IBStiS-i;-! ■:■■•■■ ' 
 
 imi 
 
 •0M; 
 
 
 ■I' V- '^ 
 
 
* JUNTO 1922. * 
 
 BR 121 .V43 1922 
 Vedder, Henry C. 1853-1935. 
 The fundamentals of 
 Christianity 
 
THE 
 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 A Study of the Teaching of Jesus and Paul 
 
jH^^ 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO.. Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE FUNDAMENTALS 
 OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 A STUDY OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 HENRY C. VEDDER 
 
 Professor op Church History in Crozer 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 JUN F01922 
 
 Nrm fork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 J// rig/its reserve^ 
 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Copyright 1922, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and Printed Published January, 1922. 
 
 FERRIS 
 
 PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
TO 
 
 MY TEACHER IN THEOLOGY 
 
 AUGUSTUS HOPKINS STRONG, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 READER, IF YOU FIND HERE AUGHT GOOD AND TRUE 
 
 THANK HIM. 
 
 IF YOU FIND UNTRUTH AND HERESY 
 
 •BLAME ME! 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Prolegomena . . , . ix 
 
 Chapter I 
 Jesus the Peasant — Poet of Galilee . . i 
 
 Chapter II 
 Jesus the Prophet and Teacher ... 28 
 
 Chapter III 
 Jesus the Reveaier of God . . . 54 
 
 Chapter IV 
 Jesus the Herald of the Kingdom . , 76 
 
 Chapter V 
 Jesus the Saviour of the World ... 98 
 
 Chapter VI 
 Saul the Urban Pharisee . . . . 115 
 
 Chapter VII 
 The Making of Paul the Apostle . . . 137 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 Paul the Christian. Rabbi .... 161 
 
 Chapter IX 
 Paul the Speculative Theologian . . . 178 
 
 Chapter X 
 After All, What i$ Christianity ? . . . 209 
 
PROLEGOMENA 
 
 The specific sources for the writing of such a book as this 
 are, of course, the Gospels, for the teaching of Jesus, and 
 the Epistles of Paul, for the teaching of the apostle. But 
 we cannot understand these without taking into account 
 tlie whole literature of the Hebrew people, of which these 
 writings are an inseparable part. Though the modern Jew 
 refuses to recognize the later collection of writings known 
 to us as the ISTew Testament, he cannot deny that it is as 
 Jewish as the older collection. The apostles may have been 
 apostate Jews, but they were certainly elews. Only a single 
 gentile writer, so far as we know, contributed aught to the 
 'New Testament ; and even Luke was Jew by conviction, if 
 not Jew by birth. 
 
 These writings are, without exception, deeply imbued 
 with the spirit of the people who produced them and of the 
 times in which they were composed. Jew and Christian 
 are agreed in regarding them as a divine revelation (though 
 the JeWj of course, would deny this character to the later 
 collection), but all intelligent people of both religions have 
 come to recognize in these books a human element, as well 
 as a divine. They were not handed down from heaven, 
 or even dictated by God to human amenuenses, but com- 
 posed under the guidance of the divine Spirit by men who 
 liad the limitations of other men. The writers were not 
 of a uniform grade of mentality or spiritual insight, and 
 so great differences are discernible in the writings ; in par- 
 ticular, the older books give us a different ideal of God 
 and teach different ethics, from the later. Men can no 
 longer shut their eyes to this fact; the wonder is that for 
 ages they were able so coniph^tolv to ignore it. Xo canflid 
 
 ix 
 
X PROLEGOMENA 
 
 reader of the Scriptures can now fail to see that they 
 many times flatly contradict each other, and none of the 
 processes of mechanical ^^reconciliation" that satisfied our 
 fathers will remove this difficulty for us. There is but one 
 honest method of reconciliation available: to recognize 
 these collections of Avritings as the record of a progressive 
 revelation ; to admit frankly that the earlier writers ''saw 
 through a glass darkly/' and that even some of the later can 
 hardly be said to have seen ''face to face." In other words, 
 God revealed himself by degrees to men, as they were able 
 to receive knowledge of him ; and the revelations of earlier 
 time were of necessity fragmentary and imperfect. 
 
 It inevitably follows from this understanding of the 
 nature of the Bible that religious teachers can no longer 
 be suffered to quote the words of Scripture, on the assump- 
 tion that all are of equal value and authority. The old 
 method of citing "proof texts" indifferently anywhere from 
 the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation is as 
 dead as Julius Caesar. It follows also that the later reve- 
 lation is clearer, higher, truer than the earlier ; and where 
 the two conflict, as they so often do, the later supersedes 
 the earlier. And for the Christian, at least, the highest 
 revelation of all is contained in the teachings of Jesus. 
 
 It should seem that one who calls himself a Christian 
 might be safely assumed to be pledged by his chosen name 
 to accept Jesus the Christ as his highest authority in 
 religion. It might justly be assumed, one would think, 
 that he is bound to evaluate all other religious teaching in 
 accordance with the words of his avowed Master and 
 Teacher. AVlioever and whatever accords with His words 
 is to be accepted. Whoever or whatever differs irreconcil- 
 ably from His words is to be rejected. Why, indeed, 
 should any man who refuses to abide by tliis principle as 
 the touchstone of truth wish to call himself a Christian ? 
 Surely, if he refuses to bow to the supreme authority of 
 
PROLEGOMENA XI 
 
 Jesus, he might choose some other appeHation than Chris- 
 tian that would better fit him. 
 
 This book will not attempt formal proof of the foregoing 
 propositions. They will only incidentally, and almost 
 accidentally, furnish subject of discussion. They are the 
 fundamental data on which the entire discussion proceeds ; 
 so nearly axiomatic, in the author's view, that the mere 
 statement of them should secure hearty assent from the 
 thoughtful Christian reader. Indeed, his fear is that more 
 readers will pronounce them truisms tlian untruths. But 
 it is only fair to give warning that any reader who seriously 
 dissents from them will do well to lay the book aside at 
 this point, as it would probably be pure waste of time and 
 mental energy for him to read further. For if these 
 fundamentals are untrue, or even doubtful, the following 
 pages are worthless. 
 
 II 
 
 Evangelists and preachers of a certain type are very 
 fond of saying in public that '^they believe the Bible from 
 cover to cover,'' that they ^^believe every w^ord in the Bible, 
 from Genesis to Revelation" (only, that type usually says 
 ''Revelations"). Even theologians educated enough to be 
 reasonably intelligent, and so to know better, profess and 
 teach belief in the absolute inerrancy and infallibility of 
 the Bible. Nay more, they wage open and bitter warfare 
 on all Avho will not pronounce their shibboleths. Nearly 
 all the so-called ''Bible Schools" are given over to this 
 heresy, which they proclaim to be the only orthodoxy. 
 One very prominent religious newspaper (at least, it makes 
 high pretensions to religion) loses no opportunity to 
 defame every theological institution in which it thinks 
 this doctrine is not taught. What's in a name? especially 
 in religious parties. There are "Evangelicals" utterly des- 
 titute of the gospel spirit; "Catholics" who are in mind 
 
Xll PEOLEGOMENA 
 
 and temper hopeless sectarians; ^^Liberals" who are the 
 perfection of illiberality ; and ^'Orthodox" who hold fast 
 what is not, never was, and never can be Christianity. 
 
