“The proverbialists occupy themselves with life in all its aspects. Sometimes they simply catch the expression of men, good or bad, or photograph their actions or thoughts; more generally they pass a verdict upon them and exhort or instruct men in regard to them. * * * Some of the proverbs have a certain flavor of humor.”—Davidson.
“The proverbialists occupy themselves with life in all its aspects. Sometimes they simply catch the expression of men, good or bad, or photograph their actions or thoughts; more generally they pass a verdict upon them and exhort or instruct men in regard to them. * * * Some of the proverbs have a certain flavor of humor.”—Davidson.
“The wise men of old,” says Whipple, “have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram: and the proverbs of nations which embody the common sense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit. Almost every sensible remark on folly is a witty remark. Wit is thus often but the natural language of wisdom, viewing life with a piercing and passionless eye.” The object of the present study is to consider those proverbs and other epigrammatic sayings which distinctly contain the element of wit in some form or other, and which are so liberally scattered over the pages of the Bible.
I.—The Book of Proverbs.
In such an investigation, we naturally turn, first of all, to that great collection of proverbs, with which the name of Solomon has become identified. They do not, however, represent his genius alone, although we shall frequently use his name as representative of the whole class of philosophers. They are the productions of many wise men through many generations. They are, indeed, the outcome of the life of a whole people, put into definite shape by those who had insight sufficiently keen and power of expression sufficiently terse to formulate the lessons of human experience. “The wise men,” says Canon Driver, “took for granted the main postulates of Israel’s creed, and applied themselves rather to the observation of human nature as such, seeking to analyze character, studying action in its consequences, and establishing morality upon the basis of principles common to humanity at large. On account of their prevailing disregard of national points of view, and their tendency to characterize and estimate humannature under its most general aspects, they have been termed, not inappropriately, theHumanistsof Israel. Their teaching had a practical aim; not only do they formulate maxims of conduct, but they appear also as moral advisers, and as interested in the education of the young.”
The Book of Proverbs is a perfect mine of cunning and glittering sentences, many of which are witty as well as wise, and none the less wise because they are witty. There are swords that pierce the hidden motives of men, and whips that lacerate the backs of their open follies and sins.
1. The Fool.
There is a personage, or more exactly, an assemblage of certain qualities, constantly held up to ridicule under the general title ofThe Fool. Ruskin says that “folly and sin are to some extent synonymous.” The Fool in the Book of Proverbs is one who combines mental stupidity with moral obtuseness. He has a hard time of it at the hands of the proverbialists. “He that begetteth a fooldoeth so to his sorrow; the father of a fool hath no joy.”
Foolish persons have always been noted for parading their folly, and sounding a trumpet to proclaim their lack of understanding. So Solomon says: “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright; but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness.” “When he that is a fool walketh in the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool,”—his scanty supply of sense is not enough to last him to the end of his journey. There is a modern proverb to the same effect: “He has not wit enough to last him over night.” Everything the fool undertakes comes to grief. “He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage.” “The labor of the fool wearieth every one, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.” “The simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.” “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.” No discipline canbe too severe for the fool. “Judgments are prepared for scorners and stripes for the back of fools.” “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back.” But Solomon is not sanguine that the most rigorous course will produce extraordinary results. “A reproof entereth more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool.” “Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.” “Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?” One can almost see that picture—the fool wandering about the city with money in his hand, inquiring where a person in need of it might purchase a commodity of good common sense. “Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.” In many other proverbs is the fool gibbeted. “As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.” “The legs of the lame are not equal; so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” “As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, making a dangerousweapon, so is he that giveth honor to a fool.” “As a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.” “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool.” In one chapter Solomon describes a group of foolish persons. “For three things the earth is disquieted and for four which it can not bear; for a servant when he reigneth”—the modern instance is the “beggar on horseback,”—“and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married; and a handmaid that is heir to her mistress.” These four characters “play such fantastic tricks before high heaven,” that whether the “angels weep” or not, the earth groans and is “disquieted.” And yet Solomon seems to have found a more grotesque and incorrigible character than the fool: “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.” The contempt of the proverbialists for the class of persons here described was quite as strong as that of Dr. Samuel Johnson.When some one hoped that the good doctor might meet in heaven a certain person whose conduct had aroused his ire, he retorted with some warmth, “Madam, I am not fond of meeting fools anywhere.”
