smoking flax-wick shall he not quench, . . . till he has made righteousness to triumph. And on his name shall the heathen hope." In some such words had the second Isaiah, five centuries before our era, described the servant of Yahweh, who should restore Israel and be the light of the nations;1 and Matthew cites the words as finding their fulfilment in Jesus, especially in his unassuming manner and his scrupulous avoidance of any kind of ostentation.2 In this beautiful and faithful description there is one point which marks with wonderful delicacy the conduct of Jesus to the sinners among his people. The bruised reed he does not break: when he meets the wretched and downcast, overpowered by his sense of guilt and helplessness, he does not take away his last hope of deliverance by stern rebukes and severe demands, but he devotes his whole powers to the task of raising him up again, supporting him with a gentle hand, and helping him to regain his moral strength. If the lamp-wick still smokes he quenches it not: when he meets those in whom a spark of life still glows, though the contempt of all the virtuous and pious threatens to extinguish it for ever, he does not give them over to despair and ruin by his haughty bearing, but draws them to him with a tenderness and gentle pity the like of which were never seen; cherishes the living spark, and kindles it into a steady flame.

A few of the narratives contained in our Gospels will suffice to show the simple truth of this account of Jesus; and at the same time they will illustrate the manner in which he first took up his task as the herald of the kingdom of God.

To avoid any misunderstanding, we must first explain exactly who are meant by "sinners." Nothing is more common than to say that all men are sinners; but neither could any thing be more opposed to the language of the Gospels. In them the word must always be understood as having its full and original meaning, and applying only to a special set of men. Paul was the first to apply it to all mankind before the time of Christ, and to all who had not believed in him afterwards. And hence arose the more general application of the term with which we are familiar. Here we may

note in passing the very remarkable fact that Paul has exercised a far more powerful influence upon the doctrines and beliefs of Christians than Jesus himself. Jesus never dreamed

1 Isaiah xlii. 1-4. See vol. ii. chap. x. p. 417.
2 Matthew xii 17-21.

3 Romans iii. 9 ff., v. 8, 12 ff

of putting all mankind on the same level; and he certainly drew the distinction, sanctioned by daily experience, between the good and the bad, between righteous men and sinners.i

The word "sinners," when used in the Gospels, refers in the first instance to a distinctly defined class of persons; those, namely, who had been expelled from the synagogue. We know that every synagogue had its ruler and its elders. These officers, in their corporate capacity, had certain powers for maintaining church discipline and pronouncing legal judgments. They sometimes inflicted corporal punishments, and sometimes excommunicated those who had been guilty of any grievous trespass against patriotism, religion, or morality. Those against whom this sentence was passed were not allowed to enter the synagogue, and it is to them in the first instance that the word 66 sinner" is applied. "A woman who

3

was a sinner" generally means a prostitute. The most notorious members of the class were the "pub licans," or officials, of whatever rank, appointed by the Ro man knights who were responsible for the taxes. Companies of these knights held contracts with the Roman government, generally lasting over five years, by which they engaged to pay the state a fixed sum on account of the import and export duties and other taxes of the provinces, which imposts they then levied on their own account, often stooping to the most shameful means of making their bargain profitable. Of course all their subordinates and accomplices in this system of knavery and extortion caught at a share in the proceeds. These officials, then, were regarded as thieves and robbers; and not only so, but as traitors to their country, who took sides with the Roman oppressor for the vilest purposes of selfishness and avarice. And inasmuch as it appeared to many unlawful to pay tribute to any but Israel's true and only Lord, the publicans who collected the Roman tribute were considered impious as well as traitorous. No wonder, then, that they were despised and hated, cast out of the synagogue and denounced as infamous. Their evidence against other Jews was not accepted by the judge, their last will and testament was void, and their till was cursed so that no one might change money at it.

1 Matthew v. 45, ix. 13; Luke vi. 32-34, xv. 7.

2 Matthew x. 17, xxiii. 34; 2 Corinthians xi. 24.

8 John ix. 22, xii. 42, xvi. 2.

4 Matthew xxii. 15 ff. See p. 89.

men.

2

Publicans and all other "sinners" were ranked with the heathen,1 were excluded from civil and ecclesiastical communion with the Jews, and were cut off from the rights and privileges of the chosen people of the Lord Even the richest of them were shut out from all religious and respectable circles, and were shunned as "unclean,' a fearful word at the time of Jesus, for the idea of (Levitical) "cleanness" completely dominated Jewish society. The publicans, on their side, avenged themselves by ever increasing extortion, consoled themselves with each other's society, and too often sought relief in lives of abandoned viciousness. Many of them sank so low that at last they even despised themselves, and seemed in all eyes, even in their own, to be lost for ever. Now these men Jesus drew to him. Nay more, he regarded it as his special mission to restore his lost and sinful countryHe declared expressly and repeatedly, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save the lost; "8 his mission was in the first place directed to these "lost sheep of the house of Israel." But we must observe that this expression does not refer exclusively to the publicans and those who had been sentenced by the church. It includes all the outcasts from Jewish society, all those classes known in the Talmud as "the peoples of the land," who from ignorance or carelessness had transgressed the laws of ceremonial purity, whether by associating with heathens (who were very numerous in Galilee) or in any other way. These people had sunk below the average cultivation and (legal) piety, had perhaps seldom or never seen the glories of the temple, and had certainly never been duly instructed in the Jewish doctrines, or, if they had, had never understood them. There were among them some who were capable of better things, and who eagerly longed for salvation; but in the general opinion they were hardly, if at all, distinguished from the sinners. They were all alike unclean. The teachers of the Law never troubled themselves about them. They thought it beneath their dignity to descend to such a level, and did not even try to make them understand the Law and Prophets. Their condemnation was summed up in the words, "This people that knows not the Law is cursed!" 5

