with a plan, but an idealist with a vision. His mission was religious. His central desire was to make plain to human souls the relation in which they stand to their heavenly Father. "Lord, shew us the Father," say the disciples, "and it sufficeth us." 1 "The gospel," as a great German scholar remarks, "is not one of social improvement, but one of spiritual redemption." 2 4 Still further, there was at times in the spiritual attitude of Jesus a certain quality of remoteness and detachment from the social problems which were presented to his mind. He refused to be entangled in them. Distribution of property was not within his province: "Man," he says, "who made me a judge or a divider over you?"3 Forms of government were not for him to change: "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." There was political oppression about him to be remedied, there were social unrighteousness and iniquity to be condemned; but Jesus does not fling himself into these social issues of his time. He moves through them with a strange tranquillity, not as one who is indifferent to them, but as one whose eye is fixed on an end in which these social problems will find their own solution. The social questions met him, as it were, on his way, and his dealing with them is occasional and unsystematic. Sometimes, when confronted with 1 John xiv. 8. 2 A. Harnack, 5ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, s. 120. 8 Luke xii. 14. 4 Matt. xxii. 21. such a question, he turns from it to the question of spiritual motive which lies beneath the social demand. He is asked to deal with the special problem of inheritance, and his answer opens the larger question of the love of money: "Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness."1 In short, Jesus will not be diverted by the demand for a social teaching from the special message of spiritual renewal which he is called to bring. In many of the processes of applied science, there are certain results known as by-products, which are thrown off or precipitated on the way to the special result desired. It may happen that these by-products are of the utmost value; but none the less they are obtained by the way. Such a byproduct is the social teaching of Jesus. It was not the end toward which his mission was directed; it came about as he fulfilled that mission. To reconstruct the gospels so as to make them primarily a programme of social reform is to mistake the by-product for the end specifically sought, and, in the desire to find a place for Jesus within the modern age, to forfeit that which gives him his place in all ages.2 To this characteristic of the teaching of Jesus must be added another which has equal significance in its bearing on the social question. It is 1 Luke xii. 15. 2 See also "The Message of Christ to Manhood," Noble Lectures, 1898, II, F. G. Peabody, "The Message of Christ to Human Society," p. 66. the occasionalism of his teaching. Jesus was not the maker of a system. He considers each case by itself. He is not posing at every turn as though the future were listening to him. He gives himself, with complete disinterestedness, to the single person or special group or specific case before him. "Jesus," says Wendt, "was not a scientific teacher, but a popular preacher. He did not present his practical demands in abstract form and systematic development. He applied them to those persons with whom he had directly to do, and to their concrete relations and needs; without qualifying them by limitations and conditions which might come into notice from other points of view." In short, Jesus is primarily thinking of individuals. The initial impulse of his word and work is this thought of the preciousness of personality. The shepherd leaves the ninety and nine sheep and seeks the one that is lost; 2 the woman sweeps the house to find the one piece of money. General principles issue indeed from the discourse of Jesus, as an aroma rises from a rose: but the source of this pervasive fragrance is in that special and individual flower which blooms in his conversation or his deeds. The teaching of Jesus, being thus fragmentary, is often, in its details, inconsistent. One who proposes to follow literally the specific commands 1 8ter Evang.-soz. Kongress, 1897, "Das Eigentum nach christlicher Beurteilung," s. 23. 2 Matt. xviii. 12. 8 Luke xv. 8. of Jesus finds himself immediately plunged into contradictions or absurdities. He accepts the teaching of Jesus concerning non-resistance: "To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; "1 but soon he hears this same counsellor of peace bid his friends sell their garments "and buy a sword." 2 He joins with the modern agitator in repeating the passionate rebuke of Jesus, "Woe unto you that are rich;" and then he looks again and sees the same Jesus meeting the young man who had great possessions, and loving him. He proposes to abandon all luxury and domestic peace in order to follow him who "hath not where to lay his head; "3 and then he looks again and finds this same Jesus serenely sharing the gayety of a wedding feast and the peace of a comfortable home.5 To interpret, therefore, the teaching of Jesus there is needed more than willingness of heart. The study of the gospels calls for common sense. In fact, the devotion to the letter of the New Testament is one of the chief impediments to the perception of its spirit. The very essence of its interpretation lies in the discernment, through the medium of detached utterances, of the general habit of mind of the Teacher. Jesus himself repeatedly intimated that he required this thoughtfulness in his disciples. Those who had ears to hear, he said, could receive his teaching, but to others it 5 John xi. 6. 1 Luke vi. 29. G 8 Matt. viii. 20. 6 Mark iv. 9. "Go, was not given to understand. His teaching was like that of the artist, who does not argue concerning beauty, but utters it, in color or in form, and leaves the problem of appreciation for those who can hear or see. He throws his truth into the world for those who can receive it. he says to those who ask for his doctrine, "and tell John what things ye have seen and heard." By his teaching concerning specific cases the disciples are trained in a certain habit of mind, which in its turn interprets other cases as they arise. It is as Jesus promised that it should be to those who followed him: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth."2 "1 Thus the problem presented to a hearer of Jesus in his own time, or to a reader of his words in the present time, is to receive the teaching of Jesus in the light of the special circumstances and suggestions which prompted it, and to deduce therefrom the general principle which this teaching represents. "If," as Wendt again remarks, "we examine the recorded words of Jesus in an isolated way, we find more than one meaning apparently possible, and are able to decide with certainty for one of those meanings by virtue of our knowledge of the mode of teaching acquired by extensive observation in other cases." The study of the law has been of 2 John xvi. 13. 1 Luke vii. 22. 8"Teaching of Jesus" (tr. 1897), I, p. 106. Compare also Paulsen, "Ethik," s. 72, "The universal applicability of the gospel proceeds from the fact that it is not a philosophical or theological |