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IN PREPARATION,
Christ as the Creator of iModern Theology and
Relizgion. By the Author of'Ecce Homo.'
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
Publishers,
Boston.








ECCE HOMO.








A SURVEY OF
THE LIFE AND WORK
OF
JESUS CHRIST.
Auctor nominis ejus Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem
Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. TACIT. Ann. 1. 15.
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.




AUTHOR'S EDITION.
STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.




PREFACE.
THOSE who feel dissatisfied with the current conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without
a definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what
to persons not so dissatisfied it seems audacious and
perilous to do. They may be obliged to reconsider
the whole subject from the begirning, and placing
themselves in imagination at the time when he
whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was
simply, as St. Luke describes him, a young man
of promise, popular with those who knew him and
appearing to enjoy the Divine favor, to trace his
biography from point to point, and accept those
conclusions about him, not which church doctors
or even apostles have sealed with their authority,
but which the facts themselves, critically weighed,
appear to warrant.
This is what the present writer undertook to do
for the satisfaction of his own mind, and because,
after reading a good many books on Christ, he felt
still constrained to confess that there was no his(3)




4                  PREFACE.
torical character whose motives, objects, and feel.
ings remained so incomprehensible to him. The
inquiry which proved serviceable to himself may
chance to be useful to others.
What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions whatever are here discussed. Christ,
as the creator of modern theology and religion, will
make the subject of another volume, which, however, the author does not hope to publish for somne
time to come. In the mean while he has endeavored
to furnish an answer to the question, What was
Christ's object in founding the Society which is
called by his name, and how is it adapted to acain
that object?




CONTENTS.
FIRST PART.
cRAP,                               PAGN
I. THE BAPTIST.........  7
II. THE TEMPTATION.......   15
III. THE KINGDOM OF GOD...   24
IV. CHRIST'S ROYALTY....... 37
V. CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS....  49
VI. CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN..... 6I
VII. CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST'S
KINGDOM.........           78
VIII. BAPTISM..........94
IX. REFLECTIONS ON  THE NATURE  OF
CHRIST'S SOCIETY.1.        I00
SECOND PART.
CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.
X. CHRIST'S LEGISLATION COMPARED WITH
PHILOSOPHIC SYSTEMS.        I IS
XI. THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC... I132
XII. UNIVERSALITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RE- 
PUBLIC.. 139




vi              CONTENTS.
CHAP.                                PAGE
XIII. THE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF. 155
XIV. THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY. I69
XV. THE LORD'S SUPPER....      r86
XVI. POSITIVE MORALITY.....  95
XVII. THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY... 206
XVIII  THE LAW OF EDIFICATION...  220
XIX. THE LAW OF MERCY......  245
XX. THE LAW OF MERCY (conztizued). 26z
XXI. THE LAW OF RESENTMENT... 279
XXII. THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.         303
XXIII. THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS (continued) 324
XXIV. CONCLUSION.......            339




ECCE HOMO.
FIRST PART.
CHAPTER I.
THE BAPTIST.
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH sprang from a movement which was not begun by Christ. When he
appeared upon the scene the first wave of this move-:lient had already passed over the surface of the Jewish nation.  He found their hearts recently stirred
by thoughts and hopes which prepared them to listen
to his words. It is indeed true that not Judmaa only
but the whole Roman Empire was in a condition
singularly favorable to the reception of a doctrine and
an organization such as that of the Christian Church.
The drama of ancient society had been played out;
the ancient city life, with the traditions and morality
belonging to it, was obsolete; a vast empire, built
upon the ruins of so many nationalities and upon the
disgrace of so many national gods, demanded new
usages and new objects of worship; a vast peace,
where war between neighboring cities had been the
accustomed condition of life and the only recognized
(7)




8                 ECCE HOMO.
teacher of virtue, called for a new morality. There
was a clear stage, as it afterwards appeared, for a
Universal Church. But Palestine was not only ready
to receive such an innovation, but prepared, even
before the predestined Founder appeared, to mnake
more or less abortive essays towards it. At the,noment of his almost unobserved entrance, the whole
nation were intent upon the career of one who was
attempting in an imperfect manner that which Christ
afterwards fully accomplished.
It was the glory of John the Baptist to have successfully revived the function of the prophet. For several
centuries the function had remained in abeyance. It
had become a remote, though it was still a fondly
cherished, tradition that there had been a time when
the nation had received guidance from commissioned
representatives of its invisible King. We possess still
the utterances of many of these prophets, and when
we consider the age in which they were delivered, we
can clearly perceive that no more precious treasure
was ever bestowed upon a nation than these oracles
of God which were committed to the Jews. They
unite in what was then the most effective way. al that
is highest in poetry and most fundamental in political
science with what is most practical in philosophy and
most inspiring in religion. But prophecy was or e of
those gifts which, like poetry or high art, are paiticularly apt to die out under change of times. Several
centuries had succeeded each other which were all
alike incapable of producing it. When John the
Baptist appeared, not the oldest man in Palestine
could remember to have spoken even in his earliest




THE BAPTIST.                 9
childhood with any man who had seen a prophet.
The ancient scrolls remained, as amongst ourselves
those Gothic cathedrals remain, of which we may
produce more or less faithful imitations, but to the
number of which we shall never add another. In
these circumstances it was an occurrence of the first
magnitude, more important far than war or revolution,
when a new prophet actually appeared. John the
Baptist defied all the opposition of those scribes, who
in the long silence of the prophetic inspiration had
become the teachers of the nation, and who resisted
him with the conservatism of lawyers united to the
bigotry of priests. He made his way back to the
hidden fountains, and received at last that national
acknowledgment which silenced even these professional jealousies, that irresistible voice of the people
in which the Jew was accustomed to hear the voice of
God. Armed with the prophetic authority, he undertook a singular enterprise, of which probably most of
those who witnessed it died without suspecting the
importance, but which we can see to have been the
foundation of the Universal Church.
There may have been many who listened with awe
to his prophetic summons, and presented themselves
as candidates for his baptism in implicit faith that the
ordinance was divine, who nevertheless in after years
asked themselves what purpose it had served. It wfas
a solemn scene doubtless, when crowds from every
part of Palestine gathered by the side of Jordan, and
there renewed, as it were, the covenant made between
their ancestor and Jehovah. It seemed the beginning
of a new age, the restoration of the ancient theocracy,
T1*




IO                ECCE HOMO.
the final close of that dismal period in which the lace
had lost its peculiarity, had taken a varnish of Gieek
manners, and had contributed nothing but a few dull
chapters of profane history, filled with the usual chaos
of faction fights, usurpations, royal crimes, and outbreaks, blind and brave, of patriotism and the love of
liberty. But many of those who witnessed the scene
anl shared in the enthusiasm which it awakened must
have remembered it in later days as having inspired
hopes which had not been realized. It must have
seemed to many that the theocracy had not in fact
been restored, that the old routine had been interrupted only for a moment, that the baptized nation
had speedily contracted new pollution, and that no
deliverance had been wrought from the'wrath to
come.' And they may have asked in doubt, Is God
so little parsimonious of His noblest gift, as to waste
upon a doomed generation that which He did not
vouchsafe to many nobler generations that had preceded them, and to send a second and far greater
Elijah to prophesy in vain?
But if there were such persons, they were ignorant
of one important fact. John the Baptist was like the
Emperor Nerva. In his career it was given him
to do two things — to inaugurate a new r6gime, and
also to nominate a successor who was far greater than
himself. And by this successor his work was taken
up, developed, completed, and made permanent; so
that, however John may have seemed to his own generation to have lived in vain, and those scenes on the
banks of fordan to have been the delusive promise of
a fiuture thb.t was never to be, at the distance of near




THE BAPTIST.               I 
two thousand years he appears not less but far greater
than he appeared to his contemporaries, and all that
his baptism promised to do appears utterly insignificant compared with what it has actually done.
The Baptist addressed all who came to him in the
same stern tone of authority. Young and old gathered round him, and among them must have been
many whom he had known in earlier life, and some to
whom he had been taught to look up with humility
and respect. But in his capacity of prophet he made
no distinction. All alike he exhorted to repentance;
all alike he found courage to baptize. In a single
case, however, his confidence failed him. There
appeared among the candidates a young man of
nearly his own age, who was related to his family.
WVe must suppose that he had had personal intercourse with Christ before; for though one of our
authorities represents John as saying that he knew
him not except by the supernatural sign that pointed
him out at his baptism, yet we must interpret this
as meaning only that he did not before know him
for his successor. For it appears that before the
appearance of the sign John had addressed Christ
with expressions of reverence, and had declared himself unfit to baptize him. After this meeting we are
told that on several occasions he pointed out Christ as
the hope of the nation, as destined to develop the
work he himself had begun into something far more
memorable, and as so greatly superior to himself, that,
to repeat his emphatic words, he was not worthy to
untie his shoe.
Now, before we enter into an examination of Christ's




12                ECCE IIOMO.
own public career, it will be interesting to consider
what definite qualities this contemporary and sagacious
observer remarked in him, and exactly what he expected him to do. The Baptist's opinion of Christ's
character then is summed up for us in the title he gave
him - the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the
woi ld. There seems to be in the last part of this description an allusion to the usages of the Jewish sacrificial system, and in order to explain it fully it would
be necessary to anticipate much that will come more
conveniently later in this treatise. But when we remember that the Baptist's mind was doubtless full of
imagery drawn from the Old Testament, and that the
conception of a lamb of God makes the subject of
one of the most striking of the Psalms, we shall per
ceive what he meant to convey by this phrase. The
Psalmist describes himself as one of Jehovah's flock,
safe under IHis care, absolved from all anxieties by the
sense of His protection, and gaining from this confidence of safety the leisure to enjoy without satiety all
the simple pleasures which make up life, the freshness
of the meadow, the coolness of the stream. It is the
most complete picture of happiness that ever was or
can be drawn. It represents that state of mind for
which all alike sigh, and the want of which makes
life a failure to most; it represents that Heaven which
is everywhere if we could but enter it, and yet almost
nowhere because so few of us can. The two or three
who win it may be called victors in life's conflict; to
them belongs the regnum et diadema ttumzn. They
may pass obscure lives in humble dwellings, or like
Fra Angelico in a narrow monastic cell, but they are




THE BAPTIST.                [3
vexed with no flap of unclean wings about the ceiling.
From some such humble dwelling Christ came to
receive the prophet's baptism. The Baptist was no
lamb of God. He was a wrestler with life, one to
whom peace of mind does not come easily, but only
after a long struggle. His restlessness had driven }him
into the desert, where he had contended for years w iit h
thoughts he could not master, and from whence ihe
had uttered his startling alarum to the nation. Hlle
was among the dogs rather than among the lambs of
the Shepherd. He recognized the superiority of him
whose confidence had never been disturbed, whose
steadfast peace no agitations of life had ever ruffled.
He did obeisance to the royalty of inward happiness.
One who was to earn the name of Saviour of mankrind had need of this gift more than of any other.
He who was to reconcile God and man needed to be
first at peace himself. The door of heaven, so to
speak, can be opened only from within. Such then
was the impression of Christ's character which the
Baptist formed. What now did he expect him to do?
He said that Christ bore a fan in his hand, with
which he would winnow the nation, gathering the
good around him, separating and rejecting the bad.
We shall find occasion soon to speak of this more
particularly; at present let us remark that it shows 1us
what course the Baptist imagined that the movement
he had commenced would take. He had renewed the
old theocratic covenant with the nation. But not all
the nation was fit to remain in such a covenant. A
sifting was necessary; firom the approaching downfall
of the Jewish nationality, from the wrath to come, an




14                 ECCE HOMO.
election should be rescued who should perpetuate
the covenant. It is superfluous to remark how just
this anticipation was, and how precisely it describes
Christ's work, which consisted in collecting all the
better spirits of the nation, and bringing them under
that revised covenant which we call Christianity, and
which survived and diffused itself after the fall of the
Temple.
Further, Christ was to baptize with a holy spivit
and with fire. John felt his own baptism to have
something cold and negative about it. It was a renouncing  of definite bad  practices.  The  soldier
bound himself to refrain firom violence, the tax-gatherer from extortion. But more than this was wanting.
It was necessary that an enthusiasm should be kindled.
The phrase' baptize with fire' seems at first sight to
contain a mixture of metaphors.  Baptism  means
cleansing, and fire means warmth. How can warmth
cleanse? The answer is, that moral warmth does
cleanse. No heart is pure that is not passionate; no
virtue is safe that is not enthusiastic. And such an
enthusiastic virtue Christ was to introduce.  The
whole of the present volume will be a comment on
this text.




CHAPTER II.
THE TEMPTATION.
CET us delay a few more moments on the threshlld
of our subject, while we consider an incident
which is said to have occurred just before Christ
entered upon the work of his life.
Signs miraculous or considered miraculous are said
to have attested the greatness of Christ's mission at
the moment of his baptism. There settled on his
head a dove, in which the Baptist saw a visible incarnation of that Holy Spirit with which he declared that
Christ should baptize. A sound was heard in the sky
which was interpreted as the voice of God Himself,
acknowledging His beloved Son. In the agitation of
mind caused by his baptism, by the Baptist's designation of him as the future prophet, and by these signs,
Christ retired into the wilderness; and there in solitude, and after a mental struggle such as John perIlaps had undergone before he appeared as the prophet
of the nation, matured that plan of action which we
see him executing with the firmest assurance and consistency from the moment of his return to society. A
particular account, also involving some miraculous
circumstances, of the temptations with which he conll
tended successfully in the wilderness, is given in ouI
hi(ographies.




16                ECCE I IOMO.
Miracles are, in themselves, extremely improbable
things, and cannot be admitted unless supported by a
great concurrence of evidence.  For some of the
Evangelical miracles there is a concurrence of evidence which, when fairly considered, is very great
indeed; for example, for the Resurrection, for the
appearance of Christ to St. Paul, for the general fact
that Christ was a miraculous healer of disease. The
evidence by which these facts are supported cannot be
tolerably accounted for by any hypothesis except that
of their being true. And if they are once admitted,
the antecedent improbability of many miracles less
strongly attested is much diminished. Nevertheless
nothing is more natural than that exaggerations and
even inventions should be mixed in our biographies
with genuine facts. Now the miracles of the baptism
are not among those which are attested by strong
external evidence. There is nothing necessarily miraculous in the appearance of the dove, and a peal of
thunder might be shaped into intelligible words by the
excited imagination of men accustomed to consider
thunder as the voice of God. Of the incidents of the
temptation it is to be remarked that they are not
described to us by eye-witnesses; they may have been
communicated to his followers by Christ himself, the
best of witnesses, but we have no positive assurance
that they were so communicated.
On the other hand, a retirement of Christ into the
desert, and a remarkable mental struggle at the beginning of his career, are incidents extremely probable
in themselves; and the account of the temptation,
fiomn whatever source derived, has a very striking




TH-i TEMPTATION.                17
internal consistency, a certain inimitable probability
of improbability, if the expression may be allowed.
That popular imagination which gives birth to rumors
and then believes them, is not generally capable of
great or sublime or well-sustained efforts.
Wunderthitige Bilder sind meist nur schlechte Gemalde.'
The popular imagination is fertile and tenacious, but
not very powerful or profound. Christ in the wilderness was a subject upon which the imagination would
very readily work, but at the same time far too great a
subject for it to work upon successfully; we should expect strange stories to be told of his adventures in such
a solitude, but we should also expect the stories to be
very childish. Now the story of Christ's temptation is
as unique as Christ's character. It is such a temptation as was never experienced by any one else, yet just
such a temptation as Christ, and Christ in those peculiar circumstances, might be expected to experience.
And further, this appropriateness of all the circumstances hardly seems to be perceived by the Evangelists themselves who narrate them. Their narrative
is not like a poem, though it affords the materials foi
a poem; it is rather a dry chronicle.
Let us consider the situation. We are to fix in oui
minds Christ's peculiar character, as it has been gathered from the Baptist's description of him. His character then was such that he was compared to a lamb,
a lamb of God. He was without ambition, and he
had a peculiar, unrivalled simplicity of devout confidence in God. Such is the person to whom it is now
announced by a great prophet that he has been called




JI8               ECCE HOMO.
to a most peculiar, a preeminent career. But thllis
does not fully describe the situation; a most important
circumstance has yet to be mentioned. From the time
of his temptation, Christ appeared as a worker of
miracles. We are expressly told by St. John that he
had wrought none before, but all our authorities concur in representing him as possessing and using the
gift after this time. We are to conceive him therefore
as b)ecoming now for the first time conscious of miraculous powers.' Now none of our biographies point
this out, and yet it is visibly the key to the whole narration. What is called Christ's temptation is the excitement of his mind which was caused by the nascent
consciousness of supernatural power.
He finds himself in a barren region without food.
The tumult of his mind has hitherto kept him unconscious of his bodily wants, but the overwhelming reaction of lassitude now comes on. And with the hunger
comes the temptation,'Son of God, into whose service all natural forces have been given, command that
these stones become bread.' The possession of special
power, and nothing else, constitutes the temptation
here; it is the greatest with which virtue can be assailed. By it the virtuous man is removed from ordinary rules, from the safe course which has been marked
by the footsteps of countless good men before him,
and has to make, as it were, a new morality for himself. In difficult circumstances few men can wield
extraordinary power long without positively committing crime. But here we see the good man placed in a
position utterly strange, deprived of the stay of all precedent or example, gifted with power not only extraor.




THE TEMPTATION.               19
dinary but supernatural and unlimited, and tllrown
for his morality entirely upon the instinct of virtue
within him. Philosophers had imagined some such
situation, and had presented it under the fable of the
ring of Gyges, but with them the only question was
whether distinctions of right and wrong would not
vanish altogether in such circumstances. The ques.
tion by which Christ's mind was perplexed was far
different; it was what newer and stricter obligations
are involved in the possession of new powers.
A strange, and yet, given the exceptional circumstances, a most natural and necessary temptation.
Still more unique, and yet at the same time natural, is
Christ's resistance to it. Unique by its elevation, and
natural by its appropriateness to his character. He is
awe-struck rather than elated by his new gifts; he declines to use for his own convenience what he regards
as a sacred deposit committed to him for the good of
others. In his extreme need he prefers.to suffer rather
than to help himself from resources which he conceives placed in his hands in trust for the kingdom of
God. Did ever inventor or poet dare to picture to
himself a self-denial like this? But, on the other hand,
what course could so exactly suit the character of
Christ as the Baptist painted it? What answer could
more exquisitely become the Lamb of God than that
quotation-' Man doth not live by bread only, but by
every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God'?
Is it not substantially the same as that which the
Psalmist uses in the very psalm in which he pictures
himself as one of God's lambs,' He prepareth for me
a table in the wilderness'?




20                 ECCE HOMO.
Then follows a temptation, which again is extremely
appropriate, because it is founded upon this very confidence of Divine protection. A new temptation arises
by reaction out of the triumph of faith:' Throw thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels
charge over thee, and in their hands they shall bear
thee up.' To no other person but Christ could such a
temptation occur; to him, we may boldly say, such a
temptation mtust, at some time, have occurred. And
if in the Son of God there was filial reverence as well
as filial confidence, it must have been resisted, as it is
recorded to have been resisted,' Thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God.'
The third temptation is somewhat less easy to understand, but its appropriateness to the character and
condition of Christ, and its utter inappropriateness to
every other character and condition, are quite as clear.
A vision of universal monarchy rose before him.
WVhat suggested such thoughts to the son of a carpenter? What but the same new sense of supernatural
power which tempted him to turn stones into bread,
and to throw himself into the arms of ministering
angels? This, together with the Baptist's predictions,
and those Messianic predictions of the ancient prophets, on which we can imagine that he had been intensely brooding, might naturally suggest such an
imagination. He pictured himself enthroned in Jerusalem as Messiah, and the gold of Arabia offered in
tribute to him. But, says the narrative, the devil said
to HlIim, If thou wilt fall down and worship me,
all shall be thine. This, at least, it may be thought,
was not a temptation likely to overcome the Lamb of




THE TEMPTATION.                21
God. One remarkable for simplicity of character, one
who was struggling with the fresh conviction that he
was himself that Messiah, that beloved Son of God,
whose glorious reign wise men had been permitted to
foresee from a distance of centuries; was he, in the
moment of his first enthusiasm, and fresh in the possession of sacred prerogatives of power, which he
feared to use in self-defence even against famiile,
likely to do homage to a spirit of evil for that which
he must have believed to be surely his by gift of God?
We should remember that the report of these temptations, if trustworthy, must have come to us through
Christ himielf, and that it may probably contain the
facts mixed with his comments upon them. We are
perhaps to understand that he was tempted to do
something which on reflection.appeared to him
equivalent to an act of homage to the evil spirit.
What then could this be? It will explain much that
follows in Christ's life, and render the whole story
very complete and consistent, if we suppose that what
he was tempted to do was to employ force in the establishment of his Messianic kingdom. On this hypothesis, the third temptation arises from the same source
as the others; the mental struggle is still caused by the
question how to use the supernatural power. Nothing
more natural than that it should occur to Christ that
this power was expressly given to him for the purpose
of establishing, in defiance of all resistance, his ex erlasting kingdom. He must have heard from  hlis instructors that the Messiah was to put all enemies under
his feet, and to crush all opposition by irresistible Godgiven might. This certainly was the general expecta



22                ECCE HOMO.
tiou; this appeared legibly written in the prophetical
books. And, in the sequel, it was because Christ
refused to use his supernatural power in this way that
his countrymen rejected him. It was not that they
expected a king, and that he appeared only as a
teacher; on the contrary, he systematically described
himself as a king. The stumbling-block was this,
that, professing to be a king, he declined to use the
weapons of force and compulsion that belong to
kings. And as this caused so much surprise to his
countrymen, it is natural that he should himself have
undergone a struggle before he determined thus to run
counter to the traditional theory of the Messiah and to
all th6 prejudices of the nation. The tempter, we may
suppose, approached him  with the whisper,'Gird
thee with thy sword upon thy thigh; ride on, and thy
right hand shall teach thee terrible things.'
If this was the temptation, then again how characteristic of the Lamb of God was the resistance to it,
and at the same time how incomparably great the selfrestraint involved in that resistance! One who believes himself born for universal monarchy, and
capable by his rule of giving happiness to the world,
is intrusted with powers which seem to afford the
ready means of attaining that supremacy.  By the
overwhelming force of visible miracle it is possible for
him to establish an absolute dominion, and to give to
the race the laws which may make it happy. But he
deliberately determines to adopt another course, to
oland his empire upon the consent and not the fears
of mankind, to trust himself with his royal claims and
his terrible purity and superiority defenceless among




THE TEMPTATION.                 23
mankind, and, however bitterly their envy may persecute him, to use his supernatural powers only in doing
them good. This he actually did, and evidently in
pursuance of a fixed plan; he persevered in this
course, although politically, so to speak, it was fatal
to his -position, and though it bewildered his most
attached followers; but by doing so he raised himself
to a throne on which he has been seated for nigh two
thousand years, and gained an authority over men
greater far than they have allowed to any legislator,
greater than prophecy had ever attributed to the
Messiah himself.
As the time of his retirement in the wilderness was
the season in which we may suppose the plan of his
subsequent career was formed, and the only season in
which he betrayed any hesitation or mental perplexity,
it is natural to suppose that he formed this particular
determination at this time; and, if so, the narrative
gains completeness and consistency by the hypothesis
that the act of homage to the evil spirit to which
Christ was tempted, was the founding his Messianic
kingdom upon force.
Such then is the story of Christ's temptation. It
rests, indeed, on no very strong external evidence, and
there may be exaggeration in its details; but in its
substance it can scarcely be other than true, first,
because it is so much stranger than fiction, and next,
because in its strangeness it is so nicely adapted to the
character of Christ as we already know it, and still
more as it will unfold itself to us in the course of this
investigation.




24
CHAPTER III.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
IT is the object of the present treatise to exhibit
Christ's career in outline. No other career ever
had so much unity; no other biography is so simple,
or can so well afford to dispense with details. Men
in general take up scheme after scheme, as circumstances suggest one or another, and therefore most
biographies are compelled to pass from one subject
to another, and to enter into a multitude of minute
questions, to divide the life carefully into periods by
chronological landmarks accurately determined, to
trace the gradual development of character and ripening or change of opinions. But Christ formed one
plan and executed it; no important change took place
in his mode of thinking, speaking, or acting; at least
the evidence before us does not enable us to trace any
such change. It is possible, indeed, for students of
his life to find details which they may occupy themselves with discussing; they may map out the chronology of it, and devise methods of harmonizing the
different accounts; but such details are of little
importance compared with the one grand question,
what was Christ's plan, and throw scarcely any light
upon that question. What was Christ's plan, is the
main question which will be investigated in the




I HE KINGDOM OF GOD             25
present treatise, and that vision of universal monarchy which we have just been considering affords an
appropriate introduction to it.
In discussing that vision we were obliged to anticipate. Let us now inquire as a new question, what
course Christ adopted when he mingled once more
with his fellow-countrymen after his seclusion in the
wilderness, and when he entered upon his public
career? John's message to the nation had been, as
we have seen,'The kingdom of God is at hand.'
Now this proclamation Christ took up from his
lips and carried everywhere. For a while the two
prophets worked simultaneously, though, as it seems,
separately, and the preaching of the one was an echo
of that of the other. Our first object, then, must be
to ascertain what it was which they anticipated under
the name of the kingdom of God. And to ascertain
this we should not look onward to that which actually
took place, but placing ourselves in imagination among
their audience, consider what meaning a Jew would
be likely to attach to the proclamation they delivered.
The conception of a kingdom of God was no new
one, but familiar to every Jew. Every Jew looked
back to the time when Jehovah was regarded as the
King of Israel. The title had belonged to Jehovah
in a very peculiar sense; it hlad not been transferred to
Him from the visible earthly king as in many other
courntries, but appropriated to Him so exclusively that
fir a long time no human king had been appointed,
and that when at last the people demanded to be ruled
by kings like the nations around them, the demand
was treated by the most ardent worshippers of Jehovah
a




26                ECCE HOMO.
as high treason against Him. And though a dyntasty
was actually founded, yet the belief in the true royalty
of Jehovah was not destroyed or weakened, only
modified by the change. Every nation of originality
has its favorite principles, its political intuitions,
to which it clings with fondness. One nation adillires free speech and liberty, another the equality
of all citizens; just in the same manner the Jews
attached themselves to the principle of the Sovereignty of God, and believed the happiness of the
nation to depend upon its free acknowledgment of
this principle. But in the time of Christ all true
Jews were depressed with the feeling that the theocracy was in a great degree a thing of the past, that
they were in a new age with new things about them,
that Greek and Roman principles and ways of thinking were in the ascendant, and that the face of the
Inyisible King no longer shone full upon them. This
feeling had become so deep and habitual, that at a
much earlier time the sect of the Pharisees had been
formed to preserve the peculiarity of the nation from
the inroad of foreign thought, and whatever ancient
Jewish feeling remained had gathered itself into this
sect as into a last citadel. In these circumstances the
cry, the kingdom of God is at hand, could not be mistaken. It meant that the theocracy was to be restored,
that the nation was called to commence a new era by
falling back upon its first principles.
In making this proclamation John and Christ did
not assume any new character. They revived the
obsolete function of the prophet, and did for their
generation what a Samuel and an Elijah had done for




THE KINGDOM OF GOD.              27
theirs. As every great nation has its favolite political
principles, so it has its peculiar type of statesmen.
The nation which strives after individual liberty produces statesmen whose principal qualities are personal
independence, moral courage, and a certain skill in
quarrelling by rule. The pursuit of equality produces
men of commanding will, who are able to crush
aristocratical insolence, and by ruling the country
themnselves to prevent the citizens from tyrannizing
over each other. In like manner the peculiar political
genius of the Jews produced a peculiar type of statesmen. The man who rose to eminence in that commonwealth was the man who had a stronger sense
than others of the presence, power, and justice of the
Invisible King, and his great function was to awaken
the same sense in others by eloquent words and decided acts. The Jewish statesman was the prophet,
and his business was to redeliver to each successive
generation, in the language likely to prove most convincing and persuasive to it, a proclamation of which
the meaning always was,'the kingdom of God is at
hand.' The occasion of such proclamation might be
peculiar and determine it to a peculiar forin, but one
general description of the Jewish prophet will apply
to all of them, including John and Christ, viz. that he
is one who, foreseeing the approach of great national
calamities and attributing them to the nation's disloyalty to their Invisible King, devotes himself to the
task of averting them by a reformation of manners
and an emphatic republication of the Mosaic Iaw.
All the Jewish prophets answer this description,
whether tile calamity they foresee be a plague of




28                ECCE HOMO.
locusts, an Assyrian invasion, a Babylonish captivity,
or a Roman conquest with the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.
So far all prophets must of necessity resemble each
other, but there are other matters in which it is equally
necessary that they should differ. All prophets proclairn one eternal principle, and so far are alike; but
as it is their duty to apply the principle to the special
conditions of their age, they must needs differ as much
as those conditions differ. As the prophet whose
prophecy is new in substance is no prophet, but a deceiver, so the prophet whose prophecy is old in form
is no prophet, but a plagiarist. And thus if the revived theocracy of Christ had been simply and merely
the theocracy of Moses or David, his countrymen
would have had as good a right to deny his prophetic
mission as if he had preached no theocracy at all.
To express the same thing in the language of our own
time, the destinies of a nation cannot be safely trusted
to a politician who does not recognize the difference
between the present and the past, and who hopes to
restore the precise institutions under which the nation
had prospered centuries before. It is therefore most
important to inquire under what form Christ proposed
to revive the theocracy.
We have remarked that the ancient theocracy had
passed through two principal stages. In the first the
sense of Jehovah's sovereignty had been so absorbing
that it had been thought impious to give the name of
king to any human being. It is true that in this stage
the notion of a human representative of Jehovah had
been familiar to the nation. In their dangers and




THE KINGDOM OF GOD.             29
difficulties, when the sighs of the people were heard
in heaven, the hand of Jehovah had seemed to them
as mighty, and Htis arm as visibly outstretched, when
He sent rescue through a legislator or judge in whom
His wisdom dwelt as when He divided the sea by
immediate power. God's presence in men had been
recognized as fully as His presence in nature.'When
tilhe people come to me to inquire of God,' is a phrase
used by Moses. But it had been held impossible to
predict beforehand in what man God's presence would
manifest itself. The divine inspiration which made a
man capable of ruling had been considered to resemble that which made a man a prophet, or makes in
these days a poet or inspired artist. And it was
thought that to give a man the title of a king for life,
and to transfer it regularly to his descendants without
demanding proofs that the divine wisdom remained
and descended with equal regularity, was equivalent
to depriving Jehovah of His power of choosing His
own ministers.
For a long time, therefore, a system of hero-worship
prevailed. Whenever the need of a central government was strongly felt, it was committed to the man
who appeared ablest and wisest. At length, however,
the wish of the people for a government that might
be permanent, that might hold definite prerogatives
and be transferred according to a fixed rule, grew
clamorous. Prophecy protested solemnly, but at last
yielded, and an hereditary monarchy was founded.
From this time forward until the Babylonish captivity
Jud'ea was under the government of Jehovah represented by a king of the house of David. This new




30               IECCE 110MO.
constitutioni had all the advantages which we know to
attach to hereditary monarchy. The nation gained
from it a tranquillity and security which were not
interrupted, as before, at the death of each ruler, and
the national pride and patriotism were fostered by the
splendor and antiquity of its royal house. But the
spirit of prophecy, which had at first protested against
the change, continued to be somewhat perplexed by
the new institutidn. The king, it reasoned, if he was
not then a usurper of Jehovah's right, what was he?
Could the country have two kings, and could loyalty
to the one be reconciled with loyalty to the other?
From this perplexity it found an escape by picturing
the earthly king as standing in a peculiar relation to
the heavenly. If the inspired hero or legislator of
early times had been a favored servant of Jehovah, the
king must needs be more. He who, not on some
special occasion but always, represented Jehovah, he
who reflected not only His wisdom or justice but His
very majesty and royalty in the presence of His subjects, the assessor of Jehovah's throne, the man that
was the fellow of the Lord of Hosts, deserved to be
called not His servant but His Son. But the more
*be dignity of a Jewish king appeared unutterable,
the more unworthy of it did almost every individual
king appear. The ancient judge had been all that he
professed to be. His special endowment might be of
a mean order, but it was undeniable. No one questioned the stoutness of Samson's sinews. But the
king, of whom so much more was expected, Inight
happen and did sometimes happen to have inuch less.
Th e spirit of prophecy consoled itself for these fail



THE KINGDOM OF GOD.              31
ures by painting upon the future such a king as might
zatisfy all the conditions its enthusiasm demanded,
and might deserve to sit by Jehovah's right hand and
judge the chosen people.
These were the two forms which the ancient theocracy had assumed. Now under which form did
Christ propose to revive it? The vision of universal
monarchy which he saw in the desert suggests the
answer. He conceived the theocracy restored as it
had been in the time of David, with a visible monarch
at its head, and that monarch himself.
We are concerned at present simply with the fact
that Christ laid claim to the royal title, and not with
the question what special powers he claimed under
that title. The fact itself cannot be denied without
rejecting all the evidence before us. His biographers
regard him as king by hereditary right, and attach
great importance to the proofs of his lineal descent
from David. It does not appear, and it is not easy to
believe, that he shared this feeling. But if not, it was
because he believed his royalty to rest on a higher
right. He could not derive honor from David because
he held himself far greater than David. He was not
king by a title derived from his ancestor, but by the
same title as his ancestor. David had owed his sovereignty to that heroic will and wisdom in which the
prophet Samuel had recognized a divine right to rule.
The same title had Christ in a yet higher degree, and
it had been recognized and proclaimed with equal
to~lemnity by the greatest prophetic authority of the
age. The prophetic designation which had fallen
lupon him had perhaps revealed to himself for the first




32                ECCE HOMO.
time his own royal qualities, and the mental struggles
which followed, if they had led him to a peculiar view
of the kind of sovereignty to which he was destined,
had left upon his mind a most absolute and serene
conviction of his royal rights. During his whole
public life he is distinguished from the other prominent characters of Jewish history by his unbounded
personal pretensions.  He calls himself habitually
king an5. master, he claims expressly the character of
that divine Messiah for which the ancient prophets
had directed the nation to look.
So far, then, it appears that Christ proposed to
revive the theocracy in the form which it had worn in
the age of David and Solomon. A hero-king was to
represent to the nation their Jehovah, and to rule in
the indefeasible right of natural superiority. But was
the new monarchy to be a copy of the old? A thousand years had passed since the age of David. A
new world had come into being. The cities through
which Christ walked, the Jerusalem at which he kept
the annual feasts, were filled with men compared with
whom the contemporaries of David might be called
barbarous, men whose characters had been moulded
during many centuries by law, by trade and foreign
intercourse, by wealth and art, by literature and
prophecy. Was it possible that the old heroic monarchy could be revived in the midst of a complicated
and intellectual civilization?
This difficulty does not seem to have occurred to
Christ's contemporaries. The religioils Jews were
looking for the appearance of one who should be
neither more nor less than David had been. They




THE KINGDOM OF GOD.             33
expected, it seems to see once more a warrior-king,
judging in the gate of Jerusalem, or surrounded by his
mighty men, or carrying his victorious arms into the
neighboring countries, or receiving submissive embassies from Rome and Seleucia, and in the mean time
holding awful communication with Jehovah, administering His law and singing His praise. It was natural
enough that such vague fancies should fill the minds
of ordinary men. It was as impossible for them to
conceive the true Christ, to imagine what he would
do or how he would do it, as it was impossible for
them to fill his place. Meanwhile the Christ himself,
meditating upon his mission in the desert, saw difficulties such as other men had no suspicion of. He saw
that he must lead a life altogether different from that
of David; that the pictures drawn by the prophets of
an ideal Jewish king were colored by the manners of
the times in which they had lived; that those pictures
bore indeed a certain resemblance to the truth, but
that the work before him was far more complicated
and more delicate than the wisest prophet had sus.
pected.
It was in this way that the quarrel began between
the Jews and their divine Messiah. Their heads were
full of the languid dreams of commentators, the impracticable pedantries of men who live in the past.
He was grappling with the facts of his age in the
strength of an inspiration to which no truth was
hidden and no enterprise impossible. Accordingly
he appeared before them, as it were, under a disguise.
He confounded their calculations, and professing to
be the king they expected. he did none of the things
2*




34                ECCE HOMO.
which they expected the king to do. He revived the
theocracy, and the monarchy, but in a form not only
unlike the system of David but utterly new and unprecedented.
It is not uncommon to describe the Jews as having
simply made the mistake of confounding a figurative
expression with a literal one. It is said that when
Christ called himself a king, he was speaking figura.
tively, and that by'king' he meant, as some say,
God, as others, a wise man and teacher of morality,
but that the Jews persisted in understanding the expression literally. Such interpreters do not see that
they attribute to intelligent men a mistake worthy of
children or savages. We do not find in history whole
nations misled, bloody catastrophes and revolutions
produced, by verbal mistakes that could be explained
in a moment. Again, they attribute to Christ conduct
which is quite unaccountable. A wise man may at
times dilate upon the authority which his wisdom
gives him, and in doing so may compare himself to a
king, but if he saw that his words were so grossly
misapprehended that he was in danger of involving
himself and others in political difficulties, he would
certainly withdraw or explain the metaphor. But it
is evident that Christ clung firmly to the title and
attached great importance to it. This appears in the
most signal manner on the occasion of his last entry
into Jerusalem. He entered in a public triumph pieceded by those who hailed him as son of David, alnd
when requested by those who thought the populace
guilty of this very misconception of mistaking a wise
nlan for a king to silence their enthusiastic cries, he




THE KINGDOM OF GOD.            35
pointedly refused. Again, it is clear that this assumption of royalty was the ground of his execution. The
inscription which was put upon his cross ran, This is
Tesus, the King of lhe Yews. He had himself provoked this accusation of rebellion against the Roman
government; he must have known that the language
he used would be interpreted so. Was there then
nothing substantial in the royalty he claimed? Did
he die for a metaphor?
It will soon become necessary to consider at leisure
ill what sense Christ understood his own royalty. At
present it is enough to remark that, though he understood it in a very peculiar sense, and though he abdicated many of the functions of a sovereign, he yet
regarded it as a royalty not less substantial, and far
more dignified, than that of his ancestor David. We
may go one step farther before entering into the details,
and note the exact ground of the quarrel which the
Jews had with him. He understood the work of the
Messiah in one sense, and they in another, but what
was the point of irreconcilable difference? They laid
information against him before the Roman government
as a dangerous character; their real complaint against
him was precisely this, that he was not dangerous.
Pilate executed him on the ground that his kingdom
was of this world; the Jews procured his execution
precisely because it was not. In other wQrds, they
could not forgive him for claiming royalty and at the
samne tine rejecting the use of physical force. His
toyal pretensions were not in themselves distasteful to
them; backed by a military force, and favored by success, those pretensions would have been enthusiasti



36                 ECCE HOMO.
cally received. His tranquil life, passed in teaching
and healing the sick, could not in itself excite their
hatred.  An eloquent teacher, gathering  disciples
round him in Jerusalem  and offering a new and devout interplretation of the Mosaic law, might have
aroused a little spite, but not the cry of' Crucify him!'
They did not object to the king, they did not object to
the philosopher; but they objected to the king in the
gaib of the philosopher. They were offended at what
they thought the degradation of their great ideal. A
king who neither had nor cared to have a court or an
army; a king who could not enforce a command; a
king who preached and lectured like a scribe, yet in his
weakness and insignificance could not forget his dignity, had his royal title often in his mouth, and lectured with an authority that no scribe assumed; these
violent contrasts, this disappointment of their theories,
this homely parody of their hopes, inspired them with
an irritation, and at last a malignant disgust, which it
is not hard to understand.
That they were wrong we are all ready to admit.
But what Christ really meant to do, and in what new
form he proposed to revive the ancient monarchy, is
not so clear as the error of his adversaries. It is thlis
which we proceed to consider.




37
CHAPTER IV.
CHRIST'S  ROYALTY.
FROM the perplexity in which the Jews were in.
volved by the contrast between Christ's royal
pretensions and the homely tenor of his life, they
sometimes endeavored to deliver themselves by applying practical tests. They laid matters before him of
which it might seem the duty of a king to take cognizance. By this means they discovered that he considered several of the ordinary functions of a king not
to lie within his province. For example, they showed
him some of the tribute-money, and asked him
whether they ought to pay it. It was an obvious, but
at the same time a very effective way of sifting his
monarchical claims. In the times of David the Jews
had imposed tribute on the surrounding nations; it
was a thing scarcely conceivable that in the age of the
Messiah they should pay tribute to the foreigner. If
Christ were a commissioned and worthy successor of
the national hero, it seemed certain that he would be
fired with indignation at the thought of so deep ~
national degradation. Strange to say, he appeared
little interested in the question, and coldly lade them
not be ashamed to pay back into Cesar's treasury the
coins that came from Cxsar's mint. If there be one
filnction more than another which seems oroper to a




38                ECCE'IOMO.
king, it is that of maintaining and asserting the inde.
pendence of his realm; yet this function Christ peremptorily declined to undertake.
The ancient kings of Judah had been judges. Accordingly the Jews invited Christ more than once to
undertake the office of a judge. We read of a civil
an'ton concerning an inheritance which was submitted
to him, and of a criminal case of adultery in which he
was asked to pronounce judgment. In both cases he
declined the office, and in one of them with an express
declaration that -he had received no commission to
exercise judicial functions.
The ancient kings of Judah had commanded the
armies of the nation. It has been already remarked
that Christ refrained in the most decided manner from
undertaking this function. He expressly told Pilate
that his kingdom was one the members of which did
not fight, and, consistently with this principle, he forbade his follower Peter to take up arms even in order
to save him from arrest.
What functions then did Christ undertake?  We
feel baffled at the beginning of our investigation, and
can enter into the perplexity of the Jews, for those
which we have enumerated are the principal functions
of the ancient monarchy. All of them Christ declineda,
and yet continued to speak of himself as king, and that
with such consistency and clearness that those who
were nearest to his person understood him most.iterally, and quarrelled for places and dignities inder
him. Our perplexity arises from this: that whereas
Christ announced the restoration of the Davidic monarcly, and presented himnself to the nation as their




CHRIST'S ROYALTY.             39
king, yet, when we compare the position he assumed
with that of an ancient Jewish king, we fail to find any
point of resemblance.
But the truth is, as it appears after a little consideration, that in this rough comparison we have not sufficiently remembered the very peculiar view taken by the
Jews — perhaps originally by other ancient nations —
of royalty. It is possible, though it cannot be proved,
that other nations, such as the Greeks, gave the name
of king, in the first instance, to the god of the particular tribe, and afterwards transferred it to the human
being who was supposed to be sprung from him, or
beloved and inspired by him. But that among the
Jews the notion of royalty was derived from that of
divinity, seems clear. Human kings were appointed
late in Palestine, but from a much earlier time the
twelve tribes had lived under a monarchy.  Their
national Divinity had been their king. He had been
believed to march at the head of their armies and to
bestow victory, to punish wrong-doing and to heal
differences when the tribes were at peace. The human king who was afterwards appointed was king but
in a secondary sense, as the deputy of the Invisible
King, and the inspired depositary of His will. Now
it is important to remark that the human king represented the Divine King in certain matters only, and
not in others. In the habitual acts of administration
the king officiated, but there were some acts which
Jehovah haddone for the nation once for all, in which,
as they were not to be repeated, none of the house of
David could represent Him.  i et these acts were far
greater than those which wer(,cgularly repeated, and




40                ECCE HOMO.
displayed much more magnificently the royalty of
Jehovah.
These acts were two -the calling of the nation, and
the institution of its laws.
It was believed, in the first place, that the nation
owed its separate existence to Jehovah's election of
Ahraham.  The origin  f other nations is lost in
altiquity, but we can still trace the movements of the
primitive shepherd who separated himself from his
Chaldmaanl countrymen in obedience to an irresistible
divine impulse, and lived a wandering life among his
flocks and herds, ennobled by his unborn descendants
as other men are by their dead ancestors, rich, as it
were, by a reversed inheritance from the ages aftei
him, and actually bearing in his body Moses andi
David and Christ. His life was passed in mysterious communion with the Sovereign Will which had
isolated him in the present and given him for compensation a home in the future.
This then was the first work which the Invisible
King did for his subjects. He created the nation over
which He was to reign. And the Jews in after times
loved to speak of Him as the God of Abrahamn,
Isaac, and Jacob, the God, that is, who had watched
over the growth of a family into a nation, who
had sealed that family for Himself and chosen the
ration.
But this had been done once for all. The king of
the house of David might represent to the people
their Invisible King at the head of an army or on the
judgment seat, but he could not represent to them the
Founder of their commonwealth, the God who had




CHRIST S ROYALTY.             44
been, as it vere, their dwelling-place in all generations.
The covenant between Abraham  and his invisible
Guide had been simple. No condition bi t isolation
and the sign of it, circumcision, had been imposed
upon the first Hebrew; he received and obeyed
occasional monitions, and he was blessed with a continually increasing prosperity. But the family grew
into a nation, and then the covenant was enlarged
He who had called the nation now did for it the
second work of a king and gave it a law. No longer
special commands imposed on special persons, but
general laws binding on every Israelite at all times
alike, laws regulating the behavior of every Israelite
towards his brother Israelite and towards the Invisible
King, laws which turned a wandering tribe of the
desert into a nation worthy of the settled seat, the
mountain fastness girdled with plain and cornfield and
protected by Jordan and the sea, with which at the
same time their Patron endowed them. In this work
of legislation He was represented by Moses, of whom
it therefore is written that' he was king in Jeshurun.'
This too was a work done once for all. No king of
the ho-,se of David ever represented the Invisible King
in His capacity of legislator. To study the divine law
diligently ani administer it faithfully was the highest
praise to which 1a David or Hezekiah could aspire.
Thus the kings of the house of David were l pre.
sentatives of the Invisible King in certain matters only,
TlJe greatest works which can be done for a llationl
by its shepherd were quite beyond their scope and
pros ince.




42                ECCE HOMO.
We may now perceive how Christ might abdicate
all the functions they had undertaken, and yet remain
a king in a much higher sense than they, and in what
respect the conception of the Messiah formed by the
Jews of Christ's time might differ from that which
Christ Himself formed of him. It was the fatal mistake of the most influential body in the nation, that
mixed body which is called the Scribes and Pharisees,
to regard the Mosaic law as final and unalterable.
They fell into the besetting sin of lawyers in allages.
Assuming therefore that nothing remained for the
Messiall to do in legislation, they were driven to suppose that he too, like the ancient kings, would be but
an imperfect representative of the Supreme King.
And so they were driven to conceive him as occupied
with administration or conquest, and, had their dream
been realized, the Christ would have appeared In
history far inferior to Moses.
On the other hand, Christ fixed his thoughts solely
on, the greater and more fundamental works of an
heroic royalty. He respected the Mosaic legislation
not less than his contemporaries, but he deliberately
proposed to himself to supersede it by a new one promulgated on his own authority. He undertook the
part rather of a second Moses than of a second David,
and though he declined to take cognizance of special
legal cases that were submitted to him, we never find
him refusing to deliver judgment upon a general point
of law. But hie went still deeper, and undertook a
work yet more radical than that of Moses. Not only
did he boldly announce that the work done on Sinai
was to be done over again by himself, b)ut even th:e




CHRIST'S ROYALTY.             43
earlier and primary work of the Invisible King done
in Ur of the Chaldees, the Call which had brought the
nation into existence, he declared himself commissioned to repeat. In that proclamation,'the kingdom
of heaven is at hand,' we have hitherto seen only a
restoration of the ancient theocracy, but a closer considielation will show us that the restoration was no
mere resumption of the old system at the point at
v'hich it had been left off and in the original form,
but a recommencement of the whole history from the
beginning; not a revival of the old covenant but a
new covenant, a new election, a new legislation, a
new community. In the early time there came a voice
to Abraham which said,' Get thee out of thy kindred,
and from thy country, and from thy father's house,
into the land of which I shall tell thee: and I will
make of thee a great nation, and in thee shall all
families of the earth be blessed.'  And now there
was heard throughout Palestine a voice proclaiming,' There is no man that hath given up father, or mother,
or house, or children, or lands, for my sake and the
gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold more in
this present life, and in the world to come life everlasting.' The two calls resemble each other in sound;
in substance and meaning they are exactly parallel.
The object of both was to create a new society which
slhould stand in a peculiar relation to God, and which
should have a legislation different from and higher
than that which springs up in secular states. And
fromn both such a society sprang, from the first the
ancient Jewish theocracy, from the second the Christian Church.




44                ECCE HOMO.
It is not now so hard to understand Christ's royal
pretensions. He declined, it is true, to command
armies, or preside in law courts, but higher works,
such as imply equal control over the wills of meai, the
very works for which the nation chiefly hymned their
Jehovah, he undertook in His name to do. He undertook to be the Father of an everlasting state, and the
L egislator of a world-wide society.
But this is not yet all. Christ was more than a new
Moses and a new Abraham. For completeness we
must here touch on a mysterious subject, of which the
full discussion must be reserved for another place.
Since the time of the Mosaic legislation a revolution
had happened in the minds of men, which, though it
is little considered because it happened gradually, is
surely the greatest which the human mind has ever
experienced. Man had in the interval come to consider or suspect himself to be immortal. It is surprising that the early Jews, in whom the sense of God
was so strong, and who were familiar with the conception of an Eternal Being, should yet have been
behind rather than before other nations in suspecting
the immortality of the soul. The Greek did not even
in the earliest times believe death to be annihilation,
though he thought it was fatal to all joy and vigor;
but the early Jews, the Legislator himself, and most
of the Psalmists, limit their hopes and fears to the
present life, and compare man to the beasts that perish.
Ilow strange a revolution of thought when the area
of human hopes and fortunes suddenly extended itself
without limit! Then first man must have felt himself
gieat. Then first too human relations gained a solid




CHRIST'S ROYALTY.              45
ity and permanence which they had never before
seemed to have; then the great and wise of a remote
past started into life again; then the remote future
moved nearer and became vivid like the present.
This revolution had in a great measure taken place
before the time of Christ. The suspicion of immortality appears in the later prophets, that suspicion
vwhich Christ himself was to develop into a glorious
confidence.
This extension of the term of human life had a prodigious effect upon morality. We have spoken of
Jehovah as legislating for the Jews. But a law is
nothing unless it is enforced. Now in what way did
Jehovah enforce the law He had given? In the first
place by commissioned judges appointed from the
people and inspired by Him with the necessary wisdom. But many crimes pass undetected by the
judge, or his wisdom fails him and the wrong person
is punished, or he takes a bribe and perverts justice.
in these cases, then, what did Jehovah do? How did
He enforce His law? Did He suffer the guilty man
to escape, or had He other ministers of justice beside
the judge and the king? It was supposed that in such
cases He called in the powers of nature against the
transgressor, destroyed his vines with hailstones and
his mulberry-trees with the frost, or abandoned his
flo:,ks and herds to the Bedouins of the desert. Blut
t-his theory was found to be unsatisfactory. Life is a
short term. The transgressor has but to tide over a
few years, and he is in the haven beside the just mallt,
w} ere the God of the living cannot touch him. And
the Jew, watching the ways of Jehovah, could not but




46                ECCE HOMO.
observe that this often happened. He was troubled to
see over and over again prosperous villany carried to
an honored grave in the fulness of years and the
satiety of enjoyment. Another conjecture was hazarded. It was said the bad man prospers sometimes,
but he has no children, or at least his house soon dies
out. Among Jews and Gentiles alike this theory
feund favor for a timeo0W8Ii iLL jTst rraeg rZoTI 7orau rc7at&ovgo'.e06v' kX 1o9lPO xal wtlv/g dn''OT10Vo;.a
But again facts were too stubborn to be resisted, and
the Psalmist is obliged to admit that here too the
wicked prosper -' They have children at their desire,
and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.'
In these circumstances morality must have preserved but a precarious existence. Good and evil
were almost on equal terms. The good man had
sacrifices to make and trials to undergo, but little reward to expect. The bad man had the obvious gains
of his villany, without any very serious danger of
punishment. In these circumstances, also, the Kingship of Jehovah Himself must have wanted majesty.
Profoundly as some Jews felt His greatness, the common feeling towards Him must have been one of far
less awe than that which we feel for the Almighty
God. For He seemed to have little power either to
help His friends or punish His enemies. Human life
being essentially short, He could but lengthen or
shorten it a little. And the little power He had lIe
seemed not to use.
The Jehovah, therefore, whom  Christ came to




CIIIST'S ROYALTY.               47
tepresent, at a time when the immortality of the soul
was a doctrine extensively received or favored, was
practically a much more powerful and awful Kins
than He who had spoken by Moses, and His relation
to His subjects was far more intimate. In the earlier
time He had enforced His law mainly through the
civil magistrate; His other judgments were excep)
tional and rare. But now  the office of the civil
magistrate retreated into the background, and Jehol
vah was conceived rather as holding His assize in that
mysterious region which had recently become visible
to men on the other side of death, as a distant land
becomes visible on the other side of a river or strait,
-- the region which a Jew might compare to the Holy
Land itself, the residence of Jehovah, parted from the
desert and the unconsecrated earth by the stream of
Jordan.
When Christ, therefore, declined the office of civil
judge, it does not follow that he declined all judicial
functions. Of the judgments of Jehovah we see that
those pronounced by the magistrate formed now but a
small part. And in declining these he took all the
others, the diviner judgments, into his own hand.
We cannot here delay upon this subject, but the fact
appears upon the surface of our biographies that
Christ, however carefully abstaining from the function
of the civil magistrate, was yet continually engaged in
passing judgment upon men. Some he assured of tile
forgiveness of their sins, upon others he pronounced a
severe sentence. But in all cases h& did so in a style
which plainly showed, so as sometimes to startle by
its boldness those who heard, that he c)nsidered the




48                ECCE HOMO.
ulti nate and highest decision upon men's deeds, that
decision to which all the unjustly condemned at hum:an tribunals appeal, and which weighs not the deed
only, but motives, and temptations, and ignorances,
and all the complex conditions of the deed -that he
considered, in short, heaven and hell to be in his
hand.
We conclude, then, that Christ in describing himself as a king, and at the same time as king of the
Kingdom of God — in other words, as a king representing the Majesty of the Invisible  King of a
theocracy — claimed the character first of Founder,
next of Legislator, thirdly, in a certain high and
peculiar sense, of Judge, of a new divine society.




49
CHAPTER V.
CHRIS T'S CREDENTIALS.
N defining as above the position which Christ assumed, we have not entered into controvertible
matter. We have not rested upon single passages,
nor drawn upon the fourth Gospel. To deny that
Christ did undertake to found and to legislate for a
new theocratic society, and that he did claim the office
of Judge of mankind, is indeed possible, but only to.
those who altogether deny the credibility of the extant
biographies of Christ. If those biographies be admitced to be generally trustworthy, then Christ undertook
to be what we have described; if not, then of course
this, but also every other, account of him falls to the
ground.
When we contemplate this scheme as a whole, and
glance at the execution and results of it, three things
strike us with astonishment. First, its prodigious
originality, if the expression may be used. What
other man has had the courage or elevation of mind to
say,' I will build up it state by the mere force of my
will, without help from the kings of the world, without taking advantage of any of the secondary causes
which unite men together - unity of interest or
speech, or blood-relationship. I will make laws for
my state which shall never be repealed, and I will
3




50                ECCE'TOMO.
defy all the powers of destruction that are at wurk in
the world to destroy what I build'?
Secondly, we are astonished at the calm confidence
with which the scheme was carried out. The reason
why statesmen can seldom work on this vast scale is
that it commonly requires a whole lifetime to gaill
that ascendency over their fellow-men which suclh
T     hemes presuppose.  Some of the leading organi.
zers of the world have said,' I will work my way to
supreme  power, and then I will execute great plans.'
But Christ overleaped the first stage altogether. He
did not work his way to royalty, but simply said to all
men,' I am your king.' He did not struggle forward
to a position in which he could found a new state, but.simply founded it.
Thirdly, we are astonished at the prodigious success
of the scheme. It is not more certain that Christ presented himself to men as the founder, legislator, and
judge of a divine society than it is certain that men
have accepted him in these characters, that the divine
society has been founded, that it has lasted nearly two
thousand years, that it has extended over a large and
the most highly civilized portion of the earth's surface,
and that it continues full of vigor at the present day.
Between the astonishing design and its astonishing
success there intervenes an astonishing instrumentality
- that of miracles. It will be thought by some that
in asserting miracles to have been actually wrought by
Christ we go beyond what the evidence, perthaps beyc:nd what any possible evidence, is able to sustaiin.
Waiving then for the present the question whether
miracles were actually wrought, we may state a fact




CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS.           5T
which is fully capable of being established bly ordinary
evidence, and which is actually established by evidence
as ample as any historical fact whatever — the fact,
n lmely, that Christ professed to work miracles. We
may go further, and assert with confidence that Christ
was believed by his followers really to work miracles,
and that it was mainly on this account that they conceded to him the pre/iminent dignity and authority
wLich he claimed. The accounts we have of these
miracles may be exaggerated; it is possible that in
some special cases stories have been related which
have no foundation whatever; but, on the whole,
miracles play so important a part in Christ's scheme
that any theory which would represent them as due
entirely to the imagination of his followers or of a
later age destroys the credibility of the documents not
partially but wholly, and leaves Christ a personage as
mythical as Hercules. Now the present treatise aims
to show that the Christ of the Gospels is not mythical,
by showing that the character those biographies portray is in all its large features strikingly consistent, and
at the same time so peculiar as to be altogether beyond the reach of invention both by individual genius
and still more by what is called the' consciousness of
an age.' Now if the character depicted in the Gospels is in the main real and historical, they must be
generally trustworthy, and, if so, the responsibility of
miracles is fixed on Christ. In this case the reality of
the miracles themselves depends in a great degree on
the opinion we form  of Christ's veracity, and this
opinion must arise gradually from the careful examination of his whole life.  For oul present purpose.