2. The Idler.
How these writers love to castigate laziness! They toss the sluggard on all manner of sharp-pointed epigrams. “He that gathereth in summer is a wise son; he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame.” “The way of a slothful man is as a hedge of thorns,”—he walks as slowly and painfully as if avoiding thorns on either hand. “As vinegar to the teeth and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.” “The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting.” “The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore he shall beg in harvest and have nothing.” “Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.” “He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread; but he that followeth vain persons”—those who teach him thatthere is any other way to success than honest industry,—“is void of understanding.” “The slothful man says, There is a lion without; I shall be slain in the streets.” “As the door turneth upon its hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.” “The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.” Too lazy to eat! This is the very acme of indolence.
3. The Babbler.
These wise men recommend, in pithy terms, the judicious control of the tongue. They commend the value of silence. “Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.” “The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water; therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with.” “It is an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling.” “Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is accounted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.” This is the same idea which wefind, in more elaborate form, in Shakespeare:
“There are a sort of men, whose visagesDo cream and mantle like a standing pond;And do a wilful stillness entertain,With purpose to be drest in an opinionOf wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;As who should say, ‘I am Sir Oracle,And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these,That therefore onlyare reputed wiseFor saying nothing: Who, I am very sure,If they should speak, would almost damn these ears,Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.”
In point of condensation, the wit of the proverb has the advantage. Coleridge relates an incident which illustrates that “even a fool when he holdeth his peace is accounted wise, and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.” He once saw, at a dinner table, “a dignified man with a face as wise as the moon’s.” The awful charm of his manner was not broken until the muffins appeared, and then the imp of gluttony forced from him the exclamation—“Them’s the jockeys for me!”
There is a passage concerning the tongue in the Book of James, full of sayings quite as terse and striking as any in the Book of Proverbs. “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.” “The tongue is a little member and boasteth great things; behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.” “Every kind of beasts and birds and serpents is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind; but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. * * * Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. * * * Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?”
This passage from James may be placed side by side with the familiar story of Æsop. His master, Xanthus, sent him to market to procure the best things it afforded. When the dinner hour arrived, Xanthus discovered that nothing but tongues had been provided. “What,” he exclaimed in a rage, “did I not tell you to procure the best things the market afforded?” “And have I not obeyed your orders? Is there anything betterthan a tongue? Is it not the bond of civil society, the organ of truth and reason, the instrument of our praise and adoration of the gods?” The next day Æsop was directed to go to the market and purchase the worst things it afforded. He did so and again purchased nothing but tongues. “What!” cried Xanthus, “tongues again?” “Certainly; for the tongue is surely the worst thing in the world; it is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor of law-suits, and the source of all division and wars; it is the organ of errors, of lies, of calumnies, and blasphemies.”
“Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men who are made after the likeness of God; out of the same mouth cometh forth cursing and blessing.”
4. The Scold.
To return to the proverbs. Solomon had some unhappy domestic experiences, and such proverbs as these may have been the outcome: “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman withoutdiscretion.” “A continual dropping in a very rainy day, and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her, hideth the wind.” “It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman.” “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” “It is better to dwell in the corner of a house top than with a brawling woman in a large house.”
