I
The roots of the idea of loyalty may be found in
the deep religious consciousness of ancient man, where
it is interwoven with implicit metaphysical, psycho-
logical, moral, and sentimental meanings—a phenom-
enon which is of more than antiquarian interest.
In the Hebrew Scriptures—and in the Hebraic con-
sciousness—the word for truth (emet) often means
faithfulness, honesty, trust, fidelity, firmness, steadfast-
ness—all suggesting loyalty in one or another rela-
tionship. So, too, the word for grace (chesed) often
suggests in context what we call loyalty. Thus, for
example, when David learned that men of a certain
town had given decent burial to Saul, he said: “May
you be blessed by the Lord, because you showed this
loyalty (chesed) to Saul.... May the Lord show...
faithfulness (emet) to you” (II Samuel 2:5-6, R.S.V.).
The biblical word for faith, faithful, trust, sureness
(amunah) often suggests loyalty, for one who has faith
will cling to it; he will be loyal to his faith. His loyalty
is a test of the sincerity of his faith. Thus Ezra said
that the Lord found the heart of Abraham “faithful”
before him (Nehemiah 9:8), and Habakkuk said that
the righteous shall live by his faith—or by his faithful-
ness, loyalty, steadfastness (Habakkuk 2:4).
The classical Hebraic model of loyalty is the story
of the Akedah, the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham on
Moriah (Genesis 22). As generally interpreted the inci-
dent was a “testing” of Abraham's loyalty to God. A
widely-read modern commentary states:
There are loyalties which deserve all that a man can give,
and in that giving he is blessed. Not only the story of
Abraham but history in general witnesses to the instinctive
belief that this is true. Consider what men have done and
will do for their clan or their country. They give their sons
to die in battle, to “make the supreme sacrifice.” Though
they themselves are bereaved, they trust that their nation
may be blessed, because through the dedication of young
lives the nation may hear the promise which was spoken
to Abraham, “Thy seed shall possess the gate of thy
enemies”
(The Interpreter's Bible 646 [1952], Vol. I).
Exhortation to and defense of martyrdom as the
ultimate proof of loyalty to one's religion or God have
been common at least since Rome instituted the
imperial cult, and Jews and Christians refused, in the
face of the threat of death, to perform an act which
to them was an expression of idolatry.
The apocryphal book known as IV Maccabees (A.D.
37-41) became a popular work among Christian ora-
tors and teachers for its treatment of martyrdom, and
inspired resistance to Rome. In the book, the young
men, threatened with torture and death if they fail to
violate the Jewish law, cry out to the tyrant:
Why, tyrant, do you delay? Ready are we to die, rather than
transgress our forefathers' commandments. Our forebears we
should verily shame if we did not show obedience to the
Law.... But if old men of the Hebrews have died for
religion's sake, and persevering through torture have abided
in their religion, it is even more fitting that we who are
young should die.... Proceed, then, with your trial, tyrant;
and if you take our lives and inflict upon us a death for
religion's sake, do not think that you are injuring us by your
torments. We, by our suffering and endurance, shall obtain
the prize of virtue; and we shall be with God, on whose
account we suffer...
(9:1-9, trans. M. Hadas).
This passage shows some of the common themes on
martyrology: loyalty to one's origin and forebears,
loyalty to God, loyalty in the face of indescribable
torment, the identification of such loyalty with virtue,
compensation of such loyalty in the certainty that God
will know and approve.
Idolatry in its essence is rebellion against God, rejec-
tion of God. The Bible speaks often of those who desert
God and play the harlot (Ezekiel 16:41). At times the
Bible speaks of sin as rebellion, as a breach of loyalty
to God. One of the root words for sin (pesh) means
rebel. Another basic biblical word for sin (chet) in some
contexts means going astray, missing the way; it sug-
gests that man or his heart is wayward, inconstant,
unsteady—disloyal (e.g., I Samuel 19:4; 24:12; 26:21).
Often the Bible suggests that the essence of sin is found
in breach of the covenant, the people go awhoring after
strange gods as an adulterer who has violated his
agreement—a supreme act of disloyalty (Hosea 4:12;
9:1; Ezekiel 23:30).
In Job, one of the leading themes is the conviction
that, no matter what, a man must be true to himself,
must not waver in his loyalty to the truth and the
reality as he knows them to be in his innermost heart.
Thus Job holds his ground firmly against the charges
and derogatory intimations of his friends; but even
more, he remains loyal to himself even against the will
of God:
Behold, he will slay me; I have no hope; Yet I will defend
my ways to his face
(Job 13:15. R.S.V.).
Perhaps the root idea out of which flow the many
meanings of loyalty with all their rough and sophis-
ticated shadings can be traced back to the idea of
love—
and you shall love your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might
(Deuteronomy 6:5).
Israel is to have only one loyalty; God is to be loved
with the totality of one's devotion. Israel has cove-
nanted to have only one God, as a man covenants to
have only one wife—only one love. There is also the
law of love which makes oneself and one's fellow men
objects of loyalty: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself” (Leviticus 19:18; cf. Matthew 22:37-40, Luke
10:27-28). One must, therefore, be “true” to God, to
one's own soul, and to fellow men. From ancient times
to the present, these basic meanings of loyalty—in
whatever terms expressed—have persisted.
