If it be suggested, as it so often is, that it was spiritual unity for which He prayed, S. Paul steps in and shows that he not only longed for men to be of one heart, holding the unity of the Faith, but that he deprecated most sorely separation from the visible Body as the clearest proof of a carnal mind. "Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, ‚Cor. iii. 3, 4. and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?" And S. Jude indorses the verdict when he says of those "who Jude 19. separate themselves," that they are "sensual," and have not the Spirit of God. NOTES. 1 The A.V. in S. Matt. xvii. 22 renders ȧvaσтpepoμévwv "while they abode."-The expression rather implies constant moving about. 2 This rests upon the authority of Jansenius, but is contradicted by the statement of Gregory of Tours that he was sent to Gaul in the time of Decius. The Acta of S. Martial, now held to be spurious, gave him a place among the seventy disciples. Cf. Cornel. à Lap. in Matt. xvii. 3 This is found in Nicephorus and Symeon Metaphrastes. It originated probably in the name of Ignatius, Oéopopos, being interpreted in a passive sense, "borne or carried by God," rather than, as Ignatius explains it, "bearing God in his heart." VOL. II. C Yuxiko, translated "natural" and "sensual" in the New Testament, is used in a different sense from that in which it was used in classical Greek. Scripture taught the tripartite division of man's nature, 1 Thess. v. 23. The "natural" man is henceforward one in whom the Yuxń, not the veûμa, is the ruling principle. Cf. Trench, Synon. of the New Testament. XLIV. Avoiding Offences. S. MARK IX. 42-50. 42. And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in Me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. 43. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched : 44. where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 45. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 46. where their JESUS had spoken of the blessedness of receiving children and childlike men in His Name, and He now places over-against it the fearful punishment in store for those who put a stumbling-block in their path to impede their spiritual progress. Better, infinitely better, to die a violent death, even the most dreaded kind of death, than risk the salvation of the soul by committing such an offence as this. "It is better for him that a millstone1 were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." It was a mode of punishment reserved only for great criminals, and its terrors were aggravated by the thought that the body could never be recovered for burial, the deprivation of which was the sorest trial. Then from offences against others, our Lord proceeds to warn men not to place stumbling-stones in their own way. He selects the chief instruments of sin, the hand, the foot, the eye,--and counsels their immediate destruction, if need be, rather than allow them to work the threatened mischief. It is the hand which men lift up to do violence, as Cain did to his brother, or to appropriate what does not belong to them, like Achan. It is the feet which hurry us into forbidden paths, as they hurried Gehazi, or the old man of God whom the lion slew for his transgression. It is the eye which excites the lust to desire in the spirit of Eve something which God has seen fit to withhold. To hurt, to trespass, and to covet: what a common triple cord of sin it is! There is no important distinction to be drawn between them, and any one of them by itself would have sufficed, but Jer. xxii. 29. the threefold repetition, as so often in Scripture, 2 Chron. xxviii. 3; appears to lend force to the warning. It is a recognised principle in surgery to cut off a limb to save a life; for the wellbeing of the soul it must be applied, and with an unsparing hand, to the instruments of moral temptation. The alternative is presented to us under the ghastly imagery drawn from the familiar terrors of Gehenna. In the Valley of Hinnom, on the south of Jerusalem, besides the fires. of Molech which blazed in the great furnace, through which the idolaters made their children to pass, there xxxiii. 6. was a constant burning of the heaps of refuse, and the worm of corruption fed perpetually upon the carcasses of animals, and the offal of the city, which was thrown there. It formed not unnaturally a lively emblem of the terrible torments of the lost; and Milton, who moulded so largely the Christian idea of the pangs of hell, stereotyped the old Jewish conception when he wrote "And black Gehenna called, the type of hell." But there are many passages in Holy Scripture which show that in the place of retribution there will be no need of any external apparatus of torture such as this, but that the sinner will be his own tormentor. It is more in accordance with Divine revelation to conclude that there will be a close correspondence Isa. lxvi. 24. Par. Lost, i. 405. |