find a starting-point in his own personal history. For we are never allowed to forget that Paul's ethics, like his theology, was the interpretation of his own experience. All has been fused in the fires of his own glowing heart, and shaped in the mould of his own personal needs. Even in his pre-Christian days, before he received the heavenly vision, his was a nature of intense moral earnestness. There was no frivolity or indifference, either in his mental occupations or outward manner of conduct. Even from the earliest he had his ideal. He did not pursue a life of ease or pleasure. Rightly or wrongly, he had a distinct view of man's purpose, and his days were spent in the most assiduous devotion to it. The aim of Paul was the aim of every

G

pious Jew-to obey God and by laborious effort to fulfil the law of righteousness as enjoined in the Hebrew Scriptures. We have nothing to do here with the misgivings which may have troubled him as to whether he could actually achieve the Pharasaic aim of life. His very disquietude made him probably more diligent in his endeavours. While he despaired of his ability, he never wavered in his belief that the law itself was holy, righteous and good. On his conversion, Paul's ideal did not change essentially. It still consisted in the fulfilment of divine righteousness. Life for him always meant life in relation to God. God was to him the beginning and end of existence. What Novalis said of Spinoza might be said of the apostle: "He was a God-intoxicated man." It was so before his conversion, it was even more so after it. For God has now for him a richer meaning and life's ideal is filled with a new content. A new power has taken possession of him and his whole outlook is enlarged. The revelation of the risen Christ which he received on the way to Damascus becomes henceforth the authority and inspiration of his life. His first question is, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" and from that moment, as he himself said, "he was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." God is still supreme: but God the stern lawgiver is brought near in Christ and His will is interpreted through the life of His Son.

A careful study of the epistles discloses three main elements in the Pauline ideal. Man's highest good consists generally in doing God's will and more particularly in the attainment of likeness to Christ and the realization of human brotherhood. The ethical ideal is threefold-holiness, Christlikeness, brotherhood-a relation to God, to Christ, to man. The first is the

pure white light of the ideal: the second is the ideal realized in the one perfect life which is viewed as standard or norm: the third is the progressive realization of the ideal in the life of humanity which is the sphere of the new life and becomes a holy brotherhood by its

means.

1. Holiness as the fulfilment of the divine will. For Paul man's chief end is to glorify God. Man is made for God, and only in the service, of God does he find the clue to the meaning of his own life and the gift of inward rest. "In God's will is our peace." If you ask what then is the will of God, Paul answers without any hesitation: God wills man to be, holy, righteous, perfect. "Be ye holy, for I am holy," is the note of the Old Testament ideal. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect," is the requirement of Christ. Though Paul does not actually employ this language, the whole tenor of his teaching is in harmony with this aim.1 If we examine one or two. passages of the principal epistles we shall see that this requirement of divine holiness lies at the very basis of his ethical ideal for man.

In 1 Thessalonians he reminds his converts of the aim of his missionary labours amongst them, telling them that his preaching of the Gospel of God looks towards the realization of the end of their Christian calling, “that ye might walk worthy of God who hath called you unto His kingdom and glory." 2 And his general exhortation closes with the prayer that "the Lord may make them increase and abound in love towards one another and towards all men, even as we do towards you, to the end

1 Though he does say to the Corinthians (2 Cor. xiii. 9, 11): “This also we wish, even your perfection." "Be perfect."

2 Thess. ii. 12.