{b) Equally important with His sayings on causing others to stumble are those in which Jesus warns His disciples against allowing nny- thing to cause themselms to stumble. There are three of these in Mk 9*^- «• ^^ (^^,44.46 ^-^.q spuri- ous), and they are found twice in Mt. (5^'- 18"-). It is a fair inference from this that, though Lk. does not give them, they were found in the col- lection of discourses used bj* him and Mt. as Avell as in Mk. (Mt. inserting them in his Gospel from both sources), and therefore that they belong to the most surely authenticated words of Jesus. "What Jesus contemplates is that one's hand or foot or eye may cause one to stumble — in other M'ords, that something in his nature, something which is in itself legitimate, may mislead one in the spiritual region and alienate liini from Christ ; and He declares that to prevent such a catastrophe no severity to nature can be too great. The right eye is to be plucked out, the right hand or foot cut off and cast away : it is better to enter into life halt or maimed or with one eye, than to go with tM'o eyes and feet and hands into the ever- lasting fire. It is easy to argue against this from the point of \new of self-realization and the de- velopment of all sides of our nature, but the per-
emptory and veiiement tone of Jesus does not suggest arguing. For men whose nature is what ours is, living \i\ the world in which we live, and called to discipleship to Jesus, situations will emerge in which salvation depends simply on whether we have it in us to :^ubject nature to summary and surgical treatment. If a man will do no violence to his nature, but claims liberty for it on every side, — if he will go wherever his' feet can cany him, do whatever his hands itch to do, look at whatever his eyes long to see, — the end will not be a complete and rounded character, it will be the forfeiture of all character ; it will not be an abundant entrance into life, it will be hell fire. This is the philosophy of Puritanism. It is rela- tive no doubt to human nature as Jesus knew it and as we know it ; but as that is the only human nature Ave liave to do with, it is absolute enough. It is as much a matter of life and death in the teaching of Jesus that we should not allow natural impulses to put us at fault about Him, as that we should not become responsible for putting others at fault. The most passionate words tliat ever fell from His lips deal with (rKav5a\i'(ei.v and aKavSakig- eadai in both these vital aspects.
3. The Apostolic Church. — When we pass from Jesus to the A]iostolic writings, we find new illus- trations and applications of His teaching, but no new ethical ideas. Thus the conception recui'S [a) of Christ Himself as (TKdv5a\ov. In the gospel which presented a crucified man as the power and the wisdom of God, there ^as something which people could not get over ; they stumbled at it and turned away. This was especially true of the Jews (1 Co 1^). They could not accommodate themselves to a Messiah who had been banged, especially when they thought of Dt 21^. As the act of striking against an obstacle is often painful and irritating, it was this ofi'ence of the cross which explained the persecution of St. Paul by the Jews, and even by Christians who did not know what Christianity meant (Gal 5") : it was the reaction of their soreness against what caused it. The earlj- Christians, who had naturally difficulty in understanding how Christ could be a stumbling-block, found relief for their minds in this as in similar perplexities by discovering that the disconcerting fact had been predicted in the OT. It lay not outside of, but within the Divine counsel and plan. In Ro 9^, 1 P 2*, Christ is spoken of as X/^os irpoffKdfjLfjLaToi (a loose stone on the road against which the traveller strikes his foot = i:^ 1?^:) and irirpa <7Kav5a.\ov (a rock projecting through the soil, over which he f alls = 'rir;^ ts). [On tlie relation of these two passages to each other and to Is 8'"* 28'", see Sanday and Headlam on Romans, and Hort on 1 Pet.]. What it was in Christ over which men stumbled, Peter does not say : but in Paul it is clear that what the Jews could not get over was the demand involved in Christ's atoning death, that they should re- nounce the pursuit of a righteousness of their own, and humble themselves to receive in faith the gift of a Divine righteousness. It was the cross that was a stumbling-block, and it was a stumbling-block to pride.
(b) In the main, however, ffKaudaXov is discussed in the Apostolic writings in connexion with the possibility that (^Inistians may cause others, especially weaker Christians, to stumble, and so to forfeit their connexion with Christ. The danger of doing this is the more serious that it is possible to do it (so to speak) with a good con- science. It comes up mainly in 1 Co 8-10 and Ro 14. In l)oth these passages the .'entral idea is that of Christian liberty, and the problem is what are the Christian conditions of its exercise. There are minds which are intoxicated by it, and will