THE LAW OF REVENGE
“Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go withhim twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”
Our Lord is here dealing with one interesting prescription of the old law. It had definitely allowed revenge up to a certain point, but no further. It might go to the point of exact reciprocity. So the law in Exodus xxi. 24, 25 lays it down: “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
1. Here we must remark, first, that the law of the old covenant was in itself a limitation of human instinct. The savage instinct of revenge is to rush blindly in, and do as much harm to an enemy as can be done. The savage satisfies himself to the full; he kills the man that has done him wrong and his wife and family. Now nothing is more striking in the old covenant than that it checks barbarous habits and puts them under restraint. It is so with the habit of animal sacrifice; it is so in the law of revenge. The Mosaic law stands by, as it were, as a policeman, and says, An eye? is that the wrong done? Then an eye may be put out in return; but no more. You must stop there. The point which needs emphasizing is thatthe old law worked by way of gradual limitation, not of sudden abolition. God dealt with men gradually. Their savage passions are restrained under the Old Testament as a preparation for the time when they were to be brought under the perfect discipline of the Son of Man. So now, when the fullness of the time is come, our Lord lays on this passion of revenge a harder and deeper prescription, and says in fact to each of His disciples: A wrong aimed at thee as an individual is, so far as thy feeling goes, simply to be an occasion for showing complete liberty of spirit and superiority to all outrage. The Lord requires not moderation in revenge, but complete self-effacement.
2. Secondly, we may notice that this requirement of self-effacement is of the nature of an ascetic prescription, as when our Lord said “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.” The necessity for this self-mutilation—cutting off a hand, plucking out an eye—lay in the fact that these limbs, or faculties, or functions of our nature had been so utterly misused that before they could be again usedlegitimately they must be put under this stern discipline of effacement.
So with this instinct of revenge. The instinct has in it something that is right: something of the passion of justice. It is a true instinct which makes us feel that for wrong done man should suffer wrong. It is derived from the divine principle of justice. But in our own cases, where our own interests are concerned, this passion of justice has come to be so mixed up with selfishness, and with those excessive demands which spring of selfishness—in a word, it has become so defiled with sin—that our Lord imposes on it an absolute ban; He says “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” He takes away from us, as it were, the right to administer justice in our own case.“The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”[51] He requires us as individuals to acknowledge the law of self-effacement.
3. The requirement which our Lord lays on His disciples is not only made in words. It was enforced, where the enforcement is most striking, in our Lord’s example. You watch our Lord in Hispassion; and when you look delicately and accurately at the details of the treatment He received, you observe how almost intolerably hard to bear were many of His trials. We can hardly conceive what to Him it must have been to bear the hideous insults and injustices of men.Think for example, to take a subtle but impressive instance,[52] of those false accusations brought against Him which had in them the sound of truth. “And there stood up certain, and bear false witness against him, saying, We heard him say,I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.”[53] He had said in fact not that, but something like it. He had said“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”[54] That is, Suppose you destroy, then I will rebuild. There was a great difference between what He had said and what He was accused of saying. But you know in what atmosphere it is that such accusations are brought. The crowd does not considerdetails; it listens to the vague sound of the words; it is easily convinced: “He said something of that sort. If he defends himself, he has to quibble.” And thus they rush off and put down to the accused man not what he said, but what he was supposed to have said. Now our Lord had that delicate instinct of the pastor. He knew there were people watching Him, and wondering whether He were the true Messiah or no. To have an accusation brought against Him which sounded as if true, and, though it was not true, excited such fierce animosity against Him—this was a profound trial of spirit: and it is only one instance in which a little imagination, if we bring it to bear, shows us the depth of what our Lord had to endure not only in the way of insults, but of injustices.Yet “when he was reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”[55]
4. When our own personal feeling has been utterly suppressed, then it is quite possible that another duty, the duty of justice, the duty of maintaining the socialorder, may come into prominence again.Thus our Lord is in another passage[56] recorded to have said something that may appear at first sight plainly contradictory to what He says here. “If thy brother sin against thee”—are you simply to take no notice of it? No. You are to “shew him his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican.”
Here it is obvious our Lord is enjoining not an extreme measure of personal meekness, but an extreme insistence on social justice. And He Himself made a certain claim on justice in His trial: “And when he had said this, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness ofthe evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?”[57] So St. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, claims justice: “I am standing before Cæsar’s judgement-seat, where I ought to be judged: to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou also very well knowest. If then I am a wrong-doer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if none of those things is true, whereof these accuse me, no man can give me up unto them.I appeal unto Cæsar.”[58]
We observe therefore two opposite duties. There is the clear duty, so far as mere personal feeling goes, of simple self-effacement. Only then, when we have got our own wills thoroughly subordinated to God’s will, when all the wild instinct of revenge is subdued, are we in a position to consider the other duty and to ask ourselves what the maintenance of the moral order of society may require of us.