1 Compare Matthew v. 46, 47, with Luke vi. 32-34. See also Matthew xviii. 17, xxvi. 45; Galatians ii. 15.

2 Matthew xxi. 31, 32; Luke vii. 34, xviii. 11, xix 8. See p. 106.

* Matthew xviii. 11; Luke xix. 10.

John vii. 49.

4 Matthew x. 6, xv. 24.

Such were the men to whom Jesus more especially turned. Possibly his thoughts had been directed to them even when he was still in his father's house; for though he would not often come across them in Nazareth, since they were mostly to be found in the larger cities where the life and activity of Galilee was centred, yet his sympathy would be roused by the undisguised aversion with which he heard them mentioned, and his heart would tell him that this deep chasm, yawning between the unclean ones on the one hand and the chosen heritage of the Lord, the hallowed Israel, on the other hand must be filled up. While with John, he had been struck by the eagerness with which some of these outcasts received the preaching of the kingdom. And when he himself began his work he felt impelled to rescue them, in the firm conviction that by so doing he would be removing one of the greatest obstacles to the coming of the kingdom of God. "I am come, not to call the righteous, but the sinners to enter into the kingdom of God." Though every one else gave them up, though they despaired even of themselves, yet he never despaired of them. He would raise the bruised reed, and blow upon the smoking flax-wick!

1

2

When Jesus was at Capernaum his favorite walk was by the shore of the lake. As he went out of the town in this direction he had to pass the customs-house. And thus it happened that once, when he was returning home towards dinner-time, he saw one of the tax-gatherers sitting in front of the building, and said to him, "Come home with me!" The man whom he addressed was called Levi, son of Alphæus, and he rose at once and followed him to his house. Jesus had probably noticed before how eagerly this man had listened to his addresses and parables, though always staying at a respectful distance; and with his fine knowledge of human nature he now read in the publican's eye the wish that he dared not utter, the wish that this invitation anticipated and satisfied. But now the ice was broken; and when Levi lay at table with Jesus, some of his fellow tax-gatherers and other sinners came to seek the Master's society. Their courage and their trust were rewarded. Jesus applied the laws of Eastern hospitality to them too, and received them at his table. This was a decisive step that could not fail to excite both surprise and indignation. Some of the Pharisaic Scribes, too, had observed him; and, seeing what had happened, they expressed their 1 See pp. 107, 113, 114. 2 See p. 125.

horror to his disciples: "Why, he is eating with sinners and publicans!" But Jesus heard them and replied: "It is not the healthy but the sick that need the physician. come to call the righteous, but sinners."

I am not

We may note in passing that the first Evangelist misunderstands the words addressed by Jesus to the publican, and supposes them to be a call to the apostolic office. He there

fore substitutes the name of Matthew for that of Levi, and accordingly describes Matthew as "the publican" when enumerating the Apostles. It is in reality very unlikely that Levi and Matthew are the same man, or that one of the Twelve was a tax-gatherer. Luke makes another mistake, and represents the meal as taking place at the house of Levi instead of that of Jesus. It is of far more consequence, however, that we should note the style of intercourse with these people which Jesus cultivated. He invited them to

come to him, for they were so much accustomed to be contemptuously repelled by every one that they would never have dared of their own accord to approach one who proclaimed himself a prophet. Unless he had been the first to stretch out his hand, no relations between himself and such people as these could ever have been established. Hardly had he made the first step, however, before numbers of them pressed to him. The most extraordinary thing of all was that he ate with them. This was trampling at once upon the customs of religion and the rules of decency; for to join any one at table was a kind of formal avowal of friendship, and established a permanent connection between the parties." Such an action, therefore, would by its very nature be repeated, and the fair fame of Jesus himself soon began to suffer in some quarters from his constant intercourse with such a class of men. And we must remember that, in thus associating with the unclean, he not only broke with all national, social, and religious prejudices, but must have encountered much in the language, the manners, and the persons of these sinners that shocked his refined perceptions. It must have required a great effort from him, as from others, not to transfer to the trespasser the great loathing which he felt for the trespass, and never to lose sight even in the sinner of the brother man whom he could respect and love. Why did he make the effort, then? Why did he seek the society of these men and treat them as his friends? Simply 2 Compare 1 Corinthians v. 11; Galatians ii. 12.

1 Matthew x. 3.

8 Luke vii. 34, xv. 1, 2.