5. The Power of Money.
The proverbialists had been close observers of human nature, and of the ways of the world. “Hell and destruction are never full, so the eyes of a man are never satisfied.” “A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things.” “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” These wise men had seen much to justify the sharp arrows they shot at those “who crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.” “The poor is hated even of his own neighbor, butthe rich hath many friends.” “Many will entreat the favor of a prince, and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.” “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” There is an incident in the second Book of Kings, that exemplifies, with touches of humor, the truth of these proverbs. “And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea, (king of Israel,) for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, andbrought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year.” The king of Assyria is greatly shocked at this sign of disrespect. His feelings are outraged and wounded at receiving no present. It is suspicious, very suspicious! Let this Hoshea be looked to. The man who fails to bring the usual present is fit for “treasons, stratagems and spoils.” There is no telling what evil he may be plotting. Surely there is “conspiracy in him.” “Therefore, the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.” Solomon was right—“A man’s gift bringeth him before great men,” but the absence of it bringeth him into prison as a traitor!
6. Miscellaneous.
Many other examples of wit and wisdom might be given. Let us add a few miscellaneous ones. Solomon advises against making long calls. Busy men would do well to hang this motto up in their offices: “Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor’s house, lest he weary of thee and so hate thee.” In Solomon’s wide and varied experiences, there had evidently been occasional encounters with “bores.”
It may sometimes be well to present a stern front to the slanderer: “The North wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a back-biting tongue.”
Excellent advice this for those who indorse other people’s notes: “Be not one of them that strike hands, or one of them that are sureties for debts; if thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?” “He that hateth suretyship is sure.”
There were those in that day, as well as in our own, who tried to beat down the price of an article by depreciating itsquality: “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he boasteth.” Donald G. Mitchell, in his charming book,My Farm at Edgewood, has a chapter on “Dickering” which is, in effect, an elaboration of the proverb last quoted. “Sometime or other, if a man enter upon farm life—and it holds in almost every kind of life—there will come to him a necessity for bargaining. It is a part of the curse, I think, entailed upon mankind at the expulsion from Eden, that they should sweat at a bargain. * * * If I were to take the opinions of my excellent friends, the purchasers, for truth, I should be painfully conscious of having possessed the most mangy hogs, the most aged cows, the scrubbiest veal, and the most diseased and stunted growth of chestnuts and oaks with which a country-liver was ever afflicted. For a time, in the early period of my novitiate, I was not a little disturbed by these damaging statements; but have been relieved by learning on further experience that the urgence of such lively falsehoods is only an ingenious mercenary device for the sharpening of a bargain.”
II.—Epigrammatic Sayings from other Sources.
The epigrammatic sayings of the Bible are not confined, as we have already seen, to the Book of Proverbs. We find them elsewhere. Hosea says of idolaters, “They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Micah declared of the mercenary prophets, “He that putteth not into their mouth, they even declare war against him.” At the same time princes and judges are so corrupt, that “the best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.”
Jeremiah charges against the people, “As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses of deceit.” “Can the Ethiopian,” he asks, “change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” and adds, “Then can ye also do right who are accustomed to do evil.” This is equivalent to the proverb of another people: “Though you feed milk to a young snake, will it leave off its habit of creeping under the hedge?”
“Can a maid forget her ornaments or abride her attire?” asks Jeremiah; “yet my people have forgotten me days without number.” “Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.” “As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the middle of his days, and at the end shall be a fool.”
Isaiah admonishes the people, “Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharoah, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him,”—a saying which calls to mind the message Jesus sent to Herod, “Go, tell that fox.” To those who trusted in the prowess of the Egyptians, Isaiah declares, “Now, the Egyptians are men and not God; and their horses are flesh and not spirit.” He assures the people that the time will come when names shall be used with greater discrimination—“The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.”
Job says: “For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass’s colt.” And it is Job who has given us the common expression, “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.”
David says of the hypocrite:—“The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they were drawn swords.” “Man that is in honor and understandeth not, is like the beasts which perish.” “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Of the wicked the psalmist exclaims: “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.” Recalling an incident of Israel’s journey through the wilderness, he gives his opinion of the transaction Aaron tried to disclaim: “They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass!” “Fools, because of their transgressions and because of their iniquities are afflicted.” He says of those who gave himpain,—the “ploughers who ploughed upon his back and made long their furrows,”—“They shall be as the grass upon the house-tops which withereth before it groweth up; wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.”
