0F * With such helps as these, to be an inefficient 
 teacher is to be blameworthy.”—Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 §i bk Qlltiss primers. 
 
 _ EDITED B^ REV. PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D. 
 
 In paper coiej^ Qd. each ; free by post, Id. In cloth, 8d. each; 
 * ' — free by post, 9 d. 
 
 THE MAKING OF ISRAEL FROM JOSEPH TO JOSHUA. 
 
 By Rev. C. A. Scott, B.A. 
 
 THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. By Rev. Professor 
 
 Iverach, M.A. 
 
 A'3-TBE SABBATH. By Rev. Prof. Salmond, D.D. 
 
 _ , OUR CHRISTIAN PASSOVER. By Rev. C. A. Sal- 
 
 g -4 y/i mond, M.A. 
 
 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. By Rev. Professor 
 r ; Salmond, D.D. 
 
 THE STORY OF JERUSALEM. By the Rev. Hugh 
 Callan, M.A., Glasgow. 
 
 THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM. By Rev. C. A. Scott, B.A. 
 THE HISTORICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE OLD 
 AND NEW TESTAMENTS. By Rev. Professor John 
 Skinner, M.A. 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. By Rev. Professor Salmond, 
 D.D. 
 
 THE SHORTER CATECHISM. By Rev. Professor Sal- 
 mond, D.D. Part I. (Q. 1 to 38). Part II. (Q. 
 39 to 81). Part III. (Q. 82 to 107). 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES. By the Rev. Professor 
 Paterson, M.A., Edinburgh. 
 
 OUTLINES OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS. By John 
 Robson, D.D. 
 
 LIFE OF THE APOSTLE PETER. By Rev. Professor 
 Salmond, D.D. 
 
 OUTLINES OF EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. By the late 
 Rev. Henry Wallis Smith, D.D. 
 
 LIFE OF DAVID. By the late Rev. Peter Thomson, 
 M.A. 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street, Edinburgh 
 
Bible Class primers. 
 
 EDITED BV PROFESSOR SALMOND, D.D., ABERDEEN. 
 
 THE 
 
 TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY 
 
 l/' 
 
 JAMES IVERACH, M.A., D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF APOLOGETICS AND EXEGESIS OF THE GOSPELS, 
 FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, ABERDEEN; 
 
 Author of “Is God Know able 1 ? " “ Evolution and Christianity&>c. 
 
 (Eiinbtttgh: 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 33 GEORGE STREET. 
 
4 
 
 sob “=^r 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I.—Christianity and Heathenism . 7-15 
 
 Christianity at the End of the Second Century—Its Extent 
 —Its Contrast with Heathenism—Character of Christianity 
 —What a Convert to Christianity had to Surrender—Com¬ 
 pleteness of the Change from Heathenism to Christianity 
 —What were the Reasons which persuaded a Jew or a 
 Heathen to become a Christian ? 
 
 Chapter II.—Presuppositions of Christianity 15-24 
 
 Christianity a Religion of Redemption—Assumptions made 
 by Christianity — Christianity began in Palestine — What 
 were the Ideas of God, of Man, and of the World among 
 the Jews four hundred years before the Coming of Christ? 
 — These contrasted with those of Greece and Rome — 
 Remarkable Character of the Contrast. 
 
 Chapter III.—Christianity and Judaism . 24-34 
 
 The Old Testament as understood by the Jews—The 
 Messianic Hope as set forth in the Old Testament, and 
 as current among the Jews—The Jewish and the Christian 
 Messiah—Contrast between them with respect both to the 
 Earthly and the Heavenly Ministry of our Lord—Strauss, 
 Baur, and Professor Estlin Carpenter — The Suffering 
 Saviour — The Messiah of the New Testament quite 
 different from the Messiah expected by the Jews. 
 
 Chapter IV.—The Gospels .... 34-45 
 
 Jesus wrote nothing—The Impression made by Him—His 
 abiding Presence—Uniqueness of the Gospels—The Problem 
 they had to solve, and how they have solved it—Other Ideas 
 of Incarnation, and their failure—The Life of Jesus Christ 
 —His Teaching — The depth of the Gospels, and their 
 inexhaustible fulness. 
 
 Chapter V.—The Origin of the Gospels . 46-56 
 
 Limits of Hebrew Literature—The Gospels written by Jews 
 —Narrowness, conservatism, exclusiveness of the Jews— 
 The Gospels set forth a Universal Religion—In no Litera¬ 
 ture is there a person like Jesus Christ—Whence came He? 
 —How did Jews think of Him?—His story real—He is a 
 Real Personality—He is contemporary of all Generations 
 —All the deeper needs of Man are met in the Gospels. 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter VI.—The Supernatural . . . 57-67 
 
 The Demand of Strauss—His Procedure—Result of it is to 
 give us an Impersonal Christ—Attempts to reduce Christ 
 to the level of Ordinary Humanity—“Translation”—Can 
 we “translate” the Christian Movement, or the Christian 
 Documents, or Christ Himself to the level of Common 
 History?—Christ’s Miraculous Works natural to Him— 
 Character of the Gospel Miracles. 
 
 Chapter VII.—The Testimony of Paul . . 67-77 
 
 The Influence of Jesus Christ over the Original Apostles— 
 Could Christ influence Men who did not know Him during 
 His Earthly Ministry ?—Paul’s Answer—Paul’s Experience 
 —His Conversion—Made Captive by Christ—His Surrender 
 to Christ—The Risen Christ can take possession of Men’s 
 Lives—Paul’s Epistles—The Conception of Christ contained 
 in them, also of His Life, Mission, Work—The Christian 
 Life a Real Life, accounted for only if Christ be Real. 
 
 Chapter VIII.—Christianity and the Roman 
 
 Empire.78-90 
 
 The “ Epistle to Diognetus”—Christian Character described 
 in it—Conflict with Heathenism—Separateness of Christians 
 —Christian View of Life destroyed the Basis of Roman 
 Society—Christianity at first not distinguished from Judaism 
 —Persecution for the Name in the Second Century; when 
 did this begin?—The Apologists—Lightfoot, Mommsen, 
 Ramsay, Hardy—Pliny—Nero—Recognition by the Empire 
 of the Character of Christianity—Relation of Christianity 
 to the State —Inference. 
 
 Chapter IX. — Christianity and Greek 
 
 Philosophy.90-101 
 
 Forces arrayed against Christianity—Dr Hatch—Ritschl 
 and his School—Attempts to make Christianity a system 
 of Ideas—The independent character of Christian Theology 
 — Greek conceptions of God — Plato, Aristotle, and the 
 Stoics—Christian Conception of God—Personality—Limits 
 of Christian speculation—Relation of God to the World— 
 Doctrine of Creation — Christian estimate of Man — The 
 Future Life—In relation to their ideas of God, of Man, and 
 the World, there is a decided contrast between Christian and 
 all Pagan Thought—The Problem set to Christian Theology. 
 
THE 
 
 TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM. 
 
 Christianity at the End of the Second Century—Its 
 Extent—Its Contrast with Heathenism—Character 
 of Christianity—What a Convert to Christianity 
 had to surrender—Completeness of the Change 
 from Heathenism to Christianity—What were the 
 Reasons which persuaded a Jew or a Heathen to 
 become a Christian. 
 
 At the end of the second century the life and the 
 literature of the Christian Church were well known 
 throughout the Roman Empire. In Asia Minor, 
 in Egypt, in Africa, in Spain, Italy, and Greece, 
 Christianity was known, and Christians were 
 feared, hated, and persecuted, both by governor 
 and by people. We can tell from contemporary 
 evidence what the beliefs of Christians were, what 
 manner of life they lived, and what were their rela¬ 
 tions to the customs, beliefs, and practices of the 
 people among whom they dwelt. Take the words 
 
8 CHRISTIANITY AND HE A THENISM. 
 
 of Tertullian, written about the year 198 A.D., and 
 think of what they meant. In his Apology, chap, 
 xxxvii., he says, “ We are a people of yesterday, and 
 yet we have filled every place belonging to you— 
 cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very 
 camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum. 
 We leave you your temples only. We can count 
 your armies : our numbers in a single province will 
 be greater. For w r hat war should we not be suf¬ 
 ficient and ready, even though unequal in numbers, 
 who so willingly are put to death, if it were not in 
 this religion of ours more lawful to be slain than 
 to slay” ( Afiol ., chap, xxxvii.). Again he says, “ In 
 whom have all the nations believed but in the 
 Christ who is already come ? The Parthians, the 
 Medes, the Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopotamia, 
 in Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, in Pontus and 
 Asia, in Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of 
 Libya beyond Cyrene, inhabitants of Rome, Jews 
 and proselytes believe in Him. This is the faith 
 of the several tribes of the Getulians, the Moors, 
 the Spaniards, and the various nations of Gaul; the 
 parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans not 
 subject to Jesus Christ, held the same faith, as 
 do also the Sarmatians, the Dacians, the Germans, 
 the Scythians, and many other nations in provinces 
 and islands unknown to us, and which we must fail 
 to enumerate” (Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos, chap. vii.). 
 About fifty years before Tertullian wrote, Justin 
 Martyr could say, “There is not a single race of 
 men, barbarians, Greeks, or by whatever name 
 they may be called, warlike or nomadic, homeless 
 or dwelling in tents, or leading a pastoral life, 
 
EXTENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 9 
 
 among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not 
 offered in the name of Jesus the crucified, to the 
 Father and Creator of all things ” (Justin Martyr, 
 Dial, cum Trypho ., chap, cxvii.). Irenaeus says, 
 “ Such is the common faith and tradition of the 
 churches of Germany, Iberia, and of the Celts, 
 as well as of the East, of Egypt, of Libya, and 
 of the centre of the world” (Contra Haeres ., Book 
 I. chap. x. 2 ). 
 
 It is an historical fact, then, that at the close of 
 the second century, in every province of the Roman 
 Empire, and even beyond the Roman Empire, 
 there were people called Christians, who held cer¬ 
 tain beliefs and led a peculiar life. They were not 
 different in language or in race from the people 
 among whom they dwelt. They spoke the language 
 which their neighbours used, Latin or Greek or 
 Syriac, according to the place where they resided. 
 While the Christians mingled with their neighbours 
 in the intercourse of common life, they were separ¬ 
 ated from the pagans in various ways. “ We 
 renounce,” says Tertullian, “ your spectacles, as 
 much as the matters which gave rise to them, 
 which we know to be conceived of superstition, 
 in that we have got clear of the very things about 
 which these performances were concerned. We 
 have no concern in speaking, seeing, hearing, with 
 the madness of the circus, with the cruelty of the 
 arena, with the folly of the wrestling gallery ” ( Apo /., 
 chap, xxxviii.). 
 
 Whether we consider the great number of 
 Christians, or the separation between them and 
 their neighbours, the facts in either case are re- 
 
io CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM. 
 
 markable. In those days religious practices and 
 observances were bound up with the political, 
 social, and commercial life of the people. Every 
 act, every transaction, had its religious aspect; 
 while, indeed, religious observances, for the most 
 part, were mechanical and ceremonial, and did not 
 mean much when practised, yet the neglect of them 
 might mean something very serious. To bow before 
 an anointed pillar might be done without thought, 
 and simply as a matter of custom ; but to refuse 
 such worship meant a deliberate purpose to break 
 with the system of belief and practice in which a 
 man lived and moved. “ But lately, O blindness ,’ 5 
 says Arnobius, “ I worshipped images produced 
 from the furnace, gods made on anvils and by 
 hammers, the bones of elephants, paintings, 
 wreaths on aged trees: whenever I espied an 
 anointed stone, and one bedaubed with olive oil, 
 as if some power resided in it I worshipped it, I 
 addressed myself to it, and begged blessings from 
 a senseless stock” (Adversus Gentes , chap. i. 39 ). 
 
 These objects of worship met one at every turn, 
 and no one might pass them without some sign of 
 reverence. Universal custom sanctioned these 
 tokens of adoration; certain evil results were believed 
 to follow on the neglect of them : add to this the 
 fact that it was unheard of, unthought of by any 
 people in these Western lands, for any one to change 
 the religion of his fathers, or to change the ancestral 
 customs of worship, and we shall readily see how 
 great must have been those influences which con¬ 
 strained Christians to break away from the religions 
 of the people to whom they belonged. They were 
 
CONTRASTS. 
 
 ii 
 
 bound by their new faith to separate themselves from 
 the beliefs, customs, practices of their nation; to watch 
 themselves lest by some habitual act, such as cast¬ 
 ing themselves prostrate before an anointed pillar, 
 they should be unfaithful to their new Master; and 
 to guard every action and every word that they 
 might keep themselves free from every taint of 
 idolatry; and to avoid the social customs and 
 moods of life which in every fibre of it was filled 
 with the spirit of the olden life which they had 
 renounced. All this involved a strain of the most 
 severe kind, a strain which could be endured only 
 under the pressure of a conviction of the most 
 thorough-going sort. Lay stress for the moment 
 on the fact that to be a Christian meant an entire 
 change of life and habit. It meant that all former 
 ties were broken, that Christians could no longer 
 mingle with their fellows as they were wont to do, 
 that scarcely any social custom could be followed 
 by them, for every social custom was accompanied 
 by some observance which had a religious signifi¬ 
 cance. The separation between Christian and 
 heathen was thus most thorough and complete. 
 
 The characteristics of the new religion made it 
 also a source of wonder and reproach to the 
 heathen. The simplicity of the Christian worship 
 was remarkable. There was no altar, no sacrifice, no 
 temple. It was without a ritual and had no cere¬ 
 monial. There was no priest and no incense. In 
 Jewish and in Pagan religions there were endless 
 sacrifices, ceremonies, altars, and many priests. With 
 the exception of the Synagogue worship up to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, and with the exception of 
 
12 CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM. 
 
 the Jewish worship after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 there was no other religion at the time marked by 
 a similar absence of ritual or ceremonial. The 
 Invisible God was worshipped without any symbolic 
 aid. There were praise and prayer and the reading 
 of the sacred books, and exhortation. The elaborate 
 ritual of the Christian Church was the work of 
 future ages. Up to the beginning of the fourth 
 century there was little or no ritual, and there was 
 no temple. So wide was the departure of Christi¬ 
 anity from the ordinary notions and practices of 
 religion, that the Pagan people could not think of 
 it as a religion in any sense of the word. To 
 them Christianity was atheism. They could recog¬ 
 nise only material gods, who could be seen or at 
 all events represented in bodily fashion. A purely 
 spiritual God, to be worshipped only in spirit and 
 in truth, was to them inconceivable. To them, 
 therefore, Christianity was an irritation and an 
 offence. It vexed them and made them angry, and 
 persecutions arose. 
 
 The point on which we lay stress at present is 
 the greatness of the change which passed over a 
 man when he became a Christian. How many 
 things he had to surrender, and how many new 
 habits he had to form, when he became a follower of 
 Christ. How many ties were broken we need not 
 say. All that made life precious to the ordinary 
 man ; old customs sanctioned by the usage of many 
 generations ; habits which lay at the foundation of 
 individual, social, and city life; hopes and aspir¬ 
 ations which were bound up with every outlook 
 into the future ; and the bonds which held humanity 
 
WHY HEATHENS BECAME CHRISTIANS. 13 
 
 together, seemed to be dissolved at the touch of the 
 new faith, and to fall into ruin at its touch. Need 
 we wonder that the common man resented the 
 injury done to him and his habits of thought and 
 action, and fiercely accused the Christians of dis¬ 
 respect to the gods and of treason to the State? 
 Was not that man an atheist who neglected, nay, 
 who denounced, the ancestral custom of paying 
 respect to the Lares and Penates whenever he 
 returned to his house ; who did not set apart at the 
 family meal the portion of food and drink formerly 
 devoted to the spirits of his ancestors ; who no 
 longer poured libations, or offered sacrifices ; who 
 disregarded omens, and made no further bargains 
 with the gods ? In these, and in a thousand other 
 ways, Christians disregarded the customs they had 
 previously observed; and thus the feelings of the 
 heathen were outraged. 
 
 We need not press further the magnitude of the 
 change, or insist further on the greatness of the con¬ 
 trast between Christianity and heathenism. For in 
 every way the contrast was great. In belief and in 
 conduct, in doctrine, morality, worship, the contrast 
 was unspeakable. And men had passed from the 
 one to the other. They had become Christians. 
 Why ? What led these Greeks, Romans, Syrians, 
 Egyptians, and other races to break with all the 
 beliefs, habits, and customs of their fathers ? What 
 led them to put off the manner of life to which they 
 were accustomed, to change their attitude toward 
 the unseen world, towards their fellow-men, and 
 towards themselves ? What led them to love what 
 once they hated, and hate what once they loved? 
 
14 CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM. 
 
 Some reasons they must have had. At present we 
 do not inquire into the truth or adequacy of these 
 causes of change : we simply call attention to the 
 fact that for such a thorough change of aim, pur¬ 
 pose, and method of living, some explanation must 
 be forthcoming. That Christianity turned men from 
 idols to the service of the Living God is written 
 broadly in the pages of history, and, indeed, is not 
 denied by those who have a competent knowledge 
 of the facts. The pages of the Apologists of Early 
 Christianity, from Aristides down to Augustine, 
 abound with descriptions of the Christian doctrine, 
 worship, and morality, and also of pagan beliefs and 
 practices. It is not possible to transcribe them here. 
 We refer to them in order to show where the evi¬ 
 dence may be found which proves the position we 
 have indicated. But in truth evidence is forth¬ 
 coming from the Greek and Roman literature of 
 the period. But we do not dwell on this. We set 
 before us the contrast between Heathenism and 
 Christianity. We recall the fact that the first 
 Christians had been either Jews or Heathens. We 
 ask, How and why did they become Christians ? 
 For they really did become Christians. A Jew gave 
 up all that made life precious to him, his exclusive 
 privileges, his pride in his ancestors, the esteem of 
 his kinsmen, when he became a follower of the 
 Crucified One. A Greek also gave up all that had 
 made life valuable from a Greek point of view; and 
 for a Roman to become a follower of a despised 
 and crucified Jew involved a depth and fervour of 
 conviction which can scarcely be expressed. Of the 
 strength of the belief that constrained them to be 
 
A RELIGION OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 15 
 
 Christians there can be no doubt. But what about 
 the truth of the belief? Were these people right ? 
 Was Christianity worth the sacrifice which they 
 made for it ? Did it give them a fuller and more 
 complete view of the mysteries of life, and a more 
 adequate account of the pain and misery, as well as 
 of the gladness and hope, of humanity ? Did it 
 supply a more cogent motive for human endeavour ? 
 Did it give a more adequate ideal of what human 
 life ought to be, and strength to realise it in character 
 and conduct ? Christians made answer that it did 
 all this and more; and to-day they appeal to history 
 to make their statement good. They claim that 
 Christianity sets forth the only adequate theory of 
 human life, and they claim also that it alone pro¬ 
 vides the means by which human life may become 
 what it ought to be. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christianity a Religion of Redemption — Assumptions 
 made by Christianity—Christianity began in Pales¬ 
 tine—What were the Ideas of God, of Man, and of 
 the World among the Jews four hundred years 
 before the Coming of Christ—These contrasted with 
 those of Greece and Rome—Remarkable Character 
 of the Contrast. 
 
