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Title: The Origin and Development of Christian Dogma: An essay in the science of history

Author: Charles A. H. Tuthill

Release date: December 31, 2017 [eBook #56279]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOGMA: AN ESSAY IN THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY ***

  THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF

  CHRISTIAN DOGMA




  THE

  ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT

  OF

  CHRISTIAN DOGMA


  AN ESSAY

  _IN THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY_


  BY

  CHARLES A. H. TUTHILL


  LONDON

  KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE

  1888


(_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved._)




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                          PAGE


       INTRODUCTION                                   1

    I. THE FOUNDATION OF MONOTHEISM                   4

   II. THE MESSIANIC FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY      33

  III. THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST                    65

   IV. JEWISH CHRISTIANITY                           93

    V. PAGAN CHRISTIANITY                           112

   VI. CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY         142

  VII. THE PERMANENCE OF DOGMATIC RELIGION          160




  THE

  ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT

  OF

  CHRISTIAN DOGMA.




INTRODUCTION.


If we compare Christianity with the other dogmatic religions of the
world, we are at once struck by a feature peculiar to it, namely,
the complexity of its doctrinal system. A glance at the Athanasian
Creed is sufficient to show that this peculiarity results from the
existence of fundamental inconsistencies in the dogmas of Christianity.
Such inconsistencies are not found in other religions, whether, like
Mohammedanism, they have at once sprung into full maturity at the time
of their creation, or whether, like Judaism, they have passed through a
long and slow process of development. The inconsistencies of Christian
doctrine clearly cannot be ascribed to the necessary tendencies of
the evolution of dogmatic religion; they must be due to special
circumstances connected with the history of Christianity.

What these circumstances were there is no difficulty in ascertaining.
The fully developed dogmatic system of Christianity is the product
of the union of two opposite streams of religious tendency. From
the collision of the monotheism of Judaism with the polytheism of
Paganism the inconsistencies of its doctrines have sprung. In the
doctrine of the Trinity, which takes up so much of the Athanasian
Creed, we have the clearest evidence of this. But, in reality, the
whole of Christianity is pervaded by the contradictions inseparable
from the combination in it of the characteristics of monotheistic and
polytheistic religion. This combination is the source of its unique
power; it thus can satisfy both the higher and the lower class of
religious instincts; but its complex and confused theology is also an
inevitable result.

The distinctive feature of the doctrinal system of Christianity can
thus be readily explained by a reference to the conditions of its
origin. To investigate in detail, by the same method of historical
inquiry, the causes which produced its separate dogmas, is the object
of this essay. The origin of the earlier ones must be traced through
the history of Judaism; the later ones were Pagan, but they were
grafted on a Jewish stock. Starting from primary religious ideas, we
have to examine the growth and modification of theological dogma. Our
study, accordingly, will take us over the whole period of history.




CHAPTER I.

THE FOUNDATION OF MONOTHEISM.


At the time of the birth of Christianity, only in one portion of the
Roman world could a new and pure religion have arisen. The fusion of
the empire had, by destroying their national basis, fatally weakened
the Pagan religions; so far as real feeling was concerned, they had
passed into the hands of the ignorant classes exclusively, and had
lost the vitality in which alone the higher religious forces can
germinate. Philosophies, resting on a common basis of contempt of the
popular polytheism, were the refuge of the more enlightened. Between
philosophers and those who still believed in the power of the ancient
gods there existed a vast mass of people who had religious instincts
with no sure means of satisfying them, ripe subjects for the new
religion which they looked for but could not originate. At this time,
throughout the Pagan world, a high and systematic morality could
only be reared on an intellectual basis which destroyed sympathy
with common men; in no part of it could have been developed the pure
enthusiasm needed for the founding of a great religion.

One region of the empire alone was free from the symptoms of religious
decay. In the small district of Palestine, with many offshoots
scattered over the world, lived a people who professed a religion of
the purest type. And this religion was not a lightly held philosophical
theory; its adherents clung to it with a passionate tenacity, and
were ever ready to face martyrdom in its defence. It was a pure
monotheism, and morality was inculcated by it, indeed, maintained by
it, in the strongest and most effective fashion. With justice Josephus
could assert that Greek philosophers only followed the example of his
countrymen, and taught doctrines which the Jewish sacred law had made
practical realities.[1] For Judaism was not an esoteric creed which
only the more cultured Jews fully understood; the lowest of the people
grasped its principles, abhorred the idea of polytheism, detested even
the smallest advance towards idolatry, and regarded every sin as a
violation of divine decrees. Such a religion, pure and strongly held,
was fit to be the parent of a noble religious system. In it originated
the earliest doctrines of the religion which now sprang from it and
conquered the Roman world. And as Judaism was in a special sense a
national religion, its development must be examined in the history of
the Jewish people.


We cannot, with any approach to historical certainty, assert more
respecting the social and political condition of the first known
ancestors of the Jews, than that they belonged to a race of nomad
tribes wandering in the district which, roughly speaking, lies between
Egypt and Palestine. In endeavouring to ascertain the religious ideas
of this race, we may safely assume that the character of their religion
was determined by the circumstances of their position. Living in a
region which is either desert or barren and unprofitable land, the
softer influences of nature could not affect them. The terror of nature
would fascinate them; lightning and tempest would speak to them of
their gods, and from the harshness of their surroundings they would
derive the gloomiest impressions of the powers of the supernatural
world. Their religion would be essentially a religion of fear.[2]
Having little to deify on the earth around them, their mythology
would be based on the phenomena of the sky. Sun and moon and stars
would be their divinities, and to these they would ascribe jealous
and implacable tempers. This sternness of their religion would carry
with it many advantages. Their deities would be more majestic, more
removed from themselves, than the gods of happier peoples, and the
humility they would feel in worship would have within it the seeds of a
higher religious development. A still more important feature of their
mythology would be its narrowness. The poverty of their environment
would cause their gods to be few and limited in number. No fresh
divinities would discredit the older ones and reveal the weakness of
their theology. And this would be likely to produce a serious effect on
the outward form of their religion.

Whenever a common polytheism is professed by peoples politically
separate, there is a tendency to localise deities. Now a large
mythology throws great difficulties in the way of this tendency. If
there are many gods, each one individually is too unimportant to be
the divinity of a people, and the political divisions of course being
few, after every tribe or state has appropriated a deity, a surplus is
left with no particular duty to discharge. When this occurs, it usually
results that the national deities are formed into a higher order of
gods; and probably divine oligarchies, like that of the Hellenic
mythology, are always created in this manner. But it is obvious that if
the number of gods is small at the time of the formation of political
divisions, the process of localization is greatly facilitated. The
fewer they are, the more honour attaches to the gods individually; each
one is sufficiently dignified to become the god of a separate people.
After a system of this kind has been fully developed, the gods form a
federal council, in which each state or tribe has a representative. The
quarrels and rivalries of the earthly bodies are of course transferred
to their heavenly representatives; all local patriotism expresses
itself in the general religion.

From the evidence of the early records of the Jewish people we may
conclude that the race from which they sprang went through a process of
this character. In these, Israel, whether as a tribe or as a people,
is often described as associating with other tribes or peoples, and
comparing its own god with theirs, a common basis of religious belief
being assumed.[3] The god of Israel seems to be regarded as superior to
the other gods; but this does not imply that distinctions of rank were
recognized in the common mythology. An intelligent Englishman would
hardly assert that his country is now the chief European power; but
if any other state were named as a possible enemy, he would probably
say that his own was more than a match for it. In the same way,
patriotism expressing itself in religion, the Israelites considered
their own god, or heavenly representative, more than a match for any
other, and this naturally involved a belief in his superiority. From
these conditions a spurious monotheism would necessarily result.
In proportion as their patriotism was strong, the Israelites would
worship exclusively the tribal god, though thoroughly believing in
the existence of others. This, of course, is only polytheism, but it
contains within it the possibility of monotheistic development.

Such probably was the state of the religious ideas of the Israelites at
the time they came into connection with Egypt. Previously they had been
one among many cognate tribes having a common polytheistic mythology.
In this mythology they had a tribal god, whom they worshipped without
denying the existence of the rest. While mixing and constantly coming
into collision with other tribes, each owning, of course, a similar
deity, tribal patriotism must have made them, for the most part,
devote themselves to this god exclusively. When they arrived in Egypt,
they found there a system of religion utterly unlike their own, and
this would confirm them in adherence to it. Being then a small tribe,
they could more easily pay strict allegiance to the tribal god. As
they increased in numbers, both through ordinary growth and through
receiving accessions from cognate peoples outside, this allegiance
would begin to be endangered. While they were a small tribe often
meeting with other tribes which had different gods, patriotism would
make them cling to their own. But when they became a large tribe, and
ceased to come in contact with other branches of their race, not only
would tendencies towards polytheism in actual worship be strengthened,
but the check upon them in the shape of tribal patriotism would be
weakened. They would thus be likely to drift back into the racial
polytheism, their tribal god being lost in the rest. The opposition
to the Egyptian religion[4] would rather help this tendency, as it
would throw them more on their feelings of race. So, on the whole, it
is probable that the Israelites, during their connection with Egypt,
became more or less ordinary polytheists.

In one respect, however, their relations with Egypt must have tended
to maintain their adherence to the tribal god. The period of struggle
against Egyptian power which preceded their departure from Egypt must,
by stimulating their patriotism, have prevented the remembrance of
his old rank from being wholly lost. Patriotism could not have been
completely disassociated from the divinity who had formerly been the
centre round which it rallied. The outburst of patriotic fervour
necessarily accompanying the actual conflict with Egypt, as well as
its ultimate success, must have enormously increased the influence of
the tribal god. For a time, we may be sure, he regained his original
distinction, and became to the Israelites the representative of
heaven. During the first serious fighting in Palestine, he would for
the same reason retain his power. But then, as the national warfare
degenerated into a series of detached tribal contests, the old tendency
towards polytheistic worship would revive. To ascertain what forces
counteracted this tendency, we must consider a new question.

Judaism may as well be said to have been founded by Moses as
Christianity by Christ. Even if we knew nothing of its founder, there
are features of Christianity which we could only explain by referring
them to the influence of a personal character. There are peculiarities
of Judaism, too, which have to be traced back to the personality of
its founder. Moses and Christ, indeed, are inseparably connected in
history. One completed what the other began. Without Moses, Christ
could hardly have existed; without Christ, the work of Moses would
have been of little value to the world. This presumption from internal
probability corroborates the traditional evidence, and justifies us in
accepting its general outline.

If the Israelites migrated from Egypt under the leadership of Moses,
and thus began their national life, it was very natural that he should
be to some extent their legislator as well. Their leader, under such
circumstances, must have had great ability, and also enormous power.
His ability, together with his power, would lead him to consolidate
the energies of his people, in order to fit them for the difficult
task lying before them; and this could only be done by a system of
legislation. Accordingly, we may assume that the foundation of the
Jewish law was laid by Moses, though it is very hard to ascertain what
that foundation actually was. The ten commandments, in their simplest
form, are generally admitted to be relics of the Mosaic age. To account
for the first and most important of these we have, in particular, to
call in the authority of Moses. “I am Jahveh thy god; thou shalt have
none other gods beside me,” is the foundation stone of the development
of monotheism. It implies the existence of polytheism, but it decrees
that polytheism shall be abolished. If the people, or any class of
the people, continuously obeyed it, they had in time to become pure
monotheists. If they ceased to think of other gods, these gods would
ultimately pass out of remembrance, and Jahveh alone would occupy
heaven. Jewish monotheism, with all its wonderful consequences, must be
ascribed to the framer of the first commandment.

We have to assign its authorship to Moses, because of the difficulty
of otherwise accounting for it. That it was a spontaneous decree of the
people, produced by their confidence in the national god after their
victory over the Egyptians, is very improbable. Many reasons, however,
can be given for its having been decreed by Moses. The explanation just
mentioned is more probable when applied to him. He may, as Professor
Kuenen conjectures,[5] have regarded the national success as a proof of
the greatness of the national god, and so have vowed the people to his
exclusive service. The connection between this hypothesis and the idea
of a covenant between Jahveh and Israel, to be referred to presently,
is in its favour. But a stronger reason for believing the commandment
to be due to Moses might be found in his desire to secure the national
unity. The Israelites had grown so numerous as to be divided into
separate tribes. If the people had more gods than one, the old process
would be repeated, each tribe choosing a different god for its tribal
deity; and thus their religion would help the tendency towards
disunion. We know how the unity of Greece was anything like a reality
only when it was based on the worship of Apollo at Delphi, Apollo
becoming practically the national god of the Hellenes.[6] If no rivals
of Apollo had existed, how much more effective his worship would have
been! In general it may be said that, in an early stage of political
development, national unity can be secured against tribal separation
only by basing it on religion. A close union was specially necessary
to the Israelites at this time, when they had to struggle against so
many peoples in order to obtain a home. Recognizing the impossibility
of otherwise securing this union, Moses may well have framed the first
commandment in order to give the tribes at least one bond of union in
the exclusive worship of Jahveh, their national god.

We may conclude, then, that from the Mosaic age it was part of the
Israelitic religion that the tribal, or national, god should be
worshipped exclusively. The people, whatever might be their practice,
had accepted the principle. The second and third commandments, which
prohibit idolatry and the misuse of Jahveh’s name, are evidently meant
to be supports of the first, by demanding reverence for Jahveh and by
abolishing the records of his rivals. The next two are merely local.
But the last five, the second table of the law, are the basis of a
feature of the Jewish religion even more important than its monotheism.

That the morality of the time, so far as it existed, should have
been based on religion is natural enough; and, accordingly, at first
sight, there seems to be nothing remarkable about the five moral
commandments. When examined closely they are found more curious.
The first four, though simple rules which tribal experience might
have shown to be necessary, are still exceptional as the laws of a
half-civilized people. The last takes us into a region of morality
with which it is impossible that the Israelites could then have
been acquainted. Only a highly civilized mind could have conceived
the precept, “Thou shalt not covet.” Here again we are driven for
explanation to the personality of Moses.

These commandments are inexplicable as the product of a low
civilization, but they are very natural if a high civilization be
assumed as their basis. Egypt was at this time highly civilized, and,
as we know from the “Book of the Dead,” had developed a pure morality,
with which the last commandment would be thoroughly in harmony. If
we could assume that Moses once belonged to the inner circle of
Egyptian civilization, the peculiarities of Judaism would be fully
explained. The early traditions represent him as brought up in the
king’s household, and, accordingly, in a position to be acquainted
with the best philosophy of the age. A later tradition says he was
“instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.”[7] And probabilities
are distinctly in favour of this. The power and authority he exercised
over the Israelites could be readily accounted for if he was a member
of their tribe who had received the highest education of the time. Such
a training must have developed his faculties, and marked him out as the
leader of his countrymen, ensuring their reverence for him, and trust
in his ability to rule them.

In a region of historical inquiry like that in which we are now moving,
we must be content to be guided by conjecture. When a conjecture
asserts what is intrinsically probable, and at the same time explains a
complex series of phenomena, we may fairly consider it to be accurate.
The conjecture that Moses drew his inspiration from the higher culture
of Egypt is of this kind.[8] There was nothing strange in his stamping
the principles of that culture, if he was acquainted with it, on his
Israelitic legislation. He had an unequalled opportunity of realizing
the ideals of conduct. Political circumstances had placed the destinies
of his people in his hands. Commands coming from him had an authority
only possible at the beginning of national life. It is thoroughly in
accordance with probability that he should have seized the occasion
offered him, and imposed laws on the nation he ruled which, unless they
passed utterly out of remembrance, would ensure it a noble development.

From the evidence of the ten commandments it is thus almost certain
that the Israelitic religion was, even at its beginning, peculiarly
moral. The people were commanded to worship Jahveh exclusively, and
also to practise a severe morality. From this connection between
Jahvism and morality important consequences were bound to follow.

All ancient religions were more or less marked in practice by a
sacrificial system. The idea at the bottom of the custom of offering
sacrifices is very simple. Men, as a proof of their devotion, give
to their gods some of their possessions. The immediate object may
be either to win the divine favour or to avert the divine wrath.
When a religion is harsh and severe, the latter is likely to be the
more frequent sacrificial motive. Accordingly, when the Israelites
sacrificed to Jahveh, it was probably for the most part to remove
Jahveh’s anger, to obtain forgiveness for their sins against him.
Now exactly in proportion to the closeness of the connection between
Jahvism and morality would be the tendency of these sins to be real
sins. When sins are included among offences against a religious code,
they are pretty sure to be the offences most frequently committed.
Hence it follows that the early sacrificial system of the orthodox
Israelites must have been largely directed to the atonement of sin.

If, then, we could accept the accounts in the Pentateuch as an
accurate description of the sacrificial customs of the Mosaic age,[9]
with external evidence corroborating internal probability, we might
regard our conclusion as proved. But, as Professor Kuenen has shown,
the whole system of the Jewish ceremonial law described in the
Pentateuch was, in at least its final and consolidated form, the result
of the labours of the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. It thus becomes a
question of great difficulty to determine what portion of the law, if
any, existed in early times. A few statements of the prophets seem
to imply that in the Mosaic age no sacrifices at all were offered
to Jahveh.[10] But the prophets cannot be considered trustworthy
authorities for the early history of Israel. They wrote under the
pressure of immediate circumstances, and with a very definite purpose.
This purpose, as will afterwards be shown, required them to cast
discredit on sacrifices. In doing so, their repeated references are
evidence that a full sacrificial system in connection with the worship
of Jahveh was established in their time.[11] Here their testimony
is irrefragable, and it proves that such a system must have begun
before their age. No period was so likely to have originated it as the
earliest, when the foundations of the national life were laid.

But the strongest argument in favour of the conclusion that sacrificing
to Jahveh for the atonement of sin began in the Mosaic age is, that
thus only can subsequent phenomena be explained. The great point in the
history of Jewish religion is the magnificent period of the prophets.
Their writings are the noblest expression ever given to religious and
moral ideas. We explain their pure monotheism by deducing it from the
institution of the first commandment, which necessitated in a class
obeying it continuously the ultimate development of the belief that
Jahveh was the one God “that made the earth and created man upon it,
that stretched out the heavens and commanded all their host.”[12] How
can we explain their wonderful morality except in the same way? We
know from the commandments that moral excellence was required by the
religion of Jahveh from the very first. If thus from the beginning
morality was impressed on Jahveh’s worshippers by a sacrificial
system which declared every sin to be an offence against him that
must be expiated at a personal cost, we can understand how any class
continuously adhering to him should in time have developed a morality
in which sin was hated for its own sake, and goodness made the essence
of religion. Such vivid and constant evidence of Jahveh’s hatred of sin
would naturally, after many generations, produce the pure morality
of the prophets. But otherwise it is inexplicable. A mere theoretical
connection between Jahvism and morality might ultimately have made
the Jahvists better than the worshippers of other gods, but it could
not have created that marvellous passion for righteousness which made
the Jewish religion at its best the greatest the world has ever seen.
This conclusion does not involve the belief that in the Mosaic age the
system of sacrificing for sin was fully developed. If the foundation
of it was laid then, the conditions of the problem are satisfied. The
system would ensure its own subsequent development. Once Jahveh’s
hatred of sin was marked by any practical effect, as time went on,
through the moral growth of the people who grasped the doctrine, that
hatred would seem to deepen, to become more comprehensive and complete.
A conclusion which explains so much, and has probability so greatly in
its favour, may fairly be accepted.

If from the age of Moses the religion of Jahveh was thus inseparably
connected with morality, all the best of the people would rally round
it. Unless Israel at any time was wholly without a remnant that loved
righteousness and hated iniquity, Jahvism must always have had its
earnest supporters. The same cause, of course, would tend to make it
unpopular with the mass of the people. But for this, it would be
difficult to understand why the Israelites, down to the captivity,
were so persistent in their devotion to strange gods. Jahveh was their
national divinity, and a mere love of polytheism could hardly account
for this incessant desertion of him. The close connection between
Jahvism and morality fully explains the phenomenon. The Israelites
in general found Jahveh too severe for them, and turned to gods more
tolerant of evil-doing, just as Catholic sovereigns used to choose
indulgent confessors. This fact would only confirm the few more
strongly in their allegiance. The worshipper of Jahveh would justly
extol Jahveh in comparison with Baal, as he compared himself with the
worshipper of Baal. And thus through the purity of Jahveh’s adherents
their religion would be saved from the contamination of baser elements,
and would necessarily develop in simplicity and truth. Sin, at first
hated chiefly because Jahveh forbade it, would at last be hated
because of its own foulness; Jahveh, at first reverenced merely as the
national saviour, would at last be reverenced as the lord of heaven and
earth. Down the channel of Jahvism flowed all the higher forces of the
national life, till at length they broke forth in the wave of moral
and religious energy which finally overcame resistance in the grand
struggle of the prophets.

Though the majority of the people usually worshipped other gods, and
thus broke their own sacred laws, we are not to suppose that they
denied Jahveh’s existence, or even his right to worship. They must
have been pure polytheists, believing that many gods reigned in the
heavens. Among these they held it to be their right to choose, just
as a lower-class Catholic will choose his favourite saint. But they
fully admitted that Jahveh was the national god; and in periods of
danger, when patriotism was strongly excited, it is likely that for the
moment they returned to the exclusive worship of him. Thus the power of
Jahvism over the people at large would rise and fall with the national
fortunes. When Israel was prosperous, Jahvism prospered too; when
Israel declined, Jahvism declined as well. For we may well believe that
the Israelites flourished just in proportion as they were united. The
book of Judges is probably in the main historically correct. The tribes
would drift apart, or even quarrel with each other, and their enemies
would overcome them and take their cities. Then a wave of patriotism
would sweep over them; they would reunite and become victorious in
their turn. From this it is easy to see what credit Jahveh would in
time acquire, even among the entire people. Union brought with it
national happiness and success, but the adoption of Jahvism was the
condition of union. So it would appear to them that by returning
to Jahveh and observing the precepts of their sacred law they could
always secure prosperity. When serving Jahveh faithfully, they would
have good fortune; after falling away from him, they would quickly
be plunged in calamity. How soon this would create a conviction of
Jahveh’s irresistible power! In their misfortunes they would see Jahveh
punishing them for their apostacy; in their successes they would see
Jahveh accepting their repentance and restoring his protection.