Paul speaks of those “whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame;” and also of certain ones who “speak lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a red-hot iron.” “Rulers,” he says, “are not a terror to good works, but to evil.” “If a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.”
The Book of James has already been quoted in this chapter; but there is another passage of the proverbial or epigrammatic character that must not be omitted: “Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” The Veman proverb is very like this: “Whatever hedevoid of understanding may be reading, his virtue continues only so long as he is reading; even as a frog is dignified only so long as it is seated on a lotus leaf.”
One of the best examples of the kind of wit we are now discussing is found in the account of King Asa’s sickness and death. The writer of the Book of Chronicles says: “Yet in his disease he sought not unto the Lord, but to the Physicians;” and then adds with imperturbable gravity, “And Asa slept with his fathers.” Referring to this passage, Professor Matthews says:—“It looks like a sarcasm on the medical practitioners of Palestine.” There is something similar to this in Ecclesiastes: “Wisdom is good—with an inheritance,” an ancient instance of “the old flag—and an appropriation.”
III.—The Sayings of Jesus.
To this chapter belong many of the sayings of Jesus. He spoke in proverbs as well as in parables.
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Many are called, but few are chosen.”
“The first shall be last, and the last first.”
“A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his friends.”
“He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; he that exalteth himself shall be abased.”
“Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
“Physician, heal thyself.”
“Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on an hill can not be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”
“Let the dead bury their dead.”
“No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” There are several proverbs in other literatures very like this. The Russian:—“A pig came up to a horse and said, Your feet are crooked, and your hair is worth nothing.”The Bengal:—“The sieve said to the needle, You have a hole in your tail.” The Chinese:—“Let every one sweep the snow before his own door, and not busy himself with the frost on his neighbor’s tiles.”
“Ye can not serve God and Mammon.”
“A house divided against itself can not stand.”
“Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know, them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?”
“For unto every one that hath to him shall be given and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
“Wheresoever the carcass is, there are the vultures gathered together.”
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn again and rend you.” Similar proverbs may be gathered from other sources. The Persian says, “It is folly to give comfits to a cow;” the Veman, “Though you anointan ass all over with perfumes, it feels not your fondness, but will turn again and kick you;” the Telugu asks, “What can a pig do with a rose-bottle?” the Tamul says, “Like reading a portion of the Veda to a cow about to gore you;” and again, “Though religious instruction be whispered into the ear of an ass, nothing will come of it but the accustomed braying.”
“They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Such sayings of Jesus are true proverbs and instances of genuine wit.
Archbishop Trench says, “Any one who by after investigation, has sought to discover how much our rustic hearers carry away even from sermons to which they have attentively listened, will find it is hardly ever the course or tenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but if anything is uttered, as it used so often to be by the best Puritan preachers, tersely, pointedly and epigrammatically, this will have stayed by them while all the rest has passed away. Great preachers to the people, such as have ever found their way tothe universal heart of their fellows, have ever been great employers of proverbs.” This principle helps to explain why, in the case of Jesus, “the common people heard him gladly.”
“He that can define, he that can answer a question so as to admit of no further answer, is the best man. Jesus spent his life conversing with humble people on life and duty, in giving wise answers, showing that he saw at a larger angle of vision, and at least silencing those who were not generous enough to accept his thoughts.”—Emerson.
REPARTEE.
“And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.”—Matthew.
“And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.”—Matthew.
The present chapter brings us to the subject of Repartee. Of this form of wit, Professor Matthews says, “Nothing is more admirable, nothing more quickly enlists our sympathies, than this perfect command and quick, instantaneous concentration of the faculties, when a man is taken at a disadvantage and has to repel an insinuation or an insult at a moment’s warning. That felicity of instantaneous analysis which we call readiness, has saved thousands of men from mortification or contempt. The dextrous leap of thought by which the mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless dilemma is worth more than all the logic and learning of the world.” “The impromptu reply,” says Moliere, “is precisely the touchstone of wit.”