 The question of the truth of Christianity is closely 
 
 interwoven with the question of how it came to be. 
 
 As it manifested itself to those to whom it came in its 
 
1 6 PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CHRISTIAN/TV. 
 
 earliest form, it made certain assumptions and cer¬ 
 tain presuppositions. It assumed that there were 
 sin and misery in the world, that redemption was 
 needed by man. Its chief characteristic was that it 
 was a message of salvation to sinners. It was a 
 proclamation of mercy, an authoritative command 
 to sinners to repent, and an authoritative statement 
 that in Jesus Christ and in Him alone salvation was 
 to be found by men. It professed to show how bad 
 men could be made good, and how sinners could be 
 changed into saints. The fundamental assumption 
 was that man needed redemption, and the chief 
 message of Christianity was that in Jesus Christ 
 men had found a saviour. While it has to be shown 
 that Christianity is in harmony with all truth, that 
 its teaching with regard to God and man and the 
 world is in agreement with all that science can 
 reach, and all that philosophy can set forth, it must 
 always be remembered that Christianity is in the 
 first place a religion of redemption. Its aim and 
 purpose are mainly practical. It reveals the way of 
 pardon for sin, of reconciliation with God, of purity 
 and holiness for men. If we should ever lose this 
 point of view, we should miss the first and greatest 
 and most essential note of Christianity. All its 
 teaching is dominated by the great fact of redemp¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Bearing this in mind through all these pages, it 
 has also to be remembered that the work of redemp¬ 
 tion must be based on truth, and that the doctrines 
 of Christianity must be in essential harmony with 
 truth otherwise discovered. They are not incon¬ 
 sistent with reason, nor in contradiction with science. 
 
CHRISTIAN ASSUMPTIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 On the contrary, it may be shown that the truths of 
 reason and science become more luminous when 
 they are seen in the light cast on them by the funda¬ 
 mental truths of Christianity. But our main in¬ 
 quiry in the present chapter is, What are the main 
 assumptions with regard to God and man and the 
 world which Christianity made, and how are these 
 justified ? Christianity made itself manifest in one 
 country of the world, and at a certain time in the 
 history of man. It began in Palestine, and, from 
 Jerusalem as a centre, went forth into all the earth. 
 The natural historical inquiry is, What were the 
 beliefs, history, and character of the people among 
 whom it began, and how did their history prepare 
 for the origin of this great historic faith ? Happily 
 it is a question which can be answered. We have 
 in our hands the literature of Israel, and we know 
 what Israel believed, and what they hoped for. For 
 our purpose it is not necessary to discuss the ques¬ 
 tions which arise and are keenly agitated at the 
 present hour with regard to the history and litera¬ 
 ture of the Jews. They are of the highest interest 
 and of the greatest importance. But it is not neces¬ 
 sary to say anything as to the methods and results 
 of the Higher Criticism in this place. For whether 
 we look at the recorded history as we find it in the 
 Old Testament books, as the outcome of a long pro¬ 
 cess of literary labour pursued from age to age, 
 until we find the books in their present form in the 
 hands of Ezra, or adhere to the traditional view,— 
 in either event, the result for our purpose is the 
 same. 
 
 The teaching of the books of the Old Testament 
 
 B 
 
18 PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 remains, whatever be the process by which that 
 doctrine came to be. At least four centuries before 
 the Christian era, the Jews were in the possession of 
 certain books—books which are still in our hands. 
 We may read them, and may understand them. 
 What do we find in them ? We find certain views 
 of God and man and the world which we find 
 nowhere else in the literature of the time. We can 
 make this assertion with the greater confidence, in¬ 
 asmuch as the religious literature of the world is 
 more widely and also more accurately known than 
 it has been in any former age. We know the beliefs 
 of the other nations of the earth at the time when 
 the Pentateuch- was in the hands of the Jews, when 
 also the lofty strains of the second Isaiah comforted 
 and sustained the exiles in Babylon. We know that 
 while other nations believed in many gods, and 
 had not attained to a belief in the Unity of the 
 Unseen, Israel believed in One God, the Maker of 
 heaven and earth, the only source of power, of 
 order, of righteousness in the universe. No other 
 nation had this belief at the time. 
 
 Greece in its popular beliefs beheld divine beings 
 in every stream and in every tree, peopled earth 
 and sea and sky with gods and goddesses innumer¬ 
 able. In their Olympian system, they had not 
 attained to any thought of the Divine Unity ; and 
 above all, for them the gods were not eternal. They 
 had a beginning and might have an end. When 
 their best and wisest men grappled with the pro¬ 
 blems of life and duty, and sought, with a subtlety 
 never surpassed, to read the secret of the universe, 
 they could reach only the dead abstraction of being 
 
PAGAN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD. 
 
 15 
 
 in general, or that of a self-thinking thought which 
 could enter into no relation with the universe. In 
 Persia, although they had somehow reached the 
 great thought embodied in the conception of Ahura- 
 mazda, yet they did not hold fast to it for any time, 
 and soon sunk down to the belief in dualism, in 
 which good and evil were represented by two powers, 
 neither of which was able to control or subdue the 
 other. Nor were the other peoples further advanced 
 in this respect. Nay, the highest thought of the 
 ancient world with regard to the Unseen was 
 reached by India, Greece, and Persia ; but it is 
 strange to think that their highest and truest 
 thoughts were far surpassed by a small people in 
 Palestine. The Jews were not distinguished for 
 literary power, or by abstract thought. They were 
 not a people given to speculation, they did not think 
 much on the nature of things, nor did they seek to 
 discuss causes. They were a practical people, yet it 
 was to them that the great thought of the unity of God 
 came, and it is owing to their influence that Mono¬ 
 theism has become the dominant creed of humanity. 
 
 We may trace the steps by which Greece and 
 Rome came to the conception which they obtained 
 of the unity of the universe and of the unity of God. 
 We can read the literature and the philosophy of 
 Greece, and trace the progress of the thought of 
 Greece from rude beginnings to its highest culmina¬ 
 tion. From the outset Greece is in search of unity. 
 The Greeks sought it first in physical elements, 
 and they could not find it in them. They sought it 
 in the power of thought, and from one step to 
 another they proceeded until in Plato they came to 
 
20 PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the thought of being as the common element which 
 everything possessed. Everything had being, and 
 this mere abstraction without reality became the 
 highest principle of philosophy. Even when they 
 had reached this thought, it did not help the 
 Greeks very much. For they had still to explain 
 how this being, which had no difference in itself, 
 could give rise to so many distinct and separate 
 beings, and to the kinds of beings in the universe. 
 
 We find also that Aristotle, the greatest thinker 
 of Greece, was not able to arrive at clear and worthy 
 thoughts of God, or of man, or of the world. He 
 did say some very remarkable things about God. 
 He spoke of God as the thought which could think 
 itself. But the God of Aristotle was a God who was 
 occupied with himself, who cared only about him¬ 
 self, and who had no thought of man or of the 
 world. The world might long for him and strive 
 after him ; men might stretch hands of longing 
 after God ; but the God of Aristotle neither knew 
 nor cared for the strivings and aspirations of men. 
 He was so far above the world, so far removed from 
 it, that he could have no contact with it. 
 
 It is not necessary to speak much of the later 
 movements of Greek thought, nor to dwell on the 
 Stoic identification of God and the world. For the 
 most part they spoke of God as the soul of the 
 world, and could not distinguish between God and 
 the world. Thus the highest Greek thought about 
 God was either an empty abstraction termed being, 
 or a God who was occupied with himself, or a God 
 who was the living, moving principle of the world, 
 and who was nothing apart from the world. 
 
ROMAN IDEAS OF GOD AND MAN. 21 
 
 When we look at that aspect of Greek thought, 
 which was religious, we find that religiously the 
 Greek had not arrived at any notion of God which 
 could satisfy the religious aspirations of men. 
 Taken at its highest, the Greek religious view of 
 God was in many respects defective. At no time 
 did the Greeks attain to a true idea of God as the 
 Maker and Governor of the world, far less did they 
 think of Him as the Redeemer of the world. There 
 were too many, there were indeed innumerable forms 
 of the Divine ; and the people generally had not 
 risen to the thought of the unity of God, nor had 
 they any true thought of His ethical character. 
 
 As for Rome and Roman religious thought, we 
 need not say much. What we need to say is merely 
 to point out how Rome came to such a sense of the 
 Divine unity as we find in her greatest thinkers. 
 Rome’s greatest intellectual achievement is in her 
 system of law and government, and her greatest 
 thought is thus set forth by Cicero : “ The universe 
 forms an immeasurable commonwealth and city— 
 common alike to Gods and mortals ; and as in earthly 
 states certain particular laws, which we shall here¬ 
 after describe, give the particular relationship of 
 kindred tribes : so in the nature of things doth an 
 universal law far more magnificent and resplendent 
 regulate the affairs of that universal city where 
 Gods and men compose one vast association ” {De 
 Legibics, i. 7). 
 
 From small beginnings Rome went on conquer¬ 
 ing and to conquer, until she became the greatest 
 empire that the world had known ; other states and 
 cities became subject to her ; her progress raised 
 
22 PRESUPPOSITIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 many political and many religious questions. When 
 at length the empire was firmly established, the 
 religious question became practical. The tribal 
 gods of her early history had become dwarfed by 
 the magnificence of the new dominion. The gods 
 whom the fathers worshipped while the city of 
 Rome was co-extensive with the Roman dominion 
 seemed out of all proportion, and utterly inadequate 
 in the presence of Rome’s great empire. The 
 visible had outgrown their idea of the unseen 
 powers ; and the outcome of the Roman evolution of 
 religion was to elevate the reigning emperor to the 
 throne left vacant by the deities whom the Roman 
 life had outgrown. Emperor worship became the 
 recognised religion of the Roman empire. 
 
 Such, very briefly, was the outcome of Greek and 
 Roman civilisation from a religious point of view. 
 Much might be said of the forms, customs, and rites 
 of religion as practised by the various peoples at the 
 beginning of the Christian era ; much also of their 
 beliefs and superstitions, and of their moral con¬ 
 dition. But these must be merely referred to and 
 not dwelt upon. 
 
 Observe the contrast, then, between the Hebrew 
 people and the other peoples of the world in the 
 ages immediately before Christianity began. The 
 Hebrews believed in One God, the Maker of heaven 
 and earth. They believed in His holiness, justice, 
 goodness, and truth. He is the Lord, the Lord God 
 merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness and 
 truth. They believe in His constancy and un¬ 
 changeableness, in His inflexible purpose, and in 
 His gracious love. God was the Maker, Upholder, 
 
HEBRE W CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 6" MAN. 23 
 
 Ruler, Judge, Redeemer of the world. His pure 
 ethical character is as conspicuous in the Scriptures 
 as are His omnipotence, His wisdom, and His know¬ 
 ledge. It is not necessary to dwell on the concep¬ 
 tion of God, embodied in the Old Testament. It is 
 quite familiar and well known. 
 
 Also the Hebrews had a unique conception ot 
 man. The unity of the human race is assumed at 
 the outset, and insisted on throughout. The ethical 
 and spiritual worth of humanity is also apparent 
 everywhere in that wonderful literature. But the 
 most unique and singular characteristic of the view 
 of man set forth in the Old Testament is seen in the 
 description of his relation to God. He is made in 
 the image of God, capable of knowing, serving, and 
 worshipping God. He is in fact made for God, and 
 has not attained to the end and purpose of his being. 
 Man has become a sinner. This is the Scriptural 
 explanation of the woe and misery and wretchedness 
 of man in all the periods of his history. Scientific¬ 
 ally considered, the fact of sin, in the Scripture 
 meaning of the word, does explain the failure of the 
 ancient civilisations, the constant tendency of man 
 towards degeneration, and the ever-recurring de¬ 
 scent of man towards a lower ethical and spiritual 
 condition. The Scripture view is that man is help¬ 
 less without God, that he needs God, and, apart 
 from God, cannot maintain himself in uprightness, 
 far less can he recover himself when he has fallen. 
 Man, as an individual or as a society, cannot attain 
 to his worth, cannot realise his true ideal, unless he 
 is reconciled to God, and also is in constant fellow¬ 
 ship with God. 
 
24 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM 
 
 Thus in respect of the idea of God, and of man, 
 and of the relation between man and God, the 
 Hebrews had come to thoughts peculiar to them¬ 
 selves, thoughts found nowhere else,' and these 
 thoughts have commended themselves to the wisest, 
 purest, best races of mankind. Are we not warranted 
 in saying that they had not reached these thoughts 
 by any wisdom, insight, power of their own ? These 
 thoughts about God and man were given to them. 
 They thought rightly about God, because God had 
 manifested Himself to them, and had spoken to 
 them words which they could understand. 
 
 - o - 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 
 
 The Old Testament as understood by the Jews—The 
 Messianic Hope as set forth in the Old Testament, 
 and as current among the Jews—The Jewish and the 
 Christian Messiah—Contrast between them with re¬ 
 spect both to the Earthly and the Heavenly Ministry 
 of our Lord — Strauss, Baur, and Professor Estlin 
 Carpenter—The Suffering Saviour—The Messiah of 
 the New Testament quite different from the Messiah 
 expected by the Jews. 
 
 It was among a people thus trained through a long 
 providential history, whose mental habit was familiar 
 with the lofty thoughts about God and man and the 
 world contained in the Old Testament, that the 
 Christian religion arose. The Founder of Christi- 
 
THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD. 
 
 25 
 
 anity could assume the teaching of the Scriptures, 
 and make it the foundation of a further revelation 
 of God. He could take for granted what the Scrip¬ 
 tures taught about God, and could speak of the 
 Father to a people who already had some notion of 
 the Fatherhood of God. The Father in heaven was 
 so far known. That the Maker of the world was not 
 indifferent to the world, that He cared for all, even 
 for the grass of the field, for the living creatures of 
 the earth, and that He cared for man,—these were 
 truths which Jesus had not to demonstrate, but only 
 to set forth with greater fulness and with more de¬ 
 tail. One part of His work was to re-state those 
 truths which had been neglected, or obscured, or 
 retained by the traditions of men, and to set forth 
 in clearer light the great ethical and spiritual truths 
 of the" Old Testament, which had fallen into the 
 background owing to their lack of ethical and 
 spiritual insight. For men, even the men of the 
 race to whom revelation had come, had laid hold of 
 revelation mainly by its external side. They had 
 grasped the accessories, what we may even call the 
 accidents, of revelation, and had let the reality go. 
 The external commands, the ritual, the ceremonial, 
 they had cherished, and had added to them, and 
 developed them, until they were lost in the mass of 
 traditional observances. God had been removed to 
 a distance, man had come to be looked at merely as 
 a means for the glorifying of the law, and ethical 
 and spiritual truth had been attenuated until it had 
 almost vanished. 
 
 The expectation and the hope of the Old Testament 
 had also suffered a great change, and had sunk to a 
 
26 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 
 
 low level. The great form of the Messiah, which 
 in type and symbol had been shadowed forth in the 
 Old Testament, which, in psalm and prophecy and 
 history, occupies so large a place, had been trans¬ 
 formed into a likeness of a mere worldly monarch. 
 There were Messianic expectations current in the 
 time when Jesus came, but they were of a kind 
 suited to the imagination and desire of a people 
 who had turned the ethical and spiritual truths 
 of a great revelation into the treadmill of minute 
 and meaningless observances. No doubt the Jews 
 did long with passionate expectation for the coming 
 of the Messiah ; but the kind of Messiah they 
 longed for was one who presented the features of 
 a Jew, and shared his expectations. What the 
 Jews desired most of all was freedom from the 
 Roman yoke, power to govern themselves, and also 
 the dominion over the nations which they thought 
 were promised to the seed of Abraham. It may be 
 safely said that no Jew desired—no Jew of the time 
 of our Lord—ever thought of a Messiah of the kind 
 actually realised in the character and work of our 
 Lord. This remark is made because it is common 
 in many quarters to speak of the Messianic hope as 
 the moving impulse of the apostles, and as that which 
 enabled them to shape the outline and mould the 
 character of the Messiah in whom they believed and 
 whom they preached. Many speak as if the Church 
 had, under the influence of prepossession, and of 
 fixed expectations of the Messiah, created the image 
 which they adored. Their faith, it is said, made 
 the facts, and there were few facts on which to base 
 their faith. 
 
THE JEWISH MESSIAH. 
 
 27 
 
 Some plausibility might be given to this con¬ 
 tention if it could be shown that the Messianic 
 expectations of the Jews had any resemblance 
 to the character of the Christ set forth in the 
 New Testament, and believed in by the Christian 
 Church. The one is in almost all respects a 
 contrast to the other. While the Jews expected 
 a Messiah who should restore the kingdom to 
 Israel, who should rule the nation with a rod of 
 iron, and have the Gentiles under his feet ; while 
 they thought of his kingdom as everlasting, and his 
 rule as in all respects favourable to the Jews, and 
 certain to confer on them prosperity, glory, and 
 blessedness irrespective of their moral conditions ; 
 while they thought also of the Messiah as always 
 set to rule and never set for service; in all these 
 aspects the actual Kingdom of Christ was quite 
 different. The Kingdom of Christ was, no doubt, 
 permanent and universal, and His dominion was 
 to be an everlasting dominion. It was not, however, 
 founded on mere power, but on grace and love. 
 The foundation of it was laid in service, and His 
 title to it was proven by His suffering and death, 
 and attested by His resurrection and ascension. 
 The Kingship of Christ was for service to the 
 Father and to men. 
 