This particular point gives us an opportunity to consider generally our Lord’s method in teaching. We have beenbrought up against one conspicuous instance in which our Lord appears to contradict Himself; and the explanation of this lies in His method. At times we must notice His method was metaphorical. When we were considering what He says about asceticism, for example, we saw that the instances given were plainly metaphorical. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.” That is a metaphor for violently putting under restraint any faculty which has been misused.
But here His instances are not metaphorical. They are such as quite admit of actual and literal application. They are, however, proverbial. You may notice in the proverbs of all nations that they easily admit of appearing to be contradictory and yet of being perfectly intelligible in the guidance they give us. One day you will hear a man condemned as “penny wise and pound foolish”; another day it is “take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.” One day it is “look before you leap”; another “nothing venture, nothing have.” The suggestions involved in these pairs of proverbs arecontradictory. The important matter according to the one is to be careful about large sums, according to the other to be careful about small sums: according to one to think before you act, according to the other to be ready to run a risk. But each gives what is obviously the right guidance to certain characters in certain situations, and gives it after the manner of proverbs. A proverb embodies a principle of common, but not universal, application in an absolute and extreme form. Another proverb may embody another principle in a similar form. And thus expressed they may easily appear contradictory, and both alike impracticable, if taken literally, because all the qualifying circumstances are left out.
Our Lord then teaches by proverbs. In emphasizing one principle He expresses it as an absolute direction in an extreme instance: “If a man will take thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.” In emphasizing another principle He expresses it in a similar form: “If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault” and follow the matter up to its extreme consequences.
And every one must recognize that the right application of each proverb depends on the question, What is the particular principle which at a particular moment is to be brought into play? No proverb could be ever taken as a rule for constant action, but only as a type of action when a particular principle is to be expressed.
Now we may take the injunctions which our Lord gives, and ask ourselves how we can apply these particular proverbs to-day.
“But I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
The actual words need of course no explanation. But can we see how we are to apply the precept? would it “do” to obey it exactly and literally? Well, there are occasions when it might be obeyed, if not literally—because people may seldom, or perhaps never, smite us on the right cheek—yet nearly literally; occasions when nothing is concerned but our own instinct of revenge or our own pride, and we had better simply take meekly some insult or wrong, and make no effort to defend ourselves.
For example: there is a nasty thing said about you in the newspaper or a nasty thing whispered about you in the circle where you move, and you know quite well who has put it into the newspaper or given it currency. You cannot be mistaken; there is evidence; only one person could have done it. And the statement made is really untrue. No one can be subjected to that kind of wrong, without being brought face to face with the question whether he intends to be a thorough-going Christian. For there is no doubt what we ought to do. We ought not to be content till we have utterly crushed out of ourselves the least desire, as far as our own personal feeling is concerned, to take any kind of revenge whatever. We are to efface ourselves utterly, we are to turn the other cheek. That means, of course, that we decline to show in any way that we know who has done the wrong, and that we are at pains to look out for an opportunity of kindness to the person who has wronged us. That would be not a literal but a practical application of the principle, and there are numerous occasions in any man’s life when it isright to act thus, and any other course of conduct at all is more or less morally wrong, because no social duty compels us to assert our just cause.
The next injunction is:
“And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.”
There again, it is quite plain what is meant. It is to refuse to resist legal injustice. Very often it can and ought to be literally obeyed.“Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you, that ye have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? why not rather be defrauded?”[59] But there are also instances in which to act literally on this precept would be, in any sober judgement, doing a great wrong to society and to the man who is himself the wrong doer. But the question is, am I able to look at the matter from that point of view? The difficulty to almost all of us is to get into such a state of mind that we can honestly say, As far as my own will goes, I am ready to suffer this and more; and not to let the question of legal proceedings come into our mindsat all till we are sure that our motive is the general interest of society and of the wrong doer.
Then, once more:
“And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain.”
