The Teaching of Jesus 211 " Howbeit in vain do they worship me, " Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. " For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradi- tion of men, as the washing of pots and cups : and many other such hke things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." ^ It was not merely a moral and a social revolution that Jesus proclaimed ; it is clear from a score of indications that his teaching had a political bent of the plainest sort. It is true that he said his kingdom was not of this world, that it was in the hearts of men and not upon a throne ; but it is equally clear that wherever and in what measure his kingdom was set up in the hearts of men, the outer world would be in that measure revolutionized and made new. Whatever else the deafness and blindness of his hearers may have missed in his utterances, it is plain they did not miss his resolve to revolutionize the world. The whole tenor of the opposition to him and the circumstances of his trial and execution show clearly that to his contemporaries he seemed to propose plainly, and did propose plainly to change and fuse and enlarge all human life. In view of what he plainly said, is it any wonder that all who were rich and prosperous felt a horror of strange things, a swimming of their world at his teaching ? He was dragging out all the little private reservations they had made from social service into the light of a universal religious life. He was like some terrible moral hunts- man digging mankind out of the snug burrows in which they had lived hitherto. In the white blaze of this kingdom of his there was to be no property, no privilege, no pride and precedence ; no motive indeed and no reward but love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and blinded and cried out against him ? Even his dis- ciples cried out when he would not spare them the light. Is it any wonder that the priests realized that between this man and themselves there was no choice but that he or priestcraft should perish ? Is it any wonder that the Roman soldiers, confronted and amazed by something soaring over their comprehension and threatening all their disciplines, should take refuge in wild laughter, and crown him with thorns and robe him in purple and make a mock Caesar of him ? For to take him seriously was to enter upon a strange and alarming life, to abandon habits, to control instincts and impulses, to essay an incredible happiness. . . . 1 Mark vii, 5-9.
