Wit and Humor of the Bible Part 8

"Kindness, but no milk."--_Urdu._

"Though they are brothers, their pockets are not sisters."--_Turk._

"It is not by saying Honey, Honey, that sweetness comes into the mouth."--_Ib._

"His words leap over forts, his feet do not cross the threshold."--_Telugu._

"If you do not ask me for food and raiment, I will care for you as my own child."--_Ib._

Equally admirable is that comparison of Paul in which he likens the Church to the human body and shows the folly of jealousy and schism: "If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?"

Very pleasantly, but very effectually, does he remind those who professed to "speak with tongues" a sort of supernatural language, in the early Christian a.s.semblies, that it was "better to speak five words with the understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." An ill.u.s.tration serves his purpose. "Even things without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in sound, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air."

Paul maintains the right of those who establish and teach churches, to be supported by those churches. It was a right upon which he did not always insist in his own case; but he fought for it as a great principle. "Mine answer to them that do examine me is this: Have we not the power (the right) to eat and drink?" The objector would admit this. Very well! "Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? * * * If we have sown unto you in spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap of your carnal things? * * * Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? They which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?

Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel." There is no gainsaying this argument. The "a.n.a.logy"

is unanswerable.

Already once or twice in this chapter, reference has been made to Socrates and his method. Much of the following pa.s.sage would apply equally well to Jesus or James or Paul: "He generally begins with some question, apparently so simple, so stupidly simple, and at such a distance from the field of discussion, that his opponent often hesitates whether most to admire the docility or wonder at the stupidity of the querist, and with a complacent smile, half of pity, half of contempt, promptly replies. Other questions succeed faster and faster, more and more difficult, and gradually approaching, in one long spiral of interrogations, the central position in which the unhappy sophist's argument stands. He now finds it impossible to escape, and confounded, perplexed and irritated, discovers that he is compelled to admit some palpable contradiction to his original a.s.sertions, and this too by means of those simple and innocent premises which he had so unsuspectingly granted. He feels himself within the coils of a great logical boa-constrictor who binds his folds together tighter and tighter till the poor sophist is absolutely strangled."

VIII. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof!"--_Solomon._

THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

"The oldest jibe in literature is the ridicule of false religion."--_Emerson._

"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall hold them in derision."--_Psalms._

In the Bible, the elements of wit and humor are effectively employed in dealing with the sins of men. Evil doing, in its various motives and manifestations, is denounced, rendered repulsive, made ghastly and terrible, and when everything else has been done, it is exhibited as grotesque and ludicrous. Sin is the great absurdity of the universe. Were it not so tragic, it would shake the very heavens with laughter.

One of the old English poets has these lines:--

"He who does not tremble at the sword, Who quails not with his head upon the block, Turn but a jest against him, loses heart; The shafts of wit slip thro' the stoutest mail.

There is no man alive that can live down The inextinguishable laughter of mankind."

With this fact the writers of the Bible were quite as well acquainted as are the writers of modern times. They took advantage of it for the same purpose.

"Of this we may be sure," says Hazlitt, "that ridicule fastens on the vulnerable points of a cause, and finds out the weak sides of an argument; if those who resort to it sometimes rely too much on its success, those who are chiefly annoyed by it almost always are so with reason, and can not be too much upon their guard against deserving it."

Into hearts impervious to all else, the writers of the Bible drove the javelins of ridicule.

_The Sluggard._

If anything could make a lazy man feel uncomfortable, it would be such thorns as those Solomon has planted in his pillow:--

"I went by the field of the slothful, And by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And lo! it was all grown over with thorns, The face thereof was covered with nettles, And the stone wall thereof was broken down.

Then I beheld and considered well, I saw and received instruction: 'A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep.'

So shall thy poverty come as a robber, And thy want as an armed man.

How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard, When wilt thou rouse thee out of thy sleep?"

_The Unfaithful Friend._

If anything could make an unfaithful and deceitful friend, one who professes much in times of prosperity and performs nothing in times of need, ashamed of himself, it would be such a comparison as we find in the book of Job:--

"My brethren are deceitful, like the brook As the channel of brooks that pa.s.s away, They become turbid from ice, The snow hides itself in them.

At the time they are poured off, they fail; When it is hot they are consumed from their place.

The caravans along their way turn aside; They go up into the wastes and perish.

The caravans of Tema looked, The companies of Sheba hoped for them; They were ashamed that they had trusted, They came thither and were confounded."

The friends of Job were like streams in the early spring, when melting ice and snow filled their channels, and the waters were not needed; but in the heat of summer, when fainting caravans looked for refreshment, dry and dusty.

_The Drunkard._

If anything could move a drunkard to forswear his cups and lead a sober life, it would be such a sarcastic description of him as that which follows:--

"Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contention?

Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause?

Who hath redness of eyes?

They that tarry long at the wine, They that go to try mixed wine.

Thine eyes shall behold strange things, And thy heart shall utter froward things, Yea thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast."

The poem closes with a terrible thrust. After the folly of the drunkard has been described, his physical and mental condition pointed out--the red eyes, the strange things seen in delirium, the incoherent babbling, the unsteady gait, the surrounding perils,--the devotee of strong drink is made to exclaim, "_When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again!_" Knowing its effects, suffering in mind and body from his potations, such is the incorrigible stupidity of the wine-bibber that he no sooner wakens from his drunken slumber than he goes forth to seek again the source of his wretchedness!

_The Idolater._

Nowhere is the use of ridicule by the writers of the Old Testament displayed to better advantage than in their treatment of idolatry. Against this sin they brought to bear the most potent weapons of their wit. None of the resources of expression were left untried. Witness the withering irony with which Elijah mocked the frantic priests of Baal: "And it came to pa.s.s that at noon Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a G.o.d; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked." No finer bit of irony can be found in any literature. Indeed, we may regard it as the most perfect specimen extant of this species of wit.

Jeremiah exclaims, "As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes and their priests, and their prophets, _saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth_."