Thus in time all the people would in one sense become Jahvists. They
would believe that Jahveh was their true god, and that they ought to
worship him alone. When they turned to other gods, they would do so
with a distinct consciousness of evil-doing and a certain expectation
of punishment. Jahveh’s severity of moral requirement would render it
impossible for them to serve him willingly; they could never become
true Jahvists. But in their hearts would always be a sullen fear of
Jahveh, a belief that he punished terribly. This was the chord of
popular feeling which the prophets touched, and to the existence of
which they owed their success.

These conditions would naturally in time produce the belief that a
covenant had been concluded at the beginning between Israel and Jahveh.
The true Jahvists would of course eagerly proclaim that Israel’s
happiness depended on obedience to Jahveh, that calamity was the result
of his just anger, and prosperity the consequence of his favour. But
that Jahveh should have given notice of this, and shown the ways of
good and evil from the first, would soon seem to be necessary. Hence
in later times it would be thought that Jahveh had formally concluded
a covenant with the Israelites, in which he engaged to protect them
and make them prosperous, on condition that they served him and kept
his law.[13] All the failures and misfortunes of the nation would
be ascribed by the Jahvists to the breaking of this covenant by the
people, and the consequent drawing down of the penalties of its
violation on their heads.

From the development in Jahvism of this idea that suffering was a
divine punishment followed the most important results. If national
suffering was considered to be due to national breaking of the law,
equally private suffering would be ascribed to private breaking of the
law. Sin would be looked on as the cause of suffering. Abstinence from
sin was commanded by Jahveh, and so every sin would be a violation of
his commands that invited punishment by him. Private suffering would
then be regarded as the proof of sin, as Job’s friends regarded it, and
as the divine chastisement of it. But of course it would seem right
that the chastisement should be proportioned to the sin, and limited
for each offence. Thus, in time, suffering would be considered the
atonement of sin, Jahveh’s punishment of it, after which his favour
would be restored. But sacrifices, as we saw before, were the legal
means of atoning for sin. If a man sinned, then, in order to escape
the suffering which otherwise would be the penalty of his sin, he
would offer a sacrifice. Now Israelitic sacrifices, as they were a
pastoral people, were mainly offerings of living beasts. Under these
circumstances there would certainly be a tendency to imagine that the
penalty of sin was laid on the sacrificial victim, that its suffering
and death were accepted as the atonement in place of the suffering of
the offender.

Professor Kuenen, basing his opinion on the fact that no direct
mention of it occurs in the law, believes that this idea of atonement
by vicarious suffering did not enter into the Jewish sacrificial
system.[14] The legal permission in certain cases of a sin offering of
meal or flour[15] supports his conclusion. On the other hand, vicarious
punishment was clearly recognized in one great ceremony of the law.
The scapegoat is described as bearing away the sins of the people into
the wilderness in which it was left to die.[16] With a tendency of the
sacrificial system towards the belief in vicarious punishment, and
clear evidence in one instance of its recognition, we may safely assume
that it entered to some extent into the feelings of the people when
they sacrificed. Probably it was never consciously developed in the
law, and so it was not directly mentioned, and, in exceptional cases,
inanimate offerings were allowed. But after the sacrificial system had
been long in existence, the constant repetition of animal sacrifices
would naturally produce the belief. We find the principle of vicarious
punishment asserted in the prophets, and fully developed in the sending
away of the scapegoat. We may safely conclude, then, that, from the
beginning, it was latent in Jahvism, and gradually grew as Jahvism
passed into Judaism, until at length it reached maturity in the first
great dogma of Christianity.

Such a principle, growing in Jahvism, would tend still more to develop
a hatred of sin. Morality exists because, from the simple observation
of social phenomena, sin is connected with suffering, and calamity of
some kind regarded as its inevitable consequence. But this connection
of sin with suffering would be placed far more vividly before the
worshipper of Jahveh, as his religion gradually forced on him the
belief that “without shedding of blood there is no remission.”[17] In
the blood of the victim sprinkled on Jahveh’s altar, the Israelite
would see stern evidence of the inexorable severity of Jahveh against
sin—a severity so great that he could not forgive it without exacting
the penalty, though his mercy might allow the transgressor to find
a substitute. Harsh and cruel Jahvism thus would be, even rooted in
injustice; but in effect it would be grandly moral, stamped with a
condemnation of sin that, at such a stage of civilization, was of
priceless value.

From the Mosaic age, then, on to the period of the prophets, we can
imagine the development of Jahvism in Israel. There was always the
nucleus of true Jahvists, who observed the law so far as it existed,
and steadily grew in spirituality and moral insight. They were the
national party; for them tribal divisions could have had but little
importance. From among them, in times when the national fortunes were
near ruin, always uprose the deliverers, as the pure flame of their
patriotism drew to them the nobler elements of the people. They, in
fact, were Israel, a continuous power representing the national life.
Through a long struggle, marked by many a martyrdom, they contended
against the downward tendencies of the rest of the people, until at
length, after the final destruction of Israel’s material greatness,
they won the victory and impressed their principles on the entire
nation. It was no mere sense of the superiority of Jahvism that
sustained them for the longest part of this contest. That could only
be felt strongly towards the end, when the chief fruit of the struggle
had been gained. Their fierce patriotism was their real strength. To
them Jahveh seemed to be King of Israel, and his law the constitution
of their state. In idea their government was a theocracy; even an
earthly viceroy impaired Jahveh’s prerogatives.[18] This was possible
because Jahveh was the national god, universally recognized as such. As
the national god, the worship of him was patriotism; he was the ideal
object of Israel’s self-love. All their religious feelings flowed in
a patriotic channel. Church and state were blended in one; love of
their country inspired their passionate devotion to their religion.
This close union of religious and national feeling afterwards continued
with the relations inverted, patriotic feeling flowing in a religious
channel.

In connection with its intense patriotism, Jahvism from the beginning
must have been distinguished by a rigid exclusiveness. The greatest
danger it had to face was the corruption of the Israelites by the
religions of the peoples around them. To guard against this danger, it
would naturally insist on the sternest separation of Israel from the
Gentile nations. Circumcision, as well as other local customs, it used
as means of fulfilling its purpose. Jahvism was probably at first
fiercely cruel. The injunctions to extirpate the Canaanites contained
in the books of the law, which Professor Kuenen considers to be the
expression of the Jewish hatred of foreigners after the captivity, and
only “murder on paper,” in all likelihood faithfully represent the
feelings of the Jahvists in early times. They must have seen their
fellow Israelites constantly deserting Jahveh for the gods of other
peoples, and it is natural that they should have wished to remove such
temptations in the most effective manner. Probably they did not succeed
in gratifying their desires, except in a few instances when national
feeling was strongly roused. The Israelites in general, we may be sure,
were easily corrupted, and were in too much sympathy with foreign gods
to destroy their worshippers. But the Jahvists must have been fierce
haters of foreigners, and eager in every way to build an insurmountable
wall around Israel. This strict exclusiveness, inevitable and,
indeed, praiseworthy in early times, afterwards came into collision
with the higher tendencies of Jahvism when it attained its maturity.
The subsequent Messianic ideal, as it existed in the noblest minds,
involved a struggle against these influences, which, in its youth, had
been a hard shell enclosing and protecting the Jewish religion.

For the most part the battles of Jahvism must have been with the
local religions of the lands the Israelites conquered.[19] Intermixing
with the conquered peoples, in race kindred to themselves, they
would readily adopt the divinities they found in possession of the
soil. Thus, in different districts, Jahvism was opposed to different
religions[20]—a fact which was afterwards the subject of the bitter
irony of Jeremiah.[21] But its longest and most important conflict
was with the religion of Baal, some particular deity worshipped under
this generic title. The history of Elijah illustrates the severity and
uncertainty of the struggle. To the Jahvists probably its fierceness
was wholly due. They would tolerate the existence of no other religion,
and so, in self-defence, other religions were bound to persecute
them. This long contest with Baal must have been of great service to
Jahvism.[22] It strengthened the fanaticism of the Jahvists, and showed
vividly to the people the zeal their religion inspired. When actually
put face to face with other gods, the superiority of Jahveh must have
been so manifest as to gain for him many adherents.

During the early history of Israel, up to the time of the kings,
in spite of occasional interruptions, the national fortunes were
prosperous, and the territory of the Israelites increased in extent.
Jahvism, as the national religion, would naturally share in the
prosperity of the state. In the golden age of Israel, the age of
David and Solomon, it must have had great nominal power. The large
Israelitish empire which then existed must have appeared convincing
proof that the national deity had kept his part of the covenant, and so
the people would be more disposed to abide by theirs. But Jahvism could
not have really sunk into the hearts of the Israelites; their devotion
to it was strong in the sunshine, but failed in the storm. When the
kingdom was split in two, and the fortunes of the Israelites steadily
declined, and great empires, in comparison with which, even united,
they were as nothing, overshadowed them, then Jahvism seemed threatened
with utter ruin. Only the devotion of its true adherents, whom the days
of its success had enabled to develop in appreciation of its value,
saved it from destruction.

Still, even during the closing struggle, Jahvism must have included
in its ranks a large proportion of the people. The language of the
prophets is clear evidence of this. The strong phrase, “I am full of
the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts,”[23] which
Isaiah puts in the mouth of Jahveh, is a proof that many sacrifices
were then being offered to him. Signs of only a formal adherence they
probably were; and it was not merely to extend the nominal limits of
their religion, but to change this formal adherence into a real grasp
of its principles, that the prophets fought their battle and won Israel
for Jahveh.




CHAPTER II.

THE MESSIANIC FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.


By the time of the prophets Jahvism had grown into Judaism. Their
religion, with the examination of which we shall be mainly occupied
in this chapter, in all cases was a pure monotheism; they worshipped
Jahveh as God, sole maker and ruler of heaven and earth. It was
Judaism, too, in the sense that it was universally recognized as the
national religion. That Jahveh was properly the god of Israel was now
admitted by all. And this the prophets unhesitatingly assumed. They did
not regard themselves as preachers of a religion who sought to persuade
others of its truth; they were rather, in their own eyes, champions
of loyalty against rebels and traitors false to their parent Israel.
For while they believed that Jahveh was God, the creator of all the
world, he was still much more to them the god of Israel “his servant,
the seed of Abraham his friend.”[24] Patriotism was the essence of
their religion. Even when the later prophets reached their highest
exaltation in dreaming of the return of all men to the knowledge of
God, they were thinking of the welfare of the Gentiles far less than of
the glory of Israel. And this, too, inspired their passionate hatred
of sin. They hated it not merely for its own sake, but as an act of
civil revolt against Jahveh, which called down his vengeance on their
country. As Jahveh was head of the state, sin was a political offence,
and they condemned it accordingly with the fervour of condemnation
so rare in moral, so common in political questions. The grand poetry
of denunciation with which they enriched the literature of the world
sprang from local feeling based on local requirements.

Previous to this period no prophetical writings are found. And yet
there must have been prophets of Jahveh before; indeed, many such are
mentioned in the Jewish historical books. Evidently prophetic activity
was less needed before. Jahvism had prospered with the prosperity of
the nation; but when the national fortunes declined, and the great
Assyrian empire threatened Judæa, it began to lose its hold on the
people. To save itself, it rallied all its strength, and the splendid
period of prophetic energy, which has handed down to us so many noble
works, was the result. The prophets saved Judaism. We owe to them an
inestimable debt of gratitude, for they were the channel through which
flowed the higher religious forces of the world. It was well that the
crisis came no earlier, or perhaps their religion would not have been
sufficiently developed to call forth such magnificent powers in its
defence.

Intensely patriotic as the prophets were, the chief object that engaged
their attention was the depression of Israel’s fortunes. However weak
the allegiance of the Israelites in general to him had been, still they
were Jahveh’s people, his representatives on earth.[25] In spite of
much back-sliding, he had given them prosperity, and under the first
kings had made them a powerful nation. In their own time, on the other
hand, the early prophets saw Israel divided and weak, and threatened
with utter destruction; and the later prophets saw this destruction
fall on one kingdom after the other, until the national existence
ceased. Believing that all events were under the control of Jahveh,
and that he had made the covenant with Israel mentioned in the last
chapter, they could accept only one explanation of their country’s
calamities. They could not imagine Jahveh false to his promise, and so
the alternatives would be presented to them as the second Isaiah puts
them before his countrymen: “Behold, Jahveh’s hand is not shortened,
that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but
your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins
have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”[26] This is
the burden of all the preaching of the prophets. They were ever saying
to their countrymen, “You have broken your covenant; you have deserted
Jahveh; and now he has deserted you.”[27] The almost invariable image
under which they describe Israel is that of an adulterous woman who
has forsaken her husband. By their violation of the covenant, the
Israelites had provoked Jahveh’s wrath, and all their misfortunes were
sent as a punishment by him.[28]

Compelled professionally thus to believe that Israel had been false
to Jahveh, the prophets were not good judges of the actual extent of
this falsehood. They denounced the wickedness of the people, not so
much because they saw it as because they felt it must be there as the
explanation of Jahveh’s harshness. Hence it is very likely that their
reports of the evil doings of their countrymen are exaggerated. If we
did not know from internal probability that the religion of Jahveh
was then in danger, we might suspect that the prophets were fighting
imaginary foes. Knowing, however, that they must have had great forces
opposed to them, we can allow for the exaggeration, and yet admit the
general truth of their statements.

The people they addressed could hardly have been in a position to
defend themselves against the strictures of the prophets by even to
this extent taking exception to their denunciations. With the decline
of Israel, Jahvism had also declined, and the Israelites must have
felt instinctively that the second phenomenon was the cause of the
first, and that their own exceptional sinfulness had produced the
national disasters. They might, indeed, so far as they knew the past
history of their country, complain that the people of Israel had before
transgressed as heavily without receiving such a severe punishment
from Jahveh. But here the prophets met them fully on their own ground,
by denouncing their past as well as their present wickedness, and by
asserting that, his long-suffering patience having at length given way,
Jahveh was then punishing them for the whole course of their national
sins. Only once in the prophetical books is there any sign that the
people ever ventured to question the premisses of the prophets. On one
occasion they are said to have replied to Jeremiah’s denunciations
by asserting that their misfortunes were really due to their having
forsaken other gods for Jahveh, and by announcing that they would
return to these divinities, the worship of whom had been accompanied
by prosperity.[29] It was a dangerously strong argument to use against
the prophets, and it naturally stirred Jeremiah to a fiercer fury of
malediction. But, in general, the people could not have had either the
critical power or the knowledge of their own history needed for the
adoption of such a line of defence. The steady darkening of Israel’s
prospects must have seemed to them grim confirmation of the prophetic
statements. As prophet after prophet arose screaming against their
wickedness, pointing to their misfortunes as the punishment inflicted
by Jahveh, and announcing that worse calamities would come before the
completion of it, they must have seen in every national disaster a
proof that the prophets were divine envoys, and a chill of fear must
have driven them to Jahveh’s feet.

Prophets and people stood on common ground in their patriotism. The
attention of all the Israelites must have been absorbed in watching
the national prospects. The prophets, necessarily including in their
number the best and wisest minds, of course saw more clearly than the
rest. Probably most of them had the acuteness to see how inevitable
was the destruction of Israel. Once the group of small kingdoms
fringing the eastern side of the Mediterranean was threatened by the
vast power of inland Asia, it was not difficult to foresee the ultimate
issue. Still the prophets, in their own way, did their best to avert
their country’s ruin. Every prophetic declaration was a political
pamphlet giving political advice. All their counsel was simply the
development of a single precept—Rely on Jahveh only. In home matters
this principle of action could do no harm, but it had a bad effect on
foreign policy. When the great Assyrian empire was overshadowing Israel
and all the kingdoms around, it did not require much wisdom to perceive
the advantage of an alliance against the common danger. Nevertheless,
the whole prophetic influence was used to prevent it; the states were
separately attacked, and perished one by one. Egypt was far the most
powerful of the countries near Palestine opposed to Assyria, and its
protection would have been of enormous value to Israel. And yet at a
time when both were threatened, Isaiah thundered against an alliance
with Egypt;[30] and probably prophetic advice was the cause of the
almost inconceivable folly of the religious Josiah’s attack on an
Egyptian army actually invading Assyria.[31] So far as the prophets
thus contributed to the political overthrow of Israel, they served the
higher interests of their religion; but evidently a foolish fanaticism
dictated their action, a belief that Jahveh would be dishonoured if his
people allied themselves with strangers, and that, if they trusted to
him alone, he would finally deliver them from their enemies.

As the national ruin of the surviving kingdom of Israel drew nearer,
the prophets had to fight more fiercely on behalf of their religion.
The people must have been as angry with Jahveh as he was said to be
with them. The prophets met their anger with more savage denunciations
of their wickedness, and more severe predictions of calamity. The
division between prophets and people became then most strongly marked,
and the struggle between them resembled a civil war. The life of
Jeremiah, the most national of all the prophets, was one long battle.
The evil doings of his countrymen he held to be the cause of all
Israel’s misfortunes, and he hated them with a bitter hatred. This
hatred they fully reciprocated; he was imprisoned and almost put to
death. When the chief prophet of the religion of Jahveh received such
treatment at the hands of the people, the religion itself must have
been in terrible danger. If this period had been prolonged, perhaps
Judaism would have preceded the kingdom of Judah in its fall.

But the destruction of the national polity of Israel came in time to
save the national religion. When Judæa was merely a province of a great
empire, the nationality of the Jews could survive only in the religion
of which Jahveh was the head. The very manner in which the change
took place was exceptionally favourable to Judaism. The captivity,
the carrying away of the best families of the Jews into an inland
district of the empire, was admirably calculated to destroy Jahveh’s
rivals. The nucleus of the nation, placed in such close contact with
foreign religions, by patriotism alone would have been made sincere
worshippers of Jahveh. Far away from the local idolatries of Judæa,
the exiles accepted the pure religion of the prophets. The most
imaginative and the most spiritual of the greater prophets, Ezekiel
and the second Isaiah, sprang from their ranks. And thus at last the
prophetic became the popular religion, and Jahveh as God reigned over
Israel. When the exiles returned to Judæa, they carried with them a
pure and moral monotheism. The remainder of the people readily adopted
their principles. Judaism from this time was the sole religion of the
Jews, the expression of their national patriotism. Consolidated now
finally into the rigid system of the law, with a multitude of minute
observances that kept it constantly before their eyes, it was placed
beyond reach of attack. Henceforth all Jahveh’s people worshipped
Jahveh only, professed obedience to his precepts, and knew him as the
one true God.[32]

Thus, in outward semblance, the prophets won their battle. They won
it in consequence of the events they most bitterly deplored. With
their religion the only security of their nationality, the Jews never
afterwards wavered in their allegiance to it. Persecution made them
cling to it more firmly; it inspired them in the noblest period of
their history, the crisis which produced the Maccabees. Even when
an empire greater than the Chaldean conquered them, and a severer
sentence exiled them from Judæa, dispersed over the world, they held
to their religion. The moral monotheism which Jahvism had developed
was now unalterably settled. New doctrines were added to it, some
of which became of the first importance, but its primary principles
were fixed for ever. And yet, at the very moment at which Judaism was
thus established, there was sown the seed of a new religion, destined
ultimately to spring from it in defiance of its spirit of privilege.
The nobler prophets sought to make their religion the national glory of
Israel, a blessing to be taken by all the world meekly from Israel’s
hands; and their efforts long afterwards produced a religion which
ignored national distinctions. For at the time of the full development
of Judaism the movement towards Christianity began.


The expectation of a Messiah was the most peculiar feature of the
Jewish religion. It was a fundamental principle of the community of
Israel, says Ewald, “that every real divine deliverance could be
attained only by the instrumentality of a true prophet.”[33] The cause
of this reliance on divine envoys was probably the rigid theocratic
character of their Jahvist constitution, which discouraged general
enterprise. The belief that a covenant had been originally concluded
with Jahveh tended to produce dependence on him; his worshippers looked
for help to him, and not to themselves. Any great man who felt himself
impelled to lead the people in times of national peril, was sure to
consider himself Jahveh’s representative, commissioned by him for the
purpose; and, of course, all Jahvists would naturally be of the same
opinion. In time this reliance on individuals became fixed, and gave
the Messianic colour to the national hopes.

The hopes themselves were encouraged by the want of enterprise which
invested them with their personal character. Hope is but a form of
dreaming, and the worst men of action are the best dreamers. Jews
who believed in the power of Jahveh were naturally hopeful. As the
national fortunes sank lower and lower during the prophetic period, it
was impossible for such a people not to expect an ultimate restoration
of Israel’s greatness. The prophets, in particular, were impelled in
this direction. Being men of imagination rather than action, whose
intense patriotism was blended indissolubly with trust in Jahveh, they
were strongly urged to hope for Messianic deliverance. Israel, after
all, was Jahveh’s people, and Jahveh could never forsake his people,
or allow them to be utterly destroyed. For their sins they were being
punished, but the punishment could not last for ever. Jeremiah even
expostulates with Jahveh for permitting his people to be so degraded,
and “the vanities of the Gentiles” to seem superior to him.[34] Sooner
or later Jahveh would assert his power, and vindicate his glory as
ruler of the world. Though the prophets might predict immediate
misfortunes, they all believed that ultimately the deliverer would be
sent to Israel.