The pages of the Bible are sometimes enlivened by sharp repartees. The men of old time, the men of the Hebrew nation, understood the power of the quick and flashing answer, as well as more modern generations. Johnson and Foote and Sheridan might have found it by no means easy to hold their own in Judea. It is very likely that their powers would have been put to the severest test.
I.
Turning to the pages of the old Testament, we find many striking examples.
Ben-hadad sends word to the king of Israel, threatening to destroy his army. The king of Israel replies, “Tell him, Let not him that girdeth on his harness, boast himself as he that putteth it off.”
Amaziah desired war with Jehoash. He sends to him saying, “Come, let us look one another in the face.” Jehoash simply responds to the presumptuous challenge, “The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying,Give thy daughter to my son to wife. And there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon and trod down the thistle.”
Job retorts upon Zophar, after a wearisome recital of dreary commonplaces intended for comfort, “No doubt but ye arethepeople, and wisdom will die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you; yea, who knoweth not such things as these?” To the speech introduced by these words, Eliphaz sharply replies, “Art thou the first man that was born? or wast thou made before the hills? Hast thou heard the secret of God, and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? What knowest thou that we know not? What understandest thou which is not in us? With us are both the gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than thy father.” Upon this latter sentiment Elihu expresses himself when he finds opportunity to put in a word; “Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment.”
Indeed the Book of Job abounds in sharp speeches and replies as cutting as the speechesthey answer. The sufferer obstinately refuses to accept their theory of his affliction or to adopt the remedies his friends propose. “Ye are forgers of lies,” he exclaims, “ye are physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your wisdom.” In response to this appeal, Eliphaz becoming piqued proceeds to administer consolation with the lash: “Shall a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind? Should he reason with unprofitable talk or with speeches wherewith he can do no good?” “I have heard many such things,” cries the wretched Job, “miserable comforters are ye all. If your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you; but I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.”
There were some word-battles between Sanballat and Nehemiah while the latter was trying to build the walls of Jerusalem, and the former was doing his best to hinder the enterprise. “Come,” says Sanballat, “let us meet together in one of the villages inthe plain of Ono,”—let us be friendly, let us have a pleasant visit together,—“but he thought to do me mischief.” The crafty Sanballat did not take the builder of Jerusalem napping. Nehemiah replies, “I am doing a great work so that I can not come down; why should the work cease whilst I leave it to come down to you?” Are your wishes of such mighty importance, O Sanballat that I should leave the Lord’s work? Must the building cease that I may gratify your whim? Go to, Sanballat, go to; I can not come down. My work is great and noble; thou art a trifler and hypocrite! In precisely this vein was Spurgeon’s reply to the pious bore who sent up word, “Tell him a servant of the Lord wishes to see him.” It was Saturday afternoon, and Spurgeon replied, “Tell him I am busy with his Master!”
Sanballat will have at him again: “It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu said it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel; for which cause thou buildest the wall that thou mayest be their king, according to these words. And thou hast appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem,saying, There is a king in Judah; and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now, therefore, and let us take counsel together.” To this tissue of falsehoods manufactured by the mendacious Gashmu, Nehemiah flashes back with indignation, “There are no such things as thou sayest, but thou feignest it out of thine own heart.” Nehemiah comes very near giving what Touchstone would call the “lie direct,” and he gives it without the qualifying “If.”