 It is quite true that the Christians found in 
 the Old Testament notes and outlines of the 
 Messiah which had been realised in Christ. But 
 the Jews had not up to the time of Christ—and 
 the disciples were in this respect also like their 
 countrymen—identified the Messiah they expected 
 with the Servant of the Lord, or with the suffering 
 
28 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 
 
 Redeemer of His people. They dwelt exclusively 
 on those pictures of the Messiah and His Kingdom 
 which set forth their glory and their power, and 
 allowed the prophecies which told of suffering and 
 of service to sink into the background. A Messiah 
 of the type of Jesus Christ they thought not of, they 
 did not expect ; and certainly they did not desire 
 such a Messiah. 
 
 While the Messiah of the kind fulfilled in Christ 
 was certainly depicted in the Old Testament, yet as 
 far as the Jews of the time of our Lord’s earthly 
 ministry are concerned, it might as well not have 
 been there. It was thus altogether new to them— 
 how new every attentive reader of the New Testa¬ 
 ment knows well. A Messiah, Who came to seek 
 and to save the lost, Who came not to be ministered 
 unto but to minister, Who came not to save or 
 serve Himself but to serve and to save others, Who 
 was to live the life of the poor, and the wearied, 
 and the toiling, and die a death of pain and shame, 
 was neither expected nor desired by the Jews. 
 Nor did they think of Him as of one who went 
 about doing good, healing the sick, helping the 
 oppressed, and teaching truth to men ; nor had 
 the Jews any thought of a Messiah who should 
 submit Himself to merely human conditions, live 
 a true human life, be sinless and stainless in His 
 lowly lot, and rise to ethical perfection in the daily 
 round of common life and work. 
 
 The newness and unexpectedness of the Messiah 
 as realised in Christ appear also from other con¬ 
 siderations. Having lived a life of obscurity for 
 about thirty years, having exercised a ministry of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN MESSIAH 
 
 29 
 
 reconciliation in life and word and deed, having 
 died on the Cross as a sacrifice for the sins of other 
 people, it is recorded, and was most earnestly 
 believed by His people, that He rose from the dead. 
 He ascended, they believed, to the right hand of 
 God; all power in heaven and on earth they believed 
 was given to Him. What then was the conception 
 which the Christian Church held as to the exercise 
 of the power Christ wielded, and the kind of king¬ 
 dom He possessed? His kingdom was a kingdom 
 not of this world. It was a kingdom of righteous¬ 
 ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. The aim 
 of the government of the exalted Saviour was still of 
 the same kind as He had set forth in His earthly 
 service. A statement of the Apostle Peter, uttered 
 in the Jerusalem Church at an early date, makes 
 this clear : “Him did God exalt with His right 
 hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give 
 repentance unto Israel and remission of sins” 
 (Acts v. 31). The exalted Saviour still exercises a 
 ministry of reconciliation ; His power was in the 
 service of His love, and the heavenly ministry was 
 a continuation of the earthly. 
 
 This becomes even more clear when we think of 
 the conception which the Church had with regard 
 to the abiding relation between Christ and the 
 world, and between Christ and His people. The 
 exalted Saviour is an intercessor. He abideth a 
 priest continually. The language of the New Testa¬ 
 ment becomes full of emotion, quivers with love, 
 adoration, and reverence, as it speaks of Christ and 
 His intercession. In the writers of the books of 
 the New Testament the abiding relation of Christ to 
 
30 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 
 
 His people was something unspeakably wonderful. 
 The words of the Apostle of the Gentiles have a 
 warmer glow when they touch on this topic. “It 
 is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather that was raised 
 from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who 
 also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate 
 us from the love of Christ ? ” (Rom. viii. 34, 35). The 
 Epistle to the Hebrews dwells on this aspect also : 
 “Who ever liveth to make intercession for us.” 
 John also is in harmony with the others. “ If any 
 man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitia¬ 
 tion for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for 
 the sins of the whole world” (1 John ii. 1, 2). To 
 the early Christians, then, the Christ Who died for 
 them ever liveth to make intercession for them, and 
 their hearts were thrilled, their imaginations quick¬ 
 ened, and their spirits were subdued to Him who 
 loved them and gave Himself for them. They be¬ 
 lieved that Jesus had said to them, “ Lo I am with 
 you alway, even to the end of the world.” And they 
 were persuaded that this was true. The presence 
 and the power of Christ seemed to them to be living 
 and present. He could and did help and save and 
 bless them. “ The love of Christ constraineth us,” 
 seemed to them the motive power to a holy and a 
 pure life. They lived as in His presence, and His 
 approval was their highest reward. 
 
 This brief sketch of the New Testament idea of 
 the Kingdom of God, and of the Christ is given, in¬ 
 asmuch as it is in striking contrast, in almost all its 
 details, to the expectation current among the Jews. 
 It has been contended by Baur and Strauss, and by 
 
MISTAKES REGARDING MESSIANIC IDEA. 31 
 
 many both in Germany and at home, that, to use the 
 words of Baur, “ It was in the Messianic idea that 
 the spiritual contents of Christianity were clothed 
 upon with the concrete form in which it could 
 enter on the historical development.” Since Baur 
 wrote these words, we have learned a good deal 
 about the Messianic idea current among the Jews. 
 We shall refer here only to Schiirer’s “The Jewish 
 People in the time of Christ’’ ; to Stanton’s “The 
 Jewish and the Christian Messiah” ; and toWestcott’s 
 “ Introduction to the Study of the Gospels.” Many 
 more books might be cited, but a reference to these 
 is sufficient to show that the Christian idea as set 
 forth in the New Testament has scarcely anything 
 in common with the Jewish idea except the name. 
 It is acknowledged on all hands that the idea of a 
 suffering Saviour was foreign to the Jewish mind. 
 It does not appear in apocalyptic literature, and 
 yet Professor Estlin Carpenter in his book on 
 “ The First Three Gospels ” says, “ The Apostolic 
 witness all centred round one great idea. Jesus of 
 Nazareth was the Messiah. When He had passed 
 away all reminiscence was steeped in this belief. 
 By what processes His followers had arrived at this 
 conviction need not now be examined. It is 
 sufficient to observe that the recollections of His 
 words and deeds were suffused with the glow of 
 feeling which this faith excited. All memory 
 palpitated with emotion, which could hardly fail to 
 impart to imagination a certain quickening power. 
 Under its stimulus the testimony even of eye-wit¬ 
 nesses rose unconsciously to meet the high demand 
 for a fit account of Messiah’s work ” (pp. 84-5). 
 
32 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM. 
 
 Why should there be a high demand for a fit 
 account of Messiah’s work? This is what needs 
 explanation, and no explanation is forthcoming on 
 the part of Professor Carpenter. He is bound to 
 show how this demand arose, and bound also to 
 show how it was met. It is manifest that the 
 Christian ideal did not meet the demand of the 
 Jews, for though many Jews became Christians, 
 the Jews as a people seemed to seek and find 
 satisfaction in other ideals. The Messiahs they 
 demanded and followed were of the type of Judas 
 of Galilee, and of their leader in their final struggle 
 with Rome, Bar Chocheba. To have accepted the 
 Christian ideal would mean a thorough change of 
 attitude, a complete revolution in their expectations. 
 It meant to love what once they hated, and to hate 
 what once they loved. But the Christians, Pro¬ 
 fessor Carpenter would say, accepted the Messianic 
 ideal of the New Testament. Yes. But in doing 
 so, they forsook altogether the Jewish expectation, 
 ceased to think of a temporal kingdom, and looked 
 for a city which had foundations whose builder and 
 maker is God. How a Messianic idea which 
 thwarted and defeated popular demands can be 
 said to meet that demand is not very apparent. 
 
 A calm survey of history leads us to the con¬ 
 clusion that the Messianic conception realised in 
 the Christian books is the work of Jesus of 
 Nazareth. The thought, “Behoved it not the 
 Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His 
 glory,” was unshared by any other in His time, 
 and was not shared by any of His disciples until 
 after the resurrection. In this, as in all else, the 
 
DIMENSIONS OF MESSIANIC HOPE . 33 
 
 origin of Christianity must be traced to the 
 creative personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. We 
 quote the words of one who is among our highest 
 authorities on questions of this kind. No one can 
 speak with more weight, for no man living has 
 known the secret of Israel as well as he, and no one 
 is better acquainted with the whole range of that 
 marvellous history. Professor Davidson of Edin¬ 
 burgh has thus spoken : “The dimensions of this 
 hope, however, among the Jews at the beginning 
 of our era may very readily be overstated. It is 
 doubtful, for instance, if there was any idea of a 
 suffering Messiah. Again, it is certain that among 
 Jews outside of Christianity a great Messianic 
 development took place in the first century A.D. 
 This may have been due to Christian influence 
 and intercourse before the final schism between 
 Judaism and Christianity. It is certain that the 
 Christology of the New Testament was largely due 
 to the teaching of Christ and reflection on His 
 life, particularly the conception of the spiritual 
 nature of His aims and His Kingdom. These 
 points exclude that interpretation of the New 
 Testament literature proposed by Strauss. . . . (1) 
 The supernatural element in the Gospels being 
 impossible, shows that the narrative arose long 
 after the life of Jesus: they are mythical. (2) 
 The ideas which have been clothed in history are 
 the popular Messianic ideas of the time. The 
 theory falls with the falsehood of the last assump¬ 
 tion. No such developed circle of Messianic ideas 
 can be shown to have existed before Christ ” 
 (“ Chambers 5 Encyclopaedia, 55 art. Bible). 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Along with the fall of Strauss’ theory, many 
 others fall. That any man, or any set of men, 
 could have conceived the character of Christ, 
 fashioned His teaching, sketched His life and 
 the character of His kingdom, and could have 
 given us the outline of His work and mission, 
 and His influence in His exalted state, is a pro¬ 
 position which is the more surprising the more 
 we think of it. The whole character of His power, 
 work, aim, and purpose is so unlike anything else 
 in the history of humanity that no one could have 
 invented it. It is so great, so transcendent, so 
 unlike anything otherwise conceived by man, that 
 it must be real. Accept the New Testament 
 account, and the story of Christ is intelligible; 
 reject it, and we are wrapped in mystery and 
 unintelligibility. 
 
 - o - 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Jesus wrote nothing—The Impression made by Him— 
 His abiding Presence—Uniqueness of the Gospels— 
 The Problem they had to solve, and how they have 
 solved it—Other Ideas of Incarnation, and their 
 failure—The Life of Jesus Christ—His Teaching—The 
 depth of the Gospels, and their inexhaustible fulness. 
 
 In this chapter we shall look at the Gospels and 
 shall not inquire into the question of how they 
 
 Note. —For much of what is in this chapter I am indebted to a 
 remarkable and suggestive book, the author of which I do not know. 
 It is called “ But How—if the Gospels are Historic,” published by 
 David Douglas, Edinburgh. 
 
JESUS WROTE NOTHING. 
 
 35 
 
 came to be. We cannot touch on many of the 
 problems of the origin of the Gospels. They are 
 very many and are very complex. Hundreds of 
 the ablest men are working at them, and while 
 some things are becoming clear, other things are 
 more doubtful than before. It is clear for one thing 
 that the Christian Church had been living, working, 
 growing for some time before the Gospels took their 
 present form. How long that time was we do not 
 know. The people heard from the lips of Apostles 
 and of men instructed by the Apostles the main 
 facts of our Lord’s life, and the main truths of His 
 teaching; and on the words of the Apostles their 
 faith was based. How soon the words of the 
 Apostles got into writing we do not know. Our 
 readers will find the various theories discussed 
 with great lucidity and with ample knowledge in 
 Dr Marcus Dods’ “ Introduction to the New Testa¬ 
 ment.” Our purpose here is not to enter on that 
 large and interesting field, but to draw attention to 
 some striking and important facts. 
 
 At the outset we remark that Jesus Christ wrote 
 nothing. In one place, it is said, He stooped down 
 and wrote on the ground. It is certain, however, 
 that He left no written instructions to His disciples, 
 gave them no fixed set of written precepts, and no 
 ■detailed system of truth or doctrine. Conscious, if 
 the Gospel records be true, that He came to the 
 world with a greater message than ever had been 
 ■committed to man, conscious also that His mission 
 was of unspeakable importance to the whole human 
 family, He yet took no step during His earthly 
 -ministry to make a permanent record of His mission 
 
36 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 and His work,—all His words were spoken words. 
 Other masters, for the most part, have left a written 
 record of their thoughts and reflections. Jesus did 
 not leave any. He spake His words to His disciples, 
 to His followers, to the common people, and even 
 to His enemies. He lived His earnest, simple, sin¬ 
 less life among men, and did His works of wonder, 
 and left the record of them to be recorded by the 
 memories of His disciples. There is here a sublime 
 trust, a divine assurance that His works will not die, 
 and that His words will not pass away. Christ Jesus 
 lived His life, spake His words, endured the suffer¬ 
 ings and the agony recorded of Him, and, as the 
 Gospels say, burst the bonds of death, rose from the 
 dead, and ascended up on high. 
 
 He trusted to the impression which His life had 
 made on His disciples, and He knew that some 
 worthy record of Him and His work would take its 
 place in the literature of the world. “ Heaven and 
 earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass 
 away,” thus He spake, and thus it has come to pass. 
 We call attention to the strangeness of the pro¬ 
 cedure, and ask our readers to reflect on it. His 
 way was as unique as His life. The sublime con¬ 
 fidence that His word and His life would endure, 
 even while He took no steps to make a record of 
 them, the belief that He had come for the mani¬ 
 festation of God and for the redemption of the 
 world, and yet leaving all the future of His work 
 and of His mission to the impression made on His 
 disciples,—surely this is both strange and sublime. 
 
 There is something more to be learned from this 
 strange procedure, something too of lasting value. 
 
CHRIST'S ABIDING PRESENCE. 
 
 37 
 
 We have said that He trusted to the impression He 
 had made on His disciples, and this is so tar true. 
 But there is one strain in His teaching to which 
 attention must be called if we are to have an 
 adequate conception of His meaning. He could 
 trust to the impression made, because He knew 
 that He had established a permanent relation be¬ 
 tween Himself and them. His was not to be an 
 historical influence limited in space and time, He 
 was to be permanently present with His people—“ Lo 
 I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,” 
 “Abide in Me,” “Follow Me,”—other words of His 
 are to the same effect. Here again we have a 
 decided contrast with the action of other masters. 
 The truth they taught could be separated from 
 themselves. They gave us what they had and they 
 passed away. The truth they taught was not theirs, 
 was not bound up with them, was not personal to 
 them. With Jesus Christ it is otherwise. “ He is 
 the way, the truth, and the life.” Apart from His 
 living personality and His abiding influence, His 
 teaching, considered merely as such, could not have 
 had the power which He has exerted over the 
 minds and lives of men. The greater part of His 
 power springs from what He is, and not merely from 
 what He said. The very essence of His power lies 
 in the fact, attested by the witness of many men, 
 that He is a Living person, able to save and help 
 and bless people to-day. 
 
 His action in leaving no written record of Him¬ 
 self and His work has therefore to be looked at 
 in connection with His promise to be with His 
 disciples alway, even to the end of the world. He 
 
38 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 believed that He would have this power—that after 
 His departure He could still be able to help His 
 people. Does not history testify that He was not 
 mistaken in His belief? Yea, verily; if the testimony 
 of Christians be true, Christ’s power to help men is a 
 veritable scientific fact of human experience. 
 
 Though He left no written record of His teaching 
 or of His life, have we a true and veritable record of 
 what He said and did ? We have the Gospels in our 
 hands. Apart from all historical evidence as to the 
 times and places of their production, or as to the 
 writers of them, we may at present simply look at 
 them and read them. We ought first to look at the 
 problem they have in hand. Taking the story of the 
 Gospels as it stands, what do they aim at? There 
 has been no such theme attempted since literature 
 began to be. Many writers in other literatures, in 
 prose and in poetry, have attempted to delineate the 
 stories of Divine beings, and to tell of their life and 
 work. But the story is no sooner read, whatever be 
 the artistic form or literary quality of it, than we feel 
 at once that it is an unworthy presentation of the 
 Divine. We cannot now think of the Divine Being 
 as acting in such ways, or regard the works recorded 
 of Him in the mythologies of the past as worthy of 
 the Maker of heaven and Earth and of the Upholder 
 of the moral order of the world. The mythologies 
 of the past, taken at their best and highest and 
 purest, are not worthy of their great theme. 
 
 There have also been in other religions some 
 attempt to set forth the idea of the incarnation of 
 the Divine. Indian thought is familiar with this 
 conception. But the Pantheism which lies at the 
 
INCARNA TJON. 
 
 39 
 
 basis of every Indian thought has prevented the 
 idea of incarnation from attaining to any real or 
 ethical value. As Hegel says, “ In this universal 
 deification of all finite existence, and consequent 
 degradation of the Divine, the idea of Theanthropy, 
 the incarnation of God, is not a particularly im¬ 
 portant conception. The parrot, the cow, the ape, 
 &c., are likewise incarnations of God, yet are not 
 therefore elevated above their nature ” (“ Philosophy 
 of History,” Bohn’s translation, p. 148). An incarna¬ 
 tion which shall remain free from all taint of moral 
 
 « 
 
 impurity, which shall have no stain of sin, which 
 shall attain to all moral and spiritual perfection, and 
 shall at the same time set forth a true and adequate 
 conception of the Divine, was altogether foreign to 
 Indian thought. 
 