 All signs show that a determined and systematic propa- 
 ganda of this view of the Bible has been undertaken, with 
 the explicitly avowed purpose of branding as heretics all 
 men and institutions that fail to conform to this standard 
 of orthodoxy, and the more than hinted purpose of estab- 
 lishing some new form of organization, if that prove neces- 
 sary to the attainment of the leaders' ends. In these days 
 when the majority of Christians are thinking and talking 
 much about Christian unity, we are seriously threatened 
 with a new schism. 
 
 It is a time therefore for plain speech. In this age of 
 the world no man can avow belief in "the whole Bible, 
 from cover to cover," without casting painful suspicion 
 upon either his sincerity or his intelligence. I^obody needs 
 to accuse him of such defect; he accuses himself when he 
 so speaks, l^o man who makes public proclamation of 
 this belief could stand cross-examination for five minutes 
 in the presence of the very audience that unthinkingly 
 applauds his words. Before half a dozen questions had 
 been asked, he would be hedging and explaining and 
 retracting. There is no educated man living who really 
 believes the Bible from cover to cover. There is no half 
 educated man who believes the Bible in that wholesale 
 way. 1^0 man can make such profession sincerely unless 
 he has escaped education altogether. Men who say such 
 things are talking buncombe, playing to the galleries. 
 
 There are few people of any age or any schooling who 
 have read their Bibles with any degree of intelligence or 
 care, without finding statements that have perplexed them, 
 and in some parts ethics that have astonished and re- 
 volted them, as well as contradictions and inconsistencies 
 that they could neither deny nor explain. Only an inher- 
 ited reverence for the Book, or, better still, personal experi- 
 
PROLEGOMENA XI 11 
 
 ence of the high spiritual worth of large portions of it, 
 have kept many from refusing to read further. Others 
 may have refused to read further because of just these 
 difficulties. 
 
 Those who know how shallow and false is this dogma 
 of Biblical infallibility, those who have learned from 
 Christian history how and why it came to be held, those 
 who know how unscrupulous are some of its advocates 
 and how ignorant others, those who realize how it con- 
 tradicts the hard-won results of Biblical study through 
 tlie centuries, those who appreciate how damaging such a 
 dogma is to the cause of true religion, how impossible 
 it is to build an edifice of Truth on a foundation of lies — 
 these must have the courage of their knowledge and con- 
 victions, must accept the challenge proffered them, must 
 begin without delay, to teach the plain Christian people 
 the trutli about the Bible, the whole truth and nothing 
 but the truth. If they hesitate, if they listen to the 
 counsels of their timid and half-hearted fellows, thie 
 churches will fall a prey to vociferous ignorance, and 
 true religion will be betrayed in the house of its friends. 
 The path of boldness, of utter frankness, of rugged hon- 
 esty, is the path of safety. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Many of the clergy, who have been adequately in- 
 structed in a good modern theological seminary, and con- 
 sequently know the facts about the Bible, are afraid to 
 take their people into their confidence and tell them the 
 truth. Some fear that if they should tell the truth, their 
 y)eople would regard them as heretics and turn against 
 them ; and they cannot bring themselves to quarrel with 
 their bread and butter. Others excuse themselves from 
 the duty of fearless truth-speaking, on the plausible plea 
 that the pulpit is no place for discussing such matters, 
 
XIV PROLEGOMENA 
 
 which should be left for class rooms and learned period- 
 icals to thresh out. As to this, it may be said that of 
 course it would be unwise to carry into the pulpit tech- 
 nical discussions, and expect the ordinary congregation 
 to act as a jury and decide questions about which com- 
 petent scholars differ. 
 
 But this is not at all what is meant by telling people 
 tlie truth about the Bible. There is no important truth 
 about religion that cannot be made clear to the ordinary 
 believer. 'No one who has had experience in teaching in 
 a Sunday school doubts that even minds of children 
 are capable of taking in any important truth, when a 
 properly trained teacher puts it before them. The aver- 
 age Christian congi'egation is fully competent to under- 
 stand the general results that have been reached, within 
 the last century especially, by historical, exegetical and 
 literary study of the Bible. The results can be stated 
 in untechnical languac:e that the reader of any daily 
 newspaper will comprehend without undue mental effort. 
 And every preacher, when he takes a text of Scripture as 
 subject of his discourse, or even as a mere motto, by so 
 doing attests the traditional theory of his office: that his 
 chief function is to expound the Scriptures to his people. 
 How shall he honestly discharge this function, while he 
 leaves them in ignorance of fundamental truth about 
 the Bible ? Truth that it much imports them to know, 
 truth that would greatly alter their way of looking at 
 all other religious truth, truth so vitally important that 
 if they remain ignorant of it they cannot be intelligent 
 Oliristians? There can be no excuse for such dereliction 
 of dnty that will stand slightest examination. 
 
 At the present moment no duty makes a more imperious 
 call on the Christian minister than the duty of telling his 
 people all the truth about the Bible. Claiiiis have been 
 made for the Bible, and are now made with fresh insist- 
 ence, that the Bible floe^ not make for itself. The vnli<l- 
 
PROLEGOMENA XV 
 
 ity of the Christian religion is staked by many noisy 
 champions of it on impossible theories of the Bible's 
 origin, meaning and authority. If those who know this, 
 and also know what is the truth, preserve a prudent silence, 
 how shall they excuse themselves for their failure to 
 speak out ? 
 
 Oh, but they fear they may unsettle men's minds and 
 wreck the faith of some of Christ's little ones, if they 
 should speak! That is a coward's plea. 'No man's faith 
 was ever wrecked by truth, who had a faith worth saving. 
 One lacks trust in God, the author of all truth, who fears 
 to speak it. It was our Lord himself who assured us 
 ^The truth w^ill make you free" — falsehood can make only 
 slaves and dastards. Speak, my brothers in the min- 
 istry of the grace of God ; speak, as you are called to be 
 GocFs prophets; speak the truth without dilution or 
 camouflage ; and with God be the rest ! 
 
