Who is the greatest in the Kingdom? Humility and scandal
What are the links between pride and ambition (particularly in those in authority), scandal and humility? And did this event in the Gospel set the stage for St Thérèse of Lisieux's 'Little Way'?
Editor’s Notes
We previously published part of Fr Coleridge’s commentary on the passage used for the Gospel of Michaelmas and other feasts of the Holy Angels. Prior to that commentary, Coleridge discusses the ambition of the Apostles and the harm that this can cause in churchmen.
This passage on humility, simplicity and spiritual childhood is particularly fitting for the days following Michaelmas, in which the feast day of St Thérèse of Lisieux falls.
Here are some of the events treated in this Gospel passage:
He asked them: What did you treat of in the way?
But they held their peace, for in the way they had disputed among themselves, which of them should be the greatest.
And sitting down, he called the twelve and saith to them: If any man desire to be first, he shall be the last of all and be minister of all. And taking a child, he set him in the midst of them. Whom when he had embraced, he saith to them: Whosoever shall receive one such child as this in my name receiveth me. And whosoever shall receive me receiveth not me but him that sent me.
John answered him, saying: Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us: and we forbade him.
But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no man that doth a miracle in my name and can soon speak ill of me. For he that is not against you is for you. For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.
And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me: it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9.32-41)
At the same time, the Apostles had been discussing who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Fr Coleridge discusses Our Lord’s answer to this question, with particular reference to humility and spiritual childhood.
The Greater in the Kingdom
From
The Preaching of the Cross, Part I
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1886, Ch. VII, pp 102-18
St. Matt. xviii. 1–14; St. Mark ix. 32–49; St. Luke ix. 46–48; Story of the Gospels, § 86-7
Where this event falls in the life of Christ
After speaking on the question which had been asked Him by St. John in the name of the other disciples, our Lord went on, as it seems, without interrupting His discourse, to the kindred subject which was probably in His mind at the time, when, before the question of St. John, He had taken the child, embraced him, and said a few words about the blessing of those who should receive such in His Name.
It may be considered that our Lord simply returns to the subject of which He was already speaking, and of which His Sacred Heart was now very full, for the sake of the Apostles. Or it may be thought that His words have some reference to the matter of the question itself which had been asked Him.
For it may be that He looked on this man, who had been forbidden by the Apostles to cast out devils in His Name, as one who was in good faith and therefore might have been left alone, in the prospect of his being led, by the grace which he had hitherto followed faithfully, to a still more perfect intelligence concerning our Lord and His Church. In this case this man would not have wished any longer to take on himself the office of an exorcist without being, as we should say, in open communion with the Apostolic body, and, far more than that, without being a close follower of our Lord Himself in every respect.
For perhaps such persons, when it is safe to leave them alone, are better left alone, because there may be a danger of giving them some scandal if they are roughly and prematurely interfered with as by an act of authority. In this sense we may understand that the man in question represented a class of little ones, of whom great care must be taken, lest they should be scandalized. Or, as has been said, it may be better to understand the words which now follow about the scandalizing of little ones as continuing the main subject which our Lord had before Him from the beginning of this discourse.
Even then, there is some difficulty remaining as to the connection of the discourse. For it seems as if, when our Lord began, He had in His mind the instruction of the Apostles about the danger of ambition, rivalry, and contention, of which the first germs had been discernible in the conversation which they had held among themselves, and concerning which they had now been afraid to answer our Lord.
It may be asked, what is the immediate connection between the contention or discussion, who should be the greater, and the giving scandal to little ones of which our Lord now proceeds to speak?
It may be answered that our Lord might well foreknow that there was to be no more fruitful source of scandal in the Church, than the ambition, and rivalry, and contentiousness which might be from time to time prevalent among the ministers of the Christian sanctuary. Thus there may have been in His mind the clearest connection between the two subjects. The words which He had just uttered about the cup of water given in His Name, would naturally call to His mind the little ones of His flock.
