Opposed to this group of persons, united in the way in which they look at the Gospel but divided in their opinions in regard to it, there is another group upon whom it makes quite a different impression. They assert that as for any direct interest on Jesus’ part in the economical and social conditions of his age; nay, further, as for any rudimentary interest in economical questions in general, it is only read into the Gospel, and that with economical questions the Gospel has absolutely nothing to do. Jesus, they say, certainly borrowed illustrations and examples from the domain of economics, and took a personal interest in the poor, the sick, and the miserable, but his purely religious teaching and his saving activity were in no way directed to any improvement in their earthly position: to say that his objects and intentions were of a social character is to secularize them. Nay, there are not a few among us who think him, like themselves, a “Conservative,” who respected all these existing social differences and ordinances as “divinely ordained.”
The voices which make themselves heard here are, as you will observe, very different, and the different points of view are defended with zeal and pertinacity. Now, if we are to try to find the position which corresponds to the facts, there is, first of all, a brief remark to be made on the age in which Jesus lived. Our knowledge of the social conditions in Palestine in his age and for some considerable time previously does not go very far; but there are certain leading features of it which we can establish, and two things more particularly which we can assert.
The governing classes, to which, above all, the Pharisees, and also the priests, belonged—the latter partly in alliance with the temporal rulers—had little feeling for the needs of the people. The condition of those classes may not have been much worse than it generally is at all times and in all nations, but it was bad. Moreover, there was here the additional circumstance that mercy and sympathy with the poor had been put into the background by devotion to public worship and to the cult of “righteousness.” Oppression and tyranny on the part of the rich had long become a standing and inexhaustible theme with the Psalmists and with all men of any warm feelings. Jesus, too, could not have spoken of the rich as he did speak, unless they had grossly neglected their duties.
In the poor and oppressed classes, in the huge mass of want and evil, amongst the multitude of people for whom the word “misery” is often only another expression for the word “life,” nay, is life itself—in this multitude there were groups of people at that time, as we can surely see, who, with fervent and steadfast hope, were hanging upon the promises and consoling words of their God, waiting in humility and patience for the day when their deliverance was to come. Often too poor to pay even for the barest advantages and privileges of public worship, oppressed, thrust aside, and unjustly treated, they could not raise their eyes to the temple; but they looked to the God of Israel, and fervent prayers went up to him: “Watchman, what of the night?” Thus their hearts were opened to God and ready to receive him, and in many of the Psalms, and in the later Jewish literature which was akin to them, the word “poor” directly denotes those who have their hearts open and are waiting for the consolation of Israel. Jesus found this usage of speech in existence and adopted it. Therefore when we come across the expression “the poor” in the Gospels we must not think, without further ceremony, of the poor in the economic sense. As a matter of fact, poverty in the economic sense coincided to a large extent in those days with religious humility and an openness of the heart towards God, in contrast with the elevated “practice of virtue” of the Pharisees and its routine observance in “righteousness.” But if this were the prevailing condition of affairs, then it is clear that our modern categories of “poor “and “rich” cannot be unreservedly transferred to that age. Yet we must not forget that in those days the economical sense was also, as a rule, included in the word “poor.” We shall, therefore, have to examine in our next lecture the direction in which a distinction can be made, or perhaps to ask, whether it is possible to fix the inner sense of Jesus’ words in spite of the peculiar difficulty attaching to the conception of “poverty.” We can have some confidence, however, that we shall not have to remain in obscurity on this point; for in its fundamental features the Gospel also throws a bright light upon the field covered by this question.
LECTURE VI
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