VI.

THE GOLDEN RULE.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. LUKE vi. 31.

THIS verse begins with "and," showing that in the mind of the writer, at least, it formed part of the more extended discourse in which it has its setting. This in turn had its occasion in circumstances which are not obscurely hinted at. Jesus' attention had doubtless been called to the feud between his countrymen and the foreign soldiery which kept them in subjection. Wanton abuse and insult, petty oppression and robbery, were the lot of the conquered people; and it was not strange that against the oppressor and all his agents the bitterest hatred should be cherished, the most uncharitable judgments formed, and the most useless and suicidal resistance frequently made. It was intolerably humiliating to the honest and innocent citizen, trained as a Jew to a sense of his rights, to receive an unprovoked blow given in the insolence of power, which could be resented only at the peril of life. It was certainly outrageous that any soldier who happened to be chilly or

lazy might take his coat or impress him as a beast of burden. The sensitiveness of a proud but unfortunate people naturally inferred that both the soldier and his government were prompted by malice.

In the light of a calm philosophy, however, like that of Epictetus, this judgment is seen to be hasty. The Roman government was not deliberately cruel. Even toward the Jew who so tried its patience, it cherished no ill feeling. It exterminated him when it had to exterminate, for the sake, not of revenge, but of policy. It neither loved nor hated. It was as soulless as a modern trust. Like that it simply ruled and collected revenue, using for that purpose such mercy or such ruthlessness as was likely to be most effective. It bought its common soldiers in the cheapest market; and that they were fierce and brutal to civilians was an incident of their efficiency in war.

The soldiers themselves were no more malicious than the government. They were such men as the age produced for the place, and their brutality had no worse motive than thoughtless selfishness; while to their victims it appeared as though both they and their masters were moved by diabolical hatred, and merited the bitterest feeling in return. And this rankling hatred in the hearts of the oppressed against the oppressor was the cause of more than half their misery.

The task, set for the Messiah by popular ex

pectation, of delivering the Jews from political servitude, Jesús had declined. Unsophisticated as he may have been, his instincts warned him that a political deliverance would have been at that time a deceitful boon, and that the first thing necessary, and the only thing feasible, was to undertake to impart a moral superiority, which should make any other yoke than that of sin seem trifling. Heavy certainly were the taxes, the insults many times harder to bear, and the robberies and impressings most humiliating and exasperating. But the spirit in which they were received made them tenfold worse. If only a more reasonable, not to say a sweeter, spirit could be infused, the poison in the sting of political servitude would be neutralized, present unavoidable evils might be borne, and the future awaited with patience and hope. If the feeling of insult and exasperation could be removed, an unprovoked blow would hurt no more than any other, and even its repetition could be invited without shrinking. It was bad to be struck on one cheek. But even mere philosophers had

learned how to turn the other. It was hard to lose one's coat. It was worse to be warmed ever afterward by the fires of resentment. Better let the cloak go too. Better submit to twice the injustice, if one can thereby so conquer self as to cease blaming for a devil the robber who is only a brute, and only imperfectly responsible for being a brute. Philosophy alone, that is, reasonableness

aside from sweetness, could so far allay hatred, and remove the sense of humiliation. It was easy enough to see, if we would but look with impartial eyes, that the government and soldiers were no more malicious than the seasons, which also inflicted hardships; and to accept the inevitable evils of foreign rule as one accepts the weather, without fretting or cherishing resentment. Standing by itself, the maxim not to judge, that is not to attribute moral blame, is a dictate of philosophy. Consistently applied, it means the depersonification of God and man. To its eye sin is but a malady, and should excite no indignation. Conversely,

holiness is a symptom of health, and should arouse no more moral admiration than beauty. Jesus as a Stoic philosopher might have laid down the rule, "Judge not."

But Jesus was more than a Stoic philosopher. His doctrine had a flavor of something more vital than "philosophy" could give. It has been characterized by a great critic of our age as not only "reasonableness," but "sweet reasonableness." The sweetness was an ingredient of as much importance as the reasonableness. And this sweetness it was which forbade the inculcation of such moral indifferentism as would be involved in the depersonification of God and man, and the treatment of Roman government and soldiers as though they possessed no more moral character than the climate. It was the aim of Jesus not to banish

the moral feelings, but to transform them. He would change hatred not into callousness, but into love. He would change life from sour not to insipid, but to sweet. The Stoic found life full of painful emotions, and knew no remedy but to empty it. Jesus had the secret of transmuting these emotions from bitter to blessed. And though it be a dark saying, if remembered it will one day emit a light of its own, that Jesus' power of renewing life without denying anything which rightly belongs to the emotional side of it has in it the prophecy of the resurrection.

Jesus' injunction, therefore, not to judge, which is a part of this discourse wherein the so-called golden rule is imbedded, is itself to be judged in the light of its context, which also contains the injunction to love our enemies, and apparently to practice the rule of non-resistance. It seems to aim at more than to show the unreasonableness of hating men, and to seek to clear the way for loving them. But, the pharisee and moralist will ask, if we cannot judge, how shall we love more than hate? For if we cannot judge, we can neither approve nor condemn. Here comes in that transcendental philosophy of Jesus, whose principle is that love shall be bestowed not according to but independently of approval. Jesus loved men and inculcated love, not because they were good or bad, but because we are the children of the Highest, whose attribute it is to be kind unto the unthank