itself. Gifts, mysteries, knowledge, or the "body to be burned"—there is a more excellent way than these. For all these are "in part." Their value is but temporary and relative. The values that abide, that stand criticism, are that staking of oneself upon the truth and worth of one's ideal which is faith; that aspiration and forward look which is hope; that sum of all social charity, sympathy, justice, and active helpfulness, which is love. "But the greatest of these is love."
5. The Religious View of the Kingdom Gave the Setting for a Social Ideal.—Jehovah was the king of his people. The human ruler in Jerusalem was his representative. The kingdom of Israel was under divine care and had on the other hand a serious purpose. The expansion and glory of the kingdom under Solomon showed the divine favor. Division and calamity were not mere misfortunes, or the victory of greater armies; they were divine rebukes. Only in righteousness and justice could the nation survive. On the other hand, the confidence in Jehovah's love for Israel guaranteed that he would never forsake his people. He would purify them and redeem them even from the grave. He would establish a kingdom of law and peace, "an everlasting kingdom that should not be destroyed." Politics in Israel had a moral goal.
6. Religion Gave the Problem of Evil a Moral Significance.—The Greek treatment of the problem of evil is found in the great tragedies. An ancestral curse follows down successive generations, dealing woe to all the unhappy house. For the victims there seems to be nothing but to suffer. The necessity of destiny makes the catastrophe sublime, but also hopeless. Ibsen's Ghosts is conceived in a similar spirit. There is a tremendous moral lesson in it for the fathers, but for the children only horror. The Greek and the Scandinavian are doubtless interpreting one phase of human life—its continuity and dependence upon cosmical nature. But the Hebrew was not content with this. His confidence in a divine government of the world forced him to seek some moral value, some purpose in the event. The search led along one path to a readjustment of values; it led by another path to a new view of social interdependence.
The book of Job gives the deepest study of the first of these problems. The old view had been that virtue and happiness always went together. Prosperity meant divine favor, and therefore it must be the good. Adversity meant divine punishment; it showed wrongdoing and was itself an evil. When calamity comes upon Job, his friends assume it to be a sure proof of his wickedness. He had himself held the same view, and since he refuses to admit his wickedness and "holds fast to his integrity," it confounds all his philosophy of life and of God. It compels a "reversal and revaluation of all values." If he could only meet God face to face and have it out with him he believes there would be some solution. But come what may, he will not sell his soul for happiness. To "repent," as his friends urge, in order that he may be again on good terms with God, would mean for him to call sin what he believes to be righteousness. And he will not lie in this way. God is doubtless stronger, and if he pursues his victim relentlessly, may convict him. But be this as it may, Job will not let go his fundamental consciousness of right and wrong. His "moral self" is the one anchor that holds, is the supreme value of life.
"As God liveth, who hath taken away my right,
And the Almighty who hath vexed my soul;
Surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness.
Till I die, I will not put away my integrity from me,
My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go."[52]
Another suggestion of the book is that evil comes to prove man's sincerity: "Does Job serve God for naught?" and from that standpoint the answer is, Yes; he does. "There is a disinterested love of God."[53] In this setting, also, the experience of suffering produces a shifting of values from the extrinsic to the internal.
The other treatment of the problem of suffering is found in the latter half of Isaiah. It finds an interpretation of the problem by a deeper view of social interdependence, in which the old tribal solidarity is given, as it were, a transfigured meaning. The individualistic interpretation of suffering was that it meant personal guilt. "We did esteem him stricken of God." This breaks down. The suffering servant is not wicked. He is suffering for others—in some sense. "He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The conception here reached of an interrelation which involves that the suffering of the good may be due to the sin or the suffering of others, and that the assumption of this burden marks the higher type of ethical relation, is one of the finest products of Israel's religion. As made central in the Christian conception of the Cross, it has furnished one of the great elements in the modern social consciousness.
§ 3. THE MORAL CONCEPTIONS ATTAINED
The moral conceptions which were thus worked out may now be brought together for convenient summary under the two heads of the "How" and the "What" indicated in our introductory chapter. Under the first we specify the conceptions resulting (1) from recognition of a standard of right, and an ideal of good, (2) from free choice of this ideal. Under the What we indicate the content of the ideal on both its personal and its social sides.
1. Righteousness and Sin.—Righteousness and sin were not exact or contradictory opposites. The righteous man was not necessarily sinless. Nevertheless, the consciousness of sin, like a dark background, brought out more emphatically the conception of righteousness. This conception had its two aspects, derived from the civil and the religious spheres of life—spheres which were not separate for the Hebrew. On the one hand, the just or righteous respected the moral order in human society. The unrighteous was unjust, extortionate, cruel. He did not respect the rights of others. On the other hand, the righteous man was in "right" relation to God. This right relation might be tested by the divine law; but as God was conceived as a living person, loving his people, "forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin," it might also be measured by an essential harmony of spirit with the divine will. There was the "righteousness of the law," and the "righteousness of faith." The first implies complete obedience; the second implies that in spite of transgressions there is room for atonement[54] or reconciliation. As the first means ethically the testing of conduct by a moral standard, a "moral law," so the second stands for the thought that character is rather a matter of spirit and of constant reconstruction than of exact conformity once for all to a hard and fast rule. Specific acts may fail to conform, but the life is more than a series of specific acts. The measurement of conduct by the law has its value to quicken a sense of shortcoming, but alone it may also lead either to self-righteous complacency or to despair. The possibility of new adjustment, of renewal, of "a new birth," means liberation and life. As such it may be contrasted with the Buddhist doctrine of Karma, the causality from which there is no escape but by the extinction of desire.
"Sin" had likewise its various aspects. It stood for missing the mark, for violating the rules of clean and unclean; but it stood also for personal disobedience to the divine will, for violation of the moral order of Israel. In this latter sense, as identified by the prophets with social unrighteousness, it is a significant ethical conception. It brings out the point that evil and wrongdoing are not merely individual matters, not merely failures; they offend against a law which is above the private self, against a moral order which has its rightful demands upon us.
2. Personal Responsibility.—The transition from group to individual responsibility was thoroughly worked out by the prophets, even if they were not able to carry full popular assent. In early days the whole kin was treated as guilty for the offense of the kinsman. Achan's case has already been cited; and in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, "Their wives and their sons and their little ones" were all treated alike.[55] In like manner, the family of the righteous man shared in the divine favor. The later prophets pronounced