52                ECCE HOMO.
which is to investigate the plan which Christ formed
and the way in which he executed it, it matters nothing whether the miracles were real or imaginary; in
either case, being believed to be real, they had the
same effect. Provisionally therefore we may speak of
them as real.
Assuming then that Christ performed genuine miracles, we have before us the explanation of the ascendency which he was able to exert. Yet it is important
to consider in what precise manner men were affected
by this supernatural power. By itself, supernatural
power would not have procured for Christ the kind
of ascendency he wanted, but exactly that ascendency
which he so decidedly rejected. ~We have seen him in
the wilderness, as it appeared, declining an empire
founded on compulsion; and, if this be conjectural, at
least there is no doubt that it was by declining to use
compulsion that he offended his countrymen. Nor
can we have any doubt that, his object being what we
have ascertained it to be, he was right in resting as
little as possible upon force. A leader of armies, a
tyrant, may want physical force and may desire the
means of crushing opposition; but a wise legislator
would desire that the citizens should receive his laws
rather because they felt the value of them than from
terror; and a judge, such as Christ professed to be,
would prefer to influence the conscience and arouse
the sense of shame rather than to work upon the fear
of punishment. Supernatural power was not invariably connected in the minds of the ancients with God
andl goodness; it was supposed to be in the gift of
evil spirits as well as good; it was regarded with hor



CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS.           53
ror in as many cases as with reverence. A nd, indeed,
when wielded by Christ, the first impression which it
produced upon those who witnessed it was one of
alarm and dist:ess. Men were not so much disposed
to admire or adore as to escape precipitately from the
presence of one so formidable. The Gadarenes prayed
Christ to depart out of their coasts. Even Peter made
the same petition, and that at a time when he knew
too much of his Master utterly to misapprehend his
character and purpose.
It appears, then, that these supernatural powers
Creely used were calculated to hinder Christ's plan
almost as much as to further it' The sense of being
in the hands of a Divine Teacher is in itself elevating
and beneficial, but the close proximity of an overwhelming force crushes freedom and reason. Had
Christ useu supernatural power without restraint, as
his countrymen seemed to expect of him and as ancient prophecy seemed to justify them in expecting,
when it spoke of the Messiah ruling the nations with
a rod of iron and breaking them in pieces like a potter's vessel, we cannot imagine that any redemption
would have been wrought for man. The power
would have neutralized instead of seconding the wisdom and goodness which wielded it. So long as it
was present it would have fettered and frozen the faculties of those on whom it worked, so that the legislation which it was used to introduce would ha;e been
placed on the same footing as the commands of a ty.
rant, and, on the other hand, as soon as it was removed, the legislation and it would llave passed into
oblivion together.




54                ECCE HOMO.
We have anticipated in a former chapter the means
by which Christ avoided this result. He imposed
upon himself a strict restraint in the use of his supernatural powers. He adopted the principle that he
was not sent to destroy men's lives but to save themn,
and rigidly abstained in practice from inflicting any,
kind of damage or harm. In this course he persevered so steadily that it became generally understood.
Every one knew that this king, whose royal pretensions were so prominent, had an absolutely unlimited
patience, and that he would endure the keenest criti.
cism, the bitterest and most malignant personal attacks. Men's mouths were opened to discuss his
claims and character with entire freedom; so far from
regarding him with that excessive fear which might
have prevented them from receiving his doctrine intelligently, they learnt gradually to treat him, even while
they acknowledged his extraordinary power, with a
reckless animosity which they would have been afraid
to show towards an ordinary enemy. With curious
inconsistency they openly charged him with being
leagued with the devil; in other words, they acknowledged that he was capable of boundless mischief, and
yet they were so little afraid of him that they were
ready to provoke him to use his whole power against
themselves. The truth was, that they believed him to
be disarmed by his own deliberate resolution, and they
judged rightly. He punished their malice only by
verbal reproofs, and they gradually gathered courage
to attack the life of one whose miraculous powers
tFhey did not question.
Meantime, while this magnanimous self-restraint




CHRISI'S CREDENTIALS.            55
saved him from false fi'iends and mercenary or servile
flatterers, and saved the kingdom he founded from the
corruption of self-interest and worldliness, it gave him
a power over the good such as nothing else could have
given. For the noblest and most amiable thing that
can be seen is power mixed with gentleness, the repoesing, self-restraining attitude of strength. These
are' the fine strains of honor,' these are'the graces
of the gods'To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,
And yet to charge the sulphur with a bolt
That shall but rive an oak.
And while he did no mischief under any provocation,
his power flowed in acts of beneficence on every side.
Men could approach near to him, could eat and drink
with him, could listen to his talk, and ask him questions, and they found him not accessible only, but
warm-hearted, and not occupied so much with his
own plans that he could not attend to a case of distress or mental perplexity. They found him full of
sympathy and appreciation, dropping words of praise,
ejaculations of admiration, tears.  He surrounded
himself with those who had tasted of his bounty, sick
people whom he had cured, lepers whose death-in-life,
demoniacs whose hell-in-life, he had terminated with a
single powerful word. Among these came loving
hearts who thanked him for friends and relatives rescued for them out of the jaws of premature death, and
others whom he had saved, by a power which did not
teem different, from vice and degradation.
This temperance in the use of supernatural power
is the masterpiece of Christ. It is a mora. miracle




56                ECCE HOMIO.
superinduced upon a physical one. This repose in
greatness makes him surely the most sublime image
ever offered to the human imagination. And it is precisely this trait which gave him his immense and immediate ascendency over men. If the question be put
-Why was Christ so successful? Why did lnen
gather round him at his call, form themselves i:lto a
new society according to his wish, and accept him
with unbounded devotion as their legislator and judge?
some will answer,'Because of the miracles which
attested his divine character;' others,' Because of
the intrinsic beauty and. divinity of the great law of
love which he propounded.' But miracles, as we
have seen, have not by themselves this persuasive
power. That a man possesses a strange power which
I cannot understand is no reason why I should receive
his words as divine oracles of truth. The powerful
man is not of necessity also wise; his power may
terrify, and yet not convince. On the other hand, the
law of love, however divine, was but a precept. Undoubtedly it deserved that men should accept it for its
intrinsic worth, but men are not commonly so eager
to receive the words of wise men nor so unbounded
in their gratitude to them. It was neither for his miracles nor for the beauty of his doctrine that Christ was
worshipped. Nor was it for his winning personal
character, nor for the persecutions he endured, nor for
his martyrdom. It was for the inimitable unity which
all these things made when taken together. In other
words, it was for this, that he whose power and great-ess as shown in his miracles were overwhelming
denied himself the use of his power, treated it as a




CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS.           57
slight thing, walked among men as though he were
one of them, relieved them in distress, taught them to
love each other, bore with undistur'bed patience a perpetual hailstorm of calumny; and when his enemidies
grew  fiercer, continued still to endure their attacks
in silence, until petrified and bewildered with astonishment, men saw him arrested and put to death with
torture, refusing steadstly to use in his own behalf
the power he conceived he held for the benefit of
others. It was-te combination of greatness and selfsacrifice which won their hearts, the migoht pwers
held under a mighty control, the unspeakable condescension, the Cross of Christ.
By this, and by nothing else, the enthusiasm ofa Paul was kindled. The statement rests on no
hypothesis or conjecture; his Epistles bear testimony
to it throughout. The trait in Christ which filled his
whole mind was his condescension. The charm of
that condescension lay in its being voluntary. The
cross of Christ, of which Paul so often speaks as the
only thing he found worth glorying in, as that in comparison with which everything in the world was
as dung, was the voluntary submission to death of
one who had the power to escape death; this he
says in express words. And what Paul constantly
repeats in impassioned language, the other apostles
echo. Christ's voluntary surrender of power is their
favorite subject, the humiliation implied in his whole
life, and crowned by his death. This sacrifice, which
they regard as made for them, demands in their
opinion to be requited by an absolute devotion on their
part to Christ. Beyond controversy sucn was their
3*




58                ECCE HOMO.
feeling, and this feeling was the ground of that obedience to Christ and acceptance of his legislation, which
made the success of his scheme. If we suppose that
Christ really performed no miracles, and that those
which are attributed to him were the product of selfdeception mixed in some proportion or other with
imposture, then no doubt the faith of St. Paul and St.
John was an empty chimera, a mere misconception;
but it is none the less true that those apparent miracles
were essential to Christ's success, and that had he
not pretended to perform them, the Christian Church
would never have been founded, and the name of
Jesus of Nazareth would be known at this day only
to the curious in Jewish antiquities.
We have represented Christ's abstinence from the
use of his supernatural power as a device by which he
avoided certain inconveniences which would have
arisen from the free use of it. It is true that had he
not practised this abstinence, his legislation could not
have gained the worthy and intelligent acceptance it
did gain; and by adopting this contrivance he triunmphantly attained the object he proposed to himself.
Still it was no mere measure of prudence or policy.
Christ himself probably never thought of it as a contri.
vance or device; to him such self-restraint no doubt
appeared simply required by duty, an essential part
of fidelity to the commission he bore. And when we
have investigated the character of Ch-ist's legislation,
we shall find that the great self-denial of his life,
besides being a means of introducing his legislation,
was the greatest of all illustrations of the spirit of that
legislation. The kind of life he prescribed to his foJ




CHRIST'S CREDENTIALS.          59
lowers lie exemplified in his own person in the most
striking way, by dedicating all his extraordinary powers to beneficent uses only, and deliberately placing
himself for all purposes of hostility and self-defence
on a level with the weakest.
To sum up the results of this chapter. We began
by remarking that an astonishing plan met with at
astonishing success, and we raised the question to
what instrumentality that success was due.  Christ
announced himself as the Founder and Legislator of
a new Society, and as the Supreme Judge of men.
Now by what means did he procure that these immense pretensions should be allowed? He might
have done it by sheer power; he might have adopted
persuasion, and pointed out the merits of the scheme
and of the legislation he proposed to introduce. But
he adopted a third plan, which had the effect not merely of securing obedience, but of excising en:huuiasm
and devotion. He laid men under an immense obligation. He convinced them that he was a person of
altogether transcendent greatness, one who needed
nothing at their hands, one whom it was impossible to
benefit by conferring riches, or fame, or dominion
upon him, and that, being so great, he had devoted
himself of mere benevolence to their good. He
showed them that for their sakes he lived a hard and
laborious life, and exposed himself to the utmost
malice of powerful men. They saw him hungry,
though they believed him able to turn the stones into
bread, they saw his royal pretensions spurned, though
they believed that he could in a moment take into his
hand ai; the kingdoms of the world and the glory of




6o                ECCE HOMO.
them; they saw his life in danger; they saw him at
last expire in agonies, though they believed that, had
he so willed it, no danger could harm him, aid that
had he thrown himself from the topmost pinnacle of
the temple he would have been softly received in the
arms of milistering angels. Witnessing his sufferings,
and convinced by the miracles they saw him work
that they were voluntarily endured, men's hearts were
touched, and pity for weakness blending strangely
with wondering admiration of unlimited power, an
agitation of gratitude, sympathy, and astonishment,
such as nothing else could ever excite, sprang up in
them, and when, turning from his deeds to his words,
they found this very self-denial which had guided his
own life prescribed as the principle which should
guide theirs, gratitude broke forth in joyful obedience,
self-denial produced self-denial, and the Law  and
Law-Giver together were enshrined in their inmost
hearts for inseparable veneration.




CHAPTER VI.
CHRIST'S WINNOWING  FAN.'ILE first step in our investigation is now taken.
We have considered the Christian Church in its
idea, that is to say, as it existed in the mind of its
founder and before it was realized. Our task will
now become more historical and will deal with the
actual establishment of the new Theocracy; but we
shall endeavor to keep the idea always in view and
sedulously to avoid all such details as may have the
effect of obscuring it.
The founder's plan was simply this, to renew in a
form adapted to the new time that divine Society of
which the Old Testament contains the history. The
essential features of that ancient Theocracy were:
(I) the divine Call and Election of Abraham; (2) the
divine legislation given to the nation through Moses;
(3) the personal relation and responsibility of every
individual member of the Theocracy to its Invisible
King. As the new Theocracy was to be the counterpart of the old, it was to be expected that these three
features would be reflected in it. Accordingly we
have found Christ undertaking to issue a Call to men
such as was given to Abraham, to deliver a Legisla.
tion s ich as Israel had received from Moses, and to
occupy a personal relation of Judge and Master to




62,               ECCE IHOMO.
every man such as in the earlier Theocracy had been
occupied by Jehovah himself without representative.
Such was the plan. In proceeding to consider the
execution of it, these three essential features will
afford the means of a convenient arrangement, and
the correspondence of the new Theocracy to the old
in respect of them will afford a constant instructive
il'ustration. Our investigation divides itself from
this point into three parts. We shall treat in order the
Call, the Legislation, and the Divine Royalty of Christ,
and in proceeding now to consider the Call we shall
ask the question, In what respect did the Call issued
by Christ differ from that which came to Abraham?
The Call then which the first Christians received
differed from that received by Abraham, in the first
place, in this respect, that it did not separate them
from civil society. Abraham was commanded to
isolate himself, abandoning his family and his native
country. The life he adopted was one which was
possible in his age and  country.  All external
authority whatsoever he threw off; his actions were
controlled by no power except that invisible one
which had decreed his isolation  In his case the
problem of the connection between Church and State
was solved in the most simple manner, namely by tht
abolition of the State. There was but one Society,
of which God was king, the patriarch being His
deputy. What intercourse he occasionally had with
the world outside his own pastoral encampment was
not like the intercourse of one citizen with another,
but consisted of formal negotiations or wars such as
are transacted between states. Now the early Chris



CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.           63
tians, it is true, compare themselves with Ablaham in
this respect. They call themselves strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, wanderers without a country
for the present, but expecting one on the other side of
death. Applied to them, however, these expressions
are not literally true but metaphorical, and mean only
that the secular states of which they were members did
not excite their interest or their patriotism so strongly
as the divine Society into which Christ had called
them. All of them were members of some seculat
state as well as of the Christian Church; a complex
system of obligations lay upon all of them already
when the new Christian obligations were imposed,
and their activity was confined by a multitude of prohibitions.
In this respect the Christian commonwealth was
not only unlike the camp of Abraham but unlike the
ancient theocracy at every period of its history. For
the political organization of the Israelites sprang up,
as it were, in the bosom of the ecclesiastical one,
and was never regarded as distinct from it. The
ancient Hebrew never regarded himself as living under two laws, one human and the other divine. To
him all law alike was divine, whether it punished
theft or denounced death against idolatry. He believed both tables of the law to have been written
with the finger of God. When he went before the
civil tribunals it was'to inquire of God.' But the
Chlristian regarded the civil power of his time as external altogether to the divine society, and though he
might be ready to recognize it as in some sense a
dix inc ordinance and as having a right to his tbe,




64                 ECCE HOMO.
dience, yet on the other hand it knew nothing of that
other commonwealth to which he professed to belong,
had no respect for its laws, and would barely tolerate
its existence.
The divine Society had therefore to make its choice
between declaring open war against the secular
societies in the midst of which it was established,
or refiraining from all such acts as those societies
weuld not allow. Following his principle of abstain.
ing from force, Christ adopted the latter course. Now
one principal thing no secular government would
tolerate, namely, judicial tribunals and a penal administration independent of its own. WVe arrive
therefbre at the first distinguishing characteristic of
the Society into which Christ called men. It was a
Society whose rules were enforced by no punishments.
The ancient Israelite who practised idolatry was
stoned to death, but the Christian who sacrificed to
the genius of Caesar could suffer nothing but exclusion
from the Society, and this in times of persecution was
in its immediate effects of the nature rather of a reward than of a punishment. At first it may seem
that a society could exert no strong effect upon mankind which contained no power of compulsion or
punishment. But we are to remember what was said
above of the judicial power of Jehovah under the old
theocracy. That judicial power was exerted through
the civil law courts, it is true, but also in another way.
Jechovah was considered as judging in heaven as well
as in the law court, and as punishing by providential
visitations and by mysterious pains inflicted on the
dead as well as by the hands of the executioners of




CHRIST' S WINNOWING FAN.          6.
civil justice. Now in relinquishing the ordinary and
administrative punishments, Christ retained for his
Society the supernatural ones. And, so long as faith
in the truth of his words continued lively among his
followers, the state he founded was net distinguished
among the states of the world by laxity of obedience
in its members; rather have these supernatural terrt r,
and hopes, intimately blended with other motives of
which a time will come to speak, excited in the Christian Church a more serious and enthusiastic loyalty
than any secular commonwealth has known.
We have learnt then thus much of the nature of
Christ's Call. When he went everywhere proclaiming
the kingdom of God and summoning men to enroll
themselves as members of it, he did not command
them to abandon the national societies in which they
were already enrolled. The Jew did not cease to be
a Jew nor to yield obedience to Jewish and Roman
authority,.when he became a Christian; nor did he
even cease to take an interest in national affairs. Particular Christians might do so and might merge all
patriotic feelings in their devotion to the divine
Society, but Christ himself never ceased to feel
keenly as a patriot. What the Jew did on becoming a Christian was to enter into a new relation which
was additional to those relations in which he stood
already. Besides the authorities which he acki oxrledged before, he now acknowledged the authority of
Christ; the law of Christ became binding upon l:'ni
as well as the law of his country; and besides standing in awe of the civil judge and of the punishments
he might inflict, he now stood in awe of Christ, whom




66                ECCE HOMO.
he regarded As representing the supreme judicial nmajesty of Jehovah in the invisible world.
Such then was the nature of Christ's Call. We go
on to consider who were the objects of it. Here
again the Call of Abraham suggests by contrast a
peculiarity in that uttered by Christ. In the former
case one man only was called, in the latter all men
whatsoever. The earlier Call was rigidly exclusive,
the latter infinitely comprehensive.
This comprehensiveness may take us by surprise
when we consider the Baptist's anticipations of Christ's
work. The baptism of John seems to have been absolutely comprehensive; all those who came John
accepted. But he said in reference to Christ,'There
stands one among you... whosefan is in his hand,
and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather
his wheat into the garner, but the chaff he will burn
with unquenchable fire.' It seems evident that the
Baptist meant to warn those whom he had baptized
without distinction or condition, that Christ's work
would be more thorough and searching than his, and
that he would apply a test of some kind, by which the
insincere would be detected and separated from the
good. It was the Baptist's belief that a divine judgment was impending over the nation, and he seems
to predict that Christ would make a selection of the
sounder members of the nation, who would then be
rescu.ed from the catastrophe, while the others would
be left to their fate. This prediction assuredly suggests to us a course of action different from that w iicli
Christ pursued. We do not at first sight discern the
fan in his hand. We do not find him, as we might




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.           67
expect, discriminating the good from the bad, and
honoring the former only with his call, but on the
contrary, we find him summoning all in the same
words, and with the same urgency. Nevertheless, on
a closer examination, it will appear that Christ did
perform this work of discrimination, and that in a
very remarkable manner, and that no expressions
could be more strikingly just than those in which the
Baptist described it.
The difficulty of determining whether a man is or
is not good has now become a commonplace of moralists and satirists. It is almost impossible to discover
any test which is satisfactory, and the test which is
actually applied by society is known to be unsatisfactory in the extreme. The good man of society is simply the mnan who keeps to the prescribed routine of
what is commonly considered to be duty; the bad
man he who deserts it. In order to arrive at this
view men start from a proposition which is true, but
they make the mistake of assuming the converse proposition to be true. It is true that the good man does
good deeds, but it is not necessarily true that he who
does good deeds is a good man. Selfish prudence
dictates a virtuous course of action almost as imperatively as virtue itself; on the other hand, bad deeds
may be caused by bad teaching, bad example or the
pressure of necessity, not less than by a vicious disposition. And Christ showed throughout his life a remarkably strong conviction of this. He found society
in Palestine in an especial degree wedded to the conventional standard. He found one class regarded
it]: the most excessive reverence for their minute




68                ECCE HOMO.
observance of proprieties, while those who sinned fell
under a pitiless excommunication. But the winnowings of this social fan did not satisfy him. He was
persuaded that it winnowed away much that was
valuable, and he occupied himself with rescuing the
outcasts who had been thus hastily rejected; much. orn
the other hand, which society stored up in its garner
he vehemently pronounced to be chaff. What standard then did he substitute in the place of this conventional one which he repudiated? The society which
he formed was recruited from all classes; no one was
repelled on account of his past life; publicans and
prostitutes were freely admitted into it, and men of
blameless lives- and bred in Pharisaic sanctity learnt
in Christ's circle to hold intercourse with those whose
company they would earlier have avoided as contaminating. As we have seen, no one was excluded who
did but choose to enter. Christ compared himself to
a king who kept open house and surrounded his dinner-table with beggars from the highway. And yet
in those who became members of the society, certain
common qualities might be observed, and it will be
generally admitted that they formed, on the whole, the
sounder part of the nation.  Doubtless there were
traitors and unworthy members among them; Christ
early remarked and illustrated by a striking allegory
the impossibility of perfectly sifting the seed sown in
the Gospel-field. Doubtless, also, the fan in spec'al
cases winnowed out some wheat, and there remained
to tne end in the Pharisaic party good men that were
incurably mistaken. But, on the whole, a winnowving
was accomplished; and almost all the genuine wortlh




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.           69
and virtue of the nation was gathered into the Christian Church; what remained without was perversity
and prejudice, ignorance of the time, ignorance of the
truth, that mass of fierce infatuation which was burnt
up in the flames which consumed the temple, or shared
ti e fall of the Antichrist Barcochebah.
Solne discriminating influence, then, was clearly at
work, nor is it very difficult to discern its nature.
Christ did not go out of his way to choose his followers; the Call itself sifted thern; the Call itself was the
fan he bore in his hand. For, though in form the
same, it was in practical power very different from
that Call which John had issued. Both John and
Christ proclaimed the advent of a new divine Society,
but John only proclaimed it as near, while Christ exhibited it as present, and laid upon those who desired
to become members of it the practical obligations and
burdens which were involved in membership. To
obey John's call was easy; it involved nothing beyond
submission to a ceremony; and when the prophet had
acquired a certain amount of credit, no doubt it became the fashion to receive baptism from him. This
being so, he may well have felt that his work was but
skin deep; his prophetic appeals to the conscience
had created a mighty stir, but no real conviction, no
division between the good and bad, no national repentance. Idle people resorted to his preaching for a
new sensation, frivolous people sought excitement in
his baptism. With that honest humility so characteristic of him, he confessed, not precisely his failure, but
tile essentially imperfect and preliminary nature or his
work. No Messiah, no prophet am I, he said. lIe




T70              1ECCE HOMO.
said, I am a voice, a cry faintly heard in the distance;
I command nothing; I exact nothing; I do but bid
you be ready.
But after Aaron, the eloq-cent speaker, there came
the new Moses, the Founder cand Legislator. To listen to him was no amusement for an idle hour; his
preaching formed no convenient resort for light-minded
people. His tone was not more serious than John's,
and it was somewhat less vehement, but it was far
more imperious and exrcting. John was contented
with hearers; when he had delivered his admonitions,
he relaxed his hold, and it was free to those who had
listened to subside into the easy tranquillity which his
eloquence had disturbed while it lasted. But Christ
demanded followers, recruits for the great work he
had in hand, settlers for the new city that was to be
founded, subjects for the king he announced himself
to be. Those who listened to him must be prepared
to change all their prospects, and to adopt a new
mode of life. The new mode of life was indeed not
necessarily a hard one. Christ did not impose ascetic
exercises upon his followers. He was an indulgent
master, and for a considerable time those who enrolled
themselves in the new Theocracy had no reason to
dread any serious persecution from Jew or Roman.
But he forewarned them that times would change in
this respect, and in the mean while the devotion of a
life to a new discipline, even though not a severe one,
demands at least a certain power of self-devotion which
many do not possess; and Christ's discipline was in
fact harder to human nature than it seemed, for it
demanded a certain moral originality and strenuous.




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.          71
ness of self-regeneration which men find in the long
run more burdensome than the severest physical endurances and austerities. Clearly, therefore, Christ's
Call imposed upon men the necessity of making a
great resolution, of sacrificing a good deal. On the
other hand, what did it offer? What equivalent could
be expected by those who made the sacrifice?  Per.
haps t      ho gathered early about the Messiall
might expect places and dignities in his kingdom, to
sit on thrones judging the tribes of Israel. This was
undoubtedly the current belief, and it may have led
many to attach themselves to Christ from motives
purely mercenary. But in a little time such adventurers must have remarked that in Christ's language
which would strike them with a sudden chill. They
must have felt their hopes gliding away beneath their
feet as they listened. The sacrifices they had made
were unquestionable; many had left their homes and
adopted a wandering life with their master; they had
joined a suspected sect; they were partisans of an
extreme movement; they had placed themselves in
opposition to the orthodoxy of the country. The risk
they ran was certain, but the rewards they had expected in the coming kingdom of the Messiah were
less certain. It would seem to them that Christ explained his promises away. The royalty which he
professed to bear himself was to vulgar apprehension.
a mock royalty. It had no substance of power or
wealth; yet he continued to call it royalty. They,wollld soon begin to suspect that the subordinate dig.
nities in the new kingdom were of the same insubstantial character.  And many of them wolld hear witb




72                ECCE HOMO.
bitter disappointment, and some with furious hatred,
exhortations to humility, to contentment with a lowly
place, from the lips of him whom they had expected
to make their fortunes. In this way the interested
and mercenary would fall off from him. The Call,
which had acted as a test upon some directly by reqiWiring from them an effort which they were not
pi epared to make, would winnow away others mnore
gradually as soon as it was understood to offer no
prospects which could tempt a worldly mind.
In this way, without excluding any, Christ suffered
the unworthy to exclude themselves. He kept them
aloof by offering them nothing which they could find
attractive. And all those who found Christ's Call
attractive were such as were worthy to receive it.
Some made up their minds without hesitation. The
worldly, the preoccupied, turned away with peremptory contempt; a few of rare devotion closed with the
Call at once. But the greater number were placed by
it in a state of painful suspense and hesitation which
lasted a long time.  First, to understand distinctly
what it was which was proposed to them; next, to
make up their minds as to the character of him who
made such novel proposals, and advanced pretensions
so unbounded; all this cost them much perplexity.
But when so much was done, and they had decided
favorably to the Prophet and his Theocracy, then
came the greater difficulty, that of resolving to embark
il all enterprise so unprecedented even at the beck of
one whom they acknowledged to hold a divine commission. To break with prejudice and with convention, to enter upon a great and free life, is not done




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.           73
until some doubts have been mastered and some coward hesitations silenced. In the midst of men who
were in one stage or other of this mental conflict,
Christ moved.  His words spread around him  a
perpetual ferment, an ever-seething effervescence.
Anxious broodings, waxing or waning convictions,
resolutions slowly shaping themselves, a great travail
if hearts, went on about him. An appeal had been
made to what was noblest in each; each had been
summoned to shake off routine and convention; some
were gathering strength to accomplish the feat, some
abandoning the attempt in despair. According to the
issue of the conflict each man's worthiness would
appear. This, then, was the winnowing which Christ
did among men. The Call itself was in his hand as
a fan.
Of this effect produced by his words he was fully
conscious. He watched it with constant interest, and
of his recorded sayings a large proportion are illustrative descriptions of the different effect of the Call
upon different characters. At one time he described
the ferment it produced, and its gradual diffusion
through the community, by comparing the kingdom
of heaven to leaven which a woman hides in two
measures of meal until the whole is leavened. At
another time he compares the Call (the Word) to
seed sown in different sorts of ground, but bearing a
prosperous crop in one sort only. To one class he
foumnd it was like a treasure hidden in a field, which
not to lose a man sells all his property and buys the
field; to another class it is an invitation which they
decline with civil excuses. Thus it shows each man
4




74                ECCO HOMO
in his genuine character, and, on the wihole, those
who accept the Call and abide by it are worthy of it.
Yet to this rule there are a good many exceptions.
When the seed has been sown in the best ground,
tares will spring up with the wheat; thrown in, as it
were, by some spitefuil neighbor. And when the winfnowing has thus failed through mishap, we must not
enter-er-further, says Christ; he will have no artificial
winnowing by mere presumptuous private judgment
of each other.
These are specimens of Christ's reflections upon the
working of his proclamation. They offer nothing
which need surprise us. Such a winnowing of men
as he accomplished is not unique in kind. Every
htgh-mxix'   Sav   whI gath1Xtv   foll mes Round him
for any great purpose, when he calls to self-sacrifice
and has no worldly rewards to offer, does something
similar. He too in his degree winnows men. And
therefore in tracing the history of many other movements which have agitated large numbers, we are
often reminded of those parables of Christ that begin,' The kingdom of heaven is like-.' If those parables
are read together, they present an almost complete
account of the ferment produced in a large and various
society by a great principle presented to it impressively
and practically.  In all such cases each individual
that comes within the influence may be said to pass
an ordeal, and some characters come out from it vindicated that before were suspected to be worthless,
and others are unmasked that had before imposed
upon the world. But now what is the quality that
carries a man through the ordeal? Can we find a




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.           75
name for it?  It is, no doubt, neither more nor less
than moral worth or goodness; but this is no reason
why a more precise name should not be given to this
particular aspect of goodness. For, in fact, all the
good qualities *to which we give names, asjustice,
temnperance, courage, &c., are not so much parts of
goodness as aspects of it, and no man can have an)
one of them without having in a degree all the others.
What then shall we call goodness when it shows itself
conquering convention, and unselfishly ranging itself
on the right side in those crises when good and evil
are most visibly opposed to each other?
The first Christians had manifestly occasion for such
a word, and one came into use which may be said to
have become a permanent addition to the moral vocabulary of the world. This word wasfaith. Itwas
not altogether new; it might be found in the writings
of the prophets; but it had never before seemed so
important or so expressive of the essential worth of a
man. When he rejected the test of correct conduct
which society uses, Christ substituted the test of faith.
It is to be understood that this is not strictly a Christian virtue; it is the virtue required of one who wishes
to become a Christian. So much a man must: bring
with him; without it he is not worthy of the kingdom
of God. To those who lack faith Christ will not be
Legislator or King. He does not, indeed, dismiss
them, but he suffers them to abandon a society which
soon ceases to have any attraction for them. Such,
then, is the new test, and it will be found the only one
which could answer Christ's purpose of excluding all
hollow discinles and including all, however rude and




76                ECCE HOMO.
vicious, who were capable of better things. Evrery
other good quality which we may wish to masse the
test of a man implies either too little or too much for
this purpose.
Justice is often but a form of pedantry, mercy mere
easiness of temper, courage a mere firmness of physical constitution; but if these virtues are genuine, ther
they indicate not goodness merely but goodness considerably developed. A man may be potentially just
or merciful, yet from defect of training he may be
actually neither. We want a test which shall admit
all who have it in them to be good whether their
good qualities be trained or no. Such a test is found
in faith. He who, when goodness is impressively put
before him, exhibits an instinctive loyalty to it, starts
forward to take its side, trusts himself to it, such a
man-ihahait[h, and the root of the matter is in such a
man. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal and
faithful instinct in him will place him above many
that practise virtue. He may be rude in tou-ght-anid
character, but he will unconsciously gravitate towards
what is right. Other virtues can scarcely thrive without a fine natural organization and a happy training.
But the most neglected and ungifted of men may
make a beginning with faith.  Other virtues want
civilization, a certain amount of knowledge, a few
books; but in half-brutal countenances faith will light
up a glimmer of nobleness. The savage, who can do
little else, can wonder and worship and enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can
know that some one else knows, he who has no law
may still have a master, he who is incapable of justice




CHRIST'S WINNOWING FAN.          ~[
may be capable of fidelity, he who understands little
may have his sins forgiven because he loves much.
Let us sum up the points of difference which we
have discovered between the Old Theocracy and the
New. The Old Theocracy was utterly independent of
all political organizations.  It was therefore able to
create a political organization of its own. The laws
of the Theocracy were enforced by temporal pun':;h.
ments, as indeed at a time when the immortality of the
soul was not recognized they could be enforced by no
other. The New Theocracy was set up in the midst
of a political organization highly civilized and exacting. It was therefore as completely devoid of any
system of temporal punishments as the Old had been
devoid of any other system. But, on the other hand,
its members believed themselves to live under the eye
of a Judge whose tribunal was in heaven and into
whose hands they were to fall at death. Agtain,the
Old Theocracy selected a single family out of the mass
of mankind, while the New gathered out of mankind,
by a summons which though absolutely comprehensive was yet not likely to be obeyed but by a certain
class, all such as  ssessed an  natural loyalto
goodness, enthusiasm enough to join a great cause,
and devotion enough to sacrifice something to it.




78
CHAPTER VII.
CONDITIONS  OF  MEMBERSHIP IN
CHRIST'S KINGDOM.
T HE question now arises, What was involved In
obeying Christ's summons?  When the crowd
of faithful and loyal hearts gathered round him, struck
with admiration of the wisdom that was so condescending and the power that was so beneficent, when,
without throwing off the yoke of citizenship in earthly
states, they accepted the burdens of citizenship in the
New Jerusalem, and without ceasing to be amenable
to Jewish and Roman judges, became responsible for
all their deeds and even for all their thoughts to Christ,
what was the extent of the new obligation which they
incurred? How did a Christian differ from another
man?
Ever since the Church was founded up to the present time this question, What makes a man a Christian? has been an all-important practical question.
The answers given to it in the present (lay differ
widely with the tolerance of those who give them, but
they are genrerally the same in kind. They consist in
specifying certain doctrines about God and Clirist
which a Christian must needs believe. One will say,
LIe is no Christian who does not believe that the death
of Christ eiected a permanent change in the relations




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIS' S KINGDOM.         79
between man and God. Another will say, He is no
Christian  llho does not believe in the Divinity. of
Christ. A third will say, It is necessary to believe in
the Resurrection. Whether or no these beliefs, any
or all of them, be necessary to the character of a
Christian now, we may assert with absolute confidence
that they were not required of the first followers of
(.llri t, and further, that most of them had never occirred to their minds. Nothing could suggest to them
th:e Resurrection of Christ until he began darkly to
prophesy of it to his most intimate disciples; and
when he did so they listened, we are told, with bewilderment and incredulity. So far from regarding
the cross of Christ as the basis of a reconciliation between God and man, they would' have listened with
horror to the suggestion that their Master was destined
to such a death. The Divinity of his person might
indeed occur to some of those who witnessed his
miraculous works, but it was certainly not generally
received in the society, for we find Christ pronouncing
a solemn blessing upon Peter for being the first to
arrive at the conclusion that he was the Messiah. It
appears, then, that so long as their master was with
them the creed of the first Christians was of the most
unformned and elementary character. To the ordinary
lb-lief of their age and country they added nothing
except certain vague conceptions of the greatness of
the new Prophet, whom the less advanced regarded
as likely before long to establish a new royal dynasty
at Jerusaleln, while others of greater penetration regarded him as a new Moses and a divinely coilnmisiioined reformer of the law. It is clear, then, that




80                ECCE HOMO.
those who consider an elaborate creed esbsntial to the
Christian character must pronounce Chrlt's first disciples utterly unworthy to bear the name of Christians.
But to this such persons may answer that the first disciples were indeed only Christians in a very imperfect
sense, and that before the Resurrection it could not be
otherwise. That event increased the number of dognmas whicl. Christians are required to receive; before
it happened their creed was necessarily meagre, but
since it has happened a Christian is not worthy of the
name if he does not believe much more than any of
Christ's first followers.
This view is plausible, and agrees at first sight with
the conclusions at which we have already arrived.
Christ, we have said, announced himself as the
Founder and Legislator of a new state, and sunm
mroned men before him in that capacity. He did not
invite them as friends, nor even as pupils, but summoned them as subjects. It was natural that when
they first gathered round him, and even for some time
afterwards, they should differ from other men in nothing but the loyalty which had led them to obey the
Call. They understood that they had been summoned
in order to receive laws, but those laws could not be
promulgated all at once. In the mean time, while
they were expecting the institutions that had been
promised to them, though Christians in will, they
could not'be called Christians in the full sense of the
word. Though out of them the Christian Church
was to spring, yet they might well be as unlike the
Christian Church as the acorn is unlike the oak, or as
the crew of the Mavflower was unlike the States of




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST S KINGDOM.       8i
New England. But after the Church had received its
Founder's laws - laws which, like the Decalogue,
contained not merely practical rules of life, but declarations concerning the nature of God and man's relation to him, then Christianity may have begun to
mean no mere fidelity or loyalty to Christ's person,
but the practical obedience to his rules of life, and the
unquestioning acceptance of his theological teaching.
In a sense it is true that Christianity does mean
this. Christ demanded as much, and was assuredly
not satisfied with less. In the same way every state
demands of its citizens perfect patriotism and perfect
obedience to the laws. Yet perfect patriotism and
obedience are scarcely found in any citizen of any
state; but the state, though it demands so much, does
not exclude the citizen who renders less. It is one
thing to be an imperfect citizen, and another to be
excluded from citizenship altogether. In like manner
it is one thing to be an imperfect Christian, and
another to be utterly unworthy of the name. And it
will be found, on further examination, that the Christian Church is content with a much more imperfect
obedience to its law than any secular state. It does
not, indeed, promulgate laws without expecting them
to be observed; it constantly maintains a standard by
which every Christian is to try himself; nevertheless,
whereas every secular state enacts and obtains from
its members an almost perfect obedience to its laws,
the laws of the Divine State are fully observes by
scarcely any one, and the most that can be said even
of Christians that rise decidedly above the average is
that they do not forget them, and that by slow degrees
4*




8:3                 ECCE HOMO.
they arrive at a general conformity with thei l. The
reason of this will appear when we treat in detail of
Cu hist's legislation.  It will then become clear that
Christ's legislation is of a nature infinitely more complex in its exactions upon every individual than any
secular code, and that accordingly a complete observance of it is infinitely difficult. For this reason it is a
matter of universal consent among Christians that no
man is to suffer exclusion from their society for any
breach of Christ's laws that is not of a flagrant and
outrageous kind. Though it is common to hear a
man pronounced no Christian for not believing in
what is called the Atonement, yet no such excommunication is passed upon men in whom some very
unchristian vices, such as selfishness or reckless partyspirit, are plainly visible. The reason of our tolerance
in the latter case is that we all acknowledge the immense difficulty of overcoming a vice when it has
become confirmed, and we charitably give the man
who has-visibly not overcome his vices credit at least
for struggling against them.
This is quite right; only we ought to be just as
tolerant of an imperfect creed as we are of an imperfect practice. Everything which can be urged in excuse for the latter may also be pleaded for the former.
If the way to Christian action is beset by corrupt
habits and misleading passions, the path to Christian
truth is overgrown with prejudices, and strewn with
fallen theories and rotting systems which hide it from
our view. It is quite as hard to think rightly as it is
to act rightly, or even to feel rightly. And as all
allow that an error is a less culpable thing than a




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST'S KINGDOM.      83
crime or a vicious passion, it is monstrous that it
should be more severely punished; it is monstrous
that Christ, who was called the friend of publicans
and sinners, should be represeined as the-pitiless
enemy of bewildered seekers of truth.  How couldl
men have been guilty of such an inconsistency? By
speaking of what they do not understand. Men, ir.
general, do not understand or appreciate the difficulty
of finding truth. All men must act, and therefore all
men learn in some degree how difficult it is to act
rightly. The consequence is that all men can make
excuse for those who fail to act rightly. But all men
are not compelled to make an Independent search for
truth, and those who voluntarily undertake to do so
are always few. They ought, indeed, to find pity and
charity when they fail, for their undertaking is full of
hazard, and in the course of it they are too apt to
leave friends and companions behind them, and when
they succeed they bring back glorious spoils for those
who rem-ained -at home critclising them. But they
cannot expect such charity, for the hazards and difficulties of the undertaking are known to themselves
alone. To the world at large it seems quite easy to
find truth and inexcusable to miss it. And no wonder! For by finding truth they mean only learning
byroite the maxims current around them.
Present to an ordinary man the maxim,'Love your
enemies;' you may hear him sigh as he answers that
the saying is divine, but he fears he shall never practise it. The reason is that he has an enemy and fully
understands what it is to love him, and also what it
is to hate him. Present to the same man the saying,




84                ECCE HOMO.'The Word was made flesh,' and what will he answer?
If he answered the truth he would say that he did
not understand it; but he would not be quite an ordinary man if he could recognize his own ignorance so
plainly. He will answer that he believes it, by which
he means that as the words make no impression what
ever upon his mind, so they excite no opposition in it
Present the same two texts to a thinker. It is not
impossible that the first may seem to him no hard
saying; he may have no enemies, or his thoughtful
habits may have brought his passions under control.
But the second will overwhelm him with difficulty.
For he knows what it asserts; he may have been
accustomed to regard the R67oo as the technicality of
an extinct philosophy, and may be staggered to find it
thus imported into history and made the groundwork
of what aspires to be a permanent theology. It is at
this point, then, that the thinker will sigh, and you
will hear him murmur that it is a great saying, but he
fears he shall never believe it.
Thus Christian belief is fully as hard a thing as
Christian practice. It is intrinsically as hard, and
those who do not perceive the difficulty of it understand it just so much less than those who do. Christ's
first followers, as we have seen, were far from pos.
sessing the full Christian belief. Not till long after his
departure did they arrive at those conclusions which
are now regarded as constituting Christian theology.
in their position, we have admitted, this was almost
inevitable. The great events upon which that theology
rests, had. either not happened, or not been maturely
considere~    Thes' difficulties have been removed;




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST S KINGDOM.       85
but have not other difficulties taken their place? Two
may be mentioned which beset the modern inquirer
into Christianity, and often make his theology as imp.
perfect and confused as that of the crowd of disciples
who gathered round Christ.
I. To the first Christians thne capital facts of Christ's
life were future and therefore obscure; to the moderns
they gather an almost equal obscurity from being long
past. The immensity of distance from which we contemplate them raises many obstacles to belief. Before
the theology can be inferred from the facts they must
be well authenticated. Those who witnessed them or
talked with those who had witnessed them were relieved from all trouble on this head. But in these
days many fail in the preliminary undertaking. Complicated questions of evidence perplex them; they are
assailed with doubts of the possibility of transmitting
from age to age a trustworthy account of any long
series of incidents, especially a series including miracles. Suppose this difficulty surmounted, still the
same remoteness of the life of Christ creates much
difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of the words he
used, and the exact nature of the doctrines he taught
For those words and those doctrines have been sub.
jected to the ingenuity of many generations of commentators. Spoken originally to men of the ancient
world, they have received a succession of medieval
and modern glosses, and if we put these aside and
study the text for ourselves, our own training, the
education and habits of the nineteenth century, dis.
qualify us in a considerable degree for entering into
its meaning. Only a well-trained historical imagina.




86                ECCE HOMO.
tion, active and yet calm, is competent so to revive the
circumstances of place and time in which the words
were delivered as to draw from them, at a distance of
eighteen hundred years, a meaning tolerably like that
which they conveyed to those who heard them.
2. Christ's first followers had a sympathy with him,
and his mode of teaching had an adaptation to them,
which arose from the fact of the Master and disciples
being contemporaries and fellow-countrymen. It is
common to say of political constitutions that they must
grow and cannot be made. Now the constitution
which Christ gave to mankind has been found capable
of being transplanted into almost every soil, but, notwithstanding, it is native to Palestine, and must have
been embraced by those to whom it was first given
with an ease and readiness which the Western nations
cannot emulate. Christ's constitution was not a new
invention, but a crowning development of that which
had existed in Palestine since the race of Israel had
lived there. For centuries the Jews had been accustomed to receive truth by authoritative proclamation
from the mouth of a prophet. How the truth came
to the prophet he himself knew not; the only account
he could give of the matter was that itwas put into
his mouth by the Invisible King of the Theocracy
and that he knew it to be truth. And those who listened put the proclamation to no rigid test. They
watched the prophet to see if he were honest, and if
his proclamation shook their hearts and stirred their
blood and seemed to bring them into the presence of
the Invisible King, they then felt sure of its truth and
safe in following it. Now of these prophets Christ




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST S KINGDOM        87
was distinctly one, the greatest of all. He had the
same intuitive certainty, for which he gave no reason,
yet which no one could attribute to mere self-confi.
dence, the same tone of unbounded authority assumed
in the name of God, the same power of subduing the
heart and arousing the conscience. Therefore those
who heard him found something familiar in his style.
It reminded them of all that they were most accustonmed to venerate, of Moses, Isaiah, Ezra, and they
seemed to fall into their natural places when they sat
at his feet and treasured up his words as oracles of
truth.
Now this mode of communicating and receiving
truth is not indeed repugnant to the Western nations.
From the time of Pythagoras and Heraclitus to the
time of Carlyle and Mazzini, men have arisen at intervais in the West who have seemed to themselves to
discover truth, not so much by a process of reasoning
as by an intense gaze, and who have announced their
conclusions in the voice of a herald, using the name
of God and giving no reasons. And in the Western
world these men have always met with a certain acceptance; they have generally succeeded in gathering
round them followers of respectable character and understanding; and so fully is the possibility of such a
prophetic discovery of truth recognized, that the Jewish prophets themselves have been received throughout
the West with profound veneration. Still the respect
for authority in knowledge is far less in the West than
ill the East. This is plain when we consider that the
Jewislh prophets seem tc have been accepted by the
vwhole nation, and that when thus accepted it was con.




88               ECCE HOMO.
sidered presumption to deny anything that they had
said. On the other hand, no one in the West ever
reaches such an eminence as to have no detractors,
and we are all bold enough to doubt what is said even
by those whom we reverence most. The reason of this
is that in the West a method has been laid down which
places the gifted man and the ungifted in some degree
on a level. It is still, no. doubt, the gifted man in general who discovers truth, but when the discovery is
made the ungifted man can test it and judge of it.
Whereas it would appear that where the processes of
thought have never been analyzed and reduced to
method, there is no means of discovering the error of
a gifted man, except through the emphatic contradiction of one who has won the reputation of being more
gifted.
It follows from this that when Christian theology
passed into the Gentile world, when it diffused itself
from the Mosaic East into the Socratic West, it must
have encountered a new difficulty. The Jew who
listened to Christ had been educated to rest in authority. He had believed in all that Moses had taught, in
all that Isaiah had taught, and as soon as he was convinced that Christ was greater than Moses and Isaiah,
he submitted with the same deference to his authority,
and accepted all that Christ taught. When the life of
Christ was put before the Greek, it affected him to a
certain extent as it had done the Jew. He was seized
with admiration and reverence. He regarded him as
a divine man, and placed him first by the side of Orpheus and Pythagoras, and in the end above both.
But this veneration did not imply the same absolute




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST'S KINGDOM.       89
devotion of the intellect which it had invoked in the
case of the Jew. For the Greek had other methods
of arriving at truth besides imbibing it directly from
the lips of wise men. He had a logic in which he
had great confidence, and which had already led him
to certain definite conclusions. If these conclusions
should be at war with those authoritatively announced
by Christ? Here was a difficulty at the very begin.
ning, and in the course of time this difficulty has increased. The scientific methods laid down at first in
Greece have been improved, and applied with such
success that their credit is greatly risen. Men may
still be disposed to believe in Christ's infallible wisdom, but their minds are now accustomed to work
with great freedom upon all subjects, to have more
respect for reasoning than for authority, and almost to,
deny knowledge to be knowledge when it rests only
upon hearsay, and is not verified to the mind itself by
demonstration, or at least probable evidence. Accustomed to test and weigh everything, and trained in the
practice of suspending the judgment, they become not
so much unwilling as positively unable to receive a
proposition merely because it is authoritatively delivered.
Such are some of the difficulties of Christian belief.
We conclude that though it is always easy for thoughtless men to be orthodox, yet to grasp with any strong
practical apprehension the theology of Christ is a
thing as hard as to practise his moral law. Yet if lie
meant anything by his constant denunciation of hypocrites, there is nothing which he would have visited
withl sterner censure than that short cut to belief which




90    -ECCE HOMO.
many persons take when, overwhelmed with the difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid of damnation, they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, but,
giving their minds a holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe and acting as if they did. A
melancholy end of Christianity indeed! Can there be
such a disfranchised pauper class among the citizens
of the New Jerusalem?
But when it is once acknowledged that to attain a
full and firm belief in Christ's theology is hard, then it
follows at once that a man may be a Christian without it. It has been shown that the first of all requirements made from the earliest Christians was faith, a
loyal and free confidence in Christ. This was what
made the difference between them and the careless
crowd or the hostile Pharisee —that to them Christ
was a beloved Master and friend. But this faith, if
they had it but as a grain of mustard-seed, must have
assured them that it was not in his character to exact
of them what it was beyond their power to render,
and to expect them at once to grasp truths which it
might well take them all their lives to learn. And did
he as a matter of fact do so? Do we find him frequently examining his followers in their creed, and
rejecting one as a sceptic and another as an infidel?
Sceptics they were all, so long as he was among them,
a society of doubters, attaining to faith only at intervals and then falling back again into uncertainty.
And from their Master they received reproofs for this,
but reproofs tenderly expressed, not dry threats nor
cold dismission. Assuredly those who represent
Christ as presenting to men an abstruse theology, and




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST S KINGDOM.       91
saying to them peremptorily,' Believe or be danlned,'
have the coarsest conception of the Saviour of the
world. He will reject, he tells us, those who refuse
to clothe the naked or tend the sick, those whose
lamps have gone out, those who have buried their
talents, not those whose minds are poorly furnished
with theological knowledge. Incredulity and unccrlt inty, as long as it seemed honest, he always treated
with kind consideration; and so disposed was he to
the largest tolerance that on one occasion he refused
to condemn one who, showing some respect for his
character, yet disobeyed his first and most peremptory
law —namely, that which commanded all persons to
follow and attach themselves to him. And on this
occasion he uttered words which breathe that contempt for forms and that respect for what is substantial which is the unfailing mark of a commanding
spirit -' he that is not against us is on our part.'
To what conclusion, then, are we led by these reflections upon the question of this chapter -the question, namely, what was involved in accepting Christ's
call. Those who gathered round him did in the first
place contract an obligation of personal loyalty to him.
On the ground of this loyalty he proceeded to form
them into a society, and to promulgate an elaborate
legislation, comprising and intimately connected withl
certain declarations, authoritatively delivered, concernling the nature of God, the relation of man to him, and
thie invisible world. In doing so he assumed the part
of a Moses. Now the legislation of Moses had been
absolutely binding upon the whole community. Dis.
obedience to his laws had been punished by the civil




97                ECCE HOMO.
judge, and so had every act which implied a concep.
tion of the Divine Nature different from that which he
had prescribed. The new Moses, we have seen, had
no civil judges to enforce his legislation, but he represented his unfaithful servants as being liable to prosecution before the tribunals of the invisible world. He
described those tribunals as passing capital sentences
upon some criminals, and dismissing them, as he expressed it, into'the outer darkness' —that is, beyond
the pomcerium of that sacred city which is lighted by
the glory of God. These are the traitors to the Theocracy who have broken its essential obligations.
Who then are they? And what are these essential
obligations?
Under the Mosaic law, as under all secular codes,
certain definite acts were regarded as unpardonable.
Moses punished the dishonoring of parents and idolatry with death, i. e. absolute exclusion. Now in this
respect the new Moses is infinitely more tolerant.
There are no specific acts which are unpardonable to
the Christian. No amount of disobedience which can
be named, no amount of disbelief or ignorance of doctrine, is sufficient to deprive a man of the name of
Christian. For it is held in the Christian Church that
the man most stained with crime, and even most unsuccessful in breaking himself of criminal habits, and
in the same manner the man whose speculative notions
are most erroneous or despairing, may yet possess
that rudiment of goodness which Christ called faith.
But, on another side, the new Moses is infinitely more
exacting than the old. For the most blameless observance of the whole law is not enough to save the




MEMBERSHIP IN CHRIST'S KINGDOM.        93
Christian from exclusion, unless it has actually sprung
from genuine goodness. It may spring from natural
caution or long-sighted selfishness, and in the heart of
the strict moralist there may be no spark of faith. For
such a moralist Christ has no mercy. And so it be
came a maxim in the Christian Church that faith jusI ifies a man without the deeds of the law.
Faith was described above as no proper Christian
virtue, but as that which was required of a man before
he became a Christian. This virtue was to be taken
by Christ and trained by his legislation and theology
into something far riper and higher. But if the training should through untoward circumstances almost
entirely fail, and faith remain a scarcely developed
principle, bearing fruit but seldom and fitfully in
action - never is inconceivable - still in the Christian
view it is life to the soul, and the faithful soul, however undeveloped, is at honle within the illuminated
circle, and not in the outer darkness




94
CHAPTER VIII.
BAPTISM.
WXTE have before us the new Moses surrounded by
those who are waiting to receive from his lips
the institutions of a new Theocracy. They have been
gathered out of the nation; they form the elect part
of it. But no constraint has been used in enlisting
some and rejecting others. Those are here in whose
hearts there is something which answers to such a
trumpet-call as that which John and Christ had caused
to resound through the land. Those whose lives are
sunk in routine, and no longer capable of aspiring or
willing or believing, are not here. But among the
followers of the Legislator there is but one common
quality. All, except a very few adventurers who
have joined him under a mistake and will soon withdraw, have some degree of what he calls faith. All
look up to him, trust in him, are prepared to obey
him and to sacrifice something for him. He requires
no more. This is a valid title to citizenship in the
Theocracy. But in habits and character they differ as
much as the individuals in any other crowd. Some
are sunk in vice, others lead blameless lives; some
have cultivated minds, others are rude peasants; some
offer to Jehovah prayers conceived in the style of Hebrew psalmists and prophets, others worship sq)MaA




BAPTISM.                   95
monstrous idol of the terrified imagination or passionless abstraction of philosophy. It is the object of the
society into which this motley crowd are now gathered
gradually to elevate each member of it, to cure him
of vice, to soften his rudeness, to deliver him from the
dominion of superstitious fears or intellectual conceits.
But this is the point towards which the society tends,
not that with which it begins. The progress of each
citizen towards this perfection will bear proportion to
his natural organization, to the force with which the
influences of the society are brought to bear upon
him, and to the stage of enlightenment from which he
starts. With some it will be rapid, with others so
slow as to be almost imperceptible. But the first pro,
pelling power, the indispensable condition of progress,
is the personal relation of loyal vassalage of the citizen
to the Prince of the Theocracy.
The test of this loyalty lay, as we have seen, in the
mere fact that a man was prepared to attach himself
to Christ's person and obey his commands, though by
doing so some risk and some sacrifice was incurred.
Christ, however, did not retain every one who accepted the Call about his person; some he dismissed to
their homes, laying upon them no burdensome commands. It was necessary therefore that some mark
should be devised by which the follower of Christ
might be distinguished, and by consenting to bear
which he might give proof of his loyalty. Some
initiatory rite was necessary, some public formality, in
which the new volunteer might take, as it were, the
military oath and confess his chief before men. If
siuch a ceremony could be devised, which shoull at




96                ECCE HOMO.
the same time indicate that the new votary had taken
upon himself not merely a new service but an entirely
new mode of life, it would be so much the better.
Now there was already in use among the Jews the rite
of baptism. It was undergone by those who became
proselytes to Judaism. SubcEh?bsehy-f e signiiedby
submitting to it that they passed out of their secular
life into the dedicated life of citizens in a Theocracy.
T'he water in which they were bathed washed away
fiom them the whole unhallowed and unprofitable
past; they ro0s out of it new men into a new world,
and felt as thbough  death were behind them and they
had been bori again into a higher state. No ceremony could I better adapted to Christ's purpose than
this. It wa- already in use, and had acquired a mean
ing and associations which were universally understood. By calling upon all alike, Jews as well as
Gent;les, to submit to it, Christ would intimate that
he did not merely revive the old Theocracy but instituted a new one, so that the children of Abraham
themselves, members of a theocracy from their birth,
had a past to wash away and a new life to begin, not
less than the unsanctified Gentile. And at the same
time, being publicly performed, it would serve as well
as any other rite to test the loyalty of the new recruit
and his readiness to be known by his Master's name.
This ceremony, then, Christ adopted, and he made
it absolutely binding upon all his followers to submit
to it. In the fourth Gospel there is a story which
illustrates in the most striking manner the importance
which Christ attached to baptism. A man of advanced years and influential position, named Nicode



BAPTISM.                 97
mus, visited Christ, we are told, in secret, and eritered
into conversation with him. He begany an explicit
avowal of belief in Christ's divine mission. WVhat he
would have gone on to say we may conjecture from
these                 thwo facts, namelyhf —at    elieved in Christ,
and that nevertheless he visited him  secretly. It
appears that he hoped to comply with Christ's demand of personal homage and submission, but to be
excused fro   aking a public avowal of it. And
when we consider fthe high position of Nicodemus, it
is natural to suppose that he hoped to receive such a
special exemption in consideration of the services he
had it in his power to render. He could push the
movement among the influential classes; he could
cautiously dispose the Pharisaic sect to a coalition
with Christ on the ground of their common national
and theocratic feeling; he might become a useful
friend in the metropolis, and might fight against the
prejudice which a provincial and Galiloaan party could
not but excite. These advantages Christ would secure by allowing Nicodemus to become a secret member of his Theocracy, and by excusing him, until a
better opportunity should present itself, from publicly
undergoing the rite of baptism. On the other hand,
by insisting upon this he would at once destroy all the
influence of Nicodemus with the authorities of Jerusalem, and with it all his power of becoming a nursing
father to the infant Church. When we consider the
gi eat contempt which Christ constantly expressed for
fi)rmns and ceremonies, and in particular for those
Iwashings' which were usual among the Pharisees,
we are prepared to find him readily acceding to the
5




