St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians Part 14

{232}

We must also take to heart in our day the lesson of the fifth commandment, as re-enforced by St. Paul, with its converse in the duty of parents. Domestic obedience is somewhat at a discount, it is to be feared, in this generation in most cla.s.ses of society; and this is a very grave peril. Parents, wealthy as well as poor, are very commonly disposed to make schoolmasters and schoolmistresses do the work of discipline for them, while they retain for themselves the privilege of spoiling their children. There are, however, of course, very many exceptions. There are mult.i.tudes of homes where discipline is exercised wisely and lovingly, and children find obedience always a duty and mostly a joy. This is certainly the only divinely appointed method by which we are to be prepared for the obedience and self-discipline required of us when we grow to be what is falsely described as 'our own masters.' And St. Paul's twofold admonition to parents is full of wisdom: they are not to provoke their children so that they become bad-tempered, and they are not to over-stimulate them, by compet.i.tion or otherwise, so that they become disheartened. But to nourish them by appropriate food, mental and spiritual as well as physical, so that they may grow to the full {233} stature and strength which G.o.d intends for them.

C. MASTERS AND SLAVES. VI. 5-9.

[Sidenote: _Masters and slaves_]

St. Paul's method in dealing with slavery is well known. The slave is in a position really, at bottom, inconsistent with human individuality and liberty, as Christianity insists upon it. Thus, to go no further, the male slave and his wife are liable (in all systems of slavery) to be sold apart from one another. This puts in its plainest form the inconsistency of slavery with Christianity. The slave is a living rational tool of another man, and not his brother with fundamentally the same spiritual right to 'save his life' or make the best of his faculties. Thus where a slave _can_ obtain liberty St. Paul exhorts him to prefer it[31]. And when he is dealing with the Christian master Philemon, whose runaway slave, Onesimus, has become Christian under St.

Paul's influence, he exhorts him to receive him back, no longer as a slave, but as a brother beloved[32]. But Christianity enlisted in no premature crusade against slavery as an inst.i.tution--premature, because Christianity was not yet in the position to fas.h.i.+on a civilization of {234} her own. It left it to be undermined by the Christian spirit.

Thus St. Paul exhorts slaves to obey, and that in more forcible language than he has applied even to children, 'with fear and trembling'; that is with an intense anxiety to do their duty. They are to perform their work as in G.o.d's sight, thoroughly--He being the inspector of it who can infallibly tell good work from bad--and 'from the heart,' that is, putting their will and mind into it. They are to do it as to the Lord, knowing that no good work, however menial or uninteresting, is wasted, but shall be received back, in its product or legitimate fruit, as 'its own reward' from Christ's hand. In the Epistle to Timothy, this additional reason for diligent service is given, that if Christian slaves get a reputation for slackness they will bring discredit upon the Christian name[33]. And in the same pa.s.sage a touch is added which shows what, even in its possible perversions, the spirit of brotherhood really meant, 'They that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren; but let them serve them the rather, because they that partake of the benefit are believers and beloved.'

{235}

And the masters are exhorted to remember that true principle of human equality--that 'with G.o.d is no respect of persons,' that in G.o.d's sight each man counts for one, and no one counts for more than one; each having an equal claim and duty in the sight of the one Master under whom all are servants. Thus they are to deal with their slaves in the same spirit of duty as their slaves should have toward them, and they are to treat them with the respect due to brother men 'forbearing threatenings.'

Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of G.o.d from the heart; with good will doing service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men: knowing that whatsoever good thing each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether _he be_ bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, and forbear threatening: knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no respect of persons with him.

Christianity has long abolished slavery so far as the legal status of the slave is concerned. But the principles of masters.h.i.+p and service are still to be learned in this brief section of St Paul's writing; and if we really believed that 'with {236} G.o.d is no respect of persons'

there would be neither scamping of work and defrauding of employers, nor on the other hand the 'sweating' of the employed and treating of men and women as if they were tools for the profit of others, instead of spiritual beings, with each his own divine end to realize.

