(2) So, too, in respect of marriage. Jesus cer- tainly teaches that a spiritual vocation is some- times inconsistent ^vith the married state. ' There be eunuchs Avhich have made tliemsehes eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it'(Mt 19'=). 'This,' says Jerome, 'is the voice of the Lord exhorting and urging on His soldiers to the reward of chastity.' But to write thus is an exaggera- tion, if not a perversion of the truth. Nothing is more noticeable than the extremely guarded form of Christ's utterance here, in striking contrast with His vei-y explicit injunctions concerning re- nunciation in other matters. Jesus weighs His words with the greatest care. He makes no general exhortation to celibacy. He merely points out that some people, in the enthusiasm of their heavenly calling, have suppre.ssed the very instincts of nature, so that they have, as it were, undergone an operation of ethical self-emasculation, being dead to sexual desire ; and He recommends those who have received the gift of abstinence, in this sense, not to neglect it. Just as elsewhere, in His pregnant, paradoxical way, Jesus bids men ' hate ' lather, and mother, and wife, and children (Lk 14-^), if their claims tend to supersede the claims of God (Mt lO^') : so here He bids those who are convinced that God's claims demand the whole of their time and energy, to refrain altogether from entering the marriage state. But this is no ascetic doctrine of celibacy. The Master who
tau"ht that matrimony was a dii-inely ordered condition, and emphasized in the strongest terras the sanctity of the conjugal relation (>It 5== 195-', Mk 10-1=, Lk 16'8), who practised (Lk 2") and in- culcated the duty of filial obedience and love to- wards parents (^ft 15^"^, Mk T'"-"), who habitually used the symbolism of the family to express the profoundest and holiest truths of religion, certainly did not mean to teach that family life, as such, was irreconcilable with righteousness. He uttered no word in disparagement of it ; He never implied that the married attain a lower grade of jjerfec- tion than the continent. On the contrary, it is clear that Jesus regarded marriage as the right and natural course for the majority of people, and He even chose a married man as the chief of His apostles. In short, while recognizing that through special circumstances the individual might be called upon to renounce the gratifications of mar- riage, Jesus appears to indicate that such renuncia- tion is an exceptional duty imposed on the few, not a general rule for the many. Marriage in itself is not to be avoided as a thing debasing ; it debases only when men refuse to subordinate it to the claims of the Kingdom.
(3) So, once more, towards the traditional dis- cipline of asceticism Jesus took uj) an attitude of inditt'erence. In His view, the value of such ex- ercises depends solely upon the spirit in which they are undertaken. As forms through which devotion seeks to find expression, He does not condemn them ; but, on the other hand, He does not suggest that they are the necessary or inevit- able concomitants of the holy life. This will appear from His teaching on fasting — one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the Jewish piety of His time. Jesus points out that true tasting is not a parade of piety before the eyes of men, but an outward expression of a personal relation of the individual soul to the ' Father which seeth in secret' (Mt 6'*"). Hence fasting is not a matter of compulsion or prescription or external ordinance ; it has value solely as the appropriate manifestation of a state of mind. Thus Jesus refuses to impose fasts on His disciples in their days of gladness, but He foresees that ' the days will come when the bridegioom shall be taken from them,' and then the sorrow of their heart will seek an outlet through the forms of sorrow (Mt 9'^ Mk 2'»='', Lk 5^*- ^). In iustitica- tion of His refusal to lay down fixed rules upon the subject, Jesus goes on to say that, just as no wise man would sew a new patch on to an old garment, or pour new wine into old bottles, so it would be foolish to graft the new-found liberty of the gospel on to the mass of old observances, and still more foolish to attempt to force the new system as a whole within the forms of the old. The new piety must develop new forms of its own (Mt 9"- ", Mk 2='- =2, Lk 5*"**). From all this we gather that Jesus refuses to bind religion to ex- ternal acts of asceticism, or to declare such acts to be of obligation. Such performances as fasting, flagellation, or restriction of sleep may certainly have a conditional worth as the sincere expression of a sad and contrite spirit, but they are not of the essence of devotion. Jesus emphasizes the state of the heart, the self-denying disposition, the bent of the soul towards God ; with anything besides this He is not concerned.
Hence in answer to the question. Was Jesus an ascetic ? we are bound to reply in the negative. Neither in His practice nor in His teaching did He adopt the tone of asceticism. He called indeed for self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-forgetfulness. He demanded that all lower goods should be subordi- nated to the highest good, that all human strivings should be directed ultimately towards righteous-