98                ECCE IHOMO.
request of Nicodemus, Instead of which he,  hut the
petitioner's mouth by an abrupt declaration that there
was no way into the Theocracy but through baptism.
The kingdom of God, he insisted, though it hadno
locality and no separation from the secular states of
mankind, though it had no law-courts, no lictors and
no fasces, was yet a true state. Men were not to make
a light thing of entering it, to give their names to the
Founder at a secret interview, and immediately return
to their accustomed places of resort and take up the
routine of secular life where it had been left. Those
who would enroll themselves among the citizens of it
were to understand that they began their life anew, as
truly as if they had been born again. And lest the
Divine Society, in its contempt for material boundaries and for the distinctness which isgiven -y unity o.l.ace, should lose its distinctness altogether a~ nt-de generate into a theory or a sentiment or a de-vout i'iagination, the initiatory rite of baptism, with its publicity
and formality, was pronounced as indispensable  to
membership as that spiritual inspiration which is
membership itself.
Baptism being thus indispensable, we may be surprised to find it so seldom mentioned in the accounts
of Christ's life. We do not read, for example, of the
baptism of his principal disciples.  But it is to be
remembered that the rite of baptism, though used by
Christ, was not introduced by him, and that he recognized the Theocracy as having begun to exist in a
rudimentary form before his own public appearance.
The work of John was merged in that of Christ as a
river in the sea, but Christ regards those who had




BAPTISM.                  99
received John's baptism as being already members of
the Theocracy. Since the time of John, he says, the
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent
take it by force. Now Christ's first followers were
likely to be drawn from John's circle; partly because
John himself directed his followers to Christ, partly
because those who were affected by the eloquence of
the one prophet were naturally formed to fall under
the influence of the other. That the fact actually was
so is attested by our biographies, which distinctly
speak of Christ as finding his earliest disciples in the
neighborhood and among the followers of the Baptist.
This being the case, we may presume that the bulk of
the first Christians received baptism from John, and
found themselves already enrolled in a Society, the
objects of which neither they nor perhaps the Baptist
himself clearly understood, before they had ever seen
the face of Christ. The Acts of the Apostles affords
many proofs that the first Christians regarded John's
disciples as members of the Church, but imperfectly
instructed.




ioo
CHAPTER IX.
REFLECTIONS ON THE NATURE OF CHRISTS
SOCIETY.
OF the three parts into which our investigation is
divided, Christ's Call, his Legislation, and his
Divine Royalty or relation to Jehovah, the first is now
completed. We have considered the nature of the
Call, its difference from that which was given to
Abraham, the means which were taken to procure a
body of men such as might suitably form the foundation of a new and unique Commonwealth, and the
nature of the obligations they incurred in accepting
the Call: Ev puv w   1' a    x6 TV glQy t(xV alAtaTroV.
But before we proceed to consider Christ's ILegislation, itwill be well to linger a while and reflect on
what we have lea4rnt. Having ascertained so far what
Christ undertook to do and did, it will be well to compare it with other similar schemes and to form some
opinion upon the success it was likely to meet with.
Let us ask ourselves what was the ultimate object of
Christ's scheme. When the Divine Society was established and organized, what did he expect it to accomplish? To the question we may suppose he would
have answered, The object of the Divine Society is
that God's will may be done on earth as it is done in
heaven. In the language of our own day, its object
was the improvement of morality.  Now this is no




NATURE OF CHRIST S SOCIETY.       IO1
strange or unusual object. Many schemes have been
proposed for curing human nature of its vices and
helping it to right thought and right action. We have
now before us the outline of Christ's scheme, and are
in a condition to compare it with some others that
have had the same object, and by so doing to discover
in what its peculiarity consists. Now there is one
large class of such schemes with which mankind have
occupied themselves diligently for many centuries, and
which for the purpose of comparison with Christianity
may be treated as a single scheme. Ever since the
time of Socrates philosophy has occupied itself with
the same problem; it has been one of the principal
boasts of philosophy that it teaches virtue and weeds
vice out of the mind. At the present day those who
reject Christianity commonly represent that in advanced civilization it gives place naturally to moral
philosophy. Their belief is that the true and only
method of making men good is by philosophy; and
that the good influence of Christianity in past ages
has been due to the truths of moral philosophy which
are blended in it with superstitions which the world
in its progress is leaving behind.
Of course there have been a multitude of systems
of moral philosophy, which have differed from each
other in a considerable degree, but they have all
resembled each other in being philosophy. For the
present purpose their differences are not important;
the important thing is that there have been two conspicuous attempts to improve mankind morally -- the
one by moral philosophy, the other by means of the
Chlistian Church. Now, as nothing assists concep



102               ECCE HOMIO.
tion so much as comparison, and it is hardly possil le
to understand anything properly without putting it 1)y
the side of something else, we miay expect to gain
some insight into Christ's method of curing human
nature by comparing it with that of the philosophers.
At the first glance the two methods may seem to
bear a strong resemblance, and we may suspect that
the difference between them is superficial, and not
more than is readily accounted for by the difference
between manners and modes of thought in Greece and
Palestine. It may seem to us that Socrates and Christ
were in fact occupied in the same way; certainly both
lived in the midst of admiring disciples, whose minds
and characters were formed by their words; both discussed moral questions, the one with methodical reasoning as a Greek addressing Greeks, the other with
the authoritative tone and earnestness of a Jew.
There may seem here at first sight a substantial resemblance and a superficial difference. But if we make a
more careful comparison, we shall find that precisely
the contrary is true, and that the difference is really
radical, while the resemblance is accidental. It is
true that Socrates, like Christ, formed a sort of society, and that the successors of Socrates formed societies, which lasted several centuries, the Academy, the
Porch, the Garden. But these philosophical societies
merely existed for convenience. No necessary tie
bound the members of them together. As the teacher
had but one tongue and but one lifetime, it was obviously better that he should take his pupils in large
numblers, or, as it were, in classes, rather than teach
Every individual separately, and tho.efore before the




NATURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY.        103
invention of the printing-press a philosopher usually
gathered a society round him. Doubtless, when this
had been done, a certain esjprit de corps sprang up
among such societies, and they did, in special cases,
approximate in some degree to churches. But that
th.s was accidental, and not in the original design,
appears from the fact that since the great diffusion of
books, philosophers have almost ceased to form societies, and content themselves, for the most part, with
producing conviction in the minds of isolated students
by published writings. If Socrates were to appear
at the present day he would hardly bear that resemblance to Christ which he bore at Athens. He would
form no society.
Now it was not from accident or for convenience
that Christ formed a society. Nor were his followers
merely united by the common desire to hear him
speak, and afterwards by the friendly feelings that
grew out of intimacy. We have seen already, and
shall see yet more clearly in the sequel, that to organize a society, and to bind the members of it together
by the closest ties, were the business of his life. For
this reason it was that he called men' away from their
homes, imposed upon some a wandering life, upon
others the sacrifice of their property, and endeavored
by all means to divorce them from their former connections in order that they might find a new home in
the Church. For this reason he instituted a solemn
initiation, and for this reason refused absolutely to
give to any one a dispensation from it. For this reasot. too, as we shall see, he established a common
feast, which was through all ages to remind Christians




104               ECCE HOMO.
of their indissoluble union. Thus although the te m
disciples or learners is applied in our biographies to
the followers of Christ, yet we should not suffer this
phrase to remind us of a philosophical school. Learners they might be, but they loved better to speak of
themselves as subjects or even' slaves' of Jesus Christ,
and to each other he exhorted them to be as brothers.
Thus the resemblance between Christ and the ancient philosophers vanishes on examination. He was
the founder of a society to which for a time he found
it useful to give instruction; they gave instruction to
pupils who found it convenient to form themselves
into a society for the sake of receiving it. Hence it
was that while they assumed a name derived from the
wisdom they possessed and communicated, and were
called philosophers, he took his title from the community he founded and ruled, and called himself King.
But as the obvious resemblance between Christ and
such a philosopher as Socrates vanishes on examination, so we shall find that the obvious difference between them - namely, that the one used reasoning
and the other authority — appears upon examination
to be radical and fundamental. It was the perpetual
object of Socrates as much as possible to sink his own
personality. He wished his arguments to have all the
weight they might deserve, and his authority to count
for nothing. Those who have cc nsidered the meaning
of his famous irony know that it was not by any means
what such a writer as Cicero supposes, a humorous
device to make his conversation more racy and the
confutation of his adversaries more unexpected and
decisive. IHe professed to know nothing because he




NATURE OF CHRIST S SOCIETY.          I05
wvished to exalt his method at his own expense. He
wanted to give men not truths but a power of arriving
at truths, and therefore what he found it most necessary to avoid was the tendency of his hearers to adopt
his conclusions out of mere admiration for his wisdom
and love for his person rather than rational convict-on.
By his determined and consistent abstinence from all
dogmatic assertion he gradually trained men to believe
in a method which, if only carefully used, discovered
truth or verified it as surely, within certain limitations,
in the hands of an ordinary man as in those of a sage.
Deservedly he gained the greatest personal admiration,
but his highest claim to it was the trouble he took to
avoid it, and the tenacity with which he labored to set
the tranquil and methodical operations of the intellect
in the search of truth above the blind inmpulsps of feeling and personal admiration.
Now in all this we find Christ at the very opposite
extreme. As with Socrates argument is everything
and personal authority nothing, so with Christ personal authority is all in all and argument altogether
unemployed. As Socrates is never tired of depreciating himself and dissembling his own superiority to
those with whom he converses, so Christ perpetually
and consistently exalts himself. As Socrates firmly
denies what all admit, and explains away what the
oracle had announced, viz. his own superior wisdom.
so Christ steadfastly asserts what many wvere not p epared to admit, viz. his own absolute superiority to all
men and his natural title to universal royalty. The
same contrast appears in the requirements they made
of their followers. Socrates cared nothing what tllose
5*




10o               ECCE HOMO.
whom he conversed with thought of him; he would
bear any amount of rudeness from them; but he caled
very much about the subject of discussion and about
obtaining a triumph for his method. On the other
hand, the one thing which Christ required was a certain personal attachment to himself, a fidelity or
loyalty; and so long as they manifested this, he was
in no haste to deliver their minds from speculative
error.
We may be sure that so marked a contrast does not
arise merely from the difference between a Semitic and
European mind. Tlie truth is that as the resemblance
between the earliest Christian Church and a philo.
sophical school is delusive, so is the resemblance between Christ himself and any Greek philosopher.
Christ had a totally different object and used totally
different means from Socrates. The resemblance is,
no doubt, at first sight striking. B —oth were tlea -es,
both were prodigiously influential, both suffered martyrdom. But if we examine these points of resemblance we shall see that martyrdom was, as it were,
an accident of the life of Socrates, and teaching in a
great degree an accident of Christ's, and that their influence upon men has been of a totally different kind
- -that of Socrat 1elng an intelectual infuence upon
thought, that of Christ a personal influence upon feeiing. What real student of Socrates concerns himself
with his martyrdom?  It is an impressive page of!history, but the importance of Socrates to men has no
concern with it. Had he died in his bed he would
still have been the creator of science. On the other
nand, if we isolate Christ's teaching from his life we




NATURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY.        I07
mna) come to the conclusion that it contains little that
could not be found elsewhere, and found accompanied
with reasoning and explanation. Those who fix their
eyes on the Sermon on the Mount, or rather on the
naked propositions which it contains, and disregard
Christ's life, his cross, and his resurrection, commit
the same mistake in studying Christianity that the stuifelit of Socratic philosophy would commit if he studied
only the dramatic story of his death. Both Socrates
and Christ uttered remarkable thoughts and lived remarkable lives. But Socrates holds his place in history by his thoughts and not by his life, Christ by his
life and not by his thoughts.
It follows that it is a mistake to regard Christianity
as a rudimentary or imperfect moral philosophy. Philosophy is one thinlg, and Christianity quite another.
And the difference between them lies here -— that
philosophy hopes to cure the vices of human nature by
working upon the head, and Christianity by educating
the heart. The philosopher works upon the man in
isolation, though he may for convenience assemble his
pupils in classes. He also abstains carefully from
biassing his feelings by any personal motives and
abjures the very principle of authority, making it his
object to render his pupil his own master, to put him
in possession of a rule by which he may guide his
actions, and to relieve him from dependence upon any
external guardianship. Christianity abhors isolation;
it gathers men into a society and binds them in the
closest manner, first to each other, and next to Christ
himself, whom it represents as claiming their enthusiastic devotion on the ground of giatitude, and as




io8               ECCE HOMO.
exhibiting to them by a transcendent example, and also
incidentally by teaching, but rather rhetorical than
scientific teaching, the life they should lead.
Christianity, then, and moral philosophy are totally
different things, and yet profess to have the same object, namely, the moral improvement of mankind.
This being the case, as it is probable that they are not
precisely equally adapted to attain the object, it would
seem tc follow that one of the two is unnecessary.
But on consideration we shall find that each has its
function, and that philosophy undertakes quite another
sort of moral improvement than Christianity. The
difference may be shortly expressed thus: — Both
endeavor to lead men to do what is right, but philosophy undertakes to explain what it is right to do, while
Christianity undertakes to make men disposed to do it.
Wrong actions spring from two causes — bad moral
dispositions, and intellectual misapprehensions. Good
men do wrong perpetually, because they have not the
mental training and skill which may enable them to
discern the right course in given circumstances. They
have good impulses, but they misconceive the facts
before them, and miscalculate the effect of actions.
Their intentions are right, but they take wrong means
of carrying them out. There may be a conflict of
good impulses, and in such cases one at least must relnain unindulged. Duty, in short, as it presents itself
to us, is a vcry complicated matter. To do it with
certainty a nlan must not be good merely but wise.
I-Ie must have reflected deeply on human affairs and
on social laws; he must have reduced the confusion
of good feelings which,i.ists at starting in the wPU




NATURE OF CHRIST S SOCIETY.     I0)
disposed mind to order and clearness. This, then, iq
what philosophy undertakes to help him to do.
But suppose the good feelings wanting at the outset. What will it avail in such a case that philosophy should point out the right course? When the
man whose impulses are bad has plainly understood
by the aid of philosophy which is the right course and
which the wrong, what will he do? Clearly he will
take the wrong.  Some additional machinery is
wanted which may evoke the good impulses, cherish
them, and make them masters of the bad ones. If
this is not done, what avails it to give a man the
knowledge of what is right? It will but help him to
avoid it. We have heard of a fruit which gave the
knowledge of good, but it was'knowledge of good
bought dear by knowing ill.'
Now this machinery is what Christ undertakes to
supply. Philosophers had drawn their pupils from the
elite of humanity; but Christ finds his material among
the worst and meanest, for he does not propose merely
to make the good better but the bad good. And what
is his machinery? He says the first step towards good
dispositions is for a man to form a strong personal
attachment Let him first be drawn out of himself.
Next let the object of that attachment be a person of
striking and conspicuous goodness. To worship such
a person will be the best exercise in virtue that he can
have. Let him vow obedience in life and death to
such a person; let him mix and live with others who
have made the same vow.  Hwill  have ever before
his eyes an ideal of w     -at he may himself become.
His heart will be stirred by new feelings, a new world




R IO              ECCE HOMO.
will be gradually revealed to him, and, more than
this, a new self within his old self will make its presence felt, and a change will pass over him which he
till feel it most appropriate to call a new birth. This
is Christ's scheme stated in its most naked-form; we
shall have abundant opportunities in the sequel of axpoundirg it more fully. But if philosophy undertakes
to solve the same problem, what is its method? By
what means does it hope to awaken good impulses in
hearts that were before enslaved to bad ones?  By
eloquent exhortation perhaps, or by the examples of
life led philosophically. Nay, whatever effect these
instruments may have, they are instruments of the
same kind as those of Christianity. Example is a
personal influence, and impassioned eloquence works
upon the feelings. If we are to exchange Christianity
for these, it must be because the philosophers can put
before us an example more elevated than that of
Christ, and eloquence more impressive than that of
the Sermon on the Mount.  Philosophy, as such,
works by reasoning, by enlightening the mind, by exposing miscalculations and revealing things as they
are. Now by what process of this kind can the bad
man be turned into the good?  Where is the demonstration that will make the selfish man prefer another's
interest to his own? Your dialectic may force him to
acknowledge the right action, but where is the dialectic
that shall force him to do it? Where is the logical
dilemma that can make a knave honest?
The truth is that philosophy has no instruments that
it can use for this purpose. There exists no other
6ulch instrument but that personal one of which Christ




NA TURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY.       I I
availed himself. And this personal influence it is the
natural operation of philosophy in some degree to
counteract.  So far from  creating good impulses,
philosophy does something towards paralyzing and
destroying them. For perpetual and absorbing mental
activity blunts in some degree those feelings in which
tile life of virtue resides; at the same time it creates
a habit of solitude, and solitude is the death of all but
the strongest virtue. But the philosopher may answer
to this that the more important part of moral improvement is that which explains to us what it is right
to do, and that good impulses are provided by nature
with tolerable impartiality to all. He may think that
good impulses do not require to be artificially provided, or that they cannot be provided in any great degree
by any machinery. Well! it is a question of fact.
His own experience must decide it for each person.
Assuredly there are vast moral differences in the
people we meet, and we are able for the most part to
refer those differences to some cause or other. Let
the Christian principle be compared in its results with
the philosophical one; that is, let the virtue which
has arisen from contact and personal ties with the
good be compared with that which is the unaided fruit
of solitary reflection. Who is the philosophic good
man? He is one who has considered all the objects
antl consequences of human action; he has, in the
first place, perceived that there is in him a principle
of sympathy, the due development of which demands
that Ile should habitually consider the advantage of
others; he has been led by reflection to perceive that
the advantage of one individual may often involve tile




112               ECCE HOMO.
injury of several; he has thence concluded that it is
necessary to lay down systematic rules for his actions
lest he should be led into such miscalculations, and he
has in this reasonable and gradual manner arrived at
a system of morality. This is the philosophic good
n -an. Do we find the result satisfactory? Do we
not find in him a languid, melancholic, dull and
hard temperament of virtue? He does right perhaps,
but without warmth or promptitude. And no wonder! The principle of sympathy was feeble in him
at the beginning for want of contact with those who
might have called it into play, and it has been made
feebler still by hard brain-work and solitude. He
startles us at times by sudden immoralities into which
he is betrayed by ingenuity unchecked by healthy feeling. His virtue has intermissions and fits of lassitude;
he becomes guilty of small transgressions for which he
hopes to compensate by works of easy supererogation.
Virtue thus exhibited does not excite in the beholder
those' strange yearnings' of devotion of which Plato
spoke. No one loves such a man; people feel for
him an esteem mixed with pity. On the other hand,
who is the good man thatwe admire and love? How
do men become for the most part'pure, generous,
and humane'? By personal, not by logical influences.
They have been reared by parents who had these qualities, they have lived in a society which had a high
tone, they have been accustomed to see just acts done,
to) hear gentle words spoken, and the justness and the
gL Atleness have passed into their hearts and slowly
nrioilded their habits, and made their moral discernment clear; they remember commands and pro4




NATURE OF CHRIST S SOCIETY.        I 13
hibitions which it is a pleasure to obey for the sake of
those who gave them; often they think of those who
may be dead and say,'How would this action
appear to him? Would he approve that word, or
disapprove it?' To such no baseness appears a small
baseness because its consequences may be small, nor
does the yoke of law seem burdensome although it:s
ever on their necks, nor do they dream of covering a
sin by an atoning act of virtue. Often in solitude
they blush when some impure fancy sails across the
clear heaven of their minds, because they are never
alone, because the absent Examples, the Authorities
they still revere, rule not their actions only but their
inmost hearts; because their conscience is indeed
awake and alive, representing all the nobleness with
which they stand in sympathy, and reporting their
most hidden indecorum before a public opinion of the
absent and the dead.
Of these two influences - that of Reason and that
of Living Example -which would a wise reformer
reenforce? Christ chose the last. He gathered all
men into a common relation to himself, and demanded
that each should set him on the pedestal of his heart,
giving a lower place to all other objects of worship,
to father and mother, to husband or wife. In him
should the loyalty of all hearts centre, he should be
their pattern, their Authority, and Judge. Of hiln
and his service should no man be ashamed, but to
those who acknowledged it morality should be an
easy yoke, and the law of right as spontaneous as the
law of life; sufferings should be easy to bear, anl
the loss of worldly friends repaired by a ne-v home ill




114               ECCE HOMO.
the bosom of the Christian kingdom; finally, in death
itself their sleep should be sweet upon whose tombstone it could be written' Obdormivit in Christo.'
We have insisted upon the effect of personal influence in creating virtuous impulses. We have described
Christ's Theocracy as a great attempt to set all the
virtue of the world upon this basis, and to give it
a visible centre or fountain. But we have used generalities. It is advisable, before quitting the subject,
to give a single example of the magical passing of
virtue out of the virtuous man into the hearts of those
with whom he comes in contact. A remarkable story
which appears in St. John's biography, though it is
apparently an interpolation in that place, may serve
this purpose, and will at the same time illustrate the
difference between scholastic or scientific and living or
instinctive virtue. Some of the leading religious men
of Jerusalem had detected a woman in adultery. It
occurred to them that the case afibrded. a good opportunity of making an experiment upon Christ. They
might use it to discover how he regarded the Mosaic
law. That he was heterodox on the subject of that
law they had reason to believe, for he had openly
quoted some Mosaic maxims and declared them at
least incomplete, substituting for them new rules of
his own, which at least in some cases appeared to
abrogate the old. It might be possible, they thought,
by means of this woman to satisfy at once themselves
ard the people of his heterodoxy. They brought the




NATURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY.       I I5
woman before him, quoted the law of Moses on the
subject of adultery, and asked Christ directly whether
he agreed with the lawgiver. They asked for his
judgment.
A judgment he gave them, but quite different, both
in matter and manner, from what they had expected.
in. thinking of the'case' they had forgotten the woman, they had forgotten even the deed. What became
of the criminal appeared to them wholly unimportant;
towards her crime or her character they had no feeling
whatever, not even hatred, still less pity or sympathetic
shame. If they had been asked about her, they might
probabl) have answered, with Mephistopheles,'She
is not the first;' nor would they have thought their
answer fiendish, only practical and business-like.
Perhaps they might on reflection have admitted that
their frame of mind was not strictly moral, not quite
what it should be, that it would have been better if,
besides considering the legal and religious questions
involved, they could have found leisure for some
shame at the scandal and some hatred for the sinner.
But they would have argued that such strict propriety
is not possible in this world, that we have too much
on our hands to think of these niceties, that the man
who makes leisure for such refinements will find his
work in arrears at the end of the day, and probably
also that he is doing injustice to his family and those
dependent on him.
This they might fluently and plausibly have urged.
But the judgment of Christ was upon them, making
all things seem new, and shining like the lightning
from the one end of heaven to the other. He was




1 6               ECCE HOMO.
standing, it would seem, in the centre of,a circle,
when the crime was narrated, how the adultery had
been detected in the very act. The shame of the
deed itself, and the brazen hardness of the prosecutors, the legality that had no justice and did not even
pretend to have mercy, the religious malice that could
make its advantage out of the fall and ruin and ignominious death of a fellow-creature - all this was eagerly and rudely thrust before his mind at once. The
effect upon' him was such as might have been produced upon many since, but perhaps upon scarcely
any man that ever lived before. He was seized with
an intolerable sense of shame. He could not meet the
eye of the crowd, or of the accusers, and perhaps at
that moment least of all of the woman. Standing as
he did in the midst of an eager multitude that did not
in the least appreciate his feelings, he could not escape. In his burning embarrassment and confusion
he stooped down so as to hide his face, and began
writing with his finger on the ground. His tormentors
continued their clamor, until he raised his head for a
moment and said,' He that is without sin anlong you
let him first cast a stone at her,' and then instantly
returned to his former attitude. They had a glimpse
perhaps of the glowing blush upon his face, and
awoke suddenly with astonishment to a new sense of
their condition and their conduct. The older men
naturally felt it first and slunk away; the younger followed their example. The crowd dissolved and left
Christ alone with the woman. Not till then could he
bear to stand upright; and when he had lifted himself
up, consistently with his principle, he dismissed the




NATURE OF CHRIST'S SOCIETY.       I I 7
woman, as having no commission to interfere with
the office of the civil judge.
But the mighty power of living purity had done its
work. He had refused to judge a woman, but he had
judged a whole crowd. He had awakened the slumbering conscience in many hardened hearts, given
them a new delicacy, a new ideal, a new view and
teading of the Mosaic law.
And yet this crowd was either indifferent or bitterly
hostile to him. Let us imagine the correcting, elevating influence of his presence upon those who, so far
from being indifferent, were bound to him by the ties
which bind a soldier to his superior officer, a clansman to his chief, a subject to a king ruling by Divine
right, ay, and by ties far closer. The ancient philosophers were accustomed to inquire about virtue, whether
it can be taught. Yes! it can be taught, and in this
way. But if this way be abandoned, and moral philosophy be set up to do that which in the nature of
things philosophy can never do, the effect will appear
in a certain slow deterioration of manners which it
would be hard to describe had it not been described
already in well-known words:' Sophistry and calculation' will take the place of'chivalry.' There will
be no more'generous loyalty,' no more' proud submission,' no more' dignified obedience.' A stain will
no more be felt like a wound, and our hardened and
coarsened manners will lose the' sensibility of principlr and the chastity of honor.'




li8
SECOND PART.
CHRIS T'S L'E GISL A TION.
CHAPTER X.
CHRIST S LEGISLATION  COMPARED  WITH
PHILOSOPHIC  SYSTEMS.
]W     E have thus traced the rise of a monarchy, the
purest and the most ideal that has ever existed
among men. The most ideal, for in this monarchy alone
the obedience of the subject was in no case reluctant or
mercenary, but grounded upon a genuine conviction
of the immeasurable superiority in goodness, wisdom,
and power of the ruler. Such a superiority is always
supposed to exist in a king, and to constitute the
ground of his authority; but this is in most cases a
fiction which deceives no one, and only sustains itself
in bombastic titles and hollow liturgies of court etiquette. Where, however, the king has risen in dis.
turbed times from a private station, and has won his
sceptre by merit, the. theory is no mere constitutional
fiction. Such a king is, to many of his subjects, the
true master he claims to be to all; there are many
who obey him from a voluntary loyalty, who do in
their hearts worship his superiority, and who find
their freedom in accepting his yoke. But even in this




CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.            II9
case there are many whose submission is reluctant
and sullen, or elise mercenary and hypocritical. There
is always at least a minority whose subjection is secured by force. In Christ's monarchy no force was
used, though all power was at command; the obedience of his servants became in the end, though not
till after his departure, absolutely unqualified, even
when it involved the sacrifice of life; and it was obtained from them by no other means than the natural
influence of a natural superiority.
This monarchy was essentially despotic, and might,
in spite of the goodness of the sovereign, have had
some mischievous consequences, if he had remained
too long among his subjects, and if his dictation had
descended too much into particulars. But he shunned
the details of administration, and assumed only the
higher functions of an heroic monarch - those of. organization and legislation. And when these were
sufficiently discharged, when his whole mind and will
had expressed itself in precept and signed itself forever
in transcendent deeds, he withdrew to a secret post
of observation, from whence he visited his people for
d' future only in refreshing inspirations and great
acts of providential justice.
The time has now come for examining the legislation which Christ gave to his Society. It has an
important point of likeness and at the same time of
unlikeness to the legislation which it superseded.
The legislation which Jehovah gave to the Jews was
always regarded by them not merely as a rule for
their own actions, but as a reflection and revelation
of the character of their Invisible King. The faithful




120               ECCE HOMO.
Jew in obeying Jehovah became like Him. This
inspiring reflection gave life and moral vigor to the
Mosaic system. But that system labored at the same
time under the disadvantage that Jehovah was known
to His subjects only through His law. Only in prohibition and penalty was He revealed, only in thunder
cc ld His voice be heard. Now the law of Christ was
in like manner a reflection of the mind of the lawgiver; but the new Jehovah made his character known
not by his code merely, but by a life led in the sight
of men, by'going in and out' among the people.
The effect of this novelty was incalculable. It was
a moral emancipation; it was freedom succeeding
slavery. The experience of daily life may explain this
to us. It is a slavish toil to learn any art by text-books
merely, without the assistance of a tutor; the written
rule is of little use, is scarcely intelligible, until we
have seen it reduced to practice by one who can practise it easily and make its justice apparent. The ease
and readiness of the master are infectious; the pupil,
as he looks on, conceives a new hope, a new selfreliance; he seems already to touch the goal which
before appeared removed to a hopeless distance. It is
a slavery when soldiers are driven against the enemy
by the despotic command of a leader who does not
share the danger, but the service becomes free and
glorious when the general rides to the front. Such
w~as the revival of spirit which the Jew experienced
wS hen he took the oath to Christ, and which he described by saying that he was no longer under the law
but under grace. He had gained a tutor instead of a
text-book, a leader instead of a master, and when he




CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.             121
learned what to do, he learned at the same time how
to dc it, and received encouragement in attempting it.
And the law which Christ gave was not only illustrated, but infinitely enlarged by his deeds.  For
every deed was itself a precedent to be followed, and
therefore to discuss the legislation of Christ is to discuss his character: for it may be justly said that Christ
himself is the Christian law.
We nlust therefore be careful not to consider Christ's
maxims apart from the deeds which were intended to
illustrate them. There have been few teachers whose
words will less bear to be divorced from their context
of occasion and circumstance. But we find in our
biographies the report of a long discourse, which, as
far as we know, was suggested by no special incidents,
and which seems to have been intended as a general
exposition of the laws of the new kingdom. This discourse is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount;
it is recognized by all as the fundamental document
of Christian morality, and by some it is regarded as
constituting Christ's principal claim upon the homage
of the world. Naturally therefore it first attracts the
attention of those who wish to consider him  in his
character of legislator or moralist.
The style of the Sermon on the Mount is neither
purely philosophical nor purely practical. It refers
throughout to first principles, but it does not state
them in an abstract form; on the other hand, it enters into special cases and detail, but never so far as
to lose sight of first principles. It is equally unlike
the early national codes, which simply formularized
without method existing customs, and the early moral
6




I22                 ECCE HOMO.
treatises such as those of Plato and Aristotle, which
are purely scientific. Of Jewish writings it resembles
most the book of Deuteronomy, in which the Mosaic
law was recapitulated in such a manner as to make
the principles on which it was founded apparent; of
Gentile writings it may be compared with those of
Epictetus, Aurelius, and Seneca, in which we see a
scientific moralit1 brought to bear upon the str gg'es
and details of actual life. It uses all the philosophical
machinery of generalization and distinction, but its
object is not philosophical but practical - that is, not
truth but good.
As then this discourse has a philosophic unity, let
us try to discover what that unity is. As it propounds
to us a scheme of life founded upon a principle, let us
try to state the principle. The work of all legislators,
reformers, and philosophers is in one respect alike; it
is in all cases a protest against a kind of life which,
notwithstanding, might seem to have its attractions,
which, at any rate, suggests itself very naturally to
men, and is not abandoned without reluctance. All
reformers call on men to reduce their lives to a rule
different from  that of immediate self-interest, to live
according to a permanent principle and not, as the
poet says,'at random.' Against the dominion of
appetite all the teachers of mankind are at one: all
agree in repudiating the doctrine of the savage.:
I bow to ne'er a god except myself,
And to my Belly, first of deities.
To eat and drink your daily food and drink9
This is the creed of sober-minded people,




CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.             123
And not to fret yourself. But those who make
Laws, and sophisticate the life of man,
I bid them pack.
In the time of Christ, when Socrates had been in
his grave four hundred years, it was hardly necessary
for a philosopher to inveigh in set terms against such
naked self-indulgence.  The rudimentary lessons of
philosophy had now been widely diffused.  But is
Christ'called the poor into his kingdom, and addressed
his invitation to those whom no reformer had hoped
before to win, he was at the trouble to reason with
this grossest egotism.  On one occasion he told a
homely tale of a man who, absorbed in the pursuit and
enjoyment of wealth, was struck at the very moment of
complete self-satisfaction by sudden death, and compelled to relinquish the treasures he had sacrificed
every lasting good to amass. At another time he went
further, and described tortures and agonies which
might await on the further side of death some whose
lot had been most enviable on this. And in the discourse before us he expostulates, though in a gentler
tone, with the same class of sensualists.
There are two principal ways of rebuking lawless
sensuality: it is most important to consider whether
Christ's method coincides with either of them. The
first is to admit the sensualist to be right in his end,
but charge him with clumsiness in his choice of means.
To get the greatest amount of pleasure, it may be
said, is the only rational object which a man can propose to himself; but to suppose that this object can be
attained either by recklessly gratifying every desire as
it arises, or by collecting huge heaps of the ordinary




124               ECCE HOMO.
material of pleasure, such as money or food or fine
clothes, is childish. Pleasure is a delicate plant, and
cannot be cultivated without much study and practice.
Any excess of it is followed by a reaction of disgust
andl }'y a diminution in the power of entertaining it.
If you T ould live in the constant enjoyment of it,
you must carefully ascertain how large a dose it will
be safe to take at a time, and then you must drill
yourself by a constant discipline never to exceed that
dose. Again, what is pleasant to one man is not
equally so to another; you must study your own disposition; you must learn to know your own mind,
and not slavishly enjoy through another man's senses.
Once more, pleasant things, such as food or fine
clothes, are indeed among the conditions of pleasure,
but they do not by themselves constitute it. He who
devotes himself to the acquisition of these, and neglects to prepare his own mind for the full enjoyment of
them, will defeat his own object and sacrifice the end
to the means. We must therefore tell the sensualist
not that he loves pleasure too much, but that he ought
to love it more, that he ought to seek it more exclusively, and not to suffer himself to be cheated by the
mere external semblance and counterfeit of it.
Of course it is quite unjust to represent this theory
as repudiating moral virtue. Among the indispensable conditions of pleasure virtue may very well be
reckoned: it is perfectly open to an Epicurean philosopher to declare all other instruments of pleasure to be
inoperative and useless compared with or independent
of virtue. And those who think that we should not
make pleasure our chief object, yet commonly main-l




CHR1ST S LEGISLATION.           125
tain that he who lives best will actuany attain the
greatest amount and the best kind of pleasure; so that
the imost successful votary of pleasure would coincide
with the ideal man of the very schools which most
vehemently denounce pleasure-worship. The practical objection to Epicureanism  is not so much that it
makes pleasure the summum bonum, as that it recom,
mends us to keep this summum bonum always in view.
For it is far from being universally true that to get a
thing you must aim at it. There are some things
which can only be gained by renouncing them. To
use a familiar illustration: it is easy to breathe evenly
so long as you do not think about it; but as soon as
you try, it becomes impossible. Many of the moral
virtues are of this kind. Simplicity of character cannot be produced by thinking of it; rather, the more
you think of it the farther you travel into the opposite
extreme of self-consciousness. The grace of humility
is not to be won by constantly comparing yourself
with others and cataloguing your deficiencies; this
method is more likely to issue in hypocritical selfconceit. Now, a practical survey of life seems to
show that pleasure in its largest sense -a true and
deep enjoyment of life - is also not to be gained artificially Much of what Epicureans say is doubtless
true and valuable; our pleasures may be considerably
heightened by a little common sense; we often break
the cup or upset it in our excessive eagerness to drain
it to the bottom. Still, we destroy pleasure by making
it our chief object; its essential nature is corrupted
when it is made into a business: the highest perfection
of it is not among the prizes of exertion, the rewards




126               ECCE HOMO.
of industry or ingenuity, but a bounty of nature, a
grace of God. By contrivance and skill only an inferior sort can be attained, to which the keenness, the
glee, the racy bitter of the sweet, is wanting. And
this is the utmost that can be attained; this is what
can be made of pleasure by the most skilful artificers
of it. What, then, would the poor and simple-minded
gain from such a principle? Epicureanism popularized inevitably turns to vice; no skill in the preachers
of it will avail for a moment to prevent the obscene
transformation. It would probably be safe to go farther, and say that Epicureanism means vice in all
cases except where a rare refinement and tenderness
of nature create a natural propensity to'virtue so
strong as to disarm the most corrupting influence.
We need not, then, be surprised to find that Christ,
whose purpose was entirely practical, and who was
legislating not for a small minority but for mankind,
did not place his reproof of sensuality on this ground,
When he said,' Fret not yourself about your life what
ye shall eat, nor about your body what ye shall put
on,' he did not go on to say,' Remember for what
end food and clothing are intended; remember that
they are only the appliances of pleasure, and make it
your object to gain pleasure not through these means
only, but by every means within your reach, including
moral virtue.' But he proposes another object altogether -' the kingdom of God and his righteousness.'
There is another way in which it has been common
to argue with the sensualist. It has been said that the
sensualist makes bodily pleasure his object, and that in
so doing he forgets that man possesses a soul as well




CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.           127
as a body. This soul, it is said, is the nobler part of
the iman; the body is but a base appendage more or
less useful, but so far inferior that it should be treated
as a slave, and so intractable that it requires to be
coerced, punished, kept to hard labor, and stinted of
sustenance and pleasure. The interests of the body
are not worth considering; the man should occupy
himself with those of the soul - that is, the acquisition
cf knowledge, self-sufficiency, and virtue.  But this
reasoning, in the first place, convinces very few, and,
in the second, has an injurious effect upon those whom
it convinces. The soul and body are inextricably
united. It is of no practical use to consider them
apart; and if we do so, it is clear that the human
body is not a base or mean thing, but, on the contrary,
one of the most noble and glorious things known.
Again, if it is to be made subservient to the soul, experience abundantly shows that the soul does not
advance its own interests by maltreating its slave.
Discipline and coercion may sometimes be necessary,
but the soul loses its tone and health if the interests of
the body are not consulted, and if its desires are not in
a moderate degree satisfied. And those who learn
from these reasoners to depreciate the body, first become inhumanly cold to natural beauty and out of
sympathy with the material universe, and secondly,
while they slight their own bodily comforts, disregard
the physical well-being of their neighbors, and become
unfeeling and cruel.
Christ, then, as a practical legislator, did not depre.
ciate the body. On the contrary, he showed, both in




128              ECCE HOMO.
this Sermon and in his whole career, a tenderness of
the bodily well-being of men, such as no philosophical
school except the Epicureans had shown, and such as
the Epicureans themselves had not surpassed. Ile
bpent the greater part of his short life in healing sick
people, and of the comforts which he restored to others
lie did not disdain himself to partake. He was to be
met at weddings; many of the discourses which his
biographies preserve were suggested by the incidents
of feasts and banquets at which he was present; and
so marked was the absence of asceticism both in his
own life and in that which he prescribed for his disciples, that his enemies called him a glutton and a winebibber, and he had to apologize for the indulgent
character of his discipline by pointing with sad foresight
to the sufferings which his followers would all too
soon have to endure. But the words of this Sermon
are even more striking. He divides himself at once
from the ascetic and the Stoic. They had said,' Make yourselves independent of bodily comforts;' he
says,'Ye have need of these things.' But if the Epicurean or the sensualist take advantage of these words
and say,'If you have need of these things, make it
your study to obtain them,' he parts company not less
decidedly with these, and says,'True pleasure is not
thus to be had. It is the healthy bloom of the spirit
which nust come naturally or not at all. Those who
think about it lose it, or, if not, produce with all their
labor but a poor imitation of it. Self-consciousness
and sensualism is the enemy of true delight. Solomon
on his throne was gaudy; the lilies of the field are




CHRIST S LEGISLATION.            129
better dressed. Epicurus in his garden was languid;
the birds of the air have more enjoyment of their food.'
We are therefore to dismiss pleasure from  our
thoughts as a thing which we are indeed Inade to
possess, yet are unable by our own efforts to obtain.
We are to expct that it will come of itself, and in the
mean while we are to adopt a mode of life which has
no reference to it. But if this rule should prescribe a
course of conduct which so far from producing pleasure should involve us in the most painful difficulties
and hardships, shall we then turn back as though the
promise were unfulfilled? And if it should issue in
death itself, and thus absolutely prevent to all appearance the promise from being fulfilled, what shall we
think?  Christ anticipates our perplexity.  Such cases
he tells us will frequently arise. His rule of life will
often, nay, generally, involve us in hardships, and at
certain periods in death itself. But the Creator of the
world, our Father in Heaven, from whom alone, in all
cases, genuine pleasure and satisfaction come, is more
to be trusted than these adverse appearances. Pleasure shall assuredly be ours, but in no extremity are we
to make it our object. You shall suffer and yet you
shall enjoy. Both are certain, and it is not worth
while to attempt to reconcile the apparent contradiction.'-Some of you shall they put to death... and
there shall not a hair of your head perish.'
This paradoxical position —that pleasure is necessary for us, and yet that it is not to be sought; that
this world is to be renounced, and yet that it is noble
and glorious — might, if it had been taken up by a
6*




130               ECCE HOMO.
philosopher, have been regarded as a subtlety which it
would be impossible to act upon. But as the law laid
down by a King and Master of mankind, every word
of whom was treasured up and acted out with devos
tion, it has had a surprising influence upon hIi mall
affairs. In the times of the Roman Emperols there
appeared a sect which distinguished itself by the assiduous attention which it bestowed upon the bodily swants
of mankind. This sect set the first example of a
homely practical philanthropy, occupying itself with
the relief of ordinary human sufferings, dispensing
food and clothing to the destitute and starving. At
the same period there appeared a sect which was remarkable for the contempt in which it held human
suffering. Roman magistrates were perplexed to find,
when it became necessary to coerce this sect by penal
inflictions, that bodily pains, tortures, and death itself
were not regarded as evils by its members. These
two sects appeared to run into contrary extremes.
The one seemed to carry their regard for the body to
the borders of effeminacy; the other pushed Stoical
apathy almost to madness. Yet these two sects were
one and the same - the Christian Church. And
though within that body every conceivable corruption
has at some time or other sprung up, this tradition has
never been long lost, and in every age the Christian
temper has shivered at the touch of Stoic apathy and
shuddered at that of Epicurean indolence.
But we have not yet, except by negatives, answered
the question how Christ argued with the sensualist.
We have discovered as yet only that he did not employ




CHRIST'S LEGISLATION.         131
two common arguments. For a lawless pursuit of
bodily enjoyment he did not exhort him to substitute
either a methodical pursuit of the same object or a
pursuit of intellectual and moral well-being. What,
then, did he substitute? What was that' kingdom of
God and his righteousness' which he bade men mraksP
the first object of their search?




13a
CHAPTER XI.
THE CHRISTIAN  REPUBLIC.
SEEK ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.' This exhortation is precisely what we
had reason to expect, for we have already remarked
that the cry which John raised in the desert,' The
kingdom  of heaven is at hand,' was taken up by
Christ, and that his life was devoted to proclaiming this
new political constitution, to collecting adherenlits to
it, and promulgating its laws. That kingdom of God
into which he called men he elevates in this passage
into the summum bonum of human life, and represents
it as the secret of happiness and of all enduring good
to belong to the divine society, and to understand and
keep the rules prescribed for its members.
Before we inquire into the nature of this society and
of its rules, it is important to consider what is implied
in the fact that Christ placed the happiness of man in
a political constitution. The philosophical schemes
which we have described Christ as rejecting consider
man as an independent being, and provide for him an
isolated happiness or welfare.. The ideal Epicurean
is described as indifferent to public affairs and falling
k-ingdoms, and exempt from the pain alike of pity for
the jpoor and jealousy of the rich. To be self-suffi
cient was a principal ambition of the rival sc1ioo.~~~~t.....__.....................  n.. m..




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.          133
But a member of a state is one who has ceased to
have a personal object, and who has made hs welfare
dependent on that of oithel-. FT sacrifice  sel ~ mto
the body of which he has become a member. In
giving up present pleasure he does not differ from the
isolated man of the philosophers, but he differs friom
him in giving it up not prudentially latr-F he m
more 6f it in he enT or something better than it, but
disinterestedly anid for the sake of other peop  t Iis
no doubt true that a man's personal happiness is m-uch
increased by becoming a member of a community and
having an object apart from himself; for, according to
the paradox already stated, no man is so happy as he
who does not aim at happiness. But that such personal happiness is not the ultimate object of the social
union is plain from this, that men are expected to
sacrifice not a part of their happiness, but all of it, for
the state, and to die in battle for a cause in which they
may have no personal interest, and which they may
even hold to be unjust. It was not with any personal
object whatever, it was with no hope of reward in a
future state, it was not for glory, if their poet may be
believed, but in obedience to the laws of Sparta, that
the three hundred laid down their lives in the pass of
Thermopylae. Such a disinterested surrender is implied in the very notion of a political community. It
is accordingly inculcated throughout this discoarse as
the great duty of those who enter the kingdonm of
God. They are to surrender all personal claims - riot
only, as Christ said often on other occasions, goods
and property, life and family ties, but other claims,
which it seems not painful merely but degrading to




134                ECCE HOMO.
waive - the claims of wounded honor, of just resentment of injuries. All these things we are to be prepared to surrender, as he said elsewhere,' hoping for
nothing again.'
And yet it may be said the sacrifice which Christ
exacts is no more genuine than that recommended by
the Epicurea:, for he never fails to promise t full
recompense in the world to come. Scarcely oi.ce in
this Sermon does he inculcate self-sacrifice without a
reference tL the other side of the account- to the
treasures God has in store for those who despise the
gold and silver of the earth. And however much we
may admire the Christian martyrs, yet how can we
compare their self-devotion with that of the Spartan
three hundred or the Roman Decius?  Those heroes
surrendered all, and looked forward to nothing but the
joyless asphodel meadow or'drear Cocytus with its
languid stream.' But the Christian martyr might well
die with exultation, for what he lost was poor compared with that which he hoped instantly to gain.
The happiness he expected may not have been sensual; it was not'the sparkle of female eyes, the
handkerchief of green silk, the cap of precious
stones,' * that comforted him for the loss of this life,
but he expected a personal and real, if not a sensual
happiness.
It is most true that Christ's society, like all other
political societies, does promise happiness to its members; it is further true that it promises this happiness,
not as other societies in general, but to every individual
* The vision of the dying Islamite. See Gibbon, cap i.




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.          13q
nillclber. The most complete self-sacrifice therefore,
the love that gives up all, is impossible in the Christian
Church, as it is rarely possible in any society, as one
must suppose it impossible in the ideal society. Still
the paradox must be repeated: though self-surrender
lead in general, though it lead infallibly, to happiness,
yet happiness is not its object. And if this seem a
pedantic refinement outrageous to common sense, it
will not appear so when we consider the nature of the
self-turrender which Christ enjoins. For such selfsurrender with such an object is simply impossible.
A man can no doubt do any specific acts, however
painful, with a view to his ultimate interest. With a
view to his ultimate interest a man may fast, may impose painful penances on himself; nay, with a view to
his ultimate interest a man may go two miles with one
who has compelled him to go one, may turn the left
cheek to one who has smitten him on the right, nay,
may even pray for those that use him  spitefully,
although in doing so he will be guilty of the most
hideous hypocrisy. But can a man, with a view to
his ultimate interest, in order that he may go to
heaven, love his enemies?
It appears throughout the Sermon on the Mount
that there was a class of persons whom Christ regarded with peculiar aversion - the persons who call themselves one thing and are another. He describes them
by a word which originally meant an' actor.' Probal)ly it may in Christ's time have already become
current in the sense which we give to the word'hypocrite.' But nc doubt whenever it was used the original
sense of the word was distinctly rememl:ered. And




X36                ECCE HOMO.
in this Sermon, whenever Christ denounces any vice,
it is with the words,' Be not you like the actors.' In
common with all great reformers, Christ felt that
honesty in word and deed was the fiundamental virtue;
dishonesty, including affectation, self-consciousness,
love of stage effect, the one incurable vice.  Our
thoughts, words, and deeds are to be of a piece. For
example, if we would pray to God, let us go'nto
some inner room where none but God shall see us;
to pray at the corner of the streets, where the passing
crowd may admire our devotion, is to act a prayer.
If we would keep down the rebellious flesh by fasting,
this concerns ourselves only; it is acting to parade
before the world our self-mortification. And if we
would put down sin, let us put it down in ourselves
first; it is only the actor who begins by frowning at
it in others. But there are subtler forms of hypocrisy,
which Christ does not denounce, probably because
they have sprung since out of the corruption of a
subtler creed.  The hypocrite of that age wanted
simply money or credit with the people. His ends
were those of the vulgar, though his means were different. Christ endeavored to cure both alike of their
vulgarity by telling thetn of other riches and another
happiness laid up in heaven. Some of course would
neither understand nor regard his words, others would
understand and receive them. But a third class would
receive themn without understanding them, and, instead
of being cured of their avarice and sensuality, would
silmply transfer them to new objects of desire. Shrewd
enough to discern Christ's greatness, instinctively be.
lieving what he said to be true, they would set out with




'rHE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.         137
a triumplhant eagerness in pursuit of the heavenly
riches, and laugh at the short-sighted and weak-minded
speculator who contented himself with the easy but insignificant profits of a worldly life. They would practise assiduously the rules by which Christ said heaven
was to be won. They would patiently turn the leFt
cheek, indefatigably walk the two miles, they we!jld
bless with effusion those who cursethem,  and pt:y
fluently for those who used them spitefully. To love
their enemies, to love any one, they would certainly
find impossible, but the outward signs of love might
easily be learnt. And thus there would arise a new
class of actors, not like those whom Christ denounced,
exhibiting before an earthly audience and_receiving
their pay from human managers, but ho2ping to be paid
for their performance out of the incorruptible treasures,
and to impose by their dramatic talent upon their Father in heaven.
Christ's meaning, however, is not doubtfiul.  The
principle is distinctly laid down. Our thoughts and
deeds are to be of a piece. A pious and devout life
will undoubtedly win for a man the reverence of the
multitude, and yet Christ tells us when we pray we are
co think of God and not of the credit we may gain.
And so though by loving our neighbor and our enemy
we shall win heaven, we are not to think of the heaven
we shall win, we are to think of our neighbor and aui
elLemy.
Noble-minded men * have often been scandalized I)y
the appearance which Christ's law is made to wear, as
* Schiller, for example.




138               ECCE HOMO.
if it were a system in which all virtue is corrupted by
being made mercenary. The same moralists, howev'er,
would have been among the first to assert that the only
true and lasting happiness is that which is gained by
the practice of virtue. Christ adds nothing to this except a promise that those exceptional cases in which
virtue appears to lose its reward shall prove in the end
not to be exceptions. By defining virtue to consist in
love, he brings into prominence its unselfish character;
and by denouncing at the same time with vehemence
all insincerity and hypocrisy, he sufficiently shows
with what horror he would have regarded any interested beneficence or calculating philanthropy which
may usurp the name of love.
It may, therefore, be affirmed that Christ's Kingdom
is a true brotherhood founded in devotion and selfsacrifice. Nothing less, indeed, -would have satisfied
those disciples who had begun to feel the spell of his
Character. A philosophic school or sect may found
itself on the prudential instincts of man, may attract
empty hearts, and attach them by a loose bond to each
other. But a kingdom stands on self-devotion, and the
hearts of Christ's disciples were not empty. They ha l
not gathered themselves round him to be told how they
might avoid the evils of life, but to know what they
might do for him, how they might serve him, how they
might prove their loyalty to him. It was the art of
self-devotion that they wished to learn, and he taulght
it as a master teaches, not sparing words but resting
most on deeds; by the Sermon on tile Mount, but also
by the Agony and the Crucifixion.




