Editorial July 26, 1947 Issue

PHARISEE OR PUBLICAN?

John Randall Dunn

What a marvelous teacher was the Man of Nazareth! The homely parables and apt illustrations with which he elucidated a great spiritual lesson are as fresh and potent today as they were when he taught on the hillsides of Galilee. Take, for example, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisees were a self-righteous Jewish sect, who, according to the historian Josephus, were "supposed to excel others in the accurate knowledge of the laws of their country." The name Pharisee derives from a primitive Hebrew root meaning to separate; and the members of this sect certainly considered themselves separate and apart from the rank and file of Jewry.

Jesus therefore could not have pictured greater opposites than an egotistic, erudite Pharisee and a lowly publican or tax collector, the very name and profession of the latter being especially odious to the Jews. Hear the story which the great Teacher tells (Luke 18:10—14): "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." Then adds the master word-painter, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

Certainly Christ Jesus in this incomparable parable indicates the first important step in the scientific handling of a problem of sin. It must first be uncovered and acknowledged as a false claim. Then, Christian Science teaches, it is to be repudiated and nullified by a consciousness of Love's sinlessness and allness.

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