For He had already used that image in His charge to these same Apostles, only, instead of speaking of them as the recipients of the charity of the cup of water, He had then spoken of the little ones as the recipients. Thus the phrase ‘the little ones’ might rise to His lips, and certainly it embraces, in its natural Christian signification, not simply children like the boy whom He had just taken and placed by His own side, but all those who, in faith, or in innocence, or in simplicity, or in their partial and imperfect knowledge of the truth or of their own duties, might fall under the general character of little ones.
And the strong language which He now went on to use on the subject of scandal is easily accounted for, when we consider the immensity of that mischief which our Blessed Lord had then before His mind. The difficulty, about the connection of our Lord’s words, thus resolves itself into the misery of our own very imperfect appreciation of the mischievousness and scandalousness of contentions among Apostolic men.
If we perfectly understood the evils which these faults in her ministers entail on the Church, we should not require any explanation of the apparent difficulty of the connection of our Lord’s words.
The danger of scandal
The passage begins by a statement of the danger incurred by those who give scandal of whatever kind. ‘Whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.’
Then our Lord takes up some words which He had before used in the Sermon on the Mount, where He had been explaining the Christian meaning of the commandment which forbade adultery, and had added the strongest denunciation of the danger of admitting anything that might incline us to sin, doubtless with a special view to the extreme subtlety and malignity of dangers to purity.
Here He speaks most generally, and the direct purpose of the words is changed from the subject of giving scandal to others who are little ones, to that of taking scandal or falling ourselves, in consequence of any softness in ridding ourselves of the occasion of evil.
‘And if thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished. And if thy foot scandalize thee, cut it off.
‘It is better for thee to enter lame into life everlasting, than having two feet to be cast into the Hell of unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished.
‘And if thy eye scandalize thee, pluck it out. It is better for thee with one eye to enter into the Kingdom of God, than having two eyes to be cast into the Hell of fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not extinguished.
‘Every one shall be salted with fire, and every victim shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt become unsavoury, wherewith will you season it? Have salt in you, and have peace among you.’
Transition in the discourse
We may repeat on this passage, in the first place, that there is a transition in the words of our Lord from the subject of the giving of scandal to little ones, of whatever kind or degree, to that of taking scandal, or rather of allowing anything in our own lives and habits which may be to us an occasion of falling.
There can be little doubt that this is the meaning of our Lord in the passage in the Sermon on the Mount, from which the words about the hand and foot and eye are taken. He may not have precisely the same object in this passage. For He may be speaking of the things which are dangers to the servants of God in the discharge of their ministerial functions, such as temptations to ambition and the love of pre-eminence, rather than of the things which, in ordinary life, are the occasions of falls in the matter of purity.
But it is at least clear that He speaks of occasions of falls to ourselves, rather than of occasions of scandal to others which may be found in our conduct. For the range of danger in the matter of scandal is very large and has many sides, and our Lord might not wish to let any occasion pass of inculcating the truth on this most momentous point.
And, moreover, the things in which we are likely to give scandal to others are those as to which we yield too softly to temptations which beset ourselves, and lead us to indulge uncautiously some passion, or predilection, or ambition, or aversion, in short, some phase or form of self-love and self-seeking.
Our Lord thinking of the Pharisees
Our Lord had constantly in His Heart the case of the men who were at that very time doing so much harm to the souls of others, men who had not begun by full malignity in opposing Him and His teaching, men who had been placed by the Providence of His Father in the seat of authority and the chair of Moses, for the express purpose of helping those over whom they ruled, and who looked to them as guides, to embrace the sweet yoke and gentle burdens of the Gospel kingdom.
The Scribes and Pharisees had gone astray just for the reason that they had not had the courage and wisdom to sacrifice themselves and their selfish objects of ambition to the service of God. Many of them were men of bad lives, and may even have used their position to facilitate their indulgence in sensuality, as was the case with the sons of Eli.