In the dreams of the prophets, the work to be accomplished by this
inspired envoy of Jahveh had important variations. The first and most
natural character he assumed was that of a king and conqueror, who
should lead Israel to victory and restore the national empire. To the
Israelites of the prophetic age who looked back on the history of
their country, the period of David’s reign seemed the brightest it had
known. Israel had then been united, internally at peace, and lord of
the peoples around. These blessings were believed to have been obtained
specially by the skill and power of David himself; and so, by a
familiar process of thought, the Messiah became a second David, coming
to do the work of the first by reviving the old prosperity.[35] With
the earlier prophets this was almost the sole kind of Messianic dream.
When the punishment of Israel should be complete, the Messiah was to
come as a prince and warrior, and make the nation greater than it ever
had previously been.[36]

After the overthrow of the northern kingdom, this national Messianic
ideal naturally included the restoration of its scattered captives to
their native land. The Samaritan captivity seemed to the prophets to
be designed by Jahveh as a destruction of the fatal system of dualism
which had undermined Israel’s strength. Henceforth the Israelites were
to be one people, with Jerusalem as their centre and capital. When
the kingdom of Judah, too, was conquered, and its chief classes also
carried away into captivity, of course the restoration of exiles
became the most important part of the Messiah’s mission. But even
before this, the prophets of Judah, warned by the fate of Samaria, and
aware of the customs of the Assyrian and Chaldean empires, foresaw
and predicted the great captivity, and, in consequence, included a
subsequent restoration in their Messianic dreams. Thus by nearly all
the prophets the restoration of the captives to their country was
regarded as the prelude to the events of the Messianic period, either
to be accomplished by the Messiah personally, or to be immediately
followed by his appearance. In so confidently predicting the
restoration, the prophets were only giving expression to the national
hopefulness, but they might have based their expectation on stronger
grounds. The cohesive influence of their religion was sure to prevent
the Jewish exiles from being lost in the peoples among whom they were
placed; and if they managed to preserve their nationality, it was
likely that, sooner or later, they would be restored to Judæa. The
absence of this influence was probably the reason why no restoration
followed the captivity of the kingdom of Samaria. The religion of
Jahveh was never so strong in it as in the kingdom of Judah, and must
have been then too weak to serve as a national support. When the
second captivity occurred, Judaism was able to meet it and to save the
nationality it was designed to destroy.

After the restoration had taken place, fulfilling the predictions of
the prophets under circumstances very different from those which they
had expected, the Messianic ideal had, of course, to be disconnected
from it. Sufficient ground still existed for looking forward to the
coming of the Messiah. Israel was only semi-independent, a small
state at the mercy of Gentile masters. But the disappointment of the
Messianic expectations which had been connected with the restoration
must have given a blow to the spirit of prediction. During the
rebuilding of Jerusalem, the voices of the prophets grew faint and
feeble; and after the restoration was complete, only one broke the
silence. The Jews had to fall back on faith in the ultimate fulfilment
of earlier prophecies, regarding the establishment of Judaism as the
religion of all Israel, as the beginning of the reconciliation of
Jahveh and his people which should finally secure their prosperity.

So far as the Messianic ideal of the prophets took this national form,
it greatly helped to effect their union with the people. All the people
were thoroughly at one with them in wishing for the national glory of
Israel. If, by proclaiming Jahveh’s anger and predicting misfortunes,
they excited popular displeasure and dislike, equally, by promising
his favour and predicting prosperity, they excited popular feelings of
pleasure and good-will. In fact, this part of their preaching sugared
the pill of their denunciations, and probably had a large share in
giving them their final success. As the condition of Israel grew more
desperate, their confidence in an ultimate revival of good fortune
must have seemed a tower of strength to desponding minds. During the
captivity, when their store of malediction had become exhausted, and
only that of blessing remained, they promised nothing but happiness.
This, of course, would render the prophetic religion agreeable to the
people, and so must have contributed to make it the religion of Israel.

Though most of the prophets included in their Messianic dreams the
material greatness of Israel, they were far too highly developed to
look for this alone. The noble morality, the noble conception of God,
which formed the essence of their religion, made social and political
prosperity seem to them of only secondary value. In their ideas, the
chief result of the Messiah’s coming was to be the reconciliation of
Jahveh and his people through their abandonment of sin. They expected
the establishment of a new covenant, that could not be broken like
the old, when the law of Jahveh should be written in the hearts of
Israel.[37] The grandest religious language the world has ever known
is the expression of this dream of a people wholly free from sin; the
heavenly new Jerusalem of Christianity is only a vague copy of the
ideal Jerusalem which the prophets imagined for earth.

This vision of a sinless age was present to all the prophets, and is
the chief feature of their prophecies. It was preserved in the sacred
literature of the Jews; and, after forming for centuries a perpetual
incentive to religious purity, it finally produced all that is best in
Christianity. Back to it are traceable the forces which moulded the
personal character of Christ, and stamped upon Christianity its noble
morality. The first Christians not only believed in the coming of this
ideal age, but struggled actually to realize it, and made the nearest
possible approach to success. In the hopes of most of the prophets it
was closely connected with the national Messianic ideal, the vision of
Israel as a prosperous and powerful state. But it was also connected,
in the minds of the noblest prophets, with another Messianic ideal,
which I will call the spiritual Messianic ideal—the vision of the whole
world reconciled to God, which produced Christianity itself.

As pure monotheists, the prophets believed that Jahveh was not merely
god of Israel, but God, the creator and ruler of the world. Naturally,
this belief that the God of the universe was their national god was
to them a source of intense spiritual pride. Amos makes Jahveh say to
Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth,”[38]
and give this fact as a reason for his severity, as Israel, being
so highly favoured, had sinned doubly in disobedience to him. Such
intense spiritual pride, of course, tended to diminish their purely
political pride. Their race, so greatly distinguished in religion,
could afford to dispense with material glory. While, viewed thus from a
patriotic standpoint, the belief that the God of the world was Israel’s
Jahveh was a source of national pride, it also suggested a means of
gratifying national vanity. The homage of subject peoples constituted
the chief attraction of material empire. Here, however, was a chance of
receiving the homage, not merely of a few nations around them, but of
all mankind. Knowing the universal God, the Israelites might become a
nation of priests by leading all men to a knowledge of him their maker,
and so have a glory and authority far greater than any that could be
given by political power.

It would not be fair to say that the prophets, in the formation of this
ideal, were influenced only by patriotism. Spiritually they were too
great not to feel the need of a reconciliation between the world and
its God. In the mind of the noblest of them, Israel was the servant
of the Gentiles, a messenger of God bringing glad tidings of peace to
men. Still, on the whole, the glory of Israel was the object of their
zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles. They dreamed of all the world
coming to take the truth meekly from Israel’s hands.[39] Jerusalem was
to be the sacred city of the earth, and Judæa, as afterwards during the
Crusades, the Holy Land. The second Isaiah gives the highest expression
to this dream. “Nations shall come to thy light,” Jahveh promises
Jerusalem, “and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Strangers shall
build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee. Thy gates
also shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night;
that men may bring unto thee the riches of the nations. The sons of
them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee, and they shall
call thee the city of Jahveh, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.
Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, desolation nor destruction
within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy
gates Praise.”[40] As spiritual guides and teachers, the Israelites
thus would be the Levites of mankind, a sacred people intermediate
between the world and God.[41]

The spiritual Messianic ideal of the second Isaiah was both nobler
and more vividly conceived than that of any other of the prophets.
But nearly all of them have given some expression to it. Even the
fiercely national Jeremiah, who hated the Gentiles so bitterly that,
though he believed them to be Jahveh’s instruments for the chastisement
of Israel, he prayed that they might be punished for their assaults
on the sacred city, had a vision of their coming to Jahveh.[42] And,
indeed, there was an inevitable pressure on the prophets which forced
them in this direction. In proportion as the spiritual greatness of
their religion was understood by them, they were driven to adopt the
spiritual Messianic ideal. The experiences of the prophetic period,
besides, must have shown them how impossible it was that the small
people of Israel should ever equal or surpass in material power the
mighty Gentile empires which then first came in contact with them.
So everything tended to make them seek the satisfaction of their
patriotism in the extension of their religion.

So far as this ideal entered into it, an inversion in the relations of
political and religious feeling now occurred in Judaism. Previously,
as pointed out in the last chapter, Jahveh being the national god
of Israel, religious feeling flowed in a patriotic channel. In the
prophetic age, on the other hand, patriotic feeling began to flow in
a religious channel. Jahveh before had been subordinate to Israel;
then Israel became subordinate to Jahveh. It is obvious that there
was nothing exceptional in this change, and that the circumstances of
Jewish history amply explain its occurrence.

Here, accordingly, we have the historical explanation of the production
of Christianity. From the beginning Jahvism was bound to develop into a
noble monotheism. Also from the beginning it was a national religion.
Being a national religion, in it patriotic was blended with religious
feeling. Under these circumstances, if, after its full development, a
permanent decay took hold of the state with which it was connected,
it had, as an exceptionally pure religion, to become the basis of
national pride, to make proselytism its end. But the history of the
world during this central period of Judaism is the history of the great
empires of western Asia. The small people of Israel could offer no
effective resistance to their power, and so, under pressure from them,
the magnificent national religion of Israel was compelled to become the
expression of patriotism, and to aim at the conversion of the world. So
far, then, as Christianity was a movement towards the establishment of
the Jewish religion as the religion of the world—and at first it was
nothing else—it was inevitable. The conditions of Israel’s history made
an expansion of Judaism—or rather, an attempt to expand Judaism, its
success depending on external circumstances—a necessary occurrence.

A tendency to remodel the form of Judaism was a consequence of the
spiritual Messianic ideal. When struggling against rival religions,
Jahvism, as we saw in the last chapter, was forced to become strongly
exclusive. To keep itself pure from corruption, and also to assert its
own high dignity, it had to enclose itself in a hard shell of formal
observance. But when it developed into Judaism, and sought to become
a world-conquering religion, this formalism was a hindrance to its
purpose. The barriers that were so useful for defence interfered with
offensive movements. Accordingly, the prophets who recognized the
higher ideal of Judaism revolted against its formalism. Its initial
rite, circumcision, was the chief mark of separation between the Jews
and the mass of the Gentiles. But the whole sacrificial system was
also, in its way, an expression of exclusive tendencies. Sacrificing in
one manner distinguished the Jew from the Gentile, who sacrificed in
another manner. Moreover, circumstances at this time were accentuating
the exclusiveness of Judaism. As Israel fell more and more into the
power of strangers, of course the people’s hatred of strangers grew
stronger. This feeling, which, by throwing the people back on the
national religion, was in one respect of service to the prophets,
naturally expressed itself in Judaism by increasing its exclusiveness.
So Judaism was tending to be narrowed just when the prophets wished it
to be enlarged.

The prophets met this tendency with a crusade against formalism.
Circumcision they declared to be only a symbol of obedience. A
people “uncircumcised in heart” Jeremiah called his countrymen. They
pronounced sacrifices of small importance in comparison with personal
righteousness. “Wherewith shall I come before Jahveh and bow myself
before the high God?” said Micah. “Shall I come before him with
burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will Jahveh be pleased with
thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give
my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin
of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth
Jahveh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy God?”[43] Here the regular sacrifices of orthodox
Jahvism are actually compared with the human sacrifices of corrupted
Jahvism, and are subjected to the same condemnation. The second Isaiah
even goes so far as to assert that sacrifices are offensive to Jahveh,
as it is degrading him to suppose that such offerings can please
him.[44] Of course the high development of their religion had also some
effect in making the prophets adopt this principle. A system of animal
sacrifices did not accord well with their noble theism. A righteous
life, besides, they felt to be the best offering to God, and they knew
that formal observances distracted attention from morality. But still
they assailed the formalism of Judaism mainly because it imprisoned the
religion of Jahveh in nationality; they wished Judaism to be a purely
spiritual religion to which all national customs would be equally
foreign.

Of course they expressed their desires in their Messianic dreams. They
dwell upon the glories of the spiritual religion of which Jerusalem
was to be the centre, when Jahveh would speak face to face with all
his people, with no barrier of priestly formalism between. From the
time of the prophets, all who clung to the spiritual Messianic ideal
must have shared their feelings; and when Christianity afterwards broke
through the fetters of Jewish ceremonialism, its action was strictly in
accordance with the principles of those who originated and continued
the movement in Judaism of which it was finally the issue.

The spiritual Messianic ideal from the prophetic age necessarily
formed the ideal of the best and purest Jews. In the writings of the
prophets, especially in those of the second Isaiah, it remained before
the people, a constant incentive to all who grasped the true principles
of their pure religion. It was easily blended with the additions then
beginning to be made to Judaism, the supernaturalism which rendered
Judaism less cold and unattractive. But though this ideal was sure
to continue as the expression of the noblest aspirations of Israel,
and though endeavours were certain to be made to realize it, in its
completeness it was destined to inevitable failure. So far as the
prophets dreamed of Israel’s glory being found in sharing the religion
of the one God with the Gentiles, they dreamed an unrealizable dream.
From the time of the prophets down to the destruction of Jerusalem, the
great mass of the Jews, as the years went by, hated all Gentiles with a
bitterer hatred. Their religion became more confined within the limits
of their nationality, and Jahveh more peculiarly the God worshipped by
Jews alone. It is easy to see that Judaism as Israel’s religion could
not have expanded itself, and that the national pride of Israel could
not thus have been gratified. Only by leaving nationality behind, by a
movement outward from Judaism of the most spiritual Jews, could the God
of Israel become the God of the world.[45]

In this Messianic ideal the conception of the Messiah personally was
vague and undefined. The second Isaiah expected that the Messiah would
simply bring the captivity to a close, and that the Messianic glories
would then follow spontaneously as a result of the exhibition of
Jahveh’s power. This more indistinct picture of the spiritual Messiah
was of great service to Christianity.

The belief in atonement by vicarious suffering mentioned in the last
chapter was connected in a special manner with the spiritual Messianic
ideal. All the prophets believed in atonement by suffering; they all
thought that Jahveh was punishing his people for their sins, and that
the punishment was the necessary antecedent to the restoration of
his favour. But to those who accepted this Messianic ideal Israel’s
suffering plainly seemed to be a means of realizing it. The great
preacher of it, the second Isaiah, writing towards the close of the
captivity, saw an obvious connection between it and the crowning
misfortune of his country. Dispersed among the heathen, the worshippers
of Jahveh appeared to him missionaries of the true religion, revealers
to the world of its God. He believed that the restoration would be
accomplished by the return of the Israelites under the guardianship
of the converted Gentiles, to be their priests in the Holy Land.[46]
But when the captivity was recognized as an instrument of Gentile
conversion, it was of course regarded as a blessing to the Gentiles.
Beneficial to the Gentile world, it was not the less harmful to Israel,
whose nationality it almost destroyed. Thus the hurt of Israel was a
blessing to the Gentiles. It would follow from this, in a mind nursed
in the ideas of the Jewish sacrificial system, that the suffering of
Israel was an atonement for Gentile sins. The Gentiles clearly had
sinned against God, their ignorance of him was a sin; but in revealing
himself to them he was blessing them, and in blessing them he was of
course forgiving their sins. But this forgiveness was shown by means of
Israel’s suffering; therefore Israel’s suffering was an atonement for
Gentile sins accepted by God.

We find the results of this train of reasoning clearly expressed
by the second Isaiah. In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which
is the great Messianic chapter of orthodox Christians, and which
probably exercised an important influence over the mind of Christ,
three kinds of atonement are described. Partly Israel’s sufferings
are represented as an atonement offered for Israel’s own sins; partly
Israel’s sins are regarded as atoned for by the undeserved suffering
of the few righteous Israelites, faithful adherents of Jahveh, on whom
the national misfortunes fell as well as on the rest of the people;
while put more strongly, and running through the whole chapter, is the
idea that Israel’s sufferings atoned for Gentile sins. The beautiful
phrase at the end, “He made intercession for the transgressors,” means
that Israel, though oppressed and bruised by the Gentiles, was still
ready to be a mediator leading them to God. In the previous chapter
the astonishment of the Gentiles at the fact that so insignificant
a people possessed so great a revelation, is described by the
same method of personal illustration, universally adopted by the
prophets.[47] Interpreted Messianically, in a literal sense, these
passages were afterwards of importance to Christianity.

The prophetic age, as a whole, was thus essentially a period of
transition. In it Judaism was established, and the movement towards
Christianity begun. Throughout the whole course of Israel’s history
we see a gradual development of religion, religious forces steadily
tending upwards and evolving higher ideas of God. Before the time
of the prophets, these forces were working out a pure and moral
monotheism; during and after it, they were working out the release
of this monotheism from the fetters of nationalism, and preparing a
religion for the civilised world.

The circumstances which at this time were tending to make Judaism
a proselytizing religion were also preparing it for success in its
mission. The religion of the prophets was too pure to become popular.
The absence of supernaturalism, the freedom from dogma, which made it
in essence so superior to Christianity, rendered it fit only for the
highest minds. Afterwards, when impressed on Israel in general, it was
identified with a rigid ceremonialism. That such a religion, deriving
no strength from formalism or from national feeling, could conquer
the Gentile world, far lower than the Jewish people in religious
development, was of course impossible. But just at this moment it began
to receive additions from foreign sources which ultimately bridged
the chasm between it and the ideas of ordinary men. The dispersion
of the Jews, which completed the victory of Judaism, alloyed it with
baser elements. So far as its adherents were placed in contact with
idolatrous religions like the Chaldean, it was rather secured against
corruption. In the Persian religion, however, which it encountered
towards the close of the captivity, it found an enemy disguised as a
friend. This religion, which was as anti-idolatrous as the Jewish, and
which had a nominal monotheism underlying its dualism, was marked by a
supernaturalism very different from the simplicity of the religion of
the prophets. A large part of this supernaturalism was now transferred
to Judaism. The Persian deity of evil became the Jewish Satan,
with a multitude of demons under him that made man their sport and
prey.[48] A hierarchy of angels was constructed, completely foreign
to the prophetic belief in the immediate agency of God. But the most
important doctrine at this time introduced into Judaism, whether from
the Persian religion or not is a matter of dispute, was the doctrine of
the resurrection of the dead, which soon became the chief dogma of the
Jewish creed. How far it tended to suit Judaism to Gentile requirements
is shown by a curious passage of the Apocrypha, which reads like a
description of the doctrine of Pagan Christianity respecting purgatory
and masses for the dead.[49] The more philosophical Jews afterwards
formed themselves into a party to resist these innovations, but the
majority of the people eagerly adopted them. With the spiritual
Messianic ideal they were readily connected, as they formed the
popular elements needed for proselytism, and as they tended to place
religion on a personal rather than on a national basis. We find them
the chief strength of Christianity, which, as the successful embodiment
of the outward forces of Judaism, naturally laid aside the portions
of it unfavourable, and took up the portions of it favourable, to
denationalisation and expansion.

Of course these corruptions of Judaism were the result of its becoming
a popular religion. No longer confined to the best part of the people,
it paid the penalty of diffusion. The rigid ceremonialism, which
henceforth was its leading feature, was another consequence of its
success. Utterly obnoxious as such ceremonialism was to the instincts
of the prophets, it was still inevitable if Judaism was to be the
religion of all the Jews. As Jewish political independence faded more
and more into a memory of a distant past, the people clung more
tenaciously to their religion, more based their nationality upon it,
and made it the object of their patriotism. This, as it continued,
rendered impossible a religious union of Jew and Gentile. A religion
professed by Gentiles by that fact alone would have seemed to the vast
majority of Jews to be sufficiently condemned. It became steadily more
apparent that, in order to convert the Gentile, Judaism had to leave
the Jew.

Throughout all this period the expectation of the Messiah’s coming
remained the sole consolation of the Jewish people. The expectation
entered into every part of their action.[50] All Jews believed that,
to obtain the Messiah, they needed to be reconciled to God, that their
sins kept alive his anger, and delayed the sending of the deliverer.
Many an obscure preacher probably cried in their ears, “Repent, repent,
that the kingdom of heaven may come,” before John the Baptist, by
synchronizing with Christ, gained a prophetic celebrity. Indeed, we
may be sure that during this long time of calamity many attempts were
made to realize the Messianic ideals, that many who claimed to be the
Messiah appeared among the Jews, and earned oblivion by their failure.
When the empire of Rome began to overshadow them with its massive and
enduring power, so unlike that of their previous masters, a conviction
spread through the Jews that the last days were at hand.[51] The
expectation of the Messiah grew stronger, and the passionate longing of
the people tended more and more to secure, as far as was possible, its
own gratification. Into an age of dreams and hopes, which seethed with
restlessness and discontent, Christ was born.




CHAPTER III.

THE CHRISTIANITY OF CHRIST.


It is hardly necessary to say that simply from the statements of the
gospels we cannot construct an historical life of Christ. Strauss and
Baur have finally determined the question of their historical value. In
the first three, it is true, after making allowance for the vast growth
of legend overspreading them, useful materials can still be found; but
even these can be depended on only so far as probability is distinctly
in their favour. The last is simply a philosophical romance, with the
theology of the second century as its basis. We see the figure of
Christ through a mist of legend, and its real outlines are hopelessly
lost. Characters like the hero of M. Renan’s historical novel are
merely the projections of imagination, coloured undisguisedly by the
medium through which they are viewed. Only by study of the religion he
founded can trustworthy knowledge of Christ be obtained.

But in this way, as far as general results are concerned, we can arrive
at almost certain knowledge. We can be sure, for instance, that the
exceptional goodness of Christ was no figment of the gospels. The new
morality which Christianity introduced into the world of practice,
the morality which makes inward purity a test of virtue rather than
outward actions, must have been derived from him. Its origin must have
been in personal influence, and Christ’s alone could have permanently
stamped it on Christianity. And this, of course, renders it likely that
sayings of striking moral beauty attributed to him in the gospels, such
as “Love your enemies,” “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” and the
perfect one not in the gospels, “It is more blessed to give than to
receive,” were in substance actually uttered by him, for they are in
harmony with the character of exceptional goodness which he must have
possessed. So far, at least, we can have a sure knowledge of Christ
which entitles him to our willing reverence.

Not only is it necessary to distrust the positive evidence of the
gospels, but even negatively their evidence cannot wholly be allowed.
They may suppress what is true as well as assert what is false. For
instance, they represent Christ as obtaining great success immediately
after his entrance on his ministry. Now nothing could be more unlikely
than this. He could not have been accepted as the Messiah by even a
small number of disciples without a long probation previously, a period
of struggle and unsuccess. In the gospels themselves the explanation
of this omission is suggested, when Christ is said to have been thirty
years old at the time he began to preach. At about this age, after a
youth of conflict and uncertainty, he probably was first recognized as
the Messiah. But naturally those who knew him only as the Messiah could
not dream of a period when none regarded him as such. Hence the account
in the gospels, the years of development and failure having passed out
of remembrance.

