Thus the word passed up into the higher region of Christian thought, and was stamped with the gospel signet, and laden with all the rich significance of gospel blessedness. It now takes on a group of ideas strange to the best pagan morality, and contradictory of its fundamental positions. Shaking itself loose from all thoughts of outward good, it becomes the express symbol of a happiness identified with pure character. Behind it lies the clear cognition of sin as the fountain-head of all misery, and of holiness as the final and effectual cure for every woe. For knowledge as the basis of virtue, and therefore of happi- ness, it substitutes faith and love. For the aristocracy of the learned virtuous, it introduces the truth of the Fatherhood of God and the corollary of the family of believers. While the pagan word carries the isolation of the virtuous and the con- traction of human sympathy, the Gospel pushes these out with an ideal of a world-wide sympathy and of a happiness realized in ministry. The vague outlines of an abstract good vanish from it, and give place to the pure heart’s vision of God, and its Eas communion with the Father in heaven. Neer it told of the Stoic’s self-sufficiency, it now tells of the Christian’s poverty of spirit and meekness. Where it hinted at the Stoic’s
36 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. V.
self-repression and strangling of emotion, it now throbs with a holy sensitiveness, and with a monition to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep. From the pagan word the flavor of immortality is absent. No vision of abiding rest imparts patience and courage amid the bitterness and struggle of life; no menace of the destiny of evil imposes a check on human lusts. The Christian word dlessed is full of the light of heaven. It sternly throws away from itself every hint of the Stoic’s asserted right of suicide as a refuge from human ills, and emphasizes something which thrives on trial and persecution, which glories in tribulation, which not only endures but conquers the world, and expects its crown in heaven.
The poor (of rrwyot). Three words expressing poverty are found in the New Testament. Two of them, vévns and zrev- ypds, are kindred terms, the latter being merely a poetic form of the other, and neither of these occurs more than once (Luke xxi. 2; 2 Cor. ix. 9). The word used in this verse is therefore the current word for poor, occurring thirty-four times, and cov- ering every gradation of want; so that it is evident that the New Testament writers did not recognize any nice distinctions of meaning which called for the use of other terms. Luke, for instance (xxi. 2, 3), calls the widow who bestowed her two mites both weveypav and wtwx. Nevertheless, there is a dis- tinction, recognized by both classical and ecclesiastical writers. While 6 wévns is one of narrow means, one who “ earns a scanty pittance,” mrwyxés is allied to the verb rrwccew, to crouch or cringe, and therefore conveys the idea of wéter destitution, which abjectly solicits and lives by alms. Hence it is applied to Lazarus (Luke xvi. 20, 22), and rendered beggar. Thus dis- tinguished, it is very graphic and appropriate here, as denoting the utter spiritual destitution, the consciousness of which pre- cedes the entrance into the kingdom of God, and which cannot be relieved by one’s own efforts, but only by the free mercy of God. (See on 2 Cor. vi. 10; viii. 9.)
4, They that mourn (zevJodrtes). Signifying grief mani- ested; too deep for concealment. Hence it is often joined with kralew, to weep audibly (Mark xvi. 10; James iv. 9).
Cu. V.] MATTHEW. 37
Shall be comforted. See on John xiv. 16.
5. The meek (o0/ 7paeis). Another word which, though never used in a bad sense, Christianity has lifted to a higher plane, and made the symbol of a higher good. Its primary meaning is mild, gentle. It was applied to inanimate things, as light, wind, sound, sickness. It was used of a horse; gentle.