139
CHAPTER XII.
1, NIVERSALITY  OF THE  CHRISTIAN
REPUBLIC.
W_  rE discover, then, that Christ's society resembles
other political societies in requiring from its
members a disinterested devotion and patriotism. But
to understand its essential nature it is necessary to
know, not in what respects it resembles other things
of the same kind, but in what respects it differs from
them. We must therefore continue our investigation
until we discover this difference.
It is one of the most obvious features of the Sermon
on the Mount that it treats men as standing in the relation of brothers to one another under a common Father
in heaven. Let us consider what is involved in this.
The earliest condition of mankind of which we have
any knowledge was one of perpetual war. Homer
describes a state of society in which a man was safe in
the possession of his lands and flocks only so long as
there was strength enough in his right arm to defend
them. As soon as the primitive man began to grow
old and to lose his vigor, there was danger that his
neighbors would drive his cattle and encroach upon
Ihis estate. Ulysses in the early part of his wanderings, before he has lost his fleet and army, lands on
the Thracian coast, and finds a city. He instantly




140               ECCE HOMO.
sacks it and kills all the inhabitants. This is not be.
cause there has been a quarrel, but because there has
been no treaty; the normal condition of men at that
time being mutual enmity. To this mutual enmity,
however, there is an exception established by an imnerative law of nature. Persons of the same family
live in perpetual alliance. This seems to have been
originally the only tie between man and man, the only
consideration that could prevent them from murdering
each other. Peleus in his old age will be in the greatest danger if he is deprived of Achilles, and the very
children will persecute the child Astyanax after his
father's death. Woe to the orphan, and woe to the
old man who has not surrounded himself with children!  They are the only arrows with which his
quiver can be filled, the only defenders whom he can
trust to speak with his enemies in the gate.
Thus in the earliest condition of things there was
only one kind of community. The primitive man had
no obligations, no duties, to any except his parents, his
brothers, and his parents' brothers and their families.
When he met with a man unrelated to him he would
without hesitation take his life and his property. But
the life and property of a relation were sacred, and
the Greeks held that there were certain supernatural
powers called Erinyes who vindicated the rights of
relatives. This sense of relationship being natural and
universal and extending even to the brute creation, we
cannot imagine a time when the family with its rights
and obligations did not exist. But the family is a com.
munity which constantly expands until it loses itself in
a more comprehensive one. It becomes a clan, the




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.         141
members of which may in many cases be strangers to
each other, while they are, notwithstanding, bound
together by the sacred tie of relationship. Again, in
primitive times, when men had little power of verifying facts or weighing evidence, relationship was often
supposed to exist between persons who were really of
different stocks. Any resemblance was supposed to
fPrnislh a proof of relationship, and so those who spoke
the same language were presumed to be descended
from a common ancestor. In this way the family
passed ultimately into the nation, and political constitutions and codes of law came to bind men together,
grounded all alike on the supposition, true or false,
that they were relations by blood. When states had
once been founded and began to flourish, men began
to associate with each other more freely; other grounds
of obligation besides blood-relationship were gradually
admitted, and finally Rome, binding together in the
unity of common subjection a number of tribes strange
to each other, gave a basis of fact and law to universal
morality. But in states which had been isolated, and
had mixed little with foreigners either by conquest or
by trade, the original tradition did not die out, and
men continued to say and to think that they owed
obligations only to those of the same blood. This
was especially true of the Jews, the most isolated of
all ancient nations.  Their common descent from
Abraham was always present to their minds, and was
the tie which bound them together. A sense of obligation they expressed by the formula,'He also is a
child of' Abraham;' their very religion was a worship
paid to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And




142              ECCE HOMO.
Christ himself sometimes adopted the same style, as
when he reproved the vice of selfishness by representing Dives as repudiated by Abraham, and Lazarus
welcomed to his bosom in the invisible world.
It was, therefore, no novelty when, in the Sermon
on the Mount, Christ described those who entered the
Kingdom of God as standing in the relation of brothers to one another. In doing so he only used the
ordinary langruiage of what may be called ethnic morality. The aovelty lies here that he does not ground
the mutual obligations of men upon a common descent
from Abraham, but upon a common descent from
God.
It is not difficult to see what follows from this
change of style. By substituting the Father in Heaven
for father Abraham, Christ made morality universal.
This phrase, which places not a certain number of
men, but all men, in the relation of brotherhood to
each other, destroys at once the partition-wall between
Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, German and
Welsh, white man and Negro, or under whatever
names the families of the earth have justified and
legalized the savage instinct of antipathy. It is not to
be imagined that the thought was new or original;
Christ was no theorist or philosopher, but a legislator.
The thought had existed in the mind of Socrates,
when he called himself a citizen of the world; it had
become a commonplace of the Stoic philosophy; it
was taken up by Roman jurists, and worked into the
imperial legislation. But to work it into the hearts
and consciences of men required a much higher and
rarer power, the power of a ruler, not of a philoso



TIIE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.        143
pher. It may have been the thought of a Julianus or
a Papinianus that all the Roman world had a right
to Roman citizenship; but it was the Caesar, Antoninus Caracalla, who gave the right; and, in like manner, what a Socrates and a Zeno and many Hebrew
prophets had claimed for men, was given to them by
this Edict from the Mount.
The first law, then, of the Kingdom of God, is that
all men, however divided from each other by blood or
language, have certain mutual duties arising out of
their common relation to God. It may, however, be
urged that this law was superfluous. Without denying the fact that at an earlier time nations had regarded each other as natural enemies, without maintaining that the philosophic doctrine of a unity in the
human race had had much practical influence, it may
still be urged that the Roman Empire had already
realized that unity which philosophers had imagined
and to which Christ now gives a late sanction. By
the Roman conquests a number of different nations
had been brought together and united under a common government. In the period immediately succeeding their subjugation they had, no doubt, been treated
by their conquerors with insolent oppression. It was
plain that proconsuls and proproetors had little sense
of duty in regard to their subjects. The principal object of their government was to preserve to the state
its acquisition, and the secondary object to reap some
personal advantage fiom it. But time had produced
a great improvement. The sense of duty, which at
first was wanting, had been awakened. A morality
not founded on blood-relation had certainly coane into




144               ECCE HOMO.
existence. The Roman citizenship had been thrown
open to nations which were not of Roman blood. A
hundred years before the Sermon on the Mount was
delivered Cicero had roused public indignation against
an unjust and rapacious proprietor. Since that time
foreigners had been admitted by the Roman state to
the highest civic honors. And in the centuries that
followed, the process by which nations were being
fused into one universal society went steadily forward
without any help from Christian maxims. So signally, so much more than in later and Christian ages,
were national distinctions obliterated under the Empire, that men of all nations and languages competed
freely under the same political system for the highest
honors of the state and of literature. The good Aurelius and the great Trajan were Spaniards. So were
Seneca and Martial. Severus was an African. The
leading jurists were of Oriental extraction.
All this is true. A number of nations which had
before waged incessant war with one another had
been forced into a sort of unity. What court-poets
call a golden age had set in. Round the whole shore
of the Mediterranean Sea, ind northward to the Danube and beyond the British Channel, national antipathies had been suppressed, and war had ceased, while
the lives of men were regulated by an admirable code
of laws. Yet, except to court-poets, this age did not
seem golden to those who lived in it. On the contrary, they said it was something worse than an iron
age; there was no metal from which they could name
it. Never did men live under such a crushing sense
of degradation, never did they look back with more




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.          145
bitter regret, never were the vices that spring out of
despair so rife, never was sensuality cultivated more
methodically, never did poetry curdle so readily into
satire, never was genius so much soured by cynicism,
and never was calumny so abundant or so gross or so
easily believed. If morality depended on laws, or
happiness could be measured by comfort, this would
have been the most glorious era in the past history of
mankind. It was in fact one of the meanest and foulest, because a tone or spirit is necessary to morality,
and self-respect is needful to happiness.
Ancient morality, as it has been already remarked,
was essentially national and exclusive. Its creed was
that a man is born not for himself, but for his parents,
his family, and the state. The state was surrounded
by others with which, unless some treaty had been
concluded, it was at war. To do as much good as
possible to one's own state, and as much harm as possible to all other states, was therefore the whole duty
of a man. Those who performed this duty manfully
might look for the protection of the gods who lived in
temples built for them within the walls of the city, and
who were feasted and enriched with the spoils of other
nations. Now this whole scheme of morality had
been overturned by the Roman conquests. For they
had destroyed the very principle of nationality both
among conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered nations, for their gods had left them, and their
fireedom, which, as they said themselves, was half
their virtue, and their isolation, which was the other
half, were taken away. Among the Romans themr,elves, for they had been compelled to raise the con7




146               ECCE Hr)MO.
quered to their own level, and they knew not what to
make of their new condition when their own country
no longer required to be defended or enriched, and
there were scarcely any more foreign countries to be
invaded. Yet, their poets thought, they might at least
have occupied themselves with conquering these.'Shame on you!' says Lucan.'You turned your
arms against each other, when you mzght have been
sacking Babylon.'
The nations were thus forced into a unity for which
t'ley were not prepared. Ethnic morality, the light
under which their fathers had lived, which had given
them self-respect, strength in hardships, and a sense
of satisfaction in the hour of death, was now useless,
and universal morality was a thing unknown, or at
least untried. On this new path they were cheered
by no great memories, guided by no acknowledged
rules. When they treated a foreigner as a fellow-citizen, the spirits of their fathers seemed to reproach
them, and they derived but cold comfort from the
approval of Stoic philosophers. Men did what was
right with the feeling that they were doing wrong.
The most mortal evil that can befall mankind had befallen them - conscience took the wrong side.
It was not a repetition of the Stoic maxim in more
emphatic terms that purified the human conscience.
It was the personality of Christ exciting a veneration
and worship which effaced in the minds of his followers their hereditary and habitual worships. No tlle.
ory, says a Greek poet, will throw down ancestral tra.
ditiols. This is true; but they can be overthrown by
a passionate personal devotion. Father Abraham




TITHE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.       I47
seceding from his Chaldean community in obedience
to a divine Call, and thus dividing Jew from Gentile
as strongly as he united Jew with Jew, would have
resisted many generations of Rabbinical teachers.
Father zneas bearing from the flames of Troy the
venerated symbols'of Roman unity and isolation
would have been too strong for the Stoic philosophy.
Both alike faded like phantoms, both alike were superannuated, the moment the heart is touched. And in
order that those who worshipped his person might not
forget his fundamental law, Christ assumed a title expressing the universality of' his dominion,i as kings
have often borne titles taken from the nations they
have added to the empire,an called himself the Son
of Man.
How opportune this Edict of Comprehension was
we may learn by considering for a moment the writ.
ings of Juvenal. This poet reflects the deep dissatisfaction, the bitter sense of degeneracy and degradation, which characterized his age. Now what is the
ground of his despondency? what provokes the savage indignation, which made him a satirist? If we
examine, we shall find that it is one and the same
grievance which inspires almost every fierce tirade,
namely, the mixture of races. Life seems to him not
worth having when the Roman cannot walk the.iz'z
Sacrad unelbowed by Greeks and Syrians. All distinctions, he complains, are lost; the Roman worships
the Egyptian monster-deities whom his own national
gods vanquished at Actium; Orontes empties itself
into Tiber; it is time for a Roman to turn his back on
his owI city when it has become a thing of no account




148              ECCE HOMO.
that his infancy breathed the air of Aventine and was
fed upon the Sabine berry. Now lhis veiy writer is a
Stoic, familiar of necessity with tle speculations which
made the wise and good of all nations citizens alike in
the city of God. So little power had any such philosophic theory to supply the place of a morality founded
on usage, on filial reverence, on great and dear examlles. Yet that theory, if it had presented itself to
him, not as an ambitious speculation of philosophers,
but as a sober account of an actual fact, would have
dried up the source of his satire. He would not have
regretted the downfall of national distinctions, if they
had been abolished by an authority equal in his mind
to that which had created them To minds perplexed
like his it was, therefore, the beginning of a new life
and hope when a new Romulus gathered into a new
republic the chaos of nations. The city of God, of
which the Stoics doubtfully and tfeemy spokei, wa-s now
set up before the eyes of men. It was no insubstanti_ city, such as we fancy.in the clouds, no invisible
pattern such as Plato thought might be laid u  in
heaven, but a visible corporation whose members met
together to eat bread and drink wine, and into which
they were initiated by bomdilimmerion in water.
Here the Gentile met the Jew whom he had beet.
accustomed to regard as an enemy of the human race;
the Roman met the lying Greek sophist, the Syrian
slave the gladiator born beside the Danube. In brotherhood they met, the natural birth and kindred of each
forgotten, the baptism alone remembered in which they
had been born again to God and to each other.
The mention of slaves and gladiators reminds us




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.            I49
that ethnic morality had, besides putting discord between states, created certain positive institutions. As
under that system obligations subsisted only between
blood-relations, and each tribe might without provocation or pretext attack and slaughter any foreign community, so had it the right of reducing foreigners to
slavery. Whether death or slavery should be inflicted
on the conquered enemy was, in fact, not a question
of morality or mercy, but simply of calculation. In
either case the captive was deprived of life so far as
life is a valuable or desirable possession; if he was
allowed to exist, it was not for his own sake, but as a
property more or less valuable to his master. Ndt
that the lot of the slave was always or inevitably
miserable; natural kindness, which was not killed but
only partially paralyzed by ethnic morality, and which
was always essentially Christian, might indefinitely
and in an indefinite number of instances mitigate the
bitterness of his lot; but theoretically he had no more
claim to consideration or care at the hands of his
master, no more right to happiness, than if he had
been slain at the moment of his capture. Everywhere
then throughout the Roman world there was a class
of outcasts whom it was supposed lawful to treat with
heartless cruelty, such as would have been held unlawful if the objects of it had been fellow-citizens.
The ground on which this right had originally been
founded was that the class in question consisted either
of prisoners taken in war, or of the descendants of
such prisoners; and that as they were protected by no
treaties, their lives and fortunes were at the disposal
of their captors, or of others to whom the rights of
the captor had passed by purchase.




150                ECCE HOMO.
Now although Christ never, so far as we know, had
occasion to pronounce judgment on the question of
slavery, yet we do not require the testimony of his
earliest followers (declaring that in Christ Jesus there
is neither bond nor free) to assure us that, considered
in this sense, slavery could not be reconciled with his
law. The Edict of Comprehension conferred citizenchip upon the whole outcast class. Under it, whatever law of mutual help and consideration had ob
tained between citizen and citizen, began to obtain
between the citizen and his slaves. The words' foi
eign' and' barbarous' lost their meaning; all nations
and tribes were gathered within the pomcerium of the
city of God; and on the baptized earth the Rhine and
the Thames became as Jordan, and every sullen desertgirdled settlement- of German savages as sacred as
Jerusalem.
Therefore it is that St. Paul, writing to Philemon,
exhorts him to receive back Onesimus' no longer as
a servant, but as a brother beloved.' It may, however, surprise us that he does not exhort Philemon to
emancipate him. But this does not seem to occur to
the apostle; and it has been made matter of complaint
against the Christian Church, that, though it announced a principle fundamentally irreconcilable with
slavery, it never pronounced the institution itself unlawful. Nor can it be denied that, instead of telling
the slave that he was wronged, and exhorting him in
the name of human nature, degraded in his person, to
take the first opportunity of shaking off the yoke, tile
first Christian teachers exhorted him  to obedience,
v id declared it particularly meritorious to be submis.




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.          151
slve to a cruel and unreasonable master, while, Oil the
other hand, they exhorted the masters not to set their
slaves free, but simply to treat them well.
The explanation of this is, that under the name of
slavery two essentially different institutions were confounded, only one of which was irreconcilable with
Chr stian principle. Slavery may mean the degradation of a person into a thing, the condition of a man
who has no claims upon his fellow-men. This is essentially monstrous, and has always been condemned
by Christianity. But it may mean merely a condition
of dependence, differing from that of a free servant
only in its being compulsory, and in the rights of the
master being transferable by purchase. The latter
kind of slavery does not depend upon the theory of
ethnic morality; it does not deny that the slave has
rights or claims upon his master; it depends upon the
assumption of a natural inferiority in the slave incapacitating him for judging of his'own rights or for living
in happiness except under guardianship or restraint.
Now, as Christianity, in asserting the unity of the
human race, and their equality in the sight of God
and Christ, did not declare war upon the social system which arranges men according to' degree, priority, and place,' and binds them together by ties of
loyalty and obedience, as it did not deny, but strongly
confirmed, the authority of the father over the child
and the husband over the wife, an authority grounded
on a similar assumption of a natural inferiority and
incapacity for liberty in the woman and child, it acted
consistently in withholding liberty from the slave
while it gave him citizenship. As it often happens




152               ACCE HOMO.
that a usage introduced for one reason is afterwards
retained for another, so had slavery, originally the
most savage abuse of ethnic morality, come to be differently understood and differently defended.  The
servile condition has a natural tendency to degrade
hurnar nature; of the slaves of antiquity a large proportiol belonged originally to the lowest and rudest
nations; and from these two causes it was a patent
and undeniable fact that the slave population was in
an incalculable degree inferior to the free. It might
reasonably be considered rebellion against an ordinance of nature to give freedom to those whG appeared
so little fit for it; and if it seems to us a false and
cruel argument to turn the consequence of slavery into
a justification of it, and to pronounce the slave naturally incapable of liberty because he had been artificially incapacitated for it, yet we must remember that
the social speculations of antiquity were seldom dictated by philanthropy, and we must not expect the
refined tenderness of adult Christianity from its ear'iest developments.
False and cruel to a certain extent the argument
was; but if the earliest Christian teachers had rejected
it absolutely, and inferred from their Master's Law of
Comprehension that all men are not only to be respezted alike, but to be treated in the same manner,
put in possession of the same privileges, directed to
seek happiness in the same pursuits, they would have
run into the opposite extreme. Christ declares all
men alike to be the sons of God, and the least of mankind he adopts as a brother. By doing so he makes
all mankind equal to this extent, that the interests ana




THE CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC.          153
the happiness of all members of the race are declared
to be of equal importance. But he does not declare
them to be equally gifted. Each individual is equally
entitled to whatever dignity he is capable of supporting; but the early Church, at least, was in possession
of no proof that all men are equally capable of sustaining the dignity of a free condition. If this discovery has been made since, there was at that time
nothing that could suggest it. Dependence and subjection were then regarded as the natural condition of
women; the son under the Rbman law was literally
his father's slave, incapable of owning a penny of personal property, even though he might have held the
highest honors of the state. And if such appeared to
the Roman jurists to be a natural ordinance, even when
there was no visible inferiority between the father and
the son who was thus enslaved to him, who could question that the slave population, visibly characterized by
all the faults, vices, and deficiencies that make men
unfit for freedom, were intended by nature to live
under the control of those whom she had made wise
and intelligent?
In the Universal Republic therefore, while in one
sense there were no slaves, in another sense slavery
was admitted. The position given to the outcast class
was what we may call citizenship without emancipation. Their welfare was regarded as not less impor.
tant than that of the most exalted. They were Christ'b
brothers, and he had pronounced the solemn sentence,' Whoso offendeth one of these little ones that believe
in me, it were better for him that a mill-stone should
be hanged round his neck, and that he shnuld be cast
7*




154                ECCE HOMO.
into the depths of the sea.' This sentence contained
the abolition of all the horrible usages of ancient
slavery, the tortures of the ergastulum, the gladiatorial
show. But, notwithstanding, the slave was left under
a control which might be harsh and rigorous, if harshness and rigor appear necessary, because it was believed that men were called to different offices in life,
and that while it was the glory and dignity of some to
feel nothing between themselves and God, to others it
was given only to see God reflected in wiser and
nobler spirits than themselves.




XIq
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHRISTIAN  A  LAW  TO  HIMSELF.
()UR investigation has led us to three conclusions
respecting Christ's legislation: — I, that he does
not direct us to adopt a private or isolated rule of life,
but to occupy ourselves with the affairs of the society;
2, that he expects us to merge our private interests
absolutely in those of this society; 3, that this society
is not exclusive, but catholic or universal —that is,
that all mankind have a right to admission to it. Or
we should rather say readmission, for Christ does not
regard the society as new, but rather as one which had
subsisted from the beginning in the Makler's plan, but
had been broken up through the jealousies and narrowness of men. For this reason, though baptism is the
essential condition of membership, yet those who refuse baptism are not to be treated as the foreigner
would be treated under the system of ethnic morality,
but to be pitied as fellow-citizens who madly refuse to
take up their birthright, to be abandoned only after
their perverseness has shown itself incorrigible, and
even then not to be punished, but left to the judgment
of Goid.
A universal society, then, being founded, and a life
strictly social and civic being enjoined upon its members, by what rule is this social life to be guided?




156               ECCE HOMO
How are Christians to behave towards each other?
This question must be carefully separated from others
which naturally connect themselves with it. We are
not now concerned with toe constitution of the society,
its system  of magistrates and public assemblies —
questions which in fact Christ left entirely to the
decision of the society itself. Nor do we here consider the injunctions which he laid upon them, so to
speak, as a politician —for example, concerning the
way in which they were to comport themselves towards
the governments of the earth, or what they were to do
in times of persecution. Nor are we concerned at
present with the theology of the society, nor with its
relation to God and Christ. When, however, we have
gone through the recorded discourses and sayings oi
Christ, and eliminated everything in them referring to
theology, or the occasional duties of the society, or
arising out of the polemic in which Christ occasionally
engaged with the Jewish doctors, we may be surprised
to find how small is the residue which contains his
system of morality. The truth is that he did not leave
a code of morals in the ordinary sense of the word —
that is, an enumeration of actions prescribed and prohibited. Two or three prohibitions, two or three commands, he is indeed recorded to have delivered, but on
the greater number of questions on which men require
imoral guidance he has left no direction wha;ever.
Are we then, after being brought together into a
universal society, left without a rule by which to guide
our intercourse in this society? Not so; we are to
consider what is the origin of laws in human communities. They arise from a certain instinct in human




THE CHRISTIAN A LAW ro HIMSELF.   157
nature. which it is not necessary here to analyze, but
which supports itself by a constant struggle against
other anarchic and lawless instincts, and which is so
far the same in all men that all the systems of law
which have ever appeared among men are, in certain
grand features, alike. This we may call the lawmaking power in men. Now any one set to organize
a new community, if he had it in his power either to
deliver an elaborate and minute code of rules to the
community, or to increase indefinitely the law-making
power in each member of it, would certainly without
hesitation choose the latter course. For, not to speak
of the trouble that would be saved both in compiling
the code at first and in remodelling it as new circumstances demanded new provisions, the morality of the
citizens would be of a much higher and more vital
kind if they could be made, as it were, a law to themselves, and could always hear, in the language of
Hebrew poetry, a voice behind them saying,' This is
the way, walk ye in it.'
Now this was what Christ undertook to do. Instead
of giving laws to his Society, he -w\'ould give to every
member of it a power of making laws for himself.
He frequently repeated that to make the fruit of a tree
good you must put the tree into a healthy state, and,
slightly altering the illustration, that fruit can only be
expected from a fruit-tree, not from a thistle or thorn.
The meaning of this plainly is that a man's actions
result from the state of his mind; that if that is healthy
they will be right, and if not, they will be wrong.
Such language was new in the mouth of a legislat r,
but not at all new in itself. It was an adoption of "h~




158               ECCE HOMO.
style of philosophy. Philosophers had always made.
it their study to bring their minds into a healthy conrdition,'frui emenzdato aznimo.' When, however, we
Inquire what Christ considered a healthy condition of
the mind to be, we do not find him in agreement with
philosophers. The law-making power of which mention has been made, which, raised to predominance,
issues in an unerring tact or instinct of righ' action,
was differently conceived by him and by them. They
placed it in reason, and regarded passion as the antag.
onistic power which must e controlled and coerced
by it. -CThist also considers it necessary to control the
passions, but he places them under the dominion not
of reason but of a- new and more powerful passion.
The healthy mind of the philosophers is in a composed, tranquil, and impartial state;' the healthy mind
of Christ is in an elevated —and entliu sltate.
Both are exempt from perturbation and unsteadiness,
but the one by being immovably fixed, the other by
being always powerfully attracted in one direction.
This is collected from the following facts. Christ
was once asked to pronounce which commandment in
the law was the greatest. He answered by quoting a
sentence from the Book of Deuteronomy, in which devoted love to God and man is solemnly enjoined upon
the Israelite, and by declaring that upon this commandment the whole Mosaic and prophetic legislation
depended. In other words, he declared an ardent,
passionate, or devoted state of mind to be the root of
virtue. Again, he directed one who declared that he
had kept all the commandments and asked what remained for him to do, if he would be perfect. to sell




TIHE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF.    159
all his goods and give them to the poor, and devote
himself to tile kingdom oF-od.. What does  tiTis-i-.
ply but that the morality which is sound must'be no
mere self-restraint, no mechanical movement within
prescribed rules, no mere punctiliousness, but ardent
and active, exceeding duty and outstrippingi-requiremenlt?  He taught the same doctrine in a striking
form when he bade his followers exhibit their virtue
conspicuously, so that all might see it and none might
mistake it. They were to be, he said, a city set on a
hill, a candle set on a candlestick and lighting the
whole room, salt with a strong taste in it. These
exhortations are peculiarly striking, because no teacher
has ever insisted more strongly than Christ on the
unobtrusive character of true virtue. We are not, he
says, to sound a trumpet before us; if we would pray
we are to go into a closet and shut the door behind
us; we are to do good by stealth; our left hand is not
to know what our right hand does. These two sets
of injunctions appear, as is often the case in tile manysided wisdom of Christ, to be in direct contradiction
to each other. But they are not really so; if taken
together there results from them the following perfectly clear and consistent doctrine: True goodness
does not study to. attract attention; nevertheless, wherever it appears. such is the warmth, fire, and energy
inherent in it, that it does and must attract attention.
And so strongly does Christ feel this, that he solemnly
declares the virtue which does not make itself felt and
recognized to be worth nothing. If the very salt have
lost its taste, what remains? it is good for nothing hut
to be thrown away and trodden under foot.




i60               IIECCE HOMO.
All other faults or deficiencies he could tolerate, bat
he could have neither part nor lot with men destitute
of enthusiasm. He thought it a bad, almost a fatal
sign, in one who proposed to become a disciple that
he asked leave first to bid farewell to his relations.
Another asked permission to bury his father, and was
advised to let the dead (thaf-t-is, those'"whose hearts
were not animated by any strong passion or impulse)
bury thei, dead. And once when it seemed that the
magic of his presence and words would draw his
entire audience into the number of his followers,
alarmed lest he should find himself surrounded by
half-hearted or superficial and merely excitable adherents, he turned suddenly upon the crowd, and with
one of those startling expressions which he seldom,
and yet like all great reformers sometimes, employed,
declared that he could receive no man who did not
hate his father and mother and his own life.
These passages will help us to understand the allegory of the strong man armed keeping secure posses.
sion of his palace until he is expelled by a stronger
than himself. The strong man armed is the anarchic
passions of human nature, against which the lawmaking power contends. Nothing can control them,
says Christ, but a stronger passion still. And he goes
on to explain that an empty condition of mind, a
quiesscence or temporary absence' 6of the anarchic pas.
sion, is a hollow and dangerous state. The demon
may leave his -abode for a time, but-he flnds no suste.
naicc abroad, and so at last back he comes hungry
and-brings congen-ial guests with him.
It was fully understood in the early Church that this




THE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF.    i6i
enthusiastic or elevated condition of mind was the distinctive and essential mark of a Christian. St. Paul,
having asked some converts whether they had received
this divine inspiration since their conversion, and receiving for answer that they had not heard there was
any such divine inspiration abroad, demanded i A
amazement what then they had been baptized into.
Before we investigate the nature of the enthusiasm
or divine inspiration which Christ proposed to kindle
in the minds of his disciples, let us consider what is
involved in the fact that he made morality dependent
upon such an enthusiasm, and not upon any activity
of the reasoning power. It is the essence of morality
to place a restraint upon our natural desires in such a
manner that in certain cases we refrain from doing
that which we have a natural desire to do, or force
ourselves to do that to which we feel a repugnance.
Now, he who refrains from gratifying a wish on some
ground of reason, at the same time feels the wish as
strongly as if he gratified it. The object seems to him
desirable, he cannot think of it without wishing for it;
he can, indeed, force his mind not to dwell upon the
object of desire, but so long as the mind dwells upon
it so long it desires it. On the other hand, when a
stronger passion controls a weaker, the weaker altogether ceases to be felt. For example, let us suppose
two men, one of whom has learnt and believes that lie
owes fidelity to his country, but has no ardor of patlfotism, and the other an enthusiastic patriot. Suppa.,ze
a bribe offered to these two men to betray their coie:
try. NeitLer will take the bribe.  But the formene, if
we E.moose the bribe large enough, will feel his fingers




1 62               ECCE HOMO.
itch as he handles the gold; his mind will run upon
the advantages it would bring him, the things he might
buy, the life he might lead, if he had the money; he
will find it prudent to divert his mind from the subject,
to plunge desperately into occupations which may absorb him until the time of temptation has passed. The
other will have no such feelings; the gold will not
make his fingers itch with desire, but perhaps rather
seem to scorch them; he will not picture to himself
happiness or pleasure as a consequence of taking il,
but, on the contrary, insupportable degradation and
despair; his mind will need no distraction, it will be
perfectly at ease however long the period of temptation
may continue.
The difference between the men is briefly this, that
the one has his anarchic or lower desires under control, the other feels no such desires; the one, so far as
he is virtuous, is incapable of crime, the other, so far
as he is virtuous, is incapable of temptation.
Now, as Christ demands virtue of the latter or enthusiastic kind, we shall be prepared to find that he
prohibits evil desires as well as wrong acts. Accordingly, it is one of the most remarkable features of his
moral teaching that he does not command us to regulate or control our unlawful desires, but pronounces it
ualawful to have such desires at all. A considerable
part of the Sermon on the Mount is devoted to the exposition of this doctrine. Christ quotes several prohibitions from the Mosaic law, and proceeds to declare
the desire from  which each prohibited act springs
equally culpable with the act itself. This is at first
sight perplexing, because the desire out of which an




THE CHRISTIANii A LAW TO HIMSELF.    I63
unlawful act springs is often or generally a mere natural appetite which in itself is perfectly innocent. The
truth is, that Christ requires that such natural appetite,
when the gratification of it would be unlawful, be not
merely left ungratified, but altogether destroyed, and a
feeling of aversion substituted for it by the enthusiasm
of virtue within the soul.
This higher form of goodness, though of course it
had existed among the heathen nations, yet had never
among them been sufficiently distinguished from the
lower to receive a separate name. The earliest Christians, like the Christians of later times, felt a natural
repugnance to describe the ardent enthusiastic goodness at which they aimed by the name of virtue. This
name suited exactly the kind of goodness which Christ
expressly commanded theAn to rise above. They therefore adopted another. Regarding the ardor they felt
as an express inspiration or spiritual presence of God
within them, they borrowed from the language of religious worship a word for which our equivalent is' holy;' and the inspiring power they consistently called
the Spirit of Holiness or the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, while a virtuous man is one who controls and
coerces the anarchic passions within him so as to conform his acticoins to law, a holy man is one'- Wiiniwhi a
passionate enthusiasm absorbs-anfd aininuls tieanaii r-ihic
passions altogether, so that no internal stfi'uigg-e-takes
place, and-thieeIawful acti-on-lshatihi-twxiich presents itself fihrst ~nd seems the one most natuiral ain    easy
tr: be done.
But now, of what nature is the enthusiasm Christ
requires? We have seen that a particular passion may




164               ECCE HOMO.
raise a man above a particular sin. The enthusiastic
patriot is incapable of treason. He who passionately
loves one woman may be made by that love incapable
of a licentious thought; and an elevated self-love may
make it impossible for a man to lie. But these passions are partial in their operation. The patriot, incapable of public treason, may be capable of private
treachery. The chaste man may be a traitor. The
honest man may be cruel. What is the passion, if
such a passion there be, which can lift a man clean
out of all sin whatever?
As it has been shown that Christ founded a society
the peculiarity of which is that it was intended to include the whole human race, it may occur to us that
the esprit de corps which would naturally spring up
in such a society may be the passion we seek. It
would be a passion of the same nature as patriotism,
but without its exclusiveness. For the patriot, though
incapable of injuring his own country, is not less but
perhaps more capable of being unjust or treacherous
towards foreign nations, while the Christian patriot,
whose country is the world, will, it may be supposed,
be equally incapable of wrong-doing towards all alike.
But it must be remembered that an enthusiastic attachment to a state or a community is very different
from an attachment to the members of that community.
The patriot, it has just been said, is not by any means
above the temptation to private injustice or treachery,
nor will he become more so when his country is the
world. An example was given in the first French
Revolution of the operation of this passion of universal
patriotism. It was in the cause not so much of France




THE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF.    I65
as of universal man that the revolutionary party agitated and fought, and they displayed a disregard of
private rights and individual happiness quite as catholic as their philanthropy. Universal patriotism, taken
by itself, is not Christianity but Jacobinism.
The all-purifying passion must, it is plain, be a passibli for individuals. Let us imagine, then, a love for
every human being. This answers the conditions of
the problem to this extent, that he who loves everybody will of course willingly injure nobody, that is,
will not commit sin. And if, leaving conjecture, we
turn again to Christ's discourses, we find him, as it ap.
pears, mentioning this very passion as the essence of
all legislation, or as what we called above the lawmaking power in man. The great commandment of
the law, he says, is to love God with all your heart and
your neighbor as yourself, and the maxim for practice
corresponding to this law of feeling is,' Do unto others
as you would that they should do to you.'
Here then, it appears, is our panacea for all diseases
of the soul; here is that passion which once conceived
in the breast is to make laws superfluous, to redeem
our nature, to make' our days bright and serene, love
being an unerring light and joy its own security.' We
are to love every human being alike. The discovery,
it cannot be concealed, seems rather an empty one.
XWe will not at present inquire where are the agencies
which are to excite in us so strange a passion: men do
conceive strange attachments; they learn, for example,
to love their country, though it seems surprising that
such an abstraction should excite so much interest.
But is not the feeling now  enjoined upon us one




xi66               ECCE HOMO.
plainly impossible because self-contradictory? There
exist men of opposite qualities. Love is a name we
give to a feeling aroused in us by certain qualities, and
hatred is the feeling aroused by qualities of the opposite kind. How then is it possible to love at the same
tine persons of opposite qualities?
Obvious and forcible as this objection seems, there
is something in us which rebels against it as soon as it
is stated. Manifest as it may seem that we can only
love what is lovely, and that what is hateful must, in
the nature of things, be hated, we are yet aware that
practically our feelings towards our fellow-creatures
are more complex. It is not merely that almost all
men have qualities we can love even, when the hateful
qualities preponderate, nor merely that we are conscious how our self-interest makes many things hateful
to us which are not hateful in themselves and would
not be so to us if our self-love were diminished or at
rest, but even in the extreme case, when our hatred
seems most just and necessary, when monsters appear
in the form of man whose crimes strike us with horror,
even for such we sometimes detect in ourselves a feeling opposite to hatred. When they fall into calamity
and death, a feeling of awe, ay, of pity, mixes with
our rejoicing. Even in primitive times, when men's
feelings towards each other were for the most part
simple and clear, when hatred was unmixed and had
not begun to lose its' raven gloss' we find these pangs
of tenderness. When the housekeeper Euryclea was
admitted by Ulysses into the hall where the oppressors
of the house lay slaughtered, her first impulse, woman
though she was - such was the fierceness of the time




rHE CHRISTIAN A LAW TO HIMSELF.;07
- was to utter a shout of triumph.  But the hero
stopped her and said,' Rejoice in silence, woman,
and restrain thyself, and utter no shout: it is not
right to triumph over slaughtered men.'
If we consider these singular relentings, the thoughts
with which they are accompanied, and the words
in which  they most naturally express themse~les,
we shall find that it is the ideal of manll ill eac
lnan which calls the-T forth. When we think of the
fallen criminal or tyrant we say,' He too was once an
innocent child,' or' Who knows what he might have
been had circumstances been more favorable or temptation less!' In thoughts like these we betray that
there is a third kind of love which we may bear to
our fellow-creatures, and which is neither that love of
the whole race which has been called above Jacobinism, nor that independent love of each individual
which appears impossible when we consider that
different individuals exhibit opposite qualities. This
third feelinpgis the love not of the race nor of the individual, but of the race in the individual; it is the
love not of all men nor yet of every man, but of the
man in every man.
This ought not to be regarded as a mere Platonic
dream. Though it finds expression most easily and
naturally in Platonic language, it is in reality one of
the most hackneyed and familiar of truths. There is
a fellowr-feeling, a yearning of kindness towards a
human being as such, which is not dependent upon
the character of the particular human being who excites it, but rises before that character displays itself,
and does not at once or altogether subside whlen it




c68               ECCE HOMO.
exhibits itself as unamiable. We save a man from
drowning whether he is amiable or the contrary, and
we should consider it right to do so even though we
knew him to be a very great criminal, simply because
he is a man. By examples like this we may discover
that a love for humanity as such exists, and that it is a
natural passion which would be universal if special
causes did not extinguish it in special cases, but like
all other human passions, it may be indefinitely increased and purified by training and by extraordinary
agencies that may be brought to bear upon it. Now
this was the passion upon which Christ seized, and
treating it as the law-making power or root of
morality in human nature, trained and developed it
into that Christian spirit which received the new
name of &y'7tr7.
The objection is then removed which represents
Christ's rule of universal love as impracticable because different men may exhibit opposite qualities,
for it is shown that there is a kind of love which
may be felt for unamiable persons. And though
it must be admitted that there is an extreme degree
of unamiability which quenches this love in us, yet
it is conceivable that when the passion has been
cultivated and strengthened by the means which
Christ may employ, it may become a passion in the
strictest sense all-embracing. What these means
were, and what character the passion assumes in its
filll development, it is now necessary to consider.




169
CHAPTER XIV.
THE  ENTHUSIASM  OF HUMANITY.
T HE first method of training this passion which
Christ employed was the direct one of making
it a point of duty to feel it. To love one's neighbor
as one's self was, he said, the first and greatest law.
And in the Sermon on the Mount he requires the
passion to be felt in such strength as to include
those whom we have most reason to hate- our
enemies and those who maliciously injure us —and
delivers an imperative precept,' Love your enemies.'
It has been shown that to do this is not, as might at
first appear, in the nature of things impossible; but
the further question suggests itself, Can it be done to
order? Has the verb to love really an imperative
mood? Certainly, to say that we can love at pleasure, and by a mere effort of will summon up a passion
which does not arise of itself, is to take up a paradoxical and novel position. Yet if this position be
really untenable, how is it possible to obey Christ's
command?
The difficulty seems to admit of only one solution.;We are not commanded to create by an effort of will
a feeling of love in ourselves which otherwise would
have had no existence; the feeling must arise naturally
or it cannot arise at all. But a number of causes
8




170                ECCE HOMO.
which ale removable may interfere to prevent the feeling from arising or to stifle it as it arises, and we are
commanded to remove these hinderances. It is natural
to man to love his kind, and Christ commands us only
to give nature play. He does not expect us to procure
for ourselves hearts of some new supernatural texture,
but merely the heart of flesh for the heart of stone.
What, then, are the causes of this paralysis of the
heart? The experience of human life furnishes us
readily with the answer. It constantly happens that
one whose affections were originally not less lively
than those of most men is thrown into the society of
persons destitute of sympathy or tenderness. In this
society each person is either totally indifferent to his
neighbor or secretly endeavoring to injure or overreach him. The new-comer is at first open-hearted
and cordial; he presumes every one he meets to be a
friend, and is disposed to serve and expects to be
served by all alike. But his advances are met by some
with cautious reserve, by others with icy coldness, by
others with hypocritical warmth followed by treacherous injury, by others with open hostility. The heart
which naturally grew warm at the mere sight of a
human being, under the operation of this new experience slowly becomes paralyzed. There seats itself
gradually in the man's mind a presumption concerning
every new face that it is the face of an enemy, and a
habit of gathering himself into an attitude of selfdefence whenever he deals with a fellow-creature.  If
when this new disposition has grown confirmed and
habitual, he be introduced into a society, of an opposite
kind and meet with people as friendly and kind as he




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.         I71
himself was originally, he will not at first be able to
)believe in their sincerity, and the old kindly affections
from long disuse will be slow to rouse themselves
within him. Now to such a person the imperative
mood of the verb to love may fairly be used. He may
properly be told to make an effort, to shake off the
distrust that oppresses him, not to suffer unproved
suspicions, causeless jealousies, to stifle by the mere
fotce of prejudice and mistaken opinion the warmth
of feeling natural to him.
But we shall have a closer illustration if we suppose
the cold-hearted society itself to be addressed by a
preacher who wishes to bring them to a better mind.
He too may fairly use the imperative mood of the verb
to love. For he may say,' Your mutual coldness does
not spring from an original want of the power of sympathy. If it did, admonitions would indeed be useless. But it springs from a habit of thought which
you have formed, a maxim which has been received
among you, that all men are devoted to self-interest,
that kindness is but feebleness and invites injury. If
you will at once and by a common act throw off this
false opinion of human nature, and adopt a new plan
of life for yourselves and new expectations of each
other, you will find the old affections natural to all of
you, weakened indeed and chilled, but existing and
capable of being revived by an effort.'
Such a preacher might go further and say,' If but
a small minority are convinced by my words, yet let
that minority for itself abandon the selfish theory, let
it renounce the safety which that theory affords in
dealing with selfish men, let it treat the enemy as if he




I 72                 ECCE HOMO
were indeed the friend he ought to be, let it dare to
forego retaliation and even self-defence. By this mneans
it will shame many into kindness; by despising selfinterest for itself it will sometimes make it seem despicable to others, by sincerity and persistency it will
gradb ally convert the majority to a higher law of
ir tercourse.'
The world has been always more or less like this
cold-hearted society; the natural kindness and fellowfeeling of men have always been more or less repressed by low-minded maxims and cynicism. But in
the time of Christ, and in the last decrepitude of ethnic
morality, the selfishness of human intercourse was
much greater than the present age can easily understand. That system of morality, even in the times
when it was powerful and in many respects beneficial,
had made it almost as much a duty to hate foreigners
as to love fellow-citizens.  Plato  congratulates the
Athenians on having shown in their relations to Persia,
beyond all the other Greeks,'a pure and heartfelt
hatred of the foreign nature.' *  Instead of opposing,
it had sanctioned and consecrated the savage instinct
which leads us to hate whatever is strange or. unintelligible, to distrust those who live on the further side of
a river, to suppose that those whom we hear talking
together in a foreign tongue must be plotting some
mischief against ourselves. The lapse of time and
o r0o Be tot r6 yE r~; 7r6.EwS yvcvaiov Kai.iMlepov /3aflt6v rE Kai vyig;
Inrr Kai' po  ltt taol6p3apoo v t6i rTb EIl.KplV(&S -eat'ERJrve; Kai arlpyTt; fapf6p(,)v.....Za' aVroi "E).Ei've, ob plco/3,6/pfapoD OIKOU/Af. 8 0Ev
traapoav rb pZco; iEvrTrr7KE rin 7rAtE rg rdlAorpia5 braeoFg.
— Plato, Menexenus, p. 245.




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.           173
the fusion of races doubtless diminished this antipathy
considerably, but at the utmost it could but be transformed into an icy indifference, for no cause was in
operation to convert it into kindness. On the ether
hand, the closeness of the bond which united fellowcitizens was considerably relaxed. Common interests
and common dangers had drawn it close; these in the
wide security of the Roman Empire had no longer a
place. It had depended upon an imagined blood.
relationship; fellow-citizens could now no longer feel
themselves to be united by the tie of blood.  Every
town was full of resident aliens and emancipated
slaves, persons between whom and the citizens nature
had established no connection, and whose presence in
the city had originally been barely tolerated from
motives of expediency. The selfishness of modern
times exists in defiance of morality, in ancient times
it was approved, sheltered, and even in part enjoined
by morality.
We are therefore to consider the ancient world as a
society of men in whom natural humanity existed but
had been, as it were, crusted or frosted over. Inveterate feuds and narrow-minded local jealousies, arising
out of an isolated position or differences of language
and institutions, had created endless divisions between
man and man, And as the special virtues of antiquity,
patriotism and all that it implies, had been in a manner caused and fostered by these very divisions, t!.ey
were not regarded as evils but rather cherished as
essential to morality.  Selfishness, therefore, was not
a mere abuse or corruption arising out of the infirmity
of humarL nature, but a theory and almost a part of




174                ECCE HOMO.
moral philosophy. Humanity was cramped by a mis
taken prejudice, by a perverse presumption of the intellect. In a case like this it was necessary and proper
to prescribe humanity by direct authoritative precept.
tSuch a precept would have been powerless to creute
the feeling, nor would it have done much to protect it
from being overpowered by the opposite passion; but
the opposite passion of selfishness was at this period
jvstified by authority and claimed to be on the side of
reason and law. Precept is fairly matched against
precept, and what the law of love and the golden rule
did for mankind was to place for the first time the love
of man as man distinctly in the list of virtues, to dissipate the exclusive prejudices of ethnic morality, and
to give selfishness the character of sin.
When a theory of selfishness is rife in a whole community, it is a bold and hazardous step for a part of
the community to abandon it. For in the society of
selfish people selfishness is simply self-defence; to renounce it is to evacuate one's intrenched position, to
surrender at discretion to the enemy. If society is to
disarm, it should do so by common consent. Christ,
however, though he confidently expected ultimately to
gather all mankind into his society, did not expect to
do so soon. Accordingly he commands his followers
not to wait for this consummation, but, in spite of the
hazardous nature of the step, to disarmii at once. They
are sent forth' as sheep in the midst of wolves.' Injuties they are to expect, but they are neither to shun
nor to retaliate them. Harmless they are to be as
doves.  The discipline of suffering will wean them
more and more from self, and make the channels of




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.        175
humanity freer within them; and sometimes their
patience may shame the spoiler; he may grow weary
of rapacity which meets with no resistance, and be
induced to envy those who can forego without reluctance that which he devotes every thought to acquire.
But we shall soon be convinced that Christ could
not design by a mere edict, however authoritative, to
give this passion of humanity strength enough to make
it a living and infallible principle of morality in every
man, when we consider, first, what an ardent enthusiasm he demanded from his followers, and secondly,
how frail and tender a germ this passion naturally is
in human nature. Widely diffused indeed it is, and
seldom entirely eradicated, but for the most part, at
least in the ancient world, it was crushed under a
weight of predominant passions and interests; it had
seldom power enough to dictate any action, but made
itself felt in faint misgivings and relentings, which
sometimes restrained men from extremes of cruelty.
Like Enceladus under A:tna, it lay fettered at the'oi'5TrTih'imnania  nature, now and then making the
mass above it quake by an uneasy change of posture.
To make this outraged and enslaved passion predominant, to give it, instead of a veto rarely used, the
whole power of government, to train it from a dim
misgivring into a clear and strong passion, re ured
much more than a precept. The precept had its use;
it could make men feel it right to be humane and desire to be so, but it could never inspire them with an
enthusiasm of humanity. From what source was this
inlspiratlon to be derived?
Humanity, we have already observed, is neither a




1 76              ECCE HOMO.
love for the whole human race, nor a love for each
individual of it, but a love for the race, or for the ideal
of man, in each individual. In other and less pedantic words, he who is truly humane considers every
human being as such interesting and important, and
without waiting to criticise each individual specimen,
pays in advance to all alike the tribute of good wishes
and sympathy. Now this favorable presumption with
regard to human beings is not a causeless prepossession, it is no idle superstition of the mind, nor is it a
natural instinct. It is a feeling founded on the actual
observation and discovery of interesting and noble
qualities in particular human beings, and it is strong
or weak in proportion as the person who has the feeling has known many or few noble and amiable human
beings. There are men who have been so unfortunate
as to live in the perpetual society of the mean and the
base; they have never, except in a few faint glimpses,
seen anything glorious or good in human nature.
With these the feeling of humanity has a perpetual
struggle for existence, their minds tend by a fatal
gravitation to the belief that the happiness or misery
of such a paltry race is wholly unimportant; they may
arrive finally at a fixed condition, in which it may be
said of them without qualification, that'man delights
not them, nor woman neither.' In this final stage
they are men who, beyond the routine of life, should
not be trusted, being' fit for treasons, stratagems, and
spoils.' On the other hand, there are those whb se lot
it has been from earliest childhood to see the fair side
of humanitr, who have been surrounded with clear
a- d candid countenances, in the changes of which




THE ENTHIUSIASM OF HUMANITY.       177
might be traced the working of passions strong and
simple, the impress of a firm and tender nature, wearing when it looked abroad the glow of sympathy, and
when it looked within the bloom of modesty. They
have seen, and not once or twice, a'man forget himself; they have witnessed devotion, unselfish sorrow,
unaffected delicacy, spontaneous charity, ingenuous
self-reproach; and it may be that on seeing a human
being surrender for another's good not something but
his uttermost all, they have dimly suspected in human
nature a glory connecting it with the divine. In these
the passion of humanity is warm and ready to become
on occasion a burning flame; their whole minds are
elevated, because they are possessed with the dignity
of that nature they share, and of the society in the
midst of which they move.
But it is not absolutely necessary to humanity that a
man shall have seen mzany men whom he can respect.
The most lost cynic will get a new heart by learning
thoroughly to believe in the virtue of one man. Our
estimate of human nature is in proportion to the best
specimen of it we have witnessed. This then it is
which is wanted to raise the feeling of humanity into
an enthusiasm; when the precept of love has been
given, an image must be set before the eyes of those
who are called upon to obey it, an ideal or type of
man which may be noble and amiable enough to raise
the whole race and make the meanest member of it
sacred with reflected glory.
Did not Christ do this?  Did the command to Iov,
go forth to those who had never seen a human }being
they could revere? Could his followers turn upon
8*




178               ECCE HIOMO.
him and say, How *can we love a creature so degraded, full of vile wants and contemptible passions,
whose little life is most harmlessly spent when it is an
empty round of eating and sleeping; a creature destined for the grave and for oblivion when his allotted
term of fretfulness and folly has expired? Of this race
Christ himself was a member, and to this day is it not
the best answer to all blasphemers of the species, the
best consolation when our sense of its degradation is
keenest, that a human brain was behind his forehead
and a human heart beating in his breast, and that within the whole creation of God nothing more elevated
or more attractive has yet been found than he? And
if it be answered that there was in his nature something exceptional and peculiar, that humanity must
not be measured by the stature of Christ, let us remember that it was precisely thus that he wished it to
be measured, delighting to call himself the Son of Man,
delighting to call the meanest of mankind his brothers.
If some human beings are abject and contemptible, if
it be incredible to us that they can have any high
dignity or destiny, do we regard them from so great a
height as Christ? Are we likely to be more pained
by their faults and deficiencies than he was? Is our
standard higher than his? And yet he associated by
preference with these meanest of the race; no contempt
for them did he ever express, no suspicion that they
might be less dear than the best and wisest to the
common Father, no doubt that they were naturally
capable of rising to a moral elevation like his own.
There in nothing of which a man may be prouder than
of this it is the most hopeful and redeeming fact in




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.        179
history; it is precisely what was wanting to raise the
love of man as man to enthusiasm. An eternal glory
has been shed upon the human race by the love Christ
bore to it. And it was because the Edict of Universal
Love went forth to men whose hearts were in no
cynical mood but possessed with a spirit of devotion
to a man, that words which at any other time, however
grandly they might sound, would have been but words,
penetrated so deeply, and along with the law of love
the power of love was given. Therefore also the first
Christians were enabled to dispense with philosophical
phrases, and instead of saying that they loved the ideal
of man in man could simply say and feel that they
loved Christ in every man.
We have here the very kernel of the Christian moral
scheme. We have distinctly before us the end Christ
proposed to himself, and the means he considered ade.
quate to the attainment of it. His object was, instead
of drawing up, after the example of previous legis
lators, a list of actions prescribed, allowed, anc' prohibited, to give his disciples a universal test by,.lich
they might discover what it was right and what it was
wrong to do. Now, as the difficulty of discovering
what is right arises commonly from the prevalence of
self-interest in our minds, and as we commonly behave
rightly to any one for whom  we feel affection or
sympathy, Ch ist considered that he who could feel
sympathy for all would behave rightly to all. But
how to give to the meagre and narrow hearts of men
such enlargement? How to make them capable of a
universal sympathy? Christ believed it possible to
bind men to their kind, but on one condition — that




i80                ECCE HOMO.
they were first bound last to himself. Ile stood forth
as the representative of men, he identified himself
with the cause and with the interests of all human
beings, he was destined, as he began before long obscurely to intimate, to lay down his life for them.
Few of us sympathize originally and directly with this
devotion; few of us can perceive in human nature
itself anly merit sufficient to evoke it. But it is not so
lhard to love and venerate him who felt it. So vast a
passion of love, a devotion so comprehensive, elevated,
deliberate, and profound, has not elsewhere been in
any degree approached save by some of his imitators.
And as love provokes love, many have found it possible to conceive for Christ an attachment the closeness
of which no words can describe, a veneration so possessing and absorbing the man within.hem, that they
have said,'I live no more, but Christ lives in me.'
Now such a feeling carries with it of necessity the
feeling of love for all human beings. It matters no
longer what quality men may exhibit; amiable or unamiable, as the brothers of Christ, as belonging to his
sacred and consecrated kind, as the objects of his love
in life and death, they must be dear to all to whom he
is dear. And those who would for a moment know
his heart and understand his life must begin by thinking of the whole race of man, and of each member of
the race, with awful reverence and hope.
Love, wheresoever it appears, is in its measure a
law-making power.' Love is dutiful in th:ml ght and
deed.' And as the lover of his country is free from.:ie temptation to treason, so is he who loves Christ,,cure from the temptation to injure any humrnan being,




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.         18I
whether it be himself or another. He is indeed much
more than this. IHe is bound and he is eager to benefit
and bless to the utmost of his power all that bear his
Masler's nature, and that not merely with the good
gifts of the earth, but with whatever cherishes and
trains best the Christ within them. But for the present
we are concerned merely with the power of this tpassion
to lift the man out of sin. The injuries he committed
lightly when he regarded his fellow-creatures simply
as animals who added to the fierceness of the brute
an ingenuity and forethought that made them doubly
noxious, become horrible sacrilege when he sees in
them no longer the animal but the Christ. And that
other class of crimes which belongs more especially
to ages of civilization, and arises out of a cynical contempt for the species, is rendered equally impossible
to the man who hears with reverence the announcement,'The good deeds you did to the least of these
my brethren you did to me.'
There are two objections which may suggest themselves at this point, the one to intellectual, the other to
practical men. The intellectual man may say,'To
discover what it is right to do in any given case is not
the province of any feeling or passion however sublime,
but requires the application of the same intellectual
power which solves mathematical problems. The
common acts of life may no doubt be performed corIectly by unintellectual people, but this is because
these constantly recurring problems have been solved
long ago by clever people, and the vulgar are tlow in
possession of the results. Whenever a new combination occurs it is a m itter for casuists; the best intentions




I8a 2ECCE HOMO.
will avail little; there is doubtless a great difference
between a good man and a bad one; the one will do
what is right when he knows it, and the other will
not; but in respect for the power of ascertaining what
it is right to do, supposing their knowledge of casuistry
to be equal, they are on a par. Goodlness, or the
passion of humanity, or Christian love, may be a
motive inducing men to keep the law, but it has rLo
right to be called the law-making power. And wl:at
has Christianity added to our theoretic knowledge
of morality?  It may have made men practically
more moral, but has it added anything to Aristotle's
Ethics?'
Certainly Christianity has no ambition to invade the
provinces of the moralist or the casuist. But the difficulties which beset the discovery of the right moral
course are of two kinds. There are the difficulties
which arise from the blinding and confusing effect of
selfish passions, and which obscure fiom the view the
end which should be aimed at in action; when these
have been overcome there arises a new set of difficulties concerning the means by which the end should be
attained. In dealing with your neighbor the first thing
to be understood is that his interest is to be considered
as well as your own; but when this has been settled,
it remains to be considered what his interest is. The
latter class of difficulties requires to be dealt with by
the intellectual or calculating faculty. The former
class can only be dealt with by the moral force of
sympathy. Now it is true that the right action wi.
not be performed without the operation of both these
agencies. But the moral agency is the dominant one




THE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.           I83
thloughout; it is that without which the very conception of law is impossible; it overcomes those difficulties which in the vast majority of practical cases are
the most serious. The calculating casuistical faculty
is, as it were, in its employ, and it is no more improper to call it the law-making power, although it
does not ultimately decide what action is to be per.
forlmred, than to say that a house was built by one who
did not with his own hands lay the bricks and spread
the mortar.
The objection which practical men take is a very
important one, as the criticisms of such men always
are, being founded commonly upon large observation
and not perverted by theory. They say that the love
of Christ does not in practice produce the nobleness
and largeness of character which has been represented
as its proper and natural result; that instead of inspir.
ing those who feel it with reverence and hope for their
kind, it makes them exceedingly narrow in their sympathies, disposed to deny and explain atway even the
most manifest virtues displayed by men, and to despair of the future destiny of the great majority of
their fellow-creatures; that instead of biihding them to
their kind, it divides them from it by a gulf which
they themselves proclaim to be impassable and eternal, and unites them only in a gloomy conspiracy of
misallthropy with each other; that it is indeed a lawmaking power, but that the laws it makes are littlemin.nde and vexatious prohibitions of things innocent,
de:rnoalizing restraints upon the freedom of joy and
to-' healthy instincts of nature; that it favors hypocrisY, lnoroseness, and sometimes lunacy; that the only




184                ECCE HOMO.
vice it has power to check is thoughtlessness, aind its
only beneficial effect is that of forcing into activity,
though not always into healthy activity, the faculty of
serious reflection.
This may be a just picture- of a large class of religious men, but it is impossible in the nature of things
tllat such effects should be produced by a pure personal devotion to Christ. We are to remember that
nothing has been subjected to such multiform  and
grotesque perversion as Christ'anity. Certainly the di
rect love of Christ, as it was felt by his first followers,
is a rare thing among modern Christians. His character has been so much obscured by scholasticism, as to
have lost in a great measure its attractive power.
The prevalent feeling towards him  now among religious men is an awful fear of his supernatural greatness, and a disposition to obey his commands arising
partly from dread of future punishment and hope of
reward, and partly from a nobler feeling of loyalty,
which, however, is inspired rather by his office than
his person. Beyond this we may discern in them an
uneasy conviction that he requires a more personal
devotion, which leads to spasmodic effoirts to kindle
the feeling by means of violent raptures of panegyric
and by repeating over and getting by rote the ardent
expressions of those who really had it. That is wanting for the most part which Christ held to be all in
all, spontaneous warmth, free and generous devotion.
That the fruits of a Christianity so hollow shou:ld be
poor and sickly is not surprising.
But that Christ's metlhod, when rightly applied, is
really of mighty force may be shown' by an argument




THIE ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY.         185
which the severest censor of Christians will hardly
refuse to admit. Compare the ancient with the modern world;' Look on this picture and on that.' One
broad distinction in the characters of men forces itself
into prominence. Among all the men of the ancient
heathen world there were scarcely one or two to whoin
we might venture to apply the epithet'holy.'  In
other words, there were not more than one or two, if
any, who besides being virtuous in their actions were
possessed with an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness,
and besides abstaining from vice regarded even a
vicious thought with horror.  Probably no one will
deny that in Christian countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness, has existed. Few will
maintain that it has been exceedingly rare. Perhaps
the truth is, that there has scarcely been a town in
any Christian country since the time of Christ where
a century has passed without exhibiting a character
of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed
the bad and made the good better, and has been felt
at times like the presence of God Himself. And if
this be so, has Christ failed? or can Christianity die?




CHAPTER XV.
T HE  LORD'S  SUPPER.
THAT Christ had but a slight esteem for rites
and ceremonies may be argued negatively from
his establishing so few, and positively from the contempt he poured on the traditional formalities prized
so highly by the Scribes and Pharisees. But he well
understood their use, and we have already observed
with what rigorous firmness he insisted on his followers submitting to the initiatory rite of baptism. The
kingdom he was founding was to be everywhere imperium in imperio; its members were to be at the
same time members of secular states and national
bodies. It was therefore a matter of extreme importance to preserve the distinctness of the Christian
society and to prevent its members from being drawn
apart from each other by the distractions of worldly
claims and engagements. For this purpose certain
sacramenta or solemn observances renewing and reminding them of their union were most desirable, and
Christ ordained twvo, the one expressing the distinctness of the Church from the world, and the other the
unity of the Church within itself.  Of the former,
Baptism, mention was made when we considered
Christ's Call, concerning the latter, the Common Supper or arVauLrov of Christians, it is convenient to say
something now.