The true historical evidence on which to found a life of Christ
consists of the statements of the synoptical gospels, tested and
interpreted by probability. It is obvious that in this way only
knowledge of the broadest and most general nature can be obtained. If
special circumstances of Christ’s life, as reported in the gospels, are
accepted according as they appear to be probable, the result naturally
varies with the character of the student. In these cases probability,
in the scientific sense, does not exist. And thus far the greater part
of the statements of the gospels are properly outside the region of
historical investigation. Some are so distinctly improbable that we can
pronounce them inaccurate; some are so distinctly probable that we
can pronounce them accurate; but the vast majority of them, the test
of probability being absent, cannot be pronounced either accurate or
inaccurate; we simply cannot tell.

In endeavouring to determine the nature of the personal character and
religious ideas of Christ, it is on this general kind of probability
that I chiefly rely, appealing to the gospels to corroborate it more
than to it to corroborate the gospels. Such probability in certain
cases is the surest kind of historical evidence, and may safely be
depended on, even in the absence of written confirmation.

That Christ stood exceptionally high in moral development, was
exceptionally good, can be declared, as we have seen, with practical
certainty. The evidence of the gospels and the evidence of probability
are here in thorough harmony, and the fact has never been disputed. The
evidence of the gospels and the evidence of probability equally agree
in declaring that Christ was not exempt from the theological illusions
of his age, but their declaration is called in question by some. As
this point is of vital importance to our subject, we must now carefully
consider it.

Mr. Matthew Arnold has given the clearest expression to the belief that
the religion of Christ was wholly undogmatic in character. The dogmatic
assertions attributed to Christ in the gospels, were, according to
him, used only in a mystical sense which the grosser-minded disciples
misunderstood. When Christ, for instance, spoke of his resurrection,
he meant that his moral system would triumph after his death; but his
disciples understood his words in a personal sense. Christ, Mr. Arnold
says, spoke “over the heads of his followers,” and, in consequence,
they failed to understand him, and ascribed their own ideas to him. The
evidence on which Mr. Arnold founds his theory is extremely slight; in
fact, he practically rests it on the few stories in the gospels where
Christ uses figurative language, which his disciples misunderstand,
as in the case of his injunctions respecting the “leaven of the
Pharisees.” Now figurative language of this sort is quite distinct from
the mystical language Mr. Arnold attributes to him, Hebrew literature
being full of the former and absolutely empty of the latter, and the
only resemblance between them is that they can both be misunderstood.
Mr. Arnold, indeed, by an elaborate criticism of the last gospel,
makes it to support his theory, its mysticism readily allowing this
to be done; but the fourth gospel has no historical value. The real
basis of the theory is the reverence which all men feel for Christ,
which renders it difficult for them to believe that he held opinions
differing from their own, and which also disposes them to imagine that
a vast distinction separated him from those whom he addressed.

The strongest argument in favour of the theory is drawn from the
unquestionable fact of the greatness of Christ. His moral superiority
cannot be disputed, and the success of his system shows that he must
have possessed unique personal power. But does his moral superiority,
or his possession of wonderful personal power, really prove that he
was free from theological illusion? It is obvious to every one that
the most exalted goodness may be united with the most implicit belief
in the dogmas of supernatural religion. It is nearly as obvious that
extreme fascination of character, far from indicating that one who
possesses it is superior to ordinary illusions, is a clear presumption
that he is peculiarly under their control. The popular power which
Christ must have exercised is strong evidence that he shared the
popular beliefs. The essence of popularity is sympathy; the popular
man must be in sympathy with the people he meets, and must be ruled
by the same ideas, whether they happen to be right or wrong. Christ’s
popularity, his influence over his simple Jewish followers, is a
fair proof that he was subject to their religious illusions, that no
difference of deep insight separated him from them. People always are
irritated by hearing what they do not understand. Had Christ been in
the habit of speaking over the heads of his disciples, not many would
have remained with him; he might thus have acquired a reputation as a
philosopher, but he certainly would not have founded a Church.

In considering this question, we must keep the facts of experience
steadily before us. All who have ever been widely loved and greatly
popular among average men have had characters remarkable for moral
beauty, and have also been peculiarly steeped in religious illusions.
St. Francis of Assisi and St. Teresa resembled Christ in spiritual
goodness and in the power of fascinating others, and they held the
crudest religious ideas of their times. In our own days, men who are
justly called heroes, men like Stonewall Jackson and General Gordon,
who win the love and reverence of all who come near them, are sure to
believe in the most absurd dogmas. Stonewall Jackson feared that he
would lose a battle if he fought it with powder obtained by labouring
on Sunday, and General Gordon believed an island in the Pacific to be
the private residence of the devil. Christ’s fascination of character
is additional evidence of his supreme goodness, but it is far from
proving that he rose above the religious ideas of the crowd.

The reverence we feel for Christ need not in the least be impaired by
recognizing that he was subject to the illusions of dogmatic religion.
Of his moral superiority we have certain evidence; and this, and not
wisdom, is the true object of reverence. Had he been profoundly wise,
seeing with perfect clearness through the deluding phantasms of life,
he could not have been so good. To be supremely good, to rise far above
the standard of negative morality, and to be inspired by a passionate
devotion to others which leaves no room for a thought of self, is not
compatible with the colder temperament which examines the foundations
of belief. Wise men may die for a just cause, but they are never
willing martyrs; they lack not merely the fanaticism, but the power
of forming the exaggerated estimate of the value of the sacrifice,
which martyrdom requires. But we never hesitate in choosing between
calm wisdom and pure enthusiasm as objects of our praise. And in the
same way, Christ’s belief in much that we think unfounded should be
no hindrance to our reverent admiration of him; we ought rather to
recognize that it is the inevitable accompaniment of such greatness
as his. Only a noble fanaticism, which leaves no guard against error,
could have inspired his life and secured his success.

We may conclude, then, that Christ accepted the common religious ideas
of his time, that he believed in the personal God to whom the prophets
addressed their prayers and complaints, and in the resurrection of the
dead. And now, after this unavoidable digression, we will take up our
subject at the point where we left it at the close of the last chapter.
In referring to the gospels, I shall always mean the synoptical
exclusively, the last being put aside as hopelessly unhistorical.

At the time of Christ’s birth the expectation of the Messiah was rooted
more strongly than ever in the minds of the Jewish people. Nothing
but the Messiah seemed able to save them from the final loss of the
remains of their national independence at the hands of the irresistible
power of Rome. For in Rome they saw, not a mere conqueror exacting
tribute from subject peoples, but an empire that steadily absorbed
into its own vast mass all the nationalities of the civilized world.
To the Jews, who valued their nationality above all things, this fact
must have appeared a ground for absolute despair. The lower orders
might be roused to attempts at passionate resistance, but the higher
classes must have seen the hopelessness of a struggle against the Roman
power, and must have been impelled to gloomier forebodings by the fear
that at any moment the end might be precipitated by the unreasoning
fanaticism of their ignorant countrymen.[52] The religion of the Jews,
as Professor Kuenen has pointed out,[53] tended to encourage these
feelings. Pride in their religion stimulated their patriotism, and made
it harder for them to submit to the conditions of Roman rule. Thus the
circumstances of the time would heighten the ordinary Messianic hopes,
and make the people look more for the national saviour. The general
unrest, too, would deepen the sense of sin. Wandering preachers of
the class of John the Baptist, denouncing the sins of the people, and
asserting that their wickedness was bringing on them the threatened
calamity, and calling for repentance, in order that the Messiah might
be sent to deliver them, such a time would be sure to produce.

In the midst of these Messianic expectations Christ grew up. The
agitation and unrest of the period must have powerfully stimulated
a nature so impressible in its spiritual beauty. Exceptionally good
men are always keenly responsive to the religious influences around
them, so Christ must have passed his youth in a world of Messianic
dreams. The sacred literature of his race was familiar to every Jew;
and the spiritual predictions of the prophets, the vision of an Israel
reconciled to God, must early have enthralled his fancy. National
fanaticism could not have found a place in his character. In both
Messianic ideals, as we saw in the last chapter, the distinction
between Jew and Gentile was made to contribute either to the spiritual
or to the material glory of Israel. For the glory of Israel Christ
could not have cared; putting aside national distinctions, he must have
lived only for the welfare of man and for the glory of God.

From the beginning, his Messianic desires must have been for the
reconciliation of God and man by the conquest of human sinfulness.
As he watched the ceremonialism which was then the most distinctive
feature of the Jewish religion, he must have echoed the burning words
in which the prophets proclaimed righteousness to be alone acceptable
to God, and must have denounced all forms that tended to obscure this
truth. His sympathy would be sure to be with those whom the Pharisaic
rigidity of that ceremonialism shut out and degraded by exclusion, “the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The “inwardness” of Christ, the
stress he laid on the purity of the heart, in the first instance was
probably the result of a reaction against the formalism of his age,
with its minutely defined outward morality of law. To restore primitive
truths, and to make goodness the essence of religion, must have always
been his aim.

Judging simply from probability, we should say that there were likely
to be three clearly marked periods in the life of Christ. In early
manhood his longing for the Messianic times would naturally express
itself in the same form in which the longing of so many of his
countrymen was expressed—in the call to repentance. The wickedness of
the people being regarded as the cause of God’s anger, the best way
to remove his anger and, consequently, to obtain the Messiah, was to
turn the people from their sins, Christ’s own personal hatred of sin
also, of course, urging him in this direction. Thus at first probably
he was simply a preacher like John the Baptist, not claiming to be
the Messiah, but a forerunner of the Messiah, exhorting the people
to repent, and promising them that the Messiah would come as soon
as they had reconciled themselves to God. Gradually, while engaged
in this work, as he reached maturity and his powers grew to their
full development, and as with them came the consciousness of his
own greatness, the conviction would force itself on him that he was
himself the promised Messiah, to be revealed as such by succeeding in
his labour, by converting the people and banishing sin from Israel.
This second period would grow naturally out of the first. Compared
with the other preachers of repentance, he must have seemed able to
obtain success; his preaching, of course, would be far more effective
than theirs. Such being the case, hope—and natures like his are
always intensely hopeful—would lead him to imagine himself completely
successful, to believe that at his call all Jews would turn with pure
hearts to God. This result would be sufficient glory for the Messiah;
in the dreams of the prophets it had been the chief feature of the
Messianic times. During this period he would be uniformly gentle,
without bitterness against any class, would speak of coming “to call
not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Then as slowly but
surely it became evident that his task was impossible, that the Jews in
general cared nothing for his teaching and despised his pretensions,
he would enter on a third period, with the end not far off, in which,
still firmly holding himself to be the Messiah, he would appear as
the leader of a new departure like Moses, and, applying to himself
the spiritual ideal of the second Isaiah, would open his system to
the Gentiles, the obstinate and unrepentant Jews being left to perish
in their sins. During this period he would become a bitter assailant
of those who refused to accept him; he would denounce the scribes and
Pharisees, and, like the prophets, foretell destruction for Jerusalem,
and thus finally gain for himself the death of the cross.

Of course no evidence for the first of these three periods can be
derived from the gospels. For reasons already mentioned, when Christ
was once recognized as the Messiah all the previous part of his life
must have passed into oblivion. But in the gospels the second and
third periods are clearly indicated; in fact, by referring to them we
explain most of the contradictions in the sayings ascribed to Christ.
As probability and tradition are so strongly in favour of them, we may
assume the existence of at least these periods to be proved.

The greater part of Christ’s active life probably belonged to
the second period. Declaring that the kingdom of heaven had come,
and exhorting to righteousness as the condition of sharing in its
blessedness, he wandered through the country districts of Galilee and
Judæa. To the country he would naturally keep, as there, where the
people were less fiercely national and fanatical, his purer conception
of the Messiah would more readily find acceptance. In the towns, and
especially in Jerusalem, only the national type of Messiah would be
recognized; and so the gospels are probably correct in stating that
he came first to Jerusalem in the closing days of his life. The term
“Son of man,” which in the gospels is his favourite name for himself,
was, it is likely, the Messianic title he claimed, as it marks the
recognition of humanity alone by the minister of God. “Son of David”
was the accepted title of the national Messiah, and though his
followers, we may be sure, often applied it to him, he would rather
shrink from it himself. He must have gained many adherents during
this period; in the unrest of the age men would easily yield to the
fascination of his character, its gentleness and hopefulness being
still unspoiled by failure.

As he extended the area of his labours and began to come in contact
with the people of the towns, he would find himself in face of
serious opposition. Here he would meet, not simple rustics who cared
little about ritual and politics, but legalists and nationalists
prompt to condemn him as irreligious and unpatriotic. The credulity
of his country disciples would be challenged and his Messianic
claims subjected to a hostile scrutiny. The tendency to dwell on the
supernatural inseparable from such a character as his would be in
sharp contrast to the spirit of worldliness he would encounter. Some
Sadducees even would be likely to confront him, requiring proof of the
postulates of his teaching, and infecting others with their scepticism.

Then would begin a time of struggle and irritation. All who looked
for the national Messiah would be enemies of Christ. They would be
eager upholders of the formal and exclusive elements of Judaism, and
his disregard of these would excite their bitter opposition. If he
neglected traditional ceremonies or associated with the outcasts of
formalism, he would be denounced as a breaker of the law, and the
friend of publicans and sinners. Gradually this opposition would
produce its effect. As the minor customs of the law were more and
more put before him as matters of sole importance, he would be forced
into hostility against them; as the outcries of the legalists grew
stronger, the whole system of legalism would become more discredited
with him. But, above all, he would lose his expectation of converting
Israel. When he realized by experience the strength of the obstacles
to his ideal, he would be compelled to reconsider his whole position as
Messiah.

The effect of this would be to drive him strongly towards
supernaturalism. From the beginning he must have been disposed to put
aside the ordinary conditions of life. The exaggerated and unworkable
morality of the gospels is probably an accurate representation of his
teaching. With his attention fixed on the spiritual glories of the
Messianic age, the worldly arrangements around him must have seemed
too transient to be worthy of attention. This feature of his character
would now enable him to meet the difficulty of his position. He would
turn from earth to heaven. Believing in the resurrection of the dead,
he would use it to justify his claim to be the Messiah. Rejected by the
greater part of his countrymen, no demonstration of his power on earth
could be pointed to, but he still could proclaim for himself the future
glory of a second coming in the clouds of heaven.

Opposition, of course, would only strengthen his belief in himself.
But this belief required that he should realize the glorious ideal of
the prophets. If he could not realize it during his earthly life, he
would have to realize it after his death. The prophecy in the book of
Daniel of one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and
having everlasting dominion over all the world,[54] would now appear
to him to be a manifest reference to himself. Connecting it with the
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, the chapter easily admitting of an
erroneous interpretation in a personal sense, he would readily form a
new conception of his mission. The failure to convert Israel would seem
part of his true glory as the suffering Messiah. Despised and rejected
of men, he would only be like all God’s envoys to the Jews; his
rejection would fill up the measure of Israel’s guilt; and after it the
wicked would finally be swept away, and he himself, as Messiah, proved
by his constancy under persecution and suffering, would judge those who
had rejected him, and establish his everlasting kingdom.[55]

The necessity of his own martyrdom would soon become part of his
belief. In the state in which Judæa was then, the forces tending in
this direction were sufficiently obvious. Only an increase of the
opposition he had already encountered, such as would be produced by
his coming into collision with the fanatical orthodoxy of Jerusalem,
was needed to secure his death as a criminal. There must have been
many reasons to make him welcome a speedy death. M. Renan is probably
right in conjecturing that Christ began to lose ground during the later
days of his life, the irritability produced by constant controversy
weakening the personal charm of his character. Death would seem the
only remedy for this. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which Mr.
Arnold supposes to have been always present to Christ’s mind as the
embodiment of his Messianic ideal, is likely to have been thus before
him in this closing period. There death is represented as crowning the
afflictions of the righteous servant of Jahveh, and a glorious triumph
is promised as its result. Christ would of course apply the passage
to himself, and would look forward to his death as the condition
necessarily preceding his Messianic glory. Personal shrinking from
pain would count for nothing with him. If he believed himself to be
the divinely appointed Messiah, the central figure of all the world’s
history, he could not have had one feeling that was not subservient to
his mission.

As soon as this conception of his Messiahship was developed in his
thoughts, he would at once adopt in its fulness the spiritual Messianic
ideal. Rejected by the vast majority of the Jews—rejected, moreover,
because he was not the national Messiah, he would be irresistibly
impelled to proclaim himself the spiritual Messiah, in whose eyes no
distinctions of race separated men from God. Failing with the Jews,
there was the more need that he should turn to the Gentiles; defeated
by Jewish nationalism, Jewish nationalism must have become hateful to
him. He would look now for the establishment of a spiritual Israel,
formed of all mankind reconciled to God and delivered from sin. From
this time, though he probably did not preach to them himself, he must
have included the Gentiles in his system.[56]

He would, of course, impress this new ideal on his disciples as
strongly as he could. It was now necessary that his system should
be preached by them after his death, so that when he came again in
the clouds of heaven he might find faithful adherents to share in
the glories of his reign. He would strive to prepare his disciples
for his death, to prevent them from being disheartened by it, and in
doing so he would promise them his return in power. Thus he would
himself originate the dogma of his second advent, which was the main
support of the early Christian Church. It would not be very difficult
to induce his disciples to accept the doctrine. They believed in the
resurrection of the dead, and he would merely have to fix in their
minds a conviction that his resurrection would be immediate; that he,
as Messiah, would rise at once to heaven after his death, thence to
return with unlimited powers to punish and reward. To get the first
part of the doctrine into their heads may not have been easy; they
would not readily understand that their lord was to die still publicly
unrecognized, with no proclamation of his greatness; but once they
did understand this, his promised return in glory would seem best to
explain it, and would suit it to their ambitious dreams. Probably they
never fully understood this portion of his teaching until after his
death, when, of course, there would be every inducement to accept it.

It is unnecessary to state how strongly the evidence of the gospels
supports this conclusion. Again and again in them Christ appears
preparing his disciples for his death, and promising his return
afterwards in heavenly glory. But the evidence of probability would be
sufficient to establish it. It solves the great problem in the history
of Christianity; it explains the passage of Christianity through the
perilous period immediately after its founder’s death.

Being thus forced to justify himself by appealing to the supernatural
elements of Judaism, supernatural conditions would necessarily assume
more importance in his eyes. The post-prophetic additions to Judaism
mentioned in the last chapter had by this time developed a complete
system of salvation and damnation. Heaven and hell were now fully
established in the creed of the Jew, heaven being appointed for
himself and hell for the Gentile. Christ would naturally accentuate
this part of his religion, and adopt the same spirit of exclusiveness.
Heaven would be for those who accepted, hell for those who rejected
the Messiah. Probably he now began to lay special stress on the
salvation of the soul in his preaching. And thus we can understand
how Christianity came to possess in a heightened form the more Pagan
features of Judaism.

The same circumstances which were leading Christ to exaggerate the
portions of Judaism most favourable to general proselytism, would also
cause him to lay aside the portions of Judaism most unfavourable to it.
His opposition to the legal and ceremonial elements of Judaism would
now be greatly increased. His worst enemies, of course, were those
who attached most importance to these, and in their attacks on him
formalism must have supplied them with their most effective weapons.
This would lead him in time to reject formalism completely. In doing
so, he was, as we saw in the last chapter, strictly fulfilling the
spiritual Messianic ideal. To what extent he made the renunciation of
the law an actual part of his system we cannot tell, but we may be sure
it was to a larger extent than his disciples were ready to accept. The
forms of Judaism, at least, could not have been regarded by him as
necessary elements of his religion. He was forced to make his system
a movement out of orthodox Judaism, and he could not have cared to
encumber his new religion with the worn-out forms of the old.

The account in the gospels of the closing incidents of Christ’s life
is probably in the main strictly correct. Sooner or later he was sure
to go to Jerusalem. The need to justify his system by preaching it
in the capital, and the wish to found it securely by his death under
persecution, would alike impel him in this direction. And he would
naturally choose one of the great feasts as the occasion for his visit
to the city. Though the forms of Judaism had now probably ceased to be
an essential portion of his religion, there is no reason to suppose
that he personally objected to observing the more important of them.
Coming to Jerusalem to keep the passover, he would find it crowded with
strangers; practically the whole Jewish world would be concentrated
there; and thus he would obtain the widest possible publicity, both
for his preaching and his martyrdom. That the latter would necessarily
follow the former he must have clearly seen. In the capital of Judaism,
at a time when a great religious festival excited the fanaticism of
the people to the highest pitch, to preach a religion that involved
the overthrow of legalism and the equality of Jew and Gentile in the
sight of God, and to do this while claiming to fulfil the popular
expectations, obviously meant a speedy extinction. So we may conclude
that Christ came to Jerusalem at the time of the passover, probably
accompanied by many of his country adherents who were also going to
the feast, and that there by his preaching he provoked against himself
the fanaticism of the priests and the populace, and was put to death as
an offender against the law. Among the incidents related as occurring
now, is one that established a great dogma.

In the description which the gospels give of the institution of
the Lord’s supper, we have statements which are corroborated by an
important external authority. The first epistle of St. Paul to the
Corinthians is unquestionably genuine, and accordingly it ranks as
one of the earliest documents of the New Testament. In it Christ,
on the occasion of his passover feast in Jerusalem, is said to have
broken bread and distributed it among his disciples, and to have
poured out wine and given it to them, asserting that the bread was
his body and the wine his blood, and ordering them to continue the
practice as a memorial of him. Taking this passage in conjunction
with the corresponding passages of the gospels, we have in all four
statements so much distinctly expressed; while equally in all four
it is either expressed or clearly implied that this distribution of
his body and blood meant that his body was broken and his blood shed
for the remission of sins; the only variation in the passages being
the omission by the first two gospels of the injunction to repeat the
ceremony. Putting this point aside for the moment, we have in the rest
of the description an account in which the three gospels agree, and in
which they are corroborated by a trustworthy external authority. Unless
probability is decidedly against it, this concurrence of evidence is
sufficient to establish its truth.[57]

The account, however, has probability distinctly in its favour. If
Christ was alive on the day of the passover—and there is every reason
to suppose that the gospels are correct when they assert that he
was—he would naturally keep the passover supper with his disciples,
as otherwise his presence in Jerusalem would be inexplicable. But
keeping the passover, with the expectation of his immediate death
vividly before him, the celebration must have seemed to him to possess
a strange significance. He believed that the first passover feast had
been celebrated in the time of Moses, that the blood of the victim
sprinkled on their doorways had preserved the Israelites from harm
on the eve of their departure from Egypt, and that this had been
the earliest rite of the Jewish law. Now he, of course, must have
regarded his system, which was to be fully established by his death,
as the fulfilment of Judaism. The ceremonies of Judaism, of which the
passover, as first, was chief, belonged only to the old unfulfilled
religion, and not to the mature Judaism founded by him. So this
passover he was keeping would seem to him, not merely a commemoration
of the first, but, in a proper sense, actually the last ceremony of
the Jewish ritual. And as it was the last rite of the old, so it
was the first of the new Judaism. His disciples now, like the early
Israelites, were leaving old ways and beginning a new life as wanderers
on strange paths. As the first ceremony of Judaism had sanctified its
commencement, so this first ceremony of Christianity might well appear
to him to sanctify its commencement, and to mark the transition from
the old religion to the new.