 We see, then, the problem which the Gospels 
 undertook to solve. It is to set forth how an 
 eternal being acted within the bounds of space and 
 time : to tell us of the Word Who became flesh and 
 dwelt among men ; of the way He lived and acted, 
 and spoke, and finished the work given Him to do. 
 Such a task was never set to literature, and was 
 never even conceived of among the sons of men. 
 How stupendous a task it was ! and how bold the 
 underlying thought. To tell in plain and simple 
 words, which any one could understand, the story of 
 a Divine life lived under human conditions among 
 men on the earth, were utterly beyond the power of 
 man. How successfully, however, the Gospels have 
 told the story. With the unconscious boldness of 
 reality they tell of the earthly birth and becoming of 
 the Son of God. They place Him boldly under 
 
40 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 human conditions, speak of His mother and of the 
 place of His birth, show Him as a child in all the 
 reality of a child life, reveal Him as subject to all 
 the laws of human growth, growing, as other boys 
 grow, in wisdom and in stature ; as a man, they tell 
 us of His work as a carpenter, earning daily bread 
 as other men earn theirs, and show Him to us 
 engaged in the daily toil which marks the ordinary 
 life of man. They enable us to follow Him in His 
 public work, as the teacher, guide, and friend of 
 man. We are in His presence, and are allowed to 
 see Him at His work. He appears to be like other 
 men. He wakes and sleeps, toils and grows wearied, 
 can feel fatigue and know the need of rest. Then 
 we can witness His varying attitudes and expres¬ 
 sions. He feels grief and sorrow, knows disappoint¬ 
 ment and pain, can rejoice with the joys of other 
 people, and is filled with unutterable compassion 
 for the sins, woes, and miseries of men. The 
 Gospels show us also His sympathetic joy over 
 the beauty of the flowers, and the life of bird and 
 beast. He has a kindly glance at the children 
 playing in the market-place, and for all forms of 
 life Jesus has a kindly sympathy, and a keen insight 
 into their ways and manners. 
 
 Then we are permitted to be present with Him 
 under the strain of His public work. We see Him 
 in the company of the lost and the outcast, and 
 under His healing gracious influence the ice of evil 
 custom melts, the depths are broken up, and the 
 Magdalen and the possessed become gracious, 
 good, and pure. We see Him in contact with the 
 l eper, the paralytic, the halt, and the blind ; and He 
 
THE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST. 41 
 
 restores to health, but in such a way that the sick 
 and sinful hearts are cleansed and healed as well. 
 We hear words from Him such as never man spake, 
 and yet they are spoken so that the common people 
 heard Him gladly. In all his words there is intense 
 simplicity and ineffable wisdom, and He never allows 
 us to think of these words as His merely, they are 
 the Father’s words. His works too are the Father’s 
 works. 
 
 Again, the Gospels make us feel the greatness 
 of His solitude. He is unutterably lonely. For 
 He is a sinless One in a sinful world. He is 
 misunderstood, misrepresented, persecuted. The 
 Gospels set forth His attitude and bearing under 
 the greatest of all inflictions which can befall 
 a man. They show us how misunderstandings 
 deepened and misrepresentations increased, until 
 hatred grew to a climax. People, priests, and 
 rulers conspired against Him; and of His disciples 
 one betrayed Him, one denied Him, and they all 
 forsook Him and fled. At this stage the narrative 
 is lengthened out, detail is added to detail, and the 
 events of that memorable time between His be¬ 
 trayal and death are described with a pathos and 
 a power unequalled in the literature of the world. 
 From the agony of Gethsamene to the agony of the 
 Cross we are led, and no one can with unmoved 
 feelings read the wondrous story. As we witness His 
 bearing under all the accumulated load of His un¬ 
 imaginable sorrow, we say with the Centurion, Truly 
 this is the Son of God. 
 
 In all the words attributed to Him there is not 
 one word unworthy of the Person Whom the Gospels 
 
42 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 declare Him to be. In all His deeds there is not one 
 unbecoming of Him Who is the Son of God. This, 
 then, is the sober claim we make for the Gospels. 
 They have done something unattempted elsewhere 
 in the literature of the world. They have shown 
 us how God dwelt with man on the earth, and given 
 to man a fit and worthy conception of the Divine. 
 It may be indeed said that we are not fit judges of 
 so great a problem as this, and can pronounce no 
 adequate opinion on the solution of it. We may 
 with humility admit that it is so. It is more becom¬ 
 ing to sit and learn and try to imitate than to pro¬ 
 nounce judgment. At the same time, we are fit to 
 say what is not worthy of the Divine. We can at 
 least say that any taint of impurity, any tinge of sin, 
 any moral imperfection is unworthy of God ; and 
 such would prevent us from accepting a presenta¬ 
 tion defaced with such elements as a fit and 
 adequate presentation of the Divine. Negatively, 
 at least, the Gospels tell us of a Person Who is 
 without sin. Never man spake like this Man, 
 or lived such a life as Jesus did. 
 
 The wonder of the work accomplished by the 
 Gospels grows on us the more we think of it. The 
 story is told in the most simple, artless way : in a 
 form which at first sight seems the most unlikely 
 possible for a book to take which was to be pro¬ 
 ductive of a holy life, and to be the rule of holy 
 living for all succeeding generations of men. That 
 four different accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, 
 each with its peculiarities and differences, should 
 combine to produce a consistent portrait of Him is 
 sufficiently remarkable. The likenesses and the 
 
THE GOSPEL STORY. 
 
 43 
 
 differences are both striking, but the combined 
 effect is to set forth Jesus Christ in His unique 
 purity, tenderness, and love. But even more 
 striking is the fact set forth in the book already 
 referred to. “ The very idea of thus devising a 
 series of incidents (whether these are real or merely 
 fictitious is for the present immaterial) which should 
 thus develop, as involved in them, a body of truth 
 bearing on the deepest and grandest of unseen 
 realities, is something new and hitherto unthought 
 of.” For the Gospels proceed in the most simple 
 way. The teaching of Christ is, as it were, inci¬ 
 dental. It arises out of the circumstances in which 
 He is placed; springs from the occasions set to 
 Him by the needs of the people who are in His 
 presence; is called forth by some question of His 
 disciples, or from some contradiction of those who 
 did not believe in Him. Occasional, unsystematic, 
 arising out of incidents, are the words He uttered ; 
 but be the occasion what it may, the words of Jesus 
 have a penetrating power which is unique. They 
 show us how deep is His insight into the heart of 
 man, how wide is His outlook over the moral 
 universe, and how calm and profound is the 
 wisdom characteristic of Him. How bold, too, 
 and courageous ; so bold that men are afraid to 
 launch themselves on the broad and rapid stream of 
 His thought, and are too timid to realise the heroic 
 breadth of moral freedom which is in them. So true 
 is this, that we have not yet learnt to take His deepest 
 teaching with sufficient seriousness. Nor can we 
 yet say that His words are sufficiently understood. 
 
 Nor can we separate His words from Himself. 
 
44 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 It is Christ as living, working, speaking, dying and 
 rising again, that makes the life and power of the 
 Gospel story. Here we have truth not taught in 
 systematic, dogmatic fashion, but truth manifested 
 in life and action. It is out of the manifested life 
 that truth springs. We read and we reflect, and 
 out of it come true and adequate thoughts about 
 God and the world and man, about the life that 
 now is and the life to come. We cannot here set 
 forth these truths, nor dwell on them. But we may 
 say that we are everywhere in the presence of the 
 Father. We are never outside of His care, never 
 absent from His thought. He has meant us to be 
 something and do something, and each of us some¬ 
 thing distinct and peculiar. We learn that this 
 world is God’s world, He made it, rules it, and has 
 some purpose for it, and we learn also that we shall 
 live on. There is another life; and Jesus said, 
 “ Because I live ye shall live also.” 
 
 When we in our detailed and somewhat clumsy 
 fashion, in our somewhat abstract way, as we are 
 able, gather together the teaching of our Lord, we 
 find ourselves in possession of a wonderful body of 
 truths regarding the three great objects which have 
 ever been the objects of human thought—God, Man, 
 and the World. But we feel that when we have 
 done our best to set forth Christ and His teaching, 
 there is something that has been beyond us, some¬ 
 thing that has escaped us. It is higher than we 
 know. What science has been to nature, that our 
 theology has been to the Gospels. Nature in her 
 variety and fulness is ever something beyond the 
 grasp of science. We attenuate her into aspects. 
 
THE DEPTHS OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 45 
 
 torture her with our experiments, press her into 
 our mathematical formulas, and so far are able to 
 understand ; but in her beauty, her variety, her con¬ 
 crete truth, she ever passes beyond our grasp. So 
 is it with the Gospels. They are as living and 
 concrete as nature, as wonderful and as beautiful. 
 The teaching of them is the teaching of life. The 
 truth of them is given us, as the truth of nature is 
 given. As nature ever remains the touchstone and 
 the test of science, to which all our theories must 
 ever be brought, so with the story of the life of 
 Christ. In their simple, awful reality the Gospels 
 stand, the record of a life—and they continue to 
 stand in their beauty and their power, the wonder 
 and the despair of men, ever steadfastly refusing to 
 comply with our rules, to submit to our ways of 
 thinking, revealing what is sufficient to guide the 
 life of man, and inspire his thoughts, and beckoning 
 us on with the hope of a fuller understanding, yet •* 
 always keeping something beyond, some height 
 yet to be scaled, and some reward yet to be won. 
 The character revealed in them, in its simple yet 
 transcendental purity, beauty, and strength, re¬ 
 mains an abiding wonder. He is so like men, and 
 yet so different, so near and yet so far. His words, 
 too, are words of a wisdom and love beyond those 
 of man, and keep their appointed service for the 
 undreamt-of needs of future generations. His 
 cosmic position and His relation to other spheres 
 are dimly hinted at, and a promise is made that 
 these relations shall be made known to other ages. 
 Both in what they reveal, and in what they dimly 
 foreshadow, the Gospels are unique. 
 
46 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS . 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Limits of Hebrew Literature—The Gospels written by 
 Jews—Narrowness, conservatism, exclusiveness of 
 the Jews—The Gospels set forth a Universal Re¬ 
 ligion—In no Literature is there a Person like Jesus 
 Christ—Whence came He?—How did Jews think 
 of Him?—His story real —He is a Real Personality 
 —He is contemporary of all generations—All the 
 deeper needs of Man are met in the Gospels. 
 
 The theme of the last chapter prepares us to look at 
 the question of the origin of the Gospels. We know 
 something of Hebrew literature, and of the kind of 
 conceptions and of literary achievement within the 
 reach of the Jews. Outside of Holy Writ the 
 Jewish contribution to the thought and literature 
 of the world has not been great, at least not up 
 to the time when the New Testament literature 
 came into being. The Talmudical literature is 
 more curious than important, and neither in form 
 nor in substance is Jewish literature of such a. 
 quality as to detain us even by way of contrast.. 
 Minute discussions of Ritual, sayings of the Fathers, 
 and so on ; but the value of them now-a-days is 
 mainly that they may enable us to apprehend more- 
 clearly allusions in the New Testament otherwise- 
 obscure. 
 
 The Gospels, however, arose in Palestine. They 
 were written by Jews, and took the form they now' 
 have within the first century of our era. The 
 
THE GOSPELS WRITTEN BY JEWS. 47 
 
 reputed authors ot them are all Jews. Matthew 
 and John are Galileans, while Mark was seemingly 
 of Jerusalem, and Luke, a man of wider culture 
 than any of the others, was a Hellenistic Jew. 
 Something is known of the mental grasp, the 
 habits of thought, and the culture of the Jews of 
 the time of our Lord. We know something of the 
 intense conservatism of the Jews, of their narrow¬ 
 ness, their exclusiveness, their contempt of and 
 their hatred of the Gentiles. We know also how 
 difficult it was even for the Apostles trained by Jesus 
 Christ to accept the truth that the mission of the 
 Gospel was world wide, and to agree that a Gentile 
 might become a Christian without becoming a Jew. 
 How then could they have come to the thought of 
 the universality of the Gospel, implied in the 
 Gospels from the outset ? The thought was too 
 great for them ; they could not have attained to 
 it. And this of itself is a proof that the Gospel 
 was given to them, not invented by them. 
 
 But we may take a bolder issue. We may make 
 the comparison not merely with the literature of the 
 Jews, but with the literature of the world and ask it 
 to produce anything like the Gospels. In what litera¬ 
 ture is there a figure like Jesus Christ? Within the 
 wide range of recorded history, in the vast fields of 
 poetic imagination, is there any one like Him ? Is 
 there any one who, like Him, can make the lives of 
 men to be part of his own life ? Has there ever 
 been another who could reach across the ages and 
 at this present hour impress us with his personal 
 power, draw us, constrain us, make us feel our un¬ 
 worthiness, cast us down into unutterable humilia- 
 
48 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 tion, and arouse in us a devoted loyalty, and an 
 enthusiastic love ? Out of the Gospels this calm, 
 gracious, sorrowful figure gleams upon us, grows on 
 us, until almost ere we are aware, we cast ourselves 
 at His feet, His now and evermore ; His in reason, 
 imagination, thought, in feeling and desire. Some 
 measure of loyalty and devotion has been aroused 
 in men by great and impressive personalities. There 
 are recorded instances of such devotion. But then 
 the personal presence of such men was needed to 
 excite such devotion. But the Christ whose form 
 and power grasp us out of the Gospels, lays hold of 
 us at the present hour ; makes us willing not only 
 to die for Him, but to live for Him. Yes ; and He 
 does something greater far, — makes people not 
 only live for Him, but live precisely that kind of life 
 which He wishes them to live. 
 
 Now we put the question broadly. Whence came 
 the literature which enshrines the presence of Him 
 Who in Himself is so calm, pure, and gracious, and 
 who can exert so stupendous an influence ? We 
 may ask a number of subsidiary questions, and 
 seek by all the methods of historical science to 
 obtain an answer to them. We may seek to as¬ 
 certain the various steps of the process by which 
 the Gospels came into their present form, and seek 
 to determine the relations, if any, of the Gospels to 
 one another, and to the Apostolic teaching. We 
 may inquire into the cause of the similarities of 
 the first three Gospels to one another, and also seek 
 to find out a probable cause of their individual 
 peculiarities. We may ask whether there was once 
 a separate book consisting mainly or wholly of the 
 
THE UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 49 
 
 sayings of our Lord, and whether there was another 
 of His doings. These are interesting and important 
 subjects of investigation, and may fitly engage the 
 attention of our most learned and ingenious men, 
 as in fact they do. We may in course of time be 
 able to answer all these questions and solve these 
 problems. 
 
 When, however, we have answered all the ques¬ 
 tions we have referred to, and others of a similar 
 kind, shall we be in a better position with regard to 
 the larger questions we have asked above? How 
 did men come to busy themselves with the story of 
 the life and teaching of Jesus ? How did they come 
 to the knowledge of such a person as is set forth in 
 the Gospels ? The disciples could not have imagined 
 such a person, nor could succeeding generations of 
 disciples by slow increments, under the influence of 
 a plastic imagination, have formed such a concep¬ 
 tion. It lies beyond the imagination either of Jew 
 or Gentile ever to have formed such a picture of 
 life and teaching as that of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 At all events, such another figure does not appear 
 in the literature of the world. We therefore say 
 that Jesus Christ is real, and the Gospels contain a 
 history of a real Person, who actually lived among 
 men, and spake such words and did such deeds as 
 are recorded of Him in the Gospels. Whatever we 
 make of the steps and processes through which the 
 material of the Gospels passed, on their way to their 
 present form, still the source of the Gospel is from 
 Jesus Christ, and the outcome of all the processes is 
 to give us a living account of Him, in His life, work, 
 death, and resurrection. A rational account of the 
 
 D 
 
5 ° 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Gospels can only be given when we assume that 
 they set forth a real Person. 
 
 How well too they bear all the tests of reality. 
 How simply and beautifully they solve the problem 
 of religion, and give us a creed, a discipline, and an 
 object of worship. Something to believe, something 
 to guide, some One to adore, worthy to mould the 
 faith, to guide the conduct, and to quicken the 
 adoration of men. “ We require a religious solu¬ 
 tion : a solution which shall deal with the great 
 questions of our being and our destiny in relation 
 to thought and action and feeling. The Truth at 
 which we aim must take account of the conditions 
 of existence and define the way of conduct. It is not 
 for speculation only : so far Truth is the subject of 
 philosophy. It is not for discipline only : so far it 
 is the subject of ethics. It is not for embodiment 
 only : so far it is the subject of art. Religion in its 
 completeness is the harmony of the three—philo¬ 
 sophy, ethics, art,—blended into one by a spiritual 
 power, by a consecration at once personal and 
 absolute. The direction of Philosophy, to express 
 the thought somewhat differently, is theoretic, and its 
 aim is the True, as the word is applied to know¬ 
 ledge ; the direction of Ethics is practical, and its end 
 is the Good ; the direction of Art is representative, 
 and its end is the Beautiful. Religion includes 
 these three ends, but adds to them that in which they 
 find their consecration—the Holy. The Holy brings 
 an infinite sanction and meaning to that which is 
 otherwise finite and relative. It expresses not 
 only a complete inward peace, but also an essential 
 fellowship with God ” (“ The Gospel of Life,” by 
 
THE PERSONALITY OF JESUS CHRIST 51 
 
 Bishop Westcott, pp. 94-5). Bishop Westcott has 
 here but expressed in more detailed and abstract 
 form the thought of Jesus —“ I am the way, the truth 
 and the life.” In other words, the personality of 
 Jesus Christ is the centre and the sum of the Gospel 
 History. 
 
 It was by His personality, by what He manifested 
 Himself to be, that He impressed His disciples so 
 profoundly. The Gospels preserve for us the grand 
 impression made by Him. The form which is most 
 fitted to convey the impression of a great personality 
 is precisely the form which the Gospels have taken. 
 Memoirs by contemporaries, or by those who were 
 familiar, with contemporaries, have ever been the 
 way by which the records of the great person¬ 
 alities of the world’s history have been preserved 
 for the perusal of future generations. It is not 
 necessary that the writers of the memoirs should 
 have completely understood the person of whom 
 they write. It is enough that they faithfully re¬ 
 cord his actions and his words ; tell us how he 
 acted, spoke, and lived, and have set forth with 
 some measure of fidelity the scenes and circum¬ 
 stances of his life. There are some biographies of 
 this kind, which tell us of a man who simply lived 
 and talked and walked with other men, and did no 
 great or lasting work ; but by the record of what he 
 was, and how he lived, a great impression has been 
 made on the mind. A great biography of this kind 
 makes us in a measure the contemporary of the man 
 of whom we read. Many allusions may be somewhat 
 obscure, and some things we may only dimly see, but 
 in essentials we see the man in his habit as he lived. 
 