Robert Collyer has the following comment upon Gashmu, who was quoted by Sanballat as authority for the charge that Nehemiah was going to set up for a king: “This only, this one thing is left: A good man was doing a good work with all his might, and bad men tried to hinder him. They tried to hurt his person. Gashmu was above that. He was none of your common rowdies. Sanballat and Tobiah might do that, but not Gashmu; yet Gashmu will sit there and nurse his dislike, and be glad to hear the petty stories that float like thistledown through the neighborhood against theinnocent man; words are twisted and turned to meanings Nehemiah never thought of, and Gashmu hopes they are true; he wishes they were true; the wish is father to the thought, and he believes them. * * * So Gashmu has permitted his prejudices to grow into a lie. Gashmu is to live thousands of years for one purely false assertion, and to be the representative man of unprincipled gossips and narrow bigots as long as the world stands.”
Another illustration. When the woman, in time of famine, appealed to the King of Israel as he passed by, “Help, my lord, O King,” he turned upon her with the somewhat grim rejoinder, “If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?” Her case was hopeless, if the Lord could do nothing.
Although the resemblance is not very strong, this incident suggests a story of Michael Angelo. It calls to mind the way in which he took revenge upon Biagio di Cesena. This courtier ventured to criticise his Last Judgment. With a swift stroke he turned the Minos of the fresco into alikeness of his critic. Biagio complained to the Pope. “Where has he placed you?” inquired the Pontiff. “In Hell,” said Biagio. “I am sorry,” replied the Pope; “If it had been in Purgatory, something might have been done, but in Hell I have no jurisdiction.”
II.
Examples of prompt and keen retort are not confined to the Old Testament. When we turn to the New Testament, we find additional illustrations.
When Paul was making his defence before the Council, he said, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” This declaration of innocence offended the High Priest Ananias, and he commanded those who stood by, to smite the speaker on the mouth. This raised the indignation of Paul, and with the swiftness of an arrow he transfixed the Priest, “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall; for sittest thou to judge me after the law and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?” This wasunderstood as a bolt of invective by those who heard it, for they asked in alarm, “Revilest thou God’s High Priest?” The answer of Paul was a still more subtle sarcasm: “I wist not, brethren, that he was the High Priest.” There was nothing in the conduct of the man to betoken the dignity of his office. God’s High Priest must surely be fair and impartial. God’s High Priest would never counsel violence. The mistake, Paul would imply, was perfectly natural and excusable.
There is a story of John Randolph not unlike this. Indeed, the sarcasm is the same in spirit and purpose. Paul admitted that “one must not revile God’s High Priest,” buthe did not perceive that the High Priest was present. The coarse, loud, ill-tempered person who commanded to smite him on the mouth could not be High Priest! The following was the occasion of Randolph’s sarcasm: During the winter of 1834 a member of the House, to whom he was much attached, died. His place was taken by a young man, vain and ambitious, who began his career by making a bitterattack on Mr. Randolph. No reply was made by the latter. Several days passed, when a question came up in which he was deeply interested, and he delivered a very earnest and impressive speech. As he closed, he said, “I should not, Mr. Speaker, have returned to press this matter with so much earnestness, had not my views possessed the sanction and concurrence of my late departed friend,whose seat, I lament, is now unhappily vacant.”
How skillfully, in the story of the young man who had been healed of his blindness, does the subject of the cure parry the thrusts of the synagogue authorities! “Give God the praise,” they exhort, “we know that this man is a sinner!” “Whether he be a sinner or no,” says the young man, “I can not tell; one thing I know that whereas I was blind, now I see.” Thus repulsed, they begin again. “What did he to thee? How opened he thine eyes?” He replies, “I have told you already, and ye did not hear; wherefore would ye hear it again? Will ye also be his disciples?” Stung to the quick, they revile him, “Thouart his disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses, but as for this fellow we know not from whence he is!” Thoroughly aroused, the young man sends home to them a final thrust: “Why herein is a marvelous thing that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes? Now we know that God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing!” Abuse and excision alone remain to the rulers of the synagogue. “Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?” And they cast him out. Excommunication is the sole answer of priest-craft and bigotry to reason.
III.