[1] Is. liv. 5; Jer. iii. 14.

[2] _Prophecies of Isaiah_, vol. ii, p. 188.

[3] 1 Cor. vi. 17.

[4] This, it is well known, was read in the Old Version. It has vanished (in submission to the verdict of the best MSS.) from the R. V.

But there seems to me to be some force in Alford's plea for the originality of the words, as they stand in 'Western' and later texts.

[5] Acts xx. 28.

[6] 'Was.h.i.+ng.' Marg. 'laver.'

[7] John i. 29.

[8] John xvii. 9; t.i.t. ii. 14.

[9] Rom. x. 9; cp. Acts xxii. 16.

[10] _In Joan, tract._ 80. Cf. Irenaeus _c. haer._ v. 2, 3.

[11] See St. Thom. Aq., _Summa_, Pars iii. Qu. lxx. art. 6 _ad_ 3.

[12] 1 Pet. iii. 7.

[13] It is noticeable that St. Paul does not (according to the Revised Version which represents the original) exactly enjoin _obedience_ upon wives (as upon children and slaves) but _subjection_: cf. Col. iii. 18; 1 Cor. xiv. 34; 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 1. If however in the use of the 'obey' in the vow of the wife our marriage service goes an almost imperceptible stage beyond St. Paul, its general tone preserves St. Paul's balance admirably. The husband 'wors.h.i.+ps' the wife and endows her with all his worldly goods. The only other ecclesiastical formula of ours in which the word wors.h.i.+p is used of a purely human relation, is the peer's oath of allegiance to the sovereign at the coronation, 'I do become your liegeman of life and limb and of earthly wors.h.i.+p: and faith and troth I will bear unto you to live and to die against all manner of folks.'

[14] How many husbands are capable of 'teaching their wives at home'

about religion? see 1 Cor. xiv. 35.

[15] See however below, p. 225.

[16] 1 Tim. ii. 12; 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35.

[17] 1 Tim. ii. 8, 9.

[18] 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12; cf. 1 Pet. iii. 4.

[19] All this has been admirably stated by George Romanes, whom no one could accuse of misogyny, in his essay on 'the mental differences between men and women.' See Essays (Longmans, 1897), pp. 113 ff. And the statements of the text are supported by Mr. Havelock Ellis' _Man and Woman_ (Contemp. Science Series). Mr. Ellis is sometimes less decisive than Mr. Romanes. But see capp. xiii, xiv.

[20] Tennyson's _Princess_; cp. his _Memoir_ by Hallam Tennyson, (Macmillan, 1897), i. 249.

[21] Prov. x.x.xi. 10 ff.

[22] 1 Cor. xi. 5.

[23] _Lambeth Conference_, 1897. Report on Religious Communities, pp.

57 ff.

[24] See Paris, _Quatenus foeminae res publicas in Asia Minore Romanis inperantibus attigerint_ (Paris, 1891).

[25] Ramsay, _Paul the Traveller_, p. 268.

[26] Mark x. 19; cf. Matt xix. 18, 19; Luke xviii. 20.

[27] Cited from Exod. xx. 12 according to the LXX, which a.s.similates the pa.s.sage to Deut. v. 16.

[28] Col. iii. 21. In 2 Cor. ix. 2, the only other place where the word is used by St. Paul or in the New Testament, it means to _stimulate by emulation_.

[29] Accompanied with circ.u.mcision and sacrifice.

[30] See Dr. Taylor, _The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_, pp. 55-58, and Sabatier, La _Didache_, pp. 84-88, both very suggestive pa.s.sages.

Cf. Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus_, App. xii, and Schurer, _Jewish People_, Div. ii. vol. ii. pp. 319 ff.

[31] 1 Cor. vii. 21, 23.

[32] Philem. 16.

[33] 1 Tim. vi. 1.