52 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 The Gospels form a biography of this kind. The 
 disciples followed Him because they must. He 
 impressed them, and called them, and they could 
 do no otherwise than follow Him. The writers of 
 the Gospels record the impression He made on 
 them or on those who companied with Him. 
 They are written in such a way as to make all 
 men in a sense the contemporaries of Jesus Christ, 
 and all generations have, to speak of nothing higher 
 at present than the mere literary record, in a measure 
 those advantages which the first disciples had. We 
 see Christ Jesus as He lived among men, in the 
 solitude of the mountain top, among the throngs 
 of men, sharing their feasts, helping them in their 
 sorrows, journeying with them, and wherever He is, 
 and whatsoever company He is in, always a friend, 
 and always in the most simple way leading their 
 thoughts upward to the Father. Those who were 
 with Him and were responsive were lifted upwards 
 towards God, and the responsive readers of the 
 Gospels are in exactly the same position. 
 
 He is no mere teacher, lawgiver, thinker. He 
 does not tell men merely what they are to think, 
 what they are to believe, or what they are to do. 
 He is a Friend who has blended His life with theirs 
 in such a way as to bring out the best, purest, 
 highest that is in them, or that they can become. 
 Other massive personalities may simply overmaster 
 men, and make them mere imitators, until they can 
 do nothing but repeat their phrases, mannerisms, 
 attitudes, or ways of thinking. But when we look 
 at the influence of Christ on the men who were with 
 Him, we find that each of them became more his 
 
EFFECT OF CONTACT WITH CHRIST. 53 
 
 true self. Contact with Him seemed to enable them 
 to realise themselves, and to attain to that ideal per¬ 
 fection meant for them. The disciples of Christ never 
 lose their particular personality ; they never form a 
 school, or repeat set phrases as if they were a shibo- 
 leth. They are lifted up out of the common life of 
 the merely selfish, and in Christ each finds his own 
 true and highest self, for union with Christ brings 
 out the true ideal self, which each man is bound to 
 be ; for each man is separate, and has his own lot, 
 calling, and responsibility. He has his own work 
 to do, and his own place to fill. Jesus Christ, as we 
 see Him in the Gospels, is always careful to make 
 each man feel that he is a living person, responsible 
 for himself and his conduct, and possessed of the 
 worth and dignity of a man who is responsible. 
 The Gospels have the same influence still on all 
 who read them. Readers are brought into the 
 presence of Jesus Christ, and in Him they are 
 made alive. They rise to a sense of their worth 
 and dignity as human beings, and they feel the 
 sense of responsibility when, by contact with Him, 
 they understand that they are beings who may be 
 educated into fitness for eternal life. 
 
 Let us look for a little while at the way in which 
 all the views of the higher life of man are met in 
 these memoirs of our Lord. It has ever been a 
 question with earnest men, ever since man began to 
 think, How are we to regard the unseen power on 
 which we know we depend ? We know something 
 of the answers which have been given to this ques¬ 
 tion. All visible, all tangible forms have been used 
 to give form and shape to the Unseen Maker of the 
 
54 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 Universe, and to-day we are tempted to take refuge 
 in silence, or are invited to speak of “the Unknow¬ 
 able power.” We put ourselves under the guidance 
 of the Gospels, and we ask, How are we to think of 
 God ? Our scientific masters give us but little guid¬ 
 ance here. They tell us that all things are ruled by 
 fixed inexorable laws, and the Unseen power seems 
 to remain in the background ; and there seems in 
 the teaching of science to be “ no hope of answer or 
 redress” from beyond the veil. True, it is the busi¬ 
 ness of science to point out the properties of things 
 and the general laws of their manifestation, and 
 science does little else. 
 
 In the Gospels, however, we are in a different 
 atmosphere. We have still laws, constitutions, pro¬ 
 perties of things, and also fixedness and order. But 
 in the order and beyond it there is something else, 
 or rather there is the presence of some one. The 
 Unseen Ruler of the Universe is not distant, nor 
 absent, nor indifferent. He is never far from any 
 one of His creatures. He cares for the grass on the 
 mountains, cares also for the sparrows, and cares 
 for men. We listen while Christ tells us of the 
 Father, and lo ! the whole earth becomes luminous 
 with the presence of God. We learn also of His 
 love, His watchful care, and His deep interest in 
 every man. 
 
 A fresh light is cast on the character of the Father 
 as we watch the character of the Son. The helpful¬ 
 ness of Christ is a revelation of the Father. What 
 Christ is that God is ; and Christ never refused 
 help to the call of need. And the help given was 
 always of the kind which was required, effective, 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE GOSPELS. 55 
 
 loving, discriminative. Thus the revelation which 
 Christ gave us of the Father has added to the 
 thought of the Might, Majesty, and Magnificence of 
 God which we learn from the works of creation, the 
 thought that He is a loving God, rich in mercy, 
 who knoweth what things we need even before we 
 ask Him. 
 
 Again, notice the teaching of the Gospels with 
 regard to sin. The consciousness of sin has been 
 universal, and the feeling of estrangement from 
 God has obtained manifold expression in the 
 literature of the world. It has filled the nations, 
 too, with slavish fear of God. The Gospels, simple 
 from one point of view, tend to deepen our sense 
 of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and to impress 
 us with a sense of the horror with which God 
 regards sin. Nowhere in Holy Writ is the aw¬ 
 fulness of sin so impressively set forth as in the 
 Gospels. But in the Gospels we are taught 
 that sin may be forgiven, and the way of forgive¬ 
 ness is made clear. How can man be reconciled 
 to God ? The revelation of the character of God 
 made in the Gospels at first seems to make it harder 
 to answer the question. For the revelation made by 
 Jesus Christ transcends every other so greatly, that 
 we grow afraid, we can never be reconciled to such 
 a pure, holy, loving God. But with the revelation of 
 the purity of God, came the revelation of the for¬ 
 giveness of sins. And this great need of man is 
 met. 
 
 Then, too, the awful questions about the future 
 life, the life beyond death, which have weighed on 
 
56 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS. 
 
 man so heavily from the beginning. Are they 
 answered here ? All the generations have died, and 
 all of them had some thought of the other world. 
 But no traveller has returned to tell us whether there 
 is such a life, or of what kind it is. We need not 
 expatiate on the pathos or the sadness caused by 
 the doubt, the uncertainty about the future life. It 
 is so easy to be pathetic here. But the doubt and 
 the uncertainty are ended if the Gospel story is 
 irue. “ Because I live ye shall live also.” Christ has 
 returned, and Christ has said, Fear not, I am the 
 First and the Last and the Living One, and I was 
 dead, and behold I am alive for evermore. Fear 
 not to live, thus we hear Him say, for I am the 
 living one. Fear not to die, for I was dead. Fear 
 not what comes after death, for I am alive for ever¬ 
 more, and have the keys of the Unseen World and 
 of death. 
 
 The Gospels stand well all the tests of Reality. 
 The life recorded here must be real, for no one 
 could have invented it. The Personality also is 
 real, for He is so unique as to pass beyond the 
 bounds of human imagination. The help He gave 
 to men, and gives to them, is real, and the truth He 
 taught has been verified a thousand times over in 
 the heart and conscience of men, and in their life 
 and conduct. 
 
 o 
 
THE SUPERHA RURAL. 
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 The Demand of Strauss—His Procedure — Result of 
 it is to give us an Impersonal Christ—Attempts to 
 reduce Christ to the level of Ordinary Humanity— 
 “Translation”—Can we “translate” the Christian 
 Movement, or the Christian Documents, or Christ 
 Himself to the level of Common History ?—Christ’s 
 Miraculous Works natural to Him—Character of the 
 Gospel Miracles. 
 
 STRAUSS has clearly and fully set forth the aim and 
 purpose of much recent literature on the question 
 of the truth of Christianity. “In the person and 
 acts of Jesus no supernaturalism shall be suffered 
 to remain.” Not many writers have set forth their 
 aim as clearly as Strauss has done. But in the 
 various attempts which have been made to account 
 for Christianity without a supernatural Christ, this 
 has ever been either the postulate they start with, 
 or the result to which they come. We may have an 
 attempt made to account for Christ and Christianity 
 on philosophical principles, and then we may have 
 the conclusion that the valuable and the true thing 
 in Christianity is the principle of self-sacrifice, and 
 the service of Christ to Humanity was simply that 
 He presented this principle in a form so concrete 
 and impressive as to stamp it for ever on the im¬ 
 agination and heart of the race, and made it a 
 principle which could practically influence conduct. 
 Having got the idea, the scaffolding may be re- 
 
5 § 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 moved, and the Christ is no more needed, save to 
 illustrate and set forth again this great idea. 
 
 We may have an attempt to get rid of the personal 
 supernatural Christ, which says, with Strauss, “ This 
 is not the mode in which the Idea realises itself: it 
 is not wont to lavish all its fulness on one exemplar 
 and be niggardly to all others, to express itself 
 perfectly in that one individual and imperfectly in 
 all the rest. It rather lives to distribute its riches 
 among a multiplicity of exemplars which recipro¬ 
 cally complete each other; in the alternate appear¬ 
 ance and suppression of a series of individuals. Is 
 this no true realisation of the idea? Is not the 
 union of the Divine and human natures a real one 
 in a far higher sense, when I regard the whole race 
 of man as its realisation, than when I single out a 
 single man as its realisation?” Thus we find that 
 Strauss, in his “Life of Jesus” and in his “ Dog- 
 matik,” seeks to elevate humanity as a whole to the 
 place from which the Personal Christ is dethroned. 
 It is Humanity that is the Incarnation of the Divine, 
 that works miracles, that dies and rises again, and 
 ascends to heaven. It is Humanity that makes 
 atonement, “ for pollution cleaves to the individual 
 only, and does not touch the race or its history.” 
 This, however, was too artificial a solution to satisfy 
 even Strauss for any length of time, and we find 
 that in his latest book he simply yields himself to' 
 a blind adoration of the “ Universum.” 
 
 As, however, the objection of Strauss about the 
 Idea and the individual has persisted in many 
 forms, and appears very frequently in current litera¬ 
 ture, we may look at it. It is a gross and quanti- 
 
STRAUSS' VIEW OF PERSONALITY. 59 
 
 tative way of looking at the question. Strauss 
 thinks of Personality and its qualities as if it was 
 a mere material thing. He apparently thinks of 
 intellectual, moral, and spiritual attributes as if they 
 were so many tons of coal. Of material wealth it 
 may be truly said that all I can obtain for myself 
 is so much taken from other people; but of intel¬ 
 lectual, moral, and spiritual wealth, it may be truly 
 said that it is kept by giving it away. If an indi¬ 
 vidual were possessed of all knowledge, all purity, all 
 goodness, the effect would be simply to increase the 
 mental, moral, and spiritual wealth of other people. 
 The great thinkers of the past have increased our 
 power of thinking—their science, philosophy, art, reli¬ 
 gion, have become part of the inheritance of the race. 
 
 Let Christ be acknowledged to be all that the New 
 Testament says He is, and the result would be, not 
 that He has impoverished all others, by His perfect 
 realisation of the idea, but that He has enriched 
 the whole human race, and every member of it, by 
 the whole wealth of His mental, moral, and spiritual 
 achievement. We may learn to think with all the 
 breadth of the thought of Christ, feel in some 
 measure as He felt, and be filled with the im¬ 
 passioned goodness embodied in Him. To have 
 that pure, great, unselfish life always before us, to 
 speak and think His thoughts, to work ourselves 
 by impassioned meditation and constant imitation 
 of Him into His way ot looking at God and man 
 and the world, would surely be something worth 
 striving for. How could He be to us the example, 
 the stimulus He is, if all perfections had not been 
 sphered in Him? The more perfect, the greater, 
 
6o 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 the higher He is, the richer are we ; and the best 
 and swiftest way of enriching the race—to use the 
 language of Strauss for a moment—would be to 
 enrich an individual with all moral and spiritual 
 wealth, and from Him to let it flow out to every 
 individual of the race. 
 
 There are other ways by which men seek to bring 
 Christ down to the stature of an ordinary man. 
 There are endless criticisms of the Gospel docu¬ 
 ments, and attempts to account for Christianity by 
 a process which began after Christ. The critical 
 controversy has been keen, and fierce, and pro¬ 
 tracted. But it is now within sight of the end. The 
 main documents of the New Testament are docu¬ 
 ments of the first century. We do not mean to 
 dwell on this phase of the question. For the diffi¬ 
 culty about accepting the supernatural character 
 and mission of Jesus Christ is not one based on 
 history, and has not been enhanced by the results of 
 scientific historical inquiry. It is from what men 
 bring to the study of history, not from what they 
 find in it, that their difficulties arise. The phrase 
 which is used most frequently nowadays is that 
 we must “ translate” the events of the New Testa¬ 
 ment into events which can be paralleled in the 
 ordinary experience of man. The phrase is milder 
 than that of Strauss, but it means the same thing. 
 It is said that one who sought to found a religion 
 complained to Talleyrand that no one regarded him, 
 and no one accepted his religion, and he asked 
 Talleyrand what he ought to do. Talleyrand is 
 said to have answered, “ You might be crucified 
 and die, and rise again the third day ! ” 
 
“ TRANSLATION.” 
 
 61 
 
 Let us consider the demand made on us, when 
 we are asked to reduce the epoch in which Chris¬ 
 tianity appeared to the level of ordinary experience. 
 Let us understand what is meant by “ translation.” 
 It simply means that we are to misread history ; 
 that we are to strip the first century of our era of 
 that which forms its unique and distinctive mark 
 among the centuries of the history of the world. 
 We should not hesitate to “ translate ” it if we only 
 could. If we could only find a period like it, or a 
 movement in any of the centuries worthy of com¬ 
 parison with that great movement which cast into 
 the life of humanity the vast power of Christianity, 
 we should rejoice in the fact. We are not able to 
 find a period fit to be compared with it, and we are 
 thus, in deference to the historic spirit, compelled to 
 regard it as unique. All the great movements of 
 the human spirit, during the Christian centuries and 
 in Christian lands,—movements which have ushered 
 in a reformation of manners, and a revival of religious 
 faith, owe their strength and success to the New 
 Testament, and have been fruitful just in propor¬ 
 tion to the thoroughness with which they have 
 embodied the spirit of the New Testament. For in 
 these Christian documents there is a power of 
 perennial life, and a constant source oi revival and 
 reform. 
 
 What Christianity accomplished in the first cen¬ 
 tury we have not space to describe. A movement 
 began in Palestine, and after the Founder of it was 
 no longer present with His followers, they were few 
 in numbers. They were also without learning, 
 without power, or influence. They had no wealth, 
 
62 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 nor social position, nor any of those outward 
 advantages which impress the minds of men. 
 These few people were bold enough to attempt a 
 mission which was to change the future of the 
 world, to reverse the usual standards by which men 
 were wont to measure human worth, to make men 
 love what once they hated, and hate what once they 
 loved. They went forth to reorganise society from 
 the foundations upwards ; to replace pagan stan¬ 
 dards of conduct by Christian standards ; to substi¬ 
 tute the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount for the 
 ethics of Aristotle ; to make love the basis of action, 
 and self-sacrifice its rule ; and to make the service 
 of man blend with the service of God in the new 
 life of the Kingdom of God ; this was the greatest, 
 the most transcendent task ever committed to or 
 attempted by human hands. They ever began with 
 the individual, and demanded from him such a 
 change of life, character, and aim, that it could only 
 be described as a New Creation. These people 
 thus made new creatures, the apostles of Jesus 
 Christ organised into a new community, whose 
 law of life was to be Love to the Master and love 
 to one another. 
 
 The apostles of Jesus Christ undertook the work, 
 and they succeeded. Into the history of the growth 
 of this great movement we shall not enter here. 
 Whether we consider the greatness of the change, 
 or the means by which it was effected, the wonder 
 of it is equally great. None were made Christians 
 by compulsion. They were persuaded to believe in 
 Christ and to obey Him. In some measure, too, 
 these early Christians were able to realise the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS. 
 
 63 
 
 Christian life. They laid aside the ideals and the 
 practices of pagan life, and they strove to live after 
 the pattern of Him who left us an ensample that 
 we should follow in His steps. We say, then, that 
 a movement like this cannot, without a sacrifice of 
 truth and science, be translated into the ordinary 
 experience of humanity. 
 
 Now, can the New Testament be paralleled in the 
 literature of the world ? Take it as it has approved 
 itself in the history of Christendom, as it is opera¬ 
 tive in the life of humanity, and say is there any 
 literature like it. It is productive of a certain kind 
 of life,—the best kind that the world has ever seen. 
 The life realised in it, commanded by it, enforced 
 by its precepts and examples, stands forth as worthy 
 of admiration and imitation, and yet, though eighteen 
 centuries have elapsed since the book appeared, this 
 life stands forth as one not yet attained to or 
 realised in practice by the best, purest, and holiest 
 of men. The best and highest life of Christianity 
 comes short in a measureless degree of the life 
 set forth in the New Testament. For the main 
 charge against Christianity has ever been that it 
 has not realised its ideal. To-day, with all our 
 learning, science, appliances, we cannot rise to the 
 height of the New Testament life. It confronts us 
 in its calm serene majesty, and we feel ashamed 
 of ourselves in its presence. How is this ? Can 
 we “ translate ” a book, a literature of this com¬ 
 manding quality, into the ordinary literature of 
 humanity? We trow not. 
 
 The greatest obstacle to “ translation ” remains 
 to be stated. We cannot “translate” Jesus Christ. 
 
