XLI. NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS.
The authors of the books of the New Testament, whom it is convenient to view together as a group of witnesses bearing on the condition of a part of the Roman East under the early Empire, supply some interesting matter. We read of an agriculture that includes corn-growing, the culture of vines, and pastoral industry: the olive, and above all the fig-tree, appear as normal objects of the countryside. Plough spade and sickle, storehouse threshing-floor and winepress, are the familiar appliances of rustic life, as they had been from time immemorial. Farmers need not only hard work, but watchfulness and forethought, for the business of their lives. Live stock have to be protected from beasts of prey, and need endless care. And the rustic’s outlook is ever clouded by the fear of drought and murrain. All this is an ordinary picture, common to many lands: only the anxiety about water-supply is perhaps specially Oriental. The ox and the ass are the chief beasts of draught and burden. In short, country life goes on as of old, and much as it still does after many changes of rulers.
From the way in which farmers are generally spoken of I infer that they are normally peasant[1208] landowners. That is to say, not tenants of an individual landlord, but holding their farms with power of sale and right of succession, liable to tribute. The Roman state is strictly speaking the owner, having succeeded to the royal ownership assumed by the Seleucid kings. But that there was also letting[1209] of estates to tenant-farmers is clear, for we read of collection of rents. At the same time we find it suggested, apparently as a moral rather than legal obligation, that the toiling farmer has the first claim[1210] on the produce, and the ox is not to be muzzled. Such passages, and others insisting on honesty and the duty of labour, keep us firmly reminded of the moral aims pervading the works of these writers. In other words, they are more concerned to define what ought to be than to record what is. Many of the significant references to rustic matters occur in parables. But we must not forget that a parable would have little force if its details were not realistic.
Of the figures appearing on the agricultural scene we may distinguish the wealthy landlord[1211], whether farming for his own account or letting his land to tenants: the steward[1212] farming for his lord’s account: the tenant-farmer: probably the free peasant on a small holding of his own. Labour is represented by the farmer working with his own hands, and by persons employed simply as labourers. These last are either freemen or slaves. Slavery is assumed as a normal condition, but a reader can hardly help being struck by the notable passages in which the wage-earner appears as a means of illustrating an important point. Does the occurrence of such passages suggest that in these Oriental surroundings wage-service was as common a system as bond-service, perhaps even more so? I hesitate to draw this conclusion, for the following reason. Accepting the fact of slavery (as the writers do), there was not much to be said beyond enjoining humanity on masters and conscientious and respectful service on slaves. But the relation between hirer and hired, presumably a bargain, opened up far-reaching issues of equity, transcending questions of formal law. Hence we hear much about it. That the workman is worthy of his meat (ἐργάτης ... τροφῆς) is a proposition of which we have an earlier[1213] version, referring to slaves. The cowardice of the hireling shepherd points a notable moral. The rich who defraud the reaper of his hire[1214] meet with scathing denunciation. For to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned[1215] of grace but of debt.
This last proposition seems to furnish a key to the remarkable parable[1216] of the Labourers in the Vineyard, which has been subjected to many diverse interpretations. If we accept the view that the wages represent the Kingdom of God, and that this reward is granted not of debt but of grace, it is clear that great stress is laid on the autocratic position of the householder (οἰκοδεσπότης). His treatment of the hired labourers is an assertion of entire indifference to what we call ‘economic’ considerations. How it is to be interpreted as equitable, theologians must decide, or be content to leave modern handworkers to draw their own conclusions. My interest in the matter may be shewn in the question whether this householder is to be regarded as a typical figure, or not. I trust I am guilty of no irreverence in saying that to me he seems a purely hypothetical character. That is to say that I take the gist of the parable to be this: if an employer chose to deal with his hirelings on such arbitrary principles, he would be acting within his rights. I do not infer that such conduct was likely in ordinary life, or even that a concrete case of its occurrence had ever been known. I cannot believe that in a country where debts[1217] and usury are referred to as matters of course, and where masters entrusted money[1218] to their slaves for purposes of trade, where sales of land[1219] were an ordinary business transaction, a sane individualistic capitalist would act as the man in this parable. Those who think differently must clear up their own difficulties. I would add that this parable, the details of which seem to me non-realistic, only occurs in one of the Gospels. Is it possible that it is based on some current Oriental story?