But where was the victim of this Christian passover? The Jewish
passover was essentially a sacrifice, and the idea of vicarious
atonement was clearly stamped on it. The Jews believed that, when the
first-born sons of the Egyptians had been destroyed, the first-born
sons of their ancestors had escaped, through the sprinkling on
their doorways of the blood of a _first-born_ lamb or kid of their
flocks.[58] Sacrificial substitution is unmistakable here. Now, as
mentioned above, Christ at this time had probably taken as his ideal
the suffering Messiah thought to be referred to in the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah. There the supposed Messiah is spoken of as becoming
“an offering for sin,” and as bearing “the sin of many.”[59] To
Christ’s mind, we must remember, the idea of atonement for sin by
sacrifice was thoroughly familiar, rooted as it was in the Jewish law.
If, then, he believed that for him as Messiah a death at the hands
of others was ordained, he would at this moment naturally see in his
death an atonement offered for sin. Though he must have regarded the
sacrificial system of the law as only decreed for a time, he would
still feel that underlying it there was a divine principle. Recognizing
this principle, with the passage of Isaiah pressing on him a sense of
a connection between it and his death, he would be sure to find in
himself the victim of the Christian passover.

The idea that his death was an atonement for sin may have occurred
to him before. But whether it did or not, it must have been fully
developed in his mind by the circumstances under which he kept this
passover. It fitted like a key into the peculiarities of his religion.
As already explained, his object as Messiah was to found a system which
should secure the happiness of those who accepted him; on his second
coming, they were to enjoy the felicity of the Messianic period on
earth, as well as the everlasting joys of heaven. If they were to enjoy
felicity, to escape punishment, through his death, which necessarily
preceded his second coming, how readily would that death appear to him,
as a Jew, an atoning sacrifice for their sins! Just as the lamb of the
passover had borne, as a substitute for the Israelites, the penalty
that had fallen on the Egyptians, so he, as their substitute, would
bear for his followers the penalty that would fall on the rest of the
world, the time at which his death was to take place heightening the
parallel and making it seem to be providentially designed.

As the victim of the passover, part of it having been used
sacrificially as an expiation, had then been eaten as food by those
whom its sacrifice was meant to benefit, so here Christ would wish his
body thus to be partaken of sacramentally after it became an atonement
for sin. Sacrifice is usually followed by sacrament; the victim, being
accepted by the deity, becomes divine, and those who partake of it
are purified by receiving divine elements into their natures. The
sacramental side of the passover sacrifice was particularly marked.
To complete the parallel, Christ, as the new passover victim, needed
to make his body a sacrament. But in his case such a sacrament had
necessarily to precede, and not to follow the sacrificial death. It
could only be symbolical. He had, as the parables of the gospels
show, a natural tendency to use symbolism to express his thoughts.
Symbolically, the sacrament, to prevent coarse misconception, would
best be celebrated by himself. And so at this passover supper, after
the victim appointed by the law had been partaken of, Christ probably
distributed bread and wine as his body and blood, the symbolical
sacrament of his approaching sacrificial death, the new passover feast
of the new Christian Church. And as the first passover feast had been
commemorated in Judaism, so he probably commanded his disciples to
commemorate this second one, which fulfilled and abrogated the first,
even as his system fulfilled and abrogated the system to which the
first belonged, making it thus the only rite of Christianity, which
should symbolise in purity the coarse sacrificial ritual of Judaism.

Though, of course, there is no certainty in this conclusion,
probability is so much in its favour that we may assume it to be
proved. The positive evidence alone is sufficient to establish the
fact, and still stronger is the evidence for it arising from its being
an indispensable link in a great chain of development.

And so we may conclude that the first distinctive dogma of Christianity
was actually originated by Christ himself. The Church started with
belief in the Atonement, in the sacrificial death of Christ, the “Lamb
of God,” for the sins of men. The further explanation of this doctrine
belongs to our next chapter.




CHAPTER IV.

JEWISH CHRISTIANITY.


So far in the course of our inquiry we have traced the development of
Christian doctrine simply through the religious ideas of the Jewish
people. But from this point we shall have to consider the relations
of opposite tendencies, the collision between Judaism and Paganism
in Christianity to which I have referred in the Introduction. And in
dealing with this subject, it is a fair canon of historical criticism
to say that so far as any dogma is distinctly Jewish, its origin should
be assigned to the earliest period of the Christian Church, and so far
as any dogma is distinctly Pagan, its origin should be assigned to
a later period, after the conversion of the Gentiles had begun. The
justice of this canon is evident when we remember that Christianity
at the time of Christ’s death had none but Jewish adherents, and that
thenceforth it grew to be more and more accepted by Pagans, until
at last its ranks were filled with Pagans alone. The Atonement is
the chief Jewish dogma, and the Incarnation the chief Pagan dogma of
Christianity, and they obviously conform to the requirements of the
canon. For the present we shall be occupied with the doctrines of
Christianity which are mainly Jewish in form.

Though the Christian Church started with belief in the Atonement,
the dogma at the beginning could not have been fully grasped and
understood. For a time it was probably only latent in the doctrines
of the Church. His disciples were not likely at once to recognize the
significance of what Christ did at the passover supper; up to the last
they could hardly have been prepared for his death. But even with a
blind obedience they would naturally obey their lord’s commands. As
they commemorated the Christian passover and repeated its forms, the
meaning of it would gradually dawn on their minds. This repetition must
have been from the first the centre of the early Church, a distinctive
ceremony which brought the Christians together and marked them off
from the Jews around them. While thus incessantly repeating the form
of sacramental communion with the body of Christ, sooner or later they
would be sure to recognize what this sacramental communion implied,
the sacrificial character of his death. Then the latent dogma of the
Atonement would be fully understood. As Jews, they would readily accept
it; indeed, it would be to them an explanation of their strange
position as disciples of a crucified Messiah.

As soon as the first Christians recognized that Christ’s death had been
an atonement offered for their sins, a feeling of lightness and joy
must have arisen in their hearts. Circumstances like those in which
they were placed always tend to develop strongly a sense of sinfulness
and of alienation from God. But here appeared a means of reconciliation
to God and of escape from the burden of sin. And, accordingly, it is
likely that now their missionary activity began. The dogma supplied
them with a vindication of their lord’s greatness. Jesus, as the
Messiah, had borne the sins of men, and had become the representative
of men with God. The Jews, who had so unjustly slain him, were in
special need of divine forgiveness; and we may be sure that the
watchwords of the preaching of the early Christians, when they preached
only to Jews, were “Jesus and the remission of sins.”

Though the commemoration of the passover supper was probably the
means of impressing the doctrine of the Atonement on the minds of
the early Christians, there is no reason to suppose that at first
they attached to it an actual sacramental value. They would naturally
repeat the forms of the sacramental feast they were commemorating
without considering the repetition also to be sacramental. But before
long, as we know from St. Paul’s words,[60] the repetition did become
sacramental itself. The Christians then believed that the elements
of Christ’s body were present in the bread and wine of their Lord’s
Supper. At first this presence may have been regarded as symbolical
only. It is obvious, however, that the delicate symbolism habitual
in Christ’s language was sure in this instance sooner or later to
be misunderstood by the grosser minds of his followers. The passage
of St. Paul just referred to shows that he believed the flesh and
blood of Christ to be actually present in the bread and wine of the
Eucharist—that is, present in them by an act of faith, not changed into
them by a formula of consecration. When the common feast of the early
Christians had thus become a sacramental commemoration of the sacrifice
of Christ’s death, their conception of that sacrifice must have been
strengthened and made definite. And with this clearer conception of
Christ as the victim that atoned for the sins of man, whose body was
spiritually present in the food they ate at their sacred supper, would
come a greatly enhanced reverence for him. He would seem to them more
than human; his Messiahship would gather round it all the highest
attributes ever dreamed of in the Messianic ideals of their race.
Their full missionary energy would then be displayed. Probably the
recovery of the Church from the paralysis that must have fallen on
it after Christ’s death began with the recognition of the doctrine of
the Atonement, and was finally completed when the Eucharist became a
sacrament, a solemn and mysterious ceremony, the central expression of
Christian belief.

The preaching of Christianity must have been far easier after its
founder’s death. Reverence for Christ could rise to greater heights.
Supernatural powers could be attributed to him without any fear of
too dangerous a challenge. And, besides, the preachers could disperse
themselves. So long as Christ lived he alone could properly preach his
system, for all Christians would gather closely round him as their
living head. But now every body of Christians was equally near him,
no matter where they might be, and had the assurance of his spiritual
presence in the elements of the Eucharist. Henceforth the mission of
the Church was proselytism; growth became its evidence of life.

That proselytism began immediately after Christ’s death is, of course,
very unlikely. The Church probably took some years to recover from the
shock of its loss. During this period it could barely have managed
to survive as a small body containing the most faithful of those who
had followed Christ. Among these picked disciples the development of
latent doctrine went on, until the primary principles of Christianity
were established on a sure basis. Then, proselytism beginning, every
member of the original body probably became more or less a missionary.
As a select few they were the preachers and authorities of early
Christianity. The commands of Christ, as well as the nature of their
religion, impelled them to preach with vigour. At first they would
naturally address themselves to Jews alone. With the Jews of Palestine
they were not likely to make much way. But when they extended their
activity to the synagogues in foreign countries they would be more
successful. Here, as the fanaticism of race was less, the spiritual
ideal of Christianity would have fewer obstacles to overcome. Still in
all their dealings with Jews they probably met with little success.
To the Jews Christ crucified was indeed a stumbling-block which even
the promise of his second advent could not remove. But as soon as the
preachers of Christianity touched the Gentiles, they must have reaped
an abundant harvest. Such was the disorganization of religion at this
time in the Roman world that, notwithstanding the harsh exclusiveness
of Judaism, Gentiles in large numbers were becoming proselytes to it.
Under these circumstances Christianity, which had dropped all the harsh
features of Judaism, and had added to the remainder much that was in
harmony with Gentile ideas, must have easily made converts among them.
Though probably very soon the majority of Christians were Gentiles,
all the heads of the Church still were Jews, and its principles
remained wholly Jewish. This period of Jewish Christianity may fairly
be said to have lasted in full vigour until the death of St. Paul.

For more than the second half of this time the missionary activity of
the Church centred in St. Paul. After Christ himself, no man influenced
the circumstances and doctrines of Christianity more than he. The
stress laid upon faith as a means of salvation in early Christianity
was largely the result of his personal character. A renegade from the
most rigid legalism of Judaism, he naturally, as a Christian, passed to
the other extreme, and exalted faith above the righteousness of works.
The same recoil from Judaism made him the apostle of the Gentiles. But
though St. Paul was as little Jewish as an unhellenised Jew could be,
and strained the doctrines of Christianity greatly in the direction
of Gentile ideas, his religion was still essentially Jewish. In his
epistles—putting aside his references to the resurrection of the dead,
made because he was writing to Gentiles who were not familiar with
the doctrine—as well as in the other books of the New Testament that
belong to this period, we find stress laid chiefly on two dogmas, the
Atonement and the second advent.[61] These two dogmas were closely
connected, and were the strength of the early Church.

The doctrine of the Atonement was that Christ had died for the sins
of the world. “God was in Christ,” says St. Paul, “reconciling the
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”[62]
The term “world,” as used in this and kindred passages, can only be
understood by keeping the doctrine of the second advent steadily in
view. All the glories predicted by the prophets for the Messianic
times were transferred in the expectation of the early Christians to
the period of the second coming of Christ. They believed that when
their lord returned there would be literally “new heavens and a new
earth.”[63] This new world, then to be established in fulness, they
held to have been actually founded by the death of Christ, which had
rendered it possible by relieving man from the burden of sin. But
in their case only had sin been thus put away, and accordingly they
were the foundation of the world reconciled to God, which after the
second coming of Christ would remain alone, the old world of sin and
alienation from God which still survived beside the new being then
finally destroyed. Christ had left them to preach the gospel, that is,
to snatch souls from the perishing to the permanent world. The latter
seemed to them the real world, and the other, which existed for a time
beside it, only a vanishing shadow. For this real and permanent world,
then represented by the Church, they believed Christ to have died. The
more hopeful Christians might expect that the two worlds would yet
become identical, through the conversion of all men before the second
advent. Then Christ would come, not in wrath, but simply in love; not
to punish, but simply to reward. This, however, could only have been a
rare belief. In general the expectation of the Church was that Christ
would come speedily, and sweep away all men outside it, and leave it
alone on an earth renewed and glorified. Faith in him was the pass that
procured admission to the felicities of his Messianic reign; to those
outside Christianity his coming could only bring confusion and ruin.[64]

This new world, the creation of which was begun by Christ’s death, and
was to be completed by his second coming, the early Christians regarded
as a kingdom of light girdled on every side by the old world or kingdom
of darkness. It was their mission, they held, to extend its frontiers,
and continuously to encroach on the region given over to night. Every
inch of ground they gained they believed to be saved from an imminent
destruction. For the fervour of proselytism which possessed them rested
on the dogma of the second advent. To it they looked forward as a
blessing to themselves and a terror to the rest of mankind.[65] All men
outside the Church seemed to be walking on the brink of a precipice,
over which they were shortly to be hurled. Naturally to save as many as
possible of these from a danger so immediate and so vividly conceived
was to most Christians the chief object of life. Some of the sterner
of them, as we know from the book of Revelation, which was written at
the close of this period, expected with gladness the coming of Christ
to take vengeance on his enemies. But the harsh and exclusive spirit of
that characteristically Jewish work could not have been general; and we
may be sure that the Christians, as a whole, felt only pity when they
thought of the impending destruction of the proud non-Christian world.

Many strange ideas entered into the expectation of the coming of
Christ. It was even thought that at the last moment he would convert
and save those who had been unreached by his earthly envoys. St. Paul
believed that then, “after the fulness of the Gentiles had come in,”
Israel would at length be saved.[66] As to what was to follow the
second advent, opinions slightly varied. According to St. Paul,[67]
Christ would establish after it an eternal and heavenly kingdom of
the Christian living and risen dead; but according to the book of
Revelation,[68] he would then reign for a thousand years on earth,
afterwards beginning his everlasting rule.

From the new world then to be completed the Christians believed sin
to have been put away by the death of Christ. The doctrine of the
Atonement, as they understood it, meant actual deliverance from sin,
and not mere deliverance from its penalty. Nothing could be clearer
than St. Paul’s statement of this.[69] All St. Paul’s epistles are
pervaded by a tone of grieved surprise that sin should be found
existing within the Church. Sin in his eyes was essentially the mark
of the old world. If, then, a Christian sinned, he showed that he did
not really belong to the new world; he was under the law, and not under
grace, and by the law he would be condemned; he would perish with
the perishing world. Probably, under the pressure of such a belief,
the Church at this time was the purest society of men that has ever
existed. Considering the moral condition of the period, it is likely
that the distinction then made between believer and sinner almost
corresponded to actual fact. Practically within all was good, and
without all was evil. In modern evangelical Protestantism language of
the same kind is often used, but only as the shadowy semblance of what
was once substantial reality.

The belief in the second advent of Christ in another way must have
helped to maintain the purity of the early Christians. Living in the
constant expectation of his immediate coming, worldly pleasures seemed
too transient and unsure to be worthy of attention. Their belief too,
was invested with a vivid sense of reality. They expected to see
their lord in all his heavenly majesty, not under strange and unknown
conditions only to be experienced by passing through the gate of death,
but in the midst of the familiar associations of earth. They awaited
his appearance “in the very world which is the world of all of us,” and
the shadow of his coming lay on all the thoughts and actions of their
lives.

With the fading of so beautiful a dream the real corruption of
Christianity began. As the years passed by, and Christ did not appear,
the hopes of the Church gradually died away. The doctrine of his speedy
coming at length became the last refuge of fanaticism. With it “the
freshness of the early world” of Christianity finally perished; the
Church never knew again the simplicity and purity which marked this
period of its youth.

The expectation of the immediate coming of Christ was the sustaining
principle of Jewish Christianity. The loss of it threw the Church
completely into Pagan hands. While it prevailed, Christians cared
little about the explanation of their theology; existing conditions
were regarded as too provisional. But afterwards, when a long life
seemed to lie before the Church, theological “pseudo-science” was
born. New and complex doctrines were needed to engage the thoughts of
Christians, and these Pagan Christianity supplied.

Though the Christianity of this period was thoroughly Jewish in the
character of its doctrines, the preaching of it was addressed chiefly
to Pagans. St. Paul was their representative among the heads of the
Church, and preached almost exclusively to them. In turning to them,
Christianity had to a certain extent to adapt itself to their ideas.
The nature of this adaptation is clearly visible in the writings of St.
Paul.

I have said that, in preaching to Jews, the watchwords of Christianity
probably were “Jesus and the remission of sins.” In preaching to
Pagans, these watchwords would not have been worth much. Pagans looked
for no Messiah, nor were they likely to be inconveniently conscious of
sin. The great doctrine of the Church on which stress was laid when it
preached to Pagans, as we have clear evidence in St. Paul’s epistles,
was the resurrection. Christianity attracted Pagans mainly by promising
them the resurrection of the dead. This was naturally the case, as
to them, unlike Jews, it was a novel doctrine. But the strength of
Christianity in dealing with Pagans lay not merely in its assertion of
the resurrection of the dead, but in the proof of the resurrection it
professed to give. This, again, is plainly evident in the epistles of
St. Paul. He dwells so much on the resurrection of Christ that we might
suspect him to have been tainted originally with the scepticism of the
Sadducees. By this peculiarity, however, he was exactly fitted to be
the apostle of the Gentiles. With his writings before us, we may be
sure that he preached to Pagans, as he is made to do in the Acts of the
Apostles, “Jesus and the resurrection.”[70] To him the resurrection of
Christ was the evidence for the general resurrection of the dead; while
his conviction that Christ had risen from the dead rested on the belief
that he as well as others had seen Christ after his death.[71] And so
St. Paul could preach the resurrection to Pagans in a very effective
manner, declaring that the dead would rise again, and giving as proof
of this the fact that one man, Jesus, was known thus to have risen, as
after his death he had been seen by many credible witnesses, including
St. Paul himself. If God had raised Jesus, why should he not also raise
other men? Christ had risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits
of them that slept.

Thus while the watchwords of the Church in preaching to Jews were
“Jesus and the remission of sins,” its watchwords in preaching to
Pagans were “Jesus and the resurrection.” That the evidence on which
this preaching was founded should have existed is natural enough.
The disciples of Christ, as Jews, necessarily believed that he,
after his death, had ascended to heaven, and was living there with
God. Such being the case, there is nothing strange in their fancying
that he occasionally appeared to them.[72] The death of Christ must
have immediately weeded out of the Church all but his most faithful
followers. It is not surprising that these, in the midst of the
disturbance and excitement of those early days, should have seen
visions of their lord, should have imagined that he came sometimes from
heaven to console them and strengthen them in their weakness. People
so superstitious, in a period of so much supernaturalism, were almost
certain to see such visions. St. Paul’s own particular vision, which
played so important a part in the history of early Christianity, of
course can only be explained by referring to the peculiarities of his
personal character.

This basing the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead on the
resurrection of Christ had nothing to do with the subsequent belief
that he rose on earth and stayed there for a time. St. Paul evidently
believed that Christ appeared to others as well as to himself by
coming straight from heaven, and that his resurrection had been his
entrance into heavenly glory.[73]

In another and a more important respect the influence of its Pagan
proselytes affected the principles of Jewish Christianity. In preaching
to Pagans it was necessary to determine the nature of Christ. For Jews
it was enough to call him the Messiah; their imagination supplied
the rest. But Pagans, who had no Messianic expectations, required an
explanation of his position as founder of the Church. This influence
naturally was most felt by St. Paul, and through him it had a
considerable effect in shaping the development of Christian doctrine.

St. Paul believed that Christ “was born of the seed of David according
to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God in power by the
resurrection from the dead.”[74] Thus St. Paul, as Strauss says, began
the deification of Christ. Of course, as Strauss also points out,
this was due to the fact that he had never personally seen Christ.
Entering the Church some years after its founder’s death, when already
legendary influences must have been active in exalting him, St. Paul
had no knowledge of Christ to check his natural tendency to glorify
the master whom he believed to have appeared to him in a blaze of
heavenly light. The other Christians who saw visions of Christ had
probably all known him during his life, and this must have interfered
with their impulses to magnify him. Naturally, then, St. Paul went
further than the other leaders of the Church, and, having seen Christ
only in a heavenly vision, thought of him only as a heavenly being.
The conception he ultimately formed of Christ in consequence of this
tendency to exalt him is somewhat obscure. The term “son of God” in the
mouth of a Jew might have only a vague meaning applicable to any man.
As employed by St. Paul, it evidently has a special significance. He
seems to have believed that Christ was the true Man, Man as he ought
to be. Adam was the first and imperfect man, Christ was the second and
perfect man. Thus God was the father of Christ in a fuller sense than
that in which he was the father of ordinary men, as he had imparted
to Christ more of his own nature. Through this possession of elements
of the divine nature, Christ was able to represent and redeem mankind
fallen under the power of sin. All faithful followers of him were to be
made partakers of his divine characteristics, were to become children
and heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, were to suffer and be
glorified with him.[75]

Christ was evidently regarded by St. Paul as made thus peculiarly the
son of God by his possession of God’s spirit. No idea of his having
had a miraculous human birth entered into this belief. God in the
fulness of time sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the
law.[76] St. Paul, however, seems to have believed vaguely in Christ’s
pre-human existence;[77] but the pre-existence he assigned to Christ
was potential rather than actual, Christ existing from the beginning of
time as the destined deliverer of mankind.[78]

So the extent of St. Paul’s deification of Christ may be thus generally
described. He believed that Christ was in a peculiar sense the son of
God—that is, something more than ordinary man. Intermediate between God
and man, he was at once God’s agent and man’s representative. But St.
Paul clearly makes him inferior to God as well as superior to man, and
allows him no power except what is delegated to him by God.[79] Thus
as yet there was no sign of the doctrine of the Incarnation, though a
path for it was being prepared. For the doctrine of the Incarnation,
it must be remembered, is not a mere deification of Christ. It is
important, not because it deifies man, but because it humanizes God.
St. Paul undoubtedly, so far as he deified—it would be better to say
divinised—Christ, helped the Pagan tendencies of later Christianity,
but there was nothing actually Pagan in his belief.

