CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY 1 1 3
attempt the sudden destruction of all traditional distinc- tions. There is undoubtedly need of such iconoclasts, for reforms like revolutions are seldom made of rose-water, but that constructive spirit which is everywhere noticeable in the career of Jesus is present here in large measure. Social revolutions quite as likely as political produce demagogues, and even more quickly tempt men to denunciations that are the more violent because more indiscriminate. But Jesus kept himself from all such extremes. He himself belonged to the artisan class, 1 and knew what it was to feel the contempt of the professional teachers of his people, 2 and he did not hesitate to confess the immense advantage possessed by the educated man, 3 but he never allowed these facts to lead him into tirade against other men's advan- tages.
It is however by no means inconsistent with this attitude that he recognized, that as things are constituted, men must of neces- sity be divided into servants and employes. He said nothing that condemned such a relation, and indeed at times spoke of it as a most natural thing. 4 But this is simply the attitude that any practical man must take in his reforming of society. Your amateur reformer would dissolve society into its elements. Like Robespierre and other doctrinaires, he will break with the past, even though he brings the bones of departed kings to the lime- pit. But Jesus was never so crude a thinker as to imagine that society is a mechanical mixture of elements into which it must be disintegrated as a step towards a happier recombination. With him progress was biological, an evolution rather than a revolution. And therefore he did not destroy all social conven- tionalities or a traditional division of labor.
But to be a servant is not to be any less a man or, provided it is really the case, any less the equal of any man in another calling. If nothing that goes into a man can defile him, cer- tainly no necessary work is dishonorable. If Jesus the carpenter and the son of a carpenter could become Jesus the Christ ; it his
Mark 6:3; 13:55. >Matt.i3:52.
Matt. 13:54-56. I.uke 17:7-10; Matt. 10:24.