To many readers it may seem impious to say that under the head of Repartee we must classify many of those words of Jesuswith which he cuts through the sophistry of opponents and disentangles himself from the webs that are woven about him. Let it be remembered, however, that we are dealing with his utterances simply as literature; with their religious significance, we are not now concerned. We are discussing the sayings of Jesus as we would the sayings of Johnson or Goldsmith.
One of the most striking instances is found in the controversy over exorcism. When the scribes who came down from Jerusalem charged, “He hath Beelzebub and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils,” he quickly reduced the accusation to an absurdity: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If he rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.” He goes further—“If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?”
There was one occasion, however, when Jesus himself seems to have been vanquished by a swift rejoinder. When the Syro-Phenician woman came to him in behalf of her daughter, in order to test her faith hesaid,—“Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it unto the dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she answered, “yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” These words came from a bright intellect as well as from a trusting heart. Jesus appreciated the keenness of the reply no less than the confidence it expressed. “For this sayinggo thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” “For once,” says Macbeth, “Jesus was refuted and that by his own figure; and he wished to be refuted.”
How we enjoy such a dilemma as the one in which he placed the chief priests and the scribes and the elders! They asked him, “By what authority doest thou these things? And who gave thee authority to do these things?” “I will also ask of you one question,” says Jesus, “and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things—the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.” “And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say from heaven, he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? But if we shall sayof men,—they feared the people; for all men counted John that he was a prophet, indeed. And they answered and said unto Jesus, We can not tell.” “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.”
Another time “came to Jesus Scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the Elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread?” How quick and effective the reply: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” Nothing could be said in response. The question was absolutely closed. The disciples violate your tradition? Very good; but what does your tradition violate? Can we not see his opponents, falling back beaten, knitting their brows, taking counsel together, planning some overwhelming defeat for this impudent young heretic? What Thersites said of Ajax would well apply to them: “He bites his lips with a politic regard, as who should say, There were wit in this head an’ ’twould out; and so there is, but it lies as coldly inhim as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.”
When the woman poured the spikenard on the head of Jesus, Judas, the virtuous Judas, forsooth! made objection. “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred penceand given to the poor?” Why not, indeed,—for Judas is custodian of the poor fund. “Judas,” returns his Master,—and there was pathos as well as rebuke in the words,—“Judas, the poor ye have with you always, and whenever ye will, ye may do them good.” This was the first time Judas had ever manifested any solicitude for the poor. “But me, ye have not always.” Judas was silenced; but he began to brood revenge. Soon he stole out and went to the chief priests. He had not secured the price of the spikenard, but he would indemnify himself by selling his Master!
With what relish do we read the trenchant replies of Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees and Herodians who had leagued to “entangle him in his talk.” Easily as Samson broke the green withes, did he break the verbal fetters they forged. “Inthe resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage!” “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” What can be more admirable viewed simply as repartee,—as illustrations of the “dexterous leap of thought by which the mind escapes from a seemingly hopeless dilemma?” If one were to read such fragments of Gospel history for the first time, without the idea that he must attach a solemn and awful meaning to every word, how would he delight in these intellectual contests and hail the genius of the victor!
After the besiegers, in the preceding incident, had exhausted their fruitless ingenuity, Jesus turns upon them with the question, “What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is he?” “The Son of David,” they feebly mutter. “How then doth David call him Lord? If David call him Lord, how is he his son?” That ended the controversy. The combined forces of theology and politics retired in confusion, evidently looking, as Dickens said of the portraits of the Dedlock family, “as if they did not know whatto make of it.” They had lost the battle. One can imagine the evangelist who afterwards wrote the account, almost chuckling with inward satisfaction, as he recalled the scene and recorded the result: “And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day ask him any more questions.”
“Who would say that truth ought to stand disarmed against falsehood, or that the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty to frighten the faithful with hard words or jeer at them with lively sallies of wit, while the Christians ought never to write except with a coldness of style enough to set the reader asleep?”—Augustine.
WIT AND LOGIC.