RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ethics
the New Testament resembling the Greek systems of ethics, there is none the less a unity in New Testament ethics which lies deeper than the unities of reflection, due to a creative age which was flushed with religious feeling and moral passion.
New Testament ethics, the standard and mold of Christian ethics, is religious to an even greater degree than the ethics of the Old Testament. For the Wisdom literature is in some places deeply tinged with Hellenism; but the Wisdom mood is notably lacking in the New Testament literature, the apocalyptic and prophetic mood being in complete control. Yet the controlling element of Biblical ethics as a whole is the fact and experience of divine revelation. The power and wisdom and goodness of God invade human consciousness, save man from all his doubts and fears, determine the direction and aim of moral passion. The monotheism of the prophet is ethical monotheism. It reveals and defines itself in distinction from Levitical ethics. The essence of Levitical ethics is a fusion of ritual and custom and fixed convention. In its results it gave an appearance of finality to false or imperfect standards of moral value. Against this view prophetism set itself in moral opposition (Isa. lviii. 3-7; Micah vi. 1-8). The pith of experience is the self-revelation of the divine unity within human consciousness and in history. It expresses itself in an increasing emphasis on character. While, therefore, Biblical ethics is necessarily a religious ethics, it casts itself in the mold of a supreme moral purpose. Moreover, the personal and the corporate elements of ethics are inseparable so that the experience of the divine unity draws after it a solid confidence in the ultimate triumph of Israel.
The prophetism of the New Testament is also in debt to Judaism. The unit of thought and feeling in Hebrew prophetism was the nation (Ezek. xxxvii., the resurrection of the nation). Judaism in a measure shifted the center of gravity. In the Wisdom literature the mood and mind of the individual seek expression. In the Psalter the individual finds satisfaction and relief in lyrical poetry. In Phariseeism the belief in individual immortality became a working motive. But along with these gains went a serious loss. Levitical ethics reasserted itself. Insistence on rigid religious conformity became the order of the day. And the pride of orthodoxy joined forces with it in order to chain the moral genius of Hebrew prophetism to the chariot of legalism and externalism. John the Baptist ushered in the revival of prophetism (Matt. xi. 7-11). He put himself in moral opposition to the Levitical ethics of Judaism (Matt. iii. 7-10; Luke iii. 7 sqq.). Christ continued and completed John's work. He took up into his mind and plan the gains of Judaism, but transcended its spirit and its range. The community founded by him was a prophetic community (Acts ii. 14 sqq.; Joel ii. 28-32). It was distinguished by intense corporate consciousness (adelphos, adelphoi, in N. T. outside the Gospels 251 times; hapanta koina, Acts ii. 44, iv. 32). Hence it was also distinguished by an impassioned eschatology. Thought and feeling set with tidal force toward the triumph of Christ's com- IV.— 13
munity (parousia). Emotion, wherever found on its high levels, manifests itself in ecstatic visions of the impending kingdom of God (I Cor. ii. 9 sqq.; Speaking with Tongues, Acts ii. 4 sqq.). It is a help to clear thinking to contrast the beginnings and the genesis of New Testament ethics with the development of philosophic ethics in Greece. The work and the position of Aristotle is typical. He was never a citizen of Athens. This typifies the fact that the systematic moralizing of the Greeks does not appear until the state (polis) is in process of decay. Hence Aristotle has a marked tendency toward reflective individualism, toward detachment from corporate interests and ends (cf. his discussion of Friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics; also his definition of God, in terms of the speculative reason, as " thinking on thinking," Metaphysics, xii. 9). Christian prophetism, on the contrary, is like Hebrew prophetism, though on a higher level. It is instinctively corporate and eschatologic.
Inevitably, the key-word is hope. In the prophetic ethics of the New Testament hope is not a virtue, but the spring of all virtues. Through Jesus Christ men are born again into a living hope (I Pet. i. 3). They are saved by being brought into quickening touch with the hope of the kingdom of God (Rom. viii. 24). Christ is God's affirmation of the promises made through the Prophets (II Cor. ii. 20). Through him the redeemed mind and heart utter a decisive assent to God's purpose and plan (ib.). The frame and constitution of New Testament ethics is a solid and glowing conviction regarding the religion and moral issues of history. The foundations of Christian hope are laid in faith (cf. Heb. xi. 1; Acts xv. 9). Spiritual and moral efficiency springs from faith (Rom. i. 17). Faith, however, is not primarily an act of the mind; it is perception, appropriation, assent, all in one; and the man redeemed through Christ by faith affirms and proclaims the kingdom of God to be the ultimate reality (see Faith). This aspect of faith makes it the root of love. It is a significant fact that the Pauline trilogy went through two recensions. In I Thess. i. 3 occurs the order faith, love, hope; but in I Cor. xiii. 13 is found faith, hope, love. The Pauline congregations in the midst of Judaism and heathenism are threatened with disintegration, so the unity of the congregation is the tactical unit of the army of the Lord. Love is the constructive power and will that makes deep corporate unity and fellowship possible (cf. Rom. xii.-xv., I Cor. xiixiv., Philippians i. 27-28). In the First Epistle of John this view is wrought into the fiber of Christian consciousness. Faith, hope, and love are the rootstock of New Testament ethics out of which grow the specific virtues. Thus, humility is the necessary mood of the redeemed mind looking in upon God in his measureless power and mercy, and looking out upon the immense task of realizing God's kingdom (Matt. v. 3; I Pet. v. 5; I Cor. iv. 7, viii. 16). It is the mood of all profound Christian experience. Joy is the inherent quality of all thoroughly Christian action, because the will of the redeemed man is held within the will of God (Phil, ii. 12 sqq.) and is strenuously working toward a supreme end (Phil. iii. 14). So it becomes a neces-
Ethics Eucharist