There was a public transport service which passed from the Persian into later empires. Our Lord then says “When any public officer presses thee into the transport service for a certain way, be prepared to take double the impost.” That is—do not resent public claims upon you, bear the public burdens, and be willing that, as far as you are concerned, they should be double what they are. But how we dislike the rates and taxes! How few there are who take a Christian view of paying them, and are glad, up to their means, to accept the burden which membership in this great nation lays upon them. Something more is our duty than to make barely honest returns for an income tax.
“Give to him that asketh thee,” and (in St. Luke) “of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.”
Probably most of us know the oldsculpture on the back of the screen behind the high altar in our abbey of Westminster. It is one of those in which are represented the traditions about our (almost) patron saint, Edward the Confessor. The king is resting after the labours of the day, and Hugolin, his chamberlain, has brought out the chest of money to pay his various retainers. But he leaves it open while he is out of the way; a scullion comes in, and thinking the king is asleep, twice he carries off treasure out of the chest. While he is enriching himself the third time, the king, who has seen all, quietly observes: “Fly, fellow, as quickly as you can, for Hugolin is coming back, and he will not leave you so much as a half-penny.” Hugolin does come, and, finding out what has occurred, questions the king. The king however will not disclose who has taken the treasure:“He needed it more than we; Edward has surely enough treasure. As Jesus Christ teaches us, worldly property ought to be common to all those who have need of it.”[60]
We need not doubt that occasions still occur when even fantastic acts of generosity, such as this, are the things needed to make an impression on hardened or embittered or careless hearts. Every one knows Victor Hugo’s story of the bishop and the convict in Les Miserables, and no doubt it represents realities in life and experience.
On the whole, however, it is seldom that it would be right to let the thief have his own way. But it is always right to deal very mercifully with first offences and to take trouble to give the offenders a clear fresh chance. And even if the law is let to take its course with a criminal, yet kindness to him while he is suffering his sentence and after it—kindness which does not shrink from taking a great deal of trouble—can produce the same moral impression as a literal application of the divine proverb like King Edward’s.
“Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.”
What are we to say to the beggar, of whatever grade? Now, first of all, there are a great many cases where help is needed, and “asked for” therefore,whether by a spoken or an unspoken appeal, by people of whom we know the character and circumstances antecedently. Misfortunes happen to people who are such as can profitably be helped, that is, such as when they are helped in a temporary difficulty will be enabled to resume the normal course of a self-helping life: or such as will need permanent help indeed, as they are permanently incapacitated, but have the will and character to work. Or there are cases where help can be given to educate a young man or woman for the priesthood or some other honourable career. There are in fact no lack of cases in which we can with the greatest profit help individuals, and that largely and generously, to say nothing of innumerable societies and institutions which need and ask, but find few to give regularly and bountifully. This sort of regular generosity costs us much more than giving coppers to beggars or shillings to applicants by post.“Let thine alms sweat into thine hand, until thou knowest to whom thou shouldest give,” was the advice given in a very early Christian community.[61]
Next, let us take notice that we can “make inquiries.” People shrink from this because it takes trouble and implies methodical principles. But there is no equally secure means of sifting out cases of honest need from those of professional begging. The “professionals” will not come near a house where it is known that inquiries are made. And the fact that we take kindly trouble about them, should appeal to what is good in any man’s conscience.
But as to indiscriminate charity?It has been encouraged very often by the teachers of Christianity.[62] But if a tree is known by its fruits, the system is all condemned. It is in fact an indulgence of our feelings of compassion, with little trouble to ourselves, and at the expense of society. To give indeed to any beggar the plainest broken food may do noharm. But it is very seldom welcomed. Again we can do something to indicate friendly, kindly feeling towards an applicant, if we take pains. Perhaps, for instance, we can get a boy-beggar on to a training ship. At least, so far as we can, let us not resent taking trouble about people who have no “special claim” on us. And when our Christian judgement can approve it, let us not resent expense. Let our whole conduct make it evident that we welcome and do not resent claims either on our purse, or on our heart, or on our intelligence. But our intelligence must be brought to bear upon our charity as well as our heart. To illustrate how this is forgotten I will only repeat a story of the saintly William Law.He seems to have distributed as much as £2,500 a year, chiefly in doles to applicants who came into his back yard; he succeeded in getting rid of his money, and in demoralizing the neighbourhood.[63] But it is plainly not our Lord’s will that we should do manifest harm.
Indiscriminate charity is not enjoined, but a self-sacrificing generosity is. Andit would be well if every Christian who is wealthy or “comfortably-off” would, before passing on from this passage, kneel upon his knees as in God’s presence and ask himself if he is making a serious attempt to accept loyally the claim upon his time and money which his Lord makes on behalf of those who want.