With this we have already passed to the next question which was to occupy our attention, and we have half answered it.
(4) The Gospel and work, or the question of civilisation.
The points which we shall have to consider here are essentially the same as those which we emphasized in regard to the question just discussed; and we shall therefore be able to proceed more concisely.
Jesus’ teaching has been felt again and again, but above all in our own day, to exhibit no interest in any systematic work or calling, and no appreciation of those ideal possessions which go by the name of Art and Science. Nowhere, people say, does Jesus summon men to labour and to put their hands to the work of progress; in vain shall we look in his words for any expression of pleasure in vigorous activity; these ideal possessions lay far beyond his field of vision. In that last, unhappy book of his, The Old Faith and the New, David Friedrich Strauss gave particularly harsh expression to this feeling. He speaks of a fundamental defect in the Gospel, which he considers antiquated and useless because out of sympathy with the progress of civilisation. But long before Strauss the Pietistic movement exhibited the same sort of feeling. The Pietists tried to evade the difficult}” in a way of their own. They started from the position that Jesus must be able to serve as a direct example for all men, whatever their calling; that he must have proved himself in all the situations in which a man can be placed. They admitted that a cursory examination of Jesus’ life disclosed the fact that this requirement was not fulfilled; but they were of opinion that on a closer inspection it would be found that he was really the best bricklayer, the best tailor, the best judge, the best scholar, and so on, and that he had the best knowledge and understanding for everything. They turned and twisted what Jesus said and did until it was made to express and corroborate what they wanted. Although it was a childish attempt which they made, the problem of which they were sensible was nevertheless of some moment. They felt that their consciences and their callings bound them to a definite activity and a definite business; they were clear that they ought not to become monks; and yet they were anxious to practise the imitation of Christ in the full sense. They felt, then, that he must have stood in the same situation as they themselves, and that his horizon must have been the same as theirs.
Here we have the same case as we dealt with in the last section, only covering a wider field. It is the ancient and constantly recurring error, that the Gospel has to do with the affairs of the world, and that it is its business to prescribe how they are to be carried on. Here, too, the old and almost ineradicable tendency of mankind to rid itself of its freedom and responsibility in higher things and subject itself to a law, comes into play. It is much easier, in fact, to resign oneself to any, even the sternest, kind of authority, than to live in the liberty of the good. But apart from this, the question remains: Is it not a real defect in the Gospel that it betrays so little sympathy with the business of life, and is out of touch with the humaniora in the sense of science, art, and civilisation generally?
I answer, in the first place: What would have been gained if it had not possessed this “defect”? Suppose that it had taken an active interest in all those efforts, would it not have become entangled in them, or, at any rate, have incurred the risk of appearing to be so entangled? Labour, art, science, the progress of civilisation—these are not things which exist in the abstract; they exist in the particular phase of an age. The Gospel, then, would have had to ally itself with them. But phases change. In the Roman Church of to-day we see how heavily religion is burdened by being connected with a particular epoch of civilisation. In the Middle Ages this Church, anxious to participate to the full in all questions of progress and civilisation, gave them form and shape, and laid down their laws. Insensibly, however, the Church identified its sacred inheritance and its peculiar mission with the knowledge, the maxims, and the interests which it then acquired; so that it is now, as it were, firmly pinned down to the philosophy, the political economy, in short, to the whole civilisation, of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, what a service the Gospel has rendered to mankind by having sounded the notes of religion in mighty chords and banished every other melody!
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