The call of the Carpenter

Front matter

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“THE CARPENTER OF NAZARETH WAS ‘A WORKMAN THAT NEEDETH NOT TO BE ASHAMED.’ ”’

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Contents

The Posture of Affairs .

Empire : Working-class Galilee

His Plan .

Chapter I Empire

AND it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Cesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.”’ Our attention is arrested by the audacity of the thing. “That all the world should be taxed!” The brazenness of the decree extorts a kind of admiration, like that extended to brigands who exhibit nerve in uncommon degree. That kind of admiration and no other. Because people to-day are under no illusion as to the nature of this “tax.’’ Rome was under no illusion either. Whatever her faults, hypocrisy was not one of them. And this which our record pleasantly terms a “tax,” was recognized by Rome herself as booty, plain and flat. No pretence that she was levying it on the peoples with their consent, or was to expend it for their benefit. It was the spoils of conquest, and was extracted at the point of the sword. It was a hold-up game — frankly admitted to be such by the “‘taxer,”’ and howlingly described as such by the “taxed.” Our wonder is not that the people howled. Our wonder is that they did not howl louder. That a small group on the banks of the Tiber could hold up “the whole world,” argues a distinct decay of spirit in the people thus held up. A lone wolf — the simile is Rome’s; she traced her origin

A THE CALL OF THE CARPENTER to a she-wolf —a lone wolf prevails against a flock of a hundred sheep, not so much because of his wolfiness as because of their sheepiness.

But there was a stalwart little people in Rome’s province of Syria who had not as yet so lost spirit as to concede the right of wolves to be wolves and of sheep to be sheep. This people was enrolled in the list of the conquered. But it had only been a conquest of territory. The soul was unsurrendered. And just about now — to be exact, precisely during a journey on the part of his parents to pay this “tax’’ — there was being born in this unconquered race a leader who was to call back to self-respect the peoples thus subjugated, raising up in them once more a free spirit. In fact, knowing pre-natal influence as we now do, we can affirm that this particular “tax,” dragging him as it did by the umbilical cord across the landscape of Syria, must have had something to do with moulding him into the economic out-and-outer which we behold him later. This “tax”? was the first instance in history of brigandage on a world scale. It is more than an accident, therefore, that its incidence coincided with the gestation period of a child who as man was to vision a world-wide union of the toiling masses against the legalized brigandage which had its headquarters on the Tiber. For he felt the shock of this new and fateful force that had come into the world, while he was yet unborn, and at a time when, among most nations, even those but partially civilized, mother and child have immemorially been accorded a_ cessation of brutality.

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The reader has caught the drift. We here address _ ourselves to view Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth, from the viewpoint of economics. Concededly a different viewpoint from that usually held. But we shall be rigorously historical. The present is not a work of the iriagination. It affirms to be a piece of cool, scientific history. If the portrait of The Carpenter here unearthed differs from the one commonly viewed, may it not be because accretions of time have defaced the picture, blurring its aforetime sharpness? — incrustations which are now peeling off, by grace of the critical scholarship of our day, revealing some vivid tints in the portrait. The attempt in these pages is that of a restoration. It slavishly follows the ancient records, and is ambitious of nothing more than to retrace the picture as it was at the first. No originality is claimed. I have been an incontinent borrower. The book is_plagiaristic throughout.

Entirely modern is the study of economic backgrounds. It was a study which ancient chroniclers did not at all take to. Their interest lay in kings and conquerors. Themselves members of the privileged class, they accounted the common people a degrading theme. History in the pre-democratic eras was a Book of Kings, and only incidentally a Book of Peoples. The people! Their short and simple annals were deemed unworthy the pen of a chronicler —lives of a dull monotone, an unrelieved gray of drudgery and the daily round. Whereas the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, gave to the colourists the opportunity they craved for splendid patches of purple.

There was also another — more cogent — reason why the historians of that day did not chronicle the life conditions of the proletariat. The overlords, patrons of the historical art, did not wish those conditions chronicled — social history might prove explosive. Theseigniorial class lived on the heaving crust of a volcano. Any book calculated to break open that crust, if only for a peep-sight into the human depths below, would have met hard sledding with the publishing houses of the period. If any such manuscripts did get published, the copies were hunted out ruthlessly by imperial decree. For, except in the first three books of the New Testament, we have extant no contemporary ancient chronicles written by and for the people themselves.’ In the pages that treated ofthe slave Spartacus and the humiliations he inflicted on Rome’s master class, both Sallust and Livy are to this day missing.