6 4 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 He is unique. The only way to show that He is 
 a mere man, would be to produce men like Him. 
 It is not pretended by any that there have been 
 many men like Him ; and few are so bold as to 
 say there are any like Him. Even those who think 
 of Him as merely human, freely admit that He is 
 the only one of His kind, the purest, best, truest 
 human life ever lived, and the greatest revealer of 
 God ever present among men. But mere humanity, 
 however endowed or enriched by special favour from 
 God, is quite inadequate to explain the great creative 
 personality of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 But it is said that miraculous works are attributed 
 to Him, and the miraculous is impossible. Well, it 
 we were to cast overboard the miraculous element, 
 much would remain that could not be translated 
 with ordinary experience. The great Christian 
 movement, the literature of the New Testament, 
 and the superhuman character of Jesus Christ, 
 would remain. But we are by no means disposed 
 to throw the wonderful works of Jesus Christ over¬ 
 board. The wonderful works of Christ are so 
 interwoven with His words and His life, that we 
 cannot tear them asunder without the destruction 
 of the whole fabric. They serve to reveal and 
 manifest His character. Their nature and the 
 manner of their working are revelations of Jesus 
 and of God. We cannot afford to dispense with 
 them, and if they conflict with any theory of the 
 Universe, it is time that that theory should be 
 revised and corrected. 
 
 What kind of supernatural working is it which 
 we see manifested in the Gospel history ? When 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT MIRACLES. 65 
 
 we look at it, apart from the general question of the 
 supernatural, and consider it in itself, and then in 
 comparison with other accounts of so-called miracles, 
 we are struck with many things. Elsewhere the 
 record of the miraculous is manifestly given for 
 the sake of display, and incongruous, useless, 
 non-moral prodigies abound. In the Gospel, when 
 wonderful works are done, they are done for good 
 and gracious ends. Jesus does not use the power 
 He has for Himself. He does not use His power 
 to provide bread for Himself, when He is weak 
 and worn by prolonged trial and abstinence from 
 food. He does not use His power to free Him¬ 
 self from the hands of cruel and malicious men, 
 when he is betrayed into their hands and is led 
 away to death. He does not use His power to pro¬ 
 vide for His own personal wants or the wants 
 of His disciples. He does not work a miracle to 
 provide what could be procured by the exercise of 
 ordinary prudence and insight. Even when He 
 has suddenly to provide for the five thousand 
 suddenly thrust on His care, there had been suffi¬ 
 cient food provided for the wants of Himself and 
 His disciples. He does no wonderful work for the 
 sake of doing it. Every one is a means to some¬ 
 thing beyond itself. They are done for great spiritual 
 ends. His works are always instructive, for they 
 reveal Himself as well as manifest the great sources 
 of love, compassion, and help stored up in Him. 
 His reserve in the use of them also serves to 
 make Him an example to those who have no such 
 resources on which to draw. He taught men to 
 
 submit with patience to the ordinary lot of man, 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 to depend on the providence of God. And He 
 submitted Himself to these conditions. He worked 
 for daily bread, that others also might submit to 
 work. He endured suffering, lived as other men 
 lived, and was slain as other men are slain. If He 
 had acted otherwise, if He had made stones to be 
 bread, how could He have called on other men to 
 labour for their daily bread ? If He had used His 
 Divine power to provide for Himself, how could He 
 have called on man not to think too much of the 
 bread that perisheth? So He submitted Himself to 
 human conditions, and lived His life as if He had 
 no unusual sources at His command, and left us 
 an example that we should follow in His steps He 
 shared the ordinary life of man, and was afflicted in 
 all their afflictions. 
 
 The wonderful works of Jesus Christ form a 
 necessary part of the revelation of His character. 
 Unlimited power at His command, and never 
 used for the mere pleasure of exercising it, never 
 for any purpose which could be accomplished by 
 ordinary means, never for Himself, but always for 
 others, and for helpful and gracious ends. This 
 is what is forced on our attention by a study of 
 the Gospels. Granted that a person like Jesus 
 Christ is possible, then for Him the works are 
 natural and rational. They can be understood. 
 They are not rash and sudden inroads on the 
 orderly course of nature, nor violent reversals 
 of the laws and constitutions of things ; rather are 
 they the removal of hindrances and of obstacles to 
 the realisation of those higher ends which nature 
 was intended to subserve. Thus the teaching and 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL. 
 
 67 
 
 the wonderful works of Christ have their proper 
 place in the orderly evolution of the Kingdom of 
 God, the final end of all creation. Though in one 
 aspect of them these wonderful works have passed 
 away, and are no more, yet in another aspect 
 they abide. They abide as a revelation of Divine 
 method, and as a manifestation of Divine char¬ 
 acter. They show us that God works, and how 
 God works, for the redemption of man, for the 
 restoration of moral and spiritual order, and for 
 the realisation of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL. 
 
 The Influence of Jesus Christ over the Original Apostles 
 —Could Christ influence Men who did not know 
 Him during His Earthly Ministry ?—Paul’s Answer— 
 Paul’s Experience—His Conversion—Made Captive 
 by Christ—His Surrender to Christ—The Risen 
 Christ can take possession of Men’s Lives—Paul’s 
 Epistles—The Conception of Christ contained in 
 them, also of His Life, Mission, Work—The Chris¬ 
 tian Life a Real Life, accounted for only if Christ be 
 Real. 
 
 Have we any evidence that Jesus Christ exerted 
 power over the minds of men, and exercised 
 dominion over their life and conduct after He 
 was no longer present with them? We have, of 
 course, evidence that those who had companied 
 
68 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL. 
 
 with Him during the years of His earthly ministry 
 continued to believe in Him ; to preach the Gospel 
 He had taught them, and to exercise the ministry 
 of reconciliation He had entrusted to them. We 
 know that the original Apostles, who had been cast 
 down, perplexed, doubtful, regained hope, confid¬ 
 ence, and courage, and went on doing their work, 
 notwithstanding the risks and dangers to which 
 they were exposed. They cheerfully went to prison 
 and to death for His name’s sake. But on their 
 testimony we do not mean to dwell. 
 
 Another, and perhaps a more forcible testimony, 
 lies near our hand. He was able to keep the faith 
 and trust of those who had been His companions. 
 Could He also overcome His enemies, subdue 
 His foes, take captive those who feared and dis¬ 
 liked him, subject them to His influence, make 
 them live the kind of life He insisted on in His 
 followers, and send them forth to preach what 
 they had sought to destroy, and to build up what 
 they had sought to pull down ? We have an 
 undoubted instance, which meets all these con¬ 
 ditions, and serves as a triumphant illustration of 
 the power of the Risen Christ. There is a man 
 whose life we know from his own writings; writings 
 of his which everyone acknowledges to be his ; and 
 these writings tell us what kind of man the Apostle 
 Paul was. We have at least four Epistles from his 
 pen, and of these Baur says—“ There has never been 
 the slightest suspicion of unauthenticity cast upon 
 these four Epistles, and they bear so incontestably 
 the character of Pauline originality, that there is 
 no conceivable ground for the assertion of critical 
 
PA UL'S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 69 
 
 doubts in their case” (Paul, English translation, 
 Vol. II., p. no). We might go further and add to 
 this list those other Epistles of Paul which are now 
 acknowledged by almost every one who has a right 
 to speak on the subject. We limit ourselves to the 
 four Epistles—namely, the Epistle to the Romans, 
 two to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the 
 Galatians. 
 
 From these Epistles we learn that Paul was a 
 Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, proud of his race, 
 and intensely attached to the customs, observances, 
 and religion of his people. “ For ye have heard of 
 my manner of life in time past in the Jew’s religion, 
 how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church 
 of God, and made havoc of it : and I advanced in 
 the Jew’s religion beyond many of mine own age 
 among my countrymen, being more exceedingly 
 zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. i. 13, 
 14). Here, then, is the case before us. An educated 
 Jew ; not ignorant either of other modes of life than 
 the Jewish, for he was of Tarsus, and thus for a 
 time under the influence of Greek culture ; trained 
 in Jerusalem under the wisest and most trusted 
 teachers ; learned in the lore of the Rabbis, and fit 
 himself to be a Rabbi. His intellectual power and 
 grasp are undoubted. He was earnest, diligent, 
 sincere. He is not one who had wasted his intelli¬ 
 gence in vain speculations, nor had he spent his 
 strength in self-indulgence. On the contrary, he 
 had given himself to the search after truth, and 
 pressed on in an endless quest after righteousness. 
 He had sought, but he had not found righteousness. 
 
 This man, stern, upright, self-controlled as he 
 
70 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL. 
 
 was, had in some measure realised his ideal. The 
 righteousness of the Jew seemed to be within his 
 grasp. All that a Jew might hope for might be his. 
 He was approved by his teachers, admired by his 
 equals, trusted by his superiors. Up to a certain 
 time it had never occurred to him that he would 
 lay aside his pride of birth and descent, forget his 
 position and standing as a Jew, gladly surrender all 
 that up to this time had made life desirable, and 
 seek his work and mission in another direction 
 altogether. He came into contact with the followers 
 of Jesus. Among them he found an ideal of life 
 altogether different from that which he cherished. 
 He found a different reading of the Old Testament. 
 Sections on which he had laid the main stress had 
 with them fallen into the background, while those 
 which he had forgotten were by them mainly dwelt 
 on. Many other contrasts were also apparent. 
 But the main thing he found was this, that if the 
 Christians were right, he was utterly and hopelessly 
 wrong. No one can willingly submit to have the 
 basis on which his life is built shattered. Saul was 
 furious, and resolved to do all that in him lay to 
 destroy this party whose views would upset all the 
 convictions of his life. Saul did nothing by halves. 
 “ He persecuted the church of God, and made 
 havoc of it.” He continued in this course of con¬ 
 duct for a time, and while he was engaged in it he 
 thought he was doing God service. He exhibits 
 all the peculiarities of the persecuting mind, and 
 from his own account of himself, he seems then to 
 have never thought that it was possible that he was 
 mistaken. The persecuting mind never doubts, 
 
PAUL , THE CAPTIVE OF CHRIST. 71 
 
 never hesitates : it is always thoroughly persuaded, 
 and Saul was a thorough persecutor. 
 
 This man was made captive by Jesus Christ. 
 Suddenly he was seized, laid hold of by his Master, 
 and from that day onward he lived for Jesus 
 Christ. The effect is manifest: Saul the persecutor 
 becomes the apostle of Jesus Christ. He was not 
 a man given to change, and yet he changed. There 
 must be a cause adequate to produce this effect. In 
 after years he never hesitates to admit that he had 
 changed, and he says that his conversion was a 
 divine, a supernatural event, wrought in him by 
 Christ Jesus the Crucified and Risen One. That 
 the change was a thorough one is unmistakeable. 
 Paul surrendered much in order to become a 
 Christian, and his attachment to Christianity was 
 tested by his endurance and persecution of all 
 kinds. He had many trials, much suffering, and 
 great tribulations to endure. He bore them 
 gladly for Jesus’ sake. “I take pleasure in in¬ 
 firmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in perse¬ 
 cutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake” (2 Cor. 
 xii. 10). 
 
 Here, then, we see the Crucified One, within a 
 few years of His departure, take possession of the 
 life of a man, filling the heart, imagination, reason 
 of Paul with the image of Himself, subduing the 
 man to Himself in so complete a way that He ruled 
 the thinking, willing, feeling of Paul to such a 
 degree that Paul is constrained to say, “ I live : yet 
 no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.” Paul, too, was 
 persuaded that he was in living fellowship with a 
 real Person, Whose Presence was his strength, and 
 
72 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PA UL. 
 
 Whose approval was his highest reward. Jesus 
 Christ had made this man’s life a part of His own 
 life, and yet in such a way that the personality 
 of Paul, in all its characteristic fulness, had never 
 been properly realised until Jesus Christ had taken 
 possession of him. In the service of Christ Paul 
 had found perfect freedom. The love of Christ con¬ 
 strained him. He felt the expansive and the expul¬ 
 sive power of a new affection, which quickened and 
 purified and expanded his life, until all his capaci¬ 
 ties and faculties were in a glow of fervent exercise. 
 Thus Paul found a supreme object to arouse his 
 desires, call forth his affections, enlighten his intel¬ 
 ligence, fill his imagination, and give scope to his 
 highest reason. Whatever Paul was in all his 
 natural bent and capacity before he met with 
 Christ, that he was afterwards and more. 
 
 From this conspicuous example we see that the 
 Crucified One could take possession of a man’s life, 
 and mould it to higher issues. From the case of 
 Paul we can infer that Jesus Christ is a living influ¬ 
 ence over the minds of men. If it were needful we 
 could bring additional evidence to the same effect 
 from all the generations which have come and gone 
 since the time of Paul. The facts of the religious 
 Christian life are as real as the facts with which 
 physical science has to deal, to be treated with the 
 same respect, and to be dealt with as earnestly and 
 sincerely. To insist on this at present would lead 
 us too far afield, and we shall limit ourselves to the 
 life of Paul. 
 
 If we read the Epistles of Paul in their chrono¬ 
 logical order, and endeavour to find from them 
 
PAULS CONCEPTION OF CHRIST. 73 
 
 what Paul’s conception of the Personality of his 
 Master was, we shall not be surprised at the loyalty 
 and devotion he showed. To him Christ was all in 
 all. Every problem which Paul had to solve he 
 brought into direct relation with the person of 
 Christ. If the question related to the universality 
 of the Gospel, and its free offer to every one of the 
 human family, then, for Paul, this question was 
 settled by the universality of Christ. If the ques¬ 
 tion was one of moral purity and church order, it 
 was solved by the same reference. The question of 
 the future life had obtained for Paul a definite 
 answer, because Christ rose from the dead. And 
 so of all other questions, be their nature what they 
 might be, the Apostle of the Gentiles found them 
 answered by a reference to Christ and His salva¬ 
 tion. His own relation to his Master was intensely 
 real, and was such as to bear the stress and strain 
 of all the tumult of his varied life, and of his mani¬ 
 fold suffering and work. 
 
 Had we no other record of Christ and His work 
 than we have in the Epistles of Paul, we should be 
 forced to the conclusion that Jesus Christ was a 
 real person, who lived a unique life, and wielded an 
 influence over men exerted by none before. From 
 the writings of the Apostle we gather that Jesus 
 Christ was a Jew, of the seed of David, according 
 to the flesh. Paul thus writes to the Corinthians : 
 “ I delivered unto you first of all that which I also 
 received, how that Christ died for our sins accord¬ 
 ing to the Scriptures, and that he was buried; 
 and that he hath been raised on the third day 
 according to the Scriptures : and that he appeared 
 
74 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PA UL. 
 
 to Cephas; then to the twelve : then he appeared 
 to above five hundred brethren at once; of whom 
 the greater part remain until now, but some are 
 fallen asleep : then he appeared to James : then to 
 all the apostles : and last of all, as unto one born 
 out of due time, he appeared to me also” (i Cor. 
 xv. 3-8). We learn also that Jesus lived a life of 
 poverty, that He had gathered around Him a 
 number of disciples, among whom Paul mentions 
 Peter and John, and James, the Lord’s Brother. 
 We have also the account of the institution of the 
 Lord’s Supper, and the knowledge that our Lord 
 was betrayed, and betrayed at night. Other facts 
 we might instance also, but these are sufficient to 
 show that J esus was a real person, who lived at a 
 definite period of this world’s history, died a death 
 of supreme suffering on the Cross, was buried, and 
 rose again on the third day. 
 
 What kind of life He lived, what kind of mission 
 He accomplished, and what kind of doctrine He 
 taught, we also learn from the writings of Paul. The 
 main theme is redemption. According to Paul, “He 
 Who was rich for our sakes became poor, that we 
 through His poverty might become rich.” “All 
 things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself 
 through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of 
 reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ re¬ 
 conciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning 
 unto them their trespasses, and having committed 
 unto us the word of reconciliation. We are am¬ 
 bassadors, therefore, on behalf of Christ, as though 
 God were intreating by us ; we beseech you on 
 behalf of Christ be ye reconciled to God. Him 
 
DATE OF PAUL'S WRITINGS. 
 
 75 
 
 who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf* 
 that we might become the righteousness of God in 
 Him” (2 Cor. v. 18-21). It is not necessary to set 
 forth here all that Paul believed Christ to be. It 
 has been frequently done. Suffice it to say that 
 Paul believed Him to be the eternal Son of God, 
 Who was before He became man, Who came into 
 this world to reveal the Father unto men, and to 
 reconcile man to God, Who lived among men and 
 died for their sins, and rose again for their justifica¬ 
 tion. Paul also believed that He ever liveth to 
 make intercession for us. 
 
 It is to be remembered also that these documents 
 were written within a quarter of a century of the 
 crucifixion of our Lord, that the events recorded or 
 referred to in them, were within the knowledge of 
 many then living: that the beliefs and doctrines 
 set forth in them were shared by many thou¬ 
 sands of people scattered throughout the Roman 
 Empire from Jerusalem to Antioch, Corinth, and 
 Rome. In Paul’s time there were Christians in 
 Palestine, Antioch, Cilicia, Galatia, Corinth, and 
 in Rome. There are references to all these in the 
 Epistles of Paul. Let us observe the bearing of 
 all these facts on the truth of Christianity. Within 
 the space of a few years after the death of our 
 Lord, there are people who believe that He was 
 risen from the dead, that He was their Saviour and 
 their God, Who ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them. So persuaded were they of the truth and 
 reality of their faith in Christ, that they were ready 
 to live according to His will, and to die for His 
 sake. They were glad to suffer shame for His 
 
76 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF PA UL. 
 
 name. They were ready to give up all that men 
 usually hold dear rather than deny their Lord and 
 Master. There is no doubt, everyone admits, that 
 their faith was real, intense, and practical. Had 
 their faith any basis in reality ? It is difficult to 
 account for it, if we deny the facts on which they 
 said it was based. That great historic monument 
 is an historical fact. Of that there is abundant 
 evidence. 
 
