PEKSECUTION
PERSECUTION
1C9
reserved for liimself. There he deals not wilh the State, or with his fellow-citizens, but with God. As we follow the stru;;j,'le for religious freedom, whether the struggle be with the secular authority or with a Church which has taken the place of the State, and exercises its functions, it is plain that the conflict is wa":ed around this territorj' — the freedom of the religious man. Whether they are Hebrew jirophets or Christian martyrs — Albigenses, Pilgrim Fathers, or Huguenots — tlie struggle is at bottom of the same nature, and for the same ideal. It will not be denied that variou.s motives have been operative, both in the case of those who persecute, and of those who submit to persecution ; for it is seldom that human motives are unmixed. Nevertheless the passion for religious freedom has been a genuine and powerful factor in all the truculent conflicts between the State or the Church on the one hand, and individuals or communities on the other who have refused to conform. It may be said that no other motive would have been potent enough to create that ' sheer obstinacy ' of which Marcus Aurelius had occasion to complain in the case of the Christians of his time. But kings have been loath to acknowledge the right of subjects to decide for themselves how they are to worship, or what they are to believe. States have persecuted because they have refused to recognize the existence of a sphere in which men are free, and men have endured persecution because tliey have grasped, more or less clearly, the truth that freedom belongs to the very essence of the religious attitude, and determines its moral worth. They liave endured great affliction, and taken joy- fully the spoiling of their possessions, seeing they had themselves for a better po.ssession. This better spiritual possession was conditioned by their retain- ing their religious freedom (He 10^-- ^).
2. Persecution in the OT. — In Mt 5'- Jesus Christ warns His disciples of the troublous times which await them at the hands of the rejireseutatives of Judaism, and reminds them that tlieir experience will be a repetition of the bitter experience of the nation's religious teachers whom God had raised up from time to time, and whose writings indicate their growing insight into the nature of God and religion. To Jerusalem our Lord gave the hard but not unjust name of 'prophet-killer' (Mt 23^°, Lk 13"). Stephen re-echoed his Master's interpre- tation of the nation's attitude when he asked 'which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?' (Ac 7°-). Jesus charged His con- temporaries with raising sepulchres to the prophets whom their ancestors had put to death (Lk ll*'). He did not mean that they erected expiatory monuments to the nation's martyrs. The sepul- chres they built indicated their approval of the misdeeds of their forefathers. In the parable of the Vineyard He gave a similar account of the nation's attitude to her God-sent teachers (Mk 12''^-)-
But it is obvious that the prophets were not simply men who suttered for their religious opinions. They were aggressive religious and social reformers. In their teacliing they came into collision with the existing order of things in social life and religious custom. In the period which succeeded the settle- ment of the Israelites in Canaan the people adopted the gods and the religious observances of the original inhabitants of the land. The prophets of this early age advocated the sole worship of Jalnveh. ISIoses impressed upon Israel the two-fold truth — Jahweh is Israel's God, and Israel is Jahweh's people. The burden of early prophecy was ' Israel for Jahweh ' and 'Jahweh tor Israel. They were patriots rather than religious teachers. Patriotism and religion were identical. They opposed the popular tendency to worship the gods, and imitate the religion, of Canaan, as it indicated disloj'alty to
Jahwcli. They were not fully aware of any pro- found difVerence between Jalnveh and other gods, except that Jalnveh was the God of Israel, an<i, as such, interested in the welfare of Israel and entitled to their undivided homage.
When we come to Elijah, we find ourselves on the confines of anew age. Henceforth the prophets denounced the existing order of things — religious and social. They ethicized theology and religion, and in their canacity as religious teachers they became inevitably social reformers, for the whole basis and structure of society were religious. The message they delivered became increasingly un- palatable, es]iecially to those who were responsible for tlie existing State. The true prophets parted comii.any with the false prophets because t lies' would not 'fall in' and preach what was popular. In the time of Elijah the ant.agonisra between the prophet and the throne — or between religious con- viction and the secular authority — issues in open conflict. Elijah is more than a passive resistor; he carries the conflict into the enemy's territory, and fights the throne with its own weapons. We have seen that Elijah, like his predecessors, advo- cated the sole worship of Jahweh. Ahab had married the daughter of the king of Tyre, and proceeded to strengthen the alliance between Israel and Tyre by introducing the worship of Mel karth, the presiding deity of Tj're. The example of the throne was a potent influence in the life of Israel. It was easy to persuade the people that the alliance with Tyre was not complete unless the Tyrian Baal shared with Jahweh the homage of Israel. The people were halting between two opinions. They were not conscious of any in- consistency or duplicity. If gods could help, the more gods they worshipped the better. There was safety in numbers. Elijah stemmed the tide and a strong party refused to follow the example of the throne. The conflict between Elijah and Ahab was not simply whether one god or another should be worshipped — Jahweh of Israel or Melkarth of Tyre. It was a clashing of two incompatible theologies. It is probable that Ahab would have recommended the worship of both deities. The tendency of the age was in the direction of religious syncretism. But from Elijah's standpoint it was a matter of impossibility to practise this religious dualism. We can trace in Elijah's attitude the gorm of that exclusiveness which is inevitable when the terms ' right ' and ' wrong ' or ' true ' and 'false' are introduced into religion. The line of cleavage is sharply drawn in the story of the pro- phet's life. Right is exclusive ; truth is intolerant. It was absolutely necessary that the stand should be made and the protest raised. To Elijah 'Baal and Yahweh represented, so to speak, a contrast of principles, of profound and ultimate practical convictions ; both could not be right, nor could they exist side by side. For him tiiere existed no plurality of Divine Powers, operating with equal authority in diflerent spheres, but everywhere One Holy and Mighty Being, who revealed Himself, not in tile life of nature, but in those laws by which alone human society is held togetlicr, in the ethical demands of the spirit' (J. Wellhausen, Isr. undjiid. Gesch.', Berlin, 1897, p. 74, quoted in Century Bible, ' 1 and 2 Kings,' Edinburgh, n.d., p. 222). We must not be surprised or disappointed tliat Elijah believed in the use of force. Centuries must pass before the idea is fully understood that religion is voluntary, and that coercion is alien to its very nature. Elijah delighted in violent measures. He was at home in an environment of earthquake, storm, and fire. He met the king on his own ground, and prosecuted the struggle with his own weapons. Moral suasion would have made no I appeal to the mind of the age, and it was only