Jesus seems to have adopted the prevailing popular attitude. He instituted no campaign
against the use of strong drink. He made it no part of His mission to denounce indulgence. He Himself followed the ordinary practices of His day, both using wine and giving His countenance to festivities in which wine played an important part (cf. Jn 2'"). His various references to the beverage indicate that He regarded it as a source of innocent enjoyment (cf. Lk 5*'-28-39 734 178) Nevertheless, that He did not overlook the fact that excess was common, and that He had an open eye for the obtrusive evils of over-indulgence, is abundantly evident from other references, as in the parables. That He did not feel called upon to command or commend abstinence in spite of this is partly to be explained, perhaps, by tlie fact that drunkenness was the vice chiefly of the wealthy. That seems to be implicitly recognized in Lk 21**, where it is bracketed with surfeiting and subjec- tion to the cares of this life, faults peculiarly associ- ated with the rich or well-to-do. In the parable of the Householder (Mt 24«-'>' = Lk 12*=-«), the drunken characters whom He holds up to contempt are servants of one in high position, forming the manage of a luxuriims lidusehold in which creature comforts would lie- plentiful. In the circles in which Jesus llimscll luiiicipally moved, and to which He cliietly iippcakMl, excess does not seem to have been so common as to call for urgent protest or the starting of a crusade against the use of alcoholic liquors.
Christ's attitude to the whole matter was deter- mined by the fundamental purpose of His mission. Drunkenness in general He regards as the accom- paniment and .symptom of a carnal unregenerate state of heart, the outcome of wickedness that defies restraint. He implicitly recognizes it also as strongly contributory to spiritual demoraliza- tion, as inducing such blunting of the spiritual sensibilities and disabling of spiritual faculty as incapacitate the soul for the proper exercises of the devout life, and endanger its future by reducing it to a state of unjirepaiedness for the last Divine ophe (Lk 2P-'"). A. M. Hunter.
DUMB.— See Deaf and Dumd.
DUNG.
Agriculture, p.
DUST (KovioprU. Mt 10'^ Lk 9= 10", Ac 13" 22=3 . Xi5os = xoi'S, Mk 6", Rev 18'". The former means properly dust stirred up or blown about, as 'a cloud of dust'; the latter simply earth or soil thrown down or raised in a heap. In NT the two words are plainly synonymous). — The long droughts and fierce heat of Palestine, together with the soft*- ness of the limestone rock — the prevailing forma- tion^— make for the jiroduction of dust in great quantities. In high Minds it penetrates to almost every part of the hou.ses. The peilesliiaii suffers much from fretting of the feet by tlie .Inst, which neither sandal nor shoe exclu.le^. I'lii^ renders necessary, as well as pleasant, the wa.^hing of the feet when the journey is done (Lk 7^^).
An immemorial token of giief in the East is the casting of dust upon the person, especially upon the head, or the laying of the face in the dust ; while of one utterly humbled, it is said that he 'licks the dust.'
The throwing of dust in the air is still a not uncommon way of expressing rage, or emphasizing an appeal for justice. This is probably meant to show that Earth herself joins in the petition for redress of intolerable wrongs.
Our Lord's direction that 'the Twelve' should shake off the dust of the cities that rejected their message, derived special significance from Jewish teaching. The very dust of a heathen road was held to produce defilement. To shake off' the dust
502
DUTY
of their feet, as a testimony against liouse or city, meant that it had passed under the ban of their Lord, and the symbolic act proclaimed that ' nought of the cursed thuis' clave to them. ' In this sense anything that .In.' i.. a i.i.-rxju was metaphori- cally called ■■thr ilii-l, a~. ' .'I.. ■■ the dust of an evil tongue," "thr ilu~t .if u-urv ' ; .is, on the other hand, to "du.^it to iJolulry ' 'meant to cleave to it' (Edersheim, Life and Times uf Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. p. 644). The modern Oriental, if asked re- garding any questionable business, will daintily giip the lapel of his robe or tunic and gently shake it, turning aside his head as if he should say, 'Not even the dust of that transaction has touched me.' "W. EwiXG.
DUTY.— In the widest sense of the word, 'duty' is the correlate of ' ought.' * AVhat I ought to be, to do, to feel, that is my duty. So the word covers the whole content of the moral ideal. But both to the plain man and to the phOosopher duty usually has a narrower significance ; and this we must make clear before we can trace the relation of the teaching of Jesus to the conception of duty.
Our type of duty is the soldier ^^ ho kept guard at his post when Herculaneum was overwhelmed by lava and ashes. His station in life prescribed an action ; and he fulfilled it. What his motives were we do not ask ; we do not inquire how he felt in the execution of his task, or what manner of man he was. He did what he was commanded ; he did his duty. A man's duty, then, at any time is the action determined by his station in life. He stands under a rule, which he must obey and apply. Such obedience does not, however, cover the highest moral excellence. Two men both do their duty, say, to the poor ; but the one is hard, unsym- pathetic, the other benevolent ; the one is just, the other full of charity. Although in point of duty they do not difter, we feel that the latter is a better man than the former ; for he stands nearer to the ideal of goodness. This is the popular view.