SCRIPTURE IN COURT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22240, 15 October 1935, Page 13

SCRIPTURE IN COURT

LITIGATION DISAPPROVED ST. PAUL'S INJUNCTION In a well-known passage in his first letter to the Church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul rebukes his converts for their readiness to go to law against one another before a secular court. Appropriate reference was made to this passage by Mr. R. McVeagh in the Supremo Court yesterday when ho was appearing for officials of a religious organisation from whom their executive was trying to obtain possession of papers and other property. Mr. McVeagh said he had shown to Mr. Goldstine, counsel appearing on the other side, this passage, in which St. Paul proclaimed the undesirability of persons, especially of those associated with each other in religion, ventilating their grievances in the law courts. Mr. Justice Callan: St. Paul to the Corinthians, if I might venture to say so, might be read with equal propriety to tho present appellants and to tho present respondent.

Mr. Goldstine: I was rather surprised I had not seen the passage before until Mr. McVeagh was able to bliow it was in the New Testament. Mr. Justice Callan: The inculcation of forbearance is more marked in the new than in the older Book.