3. The question ought to be of equal importance to the very large number of people in our day who believe in salvation by the keeping of the Law, or, as they would put it, by living good
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lives. What they believe in is a fair average goodness. They are fully aware of the distinction between right and wrong, and their idea is that if a man is right in the main, the wrong things he does will not be laid up against him. It is the same old idea of salvation by keeping the commandments ; not all of them, for that is impossible, but as many of them as to make it evident that he is a good, well-meaning man, and therefore worthy of a good place in the life to come. What question, then, could be more vital to persons of that way of thinking than the one put here by the scribe—-" Which is the first command- ment of all ? "
^ If you were to go to some recognised authority in commercial circles, the answer would probably be something like this : Pay your debts ; be scrupulously honest : that is the first and great commandment. Let a man only be fairly honest and honourable in all his transactions with his neighbours : that is the main thing — as for the rest, a fair average goodness will be quite sufficient. Or, if you were to address the same question to some leader of fashionable society, the answer would be some- thing like this: Be gentlemanly, or. Be lady-like. Perhaps a French phrase would be convenient, as it certainly would be appropriate : let everything in your appearance, dress, and behaviour be comme il faut. If English were preferred, the phrase might be " good form." *
4. Was this summary of the Law stated here by Jesus or by the lawyer ? In St. Matthew's narrative we are told that the lawyer asked Him the question, and that Jesus replied that the first and great commandment was to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and a second like unto it was this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. " On these two commandments," He added, " hangeth the whole law and the prophets." In St. Luke, however, the lawyer who stood up tempting Him put the question, " Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " Jesus replied by asking him how he read the law. The lawyer himself then summarised the law, in the formula, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself." Jesus said, " Thou hast answered right : this do and thou shalt live,"
^ J. M. Gibson.
300 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
And then the lawyer's self-justification elicited the narrative of the Good Samaritan. It is quite possible, as Meyer supposes, that the lawyer in St. Luke is not the same as the one referred to in St. Matthew ; and that the lawyer in St. Luke, knowing the formula which Jesus had already given as the summary of the law, asked his question to elicit an expected answer, intending to pose Him with the casuistical question. Who is my neighbour ? In that case, he was disconcerted by the inquiry of Jesus, What is written in the law ? How readest thou ? and was obliged himself to give the summary which he expected from Jesus. It is this duplicate narrative which leaves us in doubt whether it was Jesus who first selected the two texts (Deut. vi. 4 and Lev. xix. 18) and offered them as the most important feature of the law. But we need not be in any doubt as to His originality and Divine authority in characterising this twofold commandment as the pivot on which the whole law and the prophetic teaching turn. The Eabbis may have given to it a certain pre-eminence ; Jesus pointed out that it was the whole law in germ and principle,
^ Whatever may be the degree of originality in this mode of handling the law, it is clear that Jesus by His precept and example struck out a totally new thought in ethics and religion by His application of the truth imbedded in the ancient law. If the Eabbis recognised a pre-eminence in the mighty precept, " Thou shalt love," none the less they lost themselves and their hearers in an intricate maze of regulations which had little or nothing to do with love. But Jesus gave to the idea such a power and such an inclusiveness that He succeeded in absorbing all the precepts of His law in the one principle. His Apostles unquestioningly accepted this solution of all casuistry. " For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself " (Eom. xiii. 9). In St. James, the perfect law, the law of liberty, fulfils itself in service to sufferers and purity towards God (Jas. i 25-27). St. Peter sums up all his teaching in ex- hortations to love (1 Pet. iii. 8, 9 ; 2 Pet. i. 7). And St, John is so possessed with the thought, that tradition presents him, in the renunciation of all other doctrine, simply spreading his hands over the Church with the injunction: Little children, love one another.*