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is to become just and to be like God, as far as man can attain the divine likeness, by the pursuit of virtue.' (Republic, 613.)

(6) Evils, Theodorus, can never pass away; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Having no place among the gods in heaven, of necessity they hover around the mortal nature, and this earthly sphere. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily convince mankind that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not merely in order that a man may seem to be good, which is the reason given by the world, and in my judgement is only a repetition of an old wives' fable. Whereas, the truth is that God is never in any way unrighteous— he is perfect righteousness; and he of us who is the most righteous is most like him. Herein is seen the true cleverness of a man, and also his nothingness and want of manhood. For to know this is true wisdom and virtue, and ignorance of this is manifest folly and vice. All other kinds of wisdom or cleverness, which seem only, such as the wisdom of politicians, or the wisdom of the arts, are coarse and vulgar. The unrighteous man, or the sayer and doer of unholy things, had far better not be encouraged in the illusion that his roguery is clever; for men glory in their shame— they fancy that they hear others saying of them, "These are not mere good-for-nothing persons, mere burdens of the earth, but such as men should be who mean to dwell safely in a state." Let us tell them that they are all the more truly what they do not think they are because they do not know it; for they do not know the penalty of injustice, which above all things they ought to know-not stripes and death, as they suppose, which evildoers often escape, but a penalty which cannot be escaped.'

'What is that?'

"There are two patterns eternally set before them; the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched: but they do not see them, or perceive that in their utter folly and infatuation they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the pattern which they are growing like.' (Theaetetus, 176.)

One of the keynotes in these six noble passages is quaintly expressed in the adage of Rabbi ben Azzai, who said, 'Run to do even a slight precept, and flee from transgression; for precept draws precept in its train, and transgression, transgression; for the recompense of a precept is a precept, and the recompense of a transgression, a transgression.' In other homely words: virtue

SUFFERING AND SACRIFICE

205

is its own reward; sin is its own punishment. The true reward of a virtuous act is that the doer becomes inevitably more virtuous; the true punishment of a wicked act is that the doer becomes inevitably more sinful. Yet we are not to suppose that this true or divine punishment excludes the possibility and the hope that the sinner may still triumph over temptation and break away from the bondage of sin. And the triumph even more than the punishment may fitly be called divine.

§ 40. Voluntary suffering and sacrifice.-The second alleviation I have alluded to before. It is the fact that there is much suffering which is voluntarily undergone by one person for the sake of, or in the stead of, another. Suffering for the sake of others seems to give it a high and holy place in the scheme of God's world. If it be true, as George Eliot says, that men 'still own that life to be the highest which is a conscious voluntary sacrifice,' we must also admit that this highest would be unattainable if there were no such things as sorrow and pain. Without suffering no sacrifice, and this thought gives to a great quantity of suffering a peculiar glory and a distinctive worth. It says in the Talmud, 'Of those who suffer humiliation but do not inflict it, who are reviled but revile not, who do all from the love of God, and rejoice at their sufferings, the Scripture says, "They that love him are as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."'

Looked at from this point of view suffering, which in one sense was man's direst problem, becomes in another sense man's chiefest prerogative. Suffering and pain can be regarded as the condition of progress, both of the individual and the race. This is a thought which finds frequent expression in modern poetry, and very notably in Robert Browning. For instance, in Rabbi ben Ezra

'Poor vaunt of life indeed,

Were man but formed to feed

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:

Such feasting ended, then

As sure an end to men ;

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

'Rejoice we are allied

To That which doth provide

And not partake, effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod;

Nearer we hold of God

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

'Then, welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!

