3. Corresponding to this extraordinary balance of the various traits of ideal character, Christ showed a unique competency as a teacher to bring into a unity the diverse orders and interests of truth. In the standard of life wiiich He set before His disciples He reconciled loftiness with simplicity. The standard is undoubtedly very high. It towers above the average level of human living like an Alpine summit. But with all its loftiness it is peculiarly free from the strained and the unnatural. Its attainment involves no sacri- fice of manhood or swamping of the true self, but rather just the achievement of manhood and the realization of the true self. Rebuking nothing
that is purely and truly human, it requires only that the human should come to its best by stand- ing in the transfiguring light of intimate associa- tion Avith the Divine. A great reconciling function is also fulfilled by Christ's teaching in the just tribute which it pays at once to morality and to religion, and in the indissoluble union which it assumes to subsist between them. From the standpoint of that teaching no man is a fit subject to bring a gift to God's altar until he has done his utmost to establish right relations with his fellows (Mt 5-^^"). No man is an acceptable petitioner for the Divine clemency until he is willing to forgive the one who has trespassed against himself (Mt 6^^'-)- Ceremonial scrupulosity and ecclesiastical performances count for nothing apart from the intention and the habit of righteous dealing. They are no better than a counterfeit appearance, a whitewash upon the sepulchre (Mt 23^). Re- ligion divorced from morality is a delusion and a pretence. But, on the other hand, the teaching of Christ is vastly remote from contentment with a bare morality or discharge of the common duties of man to man. The ))resence of the Heavenly Father lay about Him like a radiant atmosphere. To do the will of that Father He regarded as the prime necessity of His life, His veiy meat (Jn 4^'*). In the assurance of the Father's complacent love He found the unfailing spring of consolation and rejoicing, and the return of His heart in fervent love to the all -perfect One He counted the most obvious and the sweetest of all conceivable obliga- tions. Accordingly, it could not but come about that His teaching should be thoroughly transfused with a religious element, with the thought of Divine relationships. From beginning to end it is beauti- fied and illumined by lofty and intense religious convictions. In short, stress upon the ethical factor is not permitted in the least degree to diminish the emphasis rendered to the religious factor in man's life. The harmonious combina- tion of the two makes one of the fairest and most fruitful ideals that has been brought to the atten- tion of the race.
Literature. — Carl Ullmann, The Sinlessness of Jesus ; G. A. Gordon, The Christ of To-day ; A. B. Bruce, With Open Face ; Hastings Rashdall, Doctrine and Development, 77 ff. ; Lives of Christ by Edersheim, Geikie, Farrar, Rhees, Sanday, and Keim ; Works on NT Tlieology by Weiss, Holtzmann, Beysclilag, Stevens, and Adeney. HeNRY C. ShELDON.
UNITY.— In the NT the term 'unity,' like its Gr. equivalent evoTrjs, occuis only in Eph 4^- ^'^ — both times with reference to the unity of the Christian Church (v.^ 'the unity of the Spirit,' v.'^ 'the unity of the faith'). But the idea of the unity of the Church as the ' body of Christ ' is one that constantly meets us both in positive and in negative forms — in connexion, i.e., alike with exhortations to Christian unity and with the de- precation and rebuke of schism or of the divisive spirit.
St. Paul in 1 Cor. (113 iii8 1225) jg the first to use ' schism ' (o-x.'(rf^x) with an approach to its present technical meaning. The irxi(r!J.a.T«., however, which he condemns are parties only in the Church, not sects ; ' strifes,' but not separations. There is no suggestion that those who called themselves ' of Paul ' had ceased to communicate with those who called themselves ' of Apollos ' (112). The 'divisions' apparent in their meetings for worship (lli''-2i) were of class, of richer and poorer (v. 22), and did not prevent the common meeting. The 'schism' deprecated in his parable of body and members (1225) amounts only to care- lessness of mutual interest ; solution of continuity in the body of Christ is not contemplated. The word a-'ipurn (EV ' sect,' ' heresy ') comes nearer in NT use to the idea of ' sect,' though it does not reach it. It still denotes any party or faction within a single communion, as of the Sadducees (Ac .51"), of the Pharisees (lo^ 26''), or of Christians considered as a school of Judaism (24'''- 1* 2822). It goes no farther in Gal ."5'*, where xipuru; are counted among works of the flesh, as the natural sequence of ipitiuai and hixe<rTxirix4. In 2 P 21 they are the secret work of pseudo- prophets, and are xif>. xTuXtix; ; but there is no suggestion that they amounted to separations : they work ' among you.' The
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strongest expression used on the subject is that of St. Jude (v 19) who speaks of some as xnoiiopilovri; , ' marking themselves off' from their fellows ; but apparently only m tone and conduct —there was no interruption of formal fellowship : the murmurers still ' feasted ' with the Church, and were present at its a-yoc^^i. The Nicolaitans (Rev 2e- 15) were a party within the Church, not a separation from it. The idea of communions severally arranged upon differing bases of opinion or order does not exist within the NT thought. What is conceived as possible, only to be reprobated, is the tendency to faction, or the spirit of party, or the ' divisive course' ; as for actual schism— ^-^ yivom.