THE LORD S SUPPER.            187
A common meal is the most natural and universal
way of expressing, maintaining, and as it were ratifying relations of friendship. The spirit of antiquity
regarded the meals of human beings as having the
nature of sacred rites (sacra mensa). If therefore it
sounds degrading to compare the Christian Communion to a club-dinner, this is not owing to any essential
difference between the two things, but to the fact that
the moderns connect less dignified associations with
meals than the ancients did, and that most clubs have
a far less serious object than the Christian Society.
The Christian Communion is a club-dinner: but the
club is the New Jerusalem; God and Christ are members of it; death makes no vacancy in its lists, but at
its banquet-table the perfected spirits of just men, with
an innumerable company of angels, sit down beside
those who have not yet surrendered their bodies to the
grave.
Goethe thought that Protestant Christians have too
few sacraments, and this opinion is not refuted by the
fact that Christ himself only instituted two. We are
to suppose, however, that these two are the most
essential, and indeed without them we can scarcely
imagine, the Church maintaining its distinct existence,
Without a solemn form of entrance, and without occasional solemn meetings, Christians would forget that
they were Christians. But in these meetings it was
obviously desirable, if it were possible, that not only
tlhe fact of the union of Christians, but also the nature
alnd manner of their union, should be symbolically
expressed. We have now considered at some length
the nature and conditions of the Chbistian Society,




r88                ECCE HOMO.
without referring to or producing in evidence the
Lord's Supper. If therefore the form of the Lord's
Supper expresses symbolically such a union as we
have described, we shall derive from this fact a confirmation of the results at which we had independently
arrived.
Of those results some do not require confirmation,
being in themselves obvious and disputed by none. It
has never been questioned that the doctrine of the
brotherhood of mankind and of the duty of universal
benevolence and charity is a main feature of Christianity. This doctrine, then, is very plainly symbolized
in the Lord's Supper. As a meeting or communion
it is clearly designed to express a certain fellowship
between those who share it; by admitting all Christians without distinction on equal terms, it expresses
the universal character of the society. The extreme
simplicity of the ceremony makes its symbolical character more impressive, and averts, as far as that is
possible, the danger which all venerated symbols incur
of being valued for their own sake and confounded
with the thing symbolized. The meal consisted of
bread and wine, the simplest and in those countries
most universal elements of food; and when men of
different nations or degrees sat or knelt together and
received, as from the hand of God, this simple repast,
they were reminded in the most forcible manner of
their common human wants, and their common character of pensioners on the bounty of the Universal
Fatl-ler.
But Christ added something to the ceremony. lIe
bade his followers consider the bread they ate as his




THE LORD'S SUPPER.             I8q
body, and the wine they drank as his blood. And in
a discourse tecorded by St. John, which we may quote
without distrust, as it is so manifestly confirmed by
the accounts given by the other Evangelists of the
institution of the Supper, he says,' Except ye eat the
flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have
no life in you.' What Christ meant by Izfe is not now
diffilzlt to discover. It is that healthy condition of
the mind which issues of necessity in right action.
This health of the soul we know Christ regarded as
consisting in a certain enthusiasm of love for human
beings as such. This enthusiasm then, we are now
informed, will nut spring up in us spontaneously nor
by any efforts we may make to kindle it in ourselves,
nor is the message of Christianity fully delivered when
love to the human race is declared to be a duty; human beings will not unite merely because they are told
to do so, nor will the anarchic passions submit to a
mere reproof. Men cannot learn to love each other,
says Christ, but'by eating his flesh and drinking his
blood.'
The Lord's Supper, then, confirms by its symbolism
the view of Christian morality which was taken in the
last chapter. It was there asserted that Christ did not
regard it as possible to unite men to each other but by
first uniting them to himself. And in the Lord's Supper, in which the union of Christians is symbolized, it
is represented as depending not merely ~n the natural
passion of humanity implanted in their breasts, nor
nerely on the command of Christ calling that- passion
into activity, but upon a certain intimate personal contact between Christ and his followers. The union of




I90o                ECCE HOMO.
mankind, but a union begun and subsisting only in
Christ, is what the Lord's Supper sacramentally
expresses.
As to the metaphor itself, if it seems at first violent
and unnatural, we are to observe that on the subject
of the personal devotion required by Christ from his
followers his language was often of this vehement
kind, and that his first followers in describing their
relation to him in like manner overleap the bounds of
ordinary figurative language. Christ, in a passage to
which allusion has already been made, demanded of
his followers that they should /hale their father and
mother for his sake, and St. Paul in many passages
declares that Christ is his life and his very self. It is
precisely this intense personal devotion, this habitual
feeding on the character of Christ, so that the essential
nature of the Master seems to pass into and become
the essential nature of the servant -loyalty carried to
the point of self-annihilation that is expressed by
the words' eating the flesh and drinking the blood of
Christ.'
Much remains to be said about the details of Christian morality, but the reader should already be in a
condition to understand and judge of its scope. And
let us pause once more to consider that which remains
throughout a subject of ever-recurring astonishment,
the unbounded personal pretensions which Christ
advances. It is common in human history to meet
with those who claim  some superiority over their
fellows Men assert a preeminence over their fellowcitizens or fellow-countrymen and become rulers of




THE LORD'S SUPPER.             IgI
those who at first were their equals, but they dream
of nothing greater than some partial control over the
actions of others for the short space of a lifetime. Few
indeed are those to whom it is given to influence
future ages. Yet some men have appeared who have
been' as levers to uplift the earth and roll it in another
course.' Homer by creating literature, Socrates by
creating science, Caesar by carrying civilization inlalndl
from  the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by
starting science upon a career of steady progress, may
be said to have attained this eminence. But these
men gave a single impact like that which is conceived
to have first set the planets in motion, Christ claims
to be a perpetual attractive power like the sun which
determines their orbit.  They contributed to men
some discovery and passed away; Christ's discover3
is himself. To humanity struggling with its passion;
and its destiny he says, Cling to me, cling ever close?
to me. If we believe St. John, he represented himself
as the Light of the World, as the Shepherd of tho
Souls of men, as the Way to immortality, as the Vine
or Life-Tree of Humanity. And if we refuse to
believe that he used those words, we cannot deny,
without rejecting all the evidence before us, that he
used words which have substantially the same meaning. We cannot deny that he commanded men to
leave everything and attach themselves to him; that
he declared himself king, master, and judge of men;
that he promised to give rest to all the wealy anldi
heavy-laden; that he instructed his followers to
hope for life from feeding on his body and blooo



192               ECCE hiOMO.
But it is doubly surprising to observe that these enormous pretensions were advanced by one whose special
peculiarity, not only among his contemporaries but
among the remarkable men that have appeared before
and since, was an almost feminine tenderness and
humanity. This characteristic was remarked, as we
have seen, by the Baptist, and Christ himself was
fully conscious of it. Yet so clear to him was his
own dignity and infinite importance to the human
race as an objective fact with which his own opinion
of himself had nothing to do, that in the same brea-th
in which he asserts it in the most unmeasured language he alludes, apparently with entire unconsciousness, to his humility.'Take my yoke upon you and
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.'
And again, when speaking to his followers of the
arrogance of the Pharisees, he says,' They love to be
called Rabbi; but be not you called Rabbi, for one is
your master, even Christ.'
Who is the humble man? It is he who resists with
special watchfulness and success the temptations
which the conditions of his life may offer to exaggerate his own importance. He, for example, is
humble who, born into a high station, remembers that
those who are placed lower in society are also men
and may have more intrinsic merit and dignity than
himself. Christ could not show his humility in this
way, for he was poor and obscure. But there are
peculiar temptations which assail the thinker.- He is
inl danger of being intoxicated by the influence which
he gains over others, he feels himself elevated by the




THE LORD'S SUPPER.             293
greatness of the thoughts with which his mind habitually deals and which from time to time it originates.
If besides intellectual gifts the thinker possess acute
sensibility, strong moral intuitions, heroic powers of
indignation and pity, his temptation is to suppose that
he is made of finer clay than other men, and that he
has a natural title to preeminence and sovereignty over
them.  Such is the temptation of moral reformers
such as Christ, and if Christ was humble he resisted
this temptation with exceptional success. If he judged
himself correctly, and if the Baptist described him
well when he compared him to a lamb, and, we may
add, if his biographers have delineated his character
faithfully, Christ was one naturally contented with
obscurity, wanting the restless desire for distinction
and eminence which is common in great men, hating
to put forward personal claims, disliking competition
and'disputes who should be greatest,' finding something bombastic in the titles of royalty, fond of what
is simple and homely, of children, of poor people,
occupying himself so much with the concerns of
others, with the relief of sickness and want, that the
temptation to exaggerate the importance of his own
thoughts and plans was not likely to master him;
lastly, entertaining for the human race a feeling so
singularly fraternal that he was likely to reject as a
sort of treason the impulse to set himself in any
mariner above them.  Christ, it appears, was this
humble man. When we have fully pondered the fact,
we may be in a condition to estimate the force of the
evidence, which, submitted to his mind, could induce
9




T94                 ECCE HOMO.
him, ini direct opposition to all his tastes and instincts,
to lay claim, persistently, with the calmness of entire
conviction. in opposition to the whole religious world,
in spite of the offence which his own followers collceived, to a dominion more transcendent, more universal, more complete, than the most delirious votary of
giory ever aspired to in his dreams.




195
CHAPTER XVI.
POSITIVE MORALITY.
OUR investigation into the character of the lawr
under which the members of the Christian Com.
inonwealth are called to live has led us to the dis.
covery that in the strict sense of the word no such law
exists, it being characteristic of this commonwealth
that every member of it is a lawgiver to himself.
Every Christian, we learn, has a divine inspiration
which dictates to him in all circumstances the right
course of action, which inspiration is the passion of
humanity raised to a high energy by contemplation of
Christ's character, and by the society of those in whom
the same enthusiasm exists. We cease, therefore,.
henceforth to speak of a Christian law, and endeavor
instead to describe in its large outlines the Christian
character; that is to say, the new views, feelings, and
habits produced in the Christian by his guiding enthusiasm.
The tendency and operation of this enthusiasm wvill
be most clearly apprehended if we consider the way
in which it led those who felt it to regard the current
morality of their time and country, in other words,
tl'e Jewish law. In this law they had been l)red; it
was their rule of life up to the time when they awoke
to a new life. How, then, did they regard this system
after their regeneration?




196               ECCE HOMO.
In the first place they regarded it critically, as something of which they were independent and with which
they could dispense. They had in their own breasts
an inexhaustible spring of morality; of written and
formulated morality they had henceforth no need.
FeelEng a sure foundation under their feet, they gathered courage for the first time to examine and criticise
what before they had felt it their wisdom to receive
without criticism. As Jews their piety had consisted
in a certain timid caution, a wary walking in the old
paths, and when they became Christians, it is remarkable that they gave to those who continued to be what
they had originally been the title of' the cautious men.'
In periods which are wanting in inspiration piety
always assumes this character of caution. It degenerates from a free and joyful devotion to a melancholy
and anxious slavery. The first work of the Divine
Spirit was a work of encouragement, and the humblest
man was found the most courageous of all. He scru-.
tinized fearlessly the mass of traditions which then
went by the name of the Law, and unhesitatingly pro
nounced a great part of them wanting in authority.
Some of these time-honored usages he stigmatized as
immoral and mischievous, others, which were in themselves indifferent, he treated with contemptuous neglect. We may imagine that by this conduct he gave
grievous offence to some honest,' cautious,' conservatlve spirits. Doubtless —thus they may have expostulated-the washing of cups and pots is in itself
unimportant, but wise men, our ancestors, have prescribed the usage; by such symbolism we may learn
the lesson and form the habit of purity. Tb-ese men




POSITIVE MORALITY.            I97
Christ perhaps regarded as Milton regarded the versifier who did not know whether his lines were of the
right length till he had counted the syllables. As the
poet consulted on such questions only the soul of
rhythm within him, so were all mysteries of purity
made clear to Christ by the Spirit of purity which he
lad received from above. It was not, indeed, in his
nature to despise anything which might be useful to
the ignorant and the weak, however unnecessary for
himself. As he stooped to receive baptism from John,
so he would, no doubt, have sanctioned these usages
by his own observance if he had seen any good in
them at all. But he seems to have considered that the
time for these methods was gone by; and as all such
contrivances begin to be mischievous the moment they
cease to be beneficial, he condemned them as fettering
the freedom of that inspiration which was for the
future to take the place of law.
Of the Scriptures of the Old Testament he always
spoke with the utmost reverence, and he seems never
to have called in question the Jewish view of them as
infallible oracles of God. Some parts of them, particularly the book of Deuteronomy, seem to have been
often present to his thoughts. Yet even the Old Tes.
tament he regarded in a sense critically, and he introduced canons of interpretation which must have
astonished by their boldness the religious men of the
day.  For he regarded the laws of Moses, though
livine, as capable of becoming obsolete and also as
ncomplete. On the question of divorce he declared
the Mosaic arrangement to have been well suited for
the' hard-heartedness' of a semi-barbarous age, but




198                ECCE HOMO.
to be no longer justifiable in the advanced conditioh
of morals. So too in the matter of oaths, the permission of private revenge, and other points in which the
Mosaic legislation had necessarily something of a barbaric character, he unhesitatingly repealed the acts of
the lawgiver and introduced new provisions.
It is easy to imagine the alarm which such.'reedomn
of interpretation must have excited in the'cautious.'
They would declare it destructive of the authority of
the Scriptures. Were not the Scriptures given, they
would say, to save man from his own reason? Does
not their priceless value consist in this, that for all
conceivable circumstances they furnish a rule which
simple men may follow with simple obedience? But
if these divine rules can in any case become obsolete,
if human affairs can change so far that the Scriptures
can cease to be a guide to our feet, if the words of the
Eternal can be subject to the accidents of time and
mutability, what further use can there be in the Scriptures, and how henceforth shall our steps be guided?
It was the inspiration, the law-making power, that
gave Christ and his disciples courage to shake themselves free from the fetters even of a divine law.
Their position was a new and delicate one, and nothing but such an inspiration could have enabled them to
maintain it. To pronounce the old law entirely true
or entirely false would have been easy, but to consider
it as true and divine yet no longer true for them, no
longer their authoritative guide, must have seemed,
and must seem even to us, at first sight unnatural and
paradoxical. It may be illustrated, however, by what
every one has observed to happen in the process of




POSITIVE MORALITY.            199
learning any art. For the beginner rigid rules ale
prescribed, which it will be well for him for a time to
follow punctiliously and blindly.  He may believe
that under these rules a principle is concealed, that a
reason could be given why they should be followed,
butit iswvell for a time'that the principle should remain concealed and that the rules should be followed
simply because they are prescribed. At any rate, so
long as he actually has not discovered the principle,
he must abide strictly by bthe "rules,-and it would be
foolish to abandon them in order to go in search of it.
But th'ere comes a time when the discovery is made, a
golden moment of silent expansion and enlargement.
Then the reason of all the discipline to which he has
submitted becomes clear to him, the principle reveals
itself and lnakes the confused and ill-apprehended
multitueofde-ta-ls- iVa- na moment harmonious and
luminous. But the principle at the same moment that
it explains the rules supersedes them. They may bV
not less true than before, they may be seen to be true
far more clearly than before. But they are obsolete;
their use is gone; they can for the future tef ll   tat
which is already well krrown, which can never again
be forgotten or misunderstood. If t he student reei;s
to them at a later time it is with a feeling of wonder
that they should ever have deilayed his attention for a
mome an —d — pro a-ly in the rude and peremptory
pariculy of their form he may discover that which,
though well enough adapted for the beginner under
certain circumstances, is yet in itself not true and is
calculated under other circumstances to mislead.
It was in this manner that Christ found the Mosaic




200               ECCE HOMO.
law at once divine and in part obsolete. But not only
did he find it in part obsolete, he found it throughout
utterly meagre and imperfect. And this was inevitable.  Between the rude clans that had listened to
Moses in the Arabian desert and the Jews who in the
reign of Tiberius visited the temple courts there was
a g eat gulf. The' hard-heartedness' of the primitive
nat on ]lad given way under the gradual influence of
lawv and peace and trade and literature. Laws which
in the earlier time the best men had probably found it
hlard to keep could now serve only as a curb upon the
worst. The disciples of Moses were subject to lawless passions which they could not control, and the
fiercest ebullitions of which seemed to them venial,
misfortunes rather than crimes. Self-restraint of any
kind was to them a new and hard lesson. They listened with awe to the inspired teacher who taught them
not to covet their neighbor's wife or property; and
when they were commanded not to commit murder,
they wondered doubtless by what art, by what contrivance, it might be possible to put a bridle on the
thing called anger -' anger which far sweeter than
trickling drops of honey rises in the bosom of a man
like smoke.' But how much was all this changed!
If one like Paul had gone to a Christian teacher after
the new enthusiasm of humanity had been excited in
him, and asked for instruction in morality, would it
have satisfied him to be told that he must abstain from
committing murder and robbery? These laws, to be
sure, were not obsolete, but the better class of men
had been raised to an elevation of 2oodness at which
they were absolutely unassailable by temptations to




POSITIVE MORALITY.           201
commit them   Their moral sense required a different
training, far more advanced instruction. It is true
that in the later books of the Old Testament there
might be found a morality considerably more advanced, but through the life and example of Christ the
humblest of his followers was advanced a long stage
beyond even this.  No one who had felt, however
feebly, the Christian enthusiasm could fail to find even
in Deuteronomy and Isaiah something narrow, antiquated, and insufficient for his needs.
Now in what consisted precisely the addition made
by Christ to morality?
It has been already shown that Christ raised the
feeling of humanity from being a feeble restraining
power to be an inspiring passion.  The Christian
moral reformation may indeed be summed up in this
- humanity changed from  a restraint to a motive.
We shall be prepared therefore to find that while earlier moralities had dealt chiefly in prohibitions, Christianity deals in positive commands. And precisely
this is the case, precisely this difference made the Old
Testament seem  antiquated to the first Christians.
They had passed from a region of passive into a region
of active morality. The old legal formula began' thou
shalt not,' the new begins with'toi-i   shalt.' The
young man who had kept the whole law - that is,
who had refrained from  a number of actions — is
commanded to do something, to sell his goods and
feed the poor. Condemnation passed under the Mosaic law upon him who had sinned, who had done
something forbidden - the soul that sinneth shall die;
-- Christ's condemnation is pronounced upon those
9 *




202               ECCE HOMO.
who had not done good.' I was an hungered and ye
gave me no meat.' The sinner whom Christ habitually denounces is he who has done nothing. This
character comes repeatedly forward in his parables.
It is the priest and Levite who passed by on the other
side. It's Dives, of whom no ill is recorded except
that a beggar lay at his gate full of sores and yet i;o
man gave unto him. It is the servant who hid ill a
napkin the talent committed to him. It is the unprofitable servant, who has only done what it was his
duty to do.
Putting together these parables delivered at different
times and to different audiences, yet all teaching the
same doctrine, and adding to them the positive exhortations to almsgiving, to free and lavish charity,
we see that Christ's conception of practical goodness
answers to his ideal of a right state of mind. We
observed that he considered the healthy condition of
character to be an enthusiastic or inspired condition;
we now find that he prescribes just such conduct as
would be prompted by such enthusiastic feelings.
And this consistency or unity of his teaching will
appear still more plainly when we consider what the
tenor of his own life was. It may sometimes strike
us that the time which he devoted to acts of beneficence and the relief of ordinary physizal evils might
have been given to works more permanently beneficial to the race.  Of his two great gifts, the
power over nature and the high moral wisdom and
ascendency over men, the former might be the more
astonishing, but it is the latter which gives him his
everlasting dominion. He might have left to all sulb



POSITIVE MORALITY.            203
sequent ages more instruction if he had besto wed less
time upon diminishing slightly the mass of evil around
him, and lengthening by a span the short lives of the
generation in the midst of which he lived. The whole
amount of good done by such works of charity could
not be great, compared with Christ's powers of doing
good; and if they were intended, as is often supposed,
merely as attestations of his divine mission, a few acts
of the kind would have served this purpose as well as
nlany. Yet we may see that they were in fact the
great work of his life; his biography may be summed
up in the words,'he went about doing good;' his
wise words were secondary to his beneficial deeds;
the latter were not introductory to the former, but the
former grew occasionally, and, as it were, accidentally
out of the latter.  The explanation of this is that
Christ merely reduced to practice his own principle.
His morality required that the welfare and happiness
of others should not merely be remembered as a restraint upon action, but should be made the principal
motive of action, and what he preached in words
he preached still more impressively and zealously in
deeds. He set the first and greatest example of a life
wholly governed and guided by the passion of humanity. The very scheme and plan of his life differed
from that of other men. He had no personal prospects, no fortune to push, no ambitions. A good man
before had been understood to be one who in the pursuit of his own personal happiness is careful to cornsider also the happiness of those around him, declines
all prosperity gained at their expense, employs his:eisure in relieving some of their wants, and who,




o04                ECCE HOMO.
lastly, in some extreme need or danger of those connecte(i with him, his relations or his country, consents
to sacrifice his own life or welfare to theirs. In this
scheme of life humanity in its rudimentary forms of
family feeling or patriotism enters as a restraining or
regulating principle; only in the extreme case does it
become the mainspring of action. What with other
goo  men was the extreme case, with Christ was the
riule. In many countries and at many different times
the lives of heroes had been offered up on the altar of
filial or p trental or patriotic love. A great impulse
had ovezlnastered them; personal interests, the love
of life and of the pleasures of life, had yielded to a
higher motive; the names of those who had made the
great oblation had been held in honor by succeeding
ages, the place where it was made pointed out, the
circumstances of it proudly recounted. Such a sacri..
fice, the crowning act of human goodness when it rises
above itself, was made by Christ, not in some moment
of elevation, not in some extreme emergency, but habitually; this is meant when it is said, he went about
doing good; nor was the sacrifice made for relative or
friend or country, but for all everywhere who bear the
name of man.
Those who stood by watching his career felt that his
teaching, but probably still more his deeds, were creating a revolution in morality and were setting to all
previous legislations, Mosaic or Gentile, that seal which
is at once ratification and abolition.  While they
watched, they felt the rules and maxims by which
they had hitherto lived die into a higher and larger
life. They felt the fr-eedorn which is gained by de



POSITIVE MORALITY.              20'
stro3ing selfishness instead of restraining it, by crucify.
ing the flesh instead of circumcising it. In this new
rule they perceived all old rules to be included, but so
included as to seem insignificant, axioms of moral sci.
ence, beggarly elements. It no longer seemed to them
necessary to prohibit in detail and with laborious enu.
Ineration the different acts by which a man may injure
his neighbor. Now that they had at heart as the first
of interests the happiness of all with whom they might
be brought in contact, they no longer required a law,
for they had acquired a quick and sensitive instinct,
which restrained them from doing harm. But while
the new morality incorporated into itself the old, how
much ampler was its compass! A new continent in
the moral globe was discovered.  Positive morality
took its place by the side of Negative. To the duty
of not doing harm, which may be called justice, was
added the duty of doing good, which may properly re
ceive the distinctively Christian name of Charity.
And this is the meaning of that prediction which
certain shepherds reported to have come to them in a
mystic song heard under the open sky of night (' carmine perfidima quod post nulla arguet aetas') proclaiming the commencement of an era of'good will to men.'




206
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.
T HUS there rises before us the image of a commonwealth in which a universal enthusiasm not
only takes the place of law, but by converting into a
motive what was before but a passive restraint, enlarges the compass of morality and calls into existence
a number of positive obligations which under the dominion of law had not been acknowledged. It is a
commonwealth sustained and governed by the desire
existing in the mind of each of its members to do as
much good as possible to every other member.
Doubtless, a columonwealth fully answering this description has never existed on the earth, nor can exist.
It is an ideal. True that Christ always spoke of the
kingdom of God as an actual and present commonwealth into which men were actually introduced by
baptism. Nevertheless he fully acknowledged its ideal
character, and therefore spoke of it as at the same ti ne
future and still waiting to be realized. Those who
were already members of God's kingdom were notwithstanding instructed to pray that that kingdom
might come. And if we look at the facts around us
we shall discover that the kingdom of God has always
been in this manner at once present and future, at
once realized and waiting to be realized. In other




THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.          207
words, it has always fallen far short of its ideal, and
yet it has never ceased in some degree to resemble that
ideal. It has never ceased to abide by the positive or
active scheme of morality, and to occupy itself more or
less zealously with works of beneficence and charity.
We may go further, and say that the Christian view
of morality has become universal, so that now no man
is called or considered good, whether he bear the
Christian name or not, who does not in some form or
other exhibit an active love for his kind and go out of
his way to do good.
The enthusiasm of humanity in Christians is not
only their supreme but their only law. It has been
remarked that Christ's plan was to kindle in the hearts
of his followers a feeling which should dictate to them
the right course of action in all circumstances. It follows that when we have considered the nature of this
feeling we have exhausted the subject of Christian
morality. If Christ delivered any other more special
commands besides the command to love, they must be
either deducible from it, if it be the law-making power
which he pronounced it to be, or if they do not agree
with its dictates -if those who have the genuine enthusiasm in them find that the literal obedience to
Christ's special commands is in any instance irreconcilable with obedience to his universal commandthey must bear in mind the boldness with which. he
himself treated the Mosaic law while acknowledging
it to be divine. They must remember tLat principles
last forever, but special rules pass aw-ay with the
things and conditions to which they refecr. As Christ
relaxed the sabbatical obligation by re'n',ng to the




208               ECCE HOMO.
object ot the ordinance -the Sabbath was made for
man — so should his disciples boldly and reverently
interpret his precepts by the light of the principle
which governed them, the principle of humanity, and
obey as freemen not as slaves.
But to us considering what are likely to be the
characteristics, the modes of life and action, of a person in whom the Enthusiasm of Humanity has been
kLndled, these special commands of Christ are likely
to afford the very information we seek. A principle
is best seen in its practical applications, a rule in its
examples. It may be said, then, that besides the great
and one law of love Christ delivered three special
injunctions.
First, he enjoined his followers to apply themselves
to relieving the physical needs and distresses of their
fellow-creatures. Next, he commanded them to add
new members to the Christian Church, and especially
to seek the amendment of the neglected, outcast, and
depraved part of society. Thirdly, he enjoined them
to forgive all personal injuries. These three injunctions we will proceed to consider in order.
The command to relieve physical distress is many
times repeated. Christians are to give alms; in some
cases they were commanded to give all their wealth to
the poor; in all cases they were assured that their final
acceptance before the Judge would depend upon the
zeal they had shown in feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, and visiting the sick. The first
definite duty which Christ imposed upon his followers
when they began to form an organized society was
that of travelling over the whole country in order to




THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.           209
cure diseases. Lastly, as has been already remarked,
he was himself constantly and principally cccupied in
the same way.
No rule of life is more plainly deducible from the
general law of love than this. Higher benefits may
be conferred upon men than the alleviation of their
p:hysicalsufferings, but there can be no more niatural
expression and no better test of humanity. Nothing is
more certain than that he who can witness suffering
without an attempt to relieve it, when such attempt is
not hopeless, is not humane. The proposition is one
of the most obvious that can be expressed in words;
all nations not utterly savage have in a sense admitted
it. Christ's command had nothing in it which to a
heathen could have seemed novel, and yet, on the
other hand, it was not at all superfluous. For though
there was humanity among the ancients, there was no
philanthropy. In other words, humanity was known
to them as an occasional impulse, but not as a standing
rule of life. A case of distress made painfully manifest and prominent would often excite compassion;
the feeling might lead to a single act of beneficence:
but it had not strength enough to give birth to reflection or to develop itself into a speculative compassion
for other persons equally distressed whose distresses
were not equally manifest. Exceptional sufferings bad
therefore a chance of relief, but the ordinary sufferinlgs
which affected whole classes of men excited no pity,
and were treated as part of the natural order of things,
providential dispensations which it might even be ini.
pious to endeavor to counteract. Let us consider the
example of slavery. There were in antiqtuity kind




210                 ECCE HOMO.
masters who refrained from treating their slaves with
cruelty; when a slave was to be punished, it was not
hard to find good-humored'precatores' who would
intercede for him; there was humanity enough to
cluse sometimes a general feeling of displeasure when
a slave was treated with outrageous cruelty. But no
general protest was ever made against the cruelty of
slave-owners. No man, still less any body of men,
thlloght it worth while to give time and trouble either
to alleviating the miseries of the slave or to mitigating
the harshness of the institution itself. If it became clear
to any, as to a few philosophers it did, that the institution was unjust, and if unjust then of necessity a monstrous injustice, they quietly noted the fact, but never
stirred hand or foot to remedy it, and the majority of
mankind were not sufficiently interested in each other's
happiness to discover the existence of any such social
injustice at all.
When this lethargy passed away and humanity became a passion in the first Christians, it issued by the
lips of Christ an imperative ordinance making the
sorrows of each a burden upon all. Henceforth it
became the duty of every man gravely to consider the
condition of the world around him. It became his
duty to extend his regards beyond the circle of his
personal interests, and sometimes to open the gate of
his privacy and relieve the beggar who might be lying
outside full of sores.  Nor was he to wait till the
nisery of some fellow-creature forced itself rudely
upon h11  notice and affected his sensibility.  On the
contrary he was to bear habitually in his heart the load
of the world's distress.  Pity was to be henceforth no




THE LAVW OF PHILANTHROPY.           211
stranger greeted occasionally, but a familiar companion
and bosom-friend. Nor was he to make philanthropy
the amusement of his leisure, but one of the occupations of his life. Ile was to give alms; that is, he was
to relieve his fellow-creature at the cost of some personal loss to himself, and Christ held that a despicable
Christianity which flung to the poor some unregarded
si perfluity; he valued more the mite which the widow
spared out of her poverty.
The obligation of philanthropy is for all ages, but
if we consider the particular modes of philanthropy
which Christ prescribed to his followers we shall find
that they were suggested by the special conditions ot
that age. The same spirit of love which dictated them,
working in this age upon the same problems, would
find them utterly insufficient. No man who loves his
kind can in these days rest content with waiting as a
servant upon human misery, when it is in so many
cases possible to anticipate and avert it. Prevention
is better than cure, and it is now clear to all that a
large part of human suffering is preventible by improved social arrangements. Charity will now, if it
be genuine, fix upon this enterprise as greater, more
widely and permanently beneficial, and therefore more
Christian than the other. It will not, indeed, neglect
the lower task of relieving and consoling those who,
whether through the errors and unskilful arrangements
of society or through causes not yet preventible, have
actually fallen into calamity. Its compassion will be
all the deeper, its relief more prompt and zealolls,
because it does not generally, as former generations
did, recognize such calamities to be part of mlan's




21 2               ECCE HOMO.
inevitable destiny. It will hurry with the more painful
eagerness to remedy evils which it feels ought never to
have befallen. But when it has done all which the
New Testament enjoins, it will feel that its task is not
half fulfilled. When the sick man has been visited
and everything done which skill and assiduity can do
to cure him, modern charity will go on to consider the
causes of his malady, what noxious influence besetting
his life, what contempt of the laws of health in his
diet or habits, may have caused'it, and then to inquire
whether others incur the same dangers and may be
warned in time. When the starving man has been
relieved, modern charity inquires whether any fault
in the social system  deprived him  of his share of
nature's bounty, any unjust advantage taken by the
strong over the weak, any rudeness or want of culture
in himself wrecking his virtue and his habits of thrift.
The truth is, that though the morality of Christ is
theoretically perfect, and not subject, as the Mosaic
morality was, to a further development, the practical
morality of the first Christians has been in a great
degree rendered obsolete by the later experience of
mankind, which has taught us to hope more and
undertake more for the happiness of our fellow-creatures. The command to care for the sick and suffering remains as divine as ever and as necessary as ever
to be obeyed, but it has become, like the Decalogue,
an elementary part of morality, early learnt, and not
sufficient to satisfy the Christian enthusiasm..As the
early Christians learnt that it was not enough to do no
harm  and that they were bound to give meat to the
hungry and clothing to the naked, we have learnt that




THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.          213
a still further obligation lies upon us to prevent, if
possible, the pains of hunger and nakedness from
being ever felt.
This last duty was as far beyond the conception
of the earliest Christians as the second was beyond
the conception of those for whom Moses legislated.
Many things concealed it from the eye )f the con.
science. First the obscure social position of the first
Christians. They belonged for the most part to the
subject races of the Roman Empire. The government of affairs, the ordering of the social system,
was in other hands. Their masters were jealous and
reserved. Little concerted action of any kind was
allowed to them. Any protest they might have made
against social inequalities and injustices would have
died away utterly unheeded. There was no channel
through which those who discerned an evil could
communicate with those who had the power of removing it. At such a time reforms were out of the
question. It would have been simply useless and
perilous to lay a hand upon the ponderous wheels of
the social system which crushed the lives and limbs of
men at every revolution. All that could be done was
to be at hand to tend the victims, to rescue as many
woundEd as possible, and shed a tear over the dead.
But the principal reason why the philanthropy
prescribed by the Gospel is so rudimentary was
probably a different one. The first Christians were
probably not so much hopeless of accomplishing great
social reforms as unripe for the conception of them.
The instinct of compassion, which joined to a sanguine spirit of hope produces the modern systematic




214               ECCE HOMO.
Reformer, was newborn and infantine in them. It
bad as yet everything to learn, both as to the evils
which were to be cured and as to the possibility and
means of curing them. On both points the ancients
labored under a blindness which we can only understand by an effort of reflection. They did not
easily recognize evil to be evil, and they did not
believe, or rather they had never dreamed, that it
could be cured. Habit dulls the senses and puts the
critical faculty to sleep. The fierceness and hardness
of ancient manners is apparent to us, but the ancients
themselves were not shocked by sights which were
familiar to them. To us it is sickening to think of
the gladiatorial show, of the massacres common in
Roman warfare, of the infanticide practised by grave
and respectable citizens, who did not merely condemn
their children to death, but often in practice, as they
well knew, to what was still worse - a life of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded a gladiatorial
show as we regard a hunt; the news of the slaughter
of two hundred thousand Helvetians by Casar or half
a million Jews by Titus excited in his mind a thrill
of triumph; infanticide committed by a friend appeared to him a prudent measure of household
economy. To shake off this paralysis of the moral
sense produced by habit,' to see misery to be misery
and cruelty to be cruelty, requires not merely a strong
but a trained and matured compassion. It was prabably as much as the first Christians could learn at
once to relieve the sick, the starving, and the desolate.
Only after centuries of this simple philanthropy
could they learn to criticise the fundamental usages




TIE LAW OF PHIILANTIHROPY.        215
of society itself, and acquire courage to pronounce
that, however deeply-rooted and time-honored, they
were in many cases shocking to humanity.
Closely connected with this insensibility to the real
character of common usages is a positive unwillingness to reform them. The argument of prejudice is
twofold. It is not only that what has lasted a long
dime must be right, but also that what has lasted a
long time, right or wrong, must be intended to continue. That reverence for existing usages, which is
always strong in human nature, was far stronger in
antiquity than it is now. The belief in the wisdom
of ancestors, which seems to be caused by the curious
delusion that ancestors must needs be old and therefore deeply experienced men, was stronger among the
ancients than among the modeirns, because their impression of their ancestors was derived not from
history but from poetry. They traced their institutions to semi-divine or inspired legislators, and held it
almost impious to change what came to them marked
with such authority; while we, however proud we
may be of our ancestors, do not disguise from ourselves that they were barbarians, and can hardly fancy
their handiwork incapable of improvement.
Thus the Enthusiasm of Humanity, if it move us
in this age to consider the physical needs of our fellowcreatures, will not be contented with the rules and
methods which satisfied those who first felt its power.
Breathed from the lips of Christ or descending from
heaven at the Pentecostal feast, it entered into nmen
who had grown to manhood in a cruel and hardhearted world and who were accustomed to selfisllhess.




2I 6             ECCE HOMO.
When Love was waked in his dungeon and his fetters
struck off, he must at first have found his joints too
stifffor easy motion. It entered into the subjects of a
world-wide tyranny, who never raised their thoughts
to large or public interests, over which they could not
hope to have influence. It- entered into men of narrow cultivation, who had no conception of progress or
of the purpose that runs through the ages, no hirgh
ideal of the happiness that the race may attain through
the labors of the good of every generation in its cause,
no suspicion that the whole framework of society
compared to what it might be was as the hut of a
savage to a Grecian temple. It entered into men who
in their simplicity revered the barbaric past and placed
behind them that golden age for which they should
have looked forwards. And therefore it could but
rouse them to a philanthropy which, though glorious
in the spirit that animated it, was faint and feeble in
its enterprises, the half-despairing attempt of a generation which had more love than hope.
We are advanced by eighteen hundred years beyond
the apostolic generation. All the narrowing influences
which have been enumerated have ceased to operate.
Our minds are set free, so that we may boldly criticise
the usages around us, knowing them to be but imperfect essays towards order and happiness, and no divinely or supernaturally ordained constitution which
it would be impious to change. We have witnessed
improvements in physical well-being which incline us
to expect further progress and make us keen-sighted
to detect the evils and miseries that remain. The
channels of commnunication between nations and their




TIHE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.         217
governments are free, so that the thought of the private philanthropist may mould a whole community.
And, finally, we have at our disposal a vast treasure
of science, from which we may discover what physical well-being is and on what conditions it depends.
In these circumstances the Gospel precepts of philanthropy become utterly insufficient.  It is not now
enough to visit the sick and give alms to the poor.
We may still use the words as a kind of motto, but
we must understand under them a multitude of things
which they do not express. If we would make them
express the whole duty of philanthropy in this age,
we must treat them as preachers sometimes treat the
Decalogue, when they represent it as containing by
implication a whole system of morality. Christ commanded his first followers to heal the sick and give
alms, but he commands the Christians of this age -
if we may use the expression — to investigate the
causes of all physical evil, to master the science of
health, to consider the question of education with a
view to health, the question of labor with a view to
health, the question of trade with a view to health;
and while all these investigations are made, with free
expense of energy and time and means, to work out
the rearrangement of human life in accordance with
the results they give.
Thus ought the Enthusiasm of Humanity to work
in these days, and thus, plainly elnough, it does work.
These investigations are constantly being made, these
reforms commenced. But perhaps it is rather among
those who are influenced by general philanthropy and
gnerosity, that is, by indirect or secondary ChristianI0




2i8                ECCE HOMO.
ity, than among those who profess to draw the Enthu.
siasm directly from its fount, that this spirit reigns.
Perhaps those who appear the most devoted Chlistians are.umewhat jealous of what they may consider
this worldly machinery. They think they must needs
be most Christian when they stick most closely to the
New Testament, and that what is utterly absent from
tle New Testament cannot possibly be an impoitant
part of Christianity. A great mistake, arising from a
wide-spread paralysis of true Christian feeling in the
modern Church! The New  Testament is not the
Christian law; the precepts of Apostles, the special
commands of Christ, are -not the Christian law.' To
make them such is to throw the-Church back into'lliat
legal system fom which Christ woud hav set ee.
The Christian law is the spirit of Christ, that Enthusiasm of Humanity wlich he declared to b&e the' source
from which all right action flows. What it dictates,
and that alone, is law for the Christian. And if the
progress of science and civilization has put into our
hands the means of benefiting our kind more and
more comprehensively than the first Christians could
hope to do - if instead of undoing a little harm and
comforting a few unfortunates we have the means of
averting countless misfortunes and raising, by the
right employment of our knowledge and power of
contrivance, the general standard of happiness - we
are not to inquire whether the New Testament conmnmands us to use these means, but whether the spirit
of humanity commands it.
But, say the cautious, is it safe to follow a mere enthusiasm? If Christ is to be believed, it is not safe to




THE LAW OF PHILANTHROPY.          219
follow anything else. According to him this Spirit
was expressly given to guide men into all truth. But,
they will rejoin - and here the truth comes out - we
like to feel the stay of a written precept; we are not
conscious of any such ardent impulse directing us infallibly what to do. In reply to which what can we
do but repeat the question of St. Paul,'Into what then
were ye baptized?'




220
CHAPTER XVIll.
THE  LAW  OF EDIFICATION.
PHIT,ANTHROPY is the first and easiest lesson
in positive morality. It is a duty in which all
Christian sects agree and which with more or less
zeal they perform. The means used may differ; the
means used in this age differ widely from those used
in the first ages; but the obligation which the first
Christians acknowledged is substantially the same as
that acknowledged now. When they visited the sick
and made provision for widows and orphans and gave
alms to the poor, they were doing to the best of their
light and knowledge what philanthropists of the present day do when they study the science of physical
well-being, search into the causes of disease and suffering, and endeavor systematically to raise the standard of happiness to the highest possible point.
Did the Enthusiasm of Humanity rest content with
this?  It might have done so.  Perhaps there are
sonime who believe that this is in fact the substance of
Christianity, and that all the rest has been overlaid
upon the original system. This is not true, and it will
hardly seem plausible to a reader who has given even
a general assent thus far to the results of the present
investigation. But we shall find it easier to understand what the substance of C (hristianity really is, if




THIE LAW OF EDIFICATION.        221
we consider attentively what Chrlistianitv would have
been and how it would have worked if this theory of
it were true. How the persons who hold this theory
regard Christianity we may make clear to ourselves by
a comparison. The present century has witnessed a
remarkable softening of manners. A number of cruel
practices and severities, that excited no disgust a hun.
dred years ago, have now been either swept away as
intolerable or are reluctantly tolerated from a feeling
of necessity. Among these are the torture of the
wheel, the pillory, the punishment of death. And in
private life during the same period men have greatly
advanced in tenderness, sympathy, and unwillingness
to inflict pain. This improvement was doubtless
caused by the decay of feudal, chivalrous, and selmibarbaric institutions which had cherished hard and
warlike habits of life. Society in the last century
entered upon a new period. For this new period
there arose new legislators, and it may probably be
said that the fashion of gentleness in feelings and
manners was introduced mainly through the influence
of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Now the first century, like the eighteenth, was a
period of transition. It was a period when for the
first time the civilized nations of the world lived
together in almost unbroken peace. War had ceased
to be the main business of life, the support of virtue
and almost the only means by which eminent virtue
could show itself. In these circumstances the world
was prepared for, was calling for, a theory of virtue
which should be adapted to its new condition. It
wanted a new pursuit in place of war, a pursuit in




222               ECCE HOMO.
which, as before in war, the moral feelings might find
satisfaction and in which heroism might be displayed.
Christ, it may be maintained, was the social legislator
who appeared in answer to this call. He induced a
large number of people by his eloquence and enthusiasm to devote themselves to philanthropy. He opened
their eyes to the suffering and horrors of which the
woild was full, and pointed out to them a noble and
satisfying occupation for their energies and a path to
the truest glory in the enterprise of alleviating this
misery.
There is no doubt that a philanthropic movement
such as is here supposed was possible and would have
been highly beneficial in the first century. As five
centuries before, a ferment in the Greek mind, arising
out of a general advance in civilization and the influence of several remarkable men, led to the appearance
in the world of an entirely new character which has
never since disappeared -the sop5z'st or pzhilosojSher,
so it was natural enough that in the first century of
the Christian era thzilant/hro-pists should be heard of
for the first time, and that they should take their rise
out of a moral ferment excited by a great preacher.
A sect of philanthropists might have spread everywhere, and gradually influenced rulers, and by this
means manners might have berin considerably softened.
The Christians were no doubt such a sect, but were
they merely this? Suppose the philanthropical schelne
to be far more successful than it was likely to be, su?pose it to succeed perfectly in producing physical coni.
fort everywhere, and banishing from human life all
forms of pain and suffering, such a result would




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.          223
certainly not have been satisfactory to Christ. Ile
described in one of his parables a man such as philanthropy might produce if it were perfectly successful, a
man enjoying every physical comfort and determining
to give himself up to enjoyment, but he describes him
rafter with horror than with satisfaction. And though
so much of his life was passed in relieving distress,
we never find him representing physical happiness as
a desirable condition; on the contrary, most' of his
beatitudes are pronounced upon those who suffer.
The ideal of the economist, the ideal of the Old Testament writers, does not appear to be Christ's. He
feeds the poor, but it is not his great object to bring
about a state of things in which the poorest shall be
sure of a meal; he recalls dead men to life, but his
wisdom does not, like Solomon's, carry length of days
in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and
honor. Rather does it carry with it suffering, persecution, and the martyr's death. He corrects him who
said, Blessed are they who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God does not exist
for the sake of eating and drinking. He preaches
peace, and yet he says, I am not come to send peace
but a sword.
The paradox is not very difficult to explain. A
good parent will be careful of the physical condition
of his child, will tend him assiduously in sickness,
relieve his wants, and endeavor in every way to make
him happy. But a good parent will not rest content
with seeing his child comfortable and secure from pain.
He will consider that other and greater things than
physical comfort are to be procured for him, and for




224               ECCE IHOMO.
the sake of these greater things he will even sacrifice
some of his comforts and see with satisfaction that the
child suffers a certain amount of pain and wants some
pleasures. The affection which pets and pampers its
object is not excessive, as it is sometimes described,
but a feeble affection, or at least the affection of a
feeble nature. Now the love of Christ for human
nature was no such feeble affection. It was not an
exceedingly keen sensibility which made him feel more
painfully than other men the sufferings of which the
world is full. It was a powerful, calm, and contemplative love. It was a love of men for what they may
be, a love of the ideal man in each man, or, as Christ
himself might have said, a love of the image of God
in each man. Accordingly the Enthusiasm of Humanity in him did not propose to itself principally to procure gratifications and enjoyments for the senses of
men, but to make the divine image more glorious in
them and to purge it as far as possible of impurities.
That ideal which Christ contemplated directly in
God his followers found in him. And thus arises the
second great obligation of Positive Morality, the obligation, namely, to use every means to raise men to the
moral elevation of Christ. This obligation was brought
honle to the Christian by the natural working of the
Enthusiasm of Humanity in him. Excited as it was
by the contemplation of Christ, it could not be conter.ted with diffusing physical well-being.  He who
had himself become humane desired indeed that others
should be happy, but still more that they too should
become humane. This dictate of the Christian spirit
Christ threw into the form of a special comlnand when




THE'LAW OF EDIFICATION.         225
he bade his disciples go everywhere, not merely healing diseases, but also proclaiming the kingdom of God
and baptizing. It was natural that the command
should take this particular form, because, as we have
seen, Christ regarded it as essential to the diffusion of
true humanity that men should form themselves into a
society of which humanity should be the law, and that
they should signalize their entrance into it by undergoing a special rite of purification.
But here again we remark that the command is
limited by the peculiar condition of the nascent
Church, and that if it were performed to the utmost
the Enthusiasm of Humanity would still remain entirely unsatisfied. There comes a time when the work
of baptism has been already accomplished. We, for
example, live in the midst of a baptized community;
the command has become for us unnecessary or rather
impossible to be fulfilled. But to meet the new circumstances, though Christ is silent, the spirit of Christ
issues a new  command. The Enthusiasm  of Humanity tells us that though all are baptized all are not
yet truly humane. It may be true that almost all are
conscious of impulses and compunctions which are
due directly or indirectly to Christianity, but the glowing humanity which alone Christ valued is surely not
even common, much less universal, among the baptized. To rekindle this in those who have lost it,
or in those who though nominally Christians have
never really conceived it, or in those who have
adopted one of the countless perversions of Christianity, and have never understood that this enthusiasm is the true Christian law, here is work for the
lO*




326                ECCE HOMO.
Christian concerning which Christ left no command
because it could not arise in the infant Church. As
early, however, as the Apostolic age itself, it had begun to be the principal occupation of Christians. St.
Paul's Epistles throughout regard the Christian Enthu.
siasm as liable to remission, depression, and languor.
Continually therefore he exhorts the Christians to
whom he writes to remember their ideal. His adlnonitions to activity in philanthropical works are brief
and few though always earnest; but when he en.
deavors to keep alive their humanity, when he admonishes them to excite and cherish it in each other, then
he is copious and vehement. This is the subject
nearest his heart. His anxiety is not so much to hear
that the widows and orphans are duly supplied, and
that within the circle of the Christian community want
is disappearing and the ills of life are sensibly diminished, as to be informed that his converts are conforming gradually more and more to their ideal. This
conformity he expresses by various figures of speech.
It is to'put on Christ,''to put on the new man, the
new Adam;' it is'to have Christ dwelling in the
heart,'' Christ formed within;' it is'to fill up the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.'
So important a duty necessarily received a name.
As the moral science of that time furnished no term
which could describe it, the Christians denoted it by a
metaphorical expression which has passed into modern
languages. It has been remarked that the Christian
summum bonuum was a social one, it was the welfhre
of the Christian society. The whole duty of the Christian was to fill satisfactorily his place in that society.




T'HE LAW OF EDIFICATION.          227
Now it is a universal usage of language that the building in which any society meets may be put for the
society itself, and vice versa that the building may be
called after the society. The word house means sometimes the building in which a family lives, sometimes
the family that lives in such a building; a college is
sometimes a building in which learning is cultivated,
sometimes the society that cultivates learning in such
a b iilding. The same remark applies to all similar
words, such as club, bank, hospital, city. Among
others it applies to the word church, which in like
manner may be used either to describe a building or a
society. This inveterate habit of language indicates
the intimate association which forms itself in every
mind between the two notions of a corporation and an
edifice. No one can speak long in impassioned or
rhetorical style about any society whatever without
introducing metaphors drawn from architecture. The
Christian writers fell immediately into the practice, and
in doing so followed the example of Christ who said,'Upon this rock will I build my church.' In this
style of language, then, as the Church is a building,
so each member of it is a stone, and the prosperity of
the Church is expressed by the orderly arrangement
and secure cementing of the stones. It follows that
the labor of making men Christians and inspiring
them with the Enthusiasm of Humanity is nothing
else but the arrangement and cementing of the stones.
In otlher words, it is building. This then was the
name which the Christians adopted.' Let everything
be done,' says St. Paul,'with a view to building.'
I he phrase has been adopted into modern languages,




228                 ECCE HOMO.
yet in such a way as to destroy all its force. Instead
of being translated, it has been directly transferred
from the ecclesiastical Latin of the first centuries in
the form  of edidfcation.  The Christian law, then,
which we are now discussing, may be called the Law
of Edification.
Tllis second Christian obligation- the obligation,
s the same Apostle expresses it, to' provoke others
to) love' —is as much greater than the obligation of
philanthropy as it is a better thing for a man to be
good than to be prosperous. And in all cases of conflict between the two obligations the greater of course
suspends the less. Christianity therefore is not identical with philanthropy, nor does it always dictate the
course of action which may directly issue in happiness
and prosperity for others.  It regards temporal prosperity as no indispens4able or unmixed blessing; its
summumn bonum is tbat healthy condii'on of the soul
in which, influenced by the instinct of humanity, it
becomes incapable of sin. This healthy condition is
called in the dialect of Christianity'life' or' salvation,' and Christ was in the habit of declaring it to be
a blessing in comparison of which temporal happiness
is utterly insignificant.  There is nothing, he says,
whic'l a man can give in exchange for his soul; if he
gain the whole world and lose that, what is he the
better? All manner of physical suffering, therefole, is
to bi cheerfully endured rather than that the life oI the
soul should be sacrificed or enfeebled. If danger assail the soul through the right hand or the right eye,
and, it can be averted in no other way, we are to cut
offthe hand or pluck out the eye. He gives us at tbo




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.            2:29
same time to understand that not only have we sometimes to choose between temporal happiness and
spiritual health, but that suifering and sorrow have
often a direct tendency to produce spiritual health.
They may serve the purpose of a wholesome disci.
pline. Accordingly he pronounces a blessing on those
that mourn, and speaks ominously and forebodingly
of the temptations attending riches and a state of tel-m.poral prosperity.
If we are not to regard prosperity as the first of
blessings for ourselves, if we are not to seek it in preference to everything else for ourselves, if we are to
acquiesce sometimes for ourselves in a state of suffering, it follows that we ought to do so for our neighbors. A humane man will certainly be pleased to see
his fellow-creatures enjoying comfort, but if he be
deeply humane he will never be satisfied with this; if
their prosperity last long and be unalloyed he will even
become dissatisfied, he will jealously watch for the
appearance of those vices which prosperity breeds -
insolence, selfishness, superficiality in thought, infirmity in purpose, and a luxurious baseness which is
the death of the soul. If he discern these vices, if
they show themselves visibly, the humane man may at
last come to call out for sorrow; or, if this be too
boldly said, yet at least if to men thus demoralized
calamities happen at last, and wholesome labors be
imnposed, and they be made to support some stern
agony of endurance, he will witness the visitation with
a solemn satisfaction, and far more than he rejoiced
before to see their pleasure will he exult to see the
gates cf that delusive Paradise closed again, and the




230               ECCE HOMO.
fiery cherubim return to guard from man the fruit he
cannot see without temptation nor taste without ruin.
Christ, therefore, is not merely the originator of philanthropy; and indeed the church has sustained another part on earth besides that of the Sister of Charity.
She has not merely sat by sick-beds, and played the
Lady Bountiful to poor people, and rushed between
meeting armies on the field of battle to reconcile the
combatants by reminding them of their brotherhood.
Christianity is not quite the mild and gentle system it
is sometimes represented to be. Christ was meek and
lowly, but he was something beside. What was he
when he faced the leading men among his countrymen
and denounced them as a brood of vipers on their way
to the infernal fires? That speech which has been
quoted above,'I am not come to send peace but a
sword,' will appear, when considered, to be the most
tremendous speech ever uttered.  Burke's wish that
the war with France which he foresaw might prove a
Iong war has been stigmatized as horrible. It was
certainly an awful wish; it may well cause those who
look only to physical and immediate happiness to
shudder; but from Burke's premises it was justifiable.
Christ's solemn resolution to persevere in what he felt
to be his mission, in spite of the clearest foreknowledge
of the suffering and endless bloodshed which his perseverance would cause to that race of which he was the
martyr, was grounded on a similar confidence that the
evil was preparatory to a greater good, and that if some
happiness was to be sacrificed, it would be the price of
a great moral advance. But the resolution was notwithstanding a most awful one, and should impres



THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.          23I
sirely teach us not to confound Christianity with mere
philanthropy, not to suppose that what is shocking is
of necessity unchristian, not to confound warmheartedness, bonhommie, or feminine sensibilities with the
Ent] usiasm of Humanity.
It has been remarked above that the machinery of
philanthropy among the early Christians had all the
rudeness which it might be expected to have at a time
of little freedom, either of action or organization. Instead of studying comprehensively the science of human well-being and devising systematic methods of
producing and increasing it, they contented themselves
with tending the sick, pensioning widows and orphans,
and distributing alms. The means they adopted for
performing the second great obligation, that of converting mankind to Christian humanity or holiness,
were equally simple and below the requirements and
powers of the present age. They used the one instrument of direct moral suasion. To the heathen they
preached, to those already baptized they prophesied.
They related to their converts the principal facts of
Christ's life, they told the story of his death and resurrection, they instructed them in the morality and theology he had given to his Church. More effectively
than this, but without organization or contrivance,
there worked within the Church and outwards round
its whole circumference the living, diffusive, assimilative power of the Christian Humanity. As there are
still many Christians who cling to the old modes of
philanthropy because they are the only modes prescribed by the New Testament, so may the modern
Church be fairly charged with confining itself too ex



232               ECCE HOMIO.
elusively to preaching and catechising in the work of
conversion and edification. Preaching and catechising may still be useful and important, but many other
instruments are now at our command, and these instruments it is none the less the duty of Christians to use
because the New Testament says nothing about them.
The enthusiasm can indeed hardly be kindled except
by a personal influence acting through example or imp)assioned exhortation. When Christ would kindle it
in his disciples he breathed on them and said,'Receive ihe Holy Spirit;' intimating by this great symcolical act that life passes into the soul of a man, as it
were by contagion from another living soul. It may
indeed come to a man through the mere bounty of
God, but of means that men can use to kindle it there
is none beside their personal influence passing either
directly from mian to man or diffused by means of
books. Contrivance, however, and organization may
do much in marshalling this personal influence, in
bringing it to bear upon the greatest number and in
the most effective way; it may also do much in preventing men's natural susceptibility to the enthusiasm
from being dulled by adverse circumstances, and in
giving fuel to the enthusiasm when it already burns.
As it is the duty of Christians to study human wellbeing systematically with a view to philanthropy, so
is it their duty with a view to edification to consider at
large the conditions most favorable to goodness, and
1by what social arrangements temptations to vice may
bIe reduced to the lowest point and goodness hlave the
most and the most powerful motives. Here is a whole
field of investigation upon which Christians are bound




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.            233
to enter; much doubtless has been already done in it,
but not perhaps with much system, nor has it been
sufficiently felt that it is a principal part of the -work
belonging properly to the Church.
The conditions most favorable to goodness! It will
be well to consider in some detail what these are,
remembering always that by goodness is meant tle
Christian Enthusiasm of Humanity. How may mea
be mlade most susceptible of this Enthusiasm?
It has been shown that the attractive powei which
throughout has acted upon men, which has preserved
them from that isolation which is the opposite of Christianity, and which has united them in those communities of clan or city or state which were the germs and
embryos of the Universal Christian Republic, is the tie
of kindred. The state, we have seen, was founded on
a fiction of blood-relationship, and Christianity uses
the dialect of blood-relationship when it pronounces
all mankind to be brothers. What is true of mankind
in general will be found to be true in this case of the
individual man. He in whom the family affections
have been awakened will have a heart most open to
the passion of humanity. It is useless to tell a man to
love all mankind if he has never loved any individual of mankind and only knows by report what love
is. It should be recognized that family affection in
some form is the almost indispensable root of Christianity. This family affection is rightly called natural,
that is to say, it will come of itself if it be not artifi.
cially hindered. It becomes therefore a principal:luty
of Christians to remove all hinderances out of the way
of familv affection.