But their immediate cause of sin was their ambition. The time had not come for the denunciation of the woes these men were bringing on themselves, of which denunciation we shall have to speak a little later. But it was already in our Lord’s Heart, and He also knew full well how it was to be in the Christian Church afterwards.
We find an instance of this beginning of rivalry among the disciples of the Apostles in the state of the Church of Corinth to which St. Paul wrote, where men were calling themselves the disciples or followers and converts of this or that one among the teachers, and were encouraged as it seems by some of the latter in this beginning of division, which contained in itself so much mischief for the future if it were not immediately checked.
It is not the plan of St. Paul to speak severely, but his Epistles to that Church are warnings and instructions to all time, both as to the dignity of the Christian ministry, and the immense evils which result whenever it even begins to lose its perfect spirit.
The disciples had not answered his question
We may therefore understand this passage about scandal in connection with the main purpose of our Lord in the whole of this discourse or discourses, for we shall see reason for thinking that on this occasion He repeated twice over very nearly the same teaching after a very short interval of time.
We must remember that up to the moment when these words were spoken, the disciples had not avowed to our Lord the subject of their conversation on the road to Capharnaum. He had asked them, and they had been ashamed to answer Him.
In His sweet and gentle way, knowing their hearts, as St. Luke tells us, He had called them to Him, and told them, that if any man desired to be first, he should be the last of all, and the servant of all. Then He had said no more. He had spoken by action, taking a child and setting him by Himself, in the midst of them, and embracing him.
Then He had added the words about the blessing of receiving such a child in His name. He had let Himself be interrupted by the question of St. John about the prohibition of the man who had been found casting out devils in His Name, but He had returned to the former subject, only changing the form of His words from a recommendation of loving care for little ones to a warning against the danger of giving scandal to little ones.
The danger of ambition in Apostolic men
It is therefore as if He had said, without entering into the question as to who should be the greater, which was soon after to be put to Him directly, that what He wished them to occupy themselves about in their conversation, and in the thoughts and desires of their hearts, was, above all things, the immense blessing of being in any way ministers of help or salvation to those for whom He showed so much love, the little ones of the flock, and also the immense danger of giving anything like scandal to such, as was only too easy to any who did not most carefully rule themselves and restrain the instinctive movements of ambition, or any other passion, which might arise in their hearts.
If their hearts were full of the true dignity and beauty, and also of the perils and dangers of the ministry, which was their work in the Kingdom of Heaven, there would be no room left for the aspirations of ambition, but only for that true and laudable ambition which desires to see the work of God for the good of souls prosper to the utmost, whether in their own hands, or in the hands of any other whatsoever.
St Paul to the Corinthian priests
Nowhere can we find a better description of this true and honourable ambition than in such words as those of St. Paul to the Corinthian priests:
‘Giving no offence to any man, that our ministry be not blamed, but in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in seditions, in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the armour of justice on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true, as unknown, and yet known, as dying, and behold we live, as chastised, and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as needy, and yet enriching many, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.’1
It is evident that St. Paul would not pour himself out so readily as he does in these words, if his heart was not full to overflowing of the opportunities and responsibilities of the Christian ministry.
He discloses here his own vigilance in seizing every opportunity of discharging his great duties with the utmost charity and edification. He does not speak about being first in all these things which he enumerates, he has no time for a comparison with others.
The passage is a picture of his life, its external condition and its interior exercises of virtue. It is the positive side of the character and conduct of men who are incapable of giving scandal or yielding to temptations, even from things dearest to them, because they are all on fire with what he elsewhere calls the ‘charity of Christ.’
Mortifications of the Apostles
Elsewhere St. Paul dwells on the privations and mortifications of the Apostolic life, by means of which he and his brethren were made what they were.