 IV 
 
 What, then, should the people be taught about the 
 Bible? They should be taught first of all its proper place 
 in the Christian religion and w^arned against a cheap and 
 harmful, even a superstitious, bibliolatry. Christianity 
 and Mohammedanism are often said to be alike in this, 
 that both are religions of a Book. This is far from the 
 truth. Mohammedanism may be the religion of a Book; 
 Christianity is the religion of a Person. Jesus the Christ 
 is its corner-stone, not the Bible; Tie, not it, is the "author 
 and perfecter of our faith." With Paul, every believer 
 says, "I know whom I have believed" — whom, not what. 
 Once let people get it firmly into their minds that the 
 essence of the Christian religion is a personal experience 
 of God's love, through Jesus who has revealed him to us 
 as our Father in Heaven, and their faith will be built on 
 a Rock and nothing thenceforth can shake it. Until they 
 have this experience and coTuprohend its significance, they 
 
XVI PliOLEGOMENA 
 
 are at the mercy of every wind of doctrine that blows. 
 ^'The Bible, and the Bible only the religion of Protestants" 
 was never true, and it has lost what semblance of truth it 
 might have had when Chillingworth said it. 
 
 Sfext to this, people should be taught that the authority 
 of the Bible does not depend on men's theories and doc- 
 trines about the Bible. The inspiration of the Bible is a 
 fact, not a dogma. A hundred generations have been 
 finding in it something unique in spiritual quality. ]^o- 
 where else have they been able to discover such light and 
 life, such comfort and strength and peace. For centuries 
 men have resorted to it for sorely needed help in their 
 struggle to escape from sin and attain goodness, and 
 have had their spiritual energies renewed and their 
 wills braced for further contest. The authority of the 
 Bible does not depend on what ecclesiastical Powers have 
 decreed, or on what theologians may have taught about 
 it, but on what it is. It authenticates itself as God's 
 word to the soul that is reaching out after the Most High, 
 as a father's call in the dark authenticates itself to a 
 frightened child. In the Bible we hear and recognize our 
 Heavenly Father's voice and our spirits joyfully respond. 
 This is the fact of inspiration — a personal experience of 
 the highest validity, which is totally unaffected by this 
 theory or that about the Bible. What matters it to us 
 who wrote the various books, or how, or when, or why, 
 if we thus recognize in them the voice of our God? 
 
 People should be taught the facts about the liistoricjil 
 origin of the Bible. They should learn that the Bible is 
 not one book, but two separate collections of books — 
 not one book, but a library. The very name embodies 
 this historic fact; it was originally xd Pi6?iia, the 
 books, or, as we so often say, the Scriptures. These two 
 collections are the best of the surviving writings of an 
 extraordinary race during more than a thousand years. 
 They contain, as we might expect, many different types 
 
PROLEGOMENA XVU 
 
 of literature: history, drama, lyric poetry, orations, es- 
 says, apothegms. Books whose composition extends over 
 a thousand years, and that touch men's lives at so many 
 points, could hardly fail to be of different degrees of 
 value, according to the intelligence and spiritual insight 
 of their authors. Ten centuries must show progress in 
 religions ideas — or else retrogression; in any event, change. 
 That apparently innocent mutation of name from bibles 
 to Bible, has done much to encourage the unhistorical 
 notion of One Book, entirely homogeneous in character 
 and contents, coming perfect from the mind of the Holy 
 Spirit, without admixture of error, every part necessarily 
 the equal of every other part, and teaching the same ideas 
 of God and man from earliest composition to latest. This 
 notion about the Bible, which may be called the popular 
 theory, is such a perversion of facts lying on the very 
 surface of the writings, that any person of intelligence 
 and education ought to be heartily ashamed of being its 
 advocate or defender. 
 
 People should be taught that the making of these two 
 collections was a slow process, and that the result was 
 long in doubt. The Jews in the time of Christ, and 
 for long after, were not agreed as to what books should 
 be admitted to and what excluded from their sacred writ- 
 ings. Ten generations of Christians lived and died before 
 our 'New Testament assumed its present form. What was 
 tlie determining principle in the formation of the two 
 canons? Study of the facts discloses a common prin- 
 ciple in the making of both: a winnowing process grad- 
 ually separated the present books of the Bible from a 
 much larger collection of similar books, because these 
 were found, in the religious experience of successive gen- 
 erations, to have a superior spiritual quality. After vir- 
 tual unanimity had been thus arrived at, ecclesiastical au- 
 thority formally decreed that these books and no others 
 should thenceforth be regarded as Holy Scripture. The 
 
XVlll PROLEGOMENA 
 
 Bible is thus one of the most striking illustrations in 
 history of the law of survival of the fittest. The experi- 
 ence that made the Bible a whole has kept it such to 
 this day. 
 
 People should be taught that, while infallibility of the 
 Bible is a doctrine of the Koman Catholic Church,* it 
 has never been the official Protestant doctrine. Infalli- 
 bility of the Bible has been so strenuously advocated by 
 some Protestant theologians, however, and accepted by so 
 considerable a part of clergy and laity, that it may be 
 called unofficial Protestant doctrine, but it has never been 
 declared in any Protestant creed or confession of faith. 
 What has been the result of this attempt to make this 
 doctrine Protestant orthodoxy? For several generations 
 the clergy have been influenced by every bribe this world 
 can offer — hope, honors, wealth, social consideration — and 
 by every threat this world can devise — disgrace, persecu- 
 tion, stripes, chains, death — to maintain the infallible 
 correctness of every word contained in the Bible ; and as a 
 net result faith in the Bible has been steadily weakening. 
 Is it not about time to try another policy? 
 
 V 
 
 It is an extraordinary fact, yet fact indubitable, that 
 the very persons who make loudest professions of belief 
 in the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, and insist 
 most strenuously on the reverent treatment of the book, 
 are the very persons who treat the Bible with least rev- 
 erence. Thev show their faith bv their works less than 
 
 *"For all the books that the Church receives as sacred and can- 
 onical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the 
 dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible 
 that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not 
 only is incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as abso- 
 lutely and necessarily, as it is impossible that God himself, the 
 supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true." Encyclical 
 Proimlrntissirnvs Dcus, of Pope Leo XIII, November 18, 1893. 
 
PROLEGOMENA XIX 
 
 any other Christians. The men now posing before the 
 public as the special champions of the Bible and almost 
 the sole defenders of its authority, are nearly all Pre- 
 millennarians. But the doctrine of the speedy coming 
 of the Son of INfan to reign with his saints a thousand 
 years can be made to appear a doctrine derived from 
 the Bible only by the most careless, not to say dishonest, 
 exegesis. Under pretext of extreme devotion to the Bible, 
 Premillennarians distort and falsify the Bible in the most 
 barefaced manner. Therefore, people should be taught 
 the truth, namely, that there is no teaching in the Bible 
 about a millennium in connection w4th the second coming 
 of Christ. There is not so much as a hint of such 
 doctrine. Premillennial doctrine is a manufacture ^^out 
 of whole cloth" of a doctrine that has not the slightest 
 support in the Bible. 
 
