What Coleridge describes in the.se words resembles the character of the righteous °'; 3"^* nian as dis- tinguished from the good man. If we take Ciceio s definition of the good man as ' he who assists those whom he can, and hurts nobody' (' vir bonus est is qui prodest quibus potest, nocet nemini [rfe Offlciis, ni. 15. 64]), we get a sum ar stress upon tife positive and active interest of the good man m his fellows, as opposed to the more negative attitude associated with ■righteous.'* f<v;„l,t
But this is merely one of the meanings ot rigiil- eousness' in the literature of the Anostohc Age The Greek term 5i(ca.o,TW7, is employed by St. t-.iui in a technical sense, and by him and other writ^ers in a variety of non-technical senses. One of the latter has just been noted, and, before passing on to the technical Pauline sense, it vyiU be well to survey the other passages in which it is eni.ployed bv him and later writers of the Apostolic Age w'ithout any specific theological reference.
1 Non-t4chnical use of the term in apostolic literature (including St. Paul).-The u.sage of the term in '2 Cor. is particularly instructive The verb 'iustify' does not occur in this Epistle, tnit, as we shall see, one of the profoundest passages on righteousness in its technical application to tlie doctrine of justification falls within t le scope of this letter. Yet side by side with this he two non- technical meanings of the term. c ■ „ (a) One of these is Su-atocrci-j) in the sense ot alms- L'iving, which it had already begun to acquire. In firkin" the Corinthians to be prompt and generous with their contributions to his fund for the relief of poverty among the Palestinian Jewish Christians, he quotes the EXX version ol Ps 112 and app.es it to the situation of his readers (9-') : as it is written. He scatters his gifts broadcast to the poor, his charity (at/;aioffc;'i;) lasts for ever tie who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it. ; he will increase the crop of your chanties (ra yj^vP-'^ra TfK 5«a.off,;.^s i-Mi").' In this use of the term ^ye can overhear the meaning which it had begun to .'•ither in the religious ethic of Jiulaism (as early Fis the period of Sirach), where almsgiving or cliarity was regarded as so characteristic an expression ot the truly pious life that Sucatoo-wr; could be used as
• There is an excellent note on this in Lightfoot's A'oles on Epistles of St. Paul. London, 1895, p 286 t. In Ro .i^the command' is holv, just («i«aia), and for our good (ay^On) - iya9o! has the same sense ot ' beneficent.
an equivalent for it unon occasion. Rabbinic nietv now an.l then made this a feature of the i,uf:,t,o Ihi, as in the well-known saying of Ilabbi Chania ben Chaninah (i>ota, lift) : As He elothes the naked (Gn 3'^'), so do thou «loLl'e ' '« naked • as He nurses the sick (Gn 18'), so do thou nurse the sick ; as He comforts the mourners (Gn "5") so do thou comfort the mourners; as He buries the dead (Dt 34'), so do thou bury the dead ' In other directions, it fitted in with tlie stress on (■harity as one of the surest nieans of
acquiring merit before ^i"''" t ' "^',"1'°"""? .Liv strong mediator between the Israelites and t leu Pather in heaven ; it brings the time of redcml.tion iii-h' [B'llm Bathra, 10.0- This still prevails in pcqnilar Islam. C. M. Doughty, speaking of his ,osi)itable host Maaluk, observes that il the eainels came home he milked a great bowlful for the stranger, saying, it was his sddaka or meri- torious human kindness, for God s sake, t As iiie context indicates (see v.« : ' he who sows p-'erous j will reap a generous harvest '), St Paul thinks ot o.ra.oac.'T, herein the sense of an a.'tion (or ratlici a character in action) t which is pleasing to God, because it harmonizes with the Divine nature ; bountiful, generous actions done to others will enrich a man with God's bounty as nothing else will St. Paul would have been the last to tcacli any'doctrine of charity as a merit, on which one could base some claim to God s approval. But lie is free to recognize that such spontaneous expres- slons of kindness and mercy between man and man are insiiired and rewarded by God.
ib) The other general sense is retlected in t) • . In the former passage St. Paul, speaking of his methods in the Christian propaganda, claims that he employs ' the weapons of integrity for attack or for defence,' where SiKaioaivy,, as the preceding words indicate ('the holy Sl-irit, unatiected love,
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words inuicate v unc i.l..j .-.j-"", f t„ f„„
true words, the power ol God ), is opposed to toul play, misrepresentation, and rancour ; in evangeliz- ing and in controversy, even when controversy is personal, he professes to be clean and lionest. 1 he second reference opposes SiKa^oaivr, to iniquity or unregulated conduct, almost as goodness to wicked- ness- 'What have righteousness and iniquity in common, or how can light associate with darkness ; 'Morality' would be inadequate here, for what St Paul has in mind is the religious life, but it is the religious life as expressed in conduct ; he is certainly not using bi.KO.Loaivn in the technical sense in whicli he employs it elsewhere. ' Conduct is the word of common life,' says Matthew Arnold, ' morality is the word of philosophical disquisition, righteousness is the word of religion (LUtratmy and Dogma, ed. Eondon, 1883, p. .16). It is in this sense, or in the allied sense of integrity, that it occurs in the Pastoral Epistles §{c.^. 1 li 6 o Xi "-■' 3'" 48), as well as m Eph 4-' 5» 6". bimi- farly the technical usage in Philippians is accom- panied by the non-technical expression in 1 , where the Apostle prays that the life of these Christians may be ' covered with that harvest of righteousness which Jesus Christ produces to the crlory and praise of God.' This is equivalent to Hhe harvelt of the Spirit.' (Gal 5^^) the. good character produced by the influence of Christ 01