 It is fully accounted for if the Founder of Christi¬ 
 anity was such a Person as is set forth in the Epistles 
 of Paul. If a Divine Person really took human 
 nature on Himself, submitted to the conditions of 
 human life, worked among men and lived a life of 
 sinlessness and beneficence, died for the sins of men, 
 rose again from the dead, and liveth for ever, then 
 we have a sufficient explanation of the reverence, 
 loyalty, and love, with which He was regarded by 
 His followers. For they worshipped Him as Divine, 
 were loyal to Him as their King, loved Him as their 
 Redeemer. Let these facts be denied or ignored, 
 and it is not possible to account for the Christian 
 movement, or the Christian life. For the Christian 
 life was real, and was actually lived by men on the 
 earth. The power of faith in Christ made bad men 
 good, caused the selfish man to become unselfish, 
 made sinners into saints, and wrought universally, 
 on all on whom it came, a moral reformation of the 
 most conspicuous kind. Real changes of this kind 
 are not wrought by anything but real causes. The 
 facts made the faith, and the faith wrought the 
 wondrous change. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to show that the 
 
THE REALITY OF FAITH. 77 
 
 faith made the facts. But we have already shown 
 that it was beyond the power of the human in¬ 
 telligence to imagine a figure like that of Jesus 
 Christ. We are aware that many able, learned, 
 ingenious men have set themselves to show that 
 the faith has made the facts. We are often saved 
 the trouble of a critical examination of these at¬ 
 tempts, for it is done to our hands. Strauss made 
 a clean sweep of all the older attempts, and the 
 theories of the older rationalism lie thick in the 
 pages of his book, slain by his hands, and killed 
 by his contemptuous mockery. His own theory 
 of “Myth” did not survive the cruel handling of 
 Baur, and Baur’s own explanation has not fared 
 any better. At present the theories of Strauss 
 and Baur have given place to the fancies of 
 Pfleiderer, which are even less impressive than 
 they were. 
 
 For the faith in Jesus Christ was a veritable cause 
 which wrought real changes in the heart, life, and 
 conduct of men; what a faith not grounded in reality 
 could never do. The simple explanation is that the 
 Living Christ came into the lives of these people, 
 revealed Himself to them and in them, took pos¬ 
 session of their lives, lifted them out of self, and 
 enabled them to walk worthy of their high calling. 
 What He did in the first centuries of the Church 
 He still continues to do; and He is with His disciples 
 alway, even to the end of the world. 
 
 0 
 
78 *CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 The “Epistle to Diognetus”—Christian Character de¬ 
 scribed in it—Conflict with Heathenism—Separate¬ 
 ness of Christians—Christian View of Life destroyed 
 the Basis of Roman Society—Christianity at first not 
 distinguished from Judaism—Persecution for the 
 Name in the Second Century ; when did this begin? 
 —The Apologists—Lightfoot, Mommsen, Ramsay, 
 Hardy—Pliny—Nero—Recognition by the Empire 
 of the Character of Christianity — Relation of 
 Christianity to the State—Inference. 
 
 To gain some fitting conception of the Christian 
 community as it existed in the middle of the second 
 century, we quote from the “ Epistle to Diognetus.” 
 “For Christians are not distinguished from the rest 
 of mankind, either in locality, or in speech, or in 
 existence. For they dwell not somewhere in cities 
 of their own, neither do they use some different 
 language, nor practise an extraordinary kind of life. 
 Nor again do they possess any invention discovered 
 by any intelligence or study of ingenious men, nor 
 are they masters of any human dogma as some are. 
 But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and bar¬ 
 barians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the 
 native customs in dress and food and the other 
 arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own 
 citizenship which they set forth is marvellous, and 
 confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwelt in 
 their own countries, but only as sojourners ; they 
 
41 THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS .” 
 
 79 
 
 bear their share in all things as citizens, and they 
 endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign 
 country is a Fatherland to them, and every Father- 
 land is foreign. They marry like all other men, 
 and they beget children; but they do not cast 
 away their offspring. They have their meals in 
 common, but not their wives. They find them¬ 
 selves in the flesh, but they do not live after the 
 flesh. Their existence is on earth but their citizen¬ 
 ship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, 
 and they surpass the laws in their own lives. They 
 love all men and they are persecuted by all. They 
 are ignored, and yet they are condemned. They 
 are put to death, and yet they are endowed with 
 life. They are in beggary, and yet they make 
 many rich. They are in want of all things, and yet 
 they abound in all things. They are dishonoured, 
 and yet they are glorified in their dishonour. They 
 are evil-spoken of, and yet they are vindicated. 
 They are reviled and they bless. They are insulted 
 and they respect. Doing good they are punished as 
 evil-doers ; being punished they rejoice, as if they 
 are thereby quickened by life. War is waged against 
 them as aliens by the Jews, and persecution is carried 
 on by the Gentiles ; and yet those that hate them 
 cannot tell the reason of their hostility” (Lightfoot’s 
 Apostolic Fathers , pp. 505-6). 
 
 Thus the Christians were a community within a 
 community. They were members of a universal 
 society, scattered throughout the world, personally 
 unknown to each other, yet united by spiritual laws 
 of the closest kind. Augustine calls it “ a spiritual 
 republic in the midst of pagan society.” Christianity 
 
So CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 did not seek to upset the existing order of society 
 by any violent action. They were loyal citizens, who 
 strove to render to Caesar the things which belonged 
 to Caesar. They did not touch civic or political 
 institutions; but Christianity implanted a spirit 
 within men which was utterly incompatible with 
 the exisiting order of things. They bore the civil 
 burdens laid on them with a ready mind, cheerfully 
 paid the tribute and the taxes laid lawfully on them. 
 The Magistrate was to them an ordinance of God 
 appointed to maintain order, and they gave to him 
 a loyal obedience. They honoured the Emperor 
 and prayed for him as the head of the State ; nor is 
 there among the many revolts and seditions of the 
 first three centuries the record of even one headed 
 by a Christian. They were treated as outlaws, as 
 public enemies, and they continued to be resigned 
 and submissive ; for they believed they ought to up¬ 
 hold all established order which was not in flagrant 
 contradiction of the laws of God. 
 
 At one point, however, obedience to the Magistrate 
 ceased to be a duty binding on a Christian. At the 
 line where obedience to the established order meant 
 disobedience to Christ, the Christians made a stand 
 and would enter into no compromise. Thus they 
 would not consent to give divine honours to the 
 Emperors, nor sacrifice before their statues, nor 
 swear by their genii. They believed that they were 
 bound to obey him because he was appointed to 
 govern in earthly things, but worship was due to 
 God alone. This of itself was sufficient to bring 
 them into conflict with the State. For in these early 
 centuries the Roman State was constituted on that 
 
THE CONFLICT WITH HEATHENISM. Si 
 
 basis; and the oath by the genius of the Emperor 
 was the official oath taken by all who held office in the 
 State. Public life also was closely connected with 
 the rites and ceremonies and sacrifices of paganism ; 
 and Christians from the beginning were constrained 
 to refuse to hold office in the State. 
 
 It is impossible within our limits to set forth the 
 ways in which Christianity came into conflict with 
 Heathenism. To do so would be to give an 
 adequate account of the pagan ideal of life for the 
 individual, for the family, for the community, and 
 for the State, and to place the Christian ideal along¬ 
 side of it. For there were here different religions, 
 different ideals of life, and ethics which were 
 mutually subversive. For the Christian religion 
 was a reality, expressed a relation to the Three-one 
 God which was binding on a Christian in all his 
 thoughts, words, and deeds. The religion of the 
 Roman was satisfied if he fulfilled his compact 
 with the god, and performed the rites, offered the 
 sacrifices, and fulfilled what he had vowed. If 
 their views about their relation to the Supreme 
 Being were different, different also were their views 
 about man. To a Christian all men were of one 
 blood, and they were bound to honour all men. 
 The unity in Christ was great enough to abolish 
 all differences of race, blood, colour, social position. 
 Jew and Greek, bond and free, man and woman, 
 met on one common level. They were members of 
 one great brotherhood. If the Christians acted on 
 these principles, if they shaped their lives according 
 to the precepts of the New Testament, the very fact 
 of their doing so was sufficient to overturn ancient 
 
82 CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE . 
 
 society from the very foundation of it. For the 
 practice of the new religion was quite inconsistent 
 with the continued existence of the pagan view ot 
 life. 
 
 It was not necessary for a Christian actively to 
 attack the institutions of the Empire. He could 
 not be a Roman official without ceasing to be a 
 Christian, and he quietly withdrew from any claims 
 to office. He could not mingle with the pagan 
 multitude in their games, spectacles, religious 
 observances, and again he withdrew. He could 
 not maintain social intercourse with those who still 
 continued to be pagans, for the daily life of the 
 heathen bore a constant reference to, and a 
 habitual recognition of, the family gods. Thus 
 religiously, ethically, socially, the Christian was 
 constrained to lead a life apart, and Christians 
 were thrown more and more on the society of 
 those who were themselves followers of Christ. 
 The attention of a government so vigilant and 
 watchful as that of Rome must have been drawn 
 to the Christian community at a very early period 
 of its existence. For nearly thirty years it does not 
 appear that any distinction was drawn between 
 Jews and Christians. The Christians were looked 
 on as Jews. And as the Jewish religion was re¬ 
 cognised as a tolerated national religion, Christians 
 for a time were also ignored. For the most part 
 the usual attitude taken by a Roman official was 
 that of Gallio, reported in the Acts of the Apostles : 
 “ If, indeed, it were a matter of wrong or of wicked 
 villany, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear 
 with you : but if they are questions about words and 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME. 83 
 
 names and your own law, look to it yourselves: I 
 am not minded to be a judge of these matters. And 
 he drave them from the judgment seat” (Acts xviii. 
 14, IS)- 
 
 A time came, however, when the distinction 
 between Jew and Christian was recognised by the 
 Roman Government. The Christians were outlawed, 
 proscribed, and persecuted. It was a crime punish¬ 
 able by death for a man to confess that he was a 
 Christian. It is so notorious that Christians were 
 punished for the name that we need not dwell at 
 any length on the fact. At all events, in the second 
 century this was the case. Justin Martyr says, “ If 
 any of the accused deny the Name, and say he is 
 not a Christian, you acquit him, as having no 
 evidence against him as an evil-doer; but if any 
 one acknowledge that he is a Christian, you punish 
 him on account of his acknowledgment. Justice 
 requires that you inquire into the life both of him 
 who confesses and of him who denies, that by his 
 deeds it may be apparent what kind of man each 
 is” ( Apology , chap, iv., Clark’s Translation, p. 9). 
 Athenagoras, about 177 A.D., thus writes—“For us 
 who are called Christians you have not in like 
 manner cared : but though we commit no wrong 
 —nay, as will appear in the sequel of this dis¬ 
 course, are of all men most piously and righteously 
 disposed towards the Deity and towards your 
 government—you allow us to be harassed, plun¬ 
 dered, and persecuted, the multitude making war 
 on us for our Name alone. . . . But no name in 
 and by itself is reckoned either good or bad : names 
 appear good or bad according as the actions under- 
 
84 CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE . 
 
 lying them are bad or good. You, however, have 
 yourselves a clear knowledge of this, since you are 
 well instructed in philosophy and all learning. For 
 this reason, too, those who are brought before you 
 for trial, though they may be arraigned on the 
 gravest charges, have no fear, because they know 
 that you will inquire respecting their previous life, 
 and not be influenced by names if they mean no¬ 
 thing, nor by the charges contained in the indict¬ 
 ments if they should be false ; they accept with 
 equal satisfaction, as regards its fairness, the 
 sentence, whether of condemnation or acquittal. 
 What, therefore, is conceded as the common 
 right of all, we claim for ourselves, that we shall 
 not be hated or punished because we are called 
 Christians (for what has the name to do with our 
 being bad men ?), but be tried on any charges which 
 may be brought against us, and either be released 
 on our disproving them, or punished if convicted of 
 crime—not for the name (for no Christian is a bad 
 man unless he falsely profess our doctrine), but for 
 the wrong he has done ” {Plea of Athenagoras, Clark’s 
 Translation, pp. 376-7). 
 
 Many other witnesses might be instanced, but 
 these of themselves prove that Christians were 
 persecuted for the Name. When did this begin? 
 We can now answer the question with confidence, 
 for recent investigation has cast a great deal of 
 light on the matter. Thanks to Mommsen, the 
 great historian of Rome, to Professor Ramsay of 
 Aberdeen, and to Mr Hardy, and also to Bishop 
 Lightfoot, we can say that this relation of the 
 Roman State to the Christian Church dates from 
 
PLINY’S LETTERS. 
 
 85 
 
 the time of Nero. In this, as in many other 
 instances, the Christian tradition has been verified 
 and confirmed by scientific historical investigation. 
 We have the correspondence between Pliny and 
 Trajan, which casts a valuable light both on the 
 character of the Christian community and on the 
 relation it bore to the Roman Government. 
 
 Pliny writes to Trajan for instruction, as he had 
 never been present at any trials of Christians, 
 and did not know what he should inquire into, 
 what should be punished, and what were the limits 
 both of inquiry and of punishment. He tells 
 that he asked them three distinct times whether 
 they were Christians ; and if they were obstinate, 
 he ordered them to be executed. Some he had 
 sent to Rome. Some who denied that they were 
 Christians, and who offered incense and wine 
 before the statue of the Emperor, he dismissed. 
 Those who adhered to Christianity, said that they 
 assembled periodically at dawn and sung a hymn 
 to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to ab¬ 
 stain from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, and dis¬ 
 honesty, after which they separated, meeting again 
 for a common meal, which was open to all and 
 innocent. Such is the substance of this unique 
 letter. We venture to borrow the results of Profes¬ 
 sor Ramsay, set forth in his great work on “the 
 Church in the Roman Empire,” p. 223 :—“ 1. There 
 was no express law or formal edict against the 
 Christians in particular. 2. They were not pro¬ 
 secuted or punished for contravening any formal 
 law of a wider character interpreted as applying 
 to the Christians. 3. They were judged and 
 
86 CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 condemned by Pliny, with Trajan’s full approval, 
 by virtue of the imperium delegated to him, and 
 in accordance with the instructions issued to 
 governors of provinces to search out and punish 
 sacrilegious persons, thieves, brigands, and kid¬ 
 nappers. 4. They had before this been classed 
 as outlaws, and enemies to the fundamental prin¬ 
 ciples of society and government, of law and order, 
 and the admission of the name Christian in itself 
 entailed condemnation. 5. This treatment was 
 accepted as a settled principle of the imperial policy, 
 not established by the capricious action of a single 
 Emperor. 6. While Trajan felt bound to carry out 
 the established principle, his personal view was 
 opposed to it, at least to such an extent that he 
 advised Pliny to shut his eyes to the Christian 
 offence, until his attention was expressly directed 
 to an individual case by a formal accuser, who 
 appeared openly to demand the interference of 
 the imperial Government against a malefactor. 
 7. A definite form of procedure had established 
 itself through use and wont.” 
 
 We may refer also to Professor Ramsay’s vindica¬ 
 tion of the historical trustworthiness of Tacitus. 
 When Tacitus tells us that Christianity “had its 
 origin from Christus, who, in the reign of Tiberius, 
 had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate,” 
 he is speaking what is true. Tacitus furthermore 
 is speaking what is historically true when he tells us 
 of Nero’s action with regard to the Christians. Pro¬ 
 fessor Ramsay and Mr Hardy (“ Christianity and 
 the Roman Government”) prove that Tacitus has 
 given a true description of the historical situation 
 
MOMMSEN, RAMS A Y, HARDY. 
 
 87 
 
 under Nero. Nero, to avert suspicion from himself, 
 had charged the Christians with the crime of in¬ 
 cendiarism. “The investigation, arising from a 
 purely incidental charge, had made the Government 
 for the first time acquainted, not with the name— 
 for that was probably known before—but with some 
 of the peculiarities of the sect, and though the 
 numbers were not sufficiently great, nor the mem¬ 
 bers of sufficient social importance to make it really 
 a political danger, . . . yet the principles of the 
 religion seemed to involve in the last resort political 
 disobedience, the recognition of an authority which, 
 in cases of collision with the State authority, was in 
 preference to be obeyed ” (Hardy, “ Christianity and 
 the Roman Government,” pp. 73, 74). Nero estab¬ 
 lished the principle which was to guide the action 
 of the Roman Government. As the result of the 
 trial the Christians were recognised as a body whose 
 principles seemed to the authorities to be subversive 
 of all the bonds which held society together. 
 
 The investigation carried out by Mommsen, 
 Ramsay, Hardy, and others, has produced certain 
 important facts already, and seems destined to add 
 still more of lasting scientific and apologetic worth. 
 For our present purpose we have called attention to 
 it, because it enables us to see more clearly that 
 within thirty years of the crucifixion of our Lord 
 there existed a community who believed in Christ 
 Jesus, who sought to live in accordance with His 
 precepts and after His example. The life they lived 
 was shaped according to the pattern set forth in the 
 New Testament. Whether we consider the truth 
 they believed, or the life they sought to live, we 
 
88 CHRISTIANITY AND ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 have abundant evidence of the intense vitality and 
 dominant influence of the New Testament standard 
 of life. For our argument at the present moment 
 we may neglect all inquiry into the question as to 
 whether the documents of the New Testament were 
 in existence at the time of Nero. For the life of the 
 Christian community is moulded, shaped, fashioned 
 after that type. And the type is found nowhere else 
 in the history of mankind. Whether the New 
 Testament was in existence as a writing or not, the 
 spirit, aim, and tendency of it were already somehow 
 embodied in the life of the Christian community. 
 
 Take their relation to the State, and we find it to 
 be something unique. The strange union of re¬ 
 spect for the Government as an ordinance of God, 
 to be honoured, obeyed, and reverenced, with the 
 bold and unhesitating refusal to obey wheresoever 
 it seemed to conflict with the commands of God, 
 and to interfere with the reverence due to Christ, 
 is something we do not find elsewhere in the history 
 of the world, and it must be accounted for. Take 
 the Christian relation between man and man, be¬ 
 tween Christian and Christian, and between a 
 Christian and a Pagan, and the same remark 
 applies. In fact, as we pass round all the circle 
 of difference between the Christian and the Pagan 
 ideal, we have the same reflection to make. What 
 can have persuaded men to forsake all their ancient 
 ideals, to reverse their former standards of worth 
 and heroism, and to enter on a life which, on the 
 one hand, led to suffering, shame, and death, and, 
 on the other hand, seemed to them to be the only 
 life worth living ? and the answer is : The love of 
 
MR GLADSTONE. 
 