 There is but a single passage, a very brief one, in 
 the whole Bible that speaks of a reign of Christ for a 
 thousand years. That passage is in the Revelation, a book 
 of impassioned poetry, of profuse symbolism, the inter- 
 pretation of which has caused more difference of opinion 
 iunong Christian scholars for centuries than any other 
 part of the Bible. Here are the words: 
 
 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them. 
 
 And authority to judge was given them. 
 
 And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded bo- 
 cause of the testimony of Jesus and tlic word of God, 
 
 And whosoever did not pay homage to the Beast nor his 
 image, 
 
 And received not tlic mark upon their foreheads and 
 upon their hand; 
 
 And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 
 
 The rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years 
 were completed. 
 
 Several things are distinctly stated in this vision: it 
 is before the general resurrection, and the reign of Christ 
 
XX PROLEGOMENA 
 
 is witli a strictly limited portion of his saints: such as 
 had lost their lives in a great persecution, and such others 
 as had refused to do homage to the Beast, However 
 the vision may be interpreted, these limitations cannot be 
 disregarded. The persecution in the writer's mind may 
 have been that under I^ero, or that under Domitian, or 
 some other. This is a question of little importance, 
 because in any persecution in the Roman Empire a great 
 part, probably the greater part, of the Christians were 
 not molested at all. Many who were arrested, and openly 
 avowed their faith, and steadfastly refused to sacrifice 
 to the gods or the Emperor, were subsequently released 
 when the fervor of persecution declined; others were put 
 to death. Only these two classes, the martyrs and the 
 confessors, are seen by John as sharing with the Lord 
 this millennial reign. And this is absolutely the only 
 reference in the whole Bible to a reign of Christ of a 
 thousand years. Hence, the statement above that the 
 Bible does not contain a doctrine of the reign of Christ 
 with all his saints for a thousand years — which is the 
 '^millennial" doctrine — is not only warranted but com- 
 pelled by the facts. 
 
 How then do the Premillennarians, with their loudly 
 proclaimed devotion to the Bible, contrive to make their 
 self-invented doctrine appear to be the teaching of Scrip- 
 ture? Why, very simply. They first read the doctrine 
 into the Bible and then read it out again. They quietly 
 assume, to begin with, that this passage in the Revela- 
 tion teaches a reig-n of Christ with all his saints, instead 
 of with some. — a meaning that, as we have seen, the text 
 will not bear. Then they combine with this perverted 
 passage all that Jesus and his apostles have said about the 
 second coming of Christ; and all that Hebrew prophets 
 have said about Messiah's kingdom; and anything else 
 anywhere in the Bible that their ingenuity can bend to 
 their use. And out of this hodge-podge of unrelated texts, 
 
PROLEGOMENA XXL 
 
 wirested violently from their connection, and made to 
 bear meanings of which their authors never dreamed, they 
 make a doctrine of the millenninm. And they have the 
 colossal impudence to call this doctrine Scriptural ! 
 
 This method Premillennarians fatuously suppose is 
 showing o-reat reverence for the Bible ! And the men who 
 do this, cap their lying exegetics with a charge of heresy 
 against all who refuse to interpret the Bible in this scan- 
 dalous fashion. For it is really nothing less than a scan- 
 dal, a great scandal and outrage, against which those 
 who truly love and reverence the Bible should delay no 
 longer to make public and emphatic protest. The men 
 who tear the Bible to bits, in order to piece together a 
 crazy-quilt of unrelated texts, and publish this to the 
 world as ^'the fundamentals of Christianity," must not 
 be suffered a day longer to pose as the champions of 
 the Bible, the only Christians who to-day are standing 
 between Holy Scripture and the forces of infidelity. 
 
 It would be a little diiferent if these men possessed 
 any real knowledge of the Bible, any Biblical scholarship 
 worthy of respect. But it would be difficult to single 
 out a man in their ranks whose opinions on questions 
 of scholarship are respected by other scholars. Most of 
 the party are men who have either had no theological 
 training, or have taken a course in some ''Bible School" 
 that gives no instruction in the original Scriptures. The 
 greater part of their ''knowledge" of the Bible is knowl- 
 edge of things that aren't so. And, as usually happens, 
 their dogmatic assurance is in inverse ratio to their sound 
 scholarship. We hear of the pride of knowledge; there 
 is such a thing, without doubt, but the pride of knowledge 
 is humility itself compared with the pride of ignorance. 
 God save the Bible from some of its professed friends! 
 
 It is strange indeed that men will learn so little from 
 the history of this doctrine. The records of the Christian 
 centuries may be called a museum of millenniums. The 
 
XXI 1 PROLEGOMENA 
 
 millenniuin has come — and gone — more times than one 
 can easily count. In spite of our Lord's declaration that 
 not even the angels in heaven know the hour of his 
 coming, deluded disciples have again and again ciphered 
 out the exact day for the beginning of his millennial 
 reign. Some have learned enough from experience not 
 to commit themselves to a specific date and content them- 
 selves with the pronouncement that the reign is to begin 
 'Very soon." Their cheerful hardihood is not so won- 
 derful, perhaps, as that there should be found in every 
 generation a multitude that no man can number of silly 
 souls, incapable of receiving truth but avid of falsehood, 
 always waiting anxiously to be hoaxed, the predestined 
 prey of every crack-brained fanatic, credulous above all 
 regarding any error that is proclaimed with a tone of 
 authority and made plausible by juggled texts of Scrip- 
 ture. The great showman was right: one is born every 
 minute. 
 
 VI 
 
 One or two personal words in closing these prefatory 
 remarks: Attentive readers will not fail to note that 
 some of the words of Jesus are cited in the following- 
 pages more than once; and that certain ideas appear and 
 reappear in the discussion, sometimes with no great vari- 
 ation of form. Such readers, one hopes, will not at- 
 tribute these repetitions to slovenly thinking or careless 
 writing. There is good reason (as the author judges) 
 for such repetitions; and, at any rate, each case has been 
 carefully considered, and the text as it stands represents 
 tlie best effort of which the writer is capable to convey 
 his thought to others. He may have failed in judgment, 
 but he protests that he has not failed in labor. The entire 
 book has been rewritten thrice, and much of it a fourth 
 time, in the attempt to achieve clarity and brevity. 
 