In this way ancient civilization was given a glittering front. But the type of historian that is being developed by democracy, is achieving a change of base. He is going to peer behind that imposing facade to the social life of the times — the myriad slaves toiling in the silver mines of the Athenians, in the vast brick fields of Rome, in the copper mines of Sinai, in galleys on the Mediterranean, in the gold mines of Egypt, in the quarries of Numidia and Greece; he is going to listen to the clank of the chains in the vineyards of Italy. Nor are we altogether without materials, outside the three books mentioned, for such a study. Slip-ups will occur in the most rigorously supervised bureau of history. The hundred-eyed censor can but imperfectly visée such material for instance as personal correspondence. So that we can beguile from these accidents and fugitive pieces a fairly coherent account of life in the dumb ages — those submerged classes which, denied even the privilege of articulating their sorrows, were yet the foundation of the millionairic splendour and pageantry which monopolize the pages of ancient writ. To view that dim mass of unrequited toil cannot but be a rewarding task. For Christianity took its rise in an economic upheaval. We shall see that even its highest and most spiritual reaches had a rootage in the industrial condition of the masses.

The Roman Empire was a world-wide confederation of aristocracies for the perpetuation of human servitude. Customarily that empire has been pictured in terms of military art, of jurisprudence, or of government. But these phases of it were secondary. Economic exploitation was the end in view, the organizing purpose throughout. For the Romans were enormously “practical.” Aught smacking of idealism was laughed by them out of court. Once upon a time they had had a religion. But this was back in Rome’s early days; and she was not a despoiler of peoples then. Before the empire — her era of aggression — started in, her idealism had left off, she had entered upon her decadence. In fact her only ideal now was to frame a system of human relationships so minutely administered by law that idealism would be unnecessary. Her famed codes of jurisprudence and systems of administration had for their purpose to bring life down out of the cloud-lands of sentiment onto a level where law would be everywhere operative. Patriotism, racial inheritance, ancestral literatures, the art and worship of the peoples— Rome “cared for none of these things.”’ For her portion the pot of gold; to others the rainbow, and welcome. It was because of this hard materiality, this absence of sentiment, that the empire was able to override national boundaries and establish a world organization where others had failed. The Romans’ one object was revenue, an object which they pursued quite unhindered by any sentiment of patriotism even toward their own country. Therefore they were enabled to approach the class of revenueworshippers among other peoples on the same cash basis, propose an alliance, and laugh them out of any patriotic objections which might prompt themselves.

In the countries of the ancient world, even before the formation of the empire, slavery was the basis of society. In each was a capitalist class and a slave class. The capitalists, however, were constantly in fear of slave insurrection. The dread clouded their sunshine by day, and nightmared their sleep; for they saw, piling up against them, a discontent hell-deep and heaven-high. The fear made them cruel; it goaded them to harsh measures of repression. Repression, however, only nagged the servile class into greater restiveness, which in turn called for repression still more cruel. The exploiters found themselves caught in this vicious circle: fear, cruelty, revolt; thereupon more fear, more cruelty, more revolt. A descensus Averni. The situation was becoming intolerable. Hereupon Rome appeared with her proposal of a world-wide federation of the capitalist class against this restive proletariat, whereby they could pool their separate armies into a military unit, and hurl its entire weight against a popular uprising in any one of the countries. The proposal was hailed with joy. A concordat with the noblesse of every country was drawn up. The Roman Empire was the result.

Rome’s empire was “The System” at work in the ancient world. She did not conquer the nations. She annexed them, by means of a coalition with the local capitalist group in each. This manner of her procedure is seen in her dealings with the Sabine Claudii, and at Veli and Capua. Also in the city states of Etruria, Campania, and Magna Grecia. Wherever the strain between the local privileged class and its proletariat was intense, Rome found natural allies in the former. In the march of the Roman conqueror through Greece, the Hellenic aristocracies opened to him their gates. In Carthage the upper class detested the war and wished to make peace with Rome. Cesar found in Gaul a small plutocracy grown rich on the war, usury and the farming of the public taxes; he used them as the nucleus of his organization in annexing the provinces. In Palestine, much of the New Testament is the narrative of the coalescence of the native princes with the Roman invader. Brain-sweat has been copiously expended to discover why Rome succeeded in the business of worldempire, where men like Alexander had failed. Merivale gives up in despair and calls Rome’s secret of success, “one of the lost arts.” The clue is found here in economics. Rome succeeded because she sought to impose no new patriotism on the peoples. Her motto was, “For Revenue Only”; therefore she found a kindred class in each of the countries, and with that class she formed an alliance. This is why, once she had hit upon the method, her empire spread so rapidly over the earth. It took Rome five hundred years to conquer Italy. She conquered the rest of the world in fifty-three years. It was economic interest that held the empire together. The local oligarchies were bound by gold chains about the feet of Rome. The palace of the Emperor on the Palatine became a university to which were sent the sons of allied sovereigns for an education. Native oligarchies, living under Rome’s protectorate, were moons depending upon their central sun for light. Rome’s genius for conquest was great, but her genius for coalition was greater. With her these two were one. Rome coalesced with the exploiter class in every country, for joint conquest over the proletariat in every country.

