The second class warned by Jesus consists of several groups dealt with in the Sermon on the Mount—­people whose sin is not murder or adultery, but merely anger and the unclean thought—­not the people who actually give themselves away, like the publicans and harlots—­but those who would not be sorry to have that ring of Gyges which Plato described, who would like to do certain things if they could, who at all events are not unwilling to picture what they would wish to do, if it were available, and meanwhile enjoy the thought (Matt. 5:21, 22, 27-29).  Here St. Paul can supply commentary with his suggestion that one form of God’s condemnation is where he gives up a man to his own reprobate mind (Romans 1:28—­the whole passage is worth study in the Greek).  The mind, in Paul’s phrases, becomes darkened (Rom. 1:21), stained (Titus 1:15), and cauterized (1 Tim. 4:2), invalidated for the discharge of its proper functions, as a burnt hand loses the sense of touch, or a stained glass gives the man a blue or red world instead of the real one.  Blindness and mutilation are better, Jesus said, than the eye of lust (Matt. 5:28).  How different from the moralists, for whom sin lies in action, and all actions are physical!  The idle word is to condemn a man, not because it is idle, but because, being unstudied, it speaks of his heart and reveals, unconsciously but plainly, what he is in reality (Matt. 12:36).  Thus it is that what comes out of the mouth defiles a man (Matt. 15:18)—­with the curious suggestion, whether intended or not, that the formulation of a floating thought gives it new power to injure or to help.  That is true; impression loose, as it were, in the mind, mere thought—­stuff, is one thing; formulated, brought to phrase and form, it takes on new life and force; and when it is evil, it does defile, and in a permanent way.  Marcus Aurelius has a very similar warning (v. 16)—­“Whatever the colour of the thoughts often before thy mind, that colour will thy mind take.  For the mind is dyed (or stained) by its thoughts.”  “Phantazesthai” and “phantasiai” are the words—­and they suggest something between thoughts and imaginations—­mental pictures would be very near it.

The third group whom Jesus warned, the most notorious of all, was the Pharisee class.  They played at religion—­tithed mint and anise and cumin, and forgot judgement and mercy and faith (Matt. 23:23).  Jesus said that the Pharisee was never quite sure whether the creature he was looking at was a camel or a mosquito—­he got them mixed (Matt. 23:24).  Once we realize what this tremendous irony means, we are better able to grasp his thought.  The Pharisee was living in a world that was not the real one—­it was a highly artificial one, picturesque and charming no doubt, but dangerous.  For, after all, we do live in the real world—­there is only one world, however many we may invent; and to live in any other is danger.  Blindness, that is partial and uneven, lands a man in peril whenever he tries to