PROLEGOMENA XXI 11 
 
 The author has not the slightest claim to speak for 
 the theological schools, beyond the fact that he has been 
 a teacher in one of them for more than a quarter-century. 
 He makes no pretense of being their official spokesman, 
 nor should they be held responsible for anything herein 
 said. The notions here expressed are probably more 
 radical than seminaries are prepared to avow. The author 
 is fairly certain that one at least of his own colleagues 
 would repudiate a considerable part of the book, and it 
 is doubtful if a single one would approve the whole of it. 
 But whatever they may think of this performance, the 
 seminaries stand for modern scholarship, for fearless in- 
 quiry, for candid discussion. They hold that a Christian's 
 attitude toward religion and church should be expressed 
 by the maxim of Decatur — with a difference. "My coun- 
 try! May she ever be right, but, right or wrong, my 
 countrv^!" was that gallant sailor's celebrated toast. The 
 Christian's watchword is, "My religion and my Church! 
 if right, to keep them right; if wrong, to make them 
 right." It is wholly in that spirit that the chapters fol- 
 lowing have been written. 
 
THE 
 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 A Study of the Teaching of Jesus and Paul 
 
CHAPTER I 
 JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 
 
 Jesus wrote nothing. He was content to follow the 
 method traditional among his people, the method of oral 
 instruction to a few disciples, varied by occasional dis- 
 courses to larger assemblies, fearlessly hazarding his golden 
 precepts upon the memories of his hearers. In this he 
 was by no means unique. Of the world's paramount 
 religious teachers, Siddhartha, Zoroaster and Socrates also 
 left their disciples to gather up and commit to writing 
 the m.axims of their Masters. Only Confucius and Mo- 
 hammed left behind them a written word for which tliey 
 were personally responsible. 
 
 We do not know, in the case of Jesus, if this method 
 was matter of choice or of necessity. He may have been 
 unable to write, as Mohammed seems to have been. The 
 incident of the Pericope, where he is described as writing 
 on the ground(') is indecisive, for he may only have ap- 
 peared to spectators to be writing words: and it is not in 
 harmony with another passage of undoubted genuineness 
 in the same Gospel, ''How does this fellow know letters, 
 
 (^) John 8:6, 8. But the entire Pericope (John 7:53-8:11) is 
 now rccognizpd as an interpolation in this Gospel of an ineideni 
 doubtless true, but belonging originally to some other book. This 
 makes such a detail of the story as the alleged writing of Jesus less 
 convincing. By a decision of the Holy Office, February 13, 1897, 
 confirmed two days later by the Pope, Catholic exegetes are required 
 to believe that the Pericope is genuine and an integral part of the 
 Fourth Gospel. 
 
2 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 having never learned ?"(') It is true that 'letters" 
 YQCcupora may not be used here in the classic Greek 
 sense of '^rudiments/' for we know from Josephus that 
 it was a common word for "sacred learning." The only 
 literature to a Jew was the Old Testament Scriptures. 
 But the speakers at least intended to suggest that Jesus 
 had been trained in no rabbinic school and we believed 
 therefore to be practically illiterate. 
 
 The frequent quotations from the Old Testament in 
 the sayings of Jesus have often been cited as evidencing 
 a thorough acquaintance with the sacred writings of his 
 people, so thorough as to presuppose both ability to read 
 and much study. But a critical weighing of those quota- 
 tions fairly warrants us in inferring only that Jesus at- 
 tended regularly the synagogue, and perhaps a synagogue 
 school at ^Nazareth, and that he had a good memory. He 
 presumably received the usual instruction of a Galilean 
 youth of his day, but just what that was we do not know. 
 That it included oral instruction in the Law is as certain 
 as it is uncertain whether it included anything else. 
 Galilee of the year 1 A. D. was as much gentile as Jew- 
 ish, and the common language of gentile Galilee was 
 Greek; but what opportunities a youth like Jesus would 
 have of acquiring a speaking knowledge of Greek is 
 matter, not of evidence, but of unprofitable speculation. 
 Even if Jesus spoke any language other than the vernac- 
 ular of Galilee, that he was acquainted Avith any literature 
 but that of his own people is most improbable. No re- 
 
 O John 7:15. Those who accept the story of Luke 4:16-30 as 
 entirely historical cannot well deny the ability of Jesus to read the 
 Hebrew rolls of the synafjoj^nie. Many have pointed out that it was 
 already in his time cstoonied a religiou-T duty to teach every Jewish 
 child to read the Law. The boast of Josephus is well known: 
 "If anyone asked one of his nation a question respecting the Law, he 
 could answer it more readily than give his own name ; for he learns 
 every part of it from the first dawn of intelligence, till it is graven 
 into his very soul." C. Apion, ii 18. But this may mean memoriter 
 instruction, not learning to read. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE O 
 
 ligioiis teacher ever owed less to instruction, we may 
 safely conclude, or was more utterly thrown back upon 
 himself for his religious ideas. Therefore, of all choice 
 spirits of the past to whom wo of the present look for 
 light and leading, Jesus was most original. His schooling 
 was of the slightest ; God and nature were his teachers ; 
 and he became deeply learned in the lore of sky and 
 field and flower, not in the lore of books. 
 
 In the case of any teacher who pursues the oral method 
 exclusively, whose words are for an indefinite period 
 handed on from lip to lip, and not published for a gen- 
 eration or more after his death, it becomes a question as 
 inevitable as it is serious. How nearly do these reports 
 of his teaching correspond to his actual words ? How far 
 were these misunderstood by those who heard, distorted 
 by memory and travestied by tradition, before they wer^^ 
 committed to writing ? How many recensions of the words 
 of Jesus have we, and just what authority is to be at- 
 tributed to each? What proportion of the sayings truly 
 represent his own personality, and what should be cred- 
 ited to the personalities of the various reporters? 
 
 The doctrine of inspiration grew up in the second 
 century largely to answer these questions. Its aim was 
 to give unequivocal assurance to Christians that the Gos- 
 pels were at once authentic and authoritative. This met 
 the difficulty for the time, and for some centuries there 
 was no questioning of the authenticity of the words of 
 Jesus, save on the part of a few bold spirits that from 
 lime to time questioned eveiything, and mostly got them- 
 selves burned for their enterprise. But when, during 
 the Renaissance, the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew 
 was revived, and critical study of the original Scriptures 
 began anew, the doubts and questionings reappeared. It 
 was noted that not one of the Gospels givea tlie slightest 
 hint that its author supposed himself to have received 
 
4 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 any unusual, not to sav supernatural, assistance in the 
 composition of his book; while the author of the third 
 Gospel distinctly claims to have made use of the ordinary 
 methods of research employed by other historians, in 
 order to discover the facts and set them forth in fuller 
 and better fonn than his predecessors. 
 