Machiavelli discerned the secret of Rome’s success in empire-building. Said he: “Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and the government of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and reside there in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their ‘own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of a few, who will keep the government friendly to the conqueror. Such a government, having been established by the new prince, knows that it cannot maintain itself without the support of his power and friendship, and it becomes its interest therefore to sustain him.’ Ferrero also, though under the spell of the old military and imperial concepts, nevertheless lets drop some words that support our contention: “‘Everywhere, even in the most distant regions,” says he, “powerful minorities formed that worked for Rome and against old separating, anti-uniting forces, against old traditions and local patriotism alike. The wealthy classes everywhere became in a special way wholly favourable to Rome”; and again: “The economic unification was first and was entire; then came the political unity, which was less complete than the unifying of material interests.”” The evidence is incontestable: Roman success was due quite as much to the cleverness of her diplomacy as to her prowess in arms. England has succeeded in India and Egypt because she too has caught the secret—she governs through native rulers.

It may be objected that the economic was not the sole reason for the formation of the empire; that the common danger of a Teutonic invasion was equally a motive in the coalescence of the Mediterranean aristocracies into a united military front. But the Teutonic danger would not in itself have been alarming. There had been inroads of the barbarian in earlier days before slavery had corrupted the Mediterranean blood; and they had been easily taken care of. Had a just economic condition continued to prevail, successive immigrations of Teuton folk could readily have been assimilated, to add new vigour to the old societies. It was the merciless exploitation of one class by another which vitiated the industry of the Mediterranean world, corrupted its life and weakened its defences; and so made the Teuton danger real. For when the avalanche which had been

wrongfully allowed to pile up suddenly broke, and the barbarians poured down from out the northern mountains to challenge the empire, they challenged an empire divided against itself; and they beheld the gates opening to them from the inside. The classic world came not to an end by wounds from without; it met its death from internal hemorrhage. And this open sore in her intestines was the ruthless, cold, scientific exploitation of one part of society by the other part, which sore in its aggravated form came with the coming of the empire and was the empire.

This was the Roman Empire’s contribution to the world’s thought, namely, the solidarity of capital, the oneness of the interests of property irrespective of national boundaries. Until Rome appeared to preach this doctrine, the capitalist class in the various countries had been pillaging each other. The senatorial oligarchy of one nation would declare war against a neighbouring nation, looking to the spoils of battle to defray the expenses of the campaign and leave a comfortable surplus as profit. Not an ideal state of affairs, true. Nevertheless it was infinitely preferable to ‘““The System” introduced by the Romans, because it had _pro- _moted a rough kind of democracy, the noblesse and proletariat of one country being welded into a patriotic oneness by the exigencies of their common war with the neighbour state. Thus it had redeemed the people from absolute degradation; by the crude patriotism engendered it was keeping a strain of idealism alive; and thus was preserving the soul of man against the time when the futility of war as a means of enrichment would be discovered and each people would absorb itself in the development of its natural resources. But Rome knocked at the gates, and changed all this. She persuaded the local oligarchy in each country to deride with her derision all dream-stuff, such as patriotism, racial ideals, ancestral loyalties. Revenue was the thing around which all her life revolved, and she brought these others to the same way of thinking. Rome showed to the privileged class in each country that in competing amongst themselves they were likely to meet with the fate of the two men in the fable who, disputing with each other for the exclusive ownership of the beast, looked up to see the ass running away from both of them. The civil wars in Rome herself had had this as their motive, the patricians and plebs_ endlessly squabbling as to who should enjoy the wealth that was being created by the slave class. “‘Let us cease to exploit one another, and together exploit the working class,”’ now was Rome’s proposal.

