An interesting echo of this teaching on poverty, or on the openhandedness that must prevent the dangerous accumulation of wealth, is found in the Gospel of the Hebreivs (fragm. 11), whei-e the rich man who came to Christ in the attitude of the young ruler is told that he could not have kept the Law, since people are dying of hunger at his gates. What we do not find, however, in the Gospels, is any eulogy of poverty for its own sake ; it is enjoined simply as an almost in- dispensable aid to serving God aright. And the fact that Christ constantly mixes with what we should call the middle classes and the well-to-do, without rebuking them or bidding them give up all, shows that povertj' must be understood in a relative sense, and not as the equivalent of penury. His life was one long protest against the attitude of ' virtus laudatur et alget.' To take Mt 26", ' Ye have the poor always with you,' to mean that the existence of poverty must be acquiesced in, is to forget all that was said about mercifulness and liberality by Him who, when He saw the multi- tudes, 'had compassion on them' (Mt 9^^ 14"). Christ demanded the surrender not of money in itself, but of everything that could interfere with
the interests of the Kingdom of heaven ; in this sense the verb dcpLrj/Jn, ' to give up, leave ' (Mt IQ^", Mk 102«, Mt42», Mkl'8; cf. Lk9«"), is character- istic of the Gospels, — as characteristic as it is in its other meaning of 'to forgive.' The ideal is not poverty but service (Mt 20^^, ' ^Yhosoever would become first among you shall be your servant').
Literature. — Edersheini, Life aiid Times of the Messiah ; Schiirer, HJP passim; Delitzsch, Artisan Life in the Time of Christ ; Vogelstein, Landwirtschaft in Pahistina, 1894 ; Merrill, Galilee in the Time of Christ ; for good remarks on the place of poverty in Christ's teaching, see Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums ('Das Evangelium und die Armut'); Expos. 6th ser. xi. (1905), 321. W. V. LOFTHOUSE.
POYERTY OF SPIRIT. — According to the Mattha^an version of the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord pronounced the first Beatitude on the ' poor in spirit ' (irrwxol ry TrvivixaTL). In the cor- responding passage of Lk. (6-*') the words to) irviv- yuaxi are omitted ; and there can be little doubt that this simpler form of the Beatitude is the more original. It may be gathered, indeed, from quota- tions in the early Fathers (cf. Polycarp, ii. 3 ; Clem. Horn. xv. 10 ; Polycr. 2) that the primitive reading in Mt. also was ' Blessed are the poor,' and that the qualifying words were introduced later, in order to define the sense more exactly. Though formally an addition to the actual saying of Jesus, they were felt to be necessary for the right trans- lation of an Aramaic term which had come to bear a peculiar shade of meaning.
1. Already in the later OT writings we find poverty associated with a certain religious temper. The 'poor' are also the contrite of heart (Is 66'-) ; they are the ' meek ones ' who lend a willing ear to the Divine message (Ps 37", Is 61'). This estimate of poverty is probably to be explained by historical circumstances. The foreign influences which began to operate in the period succeeding the Exile had chiefly affected the richer classes, while the poor still clung to the ancient traditions. Poverty thus acquired a moral significance, which was reinforced by the conditions prevailing in our Lord's own time. As a result of the externalizing process which had long been at work in religion, the rich were in a specially favoured position from the point of view of legal righteousness. They alone were at leisure to study the Law and to order their lives according to its requirements. They were not exposed, like tradesmen and artizans, to a constant risk of Levitical defilement. They could aflbrd to give alms, and otter the stated sacrifices, and cast much into the Temple treasury. The distinction of wealth and poverty had, therefore, come to be a religious as well as a social distinction ; and the Pharisaic spirit of jiride and self-sufficiency was chiefly prevalent among the rich. In their con- sciousness of strict obedience to the Law, they could lay claim to peculiar privileges, and look down with contempt on the ignorant ' people of the land ' ( Jn 7^"). It must always be remembered that, when Jesus .speaks of wealth or poverty. He is thinking not so much of a social status as of the religious conditions involved in it. Much in His teaching that has been supposed to bear on present- day economic questions, belongs properly to quite a different sphere.
2. It is thus apparent that the words t(Jj irvevfxaTi, although not literally uttered by Jesus, are neces- sary to the right understanding of His thought. He pronounces His blessing on the poor, in so far as their .spiritual temper corresponds with their outward condition. Their poverty was commonly assumed to entail certain drawbacks which placed them at a hopeless disadvantage in their relations to God. Jesus declares that, on the contrary, it was their privilege. It served to foster in them the disposition which could most readily