My informant stated also that on hearing that, she asked the preacher, "Suppose the tongue should offend, and we should cut it off; should we be better Christians than if we did endeavor to atone for the offense in some other way?" The preacher, after a moment of perplexed silence, said, "If there is no one here who can answer this question, we will sing a hymn."
The best commentary on these sayings of Christ is given by Paul in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. This is precisely what the Master meant: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Cutting or mutilation of the body has nothing to do with either passage, nor indeed with the Christian life. The amputation of an { 121} arm that steals is no sure guaranty of the removal of the desire to steal; nor would the plucking out of a lustful eye do away with the lust which uses the eye for an instrument.
With this should be classed also the following commands: "Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." "If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also; and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."[2]
The command to give the coat and the cloak to a disputant, rather than to go to law with him, will seem much more perplexing when it is understood that these words mean the "under garment" and the "upper garment." The Orientals are not in the habit of wearing a coat and a cloak or overcoat. In the Arabic version we have the _thaub_ ("th" as in "throw") and the _rada'_. The _thaub_ is the main article of clothing--the ample gown worn over a shirt next to the body. The _rada'_ is the cloak worn { 122} on occasions over the _thaub_. The Scriptural command literally is, "To one who would quarrel with thee and would take thy _thaub_, give him the _rada'_ also." It may be clearly seen here that literal compliance with this admonition would leave the non-resistant person, so far as clothes are concerned, in a pitiable condition.
The concluding portion of this paragraph in the fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel--the forty-second verse--presents another difficulty. It says, "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." Of all those whom I have heard speak disparagingly of this passage I particularly recall a lawyer, whom I knew in a Western State, whose dislike for these words of Christ amounted almost to a mental affliction. It seems to me that on every single occasion when he and I discussed the Scriptures together, or spoke of Christianity, I found him armed with this passage as his most effective weapon against the innocent Nazarene. "What was Jesus thinking of," he would say, "when he { 123} uttered these words? What would become of our business interests and financial institutions if we gave to every one that asked of us, and lent money without good security to every Tom, Dick, and Harry?"