The idea came at the psychological moment. The slave class, estimated by Gibbon at sixty millions — an entire half of the world’s population — was straining at all the hatches of the slaver and threatening at any moment to break out from the hold and win a share of the sunshine and open space up on deck. Rome had felt the pressure on her own hatchway even more than the other masters of the vessel. Her restive slave class was becoming more restive. She had erected a statue to “Quiet,” and had tried the experiment of making Contentment into a religious cult. In vain. The seething at the bottom of society was becoming ever more turbulent. Spartacus, a few years before, had shown how a revolt could be conducted, and the object lesson was fresh in mind, a star of hope in the sky of every slave, a portent in the sky of every owner of slaves. Escaping with his companions from the slave stable at Capua, where they were being fattened for the amphitheatre, he had entrenched himself in the crater of an extinct volcano. From thence he issued a_ proclamation of universal freedom. Slaves from plantations round about flocked to his standard. He became the head of a revolution. Rome sent armies against him one after another, only to see them come back defeated. For two interminable years Spartacus maintained the war. At last he was destroyed, but not until he had struck chill into the spinal jelly of every owner of human flesh in the Roman state. Furthermore, there was constant fear lest there might arise more fools like the Gracchi, patrician traitors to their class, and incite the populace to demands of justice. A measure had been proposed in the Roman Senate to dress slaves in a uniform livery, so as to distinguish them from freemen. It was killed straightway by the argument that this would disclose to the slaves their numerical strength. We can credit Tacitus, therefore, when he says that the fear of slave insurrection was chronic. Nor was this confined to Rome. In every state of the ancient world there was a proletary restiessness —cursings that were loud, the deep rumble and mutterings of a storm about to break.

Accordingly, Rome’s proposal of a league of the capitalist class everywhere was greeted with instant favour. And the empire was formed. It was an Intimidation Trust, Rome, as promoter of the new cor-

EMPIRE Ls poration, being its master spirit and taking a promoter’s profit. Itwas an oligarchy of oligarchies. Formerly each of them had maintained an army of its own. Now these were rolled into one, with an Imperator at its head. By means of uniform dress, weapons, tactics, and organization, the united armies were disciplined into a fighting unit of high efficiency. Great causeways were built, for celerity in mobilizing the legions. These roads were paved with flat stones, so as to make for swift marching. They were carried straight across the landscape, cutting through mountains, and carrying over valleys on great archways. No expense was spared in shortening distances — the reach of the entire military force into the district of every member of the Corporation, was the heart of the system. Let a local prince or princeling in any part of the empire send in a call for help against his mutinous subjects, within forty-eight hours there would glitter on the horizon the spear flash of the gathering legions, bearing down upon that spot from every quarter of the world.

Cleveland’s ‘“‘the cohesion of wealth,’ is modern. But the thing itself is ancient. The tendency of the families of wealth in every country to form a class by themselves, is deep-set in the human makeup. Rome carried the tendency one step further — she cemented the moneyed class in the various countries into an international combine. “Peace and order’? were at last secure. An antitoxin against insomnia had been devised. Slave owners could now lay their heads on their pillows at night, without the fear of insurrection gnawing them through the night-watches. An uprising of the toiling masses, no matter how formidable, could be handled. Upon a rebellious district could be mobilized in shortest time six and twenty legions. The machinery of intimidation was complete. Man was undermost, and property paramount. The “Golden Age” — literally —set in. The Roman Empire, that apotheosis of property rights, fastened itself upon the world. Embracing all nations and tongues and climates, a motley crew, they had one cohering principle which swallowed up their diversities — the coherence of a common plunder.

Chapter II Working-class Galilee

As Has been stated, the extension of the Roman “System’”’ to include the Jews, a sturdy mountaineer folk in the hill country of Syria, met there a vehement opposition. And in Galilee, one of the districts of the Jews, the most vehemency of all. This Galilee, restive under every domination, was famed for the intense spirit of its inhabitants. Josephus as a general had carried on military operations there, and later as a historian was moved to bear testimony to the valour of her people. In this she differed from the other Palestine district, Judea, and its capital city, Jerusalem. Because Jerusalem was the home of the country’s aristocracy, we read of the Bethlehem event: “When Herod, the king, had heard these things he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” Like the local aristocracies in all the other countries of the world, these had lined up with the Romans—were federated with the invader. When Pompey, some years before this, had marched against Jerusalem, the high priests there, representing the local ruling caste, had opened the gates to him. Galilee, a working-class district, was left therefore as the sole leader of the popular cause. The fight is always hottest where the lines come closest together; and the controversy between horny-handed Galilee and the

Jerusalemite set, haughty with its wealth and learning, was inveterate. But this was only a phase of the larger controversy — that of the labouring class everywhere against the invasive capitalism of the empire and its ‘ndustrialism based on slavery.