Strive, and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!' § 41. The progress of the race and of the individual.—We rise on stepping-stones of suffering and pain to higher things.' And not only we individually, but also the race: humanity as a whole. This, again, is a thought which has been much dwelt upon in modern times, for it seems to go hand in hand with, and to transfigure, the modern doctrine of evolution. From the lowest, crudest beginnings man has slowly risen and is slowly rising still. All that he, by the will and by the grace of God, has achieved in his long history has been achieved at the cost, and through the means, of struggle and of suffering. This view of suffering and even of evil as a great educational instrument in the progressive movement of the human race from the lower to the higher (whether the progress be in the sphere of truth, of beauty, or of goodness) can also be illustrated from the poets. But strengthening and stimulating as this thought may be, it does not really give a satisfactory solution to the problem of misery and evil unless, together with this gradual evolution and education of the human race in the mass, there is also a gradual evolution and education of each individual human soul. Thus, for the last and most potent ' alleviation' of all, we come to the great hope of hopes-that the self-conscious life of man is not terminated by death.

'What hope of comfort or redress?

Behind the veil, behind the veil.'

And death once dead, there's no more dying then' (Shakespeare, sonnet cxlvi). If this hope of England's greatest poet be justified, then indeed the problem of evil may also ultimately be solved. Then the idiot or the savage may also have his chance, and gain his insight into truth and goodness and God. Then the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, its sinners and its deformities, need not be merely regarded as the price of ascending civilization, but each of them, with his own place and value, will justify his Creator. Only if man be immortal can we justly say with Browning: 'And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence

For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence ?

Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?'

" BEHIND THE VEIL'

207

Now this belief in the immortality of the soul is dependent upon our faith in God, and therefore the answer suggested by the speeches of the Almighty to Job is our answer still. Rightly and solemnly has the late Master of Balliol said: Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul rests at last on the belief in God. If there is a good and wise God, then there is a progress of mankind towards perfection; and if there is no progress of men towards perfection, then there is no good and wise God.' And let us note his words, a progress of mankind towards perfection.' That is what we want the future life for. We do not want it for 'punishment,' still less do we want it for 'reward'; we do not even so very greatly want it for the redress of this life's inequalities in outward prosperity; we do want it for the progress of men towards perfection. We want it, if I may say so, for the sinner even more than for the saint. And yet shall the soul of the righteous be, as it were, limited to earth, and then perish utterly? We would fain believe that

'transplanted human worth.

Will bloom to profit otherwhere.'

And therefore we echo the Hebrew sage's trust: The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; their hope is full of immortality.'

With this last and greatest alleviation' in our minds and hearts we may still, wistfully and falteringly but yet trustingly, repeat the familiar words of Milton:

'All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.'

CHAPTER IV

KOHELETH OR ECCLESIASTES

§ 1. Characteristics of Koheleth.-The Book of Ecclesiastes, the fourth product of the Hebrew wisdom literature, which we have now to consider and read, is very different from any of the three that have here preceded it. It is a short book and a very strange one full also of problems and difficulties concerning which the learned debate unceasingly. Its precise date is unknown and uncertain, but it was probably written about the same time as Ben Sira, that is about 200 B.C.

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It consists mainly of a series of reflections and observations upon life and human affairs, together with some prudential warnings and counsels couched in the same key as these reflections and based upon them. In this sense, apart from certain possible interpolations, the number of which is very disputed, the book possesses a unity of its own. I said apart from certain possible interpolations.' But this interpolation question assumes for Ecclesiastes a peculiar importance. For if it was written from beginning to end by one man, its tendency and final upshot are not identical with the upshot and tendency that will remain if certain important sentences are removed from the book as later additions and corrections. The interpolations of Ecclesiastes are, therefore, quite as interesting and as significant, supposing they exist at all, as the interpolations of Job.

I said just now that Ecclesiastes is unlike Job or Proverbs. Yet, as a product of the wisdom literature and as written by a man who, whatever his peculiarities, was yet a Jewish sage possessing at least some of the qualities and characteristics of his class in language and in thought, it has its points of connexion with both. In those important respects wherein it differs from Proverbs and Job, it also differs from every other book of the Bible. And it is not only in these respects unlike every book of the Bible, but it is also unlike every distinctively Jewish book written since the Bible was finished.

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