234               ]ECCE HOMO.
Now what are these hinderances? They are innumerable, arising out of the endless incompatibilities
of temperament and taste, incompatibilities of natural
difference and those finer incompatibilities, which are
more exquisitely painful and more malignant, arising
out of small differences in general resemblance. For
the removal of such hinderances no general rules can
be laid down. In resisting and removing them the
higher degrees of Christian tact win their triumphs.
Meanwhile there are. other hinderances of a simpler
kind which are, to an indefinite degree, removable
and of which some may here be mentioned. We may
here mention marriages of interest or convenience, the
children of which, often originally of dull and poor
organization, grow up in an atmosphere of cynical
coldness which speedily kills whatever blossoms of
kindliness their nature may put forth.  Iri another
class of society there rages another terrible destroyer
of natural affection, hunger. Christ spoke of suffering
as a wholesome discipline, but there is an extreme
degree of suffering which seems more ruinous to the
soul than the most enervating prosperity. When existence itself cannot be supported without an unceasing
and absorbing struggle, then there is no room in the
heart for any desire but the wretched animal instinct
of self-preservation, which merges in an intense, pitiable, but scarcely blamable selfishness. What tenderness, what gratitude, what human virtue can be expected of the man who is holding a wolf by the ears?
To persons who, from either of these causes or from
others that might be mentioned, have become destitute
of natural affection, preaching and catechising are




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.           235
almost useless. Your declamations will rouse in them
no Enthusiasm of Humanity, but, it may be, an ecstasy of fright or fanaticism. Instruction in morality
or theology will not make them moral ot religious,
but only a little more knowing and self-satisfied. A
great example of humanity put visibly before them
Inay indeed rouse in them the sense they want, but it
w ll never have the healthy keenness and calmness it
nlight have had, if it had been roused in the manner
appointed by nature. Therefore all Christians who
take an adequate view of Christian obligations will
consider that the removal of all such social abuses as
destroy natural affection, and by doing so kill Christian humanity in its germ, is among the first of those
obligations.
But again, where natural affection exists, a peculiar
perversion of it requires to be guarded against, which
often makes it hostile to that very Humanity of which
it is properly the rudimentary form. It is apt to take
a clannish, exclusive shape, and to inspire not merely
no love but positive hatred towards those who are
without the circle of blood-relationship. It has been
shown above how the very same attraction which
created states, isolated them, created national distinctions, and, arising out of national distinctions, a permanent condition of international hostility. This state
of things is still far indeed from being obsolete, and
the same abuse exists within the bosom of states in
&!:other form. Divisions arise, embittered by supeiciliousness on the one side and envy on the other,
between the high-born and the low-born, and other
advantages such as wealth and acquired station are




236                ECCE HOMO.
eagerly seized by family affection as an excuse for
turning itself into an exclusive partiality. The distinctions themselves of birth and wealth are substantial
realities which cannot be treated as if they did not
exist. There are superior and inferior breeds of men
as of other animals, and the rich man will be led by
his wealth into a mode of life wl.ich must remove him
to a certain distance from the poor man. The danger
is lest the distinction and the distance should turn to a
moral division, to a separation of interests and sympathies in which Christian union perishes. Therefore
against all unjust privilege, against all social arrangements which make the prosperity of one man incoinpatible with the prosperity of another, the Christian is
bound by his humanity to watch and protest.
But if this danger also is escaped, and naturai affection be present without exclusiveness, to dev-ciop it
into the full Christian Enthusiasm, there remal,,s many
other means besides preaching and purely religious
instruction. Of these the most importarnc Is education, which is certainly a far more pov, trful agent
than preaching, inasmuch as in the first place it acts
upon the human being at an age when he is more
susceptible of all influences, and particularly of moral
ones, than he afterwards becomes, and in the second
place it acts upon him incessantly, intensely, and by
countless different methods for a series of years, whereas preaching acts upon him intermittently, for the most
1)art faintly, and by one uniform method. Preaching
is moral suasion delivered formally at stated intervals.
In good education there is an equal amount of moral
suasion, delivered far more impressively because de



THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.         337
livered to individuals and at the moment when the
need arises, while besides moral suasion other instruments are employed. Of these the principal is Authority, a most potent and indispensable agent. We
have traced above the process by which mankind were
ripened for the reception of Christianity. For many
ages peremptory laws were imposed upon different
nations and enforced by a machinery of punishment.
During these ages, out of the whole number of persons who obeyed these laws very few either knew or
inquired why they had been imposed. But all the
time these nations were forming habits of action which
gradually became so familiar to them that the nations
who wanted similar habits became to them objects of
contempt and disgust as savages. At last the time
came when the hidden principle of all law was revealed and Christian humanity became the self-legislating life of mankind. Thus did the Law bring men
to Christ. Now what the Law did for the race the
schoolmaster does for the individual. He imposes
rules, assigning a penalty for disobedience. Under
this rule the pupil grows up, until order, punctuality,
industry, justice and mercy to his school-fellows become the habits of his life. Then when the time
comes, the strict rule relaxes, the pupil is taken into
the master's confidence, his obedience becomes reasonable, a living morality. If the teacher be one whose
own morality attains the standard of the Christian
Enthusiasm, the pupil is more likely to be initiated
into the same- supreme mystery than if he stood in any
other relation to him. There is no moral influence in
the world, excepting that occas;onally exerted by great




238               ECCE HOMO.
men, comparable to that of a good teacher; there is
no position in which a man's merits, considered as
moral levers, have so much purchase. Therefore the
whole question of education — what the method of it
should be, what men should be employed in it —is
preeminently a question in which Christians are bound
by their HIumanity to interest themselves.
Let us advance a step farther, and in considering the
conditions favorable to goodness it will be convenient
to isolate a particular case. We have before us, then,
the child of parents to whose mutual love he owes a
healthy organization and a fresh flow of natural feeling, to the moderate prosperity of whose condition he
owes an exemption from brutalizing anxieties, and
who hake instilled into him no prejudice of caste.
He has had a teacher who trained him as Providence
trained maiinkiri'assuming at ftl'e p1roper' siea-s'onihe
part of Moses, ti-en that of Isaiah, then that of the
Baptist, ushering him into the very presence of Christ.
Into that presence he has entered, and we see a young
man in whose mind there has rip'ened by natural
development out of the sense of duty to kindred and
country a commanding sense of " t  t that Universal
Commonwealth of men whose majesty he worships
gathered up in the person of its Eternal Sovereigns
Chri-stesus. Does manhood bring new dangers to
such a person? What are they? And what safegiards can be provided against them?
The most formidable temptation of manhood is that
which Christ described in a phrase hardly translatable
as eILQtylUl BIwrTXUI. To boys and youths work is
assigned by their parents or tutors. The judicious




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.          239
parent takes care not to assign so much work as to
make his son a slave. We cherish as much as possible
the freedom, the discursiveness of thought and feeling
natural to youth. We cherish it as that which life is
likely sooner or later to diminish, and if we curb it,
we do so that it may not exhaust itself by its o wn
vivacity. But in manhood work is not assigned to us
by others who are interested in our welfare, but by a
ruthless and tyrannous necessity which takes small
account of our powers or our happiness. And the
source of the happiness of manhood, a family, doubles
its anxieties. Hence middle life tends continually to
routine, to the mechanic tracing of a contracted circle.
A man finds or fancies that the care of his own family
is as much as he can undertake, and excuses himself
from most of his duties to humanity. In many cases,
owing to the natural difficulty of obtaining a livelihood
in a particular country or to remediable social abuses,
such a man's conduct is justified by necessity, but in
many more it arises from the blindness of natural
affection, making it difficult for him to think that he
has done enough for his family while it is possible for
him to do more. Christ bids us look to it that we be
not weighed down by these worldly cares, which
indeed if not resisted must evidently undo all that
Christianity has done and throw men back into the
clannish condition out of which it redeemed them.
How many a man who at twenty was full of zeal,
hligh-minded designs and plans of a life devoted to
l.llmanity, after the cares of middle life have come
upon him and one or two schemes contrived with the
inexperience of youth have failed, retains nothing of




240               ECCE HOMO.
the Enthusiasm with which he set out but a willingness to relieve distress whenever it crosses his path,
and perhaps a habit of devoting an annual sum of
money to charitable purposes!
To protect the lives of men from sinking into a
routine of narrow-minded drudgery, the Christian
Church has introduced the invaluable institution of the
Sunday. Following the example of the old Jewish
Church, it proclaims a truce once in seven days to all
personal anxieties and degrading thoughts about the
means of subsistence and success in life, and bids us
meet together to indulge in larger thoughts, to give
ourselves time to taste Heaven's bounty, and to drink
together out of'the chalice of the grapes of God.' In
countries where life is a hard struggle, what more
precious, more priceless public benefit can be imagined
than this breathing-time, this recurring armistice between man and the hostile powers that beset his life,
this solemn sabbatic festival?  Connected with the
Sunday is the institution of preaching or, as it is
called in the New  Testament, p5rophesying.  The
power of impassioned rhetoric over those whose occupations do not leave them much time for reading is
very great, and when the preacher speaks out of the
overflowing of a genuine Christian enthusiasm, his
words will echo in the memories of many until the
Sunday comes round again. In periods when the pulF its of a country are occupied by the foremost men of
thleir time for genius and wisdom this institution may
sway and form the whole mind of a nation.
Besides the Sunday and the institution of preaching
there exist certain societies formed to war against




THE LA\W OF EDIFICATION.          241
social, political, or moral evils and in various ways
to benefit mankind, by interesting himself in which
the grown man may support the Christian humanity
within him.
The  etpLuvct fltTtxat are an overwhelming host. It
seems desirable to supply as many and as potent instruments as possible to him who would combat them.
Valuable as the three instruments just mentioned are, it
may be urged in deduction from the advantage of the
Sunday and of preaching that they leave him passive;
that if they free him for a time from his persecutors
and revive in him the aspiration after a higher life,
they do not supply him with the activities and the
interests of that higher life. Societies do this, but for
the most part at present in a very insufficient way.
They do require from their members an effort of will,
a deed, and one involving self-denial; they require a
subscription of money. The money goes to furnish
that comparatively small proportion of the members
of the society who are personally grappling with the
evil to remove which the society was formed. But
firom the majority nothing further is required; all personal service in the cause of-iumanity is commuteds
for a money-payment. So customary has this become
that the word charity has acquired a new meaning; a
man's charity, that is, his love for his fellow-creatures,
is commonly estimated in pounds, shillings, and pence.
But it is a question whether this commutation, o-wever customary, is altogether legal in the Christian
Republic. It would appear that St. Paul recognized
a broad distinction between charity and money-donations. He seems to have thought that a man might
ITI




242                ECCE HOMO.
give away all his property and yet have no charity
Perhaps we are rather to compare the Christian Re.
public with those famous states of antiquity which in
their best days required the personal service of every
citizen in the field, and only accepted a money-equivalent fr:)m those who were incapacitated from  such
service. It is characteristic of the Christian State that
it depends for its very existence on the public spirit of
its citizens. The states of the world are distinguished
from each other visibly by geographical boundaries
and language. But the Christian Republic scarcely
exists, apart from the Enthusiasm which animates it;
if that dies it vanishes like a fairy city, and leaves no
trace of its existence but empty churches and luxurious sinecurists. And assuredly he who remembers his
citizenship in it only by the taxes he pays is but one
step removed from forgetting it altogether.
If then the Christian Humanity is to be maintained
at the point of enthusiasm in a man upon whom the
cares of middle life have come, he must not content
himself with paying others to do Christian work. He
must contribute of his gifts, not merely of his money.
He must be a soldier in the campaign against evil,
and not merely pay the war-tax. But then it is too
much to expect that he should find work for himself.
Spenser allegorizes ill when he represents his Red
Cross Knight as pricking forth alone in quest of
adventures. At least this sort of soldiering is long
out of date. In civilized war men are marshalled in
companies and put under the orders of a superior
officer. To drop the figure, a flourishing Church
requires a vast and complicated organization, vhich




THE LAW OF EDIFICATION.         243
should afford a place for every one who is ready to
wFir-Tn the service 6f hrumaanity. The enthusiasm
should not be suffered to die out in any one for want
of the occupation best calculated to keep it alive.
Those who meet within the church walls on Sunday
should not meet as strangers who find themselves
together in the same lecture-hall, but as cobpeIatoas
in a public work the object of which all understand
and to his own department of which each man habitually applies his mind and contriving power. Thus
meeting, with the esprit de corps strong among them,
and with a clear perception of the purpose of their
union and their meeting, they would not desire that
the exhortation of the preacher should be, what in the
nature of things it seldom can be, eloquent. It might
cease then to be either a despairing and overwrought
appeal to feelings which grow more callous the
oftener they are thus excited to no definite purpose, or
a childish discussion of some deep point in morality
or divinity better left to philosophers. It might then
become weighty with business, and impressive as an
officer's address to his troops before a battle. For it
would be addressed by a soldier to soldiers in the
presence of an enemy whose character they understood
and in the war with whom they had given and received
telling blows. It would be addressed to an ardent and
hopeful association who had united for the purpose of
contending within a given district against disease and
distress, of diminishing by every contrivance of kindly
sympathy the rudeness, coarseness, ignorance, and
imprudence of the poor and the heartlessness and
hardness of the rich, for the purpose of securing to all




244                ECCE HOMO.
that moderate happiness which gives leisure for virtie,
and that moderate occupation which removes the
temptations of vice, for the purpose of providing a
large and w'ise education for the young; lastly, for the
purpose of handing on the tradition of Christ's life,
death, and resurrection, maintaining the Enthusiasm
of Humanity in all the baptized, and preserving, in
opposition to all temptations to superstition or fanaticism, the filial freedom of their worship of God.
Thus far have we carried our analysis of the conditions most favorable to the Christian spirit or Spirit
of Humanity. It must remain incomplete. To finish
it would lead us too far and answer no purpose. Our
purpose in it is already answered if it has shown how
much is involved in the great Law of Edification, how
many duties that Law includes, and how large-minded
and comprehensive in his studies and observations,
how free from the fetters of tradition or Scripture,
must be the man who would thoroughly fuilfil it.




245
CHAPTER XIX.
THE  LAW  OF MERCY.
BIJT there is another aspect of the Law of Edifica.
tion. Hitherto we have considered it as impose
ing upon Christians the obligation of developing the
domestic and patriotic virtue which is natural to men
into that Christian Humanarty which is its proper completion, and of cherishing, as much as possible, that
natural virtue with a view to the development of the
Christian Humanity, and of cherishing the Christian
Humanity itself when developed. But it continually
happens that all methods fail of accomplishing these
results. There is a class of men in every community
in whom both natural and Christian humanity is at
the lowest ebb. These will not only do nothing for
their kind, but they are capable of committing crimes
against society and against those nearest to them.
Under temptation from self-interest they actually commit such crimes, and the precedent being once established, they for the most part fall gradually into the
condition of avowed enemies of their kind, and constitute a criminal or outcast class, which is not merely
destitute of virtue but is, as it were, an Evil Church
sustaining its evil by its union and propagating its
anarchic law on every side. In exceptional cases men
equally devoid of virtue are restrained by prudence oi




246               ECCE HOMO.
timidity or fortunate circumstances from committing
grtve ciimes, and remain in the midst of the good
urndetected or tolerated but not morally better than
the outcast on whom all turn their backs. How does
Christianity command us to treat bad men? Let us
first consider whether Christ taught anything on this
special point by precept or example, and secondly, let
us consider what the Spirit of Humanity itself teaches.
He made a great difference between the avowed
and recognized criminal and the criminal whose vices
were concealed under a veil of sanctimonious profession. The latter case, however, is a complicated
one, which it will be convenient to consider apart.
How then did he treat the recognized criminal? In
Palestine the distinction between the virtuous and the
vicious class seems to have been much more marked
than in other countries of the ancient world, and as
much as in Christian countries at the present day.
We read of' the publicans,' the tools of the rapacious
farmers-general, and of'the sinners,' among whom
are included the prostitutes: these two classes of people were under the ban of public opinion, and those
who laid claim to a reputation for sanctity avoided
their contact as a pollution. This social excommunication may of course in certain special cases have been
unjust, but that it was on the whole deserved by those
who suffered it Christ did not call in question. Now
before we inquire how he treated these outcasts, let us
consider how, from the knowledge of his doctrine and
character which we have now acquired, we should
expect him to treat them.
Ill the course of our investigation we have seen




THE LAW OF MERCY.              247
Christ tightening in an incredible degree all obligations of morality. He rejects as utterly insufficient
what had been considered by the Jews as the highest
moral attainment. It is in vain, he says, to refrain
from injuring your neighbor, if, notwithstanding, you
have the wish and impulse to injure him; a movement
of hatred is, according to him, morally equivalent to a
mnu:rder. And even if you have no such immoral impulses, yet if your disposition towards your fellowcreatures be purely negative, if you are not actuated
by an ardent, by an enthusiastic love and benevolence
towards all mankind, you are morally good for nothing, tasteless salt not good even for the dunghill. He
thus raises the standard of morality to the highest
possible point. But further, he insists far more vehemently than previous moralists had done upon the
absolute necessity of attaining the standard. He does
not say, This is morality, but, as it is difficult to be
moral, God will forgive your shortcomings. On the
contrary he says, To be moral in this high sense is
life and peace, not to be so is death and eternal
damnation. In his eyes a man's moral character was
everything. He went through life looking upon men
with the eyes of a King or Judge, confounding false
estimates of human merit, separating the sheep from
the goats, disregarding all other distinctions that can
exist between men as unimportant in comparison with
the radical distinction between the good and the bad.
How then would such a moralist act when he found
among his countrymen this distinction already drawn
and firmly marked in practice? If it was incorrectly
drawn, he might rectify it; he might also point out




248               ECCn HOMO.
that it must needs be inadequate as not distinguishing
immoral persons simply from moral, but only those
whose immorality had ripened into criminal actions,
and whose crimes had been detected, from those who
could not be proved immoral. These important reservations he would undoubtedly make, but having done
so, would he not be likely to stamp the distinction
with his, approval and make it ten times more stringent?
Another train of reflection leads to the same conclusion. One who loves his kind is likely to regard injuries done to human beings with greater indignation
than one who does not. If the Jews, under the dominion of formuIaries and a somewhat outworn legislation, had arrived at so much energy of moral resentment as to reject from their society and personal
contact those who had perpetrated such injuries, was
it not to be expected that Christ and his followers, in
whom humanity was an enthusiasm, would regard
with tenfold indignation the plunderers of the poor,
and the tempters who waylaid the chastity of men?
The fact, however, is, that Christ, instead of sanctioning the excommunication of the publican and sinner, openly associated with them. He chose a publican to be among the number of his Apostles, and
earned for himself from his ill-wishers the invidious
epithet of the' Friend of publicans and sinners.' Not,
indeed, that his intercourse with them could possibly
be mistaken for a connivance at their immoral courses.
We may be very sure that he carried his own commanding personality into these degraded societies, and
that the conversations he held in them were upon the




THE LAW OF MERCY.               249
topics he chose, not the topics most usual or most welcome there. He himself asserts this in justifying his
novel course -' I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance;''They that are whole
need not a ph/ysician, but they that are sick;' —words
implying that he appeared among the outcasts as a
missionary or physician of the soul. If it had been
otherwise his conduct would indeed have been inexplicable, but even so it needs explanation. The paradox lies in his allowing himself to feel compassion for
criminals, and in his supposing it possible that their
crimes could be forgiven. Criminality certainly appeared to Christ more odious and detestable than it
appeared to his contemporaries. How strange then
to find him treating it more leniently! Those, it appears, whose moral sense was moderately strong, who
hated vice moderately, yet punished it so severely that
they utterly excluded those who were deeply infected
with it from their society and their sympathy; he who
hated it infinitely was, at the same time, the first to
regard it as venial, to relent towards it, to parley and
make terms with it. He who thought most seriously
of the disease held it to be curable, while those who
thought less seriously of it pronounced it incurable.
Those who loved their race a little made war to the
knife against its enemies and oppressors; he who
loved it so much as to die for it, made overtures of
peace to them. The half-just judge punished the convicted criminal; the thoroughly-just judge offered him
forgiveness. Perfect justice here appears to take the
%very course which would be taken by injustice.
It is true that the two extremes do in a mannet
II *




250                ECCE HOMO.
meet. Christ, representing the highest humanity, treats
crime in a manner which superficially resenables the
treatment of it by those in wh6m humanity is at the
lowest stage. He tolerates it in a certain sense, as it
was tolerated before the institution of law. But the
other toleration was barbarous, Christ's toleration is
the newly-revealed virtue of Mercy.
In explaining this we must once more recur to the
fundamental principle that Christianity is natural fellow-feeling, or humanity raised to the point of enthusiasm. Now, it will be found that where this fellowfeeling is dormant, vice is regarded with simple indifference, where it is partially developed, with the anger
of justice, but where it is'developed completely, not
with fiercer anger, but with Mercy, i. e. pity and disapprobation mixed.
Let us imagine a person devoid of sympathy, a person to whom the welfare of his fellow-creatures is a
matter of complete indiffierence. On him a wrong action will make no more impression than a right one,
so long as he is himself affected by neither. He will
feel neither the indignation of justice, nor the mixed
indignation and compassion of mercy. Next let us
imagine a person of limited sympathy. The limitations of sympathy may be of two kinds. The person
we imagine may sympathize only with certain people,
as for example his relations, or he may sympathize
with only moderate ardor. Such a person will feel
dissatisfaction when wrong is committed (this is the
instinct of justice) in the latter case always, in the
former case when the person wronged is of those to
whom his sympathy extends. But he will not feel




THE LAW OF MERCY.              251
pity for the criminal mixed with  his indignationl
(which is mercy) in the latter case, because his
moderate sympathy will be neutralized by his indignation, in the former case, because he will not perceive
the criminality. But suppose a person whose sympathy is unlimited, that is, one who sympathizes
intensely and with all persons alike: he will feel at
the same time indignation at a crime, and pity for the
degradation and immoral condition of the criminal;
in other words, he will have mercy as well as justice.
It is to be noted that the word justice is here used
in the sense of resentment against a criminal, mercy
in the sense of mixed pity and resentment. Now it
may in some cases be a man's duty to punish, and in
other cases to pardon, but it is in all cases a man's
duty to be merciful to a criminal, that is, to mix pity
for him with the resentment inspired by his deed; and,
the words being used in this sense, it may be asserted
that mercy'is not in any way inconsistent with justice,
but only the riper form of it; in other words, the form
which justice assumes when the instinct which is the
source of justice is exceptionally powerful. Now, of
the ancients, for the most part,  may be said that
they had not enough justice to have any mercy. Their
feelings with respect to wrong-doing were almost
always either those of the perfectly unsympathetic
man or of the partially sympathetic man. They regarded the criminal either with indifference or with
unmixed indignation. In Christ's treatment of the
pui'licans and sinners we have that ripest humanity,
that f"lly developed justice, whic h we call by the
name of mercy, and which combiaes the utmost




252                  ECCE HOMO.
sympathy with t e injured party and the utnost sym.
pathy for the offender.
It may be well to pause a moment on the three
stages in the history of the treatment of crime: the
stage of barbarous insensibility, the stage of law o0
justice, and that of mercy or humanity.
We have in the Iliad an interesting record of the
Itage ol insensibility. In that poem the distinction
betweer right and wrong is barely recognized, and
the division of mankind into the good and the bad is
not recognized at all. It has often been remarked that
it contains no villain. The reason of this is not that
the poet does not represent his characters as doing
wicked deeds, for, in fact, there is not one among
them who is not capable of deeds the most atrocious
and shameful.  But the poet does not regard these
deeds with any strong disapprobation, and the feeling
of moral indignation which has been so strong in
later poets was in him so feeble that he is quite
incapable of hating any of his characters for their
crimes. He can no more conceive the notion of a
villain than of an habitually virtuous man.  The few
deeds that he recognizes as wrong, or at least as
strange and dangerous, -killing a suppliant,* or
killing a father, t -he, notwithstanding, conceives all
* 6oasg'  EKKIcaAjaE Rovaat Keer'&T, 4pi Tr' r1AZ$ae,
v6aotv aetp6aaegsy   US;  l Ipiaog I'r60o  vIbv'
P Ii Pfrv aXVtJlr'vp KPa[pi.  O2OV OV:K pcraLro,
7raLa hm&v,'Axtr2i 6V'  eptvOdirl  biov  irop,
ttL E KaTaKreivEtF, AtbS 6' aRiTr7ratl grp6r/g. - xxiv. 582.3
t rat: /!v ly3 3oi6Evca KaraKr/ALEV 6EC Xa2K(;a
ARAd ris dOav6drwv raVGEV X62ov, 5s bX''iVi Ovplt
tjlov OiKE Pe6rtv:Kai dvwi6ea r623.' dvOlporwv,
&6 api rarpop06vo s tEr''AXatoiatv KaiEoU1pnv,- ix. 458.t




THE LAW OF MERCY.              253
persons alike as capable of perpetrating under the influence of passion or some heaven-sent bewilderment
of the understanding.
Bllt there comes a time, probably coincident with
the first consolidation of ancestral custom or usage
into written law, when a sense of justice begins to
diffuse itself through the community. By the law
comes the knowledge of sin. A standard of action is
set up, which serves to each man both as a rule of life
for himself and a rule of criticism upon his neighbors.
Then comes the division of mankind into those who
habltually conform to this rule and those who violate
it, into the good and the bad, and feelings soon spring
up to sanction the classification, feelings of respect for
the one class and hatred for the other. This new
hatred of criminals spreads slowly, and is only perhaps
keenly felt when the crime is very heinous. But it is
unmixed. In this second stage a criminal may be
regarded with indifference as in the first, but if he is
not so regarded then he is simply hated. It cannot be
necessary to produce examples of this pitiless hatred
from classical antiquity; in the Hebrew Psalms,
which are morally so much in advance of even much
later Gentile writings, it is sufficiently apparent.'The man that privily slandereth his neighbor,' says
David,' him will I destroy;' and he expresses a hope
of' soon destroying all that are ungodly in the land.'
That he does not regard this work of vengeance as a
painful necessity imposed on him by his royal office is
plain from other expressions, e. g.' the righteous shall
rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash
his footsteps in the blood of the ungodly.'




254                ECCE HOMO.
We may be sure, however, that there was one
tolerably numerous class of exceptions to this unmixed
hatred. Natural affection, it has already been remarked, was always Christian. We may be sure that
in the homes of antiquity there were disobedien' sons,
to whom the father, urged by the strong instinct
of nature, was sometimes merciful as well as just.
Hebrew  antiquity presents us with some pathetiz
instances of forgiveness between brothers, and the
prophets are full of the tenderest expressions of the
mercy of Jehovah towards his disobedient children.
It is true that here, in accordance with the conceptions of archaic society, it is to the state rather than
the individual members of it that pardon is offered.
But doubtless the prophets, who presented so noble
an image of the Invisible Father, had found in the
hearts of earthly fathers the mercy they attributed to
Him, and accordingly it was by family relations that
Christ taught his disciples and they taught themselves
to understand the law of mercy.'How often shall
my brotker offend against me and I forgive him, until
seven times?''I will arise and go to my Father, and
will say unto him, Father, I have sinned.'
While the Gentile nations in their feelings towards
vice oscillated between the stage of insensibility and
the stage of hatred, the Jews, who in all such matters
were more mature, were for the most part in the stage
of hatred. Among them the division between the
virtuous and the vicious was most decidedly drawn,
and the enmity between the two parties most irreconcilable. Let us now consider how such a division
must work. In the first place, it plainly affords a




THE LAW OF MERCY.               255
valuable encouragement to virtuous dispositions. It
separates the wheat from the chaff, it throws the good
into the society of the good and saves them from demorali7ing example and contagion, and, far more than
all, through this division there arises that which is to
virtue what air is to life, a tone or fashion of goodness.
Bu. the bad consequences it produces are scarcely of
les, magnitude than the good ones. These bad consequences are manifold, but the most serious is the effect
of the system upon the criminal himself The law
which condemns sin binds in a most fatal manner the
sin to the sinner. It exulcerates the sore and makes
the disease chronic. In the stage of insensibility,
men, easily tempted into crime, flung off the effects of
it as easily. Agamemnon, after violating outrageously
the rights of property, has but to say &Xua6r;,,'v,'My
mind was bewildered,' and the excuse is sufficient to
appease his own conscience, and is accepted by the
public and even by the injured party himself, who feels
himself equally liable to such temporary mental perplexities. When such a view of sin prevailed no high
virtue was possible, but at the same time that moral
degradation was equally unknown which follows the
loss of self-respect. After the introduction of law
crime could never again be thus lightly expiated and
forgotten. By solemn trial and public punishment
the criminal was made conspicuously visible to his
Jellow-citizens, he was held up to their criticism, and
it became part of their duty and of their education to
hate hiln. For them this was beneficial; but how did
it operate oi the criminal himself? When the law
v as satisfied and the punishment inflicted, could he




256               ECCE HOMO.
return to his former estimation and rank in the community?  Not so; beyond the legal punishment
another was inflicted of endless duration and fatal
severity. He might be condemned to fine or imprisonmen' or exile, but in all cases he incurred another
sentente, in all cases he was condemned to a place
among the bad, to excommunication from the society
and league of the virtuous. A fatal prejudice rested
upon him for the future, a clinging suspicion oppressed
him; crime was expected of him; his virtuous acts
required explanation; his endeavor after virtue was
distrusted by the good or passed unobserved by them;
he lived among the bad, the bad were now the censors
of his behavior, to their standard it was most expedient for him to conform. And as a man's opinions are
commonly those of the society in which he lives, the
criminal accepted in most cases the ignominy as just,
believed himself to be incapable of virtue, to be made
for crime, and resolved at last to give the reins to his
nature. By this process the momentary lapse, the
human infirmity, from which the best have no exemption, under the dreadful hands of law was converted into an abiding curse. It was, as it were,
bound to the sinner and became a millstone dragging
him down to perdition. Justly have great authors
described sin, deriving its strength from law, as a burden laid upon the back, or, still more graphically, as
a dead body tied to a living one.
And when the criminal is the father of children the
cu!rse descends even upon those who are wholly innocent. Before they are old enough to distinguish right
and wrong they are, as it were, received into the Ex il




THE LAW OF MERCY.               257
Church by infant baptism, their parents or their
parents' friends standing sponsors and promising for
them that which when they come to age they take
upon themselves but too willingly. Cut off from all
contact with virtue, instructed in vice, which is itsalf
an easy art, and strangers to goodness, which is difficult to learn, they enter into perdition by a natural
title, and the same law, which favors so much, as it
were, the formation of large properties in vice, provides also that they shall pass by inheritance.
The sole reign of Law, then, is a despotism, beneficent and necessary at a certain stage of social development, but yet terrible, and, if maintained too long,
mischievous. It is a preparatory discipline destined
to fit the pupil for another teacher, a proper condition
for the childhood of society, but not well adapted for
its maturity. It accomplishes a great work in elevating men out of the savage levity of primitive manners,
in delivering them from passions which by indulgence
had grown to resemble insanity, from the fierceness of
appetite and anger. It brings out the instinct of sympathy, it develops the power man possesses of identifying himself with his neighbor, and teaches a whole
community to interest itself in redressing the wrong
done to one of its members. As has been already remarked, it is in its nature tender and not cruel, for it
protects the weak who before were helpless and arms
itself to avenge the injured.  Though Law  inflicts
punishment, yet it exists to reduce the whole amou nt
of suffering, and though when we personify it we call
it stern and relentless, yet, compared with lawlessness,
it is soft-hearted. But there comes a time when man



258                ECCE HOMO.
kind have learned all the lessons which Law has to
teach and begin to leave their instructor behind them.
For Law is an espril borne, and does not perceive the
legitimate consequences of his own principle. Sympathy, the instinct by which men identify themselves
with their fellow-creatures, should not be partial or
limited in its activity. Law teaches us to put ourselves in the place of those who are injured, but does
not teach us, nay, he forbids us, to put otrselves in
the place of those who commit injuries. And those
who have learnt his lesson best, and in whom the
power of sympathy is most highly trained, will be
most discontented with his rule, and as to the lawless
he was a preacher of pity, to these he will justly appear cruel.  Such persons are ripe for that higher
doctrine which Christ teaches.
Christ, representing all who are possessed by the
Enthusiasm of Humanity, does not regard crime with
less anger, is not less anxious for the punishment of it,
than the legalists. But when it is punished, when the
claims of the injured party are satisfied, he does not
dismiss the matter from his thoughts.  He considers
that the criminal also has claims upon him, claims so
strong that they are not forfeited by any atrocity of
crime. Nay, they are rather strengthened by his
criminality, as they would be by misery, for the humane man, who finds his own happiness in his
humanity, does sincerely consider the criminal to be
niserable.  This doctrine that vice is essentially
pitiable was advanced sometimes in antiquity, but
plain men flouted it from them with irritation as one
of those childish paradoxes with which philosophers




THE LAW OF MERCY.              259
amused and abused their leisure, and some of the
philosophers themselves showed that they only half
believed it by the self-complacency and affected preciseness with which they demonstrated it. Nevertheless he in whom humanity is an enthusiasm does
honestly feel distressed when he thinks of those who
are fallen and lost in character and whom society repudiates. Even when wickedness is prosperous and
flourishes like a green bay tree, he understands pretty
well and unaffectedly pities the uneasiness of remorse,
the loneliness of pride, the moral paralysis that succeeds satiety, the essential poverty of vulgarity. Nor
does he only feel such pity, but he has the courage to
indulge it. The legalist, if he is at any time surprised
into a similar feeling for an unfortunate criminal, suppresses it as dangerous and weak. The anger which
he feels; the punishment which he executes or approves, is his guarantee against falling back into insensibility.  His disapprobation of wrong-doing, being
not very strong, requires to be anxiousl c-herished lest
it should die in him altogether. Any relentings of
pity would be dangerous to it; he has not sympatyenough for both the injured party and the criminal;
at least any thiat he might give to the latter must be
taken from the former. Therefore in communities
which are in the legal stage, mercy is always identified with laxij_; the stage before them is mistaken for
the sta ge behind them; and any tenderness towards
criminals -parum  odisse mal/os cives  is regarded
as a portentous omen of the downfall of discipline and
of public ruin. But the moment that sympathy ceases
to    te'hisinva;a lid thing, needing constant artificial




260              IECCE HOMO.
stimulants, the moment it kindles into the free Enthusiasm of Humanity, it gets the confidence to follow its
own impulses. It perceives the truth of what has been
explained above, that mercy is no relaxation of justice,
but justice itself in a riper stage; it is not afraid that
if it pities criminals it shall have no compassion left to
bestow on the innocent sufferers from criminality. On
the contrary, it is confident that if it can pity those with
whom it is angry and at the very moment when it is
most angry, and even at the very moment when it is
inflicting the punishment suggested by a just anger, it
will be able a fortiori to pity and sympathize with
those who are suffering from no fault of their own.
Therefore it is that Christ went boldly among the
publicans and sinners. Virtue, he considered, was not
now so feebly supported that it- soldTiersmust needs remain forever within their intrenched camp. This had
been necessary at an earlier stage of the war. A close
and exclusive league of the virtuous had been necessary at an-eariie-i: time;, that they might not forget their
principles or be overwhelmed by numbers. But goodniess had now  become ten times more powertul in-T7:coming an enthusiasm. It no longer contents itself
with barely preserving its existence in the presence of
prevailing vice. It turns against its enemy; it undertakes to take the hostile army prisoner. The children
of Israel turn and pursue the Egyptians through th6
Red Sea. Under the command of Christ Jerusalem
lays siege to Babylon. He announced a great mundane
project of re-generation. He will not consent to lose
those who have apostatized from virtue. He will not
rest content with raising goodness to a higher standard




THE LAW OF MERCY.               261
it. those who are good already, nor with making it
easier for others to be good in future. He will go in
search of those who have already fallen; no matter
how deep their degradation, he will not willingly lose
one. Besides the title of King, or Son of Man, he assunmes that of Savior or Redeemer, and in this work
he seems to have his heart even more than in the
other. The shepherd, he says, leaves without hesitation the ninety-nine sheep to seek the hundredth that
is lost. A woman that has lost a single piece of money
will sweep the whole house and search diligently till
she find it. And what pleasure when such a search is
successful! In heaven among God's angels, there is
more joy over one sinner that returns than over ninety
and nine that never wandered.




262
CHAPTER XX.
THE  LAW  OF MERCY -continued.
SAItRIST then undertakes the conversion of sinners.
Of his success in this enterprise our biographies,
particularly that of St. Luke, contain many examples.
Christianity, by giving men a greater interest in each
other than they had before, and by weakening the influence of artificial distinctions, and, at the same time,
by its intense seriousness, gave those who were influenced by it a keen eye for character and an insight into
human nature such as is very'rarely found in antiquity.
The stories of conversion recorded in the Gospels have
a liveliness and truth which every one can in some
measure feel, but which are felt ten times as strongly
by those who know and consider how perfectly new
to literature such sketches were when they appeared.
It was by th,.m that the depth and complexity and
mystery of the human heart were first brought to light,
and their appearance involved a revolution in literature, the results of which are to be traced not so much
in the writers of the long barbaric period which followed their diffusion as in Dante and Shakspeare. Of
these stories we will find room here for two, the one
containing the repentance of a man, the other of a
woman.
Zaccheus held a high office under the farmers-gen.




THE LAW OF MERCY.              263
eral, and had become rich. His wealth, however, had
not availed to relax the social excommunication under
which, with all his fraternity, he lay. Either the Jews
of that time were less dazzled by wealth than the Gentiles of the present, or they reflected with indignation
that the riches he had amassed had been plundered
from themselves. By some means he had heard of
Christ, and conceived an intense curiosity to see him,
That it was no vulgar curiosity, but that overpowering
attraction towards greatness and goodness — thatfaiZt,
which is the germ of all that is good in human cha'acter —may be gathered from the sequel of the story.
He may have heard it reported that Christ did not,
like other religious men, disdain the company of publicans, and that he had condescended to be entertained
at their houses. He was rich; he also was able, if
only such an honor could be granted him, to entertain
Christ.  It is for this that riches are enviable, that
while the poor must be content with glimpses of the
hero or the saint as he passes in the street, the rich can
bring him within their doors and contemplate him at
their-leisure. But Zacchweus had not the courage to
use this privilege of his wealth. His conscience was
ill at ease, the stigma of his infamous occupation had
entered into his heart. He was afraid to show his
wealth to Christ, lest the question should be asked him
how it had been gained. He submitted therefore to
look on among the poor, and to be satisfied with what
he could see as the procession passed. But the crowtl
was dense, and, it may be, found a pleasure in ribowing aside the social tyrant who had thus put himself
on a level with them. Hte was short, and saw himnself




264               ECCE HOMO.
in danger of losing even the passing glimpse of Christ's
countenance with which he had resolved to be content.
Determined to secure at least so much, he ran forward
and climbed into a tree which overshadowed the road
by which the train was to pass. By this means he
saw Christ, and not only so but Christ saw him. Zacchmeus was not one of the most pitiable of his excommnunicated class. He might be hated, but he was
successful; he was one of those who might say,' Popuus me sibilat, at mi/zi J1audo.' In a word, he
was a prosperous plunderer, living in abundance
among the victims of his rapacity. But Christ was
touched by the enthusiasm  he displayed, and may
have divined and understood the shame which, as we
have conjectured, caused him to shrink from a personal interview. Such enthusiasm and shame seemed
to Christ the first stirrings of humanity in the publican's heart, and by a single stroke he completed the
change he perceived to be beginning, and ripened a
half-hopeless yearning into a settled purpose of moral
amendment. Without delay, or reserve; or conditions,
or rebuke, he gave himself up to the publican. Adopting the royal style which was familiar to him, and
which commends the loyalty of a vassal in the most
delicate manner by freely exacting his services, he
informed Zacchbus of his intention to visit him, and
signified his pleasure that a banquet should be instantly
prepared. Such generous confidence put a new soul
into Zacchmaus; it snapped in a moment the spell of
wickedness under which all his better instincts had remained in dull abeyance; and while the crowd murmured at the exceptional honor done to a public enemy,




THE LAW OF MERCY.             265
Zacchaus stood forth, and solemnly devoted half his
property to the poor, and vowed fourfold restoration
to all whom he had wronged.
This is the repentance of a man. Zaccheus shows
no renlarkable sensibility; he sheds no tears, he utters
no striking reflections. The movement in his mind is
strong, but not in the least peculiar or difficult to follow. It is a conflict between common honesty and
the instincts of the thief, a conflict in which the former,
fighting at great odds, gains a signal victory. Against
all the might of inveterate habit, and bad society, and
a crushing public prejudice, this man makes head, and
by one great effort forces his way back into the class
of good citizens and honest men. And this great but
simple achievement he gained power to perform, not.through reflection and reasoning, not through the
eloquence of a preacher, not through supernatural
terrors, but through the cordial, restoring influence of
Mercy. It was Mercy, which is not Pity — a thing
comparat.iely weak and vulgar —but Pity and Resentment blended at the highest power of each, the
most powerful restorative agent known in the medicine
of the soul; it was Mercy that revealed itself in Christ's
words, the Pity slightly veiled under royal grace, the
Resentment altogether unexpressed and yet not concealed, because already too surely divined and anticipated by the roused conscience of the criminal. And
Mercy, more powerful than Justice, redeemed the
ciminal while it judged him, increased his shame
teiffold, but increased in the same proportion the wish
and courage to amend.
The second story describes the repentance of a
12




266               ECCE HOMO.
woman. It is a fragment. A woman fallen from
virtue. we know not who, entered a room in the house
of a Pharisee who was entertaining Christ. We know
not particularly what Christ had done for her, but we
can conclude generally that he had roused her conscience as he did that of Zacchaus, that he had restored
her to virtue by giving her hope and by inspiring her
with an enthusiastic devotion to himself. She threw
herself down before him and embraced his feet, weeping so abundantly over them that she was obliged to
wipe them, which she did with her hair. This is the
picture presented to us, and we know nothing further of the woman, although tradition has identified
her with that Mary Magdalene, of whose touching
fidelity to Christ in the last scenes of his life so much
is recorded. But fragmentary as the story is, it is
all-important, as the turning-point in the history of
women. Such wisdom is there in humanity that he
who first looked upon his fellow-creatures with sympathetic eyes found himself, as it were, in another
world and made mighty discoveries at every step.
The female sex, in which antiquity saw nothing but
inferiority, which Plato considered intended to do the
same things as the male only not so well, was understood for the first time by Christ.  His treatment
brought out its characteristics, its superiorities, its
peculiar power of gratitude and self-devotion. That
woman who dried with her hair the feet she had
bathed in grateful tears has raised her whole sex to a
higher level. But we are concerned with her not me rely
as a woman, but as a fallen woman. And it is when
we consider her as such that the prodigious force and




THE LAW OF MERCY.              267
originality of Christ's mercy makes itself felt. For
it is probably in the case of this particular vice that
justice ripens the slowest and the seldomest into mercy.
Most persons in whom the moral sense is very strong
are, as we have said, merciful; mercy is in general a
measure of the highest degrees of keenness in the
moral sense. But there is a limit beyond which it
seems almost impossible for mercy, properly so called,
to subsist.  There are certain vices which seem to
indicate a criminality so ingrained, or at least so inveterate, that mercy is, as it were, choked in the deadly
atmosphere that surrounds them, and dies for want of
that hope upon which alone it can live. Vices that
are incorrigible are no proper objects of mercy, and
there are some vices which virtuous people are found
particularly ready to pronounce incorrigible. Few
brave men have any pity to spare for a confirmed
coward. And as cowardice seems to him who has the
instinct of manliness a fatal vice in man as implying
an absence of the indispensable condition of masculine
virtue, so does confirmed unchastity in woman seem a
fatal vice to those who reverence womanhood. And
therefore little mercy for it is felt by those who take a
serious view of sexual relations. There are multitudes
who think lightly of it, and therefore feel a good deal
of compassion for those who suffer at the hands of
society such a terrible punishment for it. There are
others who can have mercy on it while they contenplate it, as it were, at a distance, and do not realize
how mortal to the very soul of womanhood is the
habitual desecration of all the sacraments of love.
Lastly, there are some who force themselves to have




268               ECCE HOMO.
mercy on it out of reverence for the example of Christ.
But of those who see it near, and whose moral sense
is keen enough to judge of it, the greater number pronounce it incurable. We know the pitiless cruelty
tlwth which virtuous women commonly regard it.
AWhy is it that in this one case the female sex is more
hard-hearted than the male? Probably because in this
cne case it feels more strongly, as might be expected,
the heinousness of the offence; and those men who
criticise women for their cruelty to their fallen sisters
do not really judge from the advanced stage of mercy
but from the lower stage of insensibility. It is commonly by love itself that men learn the sacredness of
love. Yet, though Christ never entered the realm of
sexual love, this sacredness seems to have been felt by
him far more deeply than by other men. We have
already had an opportunity of observing this in the
case of the woman taken in adultery. He exhibited
on that occasion a profound delicacy of which there is
no other example in the ancient world, and which
anticipates and excels all that is noblest in chivalrous
and finest in modern manners. In his treatment of
the prostitute, then, how might we expect him to act?
Not, surely, with the ready tolerance of men, which
is but laxity; we might expect from him rather the
severity of women, which is purity. Disgust will
overpower him here, if anywhere. He will say,'Thy
sin's not accidental, but a trade....'T is best
that thou diest quickly.' There is no doubt that he
was not wanting in severity; the gratitude that washed
his feet in tears was not inspired by mere good-nature.
But he found mercy too, where mercy commonly fails




THE LAW OF MERCY.              269
even in the tender hearts of women. And mercy
triumphed, where it commonly dies of nmere despair.
These two stories may serve as specimens of Christ's
redeeming power. At the same time they exhibit to
us, it is plain, the natural working of the Enthusiasm
of Humanity, the essential spirit of Christianity. The
latter story in particular has gone to the heart of
Christendom. It has given origin and even a name to
institutions which are found wherever the Christian
Church is found, and the object of which is to redeem
women that have fallen from virtue. It has given to
Christian art the figure of the Magdalen, which, when
contrasted with the Venus of Greek sculpture, represents in a very palpable manner the change which
Christ has wrought in the moral feelings of mankind
with respect to women. May we then lay it down
as one of the duties of positive morality to attempt
the restoration to virtue of the criminal and outcast
classes?
The Christian Church has certainly always reckoned
this among its duties; nevertheless there exists at the
present day among practical men a strong repugnance
to all schemes of the kind, a repugnance founded on
observation and experience, and therefore not likely to
be wholly unreasonable. It will be well worth while
to state the world's case against the Christian doctrine
of repentance.
In the first place, the world will admit what has
been said concerning the imperfection of the legal
system. It is impossible to deny that the habit of
regarding criminals with unmixed hatred is a pernicious one. I,aw taken by itself benefits the good,




270                ECCE HOMO.
and so far is most useful; but at the same tinle it
makes the waveiing bad and the bad worse, and vice
hereditary, and so far it does frightful mischief. Mercy
therefore must be called in to temper justice, and here
Christianity is right. In the treatment of the criminal
we must consider his interest as well as the interest of
the injured party. We must anxiously study the best
means of moderating punishment so as to leave the
criminal a hope of recovering the public esteem, the
best means of inflicting a disgrace which shall not be
indelible. This is a just principle, and Christ's protest against the pitiless rigor which the Jews exercised
against the publicans and sinners was right and memorable. If we follow the example he set we may save
many who under the legal system are lost inevitably.
We may arrest some at the beginning of a'bad career
whom the legal system would hurry forward. But the
hope of recovering all, of melting the most hardened,
is an error of enthusiasm. Men who look facts in the
face, it is said, recognize that vice when it has once
fairly laid hold of a man is an incurable disease, and,
moreover, that it lays hold of men with a fatal rapidity. There is such a thing as repentance, and this
fact should not be forgotten; but, on the other hand, it
is a mistake to attach very great importance to it, for
a practical and valuable repentance is very rare; the
stage in the criminal's career in which it is possible is
a short one, and it is only the less heinous forms of
criminality which admit of it at all.
This is probably the view which the most temperate
of so-called practical men take of repentance when
they do not allow themselves to be overawed by the




THE LAW OF MERCY.               271
authority of Christianity. Clearly it is not the view
of Christ. He is far more hopeful; he believes that
the most inveterate and enormous criminality may be
shaken off, and he is so sanguine of the possibility of
restoring the lost that he avows himself ready to neglect for this enterprise his other task of strengthening
and developing the virtue of the good. Let us enceavor to discover the ground of this difference of
opinion.
The popular view, then, is that there are two kinds
of vice. The one includes whatever we understand
by infirmities, as faults of temper, or passion. Uncontrolled temper or unbridled passions may lead to
grave crimes; still we regard these vices as venial,
and are at all times ready to believe in the repentance
and reformation of one addicted to them. The other
class includes such vices as perfidy, brutality, and
cowardice; and of these, for the most part,'the world
will not believe a man repents,' and when it finds the
Church undertaking to convert such characters and
boasting of its success, it, whether openly or secretly,
accuses Christianity of encouraging hypocrisy. Now
if we consider this classificatiotl of vices, or if we ask
ourselves how the vicious characters we are disposed
to forgive differ from those to wi.om we refuse forgiveness, we shall find that the one thing which we consider indispensable is good impulses. The man who
has these may commit any of the crimes to which
tu blllent passions may prompt or feebleness of will
le tve the path open, and yet he will not forfeit our
syllpathy. We shall continue to hope for him, and,
if lie should declare himself repentant and reformed,




272               ECCE HOMO.
we shall not suspect him of insincerity, for we shall
regard him as one who all along had the root of the
matter in him. But the cold-blooded, low-minded
criminal, whose crimes have cost him no struggle and
no remorse, without ardor in his pulses or blush upon
his cheek -when such a man abandons evil courses
we but suspect him of some deeper treachery than
usual, for we see no soil out of which virtue could
spring. This is the rough philosophy of common
life, and in ordinary cases it serves us well enough.'This wise world of ours is mainly right.' But the
question arises, How do these indispensable good
impulses arise in the mind? If those who have them
had them from earliest childhood in the same strength,
and those who want them have never possessed them
in any degree, then indeed we must reconcile ourselves
to the maxim,' Once a villain, always a villain.' But
it will be found that the same rule holds of these good
impulses which holds of all other human endowments,
namely, that though different men may by nature
possess them in different degrees, yet all possess them
in some degree; and also that they require development by external influences. Further, it is possible
that in the absence of such influences they do not die
but remain within the man undiscovered and dormant.
Accordingly, though it is quite true that where virtuous impulses are not active virtue cannot live, yet it is
by no means certain that where such impulses are not
active they do not exist, and may not, by the application of some influence, be roused into activity.
But, answers the world, the better impulses do
sooner or later die of this torpor. It is true that they




ruHE LAW OF MERCY.            273
do not die at once, and there is a considerable period
during which repentance is possible. But it never
lasts longer than youth: this is the flexible and elastic
time. Upon the young try all your methods of conversion and regeneration; but when youth is over, in
middle age, when physical growth has ceased, when
life has been explored, when habit has become as
powerful as nature, when no new idea is welcome and
few new ideas are intelligible, when a man's character
is understood by his neighbors, and any change in his
conduct would excite their surprise and disturb their
calculations, when all things concur to produce uniformity and to prescribe an unchangeable routine both
of thought and action,- in this stage moral disease is
incurable, repentance impossible.
Again, there is much truth in this. It is an easy
thing to bring the tears of repentance to the eyes of
a boy; we see the most striking changes pass upon
the whole life and mode of thinking of young men;
but the period of experiments, the novitiate, expires,
and the vicious habits of middle life resist, for the
most part, the contagion of virtue and of noble exampies. The power of the ordinary agencies of moral
restoration which are at work in the world is thus
limited. But the world will surely admit exceptions.
Agencies have at different times been brought to bear
which have had a greater power than this, and which
have roused good impulses in hearts that seemed dead.
A Whitefield, a Bernard, a Paul - not to say a Christ
-- have certainly shown that the most confirmed vice
is not beyond the reach of regenerating influences.
Inspired nen like these appearing at intervals have
12 *




274               ECCE HOMO.
wrought what may be called, moral miracles. Nor is
it possible to set bounds to the restoring and converting
power of virtue, when, as it were, it takes fire, when,
instead of a rule teaching a man to do justice to his
neighbors, and to benefit them when an occasion presents itself, it becomes a burning and consuming passion of benevolence, an energy of self-devotion, an
aggressive ardor of love. Well! it is this aggressive,
exceptional virtue that Christ assumes to be employed,
and that the world leaves out of calculation. Christ
is consistent here; we have remarked repeatedly that
he demands an enthusiasm, and it is consistent therefore that he should impose tasks to which only an
enthusiasm is equal.
Once more, however, the world may answer, Christ
may be consistent in this, but is he wise? It may be
true that he does demand an enthusiasm, and that
such an enthusiasm may be capable of awakening the
moral sense in hearts in which it seemed dead. But
if, notwithstanding this demand, only a very few members of the Christian Church are capable of the enthusiasm, vwhat use in imposing on the whole body a task
which the vast majority are not qualified to perform?
Would it not be well to recognize the fact which we
cannot alter, and to abstain from demanding from frail
human nature what human nature cannot render?
Would it not be well for the Church to impose upon
its ordinary members only ordinary duties? When
the Bernard or the Whitefield appears, let her by all
means find occupation for him. Let her in such cases
boldly invade the enemy's country. But in ordinary
times would it not be well for her to confine herself




THE LAW OF MERCY.              275
to more modest and practicable undertakings? There
is much for her to do even though she should honestly
confess herself unable to reclaim the lost. She may
train the young, administer reproof to slight lapses,
maintain a high standard of virtue, soften manners,
diffuse enlightenment. Would it not be well for her
to adapt her ends to her means?
DNo, it would not be well; it would be fatal to do so;
and Christ meant what he said, and said what was
true, when he pronounced the Enthusiasm of Humanity to be everything, and the absence of it to be the
absence of everything. The world understands its
own routine well enough; what it does not understand
is the mode of changing that routine. It has'no appreciation of the nature or measure of the power of
enthusiasm, and on this matter it learns nothing from
experience, but after every fresh proof of that power
relapses from its brief astonishment into its old ignorance, and commits precisely the same miscalculation
on the next occasion. The power of enthusiasm is,
indeed, far from being unlimited; in some cases it is
very small. History is full of instances in which it
has foamed itself away in utten impotence against
physical obstacles. Painful it is to read, and yet one
reads again and again, of citizens who have united in
close league against some proud invader; with enthusiastic dependence upon the justice of their cause, the
invincilble force of their patriotism, and the protection
of Providence, when justice has been found weaker
thllall power, and enthusiasm than numbers, and Provi.
delce has coldly taken the side of the stronger battalions But one power enthusiasm has almost without




276               ECCE HOMO.
limit —the power of propagating itself — and it was
for this that Christ depended on it. He contemplated
a Church in which the Enthusiasm of Humanity
should not be felt by two or three only but widely.
In whatever heart it might be kindled, he calculated
that it would pass rapidly into other hearts, and that,
as it can make its heat felt outside the Church, so t
would preserve the Church itself from lukewarmness.
For e lukewarm Church he would not condescend to
leg'slate, nor did he regard it as at all inevitable that
the Church should become lukewarm. He laid it as
a duty upon the Church to reclaim the lost, because
he did not think it utopian to suppose that the Church
might be not in its best members only, but through its
whole body, inspired by that ardor of humanity that
can charm away the bad passions of the wildest heart,
and open to the savage and the outlaw lurking in
moral wildernesses an entrancing view of the holy
and tranquil order that broods over the streets and
palaces of the city of God.
Nevertheless the stubborn fact remains. Whatever
may be theoretically possible to the Enthusiasm of
Humanity, it does'ot at the present day often rise to
this energy. We do not, as a matter of fact, often see
these wonderful conversions take place; and when
they do appear to take place, we have had so much
experience of the hollowness of such appearances that
we expect to find in the end the change transitory or
e.se hypocritical; or, if it be genuine, that the convert
was never a criminal of the deepest dye, but perhaps
rather unfortunate than guilty. Must we not, then,
still conclude that Christ has in this instance made a




THE LAW OF MERCY.             277
miscalculation, and that if he has not overrated the
power of Enthusiasm so long as Enthusiasm exists, he
has at least overrated the probability of its continuing
long, and underrated the power of the agencies which
are always at work to damp and quench it? Instead
of presuming that the Church would generally be
under the influence of enthusiasm, ought he not rather
to have foreseen that it would generally be lukewarm
and enthusiastic only at rare intervals? The answer
is, that Christ does not actually seem to have been
thus sanguine, but he counted the Enthusiasm not
merely an important but an absolutely essential thing,
and therefore left no directions as to what should be
done when it was absent. He did not disguise from
himself the probability of great seasons of depression
occurring in the Church, ebbs in the tide of the Enthusiasm of Humanity. -Ile spoke of a time when the
love of many should wax cold; he doubted whether
on his return to the earth he should find faith in it.
And the Apostles in like manner became sensible that
their inspiration was liable to intermissions. They
regard it as possible to grieve the Divinity who resided within them, and even to quench his influence.
But neither they nor Christ even for a moment suppose that, if he should take his flight, it is possible to
do without him, or that the sphere of Christian duty is
to be narrowed to suit the lukewarmness of Christian
feeling. Christianity is an enthusiasm or it is nothing;
and if there sometimes appear in the history of the
Church instances of a tone which is pure and high
without being enthusiastic, of a mood of Christian
feeling which is calmly favorable to virtue without




7278               ECCE HOMO.
being victorious against vice, it will probably be found
that all that is respectable in such a mood is but the
slowly-subsiding movement of an earlier enthusiasm,
and all that is produced by the lukewarmness of the
time itself is hypocrisy and corrupt conventionalism.
Christianity, then, would sacrifice its divinity if it
abandoned its missionary character and became a
mere educational institution. Surely this Article of
Conversion is the true artliculus stan/is aut cadentis
ecclesia. When the power of reclaiming the lost dies
out of the Church, it ceases to be the Church. It may
remain a useful institution, though it is most likely to
become an immoral and mischievous one. Where the
power remains, there, whatever is wanting, it may
still be said that' the tabernacle of God is with men.'




