Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/789

 CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY 771

of the teachings of Jesus, daring to trust him as a savior from a hell of which he seldom spoke, but judging him incompetent to establish upon earth that reign of love which was the chief object of his thought. The Jews erected monuments to the prophets their fathers killed ; Christians in worshiping the Son of God have done despite to the Founder of the King- dom.

II.

Misinterpretation is here easy. In many of his sayings Jesus discriminates harshly against the rich. To the rich, to the well-fed, to the merry, is foretold woe." "It is easier," he once said, after he had seen an earnest, rich young man turn from him, " for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven."' In the most awful of his parables he portrays the beggar Lazarus as shar- ing in the joys of the blessed, unable to carry the least of his comforts to the rich man suffering torments across the great gulf.3 Our one survival of the earliest Christianity is full of this severity.* It seems but the corollary of this discrimination when Jesus called upon his disciples to share their wealth with the poor. Such of them as had property were bidden to sell it and to give alms.s and no one who asked for aid was to be denied. The young man who had lived an exemplary life from his youth was told that if he would be per- fect he should sell what he had and give to the poor.^ Nay, even if one had his goods taken from him he was not to seek them again.7 Nor was this sharing of wealth to be limited to alms-giving. In lending no interest was to be charged. To seek gain through loans would be to place the lender on a level with sinners.* And charity was not only to be extended, it was to be enjoyed. When Jesus first sent out the twelve and (accord- ing to Luke) subsequently the seventy, among other directions

■Luke 6:24. 'Matt. 18:24. 'Luke 16 : 19-31.

< James I : 10, II, 2: I-7, 4:13, i'l-d- 'Luke 12:33.

'Matt. 19:16-22. 'Matt. 5:42. 'Luke 6: 34.