No doubt these descriptions of mediaeval parish life represent an ideal very imperfectly realized. But is it not an ideal we need to recover? Is there not a call for Church reform, both moral and formal, to restore to us the community life of our parishes, and fill St. Paul's language again with its primary and natural meaning?
[3] The word is the same as St. Paul has just used to describe the eager 'pursuit' of opportunities of hospitality by the Christian. He 'pursues' opportunities of doing good, while he is himself 'pursued' by enemies to do him evil.
[5] Prov. iii. 4 LXX. 'Provide things honourable in the sight of the Lord and of man.'
[8] The truth, however, which underlies the metaphor of the body is, we may say, equally present in all the New Testament writers.
[11] Dr. Liddon, with many others, interprets 'according to the proportion of _the_ faith,' i.e. according to 'the majestic proportion of the (objective) faith.' This is the characteristically Latin, as against the Greek, interpretation, and the Greek is certainly to be preferred, because 'according to the proportion of our faith' follows naturally upon 'according as ... the measure of faith' just above; indeed 'faith' in this context can hardly have assigned to it without violence the objective meaning which, however, in the context of the Pastoral Epistles it no doubt frequently bears. Cf. app. note A, p. 205.
[12] _Somersetshire Records_, vol. iv, 1890.
[13] Dr. Jessop, 'Parish Life in England before the Great Pillage,' _Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1898, p. 55; cf. also Dom Gasquet on 'The Layman in the Mediaeval Period,' _Tablet_, Sept. 2, 1899.
It is possible that the thought of the innocent victim of injustice and wrong waiting upon the divine wrath, brings to St. Paul's mind the idea of the State which exists to represent divine justice in the world, and minister divine wrath on behalf of the innocent. But, whether this particular connexion of thought was really in St. Paul's mind or no, at any rate the previous section has made it plain that the 'love of the brethren' must extend itself to become a right relation to all men, whether Christians or not[1]. In particular, therefore, the relation of the Christians to the imperial authority could not fail to be a matter which required attention and apostolic counsel. The Jews, whose theocratic { 117} principles made submission to government by 'the uncircumcised' at least a real abandonment of a religious ideal[2], had always an instinctive tendency to rebellion; and the Christian church built upon Judaism might easily have inherited this instinct. The catholic church of the new covenant, might have claimed to be a theocracy like that of the old. Especially at Rome, where the Jews were a vast and formidable body who had recently given trouble and been expelled[3], the attitude of the Christians, who were identified with them, might easily be misunderstood. Or on the other hand the Jews themselves, at Rome as at Thessalonica[4], might represent the Christians as disloyal to Caesar. Moreover, apart from all unjustified slanders, the spirit of the 'fifth monarchy men' has seldom been altogether absent from periods of Christian enthusiasm; and the restless and undisciplined { 118} tendencies at Thessalonica[5], which the mistaken expectation of the immediate second coming of Christ had encouraged, were a sign that Christians might easily find it difficult to settle down as good citizens in the great empire of the world.