‘Even unto this hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode, and we labour, working with our own hands, we are reviled, and we bless, we are persecuted, and we suffer it, we are blasphemed, and we entreat, we are made the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all even until now.’2
And again:
‘In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed, we are straitened, but are not destitute, we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken, we are cast down, but we perish not, always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal bodies.’3
On the occasion on which these Epistles to the Corinthians were written, the Apostle had to deal with mischiefs among the Christian priests which were very similar to those which might have followed among the Apostles, if our Lord had not given them the lesson and warnings contained in this passage of St. Matthew, and in this way we may illustrate the words of the Master by those of His faithful servant.
These and other passages of St. Paul form a grand commentary on the words of our Lord here. When our Lord spoke, the idea of the Christian ministry and pastoral office was only in germ in the minds of the Apostles. It was a new thing in the world, as new as the doctrine of the Cross. St. Paul shows us to what it grew in the minds and hearts of the Apostles, and he has handed it on to the Church of all ages.
But all that he says may be traced to these discourses of our Lord in Galilee, with their three or four fundamental ideas—the dignity of souls as representing God and Himself, the enormous danger and fatal easiness of scandal, the love of the Good Shepherd, and the will of the Father that no one of the little ones should be lost.
Passage in the Sermon on the Mount
It may perhaps be thought that the words used by our Lord, which are quoted from the Sermon on the Mount, as has been said, and especially those which are here added to the quotation about the hand and the eye, namely, the thrice-repeated description of the worm that does not die, and the fire that is not extinguished, taken from the Prophet Isaias,4 seem to point to some more gross and general dangers than those which might beset the Apostles and their successors in the sacred ministry for the benefit of souls.
Still, we must remember that those who have received the commission of the Apostles are bound, at the risk of salvation itself, to labour in that work, as St. Paul says, ‘Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel,’ and, moreover, that indifference to the dangers of the peculiar calling which God has given them may lead such men directly, and with no long interval of declension, to the very same sins which beset the commonest of mankind, and are the most universal causes of ruin.
And it is at least evident that the practical doctrine which is here laid down is the necessity of the most watchful mortification of self for those who have the commission of which our Lord seems certainly to be speaking, if it is to be discharged without hurting others. This seems to be the lesson of the concluding words, which have in them no small difficulty on any other supposition.
‘For every one shall be salted with fire, and every victim shall be salted with salt.’
Our Lord seems to mean that something of the fire of mortification is necessary for every one, and that the fire of mortification is a happy exchange for the unquenchable fire of Hell, of which He has made mention. Even the sacrifices offered to God required salt to make them acceptable, and as it were savoury, in the eyes of Him to Whom they were offered.
The salting with fire must signify the practice of continual self-restraint, which may in certain cases and emergencies lead to the cutting off of the hand or the foot, or the plucking out of the eye. And the sacrifice thus prepared, the service thus offered to God, required the salt of discretion, prudence, and charity, to season it and make it acceptable.
The need of charity and prudence
It is this exquisite charity and prudence which might perhaps have been wanting in the prohibition to the exorciser of which St. John had told our Lord, as in the proposal of which we hear at a later time, made by the same Apostle and his brother St. James, to call down fire from Heaven to destroy the city of the Samaritans which had refused them hospitality on their way to Jerusalem.5
It would be the want of this which might lead in many cases to the scandal of little ones. It would certainly altogether evaporate in men who were actuated by ambition, jealousies, rivalries, and the like. Their souls could not be the homes of any of the more delicate and sensitive spiritual graces.
The slightest admixture of selfishness degrades the soul, makes it gross, heavy, dull, hard, like a leaden and frozen soil, in which no flowers thrive. Thus it is that our Lord is so anxious at the very first manifestation of such feelings to root them out at once from the hearts of the Apostles.
‘Salt is good’—summary of the discourse
‘Salt is good, but if the salt become unsavoury, wherewith will you season it?’
He seems again to go back to the words which He had used in the Sermon on the Mount, thus reminding the Apostles of what He had then said to them. He does not repeat, however, the latter part of the sentence, ‘It is then good for nothing, but to be cast down and trodden upon by men.’