 The great leaders of the Reformation were not without 
 some comprehension of facts like these. Erasmus, Luther 
 and Calvin, differing about almost everything else, were 
 agreed in doubting the inspiration and authority of some 
 books of the 'Nev^ Testament canon. But this first ten- 
 dency towards a free handling of the ^ew Testament 
 documents was quickly checked by the controversial ne- 
 cessity, which all Protestants realized, of having an 
 infallible Bible to cite in opposition to an infallible 
 Churcb. The result was a tightening of the doctrine 
 of inspiration, an assertion by Protestants generally of a 
 more extreme view of the inerrancy of Scripture than 
 had ever been held by the Roman Church. 
 
 But it was perceived after a little that this was but a 
 falsidic solution — that a doctrine of the verbal inspira- 
 tion of the 'New Testament made the difficulties much 
 worse than they were before the doctrine was promul- 
 gated. There were patent and grave differences between 
 the discourses of Jesus as reported in the fourth Gospel 
 and those of the other three, the so-called Synoptic Gos- 
 pels — differences that might perhaps be successfully ac- 
 counted for, but that in any case demanded explanation. 
 ]>\'ot only so, but the same discourse was often variously 
 reported in the Synoptics. True, these variations did 
 not often affect the substance of a discourse, but they 
 often did affect the form much ; and sometimes form is 
 important, not seldom it is vital. For example, take the 
 two versions of the Beatitudes. Luke gives them as 
 follows : 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 5 
 
 Happy you poor ! 
 
 For yours is the Kingdom of God. 
 Happy you that hunger now ! 
 
 For you will be satisfied. 
 Happy you that weep now ! 
 
 For you will laugh. 
 Happy you when men hate you. 
 
 And expel you, and insult you, 
 
 And reject your Name as an evil thing, 
 
 On account of the Son of Man! 
 Eejoice at such time and leap for joy. 
 
 For see ! great is your reward in Heaven. 
 For in that same way their fathers used to treat the 
 
 Prophets. (^) 
 
 That is the address of the prophet of the proletariat 
 to the toiling and hopeless masses, holding out to them 
 the prospect of an immediate coming of the Kingdom of 
 God, in which existing inequalities and injustices will 
 be righted. It was such words as these that gave un- 
 pardonable offence to the vested wrongs of his day, and 
 led the corrupt interests to demand the death of Jesus. 
 And in the Gospel bearing Matthew's name, published 
 in the second generation after the crucifixion, these Beati- 
 tudes assume this fonn : 
 
 Happy the poor in spirit ! 
 
 For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 Happy they that mourn ! 
 
 For they will be comforted. 
 Happy the meek ! 
 
 For they will inherit the earth. 
 Happy they that hunger after righteousness ! 
 
 For they will be satisfied. 
 Happy the merciful ! 
 
 For they will obtain mercy. 
 Happy the sincere in heart! 
 
 For they will see God. 
 
 (M T-uke 6:20-2.'» 
 
6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Happy the peacemakers! 
 
 For they will be called sons of God. 
 
 Happy they that have been persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake, 
 For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Happy are you when they reproach you and persecute you, 
 And say all evil against you, for my sake ; 
 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, 
 Because great is your reward in Heaven, 
 For so persecuted they the Prophets that were before 
 you.(^) 
 
 The four Beatitudes of Luke have been expanded into 
 nine (really but eight, for the ninth is but a repetition 
 of the eighth) but this is not the most significant change: 
 the proletarian element has been spiritualized away, and 
 the promises for this world have been given an otherworld- 
 ly application. The two versions of the Beatitudes are 
 therefore as different in substance as they are in form. 
 Which did Jesus actually teach? That he taught both 
 can be believed only by a mind utterly flaccid and un- 
 critical, by those persons who have retained the naive 
 habit of childhood, of receiving as true anything that 
 may be told them. 
 
 It will help us to decide this question, if Ave turn 
 again to Luke and read the converse teaching there at- 
 tributed to Jesus, the Woes that follow the Beatitudes: 
 
 But woe to you rich ! 
 
 For you have received your consolation. 
 Woe to you who are satisfiecl now 1 
 
 For you will hunger. 
 Woe to you that laugh now ! 
 
 For you will mourn and weep. 
 Woe to you when all men speak well of you ! 
 
 For in that same way their fathers used to treat the false 
 prophets. (') 
 
 (») Matt. 5:3-12. 
 (') Luke 6:24-26. 
 
JKSLS THE PEASANT-rOET OF GALILEE i 
 
 The entire suppression of this passage by Matthew 
 constitutes a more serious discrepancy tha6 his altera- 
 tion of the Beatitudes. These ^'Woes" could by no in- 
 genuity be softened down and spiritualized as were the 
 Beatitudes, and so the composer of the first Gospel dealt 
 with his problem in the obvious way, by omitting the 
 inconvenient teachings. Critical study has established 
 that this is true, rather than the alternative that Luke 
 composed and added the ^'Woes," by making it evident 
 that the authors of the first and third Gospels used the 
 same collection of the sayings of Jesus as their chief 
 authority for his discourses. Before the first century 
 had closed, we thus see the process well begun of trim- 
 ming down and smoothing over the words of Jesus, to 
 make them more palatable to the new generation of 
 Christians. There can be no reasonable doubt that we 
 liave in Luke's version, if not the exact words of Jesus, 
 at least a much closer approximation to them than is 
 given by Matthew. 
 
 It is quite certain, therefore, that we cannot receive 
 as the indubitable words of Jesus everything attributed 
 to him in the Gospels. We have as yet got little further 
 than recognition of this fact by a fraction of the Chris- 
 tian world, the greater part still refusing to admit that 
 this is fact. The critical study of the discourses of Jesus 
 that will give measurably assured- results is only well 
 begim, and therefore such appreciation as is here at- 
 tempted must be more or less tentative and experimental. 
 Much of Avhat has purported to be critical study, by 
 German scholars especially, is invalidated by lack of 
 spiritual insight, by false philosophical assumptions and 
 by adoption of a pseudo-scientific method. 
 
 Of these defects the first is gravest. A large part of 
 the sayings of Jesus were received as authoritative by his 
 original hearers, because of their resistless appeal to the 
 religious consciousness; and that they still make the same 
 
8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 appeal is the best proof we could have of their authenticity. 
 The words are self -evidencing. iJ^obody else could possibly 
 have uttered them. There is not another man of that 
 generation, or of the generation following, whom we have 
 the slightest ground for investing with the peculiar spir- 
 itual quality that these words disclose. To suppose them 
 the invention of any disciple, or the gradual accretion of 
 the religious thinking of many, is equally preposterous. 
 Disciples of Jesus proved themselves capable of denaturing 
 his teachings, but not of originating them. And in scores 
 of cases we may be reasonably confident that we have the 
 exact form of his words, for many of his most pregnant 
 utterances were not so much easy to remember as impos- 
 sible to forget. 
 
