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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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-

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.

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

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.

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

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.

THE SUPERHA RURAL.

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,

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.”

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,

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.

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,

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 .”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

§ibk Class primers.

Continued.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD. By Rev. F. Herbert Stead,
M.A. 3 Parts.

LIFE OF MOSES. By Rev. Professor Iverach, M.A.

“ Accurately done, clear, mature, and scholarly.”— Christian.

LIFE OF ST JOHN. By Paton J. Gloag, D.D.

“ We commend this choice little work to our thoughtful readers.’
—Methodist S. S. Record.

LIFE OF PAUL. By Paton J. Gloag, D.D.

“ This little book could not well be surpassed .”—Daily Review.

LIFE AND REIGN OF SOLOMON. By Rev. Rayner
Winterbotham, M.A., LL.B.

1 ‘ Every teacher should have it.”—Rev. C. H. Spubgeon.

THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. By Rev.
Professor Witherow.

“ A vast amount of information set forth in a clear and concise
manner .”—United Presbyterian Magazine.

THE KINGS OF ISRAEL. By Rev. W. Walker, M.A.
“ A masterpiece of lucid condensation .”—Christian Leader.

THE KINGS OF JUDAH. By Rev. Professor Given,
Ph.D.

“Admirably arranged; the style is sufficiently simple and clear to
be quite within the compass of young people .”—British Messenger.

JOSHUA AND THE CONQUEST. By Rev. Professor

Croskery.

‘ ‘ This carefully written manual will be much appreciated .”—Daily
Review.

THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA; or, The Seven Golden
Candlesticks. By the Author of “The Spanish
Brothers.” Cloth, Is.

BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES, Explained and Illus¬
trated. By Rev. Charles Michie, M.A. I8mo,
cloth, Is.

“Will be found interesting and instructive, and of the greatest
value to young students andteachers.”— Athenaeum .

T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street, Edinburgh.

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