Our Blessed Lord speaks here with very great gentleness and forbearance, though it would indeed have been true, that if they had given way to this rising spirit of ambition the former words might have been most applicable to them. He only says, ‘Have salt in you, and have peace among you.’ The salt of discretion and charity is to be in their own hearts, and then the result will be that there will be mutual harmony and peace in the whole community.
Thus the summing up of this short discourse, as it is given us by St. Mark, sufficiently connects the beginning of the conversation with its close, showing that our Lord had in His mind the same object all through.
That object was to turn their thoughts away from all foolish and disturbing curiosity concerning the relative eminence of the various members of the Apostolic company in point of rank, to the serious intelligence and consideration of the wonderful greatness of the work which they all and each had to do, the singleness of purpose, the self-abasement and self-sacrifice which it required, and the immense dangers by which it might be beset, both to their own souls, in the first instance, and then, in consequence, to the souls of those for whom they were to labour with all the devotion of which He speaks presently in the words about the love of the shepherd for the sheep which had been lost.
To bring home to them more completely these truths, He had already spoken of the reception even of one little child as the reception of Himself and of His Heavenly Father, and on the other hand, He had brought in, three times over, the terrible words of the Prophet about the undying worm of conscience and the interminable fires of Hell.
It seems, however, that He was not even yet fully understood by them, for the question of which they had been afraid to tell Him, as having been raised among themselves, was almost immediately afterwards put to Him by them in so many words.
They probably did not understand the exquisite and deep teaching He had been imparting to them, and thought that they might naturally speculate, as they had been speculating, and that He would answer them in a word. St. Matthew relates to us the question and our Lord’s answer, which, as will be seen, is in many respects, a repetition of what He had already said, with the addition of certain most precious words which had not found a place in the former discourse.
Question of the Apostles
‘At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who, thinkest Thou, is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven?’
These English words hardly give the full force of the original Greek, which might more accurately be rendered, ‘Who, then, shall be the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven?’
It is as if the disciples had made up their minds to have the question settled for them once for all, perhaps thinking that our Lord might deem it well to put the matter beyond all doubt, and so preclude the way for future discussions or speculations. But what they really needed was not the designation of any one particular Apostle as their ruler or leader, or as nearest to our Lord in authority or dignity.
As long as they had Himself with them, there was no need for that, and if there was no need, then the discussion was positively harmful for them, as an indulgence of curiosity, which always dissipates and disturbs the soul. What they needed was the enlightenment of their minds on the previous question, in what it was that the greatness and eminence in the Kingdom of Heaven was to consist.
Our Lord’s answer
Our Lord answered them by a repetition of the gracious action which He had used before, to signify what He meant without directly proclaiming it.
‘And Jesus, calling unto Him a little child, set Him in the midst of them, and said, Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’
The mere question, He seems to say, which you ask Me, shows how utterly blind you are to the work to which you are called, its responsibilities and dangers.
You are thinking and talking about the greater and the less in the Kingdom, and now know that you shall not enter into that Kingdom in any position at all, unless you be converted and become as this child.
And from this follows another truth, the direct answer to their question.
‘Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the Kingdom of Heaven.’
He uses the word ‘greater’ of true greatness, though perhaps they had used it in the sense of superiority in dignity, authority, rank, and the like, which was what was in their mind. But our Lord’s thoughts concerning greatness were different from theirs, and He meant in the word great at least to include sanctity and perfection.
The great positions of authority in the earthly kingdom are not always meted out to the holiest. But it is also true that humility is the most requisite of all graces for those who have to rule, as ambition and pride are the most vital disqualifications for such.
Flying from honours
The answer of our Lord, therefore, put an end at once to all the questionings of ambition.
There could not be even an entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven without that virtue of humility which abhors all elevation, and when they were once admitted to the Kingdom, the prizes there could only be won by ever greater and greater self-humiliation.