The death of St. Paul marked the beginning of the end of Jewish
Christianity. As the Jewish leaders died off, the vast Pagan majority
seized upon power and impressed their ideas on the doctrines of the
Church. Between the undiluted Jewish Christianity of its origin and
the Pagan Christianity of the second century, Paulinism served as a
link which enabled them finally to remain in nominal connection. In
the spurious epistles attributed to St. Paul we can trace the steps
of advancing Paganism, and observe the struggle for reconciliation
which his followers inherited from him. Paulinism was ultimately lost
in the Paganism with which its Jewish opponents had identified it.
But it bridged the interval between the Jewish and Pagan periods of
Christianity, and so saved the Church from a rupture it could not have
survived.




CHAPTER V.

PAGAN CHRISTIANITY.


While the movement within Judaism with which hitherto we have been
mainly occupied was tending to create out of it a world-religion,
outside of it circumstances were preparing to make this tendency
succeed. The later additions to Judaism, the supernatural system of
dogma which formed the basis of Christianity, were, as I have already
said, favourable to its expansion by reason of their harmony with Pagan
ideas. About the time at which they entered strongly into Judaism,
began a steady break-up of the religions of the Pagan world. The
material power of Rome attacked them from below, by destroying the
national foundations on which they rested, while Greek culture and
philosophy, advancing under the protection of that power, assailed
them from above. Under the double pressure they faded away. In the age
of the apostles, over the greater part of the Roman empire religion
was a matter of sincere belief only with the lower orders of the
people. A few men of thought and learning put it utterly aside.
Between these two classes there was the great body of ordinary persons
mentioned at the beginning of our first chapter, who had lost faith
in the popular religions, but were themselves thoroughly religious.
The credulity which always characterizes periods of religious change,
when some form of religion is destroyed, though the religious spirit
retains its energy, was universal. Besides this break-up of the old
religions in consequence of the extension of Roman power, in another
way that extension of power more directly prepared a path for a great
proselytising system. As national limits were overthrown, of course
a religion that ignored national distinctions could more easily
overspread the world.[80] Thus when Christianity touched Paganism
everything promised it success. In fact, the critical period in the
life of Christianity was that which immediately followed its founder’s
death. While it existed only in Palestine, it was in great danger.
When it spread among the synagogues of Jews in foreign countries, it
had a surer footing. And when from these, which served as a means of
introducing it to them, it turned to Pagans, it was placed beyond
possibility of failure.

It is interesting to note that Christianity failed to conquer the
Judaism from which it sprang, while the Paganism seemingly foreign to
it everywhere succumbed to it. A few centuries after this time every
part of the Roman empire professed Christianity as its religion, while
the Jews remained still the same. Paganism was overcome and absorbed
by Christianity, but Judaism shook it off as an excrescence without
suffering harm. In this fact there is nothing surprising. Judaism was
too strong for Christianity to subdue it, while Paganism was a ready
prey. The Roman empire, outside Judaism, lay before Christianity like
a body without a mind; it needed a unifying religion to match its
political unity, and this Christianity supplied.

The general effect likely to be produced on Christianity by its
reception of Pagan disciples may now be considered. It is obvious that
Pagans, who were steeped in religious ideas very different from those
with which the Jews were familiar, would carry with them into Jewish
Christianity different principles of religion. To ascertain the extent
of this difference, we must compare Judaism and Paganism.

As a pure monotheism, Judaism stood alone in the world. A purely
monotheistic religion tends to produce humility and stress on faith.
The two great principles of human action, which Mr. Lecky names
as the alternative forces that underlie every important movement
of mankind,[81] a sense of human dignity and a sense of sin, are
distinctive marks of polytheism and monotheism. Monotheism, with
its one God so far removed from man, inspires a feeling of human
nothingness in comparison with him. Polytheism, with its far more
anthropomorphic and less awful gods, does not dwarf man thus, but
enables him freely to compare himself with the divinities he worships.
And monotheism, by making man appear nothing beside God, necessarily
exalts faith above good works as a means of pleasing him; for when the
distance between them is so immense, the best that man can do appears
a trifle. Both these tendencies of Judaism, as a monotheism, were more
than counterbalanced by other circumstances connected with it. The
humility the Jews might feel when conscious of the difference between
themselves and God was more than outweighed by the pride they felt in
their superiority to the rest of mankind as his chosen people who alone
had the knowledge of him.[82] Their superiority to other men naturally
affected them more than their inferiority to God. The strict legalism
of Judaism also prevented stress on faith from being developed in it,
as a multitude of petty observances made it peculiarly a religion of
works. But both these principles were latent in Judaism, and were only
checked by special circumstances attending it as a national religion.
These circumstances being removed, the latent principles were sure to
be developed. And, in fact, in Jewish Christianity, which was neither
formal nor exclusive, their development was unmistakable. Early
Christianity was essentially distinguished both by humility and stress
on faith, as a glance at the New Testament is sufficient to show.

Simplicity of thought also characterized Judaism. Mysticism was
abhorrent to a pure Jew, though a hellenised Jew like Philo might be
steeped in it. Simplicity of worship, too, was a feature of Judaism;
for the splendid ritual connected with the temple at Jerusalem was not
properly a part of it, but was merely the expression of national pride.
When away from Jerusalem, the Jew worshipped in the simplest and purest
manner. And, most of all, morality was closely bound up with Judaism.
Josephus justly boasted that his religion made virtue an indispensable
part of itself.[83] The Jews as a whole were certainly far more moral
than the Pagans as a whole.

The opposite of all these qualities characterised Pagan religions.
Pagans felt no religious humility, for there was no great difference
between their gods and themselves. Pride, a sense of human dignity,
distinguished them as men. They had not to lay stress on faith, for
this pride made them fully recognize the value of their own good works.
Mysticism marked their religious thought, and sensuousness their
religious worship. Between morality and their religions there was only
the loosest connection.

Keeping these facts in view, we can easily understand the change in
Christianity which now began. All the characteristics of Judaism just
mentioned distinguished Jewish Christianity. Humility, stress on
faith, simplicity of thought and worship, and the closest connection
with morality clearly marked the religion of the early Church. This
was evidently the case because the first Christians were Jews. When,
then, the Pagans came in, having wrapped up in their religious ideas
pride, trust in good works, mysticism, a love of sensuous worship,
and a loose regard for morality, and when before long they alone made
up the Church, Christianity could not remain unchanged. Christianity
became Pagan because Pagans became Christians. And this is the full
explanation of its corruption. The Jews, in a religious sense, were
more highly developed than the Pagans, and so when it passed from Jews
to Pagans it necessarily deteriorated.

As Christianity was preached in the Pagan world, it continually reached
lower strata of Paganism. At first only the best Pagans could have
entered the Church, but afterwards, as it grew in influence, Pagans
of a constantly inferior type must have joined it. Thus the corruption
of Christianity proceeded, not merely because Pagans in larger numbers
professed it, but because, as time went by, a lower, a more Pagan class
became included within its ranks. All during the period we are now
examining probably belonged to the great middle order of society before
mentioned, philosophers and peasants equally being absent. Christianity
clung to the cities, and the restlessness of city life contributed to
the growth of its theology. We will now trace the results of the direct
influence of Paganism on the dogmas of the Church.

This influence naturally showed itself in a tendency towards the
exaltation of Christ. He would seem to Pagans the real god of
Christianity. God, the purely Jewish divinity, the national deity of
Judaism, must have been from the beginning unattractive to Pagans,
who disliked Jews, and were accustomed to gods that differed but
little from men. The identification by Marcionite Gnosticism of the
Jewish god with the malignant creator of matter showed how strong this
feeling could become. But for the most part Pagans would simply put
God aside, and fix all their attention on Christ. They would honour
and exalt him, and regard him as the representative of heaven. Thus
Paganism must have tended to develop still further the Christology of
Paulinism. The first result of this probably appeared in connection
with the Pauline phrase “son of God.” A Jew could not misinterpret the
phrase and give it a literal meaning, but a Pagan might do so easily.
Familiar with ideas of extremely anthropomorphic gods, Pagans would
naturally consider Christ to be the son of God in the sense in which
Herakles was the son of Zeus. As the proportion of Jews in the whole
number of Christians grew less, the increasing Paganism of the Church
developed this tendency, until finally it resulted in the belief in the
miraculous conception of Christ, the first distinctly Pagan dogma of
Christianity.

The gospels supply us with almost certain evidence that this was the
way in which the dogma originated. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke
are clear proof that the earlier traditions of the Church made Joseph
the father of Christ, and of course the Church was less Pagan then than
it was in later times. The doctrine, as Dean Milman points out, is
utterly un-Jewish.[84] The Jews always expected the Messiah to be born
in the ordinary manner, and they reverenced God too much to put him in
the place of a human father. So the dogma shows plainly that it was the
first triumph of Christian Paganism. Jewish Christianity was only able
slightly to spiritualize it, and to found it in appearance upon an
absurd misinterpretation of a passage of Isaiah.[85]

While the beginning of the gospel narratives was being constructed
by one influence of Pagan Christianity, the end of them was being
constructed by another. When the expectation of the second coming
of Christ was abandoned, the Church had to assign a different
meaning to his resurrection. Originally, and especially by St. Paul,
this was closely connected with the second advent.[86] St. Paul
evidently regarded the appearances of Christ to him and to others as
preliminaries of the second advent, but now they seemed to stand in
another light. Examining the traditions which preserved the remembrance
of the visions of Christ seen by the early Christians, the Church found
them, of course, clustered most thickly in the period immediately after
his death, when the conditions likely to produce them were strongest.
Visions seen after that time were probably only occasional and rare,
and, with the exception of St. Paul’s, they were sure to have little
importance. Finding, then, that nearly all the appearances of Christ
had occurred within a short period after his death, the Church would
naturally make a distinction between this period and subsequent
times. Christ obviously seemed to have been more present then than
afterwards. It would not be long before the belief would follow that
he had actually stayed on earth during this period, before he had
ascended to heaven. With his second coming no longer expected, that
he should have done so would seem quite natural. The Church having to
face a long life without Christ, it was reasonable that, before leaving
it to its lonely struggle, he should have stayed with it for a time
to sustain its immaturity and to strengthen it for its work. A solemn
ascension of Christ in presence of his disciples would seem to be
demanded as a suitable close to this period, and with the addition of
it the dogma was complete.

As we can see by comparing Luke’s gospel with the Acts, this stay on
earth was made shorter by an earlier than it was by a later belief. It
was probably fixed finally at forty days, in order to include different
reports of visions with places other than Jerusalem as their scene,
and possibly, through the influence of expiring Christian Judaism, to
match the forty days of Moses on Mount Sinai. That Christ rose on the
third day after his death was a dogma of older times accepted by St.
Paul,[87] founded, it is likely, on a passage of Hosea,[88] and there
was no difficulty in connecting it with the belief in his stay on
earth. So the final doctrine of the Church was that Christ rose again
on the third day after his death, stayed then forty days on earth, and
afterwards ascended to heaven, not to return till the day of judgment
and the end of mortal things.

The evidence in favour of this explanation of the origin of the
orthodox doctrine of the resurrection of Christ is exceptionally
strong. The accounts in the gospels, so confused and contradictory even
in comparison with the rest of them, and telling only of occasional
appearances of Christ to his disciples, show us clearly the underlying
basis of dreams and visions on which the legend was founded. The belief
in the resurrection of Christ on earth, we may conclude with almost
historical certainty, arose from the late combination of the early
traditions of Christ’s appearances from heaven to his disciples.

Thus at the time to which we have now come the Church in general
believed Christ to be the divinely begotten and humanly conceived
son of God, who had risen after his death on earth, and then had
finally ascended to heavenly glory. Pagan principles had triumphed,
and Paganism was every moment growing stronger in Christianity. The
tendency to exalt Christ, already far advanced, had now nothing to
check it. Forces were at work which were inevitably destined fully to
deify Christ, to lift him to the level of the Jewish God. The Jewish
elements of Christianity, including monotheism, were thus in great
danger of utterly perishing. Christianity, in fact, was tending to
become a purely Pagan polytheistic religion, with a human being as its
most important god, when it was saved by the influence on it at this
critical period of a fortunate development in Jewish hands of Pagan
philosophy.

Philosophy, from the moment of its first existence, has always by an
irresistible pressure been driven towards monotheism. The consciousness
in the thinker of his own unity, and the inevitable conditions of
thought, alike force him to imagine one power as the cause of all
the phenomena of life. Philosophy, when it arises in the midst of
polytheism, at first allows the orthodox gods to be the subordinate
instruments of this power, but it soon develops a tendency to sweep
them utterly away. Then, having shaken itself free of popular religion,
it builds up a new religion of its own, in which it asserts the
existence of one supreme intelligence, the creator and governor of the
world.

When philosophy has got thus far, and has constructed its eternal God,
certain difficulties confront it. God, as the great first cause, has
to be made perfect, for if he were imperfect thought would have to
ascend higher to find a cause of his imperfection. But as the creator
of all things, God at one time must have existed alone, an absolute
being simply self-contemplative. When he began to create, he ceased
to be absolute, and became a relative being contemplative of his own
creation. If as an absolute being he was perfect, how did he remain
perfect when he became a relative being? The study of this problem has
generally driven philosophy into pantheism, but where it has maintained
its hold on theism, it has been forced to suppose that a change
occurred in God at the time of creation, by which he remained absolute
in regard to himself, though he became relative in regard to that which
he created.

Two Gods had thus to be imagined, one absolute and eternal, the other
relative and existing from the beginning of created things. But these
two had to be one, or else the first or absolute God would have been
relative to the second, and so the old difficulty would have been
revived. Hence there was need of a mystery; God was one and yet two,
two persons and one substance. The first was God as he was through
all eternity, the second was God as he was manifested in creation,
his representative with everything but himself. Thus the second was a
mediator between the first and the world.

While for purely philosophical reasons philosophy was thus compelled
to dualise God, other reasons also impelled it to this conclusion.
Holding him to be pure mind, it had to explain his action on matter.
Here, too, it was necessary to suppose, a mediator between the material
world and God. And in proportion as philosophy advanced in its theism,
it extended the attributes of God and raised him to a loftier height
above created things; and hence, to connect him with what was so far
inferior, a mediator again was needed. But in all cases this mediator
had to be a part of God himself, or no difficulty was met; and thus in
every way philosophy tended towards a divine dualism in mystery.

All Greek philosophy, except where it drifted into pantheism or pure
materialism, was more or less influenced by this tendency. In Platonism
especially it is clearly marked. The ideal world of Plato fills the
place of the second or relative God, and acts as a mediator between God
the absolute and the material world. God, according to Plato, is not
the creator of matter, which, so far as it is recognized in his system,
is given an eternal existence. The action of God is confined to the
ideal world, of which material phenomena are a distorted reflection. At
the time of the beginning of Christianity these features of Platonism
were strongly developed in the theology of an Alexandrian Jew.

Outside Palestine the most important centre of Jewish thought was
Alexandria. There from the time of the captivity a large colony of
Jews had been established. This colony became in many respects almost
independent of Jerusalem in religion; it formed and translated its own
canon of sacred writings, and even set up a temple of its own. Speaking
the Greek language and living in the most cosmopolitan city of the
world, the meeting-ground of eastern and western thought, the Jews of
Alexandria were naturally affected by the speculative activity of Greek
philosophy. The high development of Judaism encouraged speculation in
its adherents. The Jewish philosopher had not, like the Pagan, to cast
his religion aside when he began to seek out the causes of things;
on the contrary, his religion seemed to cover a great part of the
philosophical path. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that a
philosophy should have arisen among the Alexandrian Jews.

For us this philosophy is represented by Philo, who was born about
twenty years before Christ. A Jew by birth, and nominally always one in
religion, Philo was so steeped in Pagan thought that he really ranks
as a Greek philosopher. The chief object of his life was to reconcile
Judaism and Hellenism, to give a philosophical reason for every feature
of the Jewish religion. In fulfilment of this purpose, he handled
Judaism with considerable freedom, and bent its simple theology into a
mystical Platonism.

The tendency which inevitably characterized philosophy to push God back
from contact with creation, and to preserve his shadowy glory as an
absolute being, of course influenced Philo, who simply as a philosopher
was bound to be a pure theist. But as a Jew also, Philo was bound to
be a pure theist, with the most reverent conception of God. Thus two
forces acted on him, as a Jew and as a Greek philosopher, driving him
to the most refined theism, and this double pressure produced what
Professor Huxley calls Philo’s agnosticism. He was compelled to form a
conception of God utterly inconsistent with his character as creator
of the world. Philo could not imagine that God had any relations with
matter, or that he contemplated anything except the world of his own
ideas. So philosophy, helped by his monotheistic religion, forced Philo
to pursue the path of theological development which I have described
above, to leave God in his pure essence absolute and unknown, and to
attribute all the phenomena of creation to a mediator between this pure
essence and created things.

In Judaism, language had already been used which, taken literally,
almost described such a mediator. Wisdom had been spoken of as God’s
companion before creation and his assistant or agent in all that he had
done.[89] In a passage of the Psalms the word of God had been called
the maker of the heavens.[90] Language of this kind probably was merely
the result of the inveterate tendency of the Jewish mind to express
itself by means of personification and symbolism, and had no mystical
significance. But the passage last referred to, derived of course from
the formula of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, seems to have
guided Philo in his difficulty. He made the “Word” of God the required
mediator, God’s agent and representative in all his actions.[91]

Philo’s conception of the Word is shrouded in the deepest mysticism. In
language worthy of the Athanasian Creed, he asserts that it is neither
created nor uncreated.[92] At one time he makes it distinct from
God, at another a simple manifestation of God. These contradictions
reveal his meaning only the more plainly. He regarded the Word as
the modification of God which necessarily preceded creation, God
the relative, while God the absolute remained outside it and yet
not separate from it. Contradiction, of course, was inevitable. As
a monotheist, for him there could be but one God; as a theistic
philosopher, he had to push this God back from contact with the world.
Hence he was compelled to imagine a manifestation of God, distinct from
him and yet mystically one with him, to bear the burden of creation,
and to represent the divine nature with all outside itself.

On the theological system of Philo, which was widely diffused at
the period of its greatest danger from the pressure of Paganism,
Christianity now drew largely to avert its ruin. This product of Pagan
mysticism was exactly what it needed at the time. It was in danger,
through its deification of Christ, of losing its monotheism and of
worshipping a human God. By identifying Christ with Philo’s Word, every
difficulty was overcome. The doctrine of an incarnation of a divine
being in a human form had already entered into Asiatic religion, and,
in a more familiar shape, was a common feature of western Paganism.
Christ, as the Word made flesh, could be raised to the level of
God without destroying monotheism; the Jewish God, as the absolute
and unknown, could be reduced to the position of a constitutional
sovereign; by a mystery the impulses of the Church could be satisfied,
and yet the purity of Christianity be preserved.

“Philo,” says Professor Kuenen, “gave the Church a formula commensurate
with her ideas of her founder.”[93] But Philo really did much more. He
gave the Church a means of reconciling conflicting tendencies within
it, of satisfying at once the higher and the lower class of religious
instincts. And by doing so he saved Christianity. If this means of
reconciliation had not been provided, Christianity would have sunk to
the level of Paganism, and would have fallen among the ruins of the
empire. Still we must not conclude that the doctrine of the mystic
union of the persons of the Trinity was, except in a secondary sense,
derived from Philo. Primarily it was derived from the necessities
of Christianity. By deifying Christ, the Church prepared the way
for that doctrine and the dogma of the Incarnation depending on it.
Before Philonism entered into Christianity, Christ was man made God;
afterwards he was God made man; but before and after alike he was the
object of Christian worship.

The Church adhered closely to the philosophical basis of the doctrine.
Christ, as the Word, was made the sole instrument of creation,
God the relative; God the absolute, the Jewish God, was left in
lonely supremacy, unnoticed except in the theological philosophy of
Christianity. We can see the doctrine in its early shape best in the
fourth gospel, which was written about the middle of the first half
of the second century, in order to give it a basis in the life of
Christ.[94] The gospel was probably composed in Asia Minor, where
Gnosticism and the Asiatic fondness for mystery would naturally
facilitate the development of the doctrine. “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were
made by means of him, and without him was not anything made.”[95] That
is, at the beginning of creation, the Word existed with and as God, and
became the agent by whom all things were created. But of course to the
Church the Incarnation was the most important fact. “The Word became
flesh;”[96] Christ was God incarnate. The Church might now safely
worship its founder. As God, the human Christ could be adored, while
nominally monotheism was maintained.

