The latter half of Dr. Meyer's book deals with the political aspect of English Catholicism during this period. With the organization of the Enterprise under Philip II., the increasing weakness of Spain and the growing strength of England became apparent. After the Armada, there was what might be called, without any desire to use the phrase in its modern meaning, a period of watchful waiting, of waiting for the death of a Queen who has placed her name upon the blackened scroll of persecutors with Nero and Caligula. It has a period also of internal quarrels among the Catholics, the beginning of disagreements on questions of policy, and especially on the question of the Succession. There were misunderstandings also among the clergy on the matter of its organization, and the period dealt with in Dr. Meyer's book closes with the unfortunate Archpriest Controversy. One wonders, after summing it all up, whether or not there is a solution in Dr. Meyer's conclusion that it was in the name of the national sentiment and of the national conception of the State that liberty of doctrine and practice was denied to the small Catholic minority; that, owing to their foreign connections, Catholics seemed the most dangerous of all the State parties which kept aloof from the Anglican Church. It is a point of view which explains too easily, perhaps, the persecution of the Catholics, the apostasy of so many of the old Faith, and the triumph of Protestanism; but it must not be forgotten that this point of view can never be fully accepted in the light of the bigotry for Catholicism which has been so firmly implanted in the English soul. The history of the Catholic Church in the England of Elizabeth's time is one of the most glorious pages in the annals of the triumphs of Catholicism, and there is no doubt that the views expressed here by a scholar who is neither an Englishman nor a Catholic, will tend greatly towards a more objective grasp of this painful period of English history.

RESISTANCE IN THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL.

I

BY H. SCHUMACHER, D.D.

IN the December number of the North American Review appeared an article under the headline Christ Non-resistant, penned by the Rev. John Haynes Holmes. The essay, supposed to be a defence of the New Testament spirit against its profaners, must have led the readers to quite incorrect conclusions about the attitude of the New Testament towards the problem in question. Hence an answer may not be amiss, in spite of the great amount of time and energy which have already been devoted to the subject. The article concludes with a strong and sarcastic verdict against all those who do not share the author's opinion: "If a person does not believe in non-resistance, why should he not, like Nietzsche, confess honestly that he does not believe in the Gospel of Christ?"

But even the casual reviewer of two thousand years of Christianity will see that an absolute and unconditional non-resistance was never observed and never regarded as an integral part of the creed of the followers of Christ. Nor was it ever believed to be a real demand of Christianity to suffer every humiliation, every unjust attack on honor and life, to suffer anything in the world with patient non-resistance. Are law courts and prisons really considered as the offspring of anti-Christian spirit? Does real Christianity condemn those institutions? Thanks be to God, it does not. "We all know that the doctrine of non-resistance, literallyfulfilled, would soon remove man and his civilization from the earth."1

But to come directly to the point, we know that Christ Himself was at times a "resistant." He was such when He asked the officer who struck Him on the face, by what right he did it? And when He cleansed the Temple, and "overturned the tables of the money-changers." '3 Even Dr. Holmes concedes that this constitutes an act of open violence. St. Paul was a "resistant" when he appealed to the Roman Emperor at the moment when he faced 'Evelyn Underhill, in The Hibbert Journal, 1915, p. 500. 'John xviii. 23.

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Matt. xxi. 12.

6

injustice; when he "withstood Cephas to the face; when, as a Roman citizen, he refused to be scourged, and when he hurled "anathema" against those who preached a different Gospel.7

Dr. Holmes bases his theory of non-resistance upon four facts of the Gospel: "All the serious doubts ever raised in contradiction of the assumption that Jesus was a non-resistant are based upon one or all of four brief passages in the Synoptic Gospels. If we dispose of these, the whole case in opposition falls to pieces." In fact, the "case in opposition" would not even be touched if all the four passages could be explained as instances of non-resistance, as we shall show later. Let us now look at the four "facts."

The first passage is Mark xiii. 7: "When you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, fear ye not. For such things must needs be, but the end is not yet." Dr. Holmes answers this: "Is it possible that there is no difference between saying that it is inevitable that certain things shall happen in the future, and saying that it is right and proper that such things should happen?" Certainly, there is a great difference, and Dr. Holmes is right to some extent in saying: "He (Christ) said what would be, not what ought to be." But just here, where Dr. Holmes stops, the problem begins. Despite his seemingly accurate distinction, the careful reader must feel at once a deplorable lack of distinction. For as soon as we speak of resistance, we must suppose someone who is resisting in defence, and someone who is being resisted or who is attacking. The act of the latter provokes the act of the former. Then the question arises, which of the two components of war-resistance is approved and which is not, or are both rejected by Christ? Now, Christ Himself in the Temple gave us an instance of aggressive resistance against the money-changers showing thereby that even this kind of resistance has His sanction under certain circumstances. A fortiori He gives His approbation to defensive resistance, as is exemplified by His own conduct against the officer who struck Him. From Christ's own conduct we see clearly that both the offensive and the defensive resistance may be justifiable in some cases and unjustifiable in other circumstances, while the cause of the resistance may be wholly deplorable, as Jesus Himself certainly deplored the happenings in the Temple as well as those before the High Priest. What is the basis for the justification of either species of resistance? Jesus Himself furnished us the canon by His question to the offending officer: "If I have spoken evil, give testimony of

Acts xxv. II.