The Galileans, no better than the other provinces, could have given an explanation of this new thing in the world, the Roman Empire. No age fully understands itself. Lapse of time is needed for perspective. And if the Galileans had been called upon to chart the current of the world politics of the day, they would probably have made sorry work of it. They felt rather than discerned the presence of a new force in the world; and they divined that it boded no good. Hitherto there had been frequent changes in the tyranny under which, for some four hundred years back, they had lived; and this alternation of masters had kept hope alive. Now there Was a sense of permanency in the despotism which, from Antioch as its land base, was bearing down upon them in the trail of the Roman legions. There was an imperious note in the commands of the tribute gatherers, as though an infinite arm of power was now behind the fist which lay at their throat, demanding their goods. Furthermore, all of the tyrannies hitherto had been of the East, Eastern. And though exacting the uttermost farthing of tribute, these despotisms had been gilded with a respect for Asiatic ideals, religion, reverence, a hold-fast in the Unseen. But this new despotism was characterized by a hard materiality, untempered by sentiment of any kind, a race of conquerors self-indulging, heavy-fisted, cynical. “The gods are rheumatic when we ask them to come to our relief,” was Rome’s way of meeting idealism of any sort. Subconsciously the Galileans felt themselves in the presence of some fate, as though the sky was turning to brass over their heads and they were to be cooped under that inverted bowl forever.

A young woman by the name of Mary, in Nazareth of Galilee, was particularly stirred by this coming of despotism. Mary was of uncommon force of character. Her dominant trait seems to have been independency, showing itself in a disregard of social conventions, and in her zeal for her country’s political and economic restoration. Ever since the Jews had lost their independence and had become humiliated by subjection to a foreign power, there had been utterances of hope on the part of her patriot wise men to the effect that restoration would some time or other come, because a leader equal to the task would be born. Now as the Roman oppression fastened its grip on the people and the times became hard and harder, a longing for this Deliverer promised of old to Israel burst into glowing flame in thousands of hearts. There seems to have been a circle of these waiting souls, with something of solidarity amongst them, their common hope knitting them into an intimacy of fellowship. They knew each other, paid visits back and forth, and heartened themselves by mutual exhortation. This group made much of the prophetic sections in their national scriptures. Isaiah’s Redeemer-dream was their meat and drink. We read of them that they “waited for the consolation of Israel.’ Nor did they content themselves alone with “waiting.” Prophecy has a psychological base, in that a sure and longing expectation induces a set of the will, a resolve to bring the expectation topass. Therefore the members of this expectant fellowship sought an active programme whereby the prophecies of deliverance should be translated into performance.

Of this circle of patriot souls, Mary was a member. She was a choice representative of them, and seems to have been something of a leader in their councils even before our narrative opens. She now steps to the front as their foremost spirit. Betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter of Nazareth, she resolves that if it is permitted her to become a mother she will dedicate the child, be it son or daughter, to the cause. Joseph — since matings go by opposites — was a fit companion. He is described by a word which — a fact of significance — has disappeared from our vocabulary: Joseph was a “just” man. Quiet efficiency, wise silence, faithful workmanship, a sadly humourous contemplation of the human drama, seem to have characterized him. “Greatheart”’ is perhaps the fitting term. He lacked, however, the aggressive temperament which the times demanded. This element came from Mary. In launching the new force into human history which we are about to witness, she was the primum mobile. Hers was the brain that dared conceive, hers the spirit that dared to execute. We read, “his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.” By Jewish law the woman was not required to attend these feasts; she could be represented by her husband. The fact, therefore, that Mary refused to avail herself of this exemption, and entered personally into the duties and privileges of a devout patriot, confirms the forceful lines in her portrait as it is sketched. So also in the nativity narratives. There can be no two opinions. Mary was the driving force. Hers the initiative throughout. The quality of her spirit can be appraised by remembering that in this undertaking to which she was setting herself, she had as adversary the collective and organized might of the Roman world. If ever the Holy Ghost came upon a woman and the power of the Highest overshadowed her, it was this valorous maid of Galilee quietly resolving in the sovereignty of her own soul to upheave an empire.

It seems that a formal wedding had not taken place. This is unfortunate. True, there had been a betrothal, which gave a religious sanction; the sacred and real part of marriage had been complied with — “Mary, his espoused wife.”? Nevertheless it is better that no bedrites be paid until the wedlock has been publicly solemnized. The confusion that has arisen in the present instance is a case in point. It is safe to state that no other disregard of the rules of conventionality has ever occasioned the mental sweat which the present one has occasioned to the thinkers of Christendom. This squeamishness does not seem to have been shared by Mary herself, for she openly owned Joseph as the child’s parent: “Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” However the news of the affair having become published — there were gossiping housewives in Nazareth — it was from early times felt needful to explain it away. And the confusion seen in the gospel accounts is the result. No entirely coherent narrative can be extracted from the records as they stand: our only resource has been to take that interpretation which harmonizes the greatest number of statements and has the fewest contradictions.