 89 
 
 Christ constraineth us. In this relation, take the 
 following from Mr Gladstone’s article in the Peoples 
 Pictorial Bible :— 
 
 “ The religion of Christ is for mankind the 
 greatest of all phenomena, the greatest of all 
 facts. It is the dominant religion of the inhabit¬ 
 ants of this planet in at least two important respects. 
 It commands the largest number of professing ad¬ 
 herents. If we estimate the population of the globe 
 at 1,400,000,000 (and some would state a higher 
 figure), 400,000,000 or 500,000,000 of these, or one- 
 third of the whole, are professing Christians ; and 
 at every point of the circuit the question is not one 
 of losing ground, but of gaining it. The fallacy which 
 accepted the vast population of China as Buddhists 
 in the mass has been exploded, and it is plain that 
 no other religion approaches the numerical strength 
 of Christianity ; doubtful, indeed, whether there be 
 any which reaches one-half of it. The second of 
 the particulars now under view is perhaps even 
 more important. Christianity is the religion in 
 the command of whose professors is lodged a 
 proportion of power far exceeding its superiority 
 of numbers, and this power is both moral and 
 material. In the area of controversy it can hardly 
 be said to have a serious antagonist. Force, secular 
 or physical, is accumulated in the hands of Christ¬ 
 ians in a proportion absolutely overwhelming; and 
 the accumulation of influence is not less remarkable 
 than that of force. This is not surprising, for all 
 the elements of influence have their home within 
 the Christian precinct. The art, the literature, the 
 systematised industry, invention and. commerce— 
 
90 CHRISTIANITY & GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in one word the power, of the world are almost 
 wholly Christian. In Christendom alone there 
 seems to lie an inexhaustible energy of world¬ 
 wide expansion. The nations of Christendom are 
 everywhere arbiters of the fate of non-Christian 
 nations.” 
 
 - o - 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Forces arrayed against Christianity—Dr Hatch—Ritschl 
 and his School—Attempts to make Christianity a 
 system of Ideas — The independent character of 
 Christian Theology—Greek conceptions of God— 
 Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics—Christian concep¬ 
 tion of God — Personality — Limits of Christian 
 speculation — Relation of God to the World — 
 Doctrine of Creation — Christian estimate of Man 
 —The Future Life — In relation to their idea of 
 God, of Man, and the World, there is a decided 
 contrast between Christian and all Pagan Thought 
 —The Problem set to Christian Theology. 
 
 Against the progress of the New Society were 
 arrayed the organised powers of the Roman Empire, 
 the customs, manners, and ideals of a society pene¬ 
 trated through and through with the spirit of the 
 Ancient Civilisations, hallowed by a sacred antiquity, 
 and sanctioned by all those moral and religious 
 associations which make life precious to men; 
 the Christian Church had also to contend with 
 
DR HATCH. 
 
 9i 
 
 all the resources of the keenest and most subtile 
 intelligence ever possessed by any race of man. 
 Christianity had to make way against all the forces 
 of organised government, of religion and morality, 
 as these were then constituted, and against all the 
 resources of Greek Philosophy. We still feel the 
 power and grandeur of the Roman political and 
 legal system, and Roman Law in particular has 
 wielded, and still continues to wield, an immense 
 influence, greater, perhaps, than we can well 
 measure. It is not necessary to speak of Greek 
 Philosophy, nor to say that it still continues almost 
 to master us. 
 
 It has been contended that of the numerous ele¬ 
 ments which form the system of Christian theology, 
 many are due to Roman Law and to Greek Philo¬ 
 sophy. Indeed it is said that the larger part of the 
 Christian Creed is from a Hellenistic source. Dr 
 Hatch says, “ The Sermon on the Mount is the 
 promulgation of a new law of conduct: it assumes 
 beliefs rather than formulates them: the theo¬ 
 logical conceptions which underlie it belong to the 
 ethical rather than the speculative side of philo¬ 
 sophy: metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene 
 Creed is a statement partly of historical facts and 
 partly of dogmatic inferences. The metaphysical 
 terms which it contains would probably have been 
 unintelligible to the first disciples : ethics have no 
 place in it. The one belongs to a world of Syrian 
 peasants, the other to a world of Greek philoso¬ 
 phers ” (.Hibbert Lectures , pt. I.). On the one hand 
 we have the school of Ritschl and men like Dr 
 Hatch, who think that the Greek element has had 
 
92 CHRISTIANITY & GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the main influence in the shaping of Christian life 
 and the formation of Christian theology, and call on 
 us to strip from Christianity the Greek garb, and go 
 back to the merely ethical; and on the other hand 
 there are men who think the Greek element the 
 most important, neglect the facts on which Christ¬ 
 ianity is based, or make them mere scaffolding for 
 the upbuilding of the system of ideas which they 
 find in Christianity. 
 
 The truth surely lies between. There is a Christ¬ 
 ian view of the universe, as there is also a Christian 
 rule of conduct. Christianity has its own specific 
 contribution to make as to the way in which men 
 are to think of God, of the world, and of man. It 
 must satisfy man's longing for truth, as well as man’s 
 desire for life and guidance. Even in the Sermon 
 on the Mount we have more than Dr Hatch has 
 found. We have for example Christ Jesus in it, 
 the authority which He claims, the position He 
 assumes, and the way in which He identified Him¬ 
 self with truth and righteousness. Then the New 
 Testament has other writings, in which are set forth 
 statements about God, and man, and the world, 
 which are in their very nature theological and 
 philosophical. If we substitute the Fourth Gospel 
 for the Sermon on the Mount in Dr Hatch’s anti¬ 
 thesis, how would it read ? Manifestly he could not 
 say that the Fourth Gospel belongs to a world 
 of Syrian peasants, the other to a world of Greek 
 philosophers. 
 
 The Christian Church was bound to reflect on the 
 Christian facts, and to understand their meaning if 
 she could. In the Apostolic writings is contained 
 
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 
 
 93 
 
 already the type after which she is bound to think 
 and meditate. In her thinking she took a path of 
 her own, and built up for herself a system of truth 
 which in many ways forms a contrast to Greek 
 philosophy. This great subject can be but slightly 
 handled here, only the barest outline can be given. 
 The Christian Church maintained a doctrine of God 
 which is in decided contrast to anything we find in 
 Greece. And this doctrine we are not disposed to 
 yield up, either in deference to those who call on us 
 to give up the attempt to prove any doctrine of God, 
 and to be content with a purely regulative know¬ 
 ledge of Him, or in deference to those who call on 
 us to be content with a doctrine of God which would 
 strip Him of all personality and possibility of per¬ 
 sonal fellowship with men. 
 
 The basis of the Greek conception of the Divine 
 is Pantheistic, and this was never overcome. Neither 
 by Plato, nor by Aristotle, nor by the Stoics, was 
 there any real approach to the Christian conception 
 of God. As to Plato : “ Thus we see that the 
 process which is symbolised in the creation of the 
 universe by the Artificer, is no mere arbitrary 
 exercise of power ; it is the fulfilment of an inflex¬ 
 ible law. The Creator does not exist but in 
 creating; or, to drop the metaphor, absolute 
 thought does not really exist unless it is an object 
 to itself. So then the Creator, in creating the world, 
 creates himself; he is working out his own being. 
 Considered as not creating, he has neither existence 
 nor concrete meaning” ( The Timceus of Plato , by 
 Archer-Hind, pp. 40-41). The Timceus contains 
 the highest thought of Plato on this great topic. 
 
94 CHRISTIANITY & GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 But even here the thought of God is removed far 
 from the world of matter, and matter is regarded as 
 essentially evil. Matter and spirit remain apart, 
 and the ancient philosophers were unable to arrive 
 at any satisfactory solution of the problem of the 
 relation of God to the world. 
 
 Aristotle sought to remove God far from the 
 world, and to place Him in solitary self-contem- 
 plation, the object of His own thought, the unmoved 
 mover of all movement. For the essence of the 
 Divine being must be set far above nature, and 
 must specially be untouched by the mutations of 
 earthly existence. The precise relation of the un¬ 
 moved mover to that which is moved is not clear, 
 and a further exposition of it is not possible here. 
 
 While Aristotle maintained the complete separa¬ 
 tion of God from the world, the Stoic philosophy 
 went to the other extreme, and maintained the 
 doctrine that God is completely merged in the 
 world. God was identified with the world, and 
 Stoicism tended to become more and more Pan¬ 
 theistic. There were various attempts at a com¬ 
 promise, or at a union of the two tendencies, but 
 these we cannot enumerate. We may say, however, 
 that the problem of the relation of God to the world 
 is the main problem of thought in the ages immedi¬ 
 ately before and after the beginning of the Christian 
 era. It rules the Alexandrian philosophy. It rules 
 also the Neo-Platonist speculation from its begin¬ 
 ning to its close. Neo-Platonism is an illustrious 
 example of what Christianity might have become 
 if it had been wholly dominated by Hellenistic 
 influences. 
 
CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD. 95 
 
 What path did Christianity take amid all the 
 entanglements of such speculations as these ? Did 
 it persevere its independence ; and proceed on its 
 own path towards a solution which was more 
 adequate than the Greek ? The thought of Chris¬ 
 tianity was neither Platonist, nor Aristotelian, nor 
 Stoic. It was Christian. It held fast to the con¬ 
 ception given to it that God was a Spiritual person¬ 
 ality. It did not reach this thought by a process of 
 philosophical research and speculative reasoning. 
 To them it was a datum, not a conclusion. That 
 there was a living God, the Creator of the universe, 
 the Upholder of everything that is, the Redeemer 
 of the world, was to them the fixed and sure ground 
 of all thought and action. This was the living 
 belief of the Christian community, and this faith 
 was the mainstay of its power. This belief pervades 
 the New Testament; it is defended by the Apolo¬ 
 gists of Christianity, and set forth by all the great 
 thinkers of the early church. It is the fundamental 
 postulate of Christian theology, and prescribes the 
 limits of every Christian attempt to set forth a 
 theory of the universe ; and it is in striking con¬ 
 trast to the Hellenistic solution of the problems of 
 the philosophy of religion. 
 
 It is here, too, that the Christian view of the world 
 comes into conflict with the main systems of philo¬ 
 sophy, ancient and modern. It is precisely in this 
 question of personality that the great difference 
 emerges. Hellenism sees in personality just what 
 most philosophers see in it still, merely a limitation, 
 and regards it as something which is characteristic 
 only of finite beings. While they might speak of par- 
 
96 CHRISTIANITY GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ticular gods as personal, they kept it at a distance 
 from the Supreme Being. To speak of the Supreme 
 Being as personal would be, to them, to make Him 
 finite, limited, and restricted. 
 
 To the living faith of Christianity the source and 
 ground of all existence was a Supreme Personality. 
 God was One who could speak to them, and to 
 whom they could speak. They were conscious of 
 fellowship with Him. And all speculation was 
 limited by this fundamental article of belief. From 
 this the main stream of Christian theology has never 
 swerved, and here, therefore, we have a proof of the 
 fact that Christian thought took a path of its own. 
 It kept its faith in a Living Personal God, and made 
 it the foundation of all its attempts to think out the 
 problem of His relation to the world. 
 
 But God was not to the church a mere abstract 
 unity. To them there were abiding distinctions in 
 the God-head, and love took for them a more pro¬ 
 found meaning, because love had its home in God 
 before the universe began to be. To them God was 
 Father, Son, Spirit, and the unity of God was some¬ 
 thing deeper than that of a self-thinking spirit. 
 
 Thus, too, the question of the immanence and 
 transcendence of God took a new form, and the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation helped men to see how 
 God, whom the heaven of heavens could not contain, 
 still dwelt with man on the earth. When the 
 Creator took creaturehood unto Himself, there was 
 revealed a way of final union between the Maker of 
 the world and the worlds which He had made. 
 
 In the doctrine of Creation also we have a striking 
 contrast to all modes of Greek thinking in this 
 
CREA TION. 
 
 97 
 
 relation. Creation is not emanation ; it is not the 
 result of a self-sundering of the divine Substance; 
 it is not a necessary or inevitable action on the part 
 of the Divine Being; it is a voluntary work. In 
 the work of Creation, as it is conceived by Christian 
 thinkers, God is not working out His own Being, 
 or moving into otherness to realise Himself. He 
 makes a world for wise and gracious ends, ends 
 which as yet a Christian does not fully understand. 
 Thus Christianity maintains the distinction between 
 God and the world, for the world is God’s crea¬ 
 tion, made by Him, sustained by Him, and all the 
 laws, processes, and results of the world are never 
 removed from Him. 
 
 The contrast between Christianity and Greek 
 modes of thought is conspicuous also in their 
 estimate of man and his worth. Christianity, as a 
 living religion, demands a personal relation to the 
 Ground of the World, thought of as a Supreme 
 Personality. And Christian thought has toiled in 
 order to bring this relation into clear consciousness. 
 It finds this relationship ideally set forth in the 
 relation of the Eternal Son to the Eternal Father, 
 and realised also in a measure in the thought that 
 men are sons of God. The relation of sonship, 
 however constituted, is the supreme expression of 
 this demand of Christianity, and also of its satis¬ 
 faction. It is the relation of persons to a person, 
 and here again we advance beyond the thought of 
 Greece. For in Greek thought personality was only 
 the transient product of a life, which as a whole is 
 impersonal. It is the essential feature of the Chris¬ 
 tian conception of the world to regard the person 
 
 G 
 
98 CHRISTIANITY & GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and the relations of persons to one another as the 
 very essence of reality. For to Christianity person¬ 
 ality is permanent, and persists. 
 
 This leads us to another decided contrast between 
 the Greek and Christian views of the world, a con¬ 
 trast which is far-reaching and has very wide issues. 
 What is the mode of the future life ? What are the 
 elements of the beings who live the future life? 
 Here, too, the distinctive Christian doctrine is, not 
 that of the immortality of the soul, but that of the 
 immortality of the whole organic being, body, soul, 
 spirit, by whatever names we may call the various 
 elements, the union of which make up man. In 
 this respect, as in many others, there have been 
 strenuous attempts to substitute Hellenism for 
 Christianity, and to make Paul speak the language 
 of Plato. The life and immortality brought to light 
 by Christ is of a kind altogether different from any 
 contemplated by pagan thought. For them matter 
 was evil and vile, and the body was a prison-house. 
 Their highest view of death was that it was a de¬ 
 liverance from the prison-house of the body. The 
 Greek view of matter, as essentially evil, had import¬ 
 ant consequences on all their system of thought. It 
 led to the attempt to isolate the Supreme Being 
 from the world ; it caused a hopeless dualism in the 
 thought of the Greeks, whether that thought was 
 directed towards God, or man, or the world. It led 
 also to an insincere view of evil, and disabled the 
 Greek mind in every attempt to grasp the real nature 
 of sin. The Greek view lies at the basis of the 
 attacks which are constantly made even nowadays 
 to discredit the evidence of the Resurrection of our 
 
PROBLEM SET TO CHRISTIAN THOUGHT. 99 
 
 Lord, and explains why so many are desirous of 
 substituting the immortality of the soul for the 
 resurrection of the dead. 
 
 But we may not dwell on these things. It is enough 
 here to point out that with regard to the doctrine of 
 God and of His relation to the world with regard 
 to man, his present being and his future destiny, 
 with regard to creation and providence, Christian 
 thought took a path of its own. It was a difficult 
 task it took in hand, a task which we also have in 
 hand. To maintain the Christian verities, and yet 
 to be ready to learn from Greece and Rome what 
 they could teach them of truth, and life, and duty : 
 to maintain a doctrine of God, which would con¬ 
 serve His transcendence over the world, His im¬ 
 manence in the world, and yet not identify Him 
 with the world: to maintain abiding distinctions 
 within the Godhead, and yet conserve the unity of 
 the Godhead : to insist that love was the essential 
 attribute of God, and yet to estimate rightly the 
 guilt, the sinfulness, and the demerit of sin ; be¬ 
 tween these and other similar perplexities on the 
 right hand and on the left Christian theology had 
 to steer, and to work out a Christian view of the 
 Universe. 
 
 If, in the working out of the Christian view, it 
 sometimes pushed some elements into undue pro¬ 
 minence and left others out of sight, if at one time 
 some aspect was forced to the front to the neglect 
 of others, it was ultimately brought back to the 
 right path of development, or will yet be brought 
 back to it. For Christian theology has for its recti¬ 
 fication a divine corrective, as Christian life also 
 
loo CHRISTIANITY & GREEN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 has set for it a Divine standard. In both, the 
 New Testament has set the measure and the norm. 
 It is the rule of our thinking as well as the guide of 
 our life. There is more to be found in the New 
 Testament than has yet been discovered by man. 
 Its methods and its principles will be better under¬ 
 stood by-and-bye. Read in the light of the advanc¬ 
 ing thought of humanity it attains to greater and 
 greater grandeur. The great objects of human 
 thought God, and man, and the world are becoming 
 ever greater as science and philosophy make pro¬ 
 gress. And Christianity welcomes light from every 
 quarter. It is wonderful how the thought of the New 
 Testament harmonises with the highest thought of 
 man. In all the discussions about the Supreme 
 Being, and in all the thought directed towards Him, 
 it is surprising to find how the best and deepest 
 thoughts agree with the thought of God set forth in 
 the Scriptures. The study of man in all the aspects 
 of his complex being, in his bodily structure, and in 
 his mental being, is bringing us nearer to that 
 estimate of him as a being of infinite worth which 
 is implied in the New Testament. The study of 
 nature has revealed to us a new world. The world 
 is a new world for man since science has sent its 
 illuminating torch into its wide and deep recesses. 
 This knowledge which has increased by leaps and 
 bounds, serves also to bring to light aspects of the 
 revelation of God in Christ, which were hidden 
 from men’s eyes till the Key was put into their 
 hands. What was first understood was that part of 
 revelation necessary to healthy life and right con¬ 
 duct. But there is also a wider aspect of revelation, 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 lor 
 
 which discloses itself as men are made fit to receive 
 it. So all gains of philosophy and all results of 
 science are welcomed by Christianity, and are help¬ 
 ful to Christians to enable them to apprehend the 
 height, and depth, and length, and breadth, of the 
 great revelation of God entrusted to them. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS. PRINTERS EDINBURGH. 
 

 
 
 
 
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