It was long before the doctrine was finally settled. Not until early
in the fourth century, at the Council of Nicæa, did the Church define
the dogma in its fulness. During this period different opinions
prevailed respecting it, until at last, on the question of Arianism,
two great parties made it their battle-ground. In the controversy
the orthodox contention was philosophically justifiable. Christ, as
God the relative, had to be of one substance with God the absolute,
or no absolute God remained; while if in substance also he was not
eternal, he ceased to be God at all. Arianism, in fact, was simply
Christian rationalism; it endeavoured to explain the relationship
of God the Father and God the Son. But the essence of the dogma is
pure inexplicable mystery, and rationalism could not touch it without
destroying it. In the Nicene Creed it is stated in its proper form.
“I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, begotten of his father
before all worlds, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of
one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” Here
the philosophical basis of the dogma is shown in the clearest manner.
God was modified and Christ produced before creation began, and by
means of Christ the work of creation was performed. We must carefully
remember that the Nicene Council did not assert the eternal existence
of Christ as a distinct being. He existed eternally, but in God the
absolute before the creation of things. This is declared plainly in
the damnatory clauses attached to the original creed by the Council,
one of which anathematized him who should say that Christ had not
existed before he was begotten. It was not until long afterwards,
in the Athanasian Creed, that the eternal existence of Christ as a
person of the then fully developed Trinity was made a dogma of the
Church, notwithstanding the absurd contradiction in terms involved in
its statement. As expressed in the Nicene Creed, putting aside the
misleading words “Father” and “Son,” inherited from an earlier belief,
there is no such direct contradiction in the doctrine. God as one
existed eternally; God as two persons only from the beginning of things.

Thus the mystery of one God in two became a part of Christianity. The
Church believed in God, and worshipped him as manifested in Christ.
The incarnation of God was henceforth the doctrine dearest to the
Christian. His God was thus brought near to him, and presented to him
in a form he could readily grasp. And, besides, the love felt by the
Church for its founder was strengthened by the belief that he had
renounced divine glory to come to the assistance of men. The God who
had become man in his love for men, and for their sakes had endured
suffering and shame, inspired the passionate devotion which, in the
darkness of medieval Christianity, shone with a blaze of light. As the
figure of the human Christ faded away in the dim distances of the past,
the figure of the divine Christ was able to replace it, and to kindle
anew the flame of zeal which had marked the beginning of the Church.

The second great dogma of Christianity had now been developed. The
Incarnation took its stand beside the Atonement in the doctrines of
the Church. Henceforth Christian theology was a mixture of Judaism and
Paganism. For when this new essentially Pagan dogma of the Incarnation
was added on, the old essentially Jewish dogma of the Atonement had
entered too deeply into the life of Christianity to be laid aside.
Both had to be accepted by the Christian. And, unfortunately, they
happened to be utterly inconsistent. The doctrine that Christ had borne
the penalty of human sins, and had died as an atoning victim, did not
harmonize with the doctrine that Christ was God. That God has forgiven
human sins and laid the penalty on a victim chosen for the purpose, is
a doctrine strange indeed, but perfectly natural when viewed from a
Jewish standpoint; but that God has forgiven human sins and laid the
penalty on himself is a doctrine which, viewed from any standpoint,
cannot be other than a hopeless puzzle.

Incompatible as the two dogmas are, Christian theologians of course
have endeavoured to reconcile them. Only one explanation of the
difficulty has been seriously offered. This is, that an absolutely
sinless victim was required to become an atonement for human sins,
and that such a victim could not be found outside the person of God
himself. A reference to Pauline Christianity at once disposes of this
explanation. Even if Christ as merely a man could not be sinless,
he might be more than man without being actually God. From its very
beginning, the Church regarded Christ, as the Messiah, as one greater
than ordinary men, though still thoroughly human. Long before the
dogma of the Incarnation was in existence, Christians looked on Christ
as sinless, and connected his sinlessness with the Atonement.[97]
Nevertheless, the explanation is the best available. It has created
the doctrine of the “contract in the council of the Trinity,” as Mr.
Arnold calls it. God the Father’s sense of justice could be satisfied
only by the self-sacrificing love of God the Son, and hence the death
of Christ upon the cross. It is certainly a characteristic example of a
theological explanation.

The two great dogmas remained really irreconcilable. The Jewish dogma
of the Atonement and the Pagan dogma of the Incarnation entered into
Christianity as the results of opposite religious tendencies, and
they could never be brought into harmony. The inevitable attempt to
reconcile them is chiefly responsible for the formation of the complex
mass of theology which so greatly distinguishes Christianity. One or
the other can strongly influence individual Christians, but it is
impossible for both at once to occupy the same mind.

Now that we have examined the chief consequences of the transition from
Jewish to Pagan Christianity, and dealt with the greater part of the
doctrine of the Trinity, we must investigate the means by which that
doctrine was completed by the inclusion of the third person, the Holy
Spirit.

Throughout the earlier books of the New Testament we find constant
references to the Spirit as a presence abiding with the Church. As
used most frequently, the term simply means inspiration, the influence
of God on individual Christians. This sense was derived directly from
the Old Testament. Jahveh’s messengers to his people are there often
described as filled with his spirit, as inspired by him for their
mission. Naturally the early Church believed that this inspiration
was continued under the new dispensation, and that the apostles, its
leaders, were filled with the spirit of God to enable them to perform
their work. But a new feature was introduced into the belief; the
Church held that not merely leading Christians but all Christians were
thus filled with the spirit of God. This was the natural consequence
of the Messianic prophecies. Among the glories of the Messianic times,
the prophets often included, as the result of the reconciliation of
Jahveh and Israel, the resting of the inspiration of God on all his
people, all being his servants just as they were themselves. Of course
the early Jewish Christians applied these prophecies to themselves, and
believed that the spirit of God rested on all the people of his true
Israel, the Christian Church.

But in the early books of the New Testament we also find the term
“spirit” used in a sense applicable only to a distinct being. St. Paul,
in a remarkable passage, speaks of the Spirit as interceding with God
for man.[98] In order to understand the origin of this belief of the
early Church that the spirit of God, as a distinct being, sustained
it in its struggle with the world, it must be remembered that the
Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a movement from among the
unconverted Jews similar to the movement of ancient Israel from among
the Egyptians. They continually looked for analogies between their
circumstances and what was related of the exodus from Egypt. An angel
was believed to have led the Israelites against their enemies,[99] and
the Church would naturally expect a corresponding representative of God
to watch over its progress. But by the prophets the name “spirit” had
been given to this angel;[100] and so the early Christians, believing
that the spirit of God rested on the Church, personified it vaguely
and made it a divine representative abiding continually with them.
They regarded it as the substitute for the personal presence of Christ
which had come to them immediately after his death. And thus the belief
in the Holy Spirit was connected with the expectation of the second
advent; it had come when Christ had left the Church, and when he
returned its mission would be ended.

When the expectation of the second advent was abandoned, and a stay on
earth after his death was assigned to Christ, the Church’s ideas of
the Spirit underwent a further development. As it was the substitute
for his presence, it could only have come after his ascension. Just as
the ascension had been imagined as a suitable close of Christ’s stay
on earth, so now a solemn ceremony was imagined to mark the entrance
of the Spirit on its mission. The day of Pentecost, the recognized
anniversary of the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, appeared the
fittest time for this ceremony.[101] As the founding of the law was
regarded as the true beginning of the life of Israel, the coming of the
Spirit seemed to match it and to form the true beginning of the life
of the Christian Church. The construction of this tradition, as we
have it in the Acts of the Apostles, was one of the last results of the
influence of Judaism on Christianity.

At about the same time this influence was shown in another doctrine
in connection with the belief in the Holy Spirit. I have already
said that, when the mainly Pagan dogma of the miraculous conception
of Christ was created, Jewish Christianity was able slightly to
spiritualize it. By making the Spirit the agent on the divine side of
that conception, the dogma was as far as possible purified from its
taint of grossness.

Until after the time of the Nicene Council, the general belief in the
Holy Spirit remained in this vague undefined form. The Church regarded
it as a personified influence, and gave it little attention. In the
Nicene Creed there is no dogma of the Trinity; only two persons of
the Trinity as yet existed. In the fully developed Creed merely vague
language is applied to the Spirit; it is spoken of as a distinct being,
but its union with the Father and the Son is not asserted. The phrase,
“Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,” shows, as Feuerbach
points out,[102] how loose an idea of personality was attached to it,
and is very different from the precise terms in which the Creed defines
the production of the Son. The subsequent dispute between the Eastern
and Western Churches in reference to the “filioque” of the Latin form
of this Creed rendered it impossible for Christian theology to remain
satisfied with the Nicene definition of the Spirit. Always regarded as
divine, there was now a natural tendency to declare it to be God. A
mystery of three in one was a puzzle no more perplexing than a mystery
of two in one. And so the Holy Spirit was included in the divine
Government, and the dogma of the Trinity was complete.

The full doctrine of the Trinity, philosophically expressed, is this.
God the Father is God the absolute, incomprehensible and unapproachable
by created things. God the Son is part of God the relative, the creator
and saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is the rest of God the
relative, the sustainer and guide of the world. Thus it is evident
that the third person of the Trinity philosophically has no existence;
its functions are only carved out of those of the second. And this
philosophical non-existence of the third person has its reflection in
theology. In spite of the Athanasian Creed, the Holy Spirit is only
a shadow in Christian belief. Intellectually the sincere Christian
is convinced of the existence of God the Father; emotionally he is
convinced of the existence of God the Son; but of the existence of God
the Holy Spirit he is not convinced at all, and he asserts it merely in
the empty forms of traditional dogma.

We have now dealt with all the chief dogmas of Christianity. The
Atonement, the Incarnation, the full doctrine of the Trinity, and the
more important of the circumstances believed to be connected with the
life and death of Christ—in fact, all the dogmas of the Creeds, have
passed under our review. Only minor doctrines, in regard to which there
are differences of opinion among Christians, remain to be noticed.




CHAPTER VI.

CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY.


From the time of the completion of the doctrine of the Incarnation,
Christianity steadily advanced towards Paganism. Gradually all the
characteristics of polytheism crept into the Church. Idolatry, embodied
specially in an important doctrine to be mentioned presently, was
embodied generally in the worship of images. The great principle of
local government in religion which distinguished Pagan polytheism
became Christian by the worship of saints. This was soon the chief
feature of ordinary Christianity. To the average Christian the local
saint appeared the representative of heaven, the appointed agent
through whom heavenly blessings were to be obtained. The Christian
doctrine of the soul’s immortality, originally derived from Judaism,
was Paganised into a resemblance to the ideas on the subject which had
vaguely entered into most forms of Paganism. The old belief of the
Jewish Church that dead Christians “slept” until the resurrection had
become heretical by the middle of the third century.[103] The doctrine
of purgatorial penance was introduced into Christianity. For this,
indeed, quite apart from Pagan influence, there was a very good reason.
In the early days of the Church, with the moral influence of Judaism
still strong on it, and the danger of persecution keeping it pure from
unworthy members, probably almost all Christians were fairly good.
Being good, they were fit for heaven or the heavenly reign of Christ;
and so there was no difficulty in making the simple acceptance of
Christianity the test of salvation. But when the Church became popular,
and especially when it became the acknowledged religious system of
the empire, it was plain that a large proportion of its members were
by no means fit for heaven. And yet, with its looser Pagan hold on
morality, it did not care to consign to damnation faithful believers in
its doctrines. The old ideas, latent generally in Paganism, and given
special expression in the mysteries, of penal purification from evil
exactly met the difficulty, and accordingly they were incorporated in
Christianity. As before in the case of the Incarnation, it was the
need of the Church that really created the doctrine; Paganism only
determined its form.

Christianity took all its supernaturalism of evil from Judaism, that
is, from the later developments of Judaism, with hardly the slightest
change. The belief in a chief devil, having subordinates under him, in
hell or some such kind of irrevocable punishment, characterized late
Judaism as much as Christianity. In general, this supernaturalism of
evil was less strongly developed in Pagan religions, or rather, to
speak more precisely, it was a feature of eastern far more than of
western theology. Still Christian Paganism, though mainly western,
had no difficulty in accepting it, and it afterwards became the chief
support of medieval superstition.

The decline and final ruin of the empire of Rome transformed the
outward structure of Christianity. The empire died under the hands
of northern barbarians, but it attained a resurrection in the shape
of the Papal Church. After the separation of the Eastern and Western
Churches, the line of Christian development passed through the latter
alone, the former remaining stagnant in consequence of its union with
political despotism. The free Church of the west, becoming the real
representative of Christianity, gradually embodied in itself all the
attributes of imperial power. The Pope succeeded the Emperor; bishops
succeeded the provincial legates; the religious tyranny of Catholicism
succeeded the political tyranny of Cesarism. The pomp and ceremonial
of the empire were transferred to the Church. The spirit of sensuous
worship latent always in Christian Paganism of course was encouraged
by this, and expressed itself in a complex ritual. But most of all
Catholic imperialism exalted the clergy above the laity.

This exaltation of the clergy was the direct result of the transference
of the imperial power to the Church. The long reign of despotism in the
empire had unfitted the people of it for any approach to freedom. Just
as formerly they had submitted to the material power which had had its
centre in Rome, so now they submitted to the spiritual power which had
its centre in Rome. Only by the slow training of many centuries was
part of the population of Europe prepared for resistance to clerical
tyranny. The Reformation rested on the political development of the
peoples among whom it was successful. The clergy were the guardians,
for good or for evil, of the childhood of the modern world.

The complicated system of sacraments which now arose in Christianity
was largely the expression of priestly power. The distinction made
between clergy and laity in the celebration of the Eucharist showed
this in its clearest form. But most of all the power of absolution gave
the priest an unlimited supremacy. Holding the keys of heaven and of
hell, he was the master of the Christian’s soul. The foundation of this
doctrine, as well as that of the general recognition of an authority
peculiar to the clergy, was laid in the willing reverence felt by
the early Church for the apostles, for the men who had actually seen
its founder. Clerical despotism cannot be ascribed to the spirit of
Paganism as distinguished from the spirit of Judaism. But still, in its
extreme development under the pressure of changes in the Pagan world,
it was a Pagan feature of Christianity.

A most important distinctly Pagan doctrine was connected with this idea
of clerical sanctity. I have already referred to the belief of the
early Church that the body and blood of Christ were really present in
the elements of the Eucharist. It is quite clear from the language of
St. Paul that this belief in the real presence was not a belief that
the elements were actually changed into Christ’s body and blood.[104]
By the faith of the communicant the sacrament was accomplished, and
without faith it had no existence. The Eucharist was evidently then
regarded as a constantly recurring sacrament of the once offered
sacrifice of Christ’s death, which it commemorated and declared until
he came again. That this was an exceedingly delicate doctrine which
could be easily misinterpreted is obvious. It naturally developed into
a grosser form when Paganism, with its leaning towards idolatry, became
paramount in the Church. The elements were then formally consecrated,
and were regarded as the actual flesh and blood of Christ. As his body,
they were laid on the altar and made an object of worship. This, of
course, was simple idolatry. United with the dogma of the Incarnation,
it enabled the Christian to adore God as visibly present in a material
shape. The doctrine was connected with the exaltation of the clergy,
as the power of consecration was confined to them. Thus the sacrament
of the Eucharist became the sacrifice of the mass. The elements being
actually changed into his flesh and blood, Christ was again made a
victim; his sacrificial death was repeated as often as the ceremony;
and so the Jewish dogma of the Atonement was linked with ideas utterly
antagonistic to Judaism.[105]

The deification of the Virgin Mary was another wholly Pagan development
of Christianity. Female divinities were common in Pagan polytheism,
and female saints replaced them in Christian Paganism. After Christ,
as man, had been made the God of Christianity, this tendency to give
both sexes divine representatives produced the exaltation of the Virgin
as his female correlative. She became the goddess of Christianity,
the real third person of the Trinity, as Feuerbach calls her.[106] As
mother and wife of God, she satisfied the human instincts of Pagan
religion; and so the Church ultimately put all heavenly power into her
hands. The asceticism of later Christianity at the same time created
the dogma of her perpetual virginity. At last, as a divine being, she
was encircled with an atmosphere of miraculous privilege even from
before her birth.

The most striking feature of Pagan Christianity, monasticism, was due
to a variety of causes. In part it had its origin in the personal
character of Christ. His insistence on inward purity was not far
removed from asceticism. But though monastic asceticism may have had
some of its roots in later developments of Judaism, it was foreign
to Judaism as a whole. Judaism was remarkable for its clearness and
balance; it pushed nothing too far. Monasticism in reality was chiefly
derived from eastern Paganism, from the tendency towards asceticism
so common in Oriental religions. The same tendency produced another
important effect on western Christianity, namely, the celibacy of the
regular clergy. When this became an accepted doctrine, the finishing
touch was given to clerical power. Henceforth the Roman Church was the
most highly organized ecclesiastical system the world has ever seen.
With no recognized interests outside his calling, every priest belonged
body and soul to a vast disciplined mass which moved and acted like
one man.

Thus highly organized, the Church plunged into the darkest period of
the Middle Ages. For the evils of this period Christianity cannot
fairly be held responsible, except in so far as it contributed to the
ruin of the Roman empire. Throughout it, on the whole, the Church
was a centre of light, keeping alive the embers of civilization, and
softening the barbarous tendencies of the time. But in passing through
it Christianity suffered fearfully. The ignorance and harshness and
corruption of the age were stamped ineffaceably upon it. And this was
inevitable. In every civilized country at almost every time there are
sure to be two forms of the general religion, one popular, the other
that of the more educated classes. The popular religion, resting on
ignorance, is always a mere superstition; the other religion, kept
clear by partial knowledge from offensive crudities, is the recognized
form. But during the worst period of the Middle Ages there was no
such distinction; all religion was popular; even the highest classes
were hopelessly lost in superstition. The gloom of this superstition,
the shadow of the wretchedness of the age, left a lasting mark on
Christianity. The terror of life was transferred to death; death was
associated with the most repulsive images, and closely connected with
hell. The fear of hell became the motive power of religion; to escape
hell was to the Christian the end of life.[107] The superstitious
elements from which Christianity is now struggling to release itself
were mainly developed in its passage through this period.

During it the moral corruption of Christianity was enormous. The Church
laid stress, not on righteous conduct, but on orthodox thinking.
Heresy was irremediably damnable, but crimes and sins could be easily
compounded for. The immorality of the clergy, due partly to the general
corruption of the time, and partly to their legal celibacy, was closely
connected with the toleration of sin shown in the action of the Church.
Rotten itself, the ecclesiastical power was ever ready, in return for
material benefits, to open the gates of heaven to secular sinners.
The whole course of medieval Christianity was a progress towards the
doctrine of indulgences which immediately provoked the Reformation.

The moral decline of Christianity was the mark of its progress towards
Paganism. It receded further from its original basis in Judaism as its
dogmas became more complex and its hold on morality more uncertain.
The complexity of doctrine encouraged the decline in morality,
religious attention being drawn by it from practical conduct to the
consideration of nice points of theology. A reaction against this
tendency was inevitable. Christianity had shared in the descent of
European civilization, and when European civilization began to ascend,
Christianity had to ascend along with it. But the reaction, as it was
against a corruption which was inextricably linked with the Paganism of
the Church, could not fail to oppose itself to Paganism, that is, to
recoil back to Judaism. And this is the explanation of the Reformation.
It was the revival of Judaism in Christianity. As the revival of Jewish
Christianity, it was sure to occur sooner or later; once the thought
and knowledge of Europe awakened from their medieval slumber, the
revolt against Paganism was bound to begin. The renewal of intellectual
life involved the renewal of moral life. The restored conscience of
Europe would protest first against the later corruptions of Pagan
Christianity; but these were inseparably connected with earlier ones,
and so step by step reformers would have to ascend along the line,
until at last they would find themselves the champions of Jewish
Christianity, contending against the forces of Paganism.

Thus the great schism which the Reformation caused in Christianity was
inevitable from the first. Paganism could not be eradicated by the
revival of Judaism. The more ignorant and backward races were sure to
cling to it in opposition to the progressive spirit which revolted
from it. The schism in Christianity was as inevitable as the schism
which it occasioned in Judaism, the necessity of which was shown in
our second chapter. And just as the expansion of Judaism which Christ
made a practical success was in its main features quite independent of
the influence of his personal character, so the main features of the
Reformation were determined apart from the personal influence of the
Reformers.

From the time of the Reformation Jewish and Pagan Christianity stood
side by side. Protestantism revived the principles of the early Church;
Catholicism retained the principles of Paganism. Within the lifetime of
Luther the change was accomplished. He himself, because he assailed one
immoral doctrine of the corrupt Roman Church, was forced to travel back
along fourteen centuries of religious development.

Of course Protestantism cannot be exactly the same as the religion
of the Jewish Church. Just as Pagan Christianity was compelled to
retain Jewish dogmas, so Protestantism was compelled to retain Pagan
dogmas. It had nothing to rest on except the Canon of Scripture, and
part of the New Testament is Pagan in spirit. Accordingly, the dogmas
of earlier Paganism, which were developed while it was still mixed
with Judaism in the Church, were preserved in Protestantism. It kept,
for instance, the great Pagan dogma of the Incarnation. Still, so far
as general principle is concerned, Protestantism fairly represents
Judaism, and Catholicism Paganism in Christianity. This is evident if
they are fully compared with each other.

The Pagan character of Catholicism has already been shown. As
Catholicism—and this term covers more than the Roman Church—has
retained all the doctrines which we have examined as representative
of Paganism in Christianity, this is obvious. Similarly the non-Pagan
character of Protestantism is clear from its rejection of all the
later of these doctrines, from the worship of saints to the immaculate
conception. Its Jewish character must be shown by a reference to the
principles of our comparison of Judaism and Paganism.

The chief distinctive doctrine of Protestantism is justification
by faith alone. That in this it resembles Jewish Christianity, a
glance at St. Paul’s epistles is sufficient to show. It is also
plain that this doctrine is closely connected with the great Jewish
dogma of the Atonement. According to it, sins are washed away by the
blood of Christ, the victim offered to God. But the benefits of the
sacrifice are obtained solely by faith; the merits of the Christian
cannot enhance its value. Still more closely, however, is the
doctrine connected with the feature distinctive of Protestantism as
of Judaism, its loftier conception of God. This, as was pointed out
in our last chapter, is the peculiarity of monotheism, and it shows
the monotheistic character of Protestantism. Catholicism, having
inherited polytheistic ideas from Paganism, naturally recognizes the
value of man’s good works. In the saints whom he worships the Catholic
sees beings who, though they were once fallible like himself, have
yet obtained heavenly authority; and, as he is thus conscious of no
important difference between his divinities and himself, he is not
disposed to underestimate the worth of his virtue.

