Illustrations of the working of Desire abound in religious experience. To enter into them would occupy us too long. It need only be said that attachment to a pure and holy Personality, love to One wlio is the ideal of human life, purifies tlie world of desire and intensifies the jiower of action, ^len who have felt the exijulsive power of a new allection and the int<;nsive jxiwer of a holy love
DESIRE
DESPISE
453
are liftod into a now world, and those who love Christ learn tliat the world of their desires is formed hy Him ; they learn to love what He ap- proveSj and to hate a\ liat He hates. The world in whicli tliey live, the universe in which their desires terminate, are constituted by the Person and by the Love of Christ. See art. IDEAL.
Jlednnisti viclv, Methods of ludworth Hodu- i^ . ; Albee, A Uh.csa/J S. ■ ; .1 imes, Priu-
Ethics : Theorif , Elhic; .1 eon, T/i, Ilistorif Mill; \\ ciplea w Theory, :
Use of the term ' desire ' in the Gospels. — In AV of the Gospels the word ' desire ' is of frequent occurrence. As a noun it is found only once (Lk 22'^), as the equivalent of iTn9vij.ia, but in the verbal form it represents no fewer than 8 verbs in the original :—e7rifl..M^« (Mt 13", Lk 16=' IV"-' 22''!), ei\w (Mk 9=^ Lk 5™ 8™ lU-^ 20^"), ahi^ (Mt 20=», Mk 1035 1124 igG. 8_ LI- 23"'), etoiTi^u. (Lk 2-2-'i), (parda (Lk 7^'^ 1432, Jn 1221), i-^cparai^ (Mt 1(5'), f,,T^w (Mt 12-"'- ^7, Lk 9"), irapaKoXia (Mt 1S=-). Twice we have the adj. 'desirous' (Lk 23", Jn 16"), but in both cases the vb. 9i\u is used in the Greek. In liV, however, ahiw, i^aiT^a, epurdia (except in Lk 7**), and iirepwrda are rendered by 'ask,' fTjWw by 'seek,' and Trapa- KoK^a by ' beseech ' ; so that i-mdvixiui and 0i\oi are left as the two verbs which in a more exact use of language have the meaning of ' desire.' When we distinguish between them, ewiOvfiioi may be re- garded as denoting the desire of the feelings (ffu/iis), W\« the desire of the will. In the latter the element of purpose and resolve is usually more strongly present (ef. Jn 8" rds iwiOvij.lai rod iraTpis {jfiCiv e^Xere iroiuv). Sometimes, however, Oi\w is used where a distinction from eiriBviiiu can hardly be pressed (see tlie parallel passages Mt 13", Lk lO^'').
In the language of Christ and the Gospels, desire in itself is, properly speaking, neither good nor bad, its quality depending altogether upon the subject who experiences it or the object to which it is directed. The scribes ' desire ' to walk in long robes (Lk 20*^) ; wliile many prophets and righteous men have ' desired ' to see Christ's day (Mt 13" H Lk lO^-"). The Prodigal ' desired ' (<rjre(?LV", EV ' would fain ') to fill his belly wltli the liusks that fed the swine (Lk 15'") ; and Jesus said, ' With desire I have desired (fViSufti? i-KeOvix-rjaa) to eat this pass- over with you before I sutler ' (Lk 22'=). But owing to the corruption of the human heart, ' desire ' tends to have a predominantly bad meaning, and so iTTLdviila comes to denote the sinful 'lusting' of a sinful will. In Mk 4''' (• the lusts of other tilings') the word is ulriNuly ]i.issing over to this fixity of a dark conndtatiiin ; llir 'other things' may not be evil in tliemselvcs, liut as they are allowed to clioke the word and render it unfruitful, they have to be classed as ' thorns.' In IMt 5^ exiflu/iTJircu expresses ' lust' in the specific sense in which it has come to be used in modern speech, as unholy sexual desire. In Jn 8" dwiOv/xias denotes the very ' lusts ' of the devil as they are seen reappearing in his children.
According to the teaching of Jesus, impure desire, apart altogether from overt acts of sin, is itself a transgression of the Divine law (Sit 5-"). This is the point at which Christ's ethical teaching so inmieasurably transcends that of all other masters, and specillcaily the 'righteousness' of tlie scribes and Pliansrrs „f His ,i;,v. 11. • Ian-Ill lliiU -."mI-
conduil III is by thu
from -w itldn that a man is defiled (Mt 15'»'-). It is this .same teaching with regard to iTn.evfi.la, now used definitely in the sense of 'lust' or sinful desire, that we meet again in characteristic forms in the writings of St. Paul and St. James. St. James (!"'•) in his powerful figure shows how a man, seduced by his own iTri.9vfi.ia, begets the sin which issues finally in death. St. Paul (Ro 7''"-) tells how the commandment oyK eniGYMHceic stii-red up in his heart Trairav iTnOv/xiav, and so forced him at length to understand tliat nothing but the law of the Spirit of life could set him free.
LiTERATCRE.— Jloulton .imI Im I ,, ( ;,, dunce to tkc Grcck
Testament, and the Uxi- I i,,,mt and Cremer,
s.vo. tT,lhu.,a, itdlui^iu, i> .■ .'[ I. . , . ;, , !,„,i Doet. of Sin, i. 15711.; Martc-nsL-n, C7//< i. '- ;,/,,, . ,,. s,iY.; Liddon, Ele- ments of Ueliiiion, p. 14S11., inKi^, Manijedto of the Eimj p. 245 ft. ; Expositor, iv. iv. [istllj iZ<S..; Milton, Paradise Lost,