The more they would fly from honours and dignities, the more they would have them, the more they sought them in heart, the further would they be from attaining them.
This was the first entirely new teaching which our Lord gave them on this occasion. Before He had said, that if any man desired to be first, he shall be the last of all, and the minister of all, words which might have sounded almost as if they were a threat of humiliation as a chastisement for ambition. Now it is explained that it is humiliation itself which is true greatness, and the greater the humility the loftier the greatness.
And in truth, greatness is not measured by office or positions of authority, for which the holiest of men are sometimes unfit, as in the case of St. Peter Celestine, or sometimes debarred by Providence, as in the case of St. John of the Cross, and numberless others. For in the sense of power and commission, our Lord said that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the ministry of the Church, was greater than St. John Baptist.
Our Lord next repeats in short words the two main propositions concerning the treatment of little ones which He had before delivered.
‘And he that shall receive one such little child in My Name receiveth Me. But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck and that he should be drowned in the depths of the sea.’
This seems to have been a punishment used in the East for the gravest crimes. St. Jerome tells us that these words may have been meant to apply to the Apostles themselves. For, if they had continued in the temper generated by ambition and rivalry, they might have given great scandal to many of the faithful, seeing the leaders of the Church contending one with another. And certainly it has been so in history.
There have been no greater and more lasting scandals in the history of the Church than those which have been the results of ambition among the ministers of the altar. There have been great miseries in consequence of their worldliness, or sensuality, or love of riches.
But perhaps these have not done so much harm to souls as their rivalries in grasping power, their ambition to be greatest in authority, dignity, work, reputation, honour, fame, and success, ‘the last infirmity of noble mind.’
Evil consequences of ambition
The enormous calamities to which the Church was subjected at the time of the so-called Reformation may be traced to the great scandal of the schism in the Papacy, when, without any corruption of morals or doctrine, the prelates of the Roman Court were divided against the lawful successor of St. Peter, and carried their revolt so far as to set up a whole succession of Antipopes.
The schism left an almost indelible stain on the Holy See, notwithstanding the many virtues, the devotion and learning and holy zeal, and the like, which were to be found in both camps. The great troubles of the Church in the ensuing centuries had mostly their source there.
But the schism in the Papacy was one among a great number of similar though minor scandals, or causes of scandal, in almost every generation, the mischief of which abundantly explains the strong words of our Lord which follow.
‘Woe to the world because of scandals! for it must needs be that scandals come, but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.’
The woe which is here denounced on the world may be understood in either one of two ways. For it may be meant that scandals will do the most immense injuries to mankind, by means of the sins into which men are led thereby, and which lower the common level of virtue and alter the prevailing standard of right and wrong, in a way which grievously affects the whole of society, morally and socially.
And it may also be meant that the Providence of God in the government of the world will be, as it were, obliged to be constantly sending chastisements upon nations and communities, and the world at large, in order to vindicate His own justice and set a public brand on the sins which call so loudly to Heaven for vengeance.
In either meaning is contained a very large range of matter for thought and meditation, and the history of the world, of nations, and especially of Christian nations, can never be rightly understood until the consequences and chastisements of scandals, in His Divine government of the world, are allowed for and duly estimated.
There is never a time in the history of society when there are not some great false principles as to the toleration of what is vicious and wicked, which prevail and affect even the better portion of mankind. For many carelessly accept them as legitimate because they are traditionally established, or enforced by present fashion and custom.
And the world is continually punished by plagues, wars, famines, and other external calamities, in order that the evil that has been done may be expiated, and the minds of men directed to the removal of the scandals which are so offensive in the eye of Heaven.
This chapter continues here:
From Fr Coleridge, Passiontide, Part I.
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2 Cor. vi. 3-10
1 Cor. iv. 11-18.
2 Cor. iv. 8-10.
Isais lxvi. 24.
St Luke ix. 54.