279
CHAPTER XXI.
THE  LAW  OF RESENTMENT.
1 T is not the fault of the divine virtue of Mercy that
it is so readily counterfeited by the vice of insensibility. The difference is indeed vast, but it often does
not express itself at all in outward deeds. The difference lies in that indignation at vice which in the merciful man may often be suppressed, while in the merely
tolerant man it has no existence. Mercy has been defined above as a feeling of mixed indignation and pity;
properly speaking, Mercy is present wherever such a
feeling is entertained, whether the action dictated by
the feeling be punishment or forgiveness. There are
occasions when the wise man who entertains this compound feeling will see fit to indulge the pity and suppress the indignation; there are other occasions when
he will gratify the indignation and resist the impulses
of pity. But he is not merciful unless he feels both.
Thus the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful, and we shall be able to assure ourselves that
that unbounded compassion for sinners which Christ
showed was really Mercy and not mere tolerance,
by iliquiring whether on other occasions he showed
himself capable of anger.
Of the two feelings which go to compose Mercy tile
inldignation requires to be satisfied first. The first im



280                 ECCE HOMO.
pulse roused by the sight of vice should be the impulse
of opposition and hostility. To convict it, to detect it,
to contend with it, to put it down, is the first and indispensable thing. It is indeed a fair object of pity
even while it remains undetected and prosperous, but
such pity must be passive and must not dare to express itself in deeds. It is not mercy but treason
against justice to relent towards vice so long as it is
triumplant and insolent. So long, if we may venture
upon the expression, mercy will be even sterner and
more urpitying  than justice, as the poet feltwhen he
wrote
And 0! if some strange trance
— The eyelids of thy sterner sister press,
Seize, Mercy, thou, more terrible, the brand,
And hurl her thunderbolts with fiercer hand.
But the moment that indignation begins to be in some
measure satisfied, pity awakes; and when indignation
is satiated then Pity occupies the whole mind of the
merciful man. We have seen Christ when his feelings were in this latter condition, when he moved
among that class of criminals upon whom justice had
in some measure done its work. They were suffering
the sentence of social excommunication. His indignation towards them was not dead but satisfied, and
therefore in his demeanor few traces of it appear.
But there must have been in Palestine another class
of criminals, a class which is found in all countries,
whose vices are not detected or pass for virtues, and
who accordingly reap all the advantages and suffer
none of the penalties of crime. In the prebence of
such a class true Mercy, as we have seen, makes her




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.           281
face as a flint, and hardens and stiffens into mere
Justice.
We find, then, in Palestine a class of persons towards
whom Christ's demeanor was precisely of this kind.
It was a class not less influential and important than
might be produced in England by fusing the bar, the
clergy, and universities and the literary class into one
vast intellectual order. It is to be remembered that
with the Jews theology, law, science, and literature
were but different aspects of one thing, the Divine
Revelation which had been made to their fathers and
which was contained for them in the Scriptures of the
Old Testament supplemented, in the view of the most
influential party, by a Tradition of equal antiquity and
authority. As there was but one sort of learning,
there was but one learned profession, consisting of the
expounders of this ancient wisdom. At least these
constituted the one learned profession which had
much influence at this time, and which could be said
to deserve the title. The old Aaronic priesthood still
existed, but it bore the stamp of a ruder age and
wanted the character and acquirements which conferred influence in an age of books and study. As in
Greece the priesthood passed into insignificance and
resigned the task of instructing the people, so far as
they had ever undertaken it, to the philosophers, so in
Judoea they were eclipsed first by the prophets and
afterwards, when the faith in inspiration began t(; die
out, by the commentators on the old Law. Tbe o: der
of Aaron gave place to the order which regarded Ezra
as its founder; the priest gave place to the Scribe or
Lawyer.




z82              ECCI HOMO.
At the time when the national institutions of Judxa
were threatened by the Greek kings of Syria, there
sprang up a party composed of those who clung most
fondly to ancient traditions, the object of which was to
preserve the nation from losing its peculiarity through
the infection of Greek manners and opinions. They
b)ore the name of Pharisees. As the national party
they found it easy to become popular, and, in spite of
some opposition and persecution from the Asmonean
Ikings, they continued in the time of Christ to exercise
a commanding influence over the people. It is natural
to suppose that this party included most of that great
learned profession just described. A Scribe would
naturally be a Pharisee, inasmuch as one who devoted
his life to the study of the Law would naturally be
zealous in defence of it. Accordingly in the New
Testament, the Scribes, Lawyers, and Pharisees are
commonly named together, being in fact partly identical and altogether congenial in views and interests.
And they may be considered as composing practically
one party.
With the main object which this party had in view
none can have sympathized more than Christ. None,
certainly, regarded the ancient revelation with more
reverence than he; none can have been more unwilling to see the national institutions of the Jews supplanted and superseded by the customs of the surrounding nations. It might therefore have been
expected that Christ would rather take the lead amnong
thile Scribes and lawyers than set himself in opposition
to them. And, indeed, it is likely enough that, as
Socrates passed with the world for a sophist, so Christ




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.            283
was regarded by the people in general as a leading\\
Scribe or expounder of the Law. But if we examine
the character of that great party more closely, we
shall find that they not only differed from Christ but
were radically opposed to him, and that they were not
only in spirit unchristian but essentially anti-christian.
The whole course of this investigation has shown that
tile substance of Christ's teaching was his doctrine of
Enthusiasm, or of a present Spirit dictating the right
course of action and superseding the necessity of particular rules. Now the doctrine of the Scribes, lawyers, and Pharisees may be briefly summed up by
saying that it consisted in the denial of a present
Spirit, and in the assertion of the paramount necessity
of particular rules. They believed that the inspiring
Power which had dwelt with their ancestors and
made them virtuous was withdrawn, and they compiled out of the works of those ancestors an elaborate
system of rules which might serve them for guidance
in his absence. In other words, their doctrine and
Christ's were precisely contrary to each other.
Both Christ and the legalist desired to preserve Judaism, but the legalist believed that in order to do this
it was necessary to adopt a defensive attitude, to throw
up walls of partition, and as much as possible to isolate the Jew from those dangerous influences which
might otherwise have obliterated his nationality. This
belief was a confession of the weakness of the Jewish
Fprinciple, a confession that it had ceased to be a match
for the influences in the midst of which it was placed,
and it suggested a number of hateful and immoral
contrivances for perpetuating the division between




284               ECCE HOMO.
Jew  and Gentile. The hatred which the Jews incurred from the surrounding nations, the fancy current
among the Gentiles that Moses had forbidden them to
show a traveller the way unless he professed their
own belief, or to direct a thirsty man to the fountain
unless he were circumcised, had its rise in this odious
theory of isolation.
Christ, on the contrary, proposed to preserve Judaism by putting it upon the offensive, by making it
universal. And this plan implied his belief in its invincible, heaven-inspired strength. He held that the
same Divine Power which had originally legislated
for the Jews was still present, completing his legislation and annulling whatever in it was outworn by the
Enthusiasm of Humanity kindled in men's hearts and
issuing decrees as authoritative as those of Moses.
And in this Enthusiasm  he confided as powerful
enough to resist whatever was corrupting in Gentile
influences and to assimilate what was good. Therefore, while the legalists provoked the Gentile world to
that final attack upon the Jewish nation which deprived it of its temple and its country, Christ initiated
that reconciliation of Jew and Gentile which was seen
in the early Church.
Again, both Christ and the legalist devoted themselves to the promotion of moral virtue. They agreed
in thinking everything unimportant in comparison
with Duty. But the legalist believed that the old
method by which their ancestors had arrived at a
knowledge of the requirements of Duty, namely, divine inspiration, was no longer available, and that
nothing therefore remained but carefully to collect the




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.           28 
results at which their ancestors had arrived by this
method, to adopt these results as rules, and to observe
them punctiliously. Devoutly believing that in the
most trifling matter where action was involved there
was a right course and a wrong one, and at the same
time entirely deserted by the instinct or inspiration
which distinguishes the one from the other, they invented the most frivolous casuistry that has ever been
known. They overburdened men's memories and
perplexed their lives with an endless multitude of
rules, which sometimes were simply trivial: e. g.'An egg laid on a festival day may be eaten according to the school of Shammai, but the school of Hillel
says it must not be eaten,' and at other times were
immoral, as in the case of the Corban which Christ
selected for censure.
Precisely in opposition to this school Christ proclaimed that the inspiration which had instructed the
ancient Jews was not only not withdrawn, but was
given to his own generation in far greater measure
than to any previous one. John the Baptist, he said,
was the greatest of the prophets, and the least of his
own followers was greater than John. The inspiration of the prophets had revealed to them some of
their duties, but had left them unenlightened about
others; an inspiration was now given which should
illuminate the whole province of moral obligation.
Casuistry therefore, so far from being important, was
less needed than ever, and it was so far from being
necessary to supplement the written Scriptures by a
traditional law that those written Scriptures themselves, though they retained their sacredness and value,




286               ECCE HOMO.
yet ceased henceforth to be, in the strict sense, a binding law.
So direct was Christ's opposition to the legal party.
The method of promoting moral virtue which he proposed was not regarded by him as merely better than
the casuistry of his opponents, but as the only method.
The other method, in his view, could not produce
virtue, though it might sometimes procure the perfornlance of a right deed; it could but destroy in
men's minds the very conception of virtue. It could
issue in nothing but a certain moral pedantry and in
pride. Therefore he denounced without qualification
the whole system and the teachers of it. Apologetic
voices might perhaps have been raised, urging that
these teachers, if their system was worthless and mischievous, nevertheless did, at least in some cases, the
best they could, that they were serious and made
others serious, and that at the worst any moral teaching was better than none. We do not know how Christ
would have answered this plea, but we know that he
suffered no such considerations to mitigate the sternness
of his condemnation. He who could make allowance
for the publican and the prostitute made no allowance
at all for the Pharisee. If we examine the charges
he makes against them we shall see that he accuses
them in the first place of downright, undisguised vice.
IIe calls them plunderers of the poor, and declares
that the countless rules which they impose upon
others they take no trouble to observe themselves. We
have not the evidence before us which might entble
us to verify these accusations. All that can be said is
that those who are constantly endeavoring to avoid




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.            287
infinitesimal sins, such as that of eating an egg laid
on a festival day, are particularly apt to fall into sins
that are'gross as a mountain, opens palpable.' In
this sense it is true that' la petite morale est l'ennerni
de la grande.' But it is evident that Christ was not
better pleased with their good deeds than with their
bad ones. Their good deeds had the nature of irnpostiure, that is, they did not proceed from the motives
fiom which such deeds naturally spring and from which
the public suppose them to spring. When these men;
tithed their property for the service of religion, did
they do so from the ardent feelings which had suggested the oblations of David in old times?  No doubt
the people thought so, but in truth they paid tithes
from a motive which might just as well have prompted
them to take tithes - respect for a traditional rule.
When they searched and sifted the Scriptures, fancying, as Christ said, that in them they had eternal life,
did they do so because they felt deeply the wisdom
of the old prophets and legislators? The people, no
doubt, thought that these diligent students were possessed with the spirit of what they read, but the truth
was that they only pored over the ancient scrolls
because they understood that it was proper to read
them. Therefore the more they read the less they
understood, and they paid the same reverence to the
languid futilities of some purblind commentator as to    C
tlke inspirations of Isaiah. When they lauded the
ancient prophets and built their sepulchres, was it
because they were congenial spirits, formed in their
school and bent upon following in their steps? The
people. thought so, but Christ pronounced with memnio



288                ECCE HOMO.
rable point and truth — what is true of many other
wors!hippers of antiquity besides the Pharisees -that
they were the legitimate representatives of those who
killed the prophets, and that they betrayed this by the
very worship which they paid to their memory.
Let us linger on this for a moment. It is trite, that
an original man is persecuted in his lifetime and idolized after his death, but it is a less familiar truth that
the posthumous idolaters are the legitimate successors: and representatives of the contemporary persecutors.
The glory of the original man is this, that he does not
take his virtues and his views of things at second
hand, but draws wisdom fresh from nature and from
the inspiration within him. To the majority in every
age, that is, to the superficial and the feeble, such
originality is alarming, perplexing, fatiguing. They
unite to crush the innovator. But it may be that by
his own energy and by the assistance of his followers
he proves too strong for them. Gradually, about the
close of his career, or, it may be, after it, they are
compelled to withdraw their opposition and to imitate
the man whom they had denounced. They are compelled to do that which is most frightful to them, to
abandon their routine. And then there'occurs to them
a thought which brings inexpressible relief. Out of
the example of the original man they can make a new
routine. They may imitate him in everything except
his originality. For one routine is as easy to pace as
another. What they dread is the necessity of originatillg, the fatigue of being really alive. And thus the
second half of the original man's destiny is really
worse than the first, and his failure is written more




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.          289
legibly in the blind veneration of succeeding ages than
in the blind hostility of his own. He broke the chains
by which men were bound; he threw open to them
tle doors leading into the boundless freedom of nature
and truth. But in the next generation Se is idolized
and nature and truth as much forgotten as ever; if he
conuld return to earth he would find that the crowbars
al id files with which he made his way out of the prisonhouse have been forged into the bolts and chains of a
new prison called by his own name. And who are
those who idolize his memory? Who are found building his sepulchre? Precisely the same party which
resisted his reform; those who are born for routine
and can accommodate themselves to everything but
freedom; those who in clinging to the wisdom of the
past suppose they love wisdom but in fact love only
the past, and love the past only because they hate the
living present; those, in a word, who set Abraham,
Isaac, and. Jacob in opposition to Christ, and appeal
to the God of the dead against the God of the living.
Thus it was that the legal party were actors in everything, winning the reverence of the multitude by false
pretences, imitating inspired men in everything except
their inspiration, following motives which did not actuate them but which they supposed ought to actuate
them. And as must most infallibly happen to men
living in such conventionalism, destitute of convictions,
the healthy play of life artificially suspended, over the
whole inert stagm-ation of the soul there grew a scurf
of feeble corruption; petty vices, littlenesses, meannesses, were rife within them. They grew conceited,
pompous, childish. They liked to hear the sound of
I3




290                ECCE HOMO.
their titles, to exaggerate the distincticns of their dress,
to reflect upon their superiority to other men, to find
that superiority acknowledged, to be greeted reverentially in public places, to recline on the first couch at
dinner parties. The virtues to the cultivai;vn'f which
in themselves and others they had devoted their lives
telhsed altogether to be cultivated by the methods they
used, and in the void place of their hearts where
morality and sanctity, justice and the love of God,
should have been, there appeared at last nothing to
nlark the religious man, nothing, we may suppose,
except a little ill-temper, a faint spite against those
who held wrong opinions, a feeble self-important
pleasure in detecting heresy.
Such was the party which Christ denounced with
so much passion. It may strike us that however
corrupt they may have been they could hardly deserve
to be pronounced worse than publicans and harlots.
But Christ never went so far as this. He did indeed
in a parable contrast the prayer of a Pharisee unfavorably with the prayer of a publican, but it was a
publican repenting, and the moral of the comparison
is,' Better commit a great sin and be ashamed of it,
than a smaller one and be proud of it.' And when he
said that the very harlots entered the Christian Church
before the Pharisees, he again meant to charge them,
not with being worse but less corrigible than those
whose vices were too gross to leave room for self.
delusion. Still it is plain that he gave way to anger
far more in addressing Pharisees than in addressing
pul)licans and harlots.
In doing so he only followed the rule laid down




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.           291
above. It is not to be supposed that, as a lover of
men, he felt less pity for those whom he denounced
when all the world admired them than for those whose
part he took when all the world disowned them.
Indeed his most passionate invective closes in that
singular lamentation over Jerusalem in which the saddest feelings of a sensitive patriot are so inimitably
blended with the regal sense of personal greatness
which he continually and with so much unconsciousness betrayed. He felt pity as well as anger, but he
thought the anger had a better right to be expressed.
The impostors must be first unmasked; they might be
forgiven afterwards, if they should abandon their conventionalities. The lover of men is angry to see harm
done to men. Harm was done by the publican and
the prostitute, but anger could do no more against
these than it did already. Men were on their guard
against them, their power for evil was circumscribed
as far as it could be, and justice was satisfied by the
punishment of infamy which had been inflicted upon
them. But the lover of men, when he contemplated
the vast and united phalanx of legalists, saw that which
carried him out of himself with anger and pain. He
saw the multitude sitting at their feet as learners and
addressing them with titles of veneration. He saAw
those whose lot confined them to the narrow cares of
subsistence, those whose limbs indeed were continually exercised in handicrafts and their shrewdness ill
trades, but whose higher faculties rusted in disuse, and
those of higher station, upon whom fell larger tasks of
administration and government but still secular tasks
overwhelming the mind with details and concealing




292               ECCE HOMO.
eternal principles from its view, — he sa"w all this
miscellaneous crowd gathering round their reve-red
teachers eager for the wisdom and the instruction
which might save their souls in the all-ingulfing
vortex of eartlhly life. He saw that in the hands of
these teachers were laid the life and salvation of the
ration, and that from them was certain to pass readily
into othler minds whatever enthusiasm  of goodness
might dwell in their own. He looked for this enthusiasm; doubtless he was prepared to find it immature
and not altogether that Enthusiasm of Humanity which
dwelt in himself. He observed these teachers  and
he found they were mountebanks. Their gestures,
their costume, were theatrical; their whole life was
an acted play; the wisdom that came from their lips
was repeated with more or less fluency, but it had been
learned by rote; sometimes it was good, the wisdom
of Moses or Isaiah, sometimes it was the dotage of
a Shammai; but, wise or foolish, it came with equal
emphasis from those who, solely occupied with the
fretting and the strutting they considered proper to the
part, declaimed it in the dress of teachers to an admiring audience. And marking this, he considered that
the power of these men to do mischief was equal to
or greater than their power to do good. It would be
t etter that the Jews should have no teachers of wisdom
at all, than that they should have teachers who should
give them folly under the name of wisdom. Better
that in tle routine of a laborious life they should hear
of wisdom as a thing more costly than pearls but
beyond their reach, than that it should seem to be
broughlt within their reach and they should discover




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.            293
It to be paste. Acknowledged penury of wisdom
might leave them rich in humility, reverence, and
faith; abundance of false wisdom could but make them
impostors or cynics. If a divine revelation be the first
of blessings, then the imposture that counterfeits it
must be by far the greatest of all evils. And if the
unlucky malefactor who in mere brutality of ignorance
or narrowness of nature or of culture has wronged his
neighbor excite our anger, how much deeper should
be our indignation when intellect and eloquence are
abused to selfish purposes, when studious leisure and
learning and thought turn traitors to the cause of
human well-being, and the wells of a nation's moral
life are poisoned?
This, then, was the class of persons with whom
Christ was angry, and these were the reasons of his
anger. But now let us inquire what was the character
of his anger. We must remember that this is he who
was called a lamb. He was distinguished from the
other remarkable characters of antiquity by his gentleness. He introduced into human nature those blended
and complex feelings which distinguish modern characters from ancient. Now the question may be raised
whether this complexity of character is not purchased
at some expense of strength. Ancient valor was wellnigh pitiless. Modern soldiers mix pity with their
valor: have they lost any valor by doing so? In like
manner, when we are angry with men in these days,
we are commonly angry with discrimination. We
mrake reserves; we give some credit for good intentions; we make some allowance for temptations; we
are sorry to be angry, and do not, like the ancients,




294                ECCE HOMO.
enjoy the passion as if it were wine. The question
then arises, has the passion of anger grown at all feebler in us? Are we at all emasculated by the complexity of our emotions? To find an answer let us
look at the great Exemplar of modern characters; let
us inquire whether he was feeble in his anger; let us
consider the wrath of the Lamb.
The faults of the legal party were such as it is very
difficult to reprove, because they were of so refined
and impalpable a character. These men had not been
guilty for the most part of open crime; if they had
done wrong, they had done so probably not without
some good intention; if they had deluded others, they
had deluded themselves first. Christ recognized the
impalpable, insidious character of their corrupting:nfluence when he charged his followers to beware of
the leaven, that is, the infection, of the Pharisees. It
is difficult to reprove a party like this, without either
making so many qualifications as to deprive the reproof of most of its force, or, on the other hand, committing an apparent injustice. But Christ's anger was
not to be restrained by such considerations. One invective has been preserved, probably on account of the
concentrated passion of indignation which breathes
through it, and perhaps also because, more than anything else, it determined the legalists to lay their plot
against Christ's life. It makes no qualifications, it says
not a word about good intentions nor about overwhelming temptations. Delivered in the presence of
the multitude, on whose admiration the legalists lived,
it denounces a succession of woes upon the whole allpowerful order, reiterating many times tl e charge of




I HE LAW OF RESENTMENT.            295
imposture, and coupling it with almost every other
biting reproach that can be imagined. It charges them
with childish pedantry, with vexatious and grinding
oppression, and, what was especially severe as addressed to the learned class, with ignorance and with the
haired of knowledge. To the men who supposed that
they monopolized the most infallible rules, the most
exquisite methods of discovering truth, he says,' You
have taken away the key of knowledge; you enter not
in yourselves, and those that were entering in you hinder.' Finally, he calls them children of hell, serpents,
a brood of vipers, and asks how it is possible for them
to escape damnation.
Here, then, we see Christ in his attitude of hostility.
His language itself is not wanting in energy, and it
derived double emphasis from his position. In his
political appearance he may be compared to the Gracchi. As they assailed a close and selfish ruling order
by marshalling the people against it, and assuming
that peculiar position of authorized agitators which the
Roman constitution offered in the tribunate, so did
Christ assail the order of legalists. The old Jewish
constitution recognized the claim of the _5rophet to a
certain authority. One who, advancing pretensions to
the prophetic character, succeeded in producing conviction, so that by a kind of informal but irresistible
plebiscitum  he was recognized to be that which he
professed to be, was thenceforward regarded as a
mouthpiece of the Invisible King, and held an indefinite but at the same time constitutional authority in
the land. He was not a mere influence, but, as it
were, a magistrate, and almost, if he pleased, a dic



296               ECCE HOMO.
tator. This singular institution had, it is true, lain
dormant for many centuries, not that the Jews had
ceased to believe in prophets, but that no person had
succeeded in winning the pbIebiscilum which conferred
the prophetic authority. The office was understood
no'. to be abolished but simply to be in abeyance. It
is recorded that Judas Maccabaus when he purified
the temple reserved some matters until a prophet
should appear to give directions about them. The
reign of the prophets had now begun again. John
the Baptist had received that universal testimony to
his divine mission which the legalists themselves, with
all their contempt for the' cursed' populace, found it
impossible to resist. To his authority Christ had succeeded.  When, therefore, he assailed the dominant
order, he did so as a magistrate, and his act was a political one. His power was less defined, but it was
not less real than that of a Roman tribune of the people, and in extent it was greater, because it was undefined, and because it was perpetual and personal,
instead of being delegated for the term of a year.
Acknowledged as a prophet, and making no concealment of the fact that he regarded himself as a king,
he must have meant his denunciations of the legal
party for a mortal defiance.  They were the final
brimming over of the cup of indignation. They made
all reconciliation between him and them impossible.
Our biographies tell us that he early foresaw in what
tile quarrel would end. He saw that he was driving
his opponents to that point that, with their love of
power and position, they must murder him. His life
had been tranquil; the times were tranquil. How




TIHE LAW OF RESENTMENT.         297
easy it might have been to lead a useful life, teaching
men everywhere, setting an example of high;t1ms and
thoughts, leavening gradually the nation wil:L his morality and sanctity! How easy it might hav, been to
procure for himself a long life, which would nave been
full of blessing to mankind, and up to the end to see
that which was the great wish of the Hebrew patriot,
peace upon Israel.' What prevented this happy pros.
pect from being realized?  Surely, we may think, t:o
avoid bloodshed and shocking crimes a Christian would
sacrifice much.  What prevented the prospect from
being realized? We must answer, Christ himself prevented it, simply because he would not restrain his
anger. He might have remained silent about the Pharisees; he might have avoided meeting with them or
talking of them; he might at least have qualified the
severity of his reproofs. None of these things would
he do; he gave his anger way, and drove his opponents to that which such men call the'necessity' of
destroying him.
His resentment did not indeed show itself in action.
He did not arm his followers against them; he would
not probably, had he been placed in a condition to do
so, have done to them what Elijah did to the prophets
of Baal at the brook Kishon. Yet it appears that the
anger he felt would of itself have carried him as far
as this. Setting forth in a parable his own relation to
the legalists, and describing himself, as usual, as a
king, he concluded with representing the king as saying,' And as for those mine enemies which would not
that I should reign over them, bring them hither and
slay them befoyre me.'
13 *




298               ECCE HOMO.
In this profound resentment he never wavered. It
is the custom to say that Christ died forgiving his
enemies. True, no doubt, it is that he held the forgiveness of private enemies to be among the first of
duties; and he did forgive the personal insults and
barbarities that were practised upon him. But the
legalists, whose crime was against the kingdom of
God, the nation, and mankind, it does not appear that
hle ever forgave. The words of forgiveness uttered
on the Cross refer simply to the Roman soldiers, for
whom pardon is asked expressly on the ground that
they do not understand what they are doing. The
words may even contain distinct allusion to that
other class of criminals who did know what they
were doing, and for whom therefore the same prayer
was not offered. At least this interpretation suggests
itself to one who endeavors to discover from the expressions which he dropped what was passing in
Christ's mind during the period of his sufferings. For
those expressions indicate that he was neither thinking
of his murderers with pity and forgiveness nor yet
turning his mind to other subjects, but that he was
brooding over their conduct with bitter indignation.
To the high priest he replied with a menace,' You
shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of
power.' To the women that followed weeping as he
was led to execution he said,' Weep not for me, but
for yourselves and your children. For if they (the
legalists) do thest things in the green tree, what shall
be done in the dry?' And to Pilate he said (drawing
precisely the same distinction between the conduct of
the Romans and that of the Jews which we conjecture




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT.           299
to be implied in the words,' Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do'),' You would have no
authority at all against me, were it not given you from
above: therefore he who delivers me to you has
greater sin;' meaning, apparently,'I should not be
amenable to Roman authority at all but for that providential appointment which has placed the country for
the time in foreign hands; the greater is the treason
of him, the chief priest, who hands his countryman
over to a foreign magistrate.' These passages seem to
show that if no forgiveness of his real murderers was
uttered by Christ, it was not by chance, but because
he continued to the last to think of them with anger.
It seemed worth while to discuss this subject at some
length, lest it should be supposed that Christianity is
really the emasculate, sentimental thing it is sometimes represented to be. Because it has had a considerable effect in softening manners, because it has given
a new prominence and dignity to the female sex, and
because it has produced great examples of passive
virtues, Christianity is sometimes represented as averse
to strong passions, as making men excessively unwilling to inflict pain, as fostering a.norbid or at least a
feminine tenderness. War, for example, and capital
punishment, are frequently denounced as unchristian,
because they involve circumstances of horror; and
when the ardent champions of some great cause have
declared that they would persevere although it should
be necessary to lay waste a continent and exterminate
a nlation, the resolution is stigmatized as shocking and
unchristian. Shocking it may be, but not therefore
unchristian. The Enthusiasm of Humanlity does in



300               ECCE HOMO.
deed destroy a great deal of hatred, but it creates as
much more. Selfish hatred is indeed charmed away,
but a not less fiery passion takes its place. Dull serpentine malice dies, but a new unselfish anger begins
to live. The bitter feelings which so easily spring up
against those who thwart us, those who compete with
us, those who surpass us, are destroyed by the Enthusiasm of Humanity; but it creates a new bitterness
which displays itself on occasions where before the
mind hadl reposed in a benevolent calm. It creates
an intolerant anger against all who do wrong to human
beings, an impatience of selfish enjoyment, a vindictive
enmity to tyrants and oppressors, a bitterness against
sophistry, superstition, self-complacent heartless speculation, an irreconcilable hostility to every form of imposture, such as the uninspired, inhumane soul could
never entertain. And though Christ so understood
his own special mission as to refrain from all acts of
hostility or severity towards human beings, yet, in the
Christian view which connects acts so closely with
instinctive impulses, an act must be right which is
dictated by a right impulse, and there will be cases
when the Christianrwill hold it his duty to inflict
pain.
WVhat is called the Middle Age may be described as
the period of Christian barbarism; that is, it was the
time when genuine Christian impulses were combined
with the greatest intellectual rudeness. But as impulse is commonly strong where intellect is dormant.
we may note the working of Christian feeling more
easily in the Middle Age than in the Modern Time,
Now  it is in the Middle Age that we meet with




THE LAW OF RESENTMENT            301
wars of religion, and with capital punishments for
speculative error. Intellectually considered both were
frightful mistakes. The Enthusiasm  of Humanity,
enlightened by a complete view of the facts, would not
have dictated either. But it was the want of enlightenment, not the want of Christian humanity, that
made it possible for men to commit these mistakes.
Those Syrian battle-fields where so many Crusaders
committed' their pure souls unto their Captain, Christ;'
the image of Christ's death turned into an ensign of
battle; the chalice of the Last Supper giving its name
to an army; these things may shock, more or less,
our good sense,- but they do not shock, they rather
refresh and delight, our humanity. These warriors
wanted Christ's wisdom, but they had his spirit, his
divine anger, his zeal for the franchises of the soul.
Our good sense may be shocked still more when we
think of the auto da fe. We may well exclaim upon
the folly of those who could dream of curing intellectual error by intellectual bondage. Our humanity
itself may be shocked by the greater number of these
deeds of faith. We may say of the perpetraters of
them, These are they that kill the prophets; their zeal
for truth is feigned; they are the slaves of spiritual
pride. But if you could be sure that it was not the
prophet'but the pernicious sophist that burned in the
fire, and if by reducing his too busy brain to safe and
orthodox ashes you could destroy his sophistries and
create in other minds a wholesome fear of sophistry,
without creating at the same time an unwholesome
dread of intellectual activity and freedom, then Christian humanity might look with some satisfaction even




302               ECCE HOMO.
on an auto da fe. At any rate, the ostensible object
of such horrors was Christian, and the indignation
which professedly prompts them is also Christian, and
the assumption they involve, that agonies of pain and
blood shed in rivers are less evils than the soul spotted
and bewildered with sin, is most Christian.




30M
CHAPTER XXII.
CH E LAW  OF FORGIVENESS.
W 7E have now considered the Christian character
in many of its aspects. We have seen that the
Christian is one whose steps are guided by an enthusiasml that never leaves him and that does not allow
him to doubt what he ought to do. We have seen
that this enthusiasm is that love of man in the ideal of
man, which in a low degree is natural to all, made
powerful and ardent by a clearer knowledge of the
ideal in Christ and by a sense of personal relation to
Christ. We have seen that the operation of this enthusiasm is to make morality positive instead of negative, a constant endeavor to serve mankind instead
of an endeavor to avoid injuring them. We have considered some of the principal kinds of service to mankind which it dictates. Of these the first was philanthropy, or an attention to their physical wants and
happiness. The second was edification, or attention
to their moral improvement. And when engaged in
this latter duty we found the enthusiasm assuming
two special aspects in relation to two peculiar classes
of men. In the presence of immorality disguised and
prosperous it exhibited itself in prophetic indignation,'Iltoleran-, rAggressive zeal, vehement reproof. On the
other hand, in dealing with immorality punished, 1~e
pudiated. and outcast, it anrpeared as Mercy.




304                ECCE HOMO.
The picture of the Christian in his active relations
to society is complete. So far as society is the passive
object of his cares, it is in this way that he will deal
with it. But cases arise in which the initiative is not
in his hands. It is important to know not merely
how he will treat others, but also how he will receive
others' treatment of himself. So long as this treatment is good and benevolent, the Enthusiasm  of Humanity will but make natural gratitude more lively.
But when it is injurious hovw will the Christian deal
with it?
Now it was on the treatment of injuries that Christ
delivered the third of those special commands of which
mention has been made. The famous sentences of
the Sermon on the Mount which refer to this subject
will at once occur to the reader, but there is another
precept which it is important to be:ar in mind at the
same time. In the Sermon on the Mount he bids his
followers bear with absolute passive tolerance the
most contumelious injuries.' If a man smite thee on
the one cheek, turn to him the other also,' &c. But
the other precept is different:'I f thy brother trespass
against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent forgive
him.' Now the difference between these two precepts
is not slight but substantial. The first distinctly forbids resenting an injury, the second as distinctly commands it. The expression,' Turn to him  the othex
also,' in the first is evidently selected with care to
convlley an extreme degree of uncomplaining submrlission. It is the direct opposite of the phrase.' Rebuke
him,' which occurs in the other prec2pt. And that
by' Rebuke him,' Christ did not mean a faint expos



THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.            305
tulation, appears from what follows. For he adds:'If your brother will not hear you, bring it before the
church; and if he refuse to hear the church, let him
be to you as a heathen man or a publican;' in otl:er
words, let him be expelled from the Christian society
The two precepts, therefore, differ essentially and can.
not be obeyed together. If you adopt the course pre.
szribed in the one you must deviate from that presci ibed
in the other.
Nevertheless the two precepts do not necessarily
contradict each other. Christ may mean to distinguish two kinds of injuries, the one of which is to be
resented and the other to be suffered passively.  Or
he may mean to distinguish two classes of men colnmitting injuries. Whether either of these two suppositions be true, and, if so, which, will be considered
farther on. In the mean while it is to be noted that in
one respect the two precepts agree; in other words,
that from these two commands of Christ a general
Christian law in reference to injuries may be gathered.
For in both precepts it is implied that every injury
that can be committed is to be forgiven on certain
conditions. In the one case we are told that injuries
are to excite in our minds no resentment at all, that
curses are to be requited with blessings, and persecution with prayers; in the other case we are indeed
commanded to resent the injury, but at the same time
we are commanded to accept in all cases the repelitance of the offender.
Now this law that all injuries whatever are to be
forgiven on certain conditions divides itself, when we
consider it, into two. For it is necessary to examnine




,306               ECCE HOMO.
separately the maxim that we are to be prepared, as a
general rule, to forgive injuries, and the maxim that
there is no injury so deadly but that it comes under
this general rule. Let us begin, therefore, by examining the maxim that injuries as a general rule are to be
forgiven on certain conditions.
It has already been remarked as a characteristic of
Christianity that, while it excites an intense disappiobation of wrong-doing, it nevertheless regards wrongdoing as venial. Criminals that have been regarded
under much laxer systems with unmixed hatred became under Christianity objects of pity. But it does
not immediately follow that the injured party himself
would be required to regard his injurer in that light.
The relation of the injured party to the criminal is
peculiar; his feelings are different from those of the
bystander who has suffered nothing by the crime; and
the Enthusiasm, though it moves the bystander to
mercy, may very possibly produce a different effect
upon him. In order to discover whether it does so or
not it is necessary to inquire in what respect the natural feeling of the injured party himself towards the
criminal differs from that of the bystander. Now the
feeling of the bystander or disinterested person towards crime was examined in an earlier part of this
treatise. It was there shown that in uncivilized times
the feeling was pure indifference, but that as men
advanced in moral culture they acquired a sympbatzhy
with one another. This sympathy produced the effect
that whenever a given person was disturbed by any el notions, the bystander who observed him became affected
by similar emotions. Such sympathetic — emnotions were




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.            307
always less powerful than the original ones, but they
were stronger in proportion to the strength of the sympathy out of which they grew. The resentment which
a man feels at crime from which he does not personally
suffer is of this sympathetic kind. It is a reflection
from the resentment felt by the injured party himself.
Now we have seen that this sympathetic resentment is
molified and made less pitiless by Christianity, and
the question is, could this happen and yet the same
effect not be produced by the same agent upon the
original resentment? Plainly there is one way and
only one way in which this might be. If Christianity
mitigates sympathetic resentment by diminishing the
sympathy which is one of its factors, then the mitigation will not extend to that resentment which is independent of sympathy. But we know that, so far from
this, sympathy is vastly increased by the Christian
enthusiasm. It follows that sympathetic resentment
would be vastly increased at the same time, if Christianity did not also operate, and in a still greater degree, to soften the resentment itself. But if it operates
upon the resentment itself, it will do so in the injured
party who is animated by that alone as well as in the
bystander, and therefore Christianity which enjoins
mercy to criminals must at the same time enjoin forgiveness of personal injuries.
But no such indirect argument is required to show
that Christianity must needs tend to diminish the sense
of personal injury. We know that it is easier to forgive injuries to those whom we love, whether the love
we feel be that love which is grcunded on admiration,
or that which arises out of the sense of relationship.




308               ECCE HOMO.
Now Christianity creates for all mankind a sentiment
which, though not identical with either of these, yet
bears a considerable resemblance to them, and can
hardly fail to operate in the same way. We may be
sure also that revenge diminishes in proportion as we
gain the power of going out of ourselves and of conceiving and realizing interests and rights not our own.
Revenge is the monomania of the isolated and unsnl-i
pathizing heart which intensely grasps the notion of
personal right and property but for itself alone, and
for which there is but one being and one self in the
universe. It cannot therefore but be diminished by
an enthusiasm which creates a moral universe for the
soul where before there was darkness, which forces it
to relax its stiff and crabbed tenacity by enlarging its
sphere, which gives it the -softness which comes with
warmth, which educates it in the wisdom of sympathy
and the calmness of wisdom.
But now what is to be the limit of forgiveness,i It
would probably have been allowed by many Ao the
ancients that an unforgiving temper was not'co be
commended. They would have said, We are not to
exact a penarty for every nice offence; we arc to overlook some things; we are to be blind sometimes. But
they would have said at the same time, We must be
careful to keep our self-respect, and to be on a level
with the'world. On the whole, they would have sald,
It is the part of a man fully to requite to his friends
their benefits and to his enemies their injuries. Christ,
no doubt, bids men be more generous than this, be
less meanly solicitous about their personal rights, but
where does he place the limit? what is the injury for
which we are to take no apology?




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.           309
Christ said,'If thy brother trespass against thee
seven times a day, and seven times a day turn again
to thee saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.' Probably no reader of this passage would doubt that it
means absolutely to take away all limitations of forgiveness, and to proclaim that there is no injury, however deadly, or however frequently repeated, which
the Christian is not to forgive upon submission made.
ut1: to make this doubly sure it is recorded that Peter
put the question directly to him, whether the seventh
time was literally to be taken as a limit. The inquiry, it is worth while to remark by the way, throws
a strong light upon the character of the followers
whom Christ had gathered round him.'Lord, how
often shall my brother offend against me and I forgive
him? Until seven times?' There breathes, in the
first place, through this question a singular earnestness. The use of the first person seems to show that
Peter was not considering the problem as part of the
theory of morals. He does not speak in the tone of
Socrates' disciples. But he seems to be intently considering how Christ's principle of forgiveness can
practically be worked. He speaks as though he had
himself suffered an injury and had succeeded more
than once in forgiving it, and now came to his Master
to know how long the trial was to last. But, on the
other hand, the question shows a singular want of the
power or habit of generalizing. It is the question of
one who has never been accustomed to think, but who
ilides himself by precepts or texts learned by rote.
lie thinks it presumption to try to understand his
Master s teaching. and accordingly he inevitably mns.




310 IECCE HOMO.
understands it. What was delivered as a principle he
instantly degrades into a rule. He has no power of
distinguishing the form of the precept from the substance; and therefore being commanded to forgive an
offending brother even if he should commit seven injuries. he proceeds at once to inquire how he should
deal with the eighth. No turn of expression could
nlore nicely indicate the process by which those high
moralities which are the life of the world are converta d
into the conventionalities which are its bane. It is
also worthy of remark that Christ in his reply refu, es
to abandon the figurative mode of expression. lie
vindicates, as it were, his right to use these forms elf
language, and insists that his followers shall learn to
understand them, but at the same time he alters the
figure so far as to remove the particular misunderstanding into which Peter had fallen. He replied,'I
solemnly declare to you, not until seven times, but
until seventy times seven.'
Here then is the prohibition of all mortal feuds.
Irreconcilable enmities are henceforth forbidden to
human beings. Mercy to a submissive foe is to be no
longer an exceptional and admirable reach of human
goodness, but a plain duty. There may be again contentions upon the earth, wars between state and state,
feuds between family and family, quarrels between
man and man, but the war' without treaty and without herald' is in the modern world, what it was not
in the ancient, immoral. Human beings have hence.
orlth in all cases a right to terms, a right to quarter.
However they may trample upon the rights of others,
they cannot Trample upon their own; however thev




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          311I
may repudiate all human obligations, they cannot cancel, though they may change and modify, the obligations of others to them.
This is Christ's most striking innovation in morality.
It has produced so much impression upon mankind
that it is commonly regarded as the whole or at least
the fundamental part of the Christian moral system.
When a Christian spirit is spoken of, it may be remarked that a forgiving spirit is usually meant. But
there is much more in the Christian system than the
doctrine of forgiveness, nor does its importance in that
system consist in its being the fundamental part upon
which the other parts depend, for it is not this in any
sense. Its importance lies simply in its being the most
distinctive feature in the system, and in its characterizing Christian morality more than any other doctrine of
it. The other laws which have been considered, the
law of philanthropy, the law of edification, the law of
mercy and of moral resentment, though Christianity
gave a new importance to them, cannot be called
peculiar to Christianity. They were all in some degree recognized in heathen moralities, and though the
originality of Christianity in respect to them is very
real, yet it does not at once strike the eye and is not
easy to make-clear. But in the law of forgiveness, and
still more in the law of unlimited forgiveness, a startling shock was given to the prevailing beliefs and
notions of mankind. And by this law an ineffaceable
and palpable division has been made between ancient
and modern morality. The other Christian virtues
were in a degree familiar to the heathen world; that
is to say, they had often been witnessed and when




312               ECCE HOMO.
witnessed they had always excited admiration. As
duties they had never been recognized, but they had
been known as the exceptional characteristics of men
of rare virtue. Now of forgiveness we cannot certainly
say that it was unknown to the ancients; under certain
conditions, no doubt, it was very common among them.
in domestic and family life, in which all the germs of
Christian virtue are to be found, it was undoubtedly
common.  Undoubtedly friends fell out and were
reconciled in antiquity as amongst ourselves. But
where the only relation between the two parties was
that of injurer and injured, and the only claim of the
offender to forgiveness was that he was a human being, there forgiveness seems not only not to have been
practised, but not to have been enjoined nor approved.
People not only did not forgive their enemies, but did
not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for
having done so. That man considered himself fortunate who on his deathbed could say, in reviewing
his past life, that no one had done more good to his
friends or more mischief to his enemies. This was the
celebrated felicity of Sulla; this is the crown of Xenophon's panegyric on Cyrus the Younger. No one in
antiquity was more capable of amiable feelings than
Cicero. Yet so much could he gloat over the misfortunes of an enemy, that in the second year after the
death of Clodius he dates a letter the 56oth day after
the battle of Bovill — that is, the fray in which
Clodius was killed. This is to be noted not merely
as an indication of the feeling which Cicero could
cherish, but of the state of public opinion which could
permit him, without any sense of degradation, to dis



THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.         313
play the feeling to a friend. Still more striking is an
e(xample which may be drawn from the life of Julius
(4,sar. He is eminent in antiquity as one who knew
] ow to forgive. It is much to his credit that his exec Ili.on of Vercingetorix on the occasion of his fourfold
Ii irnph has always been considered a blemish upon
his career. The execution of the conquered general
wans a regular and important part of the triumphal
ceremony; there could be no reason, except Caesar's
extraordinary clemency, to expect that it would be
omitted on this occasion. And yet the expectation
was general.* Why did he disappoint it? There
was everything to incline his mind to generosity.
Six years had passed since Vercingetorix had been his
enemy, six years full of success and glory. Vercingetorix had been a chivalrous enemy, and his surrender
had been made in a manner specially calculated to
affect the feelings of his conqueror. Caesar had pardoned multitudes of those who had injured him, of
those who hated him mortally; why could he not
pardon one whose only crime was that he had defended the independence of his country against him?
Caesar had pardoned many whom it might have been
expedient to destroy; why could he not pardon one
b)y whose death he gained nothing, and by whose
forgiveness he would have conciliated a nation? The
answer seems to be that on those days of triumph
Ca-sar gave himself up to the enjoyment of his success,
that he was determined to drain to the dregs the
whole intoxicating cup, and that even he could not
* See Dio Cassius, xl. 41.'4




314               ECCE H}OMO.
conceive of happiness as perfect unless it wete flavored
with revenge, or victory as complete while his enemy
breathed. The one man who knew something of the
pleasures of generosity was yet carried- away by the
universal opinion about the sweetness of vengeance,
and could imagine no triumph but such as those we
see represented in Egyptian bass-reliefs, where the victotps foot is planted on the necks of his captives, or
that we read of in the life of the pupil of Aristotle,
who actually dragged the living body of one of the
most heroic of his enemies at the tail of his chariot.
The Roman Triumph with its naked ostentation of
revenge fairly represents the common feeling of the
ancients. Nevertheless, forgiveness even of an enemy
was not unknown to them. They could conceive it,
and they could feel that there was a divine beauty in
it, but it seemed to them not merely, like the other
Christian virtues, more than could be expected of ordinary men, but almost more than could be expected of
human nature itself, almost superhuman. A passage
near the close of the Ajax of Sophocles will illustrate
this. As there was nothing of the antiquarian spirit
about Greek tragedy, as it probably never occurred to
Sophocles that the ancient heroes he depicts belonged
to a less civilized age than his own, but, on the contrary, as he conceived them to be betteir and nobler
than his contemporaries, we may fairly suppose the
feelings described in this passage to be of the highest
standard of the poet's own age, the age of Pericles.
Ulysses, after thee death of his enemy Ajax, is described as relenting towards him so far as to intercede
with Agamemnon that his body may be decently




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.           315
bu.ried, and not be exposed to the beasts and birds.
This may seem to be no great stretch of generosity.
But the request is received by Agamemnon with the
utmost bewilderment and annoyance.' Vhat can you
mean?' he says,' do you feel p7ityfor a dead enemy?'
On the other hand, the friends of A-jax are not less astonished, and break out into rapturous applause,' but,'
says Teucer,' I hesitate to allow you to touch the
grave, lest it should be disagreeable to the dead man.'
The impression of strangeness which these words,
Do you feel zity for a dead enemy? produce upon
us is a proof of the change which Christianity has
wrought in manners. A modern dramatist might
have written the words, if he had been delineating an
extremely savage character, but Sophocles is doing no
such thing. He is expressing the natural sentiment
of an average man. A modern poet, endeavoring to
do the same thing, hits upon a precisely opposite sentiment:Sirs, pass we on,
And let the bodies follow us on biers.
Wolf of the weald and yellow-footed kite,
Enough is spread for you of meaner prey.
And that the change of feeling indicated by this difference of language has really taken place is not to be
disproved by special instances of atrocious malignity,
however numerous, which may be quoted from modern history, nor yet by the fact that the duel is a peculiarly modern institution. That there have been and
~are revengeful men proves nothing, but it proves much
that such characters are now remarked as exceptions
and excite always dislike, in extreme cases horror and




316               ECCE HOMO.
disgust. In antiquity they were, as a rule, not disapproved, but in the extreme case they incurred censure
of the same gentle kind as we pass on those who push
any good or natural feeling to extravagance. The duei
is, no doubt, at first sight a startling phenomenon. It
seems bold to assert that the moderns are more forgiving than the ancients, when it is certain that in antiq(uity the grossest personal insults were constantly
overlooked, and that we find a Cicero holding amicable intercourse with men whom he had assailed in
public with venomous personal abuse, whereas fifty
years ago a man was held disgraced who did not wash
out an insult in blood. When we remember this it
may seem more correct to say that the modern spirit
has consecrated revenge and made it into a duty, than
to say that it has adopted Christ's law of forgiveness.
And, indeed, it is impossible to deny that the duel is
an example of the failure of Christianity. It is a barbaric usage, which may be traced distinctly to a barbaric origin, and which is entirely opposed to Christ's
law. Assuredly if a Paul or a John could have witnessed two Christians facing each other with loaded
pistols to avenge a hasty word, they would have called
for the crack of doom to end all. And yet it is a usage
which prevailed through all Christian countries at a
very recent period. Barbarism in this instance prevailed signally over Christian influences. Further, it
is not to be denied that the spirit of revenge entered
into this usage. Nevertheless if we compare in our
imaginations the duellist of modern times with the
Agamemnon of Sophocles insulting the corpse of his
dead enemy, or with the Ajax of the same play tortur



TlHE LAWV OF FORGIVENESS.         317
ing in his tent the ram he supposes to be Ulysses, we
shall perceive a vast difference between the two, and
shall remain convinced, in spite of all adverse appearances, that the spirit of revenge, if not expelled froln
human life, has been at least dethroned and fettered by
Christ. The revenge described by Sophocles is unmixed hatred and spite. It delights in mischief as
mischief; it is intent upon its prey as a vulture upon
a carcass; it feasts upon the misery of its object as
upon delicious food. The feelings of the duellist may
in exceptional cases have been similar, but in ordinary
cases they were totally different. And it was only because they were assumed to be totally different that the
usage was approved by society. Into these feelings
revenge scarcely entered at all.  Often, instead of
wishing the destruction of his enemy, he rather desired
him to escape. Even if the enmity was mortal, at
least he only wished for his destruction, not that he
might suffer as much misery as possible. What he
desired principally was first to show that he possessed
the courage to expose himself to danger, next, to show
that he possessed that sense of personal dignity which
could not put up with insult, and that resolution which
might save him from the risk of insult in future. And
it was for the sense of personal honor which it was
supposed to keep alive in men, and for the value which
it gave to courage, that the duel was long maintained
and defended by society. The usage, then, was not a
consecration of revenge, but of the principle of selfrespect. Doubtless public opinion approexd also of a
moderate gratification of revenge, but asduredlvy a remorseless spirit was no more approved o0 admired by




318                 ECCE HOMO.
those who approved of duels than by others, and was
only even excused in the case of an extreme and intolerable injury.
We may therefore maintain that the general principle of the forgiveness of injuries, as announced by
Christ, has been accepted by the world, has become
part of morality, and has made a great and perceptible
difference in the average of human characters. The
principle of unlimited forgiveness, even on condition
of repentance, remains, no doubt, to a certain extent a
stumbling-block. Few of us even profess that there
are no injuries which we are not prepared to forgive;
probably few of us wish to have the forgiving spirit in
this perfection. It is not merely that such unlimited
forgiveness is almost impossible to practise; men do
not merely regard it as an unattainable virtue, but
they deny it to be a virtue at all. Not under the influence of strong passion, but deliberately, they regard it
as a mark of servility and suspect it of being inseparable from creeping vices. Modern literature is full of
the evidences of this feeling. Shakspeare says, -
Sweaz priests, and cowards, and men cautelous)
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt;
and a modern novelist makes one of his characters say,' There are some wrongs that no one ought to forgive,
and I shall be a villain on the day I shake that man's
hand.' It is therefore a plausible opinion that man.
kind have accepted half of the Christian doctrine of
forgiveness and rejected the other half, that they have




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          319
consented to forgive, but not all injuries, not until
seventy times seven.
Nevertheless this opinion will not bear examination.
It will be found that men do approve and admire unlimited fi)rgiveness provided it be certainly sincere,
and that they would themselves think it right to accept
repentance of the most extreme injury, provided thle
penitence were certainly sincere. But in most practical cases that arise both repentance and forgiveness
lie under the suspicion of being spurious. There is a
manifest temptation on the part of the offender to feign
repentance; it is his natural expedient for averting
punishment. Repentance therefore is very extensively
counterfeited, and there has arisen a prejudice against
the name which is easily confounded with a prejudice
against the thing. The thing repentance all would
agree is good, but then it is rare; for the name repentance people generally have slight respect because it
seldom represents the thing. And the suspicion
attaching to professions of repentance increases with
the heinousness of the injury. It is a common belief that a person capable of committing atrocious
wrong must be incapable of repenting of it, and
such a person's professions are accordingly contemptuously disregarded.  When therefore people
deliberately consider it mean to forgive extreme injuries they are really setting a limit not to the duty of
forgiveness but to the possibility of genuine repentance..
The words,' I shall be a villain on the day th at I shake
that man's hand,' do not mean that the wrong done
has kleen too great to be forgiven with honor, but that




320                ECCE HOMO.
it implies a criminality inconsistent with penitence.
The words,'There are some injuries that no one
ought to forgive,' mean really, There are some injuries
of which it is impossible to repent. In the same
way) the contempt with which we often regard those
who forgive injuries does not really imply any dislike
of the principle of forgiveness itself, but only a suspicion that in the particular case the forgiveness was
not genuine. For forgiveness is a thing not less liable
to be counterfeited than repentance. When we were
considering the virtue of Mercy we remarked that the
acts which it dictates are often precisely those which
would be suggested by mere laxity or indifference to
wrong. Just so forgiveness acts in the same way as
mere servility. The bystander therefore may easily
have a difficulty in distinguishing them, and, as forgiveness, like all high virtues, is rare, and servility,
like all low vices, common, the chances are in any
given case that the act which might have been dictated
by either was actually dictated by the latter. When
the wrong forgiven is exceptionally heinous this probability becomes still greater, and so men form a habit
of regarding the forgiveness of extreme injuries as a
contemptible thing except in those cases where their
previous knowledge of the person who forgives makes
it impossible to suspect him of servility. In such
cases they betray their genuine approbation of the
principle of unlimited forgiveness by enthusiastic
admiration.
A few cases of forgiveness will yet remain which
we can scarcely help regarding with rel ugnance even




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          321
though we have no antecedent reason to suspect servility. Othello is certainly not wanting in manly spirit,
yet we should despise and almost detest him if he for.gave Iago. But this, again, does not prove that forgiveness itself is in any circumstances shocking to us.
What it proves is that circumstances may be imagined
of injury so extreme and malignant that the difficulty
of forgiveness becomes incalculable, and that any other
wray of accounting for the injured man's abstinence
from revenge, however improbable and almost impossible in itself, becomes easier to conceive than that
he could be capable of sincere forgiveness. But every
virtue, and not forgiveness only, becomes in certain
cases impossible to human infirmity. Every virtue in
the extreme limit becomes confounded with some vice,
and the only peculiarity in the case of this virtue is
that the vice which counterfeits it is peculiarly contemptible.
To sum up: the forgiveness of injuries, which was
regarded in the ancient world as a virtue indeed but
an almost impossible one, appears to the moderns in
ordinary cases a plain duty; and whereas the ancients
regarded with admiration the man who practised it,
the moderns regard with dislike the man who does
not. Where the injury forgiven is extreme the moderns regard the man who forgives as the ancients
regarded the man who forgave an ordinary injury,
that is, with extreme admiration,, provided they are
convinced of the genuineness of the forgiveness. On
the whole, therefore, it appears that a new virtue has
been introduced into human life. Not only has it
14*




322                ECCE HOMO.
been inculcated, but it has passed so completely into
the number of recognized and indispensable virtues,
that every one in some degree practises it, and that by
not practising it men incur odium and loss of character. To the other great changes wrought in men's
minds by Christ this is now to be added, the most
signal and beneficent, if not the greatest, of all. It is
here especially that Christianity coincides with civilization. Revenge is the badge of barbarism; civil
society imposes conditions and limitations upon it,
demands that not more than an eye shall be exacted
for an eye, not more than a tooth for a tooth, then
takes revenge out of the hand of the injured party and
gives it to authorized public avengers, called kings or
judges. A gentler spirit springs up, and the perpetual
bandying of insult and wrong, the web * of murderous feuds at which the barbarian sits all his life
weaving and which he bequeaths to his children,
gives place to more tranquil pursuits. Revenge begins to be only one out of many occupations of life,
not its main business. In this stage it becomes for
the first time conceivable that there may be a certain
dignity and beauty in refraining from revenge. So
far could ordinary influences advance men. They
were carried forward another long stage by a sudden
divine impulse followed by a powerful word. Not
the Enthusiasm of Humanity alone, not the great
sentences of the Sermon on the Mount alone, but both
*.... ony' Wt5*V avaoaoaYV, ofacV apa ZMOs
cK  vedrt7ros EOMe Kat Ecl; ypas roAvlreetr
4pya~Aovs 7roAiwovs.5




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          323
together, the creative meeting of the Spirit and the
Word, brought to life the new virtue of forgiveness.
To paraphrase the* ancient Hebrew language, the
Sphit of Christ brooded upon the face of the waters,
and Christ said, Let there be forgiveness and there
was forgiveness,




324
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE JAW  OF FORGIVENESS —Contfinued.
UT up to this point in considering Christ's princi.
ple of forgiveness we have disregarded entirely
the words in which he proclaims it. That we should
be prepared to forgive all injuries upon condition of
repentance is involved in those words, but they contain
much more. It has been remarked that the two texts
which refer to the subject of injuries coincide to this
extent, but that from this point they differ irreconcilably. Having considered that in which they agree, it
is time for us to discuss that in which they differ.
The one text commands the Christian, if a brother
trespass against him, to rebuke the offender. The
other gives a directly contrary precept,'If a man
smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other
also.' This apparent contradiction will be removed
if it can be shown that Christ was not contemplating
the same class of injurers in the two cases. Now, if
we examine the first passage, we immediately discover
that the injurer referred to is a Christian. In the first
place, he is called a brother, which we know to have
been the term adopted by the first Christians in speaking of each other. In the second place, the text goes
an to direct that if the- offender do not listen to the
rebuke, thle matter be brought before the Church, and




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.            325
that if he continue contumacious he be treated for the
future as a heathen, in which it is of course ilnplied
that at the beginning he had been a Christian. So
much then being certain, it is natural to conclude that
the other text which gives a different direction refers
to injuries received from heathens. Let us examine
whether this conjecture is confirmed by the exprecs
sions used in the passage itself.
That passage (Matt. v. 38-48) divides itself into tvo
parts - one which tells us what feelings we ought wo
entertain towards those who injure us, the other which
tells us what we ought to do to them. Now in the
first part * there is nothing which, after what has been
said above, requires any explanation. It forbids us to
hate the injurer. It directs us to continue well-disposed to him and to follow the example of Almighty
God, who does not at once interdict the sinner aqua et
igni and leave him to perish, but continues to him an'
to the land he tills the blessings of sunlight and rain.
As a matter of course, Christianity must speak in this
strain. The Christian is a man not indifferent to his
fellow-men, but regarding them as such with an enthusiastic kindliness. If he were indifferent to them
originally, his feelings towards each individual would
be determined entirely by the behavior of the individual to him. He would love those who benefited him
and hate those who did him hurt. But as he starts
from love, it is not to be supposed that injury would
excite hatred in him. It might inde.d diminish his
love, but Christ expresses the intense and ideal char* Which, however; stands second in St. Matthew (v. 43-48).




326               ECCE HOMO.
acter of the love he enjoins and inspires by declai ing
that it must not have even this efect.
But because we are not to hate an enemy, it does
not immediately follow that we are not to take vengeance upon him. The infliction of pain and damage
is quite consistent with love, as we all acknowledge in
the instance of a parent punishing a child. In fact, if
Christ had said no more than this we should rathler
have gathered that he approved of the requital of injuries. For he bids us imitate Almighty God, who
though He does not withdraw from sinners the rain
and sunlight, yet most assuredly, as Christ heldc pun-'
ishes them. If we are to imitate Him in our treatment
of injuries, then we ought to remember not only that
His tender mercies are over all His works, but also
that' God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the
Lord revengeth and is furious.'
So far, then, this passage is in no way inconsistent
with that other in which we are directed to rebuke
one who wrongs us, nor is there anything in it which
strongly suggests that Christ was thinking of one particular class of offenders more than another. The rule
that we are to love those who injure us is no doubt absolutely universal, whatever course of action we adopt
in reference to the injury. But when the same passage tells us how we are to act -when it directs us
to endure the most outrageous insults without a mui
mur of complaint or expostulation, to offer the left
cheek to him who smites us on the right, to offer the
cloak to him who takes away the coat —is this rule
equally universal, or is there anything to indicate that
the oppressor is to be understood to be a heathen?




