Marion D. Shutter

“ Tobiah, the Amorite, was yet more caustic: “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he will even break down their stone wall.” This ridicule, although the jests do not seem very formidable to us, was harder to bear than attacks with sword and spear. It is so to-day. We can stand anything but laughter. One would rather be made to appear infamous than ridiculous. The only answer the builders could make was to pray for the destruction of their sarcastic persecutors. They wished that heaven’s bolts of lightning might answer these bolts of wit. ”

“ The writers of the Bible sketched manners and traits as they found them. Their pencils were faithful to nature. They reported what they saw. The features which provoke the smile, as well as those which move us to admire, condemn or weep, are pictured on their canvas. They had an eye for the ludicrous side of life, as well as for its more sober aspects. So, genial is much of their—often unconscious—humor, so far removed from bitterness or scorn, that it should seem as if Addison and Irving might have drawn some of their inspiration from these old Hebrews. ”

“ Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will be like the Most High! Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ When we pass on to other portions of the New Testament, we find examples of the same kind of reasoning in James and Paul.
Most admirably does James show the futility of faith without works. “What shall it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and hath not works? Can faith save him? If a brother and sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ In the Bible, the elements of wit and humor are effectively employed in dealing with the sins of men. Evil doing, in its various motives and manifestations, is denounced, rendered repulsive, made ghastly and terrible, and when everything else has been done, it is exhibited as grotesque and ludicrous. Sin is the great absurdity of the universe. Were it not so tragic, it would shake the very heavens with laughter. ”

“ The whole world is kin in this, that all with one consent inexcusably forget the substantial past and praise the present folly, if that folly be well tricked out. Humanity proves its oneness by its foibles as well as by its virtues. “Foolery, sir, doth walk about the orb; like the sun it shineth everywhere.” Things deserving of laughter and things intended to provoke it have always been happening; and the faculties by which men perceive the foolish and ludicrous have always existed in human nature. ”

“ This fidelity to nature made it inevitable that the writers should now and then depict the ludicrous side of life and character, describe grotesque situations and paint amusing scenes. These are not uproariously funny, they will not provoke boisterous merriment, any more than will a page of Addison; but they are none the less specimens of genuine humor. Indeed, Carlyle reminds us that “true humor springs not more from the head than from the heart; it issues not in laughter, but in smiles that lie far deeper.” ”

“ The man who tries to put new senses into old words, new ideas into old formulas, is like a man who cuts up a new garment to mend an old; like one who puts wine not yet done fermenting into a skin whose capacity admits no further strain. He spoils his new coat and he loses his new wine.
With such illustrations as these, illustrations embodying a figure or comparison or situation essentially amusing, was Jesus wont to temper his rebukes.
II.
The sense of humor in Jesus enabled him to detect pretension, imposture, hypocrisy, and expose them to the derision of mankind. ”

“ First Universalist Church.
INTRODUCTORY.
“There is still one question before us. If humor be what we have claimed for it, not a mere farce, but the depicting of the whole of human life, then we should expect that the highest literature should be found to contain it. We should expect to find it everywhere; that it should satisfy all that desire which a reading in theology, or philosophy, or science, or history, or a study in art, has created in man. Are there, then, any great books, or still more any great forces in human life which seem devoid of it? Is there any humor in the gospels? ”

“ Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers which, indeed, appear beautiful outward, but within are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. * * * Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, for ye are as graves which appear not, and men walk over them and are not aware of them. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The King of Babylon.
One of the most powerful passages of invective in any literature is that in which Isaiah pictures the fall of the King of Babylon.
He begins—“How hath the oppressor ceased!” Then he sets forth the joy of the earth itself over the discomfiture of him who “smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke.” All creation is glad. “The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.” This is the state of things on earth. ”

“ But make the people think you are full of zeal for religion, and under the mantle of this falsehood cloak your motives, as you rush through the streets crying, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” Rouse the populace, always ripe for mischief, and always more furious than ever when they think that religion, something of which they do not understand the first letter, and of which they are absolutely destitute, is in danger. ”

“ The writers of the Old Testament who used the glittering lances of wit against the foes of truth and righteousness, had worthy successors in evangelists and apostles, and in Jesus himself. These men were indignant at hypocrisy and wrong-doing; they looked with scorn upon the swelling pretensions of the religious leaders; they expostulated with affectionate earnestness and severity with their own brethren who suffered themselves to be led astray. Indignation is not necessarily wrong or unchristian. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other hand, the literature which is designed to move and mold men must be addressed to human nature in its completeness. Freighted with destiny, charged with eternity as are the messages of the Bible, they are yet intended to impress men; they are addressed to human faculties in human speech. Whatever the capacities of language for touching the heart and operating upon the will, they may all be employed, though the theme soar to heaven or take hold on hell. ”

“ I believe it to be quite one of the crowning wickednesses of this age, that we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation, and neither desire nor dare to punish crimes justly.”
This faculty of righteous wrath when it takes shape in irony, ridicule, sarcasm, invective, is the mightiest foe of vanity, hypocrisy, pretension, corruption, and vice. By its sword do they perish. The teachers and writers of New Testament times, did not disdain to use in their work every instrument of power known to the human mind. ”

“ In the time of the Judges the unprincipled Abimelech contrived to have himself proclaimed king in Shechem. Knowing his unfitness for the throne, and vexed at his successful machinations, Jotham, a man of ready wit, ridicules the pretensions of the monarch and the folly of the people, in an admirable fable. Addison says: “Fables were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world, and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. ”

“ I shall have occasion to trace these elements in close connection with elements of tragedy, and to show how the processes we generalize under the names of wit and humor are kindred with the most intense passion and the deepest feeling.”
In human nature, the sources of laughter and tears lie close together, and the highest [Pg 9] literature must express that nature in its entirety. “It is an understood fact,” says Whipple, “that mirth is as innate in the mind as any other original faculty. The absence of it in individuals or communities is a defect.” ”

“ Every phasis of literature, every norm of wisdom, is in the Bible. It ministers to all tastes and arouses the slumbering intellects of all who can comprehend the difference between reality and fiction, and who incline to virtue rather than vice. Ruskin confesses his indebtedness to the Bible, Homer and Sir Walter Scott, for his mental discipline; Charles Reade pronounces the characters in Scripture a literary marvel. Matthew Arnold daily read the New Testament in Greek for its style ”

“ The queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a greater than Solomon is here! When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth none. ”

“ But they show that the sense of the ludicrous is put into man by his Maker; that it has its uses; that we are not to be ashamed of it;” that we are not to be horrified at the mention of it in connection with things we deem most sacred. They show that the literature of the Bible contains the same elements that in any other literature we call Wit and Humor. They show us, also, that wit and humor do not of necessity produce hearty laughter or boisterous mirth; not always do they manifest themselves in “gibes and gambols and flashes of merriment that set the table in a roar.” ”

“ It will strike them as downright blasphemy to intimate that Jesus possessed and used the sense of humor so common to mankind. We assuredly appreciate the delicacy of the position, and shall endeavor to avoid, in our treatment of this subject, anything that might wound the most sensitive soul.
There are several considerations that will pave the way. We take it for granted that Jesus was a complete human being, and that as such a being he must have had all the human attributes and faculties,—the faculty of mirthfulness among them. He was a man, and lacked nothing that pertains to men. ”