 It is plain, however, that such considerations as these 
 apply only to those sayings that evince superior ethical 
 and spiritual insight. Discourses of the apocalyptic type, 
 and sayings of an ecclestiastical sort, may easily have 
 been, and probably were, the invention of others, fathered 
 on Jesus by a later age. Not all the external corrobora- 
 tion of texts and versions can make credible some of these 
 alleged sayings. Of this character is part of the cele- 
 brated dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, related 
 in Matt. 1(5:13-19: 
 
 Jesus. Who do people say that the Son of Man is ? 
 
 Disciples. Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, 
 
 others Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets. 
 Jesus. But who do you say that I am ? 
 
 Peter. You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living 
 
 God. 
 Jesus. Happy are you Simon, son of Jonah ! 
 
 For liesh and blood have not revealed it to 
 
 you, 
 But my Father who is in Heaven. 
 [And I tell you, Yon are Peter, 
 And on this Rock T will bnild my Church, 
 
JESUS TJIE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 9 
 
 And the gates of Hades will not prevail 
 
 against it. 
 I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of 
 
 Heaven ; 
 xA.nd whatever you prohibit in earth will be 
 
 prohibited in Heaven, 
 And whatever you permit on earth will be 
 
 permitted in Heaven.] 
 
 The lirst part of this dialogue is probably authentic, but 
 the words enclosed in brackets could be authenticated to us 
 only by the most positive direct testimony. They are 
 utterly foreign to the spirit of Jesus, as his teaching in 
 general makes him known to us. As we shall see later, 
 there is much wit and humor in all the discourses, public 
 and private, but nowhere does Jesus condescend to the 
 feeble punning(^) that some later ecclesiastical writer here 
 puts into his mouth. The ideas and method of this ^'say- 
 ing" cannot be rationally supposed to have occurred to 
 anybody during the first hundred years of Christian his- 
 tory. Only after the tradition of Peter's Roman episco- 
 pate and primacy in the Church came to be generally cir- 
 culated and widely believed — say about the time of Irena>- 
 iis — would such words have had any force or acceptance. 
 Their interpolation into the first Gospel toward the end 
 of the second century, or early in the third, is the most 
 plausible explanation of their presence in all our earliest 
 texts and versions. For there is no more question that 
 the words are canonical, than that they are not authentic. 
 
 II 
 
 Many expounders of the teaching of Jesus have at- 
 tempted to show that he was philosopher, theologian, mor- 
 alist, but he was none of these — he was poet. The greater 
 
 C) ''Leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Matt. 8:22) is 
 the nearest approach to a pun in any of the undoubted words of 
 Jesus. 
 
10 I TJKDA]M:E VITALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 part of his instruction found expression in the rhythmic 
 forms of Hebrew prophets and psalmists. This is so ap- 
 parent, even in the Greek version in which alone his say- 
 ings have come down to us, that it is a marvel how the 
 fact could have escaped notice for centuries. Only that 
 a supposed reverence for the words of Jesus prevented 
 men from studying them as literature can account H-yy 
 such prolonged failure of perception. Among men of 
 "serious" mind and '^religious" temperament there used 
 to be, and perhaps still lingers, a scarcely concealed di-^- 
 trust and contempt of all forms of artistry. To such, 
 "poet" is little more than synonym for "fool." Men are 
 still living who can remember when reading of "Paradise 
 Lost" was just tolerated among pious people, because the 
 poem had a "sacred" theme. Even so, the "Pilgrim's 
 Progress," as plain prose, was much more favored; while 
 to read Wordsworth Avas to be looked at askance, and to 
 read Byron or Shelley was to be anathema. People so 
 constituted would have received almost with horror the 
 suggestion that Jesus was a poet; it would have seemed to 
 tliem near kin to blasphemy. 
 
 And yet, how can it be denied or doubted that such 
 sayings as these have all the characteristics of Hebrew 
 poetry ? 
 
 Again, you have heard tliat it was said by the aiu-ieiits, 
 
 "Thou shalt not swear falsely. 
 
 But shalt perform to tlio Lord tliiiie oaths." 
 But 1 say to you, 
 
 Swear not at all. 
 Xot by tlio IToaven, 
 
 For it is God's throne : 
 Not by the earth, 
 
 For it is the footstool of liis fori : 
 "N'or by Jerusalem, 
 
 For it is tlie Great King's city : 
 \or shall you swear by your head. 
 
 For vou cannot niako one hair white or black. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 11 
 
 But let yonr word bo Yes or No ; 
 
 What is more than these is of the Evil ()Tie.(^) 
 
 Or again, what could be more nicely balanced, after the 
 parallelism of the Hebrew poetry, than these triplets: 
 
 Ask and it will be given you, 
 
 Seek and you will find. 
 
 Knock and the door will open to you. 
 
 For every one that asks, receives. 
 
 And he that seeks, finds, 
 
 And to him that knocks the door is opened. (-) 
 
 The discourses of Jesus are not poetic in form merely ; 
 his style is a poet's. It has the qualities of imagination, 
 elegance, elevation, repose, power, that we demand in all 
 poets and find only in the great. Equally at home with 
 things high and low, with themes homely and themes sul)- 
 I ime, his mind pours forth a rich variety of thought. And 
 his diction as well repays study as his thought: it is always 
 beautiful in its simplicity, wholly without ornature, often 
 illumined by a delicate play of fancy. In the case of 
 Jesus, speech is perfect in adaptation to occasion and cir- 
 cumstance, and consequently rich in variety and charm. 
 If any doubt what has been said, let him ask himself. 
 Could any but a poet have spoken these words ? 
 
 Observe the lilies, how they grow; 
 
 They toil not, they spin not, 
 Yet not even Solomon in all liis splendor 
 
 Was robed like one of these. 
 Now if God so clothes grass, 
 
 Which to-day is in the field. 
 
 And to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
 How much more you, men of little trust I (•^) 
 
 Speaking once more of form, every attentive reader of 
 the Gospels must have noted sayings of Jesus that fall 
 
 (M Matt. 5:33-37. 
 
 (*) Matt. 7:7, 8. 
 
 ("-) Matt. 0:28-30: ff. Luke 12:27, 28. 
 