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          327
It may seem impossible to limit one part of the passage without at the same time limiting the other. But
if Christ's thoughts were intent upon the question in
what way his followers were to conduct themselves
towards the heathen world in the midst of which they
lived, so that the other question, how they were to
conduct themselves towards each other, did not at the
time occur to his mind, nothing is more natural than
that he should in the same breath have delivered rules
applicable only to the case in hand and other rules
equally applicable to it, but applicable to other cases as
well. Now if we read the first chapter of the Sermon
on the Mount connectedly, we shall see that he actually
was occupied with this question, and that, though
heathen are not expressly mentioned, the Christian is
always supposed to be dealing with them. Christ, in
short, has given here a manual of the behavior he requires from his followers towards those who are not his
followers. For example, they are to consider themselves happy when men (i. e. heatlSen men) revile and
persecute them. They are to consider themselves as
lights in the world, that is, as illuminating the darkness
of zeathenism; they are to be the salt of the earth, that
is, their Christian enthusiasm is to give a tone to the
languid and lifeless heathlen society. And in the passage itself with which we are dealing, it is sufficiently
apparent that the injuries supposed are not those to
which in the intercourse of life every one alike is
liable; the blow on the cheek, the spiteful treatment,
the persecution, point to the insults and cruelties
which a hated and despised sect had to expect from
the outer world.




328                ECCE HIOMO.
Add to this the word enemy. It may not strike us
at first in reading the passage that this cannot possibly
apply to a fellow-Christian. That there are enmities
and hatreds between Christians is to us a familiar
fact; we find nothing very strange in the thought of
one Christian striking another on the cheek. But we
must be careful not to antedate this sad knowledge.
It is inconceivable that in the very act of founding a
society of brothers sworn to mutual love, in the very
freshness of Christian feeling, Christ should- have
supposed the existence of savage enmities in the very
bosom of the Church, and should have commanded
them to be tolerated. Such gloomy foresight is not
characteristic of the Sermon on the Mount. On the
contrary, there breathes through it more of that ardor
which realizes a distant ideal, and overlooks intermediate difficulties, than appears in any other discourse of Christ. It is the first, the simplest, the
largest utterance of the new Law, the most inspired
expression of the civilization of the modern world, the
fundamental document of ripe morality. It inaugurated
a golden age of reconciliation and union. It is the
earliest and softest note of that heavenly Dove which
has built its nest among men, and which, though often
scared away for a time, has still returned. True indeed it is, that the actual reconciliation of mankind
was further off than might at that time have seemed.
True that Christ on other occasions recognized this
with a strange sagacity and certainty. Still, nothing
is so incredible as that he should have countenanced
or tolerated in thought so complete an obliteration of
the distinction between the Church and the surround



THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.           329
ing world as might make it possible to apply to the
same person the terms'enemy' and'fellow-Christian.'
If, then, we take it for proved that the directions
contained in this passage refer only to the case of injuries inflicted by heathens, we arrive at this remarkable conclusion, that Christ held such injuries to stand
on a materially different footing from those committed
by Christians. We have seen that in all cases what.
ever he commanded his followers to be ready to forgive on condition of repentance. But he commands
them, when dealing with a brother Christian, firmly
to exact that repentance, not to pass the injury by, not
even to rest content with a rebuke, unless the rebuke
accomplish its purpose, but to bring the matter before
the Church and prosecute it until the offender make
submission. On the other hand, when they are dealing with a heathen, they are to bear themselves quite
differently. They are to compose themselves to an
absolute passive tolerance, and to bear in silence whatever may be inflicted. And this is no mere political
contrivance for carrying a helpless sect through times
of persecution. Christians are not to tolerate injuries
simply because, in the presence of superior force,
nothing would be gained by resenting them. Their
tolerance is not to be reluctant or sullen, nor is it to
be a stoical indifference. They are to think of their
oppressors with positive good-will; they are to requite
curses not with silence, much less with silent ccin
tempt, but with blessings, and malice not with indif.
ference but with acts of kindness. Now what is the
gro mnd of this distinction? What so great difference




330               ECCE HOMO.
is there between the Christian and the heathen that
they should be treated so differently? Several times
in this treatise we have had occasion to mark the
essential difference between a Christian and a heathen.
We have found it to depend upon that universal relation of every man to every other man beyond the
special relation of kindred which Christians recognize
and heathens do not. It is on this universal relation
of human beings to each other that the Church is
founded. And it must be understood that they cotceived this relation to be antecedent to the foundation
of the Church and altogether independent of it. Christians did not regard each other as brothers because
they were alike members of the Church, but they became members of the Church because they regarded
each other as brothers. Therefore they cherished the
same feeling towards those who were not members of
the Church and who did not reciprocate the feeling.
On the other hand, the heathen, as such, recognized
only special obligations towards particular classes of
men, his relations or fellow-citizens. If he recognized
any wider obligations, they were formal obligations
created by positive legal enactment and resting, in
his view, on no essential justice.  In the heathen
theory the relation of men towards each other, where
no tie of nature or of treaty had bound them together,
was that of enemies. They were rival claimants of
the earth's wealth; their interests were supposed to be
conflicting; and therefore their natural condition was
hostility.
This being so, an injury committed by a heathen
must have been essentially different from an injury




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          33i
committed by a Christian. Both alike were violations
of obligation, but the latter was a conscious, the former an unconscious violation. They differed as much
as homicide committed in war upon an enemy differs
from honmicide committed in peace upon a fellowcitizen. The heathen injured one whom he conceived to be his enemy by a law of nature and to be
prepared at any moment to perpetrate a similar injury
upor. himself. But an injury committed by a Chris.
tian vras like one of those breaches of the right of
hospitality or of the right of a suppliant from which
even barbarians shrank; it was the violation of a
solemn compact. It was reasonable, therefore, that
the two classes of injuries should be dealt with in a
very different way. The injurious Christian was a
proper subject of resentment. But it was unreasonable to be angry with the injurious heathen. Anger,
where it is healthy and justifiable, is the feeling excited in us by wrong, by laws broken, covenants disregarded. The heathen as such broke no law and
disregarded no covenant, for he knew of none. He
might be noxious and mischievous, but he could not,
in the strict sense of the word, be injurious. It might
be most necessary to inform him of the obligation he
neglected, but it was impossible to be angry with him
for neglecting it.
This description of the heathen would be justly
charged with exaggeration if it professed to describe
the ordinary or average heathen. But what it professes to describe is the ideal heathen, or the heathen
as he would have been had he lived consistently with
his theory. Doubtless this is as much an abstraction




332                ECCE HOMO.
as a mathematical point or line. No person perfectly
heathen probably ever existed. The individual heathen
excelled his own moral system as much as the individual
Christian falls short of his. Natural kindness was in
every one a kind of substitute for Christianity.'still it
is not easy to overestimate the hardening effect of an
antisocial theory of life which, besides seconding all
selfish instincts, did not appear to those who held it
a theory but a truth too obvious, too universally held,
consecrated too much by usage, to admit of being
questioned. We may imagine the almost irresistible
force of this universal prejudice upon minds which
had never heard it called in question, if we remark
the difficulty which most men feel at the present day
in viewing otherwise than as the wildest of paradoxes the proposition that the happiness of the brute
creation deserves a moment's consideration when compared with the convenience or profit of human beings.
If a similar insensibility to hzuman sufferings compared
with personal convenience reigned with equal dominion in the minds of the ancients, if their virtues extended no farther than the family and the state, if they'loved their brethren only,' it was quite reasonable
that the Christians should take account of the fact in
their dealings with them, and instead of rebuking them
for a hardness which violated no principle which they
acknowledged, should endeavor to teach them better
by forbearance and by unexpected retaliations of kindness.
It will be worth while here to raise the question, If
injuries committed by heathens were thus sharply dis..
tinguished from injuries committed by Christians, how




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          333
would it be proper for a Christian to deal with an
injury received from a Jew? Judaism stands midway
between heathenism and Christianity. It rose out of
heathenism as twilight out of night, and melted into
Christianity as twilight into morning. In its earlier
period it had many peculiarities in common with
heathenism, but its later form closely resembled Christianity. It did not, indeed, clearly announce the great
Cl:X:;stian law of humanity, and it had points which
led those who embraced it in a perverse spirit into
an inhumanity almost worse, though less brutal, than
the inhumanity of heathenism. But it contained the
germs of the Christian humanity in its doctrine of
the unity of God and of the creation of man in God's
image. It would therefore have been unreasonable
for a Christian to treat a Jew as one utterly untaught
in humanity. The Jew was the possessor of a certain
crude Christianity, and even if he had not been, yet an
injury done by him to a Christian would generally be
the trespass of a brother and not the attack of an
enemy, since, though the Jews were not Christians,
the earliest Christians, at any rate, were for the most
part Jews.
Christians could claim at the hands of Jews the
~ights of countrymen and the rights of fellow-citizenship in the ancient theocracy. Abraham and Moses
belonged to both, the Psalms of David and the prophecies of Isaiah. An injury done by a Jew was therefore a thing to be resented by a Christian,.rnd not a
thing to be passively tolerated. This being understood. it is instructive to observe how exactly Christ,
when he became the object of insult and injury, ob.




334               BCCE HOMO.
served his own law. In his murder both Jews and
Romans were concerned. It has been pointed out in
a former chapter, in how different a spirit he bore the
cruelties of his accusers and those of his executioners.
Towards the Jews he cherishes throughout a bitter
feeling of resentment, which breaks out before the
high-priest into threatening words. But before Pilate
he bears himself gently; he exhibits no sign of anger,
and declares his Roman judge to be comparatively
guiltless of his unjust condemnation. He prays that
his Roman executioners may be forgiven, although
they did not merely obey orders but heaped wanton
insults upon him; and his reason is,' they know not
what they do.' This litter of Roman wolves, to whom
and to whose ancestors no prophet had ever preached,
whose only morality in dealing with foreigners was to
subdue and crush them, what wonder if they revelled
in brutal insult of a Jew who had called himself a
king? The burning anger he had felt before Caiaphas
subsided at once in the presence of Roman brutality.
He rebuked the brother t at trespassed against him,
but when the enemy smote him on the one cheek he
turned to him the other.
Another point now requires notice. By Christ's
law the Christian is commanded in some cases of injury to go without redress altogether, in others to
apply for it to the Christian assembly. But the Christian assembly had no power of compulsion, and therefore if the offender proved contumacious, redress was
denied to the injured man in this case also. It appears, then, that in no case whatever does Christ countenance any appeal to the seculai courts  Are we




THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.          335
then to suppose that all that machinery for checking
and punishing crime, which has been established in
every human society alike, is rejected and repudiated
by Christ? Since he forbade his followers to avail
themselves of this machinery, are we to suppose that
he disapproved of it, and that he intended, when society should be remodelled in accordance with his
morality, that it should be abolished, and that inen
should depend in future for their protection against
violence upon the power of forgiveness to charm away
the lawlessness of the robber and the plunderer?
It is certainly evident that if Christ's law were universally practised in a Christian land the administration
of justice would be suspended. Where all alike contented themselves with first rebuking and in case of
contumacy renouncing the society of those who injured them, there would be no trials, for there would
be no prosecutions. Government would be obliged to
abdicate its function of maintaining tranquillity and
good order in the kingdom. Is this, then, what Christ
intended, and did he believe that the influence of the
Enthusiasm of Humanity would be such as to render
law and police superfluous? Of Christ's views on
civil government we know very little. Still it is not
conceivable that he should have rejected altogether the
notion of punishment, since we see that in describing,
the Divine government he introduces it freely. In various parables he has represented himself as a ruler, and
his conception of the functions of a ruler appears not
to differ from that commonly received. It most distit'ctly includes criminal jurisdiction and punishment.
We may be sure that one who habitually considered




336                ECCE HOMO.
governors as charged with the duty of inflicting punishment, cannot have considered it the duty of subjects
to prevent punishment from being inflicted.
It is in the circumstances of the Church at its foundation that we shall find the explanation of the difficulty. Christ forbids his followers to appeal to the
secular courts, not because he disapproved of criminal
law in the abstract, but for the same reason for which
he systematically passed over everything relating to
politics and government. It was because the Church
was established in the midst of a heathen society which
it was in no way to countenance and yet in no way to
resist. Of this society the Church was in one sense a
mortal enemy; that is, she did not acknowledge its
right to exist, and she looked forward to a time when
it should be reconstructed on the basis of an acknowledgment of Christ and of the law of Humanity. On
the other hand, it was Christ's fixed resolution to enter
into no contest with the civil power. Therefore he
enjoins upon his followers an absolutely passive behavior towards it, and in every rule that he lays down,
while he recognizes the fact that the Church itself has
no power of compulsion, he makes no use whatever
of that power residing in the state.
It appears, then, that the law we have been considering was dictated by special circumstances. It
was given to men who had practically no country.
The paramount duty to humanity had for a time suspended their obligations to the government under
which they lived. Or rather they were men who,
while bearing all the burdens laid upon them by the
government, declined for special reasons all the advan



THE LAW OF FORGIVENESS.            337
tages they might have derived from government. It
was for a society thus deprived by circumstances of all
political interests that Christ legislated, for a society
which was directed to act as good citizens do under a
usurping but still a settled government, —that is, to
become political quietists, disturbing as little as possible the public tranquillity, but at the same time countenancing as little as possible the unrighteous power.
Accordingly, in laying down a law for the treatment
of injuries, Christ entirely disregards the political bearings of the question. He considers no interests but
those of the parties immediately concerned. To raise
the question whether his law of abstinence from prosecution is consistent with social order is therefore to
misunderstand it. Owing to special circumstances
this element was eliminated from the problem. Like
the First Law  of Motion, this law  postulates the
absence of external forces. What it affirms is that,
supposing a wrong committed in redressing which
only the injured party is interested, he should endeavor
to bring the offender to submission by patience if it be
an offence of ignorance, by rebuke if he knew better,
but in no case by force.
The special circumstances have long passed away,
and it is now impossible to eliminate from the problem
all that bears upon public order. Society, and not
the injured party only, has now to be considered in the
treatment of an injury. Christ's law therefore ceases
in many cases to be serviceable as a rule of life. But
if this were so in all cases, it would not therefore lose!ts value. The First Law of Motion is still the foundation of mechanics, although no body in the universe
I5




338               ECCE HOMO.
was ever actually in the condition that law supposes.
Christ's law may be no longer an invariable law for
action, but it is an invariable law for feeling and for
motive. Instead of abstaining from prosecution it may
now be a positive duty to prosecute, but it must no
longer be a pleasure to prosecute. The prosecution
that duty dictates is externally the same act as the prosecution prompted by selfish revenge, but essentially it
is a totally different act. That this essential difference
is now clear, and that it is applicable to practice, is one
abiding effect of Christ's law. Nor is prosecution inconsistent with kindness. Punishments may once more,
since the Church became reconciled to the State, have
become Christian acts and may have their use, and discharge in some cases the same functions that Christ
intended to be discharged by passive tolerance. The
sense of a rule higher than self-interest may be roused
sometimes by severity, sometimes by unexpected gentleness, sometimes by the mixture of both. But though
the prohibition of severity must now be considered as
taken off, yet the emphatic recommendation of gentleness remains. It remains a duty in all cases where
such a course is likely to succeed to endeavor by every
act of kindness consistent with duty to the public to
point out to the rude and heathenish heart'the more
excellent way of charity.'




339
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONCLU SION.
TIHE outline of Christian morality is now completely drawn, and it only.remains to take a
parting glance at the picture from some point where
we can see it all in one view.
Let us endeavor, then, once more to' answer the
question, What is the Christian Church?
First, it is a commonwealth. In other words, it is a
society of men who meet together for common objects,
and it differs from the minor clubs or unions under
which men avail themselves of the principle of association, and resembles those greater societies which we
call states, in this respect that it claims unlimited selfsacrifice on the part of its members, and demands that
the interest and safety of the whole shall be set by each
rr.ember above his own interest and above all private
interests whatever.
Secondly, as all commonwealths are originally based
upon some common quality, and for the most part on
a blood-relationship, real or supposed, of the members, so is the Christian Church based upon a bloodlrelationship, but the most comprehensive of all, the
kindred of every human being to every other.
It is therefore absolutely open to all human beings
who choose to become members of it.




340               ECCE HOMO.
But the objects for which this commonwealth exists
are much less obvious and intelligible than those for
which the local commonwealths of the earth exist.
Accofdingly it is demanded of every member of the
Ch:istian Commonwealth that he be introduced into it
with a prescribed form and in a public manner, that
he be instructed in the objects for which it exists, and
that he test:fy his membership from time to time by a
conlrmon meal taken in conjunction with other members also according to a prescribed form.
The effect of this system and of the absence of local
boundaries is that the objects of the Christian Commonwealth, though less obvious, are far better defined than
those of other commonwealths, and that it approaches
far nearer to the theoretical perfection of a state.
Other states are but accidental aggregates, whose attraction of cohesion was originally a clannish instinct
or a common terror of some near enemy or the external pressure of physical barriers; such states, though
when once formed they may conveniently be used for
definite objects, yet cannot properly be said to have
any definite object at all. But the Christian Comnronwealth has the same object now which it had at the
beginning, and what that object is it is and always has
been easy to discover.
Tile Christian has, as such, a definite relation to
every other human being, to every Christian as a fellowcitizen, and to every person who is not Christian as
possessing that humanity which is the ground of
Christianity.
In ordinary states there arisc:s out of the union, the
relationships, the intercourse, the common interests of




CONCLUSION.                341
the citizens, a sense of duties towards each other and
of justice. This sense expresses itself in laws, which,
at first few and but half-just, have a reacting effect
upon the sense of justice which produced them,
developing it and causing it gradually to produce
more and juster laws. By this system of laws the
citizens are taught to abstain from doing serious inju.
ries to each other, and a spirit of sympathy is fostered
which disposes them to help each other in difficulties.
The morality which thus springs up does not at the
beginning influence the citizens in their dealings with
foreigners, but is supposed to be inseparable from the
civic relation. In a time of general intercourse be.
tween nations the obligations of justice become in a
certain degree recognized even between foreigners,
but grudgingly, and active sympathy between them
scarcely exists at all.
A similar process goes forward in the Christian
Commonwealth, and, as it includes all mankind, the
sense of duty which springs up in it is a sense of duty
to man as man, and whatever kindness it fosters is
also not exclusive but truly cosmopolitan or humane.
In the Christian Commonwealth also the sense of
duty gives birth to laws; and whatever laws are common to all secular states are transferred to it, while
some new ones are suggested by its peculiar conditions.
But whereas in other states the greatest importance is
attached to these laws and the greatest trouble taken to
make them as just, as numerous, and as exact as possible, in the Christian Commonwealth a different view
is taken. The laws themselves are not considered as
very important; no pains are bestowed upon forming




34 2               ECCE HOMO.
them precisely; and they exist rather as rules gen.
erally understood in the minds of -the citizens than
as written statutes. On the other hand, that sense of
obligation in which all laws have their origin is regarded as inexpressibly important. Every expedient is
used to increase the keenness of this sense to such a
point that it shall instantly and instinctively suggest
the proper course of action in any given case.
This increased and intense moral sensitiveness has
an effect upon the objective morality of the Christian
Commonwealth, and it also gives a peculiar tone to
the character of individual Christians. Its effect upon
objective morality is to create a number of new duties
which the duller moral sense of secular states does not
apprehend. These new duties, as has been said, are
not carefully formulated, but they are apprehended
very plainly and universally recognized. Of these
new duties some do not differ in kind from those which
secular morality prescribes. They are but new applications of principles which under other systems are
admitted but applied imperfectly. But besides these
a whole class of new duties arise in the Christian
Commonwealth which are different in kind from those
acknowledged in secular commonwealths. These are
positive or active duties — duties, that is, not of refraining from injuries but of promoting actively the
welfare of others. In secular states, though men had
frequently appeared who had performed these duties,
they had not performed them as duties but rather as
works of supererogation, and for performing them
they had received from their fellow-citizens not simple
approbation but such- admiration as ywe bestow on




CONCLUSION.                 343
those who do something extraordinary. These extraordinary services to humanity become ordinary and
imperative in the Christian Commonwealth. They
fall naturally into two classes - services to the bodies
of men and services to their characters and moral
development; and to perform either class of duties
well, truly to serve men's bodies or their souls, requires
the most assiduous study, calls for comprehensi se
klnowledge and perpetual earnest endeavor.
But the fact that in the Christian Commonwealth so
much importance is attached to a strong moral sense,
the fact that this is used as a substitute for strict laws,
modifies individual character even more than objective
morality. As this moral sense is expected to discover
the right course of action in any given case without
the help of a law, so, vice versa, it is not considered
satisfactory that the right act should be done, unless
the moral sense be active in dictating it. Merely for
the purpose of discovering the right act the moral
sense would often be unnecessary; in most cases the
right act is determined for us by the customs of society,
or by our own previous experience of similar cases.
But the rule of the Christian Commonwealth is, that
though the feeling be not necessary to discover the
right act, yet the act must always be accompanied by
the feeling. Therefore to perform an act of kindness
coldly, an act of self-denial reluctantly, an act of forgiveness with suppressed ill-will, or any right' act
whatever from interested motives, whether to escape
p1unishment or to win applause, or mechanically from
a babic of following fixed maxims, or from any other
motive except the moral sense, is to break the funda




344               ECCE HOMO.
mental lanv of the Christian Commonwealth. The
Christian therefore must, it appears, cherish a peculiar
temperament, such that every combination of circumstances involving moral considerations may instantaneously affect him in a peculiar way and excite peculiar feelings in him. He must not arrive at the right
practical conclusion after a calculation or a struggle,
but by an instantaneous impulse. Rightly to appreciate what the circumstances are may indeed cost him
thought and study, but when once the position is made
clear to his mind, the moral sense should speak as
promptly as the note sounds when the string of a
musical instrument is struck.
This moral sensitiveness, this absolute harmony of
inward desire with outward obligation, was called by
Christ and his Apostles by a name of which zoliness is
the recognized English equivalent, and it is attributed
to the presence of a Divine Spirit within the soul. It
is the absolute and ultimate test of true membership
in the Christian Commonwealth. He who has it not
cannot be a true member whatever he may have, and
he who has it is a member whatever he may lack.
But how is this moral sensitiveness produced? It is
the effect of a single ardent feeling excited in the soul.
A single conception enthusiastically grasped is found
powerful enough to destroy the very root of all immorality within the heart. As every enthusiasm that a
man can conceive makes a certain class of sins impossible to him, and raises him not only above the commission of them, but beyond the very temptation to
commit them, so there exists an enthusiasm which
makes all sin whatever impossible. This enthusiasm




CONCLUSION.                345
Is emphatically thile presence of the Holy Spirit. It is
called here the Enthusiasm of Humanity, because it is
that respect for human beings which no one altogether
wants ra;ted to the point of enthusiasm. Being a
reverence for human beings as such, and not for the
good qualities they may exhibit, it embraces the bad
as well as the good, and as it contemplates human
beings in their ideal - that is, in what they might be
-- it desires not the apparent, but the real and highest
welfare of each; lastly, it includes the person himself
who feels it, and, loving self too only in the ideal,
differs as much as possible from  selfishness, being
associated with self-respect, humility, and independence, as selfishness is allied with self-contempt, with
arrogance, and with vanity.
Once more, how is this enthusiasm kindled?  All
virtues perpetuate themselves in a manner. When
the pattern is once given it will be printed in a thousand copies. This enthusiasm, then, was shown to
men in its most consummate form in Jesus Christ.
From him it flows as from a fountain. How it was
kindled in him who knows?' The abysmal deeps of
personality' hide this secret. It was the will of God
to beget no second son like him. But since Christ
showed it to men, it has been found possible for them
to imitate it, and every new imitation, by bringing
the marvel visibly before us, revives the power of
the original. As a matter of fact the Enthusiasm is
kindled constantly in new hearts, and though in few
it burns brightly, yet perhaps there are not very many
inl which it altogether goes out. At least the conception of morality which Christ gave has now becone
15 *




346                ECCE HOMO.
the universal one, and no man is thought good who
does not in some measure satisfy it.
Living examples are, as a general rule, more potent
than those of which we read in books. And it is true
that the sight of very humble degrees of Christian
humanity in action will do more to kindle the Enthusiasm, in most cases, than reading the most impressive
scenes in the life of Christ. It cannot, therefore, be
said that Christ is the direct source of all humanity.
It is handed on like the torch from runner to runner
in the race of lite. Still it not only existed in Christ
in a preeminent degree, but the circumstances of his
life and death gave him preeminent opportunities of
displaying it. The story of his life will always remain the one record in which the moral perfection
of man stands revealed in its root and its unity, the
hidden spring made palpably manifest by which the
whole machine is moved. And as, in the will of
God, this unique man was elected to a unique sorrow,
and holds as undisputed a sovereignty in suffering as
in self-devotion, all lesser examples and lives will forever hold a subordinate place, and serve chiefly to reflect light on the central and original Example. In
his wounds all human sorrows will hide themselves,
and all human self-denials support themselves against
his cross. - But we are travelling into questions which
we are not yet in a condition to discuss.
Ollr subject has hitherto been Christian mcrality.
We have considered the scheme by which Christ
united men together, cured them of their natural antipathy, cured them of their selfishness. But man has
other enemies beside himself, and has need of pro.




CONCLUSION.                347
tections and supports which morality cannot give. He
is at enmity with Nature as well as with his brotherman. He is beset by two great enemies with whom
he knlows not how to cope. The first is Physical
Evil; the second is Death. The harm which is done
to us by our fellow-men we can at least understand.
We understand either that they are angry with us for
some reason, or that they have personal objects to
gratify which involve suffering to us. What we can
understand we can sometimes guard against, we can
generally foresee. Bat when the forces of Nature
become hostile to us, we know neither why it is so,
nor what to do. Most of these enemies attack us
capriciously, but one of them is certain to attack
us sooner or later, and certain to prevail. He may
not be the worst among them; he may not be an
enemy at all; but he is more dreaded than any,
because he is more mysterious. And though we
know little of Death, we cannot help thinking it a
comfortless torpor, that deprives the hero of his heroism, the face of its smile, the eye of its expression,
that first strikes the human form with a dull, unsocial
stiffness, and then peels the beauty from it like a rind
and exposes the skeleton. In different degrees men
learn and always have learnt to overcome this terror,
and to meet death with contentment, and even in some
cases with joy. But death remains the fatal bar to
all complete satisfaction, the disturber of all great
plans, the Nemesis of all great happiness, the standing
dire discouragement of human nature.
What comfort Christ gave men under these evils,
how he reconciled them to nature as well as to each




348               ECCE HOMO.
other by offering to them new views of the Power by
which the world is governed, by his own triumph
over death, and by his revelation of eternity, will be
the subject of another treatise.
In closing the subject for the present, let us reflect
for a moment upon the magnitude of the work which
Christ accomplished, and the nature of which we
have been investigating. We may consider it in two
very different aspects. It was, in the first place, a
work of speculation, which we may compare with the
endeavors of several ancient philosophers to picture
to themselves a commonwealth founded on juster and
clearer principles than the states they saw around
them. Plato made such an attempt, and a later philosopher was on the point of realizing his conception
in an actual, palpable, Platonopolis. The Kingdom
of God, the New Jerusalem, which Christ founded,
was similar to this speculative state. He seized upon
the substantial principles which lie at the foundation of every civil society, and without waiting foi
favorable circumstances or for permission of kings.
and not only dispensing with but utterly repudiating a
local habitation, he conceived a commonwealth developed, as it were, from within. It was one of those
daring imaginations, in which, as a general rule, we
allow philosophers to indulge in their studies, not
because we imagine for a moment that they can ever
be realized, but because they are useful educational
exercises for youth, and because in filling up the
paper design suggestions may be thrown out which a
practical man may be able gradually to work into the
constitution of some existing state. ro make any




CONCLUSION.               349
more practical use of such schemes almost all the
practical statesmen that ever lived would at once pronounce'impossible. They know better, of course,
than all other men, with how little wisdom the world
is governed. They regard the whole framework of
all institutions as determined by the plain, universal,
animal, propensities of men and the irresistible constraint of external conditions. They believe that for
the most part nothing can be done by the wisdomn
of individuals but to watch the operation of these
causes, to take advantage of each passion as it rises,
and sometimes to procure the adoption of a measure
which is solidly good, when it happens to be momentarily popular. But any comprehensive scheme,
appealing to first principles and at the same time demanding sacrifices from men, they consider in the
nature of things impracticable. Such, then, was
Christ's scheme, regarded as a speculation.
We do not compare Plato's Republic with the republics of Athens or Rome, because, however interesting the former may be on paper, it has never been
realized. It may be very perfect, but Athens and
Rome were more; they existed. But the speculative
commonwealth of Christ may be compared to the
commonwealths of the world as well as to those of
philosophers. For, however impossible it may seem,
this speculation of a commonwealth developedi from
first principles has been realized on a grand scale.
It stands in history among other states; it subsists in
the midst of other states, connected with them and yet
distinct. Though so refined and philosophic in its
constitution, it has not less vigor than the states which




350                ECCE HOMO.
are founded on the relations of family, or language, or
the convenience of self-defence and trade. Not less
-igor, and certainly far more vitality. It has already
long outlasted all the states which were existing at
the time of its foundation; it numbers far more citizens than any of the states which it has seen spring
up near it. It subsists without the help of costly
armaments; resting on no accidental aid or physical
support, but on an inherent immortality, it defied the
enmity of ancient civilization, the brutality of medireval barbarism, and under the present universal empire of public opinion, it is so secure that even those
parts of it seem indestructible which deserv1e to die.
It has added a new chapter to the science of politics;
it has passed through almost every change of form
which a state can know; it has been democratical,
aristocratical; it has even made some essays towards
constitutional monarchy; and it has furnished the
most majestic and scientific tyranny of which history
makes mention.
For the New Jerusalem, as we witness it, is no more
exempt from corruption than was the Old. That
early Christian poet who saw it descending in incorruptible purity' out of heaven from God,' saw, as poets
use, an ideal. He saw that which perhaps for a point
of time was almost realized, that which may be
realized again.  But what we see in history behind
us and in the world about us is, it must be confessed,
not like' a bride adorned for her husband.' We see
something that is admirable and much that is great
and wonderful, but not this splendor of maiden purity.
The bridal dress is worn out, and the orange flower is




CONCLUSION.                351
faded. First the rottenness of dying superstitions,
then barbaric manners, then intellectualism preferring
system and debate to brotherhood, strangling Christianity with theories and framing out of it a charlatan's philosophy which madly strives to stop the
progress of science - all these corruptions have in the
successive ages of its long life infected the Church, and
many new and monstrous perversions of individual
character have disgraced it. The creed which makes
human nature richer and larger, makes men at the
same time capable of profounder sins; admitted into
a holier sanctuary, they are exposed to the temptation
of a greater sacrilege; awakened to the sense of new
obligations, they sometimes lose their simple respect
for the old ones; saints that have resisted the subtlest
temptations sometimes begin again, as it were, by
yielding without a struggle to the coarsest; hypocrisy
has become tenfold more ingenious and better supplied with disguises; in short, human nature has
inevitably developed downwards as well as upwards,
and if the Christian ages be compared with those of
heathenism they are found worse as well as better,
and it is possible to make it a question whether mankind has gained on the whole.
To be sure, the question is a frivolous one. What
rood for the grown man to regret his childhood, and
to think his intelligence and experience a poor compenlsation for the careless happiness that accompanied
his childish ignorance?  It was by Nature's law that
he grew to manhood, and if infancy can be happy
without wisdom, a foolish and superstitious man cannot hope for the same happiness. Those who saw




352                ECCE HOMO.' old Proteus rising from the sea' may or may not have
been happier than we are; we, at any rate, should be
none the happier for seeing him. But the triumph
of the Christian Church is that it is there, - that the
nlost daring of all speculative dreams, instead of being
found impracticable, has been carried into effect, and,
vw hen carried into effect, instead of being confined to
a few select spirits, has spread itself over a vast space
of the earth's surface, and, when thus diffused instead
of giving place after an age or two to something nlore
adapted to a later time, has endured for two thousand
years, and, at the end of two thousand years, instead
of lingering as a mere wreck spared by the tolerance
of the lovers of the past, still displays vigor and a
capacity of adjusting itself to new conditions, and
lastly, in all the transformations it undergoes, remains
visibly the same thing and inspired by its Founder's
universal and unquenchable spirit.
It is in this and not in any freedom from abuses that
the divine power of Christianity appears. Again it is
in this, and not in any completeness or all-sufficiency.
It is a common mistake of Christians to represent their
faith as alone valuable and as, by itself, containing all
that man can want or can desire. But it is only one
of many revelations, and is very insufficient by itself
for man's happiness. Some of the men in whom the
Christian spirit has been strongest have been among
the most miserable of the race; some nations have imbibed it deeply and have not been led by it to hapFi.
ness and power, but have only been consoled by it it'
degradation. Happiness wants besides some physical
conditions, animal health and energy; it wants also




CONCLUSION.               353
much prudence, knowledge of physical facts, and
resource. To assist us in arranging the physical conditions of our well-being another mighty revelation has
been made to us, for the most part in these latter ages.
We live under the blessed light of science, a light yet
far from its meridian and dispersing every day some
noxious superstition, some cowardice of the human
spirit. These two revelations stand side by side. The
points in which they have been supposed to come into
collision do not belong to our present subject; they
concern the theology and not the morality of the
Christian Church. The moral revelation which we
have been considering has'never been supposed to jar
with science. Both are true and both are essential to
human happiness. It may be that since the methods
of science were reformed and its steady progress began, it has been less exposed to error and perversion
than Christianity, and, as it is peculiarly the treasure
belonging to the present age, it becomes us to guard it
with peculiar jealousy, to press its claims, and to treat
those who, content with Christianity, disregard science
as Christ treated the enemies of light,' those that took
away the keys of knowledge,' in his day. Assuredly
they are graceless zealots who quote Moses against the
expounders of a wisdom which Moses desired in vain,
because it was reserved for a far later generation, for
these modern men, to whom we may with accurate
truth apply Christ's words and say that the least among
them is greater than Moses. On the other hand, the
Christian morality; if somewhat less safe and exempt
from perversion than science, is more directly and vitally beneficial to mankind. The scientific life is less




354                ECCE HOMO.
noble than the Christian; it is better, so to speak, to
be a citizen in the New Jerusalem than in the New
Athens; it is better, surely, to find everywhere a
brother and friend, like the Christian, than, like the
philosopher, to'disregard your relative and friend so
completely as to be ignorant not only how he gets on,
but almost whether he is a human being or some other
sort of creature.' *
But the achievement of Christ, in founding by his
single will and power a structure so durable and so
universal, is like no other achievement which history
records. The masterpieces of the men of action are
coarse and common in comparison with it, and the
masterpieces of speculation flimsy and insubstantial.
When we speak of it the commonplaces of admiration
fail us altogether. Shall we speak of the originality
of the design, of the skill displayed in the execution?
All such terms are inadequate. Originality and contriving skill operated indeed, but, as it were, implicitly.
The creative;ffort which produced that against which,
it is said, the gates of hell shall not prevail, cannot be
analyzed. No architects' designs were furnished for
the New Jerusalem, no committee drew up rules for
the Universal Commonwealth. If in the works of
Nature we can trace the indications of calculation, of
a struggle with difficulties, of precaution, of ingenuity,
then in Christ's work it may be that the same indica.
tions occur. But these inferior and secondary powers
were not consciously exercised; they were implicitly
present in the manifold yet single creative act. The
inconceivable work was done in calmness; before the
* Plato, Theaet. p. 80.




CONCLUSION.              355
eyes of men it was noiselessly accomplished, attracting
little attention. Who can describe that which unites
men? Who has entered into the formation of speech
which is the symbol of their union? Who can describe exhaustively the origin of civil society? He who
can do these things can explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must be enough to say,'the Holy Ghost fell on those that believed.' No man
saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen
crowded together, the unfinished walls and unpaved
streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe; it descended out of heaven from God.




NOTES.
Note I. Page I7.
"Wonder-working pictures are generally but poor paintings."
Note 2. Page 46.
"For him no child
Upon his knees shall lisp a father's name,
Safe from the war and battle-field returned."
II. v. 408, Earl of Derby's Tr.
Note 3. Page 252.
"Then to the female slaves he gave command
To wash the body, and anoint with oil,
Apart, that Priam might not see his son;
Lest his grieved heart its passion unrestrained
Should utter, and Achilles, roused to wrath,
His suppliant slay, and Jove's command transgress."
Earl of Derby's Tr.
Note 4. Page 252.
"Then would I fain have slain him with the sword,
Had not some God my rising fury quelled,
And set before my mind the public voice,
The odium I shall have to bear'mid Greeks,
If branded with the name of parricide."
Ibid.
Note 5. Page 322.
"Not the chief of such a host
As ours, on whom, from youth to latest age,
Jove hath the gift bestowed, to bear the brunt
Of hardy war." - I. xiv. 85 - 87, Ibid.




PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY
TO
ECCE HOMO.
OBJECTIONS have been taken to the title of this book as not exactly
describing its purpose. Probably no short title that could have been
devised would have escaped the same objections. If the writer could
have conveyed his intention completely in his title, he might have
spared his preface.
He is surprised to find his kind and cordial critic in Macmillan's
Magazine quietly discussing the possibility that that preface may prove
to have been a fiction. He fully agrees with those who declare that
any such mystification on such a subject would be immoral.
One word he wishes to say about the charge of confident dogmatism
which is brought against him. Dogmatism is no doubt used by superiors to inferiors, but it is also used in conversation between people who
feel themselves perfectly equal. Expressions of modest deference,
confessions of fallibility and imperfect knowledge, are wearisome between equals. The writer addresses throughout free inquirers like himself, and uses the tone which he would like others to adopt towards
him. His book is not a book of authority, but of inquiry and suggestion; it is intended not to close discussion, but to open it. It asks
for consideration and, where it is wrong, for refutation. There may,
however, be some who complain with more reason of dogmatism.
There may be readers who belong to some school or sect with which
the writer has little sympathy, and whose favorite opinions and interpretations he has no doubt in many cases entirely overlooked.  Such
readers will naturally be offended when they find what they regard as.
obviously true treated as obviously false. But they ought to consider




iv               PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
that on such a subject as Christianity no one can write for all at once;
every writer must suppose that he will be read only by those who will
grant him some general postulates which are by no means self-evident
the reader who cannot grant these, ought to know that the book was
not intended for him. If it had been necessary to prove every point
which able and famous writers have denied, assuredly those for whom
Ecce Homo was written would never have had patience to read it, nor
indeed would the author have had patience to write it.
As this book contains no criticism of documents, some reviewers
have supposed that the author wrote without any criterion in his mind
by which to test the veracity of the narratives from which he drew
his conclusions, and that he simply assumed the truth of everything
which struck his fancy, or suited a preconceived theory. It may there.
fore be advisable to give here a short account of the method he pur.
sued.
He was concerned with four writers who, in nearness to the events
they record and probable means of acquiring information, belong to
the better class of historical witnesses, but whose veracity has been
strongly impeached by critics, both on the ground of internal discrepancies and of the intrinsic improbability of their story. Out of these
four writers he desired, not to extract a life of Christ, not to find out
all that can be known about him, but to form such a rudimentary conception of his general character and objects as it may be possible to
form while the vexed critical questions remain in abeyance. The detection of discrepancies in the documents establishes a certain degree
of independence in them, and thus gives weight to their agreements;
in particular, the wide divergence in tone and subject-matter of the
Fourth Gospel from the other three affords a strong presumption in
favor of all statements in which it coincides with them. The rudiment
of certainty which the writer sought, he accordingly expected to find
in the consent of all the witnesses. If the statements unanimously attested should prove numerous enough to afford any outline of Christ's
life, however meagre, he proposed to rest content with this.
The following propositions are deduced from St. Mark, and the references are to that Gospel:



PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.                         V!. Christ assumed a position of authority, different from that as.
sumed by ordinary teachers: i. 22.
2. He claimed to be the Messiah: viii. 29, 30; xii. 6; xiv. 62.
3. Under this title he claimed an inexpressible personal rank and
dignity: xii. 36, 37; xiii. 6, 7.
4. He claimed the right to revise and give a free interpretation to the
Mosaic Law: ii. 27; x. 4.
5. He claimed the power of forgiving sins: ii. Io.
6. He commanded a number of men to attach themselves to his person, ii. 14; x. 21; to the society thus formed he gave special rules of
life, x. 43, 44; made his name a bond of union among them, ix. 374I; and contemplated the continuance of the society under the same
conditions after his departure: xiii. I3.
7. He was believed by his followers to work miracles.
8. These.miracles were principally miracles of healing.
9. The society he founded was gathered, in the first instance, from
the Jews: vii. 27; but it was intended ultimately to embrace the Gen.
tiles also: xiii. Io.
Io. Though he assumed the character of King and Messiah, he declined to undertake the ordinary functions of kings: xii. I4.
Ii. lie required from his disciples personal devotion, and the adoption of his example as their rule of life: viii. 34, 35; x. 45.
12. He spoke of a Holy Spirit as inspiring himself: iii. 20-30;
and also as inspiring his followers: xiii. i I.
13. He spoke much of the importance of having good feelings as
well as good deeds: vii. 15-23: ix. 50.
I4. He demanded positive and, as it were, original acts of virtue
passing beyond the routine of obligation: x. 21.
15. He denounced vehemently those whose morality was of an outward, mechanical kind, and he named them hypocrites: vii. I - 13.
i6. By these denunciations, and by his claims to Messiahship, he
placed himself in deadly opposition to the Scribes and Pharisees: xii.
I7. He required from his followers a spirit of devotion to the welfare of their fellow-creatures: ix. 35; xii. 31; and he declared himself to be actuated by the same spirit: x. 45.




Vi               PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
i8. Accordingly he went much among sick people, healing them,
sometimes with strong signs of emotion: vii. 34.
I9. He enjoined upon his followers a similar philanthropy: x. 21,
44-5; vi. 13.
20. He occupied himself also with curing moral disease, and particularly in the outcasts of society: ii. i6, 17.
2I. He taught the forgiveness of injuries: xi. 25.
Now of these propositions, which have been deduced from St.
Mark, it is to be observed, in the first place, that they are equally
deducible, with scarcely the alteration of a word, from each of the
other three Gospels. The only exception to this is that the author
of the Fourth Gospel, who confines himself very much to generalities,
does not speak definitely of the forgiveness of injuries or of the duty
of relieving men's physical wants. On the other hand, he attests more
strongly than the other Evangelists the prominence which was given,
in Christ's moral teaching, to love. As forgiveness and philanthropy
are among the most obvious manifestations of love, we may certainly
say that St. John, too, though not expressly, yet implicitly, attests
that they were prescribed by Christ. In the next place, these propo.
sitions assert things about which the Evangelists were most unlikely to
be mistaken. For, first, they are not isolated incidents which, however generally received, might be traceable ultimately to a single witness. They refer to the habitual acts, to the customary words of
Christ. If Christ claimed to be Messiah once, he did so often; if he
denounced the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, he did so systematically.
Secondly, they are public and conspicuous acts and words which it
would be difficult to falsify in the lifetime and within the knowledge
of those who had been witnesses of them.
So far, therefore, these propositions are attested in the most com.
plete way. But one objection may be made to the evidence. It may
be said that it is exclusively Christian evidence, and, therefore, that it
may have been corrupted by Christian prejudices in two principal
points: Christ may have been simply a teacher, and the claim to Messiahship may have been an invention of his followers. Next, having
represented him as the Messiah, they may have felt it necessary to rep.
resent him - also contrary to the truth - as working miracles.




PR EFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.                       Vii
But, indeed, that Christ did himself claim Messiahshir cannot reasonably be doubted. His death is explicable on no other supposition.
On this point assuredly his enemies and his followers were agreed.
Nor can it be doubted, by the present writer at least, that he was be.
lieved in his lifetime, and not merely after his death, to work miracles.
All those circumstances which have been represented as suspicious, -
his unwillingness to perform miracles in certain cases, the contempt he
expressed for those whose faith depended exclusively upon them, -are
strong evidence that the miracles were at least no afterthoughts of the
b'iographers, for such circumstances were most unlikely to occur either
in legend or in falsification. The fact that Christ appeared as a worker
of miracles is the best attested fact in his whole biography, both by
the absolute unanimity of all the witnesses, by the confirmatory circumstances just mentioned, and by countless other special confirmations of circumstances not likely to be invented, striking sayings inseparably connected with them, &c., in particular cases.
If, then, Christ did claim to be Messiah and to work miracles, it
does not appear which of the above propositions Christian prejudice
would have any interest or tendency to pervert. We have in them a
perfectly consistent and, as it seems to the writer, an irrefragable outline of that part of Christ's life which is discussed in these pages. The
writer has adopted it as his framework, and has not attempted to add
to it anything fundamental, but has simply sought to find in the Gospels matter illustrative of it.
This illustrative matter which is drawn from particular Gospels rests,
of course, on inferior evidence. But evidence inferior to the best may
have very great probability, and there are certain obvious criteria by
which this probability may be estimated. In the case of teachings, or
maxims, the best criterion is their congruity with that general outline
of Christ's system in which all the Evangelists agree. If they explain
it and make it consistent, then, coming from witnesses not ill-furnished
with the means of acquiring true information, they will deserve to be
received. Their genuineness is often confirmed by other circumstances.
For example, the same thought in itself agreeable to Christ's character, sometimes appears over and over again, clothed in different forms,




Viii              PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
expressed in different figures of speech; or two doctrines cDonpliment.
ary to each other, - that is, such that the person who holds one
must logically hold the other also, - appear in different Gospels or in
different parts of the same Gospel; or something striking in the expression seems to bear the stamp of a remarkable mind. In this man.
ner there may be collected a considerable body of illustration both of
Christ's character and of the great Christian moral principle, the divine inspiration which makes virtue natural, active, tender, elevated,
resentful, forgiving. On the other hand, isolated maxims occurring
once only, and not readily connecting themselves with what is radical
in the system, are in this book generally passed over.
Similar criteria may, to a certain extent, be applied to Christ's acts
Acts which are evidently in character gain credibility, and this credibility is increased when there is about them something beyond the or.
dinary reach, or beside the purpose, of invention. The account of the
woman taken in adultery has scarcely any external authority. But it
seems to derive great probability from the fact that the conduct attributed to Christ in it is left half explained, so that, as it stands, it
does not satisfy the impulses which lead to the invention and reception
of fictitious stories.
The peculiar mannerism, if the expression may be used, of the
Fourth Gospel, has caused it to be suspected of being at least a freely
idealized portraiture of Christ. In this book, therefore, it is not referred to, except in confirmation of statements made in the other Gospels, and once or twice where its testimony seemed in itself probable
and free from the suspected peculiarities.
Resting then upon a basis of absolutely uniform testimony, upon
facts merely illustrated and explained by less certain tradition, the
writer has endeavored to describe a moralist speaking with authority
and perpetuating his doctrine by means of a society. It is this union
of morals and politics that he finds to be characteristic of Christianity.
But some of his readers, he has observed, fail to grasp the conception.
They insist (the objection is repeated from a private letter) that Christ,
as far as concerns morality, does not differ from Seneca, excelpt in the
matter of his teaching.  Seneca says, "You ought to do this," and




PIEFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.                     1s
Christ, howeier authoritative his style may be, can say no more. It
is part of the same objection, as will be shown further on, when they,maintain that those discoveries in morality, which have been attributed
to Christ in this book, are no discoveries at all, but were known to the
world already.
Let us look to the facts. Let us compare a disciple of Christ with
a Stoic and reader of Seneca. They existed side by side at the end
of the first century. Was their view of the obligations resting upon
them similar? It was totally different. The Stoic rules were without
sanctions.  If they were violated, what could be said to the offender?
All that could be said was, "NVempe hoc indocti," or " Chrysifispus non
dicet idem."  To which how easy to reply, " I esteem Chrysippus. but
on this point I differ from him!" To Christian lapsi it was said,
"You have renounced your baptism; you have denied your Master,
you are cut off from the Church: the Judge will condemn you."  Is
this distinction a verbal or a practical one?
Now it is maintained in this book that the distinction is not only
real but all-important, and that without a society, and an authority of
some kind, morality remains speculative and useless. Every man is
conscious that of the morality which he theoretically holds there is
one part which he always and easily practises, and another part which
he often neglects. He knows as well, theoretically, that the pleasure
he finds in telling scandalous stories is vicious, as he knows that the
taste for theft is vicious. Yet he falls sometimes into the one vice,
and he is in no danger of falling into the other. The inducements to
theft may be greater than the inducements to scandal, and yet he finds
them easier to resist.  Again, scandal is generally more inexcusable
and may easily be more mischievous than theft, and yet when he has
been guilty of scandal he feels only that he has done wrong, - nempe
hoc indocti, - when he has committed theft he feels that he is disgraced
forever. The simple reason of this is, that theft is the vice which political society exists to put down, and that laws are directed against it.
The civil union then, and positive laws, create a certain amount of
practical morality.  Certain princi les of moral philosophy, through
this organization, cease to be merely speculative, and become power



X               PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
fully operative. But it is not this organization only which has auch
an effect. Almost every organization which has an object calling for
the exercise of any moral virtue creates in some degree the virtue it
wants. It may be advisable to produce another example. The effect
then of an army in creating moral virtue is most striking and manifest.
It develops the virtues of manly courage and subordination, not in a
few favorable cases merely, but with an almost irresistible power
through its whole body. To face death, to obey one who has a right
to command, two of the most difficult lessons, lessons which assuredly
philosophers have seldom been found able effectually to inculcate, are
taught by this organization with success almost uniform and absolute,
even to people who bring with them no intellectual culture. Nor
would the importance of this fact be at all diminished if it should be
admitted that armies have at the same time in other respects a vicious
influence.
As Christ habitually compared his Church to a state or kingdom, so
there are traces that its analogy to an army was also present to his
mind.
A story is preserved of a centurion who sent entreating his help for
a sick servant, and when Christ promised to come and exert his power,
deprecated, with an ingenuous embarrassment, an honor which seemed
to him subversive of the distinctions of rank. He represented himself
as filling a place in a graduated scale, as commanding some and obeying others, and the proposed condescension of one whom he ranked
so immeasurably above himself in that scale shocked him. This spirit
of order, this hearty acceptance of a place in a society, this proud submission which no more desires to rise above its place than it will consent to fall below it, was approved by Christ with unusual emphasis
and warmth.
What states are to the moral virtues of justice and honesty, and
armies to the virtues of courage and subordination, that the Christian
Church is intended to be to all virtues alike, but especially to those
which are nursed by no other organization, philanthropy, mercy, forgiveness, &c. When, therefore, the writer has spoken of these virtues
as having been introduced among mankind by Christ, he does not mean




PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.                     Xi
to say that they had never before been declared by philosophers to be
virtues. He has expressly guarded himself, and that several times
(see particularly p. 142), against this misunderstanding. He has expressly said (p. I82) that the province of Christianity is not the province of the moralist. But the difference between stating the principles
of morality and putting men into a condition to practise them,- between introducing new truths to the lecture-room of the philosopher
and introducing them to the markets, and councils, and homes of men,
- this difference, though it seems to some of his readers vague or
slight, seems to the writer vast and all-important. He knows some.
thing of what is in Seneca and Epictetus, and he duly respects the
moralities taught there; but he "yields all blessing to the name of
Him that made them current coin."
That Christ has improved the ideal morality of philosophers is not
what the writer wishes to maintain, though probably it is true. Nor
does he assert, what may also be true, that Christ has improved the
moral practice of the average of men. But he asserts that Christ has
greatly elevated the generally accepted and, as it were, the attainable
standard of virtue, and further, that he has set in motion a machinery
by which, properly used, this standard may be elevated still further.
In what particular points the standard has been raised the writer has
tried to define, doubtless with very imperfect success. One position,
-namely, that Christ turned virtue from a passive abstinence from
wrong into an active beneficence, - has been peremptorily denied, and
passages have been produced to show that ancient philosophers also
held beneficence to be an important virtue. No doubt they did, but
Christ, instead of declaring beneficence to be a virtue, merges all virtue
In beneficence. In his account of the judgment of men (Matt. xxv),
all that we commonly call morality disappears; not a word is said of
honesty, purity, fidelity; active beneficence is made the one and only
test: those who have fed the hungry are accepted, those who have
not done so are rejected. And the same view of virtue as necessarily
and principally an activity is presented in the Parable of the Talents,
where all that men possess is represented as capital belonging to the
Supreme King, the interest of which He exacts under the heaviest




Xii              PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
penalties.  It may well be doubted whether anything approaching the
rigor of this doctrine can be found even in the writings of philosophers; and it is, in the opinion of the present writer, not doubtful that
it was utterly strange to the popular and accepted moral code of the
ancients.
The question is likely to occur to many readers, If this was the object of the institution Christ founded, has it not failed? Have mankind been so disciplined by it that these virtues have become common,
or are they as difficult and as rare as ever they were? On the other
hand do not these virtues, when they appear, appear as often outside
tlhe Christian Church as within its pale?  May it not even be said that
at the present day the morality of Christians is of a languid and conventional sort, and that the freshest, most vigorous, and healthy virtue
is displayed by some of those who are not Christians? To these questions the writer would reply, The Christian Church has not failed altogether, but it has certainly failed grievously. It has made men to a
certain extent philanthropical, it has made them  for the most part
ashamed of extreme revenge, it has considerably elevated and purified
the female sex. In the Middle Ages it had great success in uniting
different races. On the other hand it must be confessed, that since
the Reformation it has acted rather as a dividing than a uniting influence, and further, that through a great part of its history it has been a
too consistent enemy of freedom. It has been over and over again
the main support of tyranny; over and over again it has consecrated
misgovernment, and retarded political and social progress; repeatedly
it has suppressed truth, and entered into conspiracy with error and imposture; and at the present day it fails most in that which its Founder
valued most, originality; it falls into that vice which he most earnestly
denounced, insipidity. On the other hand, nothirng is plainer than
the illustrious instances of virtue in men who are not Christians. We
see around us those who have never had a Christian training, and
others who have quarrelled with and renounced their Christianity, who
yet exhibit all the tenderness, the devotedness, the ardent elevation of
which Christ gave us the example, and along with it a freshness which
Christians generally want.




PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.                     Xiii
All this may be conceded without conceding for a moment that the
world can do without Christ and his Church. If a high and complete
morality often exists outside the Church, it does not often exist independent of it. The atmosphere of Europe has been saturated for some
fifteen centuries with Christian principles, and however far the rebellion against the Church may have spread, it may still be called the
Moral University of the world, -not merely the greatest, but the only
great School of Virtue existing. While this is so it is idle for any
virtue that springs up in its neighborhood to claim to be independen*
of it. Christian influences are in the air; our very conception of viitue is Christian; the tone, the habits of sentiment and language —im
short, all the associations of virtue -have been furnished by the discipline of the Christian Church. Again, if instances of high morality
are cited, as they certainly may be, from the times before Christianity,
or, as they probably may be, from countries remote from Christianity,
the writer has only to remark that he does not represent the Church
as the only virtue-making institution, but as the only institution which
is distinctively and deliberately such, and the one which inherits the
most complete ideal of virtue. What Christianity does- or rather
can do- easily and of set purpose, many other organizations, philosophical schools, civil societies, &c., do inadequately and accidentally,
and it is not at all surprising that, in a few happy cases, they should
produce examples eqrual to those which have been produced in the
Church.  On the other hand, the abuses and corruptions of the
Church, however gross, are no arguments against the utility of the
institution, unless they can be shown to be inseparable from it. The
present writer holds that, however inveterate, most of them are strictly
accidental. The causes of them, he believes, can be traced, though
to trace them is not his present business.  But he believes the root of
all evil in the Church to be the imagination that it exists for any other
purpose than to foster virtue, or can be prosperous except so far as it
does this. Regarding the abuses as explicable, he regards them also
as in an indefinite degree curable; and if he admits that the Church
has failed, he maintains, at the same time, that it has only failed as
civil society itself has failed.  If the object of civil society be the security of life and property, and increase of prosperity through the di



XiV                PREFACE SUPPLEMENTARY.
vision of labor, civil society is not a success. Men are sobbed and
miurdered, whole classes live in pauperism, insecurity, slavery.  A suf.
ficient reason for dissatisfaction, a good ground for complaint! But
not a sufficient reason for dissolving civil society, and relapsing into
the nomad state. In like manner, if the Church has failed, let us reform it, but we can ill afford to sever the strongest and most sacred tie
that binds men to each other.
Lastly, to those critics who have complained of the defectiveness and
incompleteness of this book, he answers that a fragment means a defective and incomplete thing, and that this book was expressly announced as a fragment.  To those who say that half truths are sometimes equivalent to whole falsehoods, he answers that it is only so
when they set themselves up for whole truths.  To those who speak
of him as having concealed his theological opinions, he replies that he
has concealed them only in the sense in which the vast majority of the
community have concealed them; that is, he has not published them.
To those who doubt whether it was justifiable to treat of one part of
Christianity without treating at the same time of other parts, he replies
that their scruple seems to him astonishing and unreasonable. And if
any think his having done so a thing to be regretted and dangerous,
he, on the contrary, believes it to have been salutary, and is glad to
have been able to draw the attention of the public to that part of Christiarhty, and for a time to that part alone, in which almost all men are
able on the whole to agree, and much of which the greater number of
Christian teachers, by taking for granted, practically suppress.
NOTE.
A passage on page 35 has been strangely misunderstood by a reviewer in " Fraser."
The passage runs, " It is clear that this assumption of royalty.... Did he die for
a metaphor?"
On which the critic remarks that the assumption of royalty was not the ground of
Christ's execution, because Pilate was satisfied with the explanation which Christ
gave, and that Pilate's motive was fear of the Jews. The author never meant to say
anything different; but he was not speaking of Pilate's motive, but of the ground
on which he officially proceeded. The argument is, that Christ must have attached
great importance to his royal claims, because he advanced'them although they were
such as, satisfactorily explained or not, the Roman provincial government could
scarcely help punishing, - although, in short, what actually happened might easily
Le foreseen.