As a necessary consequence of its distinctive doctrine, Protestantism
is characterized by humility. It depresses human excellence and
heightens the sense of sin. In this it develops what were, as we saw
before, the essential tendencies of Judaism. And, curiously enough, the
phenomenon which appeared in Judaism—theological humility more than
counterbalanced by exclusive pride—appears also in the extreme forms
of Protestantism. The religion of the Puritans was ultra-Protestant in
its insistence on the utter sinfulness of human nature and the need
of faith; and yet no class of men were ever prouder than they. Like
the Jews, they felt their pride as the people, the elect of God, who
were honoured by him above the rest of mankind. The same phenomenon
can be observed at the present day among the extreme Evangelical sects
which keep the far frontier of Protestantism. In them we also find
theoretically religious humility, and practically the most intense
religious pride. And, indeed, both in these sects and in Puritanism
we see Protestantism fully developed in its likeness to its parent
Judaism, with the harshness and exclusiveness of Judaism thinly veiled
under a nominal Christianity.

Again, Protestantism resembles Judaism in its higher morality.
Protestants as a whole are certainly more moral than Catholics as
a whole. At first sight this seems remarkable, as morality is not
encouraged by the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone.
But, as a matter of fact, the priestly absolution of Catholicism is
a much more immoral doctrine. In practice, as might be expected, the
belief in justification by faith alone does less mischief than the
belief that sins can be got rid of by a visit to the nearest church.
Of course, in addition to this, the higher theology of Protestantism
favours morality, just as the higher theology of Judaism did. So far as
it is purer and more rational than Catholicism, it naturally is more
moral, and allies itself less easily with ignorance and animalism.

Protestantism, too, is like Judaism in having for its basis a written
revelation. The Bible is to Protestants what the law and the prophets
were to Jews. This feature of Protestantism is obviously connected with
its depreciation of human excellence. It makes men simply vessels for
the reception of a finished system of religious truth. Catholicism, on
the other hand, by its assertion of a continuously inspired Church,
which in every generation may develop new dogmas, plainly assigns a
higher position in religion to man.

As regards simplicity of thought and worship, there is clearly the same
opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism that there was between
Judaism and Paganism. Catholicism is remarkable more than Protestantism
for complexity of doctrine and sensuousness in worship. We will now
consider how far this opposition shows itself in their treatment of the
great dogmas which nominally are common to them both.

The Atonement being the chief Jewish dogma of Christianity, we should
expect it to be more prominent in Protestantism than in Catholicism.
And this is strictly the case. Catholicism lays no stress on the
doctrine. In a very able work by Mr. S. Baring-Gould, which presents
the religion of Catholicism in its truest form, the Atonement is made
simply symbolical, and the death of Christ is regarded as hardly
necessary to his work.[108] Protestantism, on the other hand, makes
the Atonement its primary dogma. “The blood of Jesus,” is its central
cry. It links the dogma with its distinctive doctrine; justification
by faith in the reconciling death of Christ is the essence of its
theology, and sums up its multitudinous preaching.

We also find the great Pagan dogma of Christianity, the Incarnation,
more prominent in Catholicism than in Protestantism. That God became
man is the central assertion of Catholicism, on which it bases its
higher estimation of human dignity. This can plainly be seen in the
work last referred to, where the Incarnation is regarded as the
condition of theistic religion.[109] But it is still more evident
in the tendency of Catholic theology to exalt the divinity at the
expense of the humanity of Christ, for manifestly the doctrine of the
Incarnation is expanded and made more important in proportion as the
difference between it and the original Jewish belief in the simple
humanity of Christ is increased. The Athanasian Creed is thoroughly
Catholic, and its definition of the nature of Christ involves the
destruction of his human personality. Catholic theologians have boldly
adopted this conclusion, and assert that his personality is wholly
divine.[110] Instinctively the Catholic always thinks of Christ as God.

Protestantism, on the contrary, never dwells on the Incarnation. The
extreme Evangelical sects, in which its principles are fully developed,
are perpetually drifting towards Unitarianism. But, as in the case
of Catholicism, its interpretation of the doctrine best reveals its
tendencies. It exalts the humanity at the expense of the divinity of
Christ. It holds him up as an example in a manner which implies his
human personality. Instinctively the Protestant always thinks of Christ
as man.

In their treatment of the Eucharist the respective characteristics of
Catholicism and Protestantism are also evident. We have already seen
the Paganism of the Catholic doctrine of the real presence. Equally the
two Protestant doctrines show the influence of Judaism on Christianity.
The first, the Evangelical doctrine, which allows the Eucharist no
sacramental value, and makes it simply a commemoration of the sacrament
which accompanied the sacrifice of Christ’s death, was probably the
belief of the Jewish Church at its very beginning; the second, and more
general one, which asserts the real presence, but only in a spiritual
sense through the faith of the communicant, we know to have been the
belief of the later Jewish Church in the time of St. Paul. If it were
not for the pressure of Catholicism, it is likely that the second would
be the doctrine of all forms of Protestantism. But when Catholics have
so exaggerated the real presence, Protestants, by a natural reaction,
are tempted to deny it altogether.

Thus the two systems of religion which Christianity seemed to unite
have plainly parted again. The Judaism in which it was born, and the
Paganism in which it reached its maturity, stand once more side by
side. And not merely does Christianity reveal so manifestly that great
opposing forces met in its history, but in reality every important
feature of the long course of development which has been the subject
of our survey, is recorded as clearly in its present structure as
the chief conditions of the past evolution which has produced it are
recorded in the structure of an animal organism.




CHAPTER VII.

THE PERMANENCE OF DOGMATIC RELIGION.


In the course of our inquiry, one fact has been made strikingly
manifest, namely, the persistence of religious ideas. We found that
Christianity at its beginning was only the result of a tendency long
latent in Judaism, that its doctrines were wholly Jewish while its
adherents were chiefly Jews, and that afterwards, when Pagans in large
numbers entered the Church, they carried with them and made Christian
the principles of their Pagan religions. Similarly we saw that no new
religion was created by the Reformation, that it was merely an instance
of reversion, of the falling back of part of Christianity to an older
type. In fact, from our study of this subject, we might conclude that
religious ideas are practically indestructible, or, at least, that they
can only be modified by gradual processes working during long periods
of time.

This conclusion would be unquestionably correct, and it especially
needs to be insisted on at the present moment. A conviction is general
among enlightened men that we are on the threshold of a great religious
revolution, which is to be effected by the speedy destruction of
Christianity and the consequent abolition of supernatural religion.
There seems to be some reason for this belief. Within the last
half-century Christianity has declined considerably. Thought and
culture have broken loose from it. Fifty years ago the vast majority
of the men of letters and science of Europe professed some form of it;
now only a small minority do so, and even this minority is steadily
growing smaller. We might predict with almost absolute certainty that
fifty years hence hardly a single believer in dogmatic Christianity
will be found among the leading men of European literature and science.
Christianity is dying at the top.

There is a certain resemblance between this state of things and the
condition of the Roman world at the time Christianity was beginning to
conquer it. Pagan religions then were dying at the top. Philosophers
despised them and wits laughed at them; the thought of the age was
as completely agnostic as the thought of our own day is tending to
become. A thinker, studying the phenomena of the period, might then
have reasonably concluded that supernatural religion was destined
speedily to perish, that, as men of learning had abandoned it, after
a short time their views would spread downwards, and be adopted by
all classes of the people. How exquisitely this conclusion would
have been exposed by the irony of history! Ten centuries later the
religious ideas then current among the populace were common to every
class, and the descendants and representatives of the philosophers who
rejected super-naturalism were employing their philosophical powers
in determining exactly the nature of angels. Perhaps the future is
preparing a similar exposure for the philosophers of our own day, who
are confident that supernatural religion will soon be a curiosity of
the past. A few centuries hence, if esoteric Buddhism shall take the
place of Christianity, perhaps philosophy will be engaged in explaining
the meaning of “karma,” and science will be occupied in ascertaining
the exact nature of an astral body.

Supernaturalism has just as much vitality now as it had a century
after Christ. Even if within the next few hundred years Christianity
were to become wholly extinct, the ideas underlying it would simply
be transferred to some other form of dogmatic religion. The decline
of Christianity now, like the decline of the Paganism of the Roman
empire, so far as it is real, is the prelude to the formation of new
religions. If the support to which the religious ideas of a generation
have attached themselves is overthrown, they soon find another system
to sustain them. The fall of an old religion is the signal for the rise
of a new.

Signs of this transfer of religious allegiance are distinctly visible
at present. There is the same mixture of credulity and scepticism
now that there was in the first century of the Christian era. We,
too, have a philosophical class intensely sceptical, but we also
have a class of people who are eager votaries of new religions and
excessively credulous. The credulity of the many is the consequence of
the scepticism of the few, and is the mark of religious change. It now
characterizes those whose faith in Christianity is shaken, but in whom
religious ideas are as strong as ever.

The religious ideas now embodied in Christianity and stamped
on the general mass of mankind come under the head of dogmatic
supernaturalism; they are most of them concerned with God, personal
immortality, heaven, and hell. This dogmatic supernaturalism began
with the earliest illusions which created religion thousands of years
ago. Since then, with every step of his upward progress, man has been
more and more the slave of religious dogma. The higher religions of
historical times have multiplied assertions about unknown phenomena;
Christianity, the highest of religions, has done so most of all. Having
inherited, then, this vast inheritance of belief in supernatural
dogma, which began to accumulate in the remotest ages, and has since
been enlarged and made sure by the great religion which for fifteen
hundred years has been identified with the main civilization of the
world, how can men of our own day lightly shake off supernaturalism!
A few here and there, as variations from the general type necessarily
limited in number, may manage to put it aside after a severe contest
with the irrational instincts which they have inherited. But so far as
the mass of mankind are concerned, ages must elapse before the work of
ages can be undone.

Just as in the first century the disbelief of philosophers had
discredited the Pagan religions, so now the disbelief of men of
thought is discrediting Christianity. And as a certain class of Pagans
then turned from the discredited religions to find another basis for
their religious ideas, so now a certain class of people are seeking
a basis for their religious ideas apparently surer than discredited
Christianity. There is a difference of degree between the two periods;
Christianity is not yet as much discredited as the Pagan religions
were when it attacked them. We have not yet reached the condition of
the time when the mysteries were the last props of Paganism, and the
importation of foreign religions was one of the recognized industries
of Rome. But the seeds of the development of such phenomena are
plainly visible. Spiritualism and the Psychical Research Society are
the rudiments of Christian mysteries, and certainly attempts on a small
scale are being made to import religions into London from Syria and
India.

Here in England between the large class of those who still believe in
Christianity and the small class of those who put the supernatural
wholly aside lies the class, continually increasing in numbers, of
those who have lost faith in Christianity, but have not lost faith in
the ideas which form the essence of it. Books like “Esoteric Buddhism”
and Mr. Laurance Oliphant’s “Sympneumata” are written for and by
members of this class. The absurd weakness of such attempts to give the
supernatural a natural basis does not in the least detract from their
popular power.

Life is full of inevitable illusions, and only a few are in a position
to detect their illusive character. In regard to these illusions,
the belief of the great majority of mankind must be determined by
authority; they can only choose between alternative authorities. And
their choice cannot rest on strong grounds of personal conviction. The
class of people just mentioned, for instance, who have lost faith in
Christianity, for the most part could give but poor reasons for their
refusal to accept its dogmas. They simply feel that it is discredited,
and they do not like to be on the losing side. Any system which
embodies their religious ideas, and does not appear to be discredited,
they will believe in readily, even though it has not a particle of
evidence to support it.

Moreover, when men in general have to choose between authorities whose
real weight they are not in a position to determine, their wishes
naturally affect their choice. If one alternative is pleasanter than
the other, they are sure to decide in its favour. Take, for instance,
the belief in personal immortality. This rests on an illusion which
can be seen through only by the exercise of a certain amount of
philosophical imagination, namely, the impossibility of conceiving its
own extinction inherent in the mind’s consciousness of life. As every
one wishes to be immortal, that is, shrinks from the return to his
pre-natal non-existence; and as nearly every one, besides, has lost
some loved relative or friend whose death he cannot bear to think of as
a final effacement, most people are quite ready to accept this illusion
as valid evidence of the truth of the belief. Thus a religious system
which asserts the immortality of the soul so far has mankind on its
side. And the long influence of Christianity, which from the beginning
has been built on the doctrine of personal immortality, has of course
co-operated with its primary attractiveness in stamping it deeply on
the nature of men of our times. Life seems unbearable to many people
unless it is assumed to be true. It is a prominent feature of all our
new religious growths. The Psychical Research Society seeks to confirm
it by the evidence of ghost-stories. Many generations will have to pass
away before mankind in general can renounce it, and till then, if only
to supply it with an apparent basis, dogmatic religion must survive.

If the decline of Christianity continues with the rapidity of the
last half-century, a perilous crisis lies before the population of
the civilized world. Old religious ideas seeking a new basis will
produce new upheavals of religious imagination, and a period of intense
superstition will ensue. Whatever might result from such a period, in
itself it could be nothing but evil, a time of darkness and disquiet,
of relaxed morality and charlatan prophets. Fortunately the fall of
Christianity is not likely to be so rapid in the future; the great mass
of mankind may cling to it long after it has parted from the world’s
intellectual life.

The religion of the future certainly will not be the curious system of
Comte. Positivism is only a philosophy masquerading in the garb of a
religion. Its fundamental principle is hopelessly at variance with the
craving for supernatural dogma which has possession of ordinary men.
Equally, of course, a refined Christianity, with the juice of dogma
squeezed out, cannot become the religion of mankind. Religious ideas
need a dogmatic system, and in some form or other their need is sure to
be supplied.

Indeed, it is probable that dogmatic religion will always be a
phenomenon of human life. Man framed it in the beginning, and man is
likely to preserve it to the end. The conditions of existence secure
it an assured tenure. The actual business of living must occupy all
the thoughts of the vast majority of men. In regard to the matters
which lie beyond this they can only walk by faith, and the illusions of
life furnish ample material for faith to work on. A few may have the
leisure to examine phenomena themselves, and thus may attain freedom
from the influence of illusion, and may see things as they really are.
But they can never be more than an infinitesimal minority. And so, from
generation to generation, with the shadows of their hopes and fears,
their loves and hates, men will people the impenetrable darkness which
closes around the mystery of life.




FOOTNOTES:


[1] Against Apion, ii. 40.

[2] See Kuenen’s “Religion of Israel,” i. 226 (Eng. trans.).

[3] See Gen. xxxi. 53; Josh. xxiv. 15; Judges xi. 24; cf. Exod. xv. 11.

[4] Ezekiel (xx. 8) says they were corrupted by the Egyptian religion,
but this is very improbable.

[5] “Religion of Israel,” i. 281 (Eng. trans.).

[6] See Curtius, “Hist. of Greece,” bk. ii. ch. 4.

[7] Acts vii. 22.

[8] See an article by Professor Huxley, _Nineteenth Century_, April,
1886, p. 498.

[9] See, in particular, Lev. vi. 1–7.

[10] Jer. vii. 22; Amos v. 25.

[11] Isa. i. 11; lxvi. 1–4; Hos. vi. 6; Micah vi. 6–8.

[12] Isa. xlv. 12.

[13] Exod. xix. 5, 6; Lev. xxvi. For correlative covenant, see Gen.
xxviii. 20, 21.

[14] “Religion of Israel,” ii. 267 (Eng. trans.).

[15] Lev. v. 11, 12.

[16] Ibid. xvi. 21, 22.

[17] Heb. ix. 22.

[18] 1 Sam. viii. 7.

[19] Josh. xxiv. 15.

[20] Judg. x. 6.

[21] Jer. ii. 28.

[22] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” i. 360 (Eng. trans.).

[23] Isa. i. 11.

[24] Isa. xli. 8.

[25] See Exod. xix. 5, 6.

[26] Isa. lix. 1, 2.

[27] See Isa. xlviii. 18, 19.

[28] For an endeavour to secure future obedience to the covenant,
see 2 Kings xi. 17. From this idea that all Israel’s calamities were
due to the violation of a divine covenant, probably arose the Jewish
explanation of the “origin of evil.” Calamities in general falling on
mankind they would naturally ascribe to the same cause, namely, the
disregard of the commands of God. Hence the story of the fall of man as
we have it in the opening chapters of Genesis.

[29] Jer. xliv. 15–19.

[30] Isa. xxx., xxxi.

[31] 2 Kings xxiii. 29.

[32] For the influence of the captivity on Judaism, see Ewald, “Hist.
of Israel,” v. 24, _seq._ (Eng. trans.), and Kuenen, “Religion of
Israel,” ii. 139 (Eng. trans.).

[33] “History of Israel,” ii. 35 (Eng. trans.).

[34] Jer. xiv. 19–22.

[35] See Ezekiel xxxvii. 24, 25; and cf. Micah v. 2–9. Bethlehem, as
David’s birthplace, was to be the birthplace of David the Messiah.

[36] _Ibid._

[37] Jer. xxxi. 31–34.

[38] Amos iii. 2.

[39] Isa. ii. 2–4; xi. 9, 10.

[40] Ibid. lx. 3, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18.

[41] Ibid. lxi. 5, 6.

[42] Jer. xvi. 19.

[43] Micah vi. 6–8.

[44] Isa. lxvi. 1–4.

[45] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 276 (Eng. trans.).

[46] Isa. lxvi. 18–23.

[47] Isa. lii. 14.

[48] See Tobit iii. 8. How different from Isa. xlv. 6, 7.

[49] 2 Macc. xii. 43–45.

[50] See 1 Macc. xiv. 41.

[51] See Ewald, “Hist. of Israel,” v. 360, _seq._ (Eng. trans.), and
Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 277 (Eng. trans.).

[52] See Milman, “Hist. of Christianity,” i. 82.

[53] “Religion of Israel,” iii. 273 (Eng. trans.).

[54] Dan. vii. 13, 14.

[55] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” sects. 38, 39.

[56] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” sect. 36.

[57] See Matt. xxvi. 26–28, and Mark xiv. 22–24; Luke xxii. 19, 20, and
1 Cor. xi. 23–25; cf. 1 Cor. x. 16.

[58] See Exod. xii. 3–30.

[59] Isa. liii. 10, 12.

[60] 1 Cor. x. 16.

[61] Rom. iii. 24, 25; v. 6–11; viii. 3; 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17; cf. 1
Pet. ii. 24.

[62] 2 Cor. v. 19.

[63] Isa. lxv. 17; cf. Rev. xxi. 1.

[64] See Milman, “History of Christianity,” i. 378.

[65] 1 Thess. v. 1–10.

[66] Rom. xi. 25–27.

[67] 1 Cor. xv.

[68] Rev. xx., xxi.; cf. 2 Esdras vii. 28–33.

[69] Rom. v., vi.

[70] Acts xvii. 18.

[71] 1 Cor. xv. 1–20.

[72] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 49.

[73] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 98; 1 Cor. xv. 5–8.

[74] Rom. i. 3, 4.

[75] 1 Cor. xv. 45–49; Rom. viii. 16, 17.

[76] Rom. viii. 3; Gal. iv. 4, 5.

[77] See Baur, “Church History,” part iv., and “Life of Paul,” part
iii., chaps. vi. and viii.

[78] 1 Cor. viii. 6.

[79] Of course no importance can be attached to the “God blessed for
ever” of Rom. ix. 5, which either, as is generally thought, does
not refer to Christ at all, or, if it does, is obviously a late
interpolation suggested to the copyist by Rom. 1. 25.

[80] See Renan, “Les Apôtres,” chap. xvi.

[81] “History of Rationalism,” ii. 203.

[82] See Kuenen, “Religion of Israel,” iii. 271 ($1–$2.).

[83] Against Apion, ii. 17.

[84] “History of Christianity,” i. 94, note.

[85] Matt. 1. 23.

[86] See Strauss, “New Life of Jesus,” section 98.

[87] 1 Cor. xv. 4.

[88] Hos. vi. 2. It may also have been founded on the accepted date of
the earliest vision.

[89] Prov. viii. 22–30.

[90] Ps. xxxiii. 6.

[91] There can be little doubt that δ λὁγοςδ in Philo means the word
rather than the reason of God. He evidently used the term as a Jew,
with the language of Genesis in his mind. This language itself is
an interesting product of eastern anthropomorphism, which naturally
conceived God as working like a despot by simply issuing his commands.

[92] Quis ... Heres, 42.

[93] “Religion of Israel,” iii. 202 (Eng. trans.).

[94] The gospel being written in order to satisfy a need of the Church,
it is obvious that this need would ensure its immediate acceptance.
The Church was not likely to question the genuineness of a document
which contained exactly what it required. So we may safely assign the
composition of the gospel a date immediately preceding that of the
first trustworthy evidence of its existence.

[95] John i. 1, 3.

[96] Ibid. i. 14.

[97] 1 Pet. ii. 22–24.

[98] Rom. viii. 26, 27.

[99] Exod. xxiii. 20–23.

[100] Isa. lxiii. 9, 10; Haggai ii. 5; cf. Neh. ix. 20. It was probably
with reference to the storm as the most destructive phenomenon
of nature that the name “breath of God” was given to the angel
commissioned by him to destroy the enemies of his people.

[101] Milman, “History of Christianity,” i. 352.

[102] “Essence of Christianity,” chap. xv.

[103] See Eusebius, “Ecclesiastical History,” bk. vi. chap. 37.

[104] 1 Cor. xi. 29.

[105] The origin of this doctrine must not be confused with the
scholastic defence of it.

[106] “Essence of Christianity,” chap. vi.

[107] Before the beginning of this period, Christianity was inspired
chiefly by the hope of gaining heaven; since the beginning of it,
Christianity has been inspired chiefly by the hope of escaping hell.

[108] “The Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” ii. 307 _seq._

[109] “The Origin and Development of Religious Belief,” vol. ii. ch. 7.

[110] See Liddon’s “Bampton Lectures,” p. 259 _seq._, 7th edit.


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