'Gal. ii. 11.

"Acts xxii. 25.

'Gal. i. 8.

the evil; but if well, why strikest thou Me? "8 The same rule is employed by St. Paul, when he appealed to the Roman Emperor :9 "If there be none of these things whereof they accuse me, no man may deliver me to them." In other words: defensive as well as offensive resistance may be right, if the motives, the purpose and the object are right, and they are wrong if those factors are wrong. The second passage, quoted by Dr. Holmes, is Matt. x. 34: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth; I came not to send peace, but the sword." It was easy to refute this passage as one directly favoring war. No critical exegete of the New Testament will base on the word "sword" in our Gospel-verse a direct defence of war, and we can entirely agree with the author that this word has to be explained figuratively, perhaps according to a "vivid Oriental fashion." But the principle of war is contained therein, since the whole sentence breathes the spirit of resistance. Dr. Holmes himself must confess: "What Jesus was emphasizing here...... was the radical and therefore divisive character of the Gospel." And again he admits that the verse must be understood from the standpoint of another word of the Lord: "I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." Does it sound like non-resistance when we hear that word "division " and repeatedly that term "against?" Certainly, this word of Jesus does not predict war with arms and guns, but war with the powers of heart and will. Yet the preaching of non-resistance would speak in entirely different words: "I came to bring harmony between father and son, absolute obedience of the daughter towards the mother and charity of the daughter-in-law towards the mother-inlaw." But in the actual words of Christ we find the contrary of all we would expect from one who preached absolute and universal non-resistance.

Certainly, Jesus did not come with "the distinct purpose to break up families;" but He did come with the distinct Gospel that they sometimes have to be broken up for motives higher than obedience. He did not come to send individuals and nations against one another, but with the clear Gospel that they may resist one another for principles higher than peace/ Both justice and right stand higher. They cause divisions! And "such divisions". here are the words of Dr. Holmes, this time in their right placewere not to be welcomed, much less plotted and planned, but were 'John xviii. 23.

Acts xxv. II.

to be accepted when they came. They were simply the altogether regrettable and yet inevitable results of the proclamation of a new truth, a new commandment, a new age." But the new age has to Ideal with human nature like the old one.

The third passage is found in Luke xxii. 36-38, telling the episode of the sword at the Last Supper. "And He said to them: When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, did you want anything? But they said: Nothing. Then said He unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip, and he that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword...... But they said: Lord, behold here are are two swords." The passage has been variously interpreted. The exegesis of Theophylact gives the most natural solution by rendering the meaning of the verse this way: Be manly for you have to undergo many adversities, which he indicates by "sword." Buy a sword, i. e., so provide for yourself like those who have to undergo wars and many struggles. Sonnenschein 10 arrives at the direct conclusion: In this passage, I see a plain approval of the principle of armed defence."

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The last passage, quoted by Dr. Holmes, is the scene in the Temple.11 "He began to cast out them that sold and bought in the Temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves; and He suffered not that any man should carry a vessel through the Temple." This passage is indeed the "most serious of all" against Dr. Holmes' contention. His concessions are strikingly clear: "That this event took place as recorded is unquestionable. That it constitutes an act of open violence is similarly unquestionable...... What we have here is a well-authenticated violation of the principle of non-resistance."

But, how then is it possible to avoid the conclusion that Christ Himself was a "resistant?" The answer of Dr. Holmes is truly astonishing, and presents an exegesis which cuts the Gordian knot with the sword: "This episode is chiefly remarkable in the life of the Nazarene, not for anything which it teaches in itself, but for the inconsistency with the rest of His career. Never at any other time, so far as we know, did He precipitate riot or Himself assault His enemies. But this time, He did this time He failed to live up to the inordinately exacting demands of His own Gospel of brotherhood. Nor is the circumstance difficult to understand! Jesus came to Jerusalem tired, worn, hunted. He knew that He walked straight 10 The Hibbert Journal, 1915, p. 865.

"Mark xi. 15-18.