12 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 into the couplets of the Proverbs, sententious, crisp, pithy, 
 argute. Instances are: 
 
 He that finds his life will lose it, 
 
 And he that loses his life for my sake will find it. (^) 
 
 He that is not with me is against me, 
 
 And he that does not gather with me, scatters. (-) 
 
 Every one that exalts himself will be humbled, 
 But he that humbles himself will be exalted. (^) 
 
 So the last will be first. 
 And the first, last. (*) 
 
 The Sabbath was made for man, 
 Not man for the Sabbath. (•'^) 
 
 What I tell )^ou in the dark, speak in the light ; 
 
 And what you hear in whispers, shout on housetops. (®) 
 
 I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves, 
 So become wise as serpents and guileless as doves. (^) 
 
 Because he is poet and speaks in the vocabulary of 
 poetry — language "thrown out at an idea," as Matthew 
 Arnold calls it, not formal scientific definition — it re- 
 quires imagination to understand and interpret the teach- 
 ing of Jesus. There is nothing fixed and stereotyped 
 about his words ; they are fluid, almost volatile ; ''they are 
 spirit." (^) This is why his interpreters have in so many 
 cases made a sad mess of their work : they have persisted 
 in treating his poetry as prose, in regarding his airy dic- 
 
 n'Matt. 1G:25; Mk. 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17-33. 
 
 (2) Matt. 12:30. 
 
 (8) Matt. 23:12. 
 
 (*) Malt. 20:10; Mk. 10:31: Luke 13:30. 
 
 (») Mk. 2:27. 
 
 C) Matt. 10:27; Luke 12:3. 
 
 (•) Matt. 10:10. 
 
 («) Jn. 0:03. 
 
JESrS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE lo 
 
 tion as exact statement or accurate exposition. And so 
 exegetes have made hay of his delicate flowers and fresh 
 grass. They have treated his poetic mirrorings of truth 
 as if he were a mathematician or a professor of ethics, 
 giving us rigid formulae or precise statement of abstract 
 principles. So to understand Jesus is to misunderstand 
 him. So to interpret him is to read out of his words all 
 life and vigor, and make of them jejune and spiritless 
 things. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Tesus was not only poet, but he was the people's poet. By 
 birth, breeding and deepest instincts he was the mouth- 
 piece of the world's workers. Everywhere we find him the 
 Galilean peasant, artisan rather than farmer, none poorer 
 or more obscure, none knowing better the life of those 
 who toil patiently and hard for daily bread. Sympathy 
 with the poor was the very stuff of life in one who spent 
 all his days among them, shared their lot, gave his life to 
 them and for them. (^) It is true that in his days of public 
 ministration, Jesus was patronizingly invited to the houses 
 of a few rich, since he was the ^'lion" of the day. But 
 he was among the rich, not of them. Sometimes he seems 
 to have been treated with scant courtesy by these conde- 
 scending patrons of the higher circle, Avhere he was tol- 
 erated at all only because he was reputed to be a prophet. 
 On one occasion he rather pointedly rebuked his enter- 
 tainer for failing in attentions that any host was then 
 expected to show a guest: 
 
 (^) Jesus offers as one of tlie chief pi(X)fs of his ]Mef-si:uiie wuik 
 the fact that "the poor have the Good News prochiimed to them" 
 (Matt. 11:5; Luke 7:22). "It is a new thing: that the poor, whom 
 the Greek despised and tlie Roman trampled on, and whom the 
 priest and the Levite left on one side, should be invited into the 
 Kingdom of God." riummer, Commontury on Luke, p. 203. 
 
14 FUNDAAIEA^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 When I came into your house, 
 Water for m}' feet you gave me not. 
 
 But she has bathed my feet with her tears, 
 
 And wiped them with her hair. 
 A kiss you gave me not, 
 But she, ever since I came in, lias not left off tenderly 
 
 kissing my feet. 
 With oil you did not anoint my head, 
 
 B.ut she with perfume has anointed my feet.(^) 
 
 Such recognition of Jesus by ^^society" doubtless did 
 not at all surprise or flatter him, since it was a tradition 
 of his race that "the word of Jehovah" might come to the 
 lowliest. Revelations from God were no special privilege 
 of the high and mighty among the Jews. Almost the re- 
 verse had ever been true. Amos and Micah were peasants, 
 and probably Isaiah also ; Samuel was the son of peasants ; 
 Moses was a slave by birth, and David was a tender of 
 sheep in youth. It was quite in harmony with Jewish 
 ideas and Jewish history that "the carpenter's son" of 
 Nazareth should be prophet of God and teacher of his 
 people. The chief reason why his peasant birth and artisan 
 training should be emphasized is that they so deeply 
 colored every sentence that fell from the lips of elesus. 
 ISTo plainer marks of heredity and environment are found 
 in the words of any religious teacher. He was not ashamed 
 to be known as a man of the common people. Racy of the 
 soil, instinct with the spirit and life of the Syrian folk, 
 are all his sayings. 
 
 Very striking is the interest shown by Jesus in the 
 world about him. His love of nature was inborn and 
 deep, as we might expect of a child of the fields and the 
 open air. His teaching is redolent of earth and sky. He 
 does not seek painfully for illustrations in nature, they 
 spring spontaneously to his lips. The peasant-poet has an 
 infallible eye for the picturesque and dramatic, and equally 
 
 C) Luko 7:44-46. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 10 
 
 for the homely event that will send a ray of light into the 
 heart of some great truth or so illumine a phase of the 
 Kingdom that the dullest will be able to visualize it. With 
 sound instinct he avoids the besetting sin of so many 
 preachers and teachers — he never tells a story for its own 
 j^ake or to ornament his discourse ; his illustrations really 
 illustrate. 
 
 And so, not a feature of the Palestinian landscape, not a 
 scene in the Palestinian life, fails to impress him and 
 sooner or later to suggest some spiritual application : moun- 
 tain and plain, lake and river; the trees, sycamine and fig, 
 good and bad, green and dry ; the mustard plant, growing 
 to be almost a tree ; the fields at springtime, as the fanner 
 plows and scatters seed, and anon white for harvest; the 
 grass flourishing to-day and to-morrow fuel for the baker ; 
 the lily in her glory and the humbler herb of the house- 
 garden; the roads wandering whitely through the land, 
 some bordered by hedges, picturesque and broad and trav- 
 eled by many, others narrow and steep, with thorns and 
 brambles on either hand, trodden by few — even the flat 
 stones by the wayside do not succeed in hiding from him ! 
 
 For the larger phenomena of nature Jesus has a vision 
 equally keen and comprehensive. He lays tribute on all: 
 the splendor of the Oriental sun and the glory of the un- 
 matched Syrian heavens by night; light and darkness, 
 summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, growth of plant 
 and fruitage of tree and vine ; the varying qualities of soils 
 and the vexation of weeds among the farmer's crops ; signs 
 of the weather, wind, rain, lightning; natural disasters, 
 flood, drought, earthquake, famine and pestilence. All 
 nature was to him an open book, of which he was a most 
 attentive reader. 
 
 Many of the sayings that make good these general re- 
 marks will be cited hereafter for other purposes, so only 
 a few examples can be given here, but the memory of every 
 Gospel student will supply nnmbrrloss others, ^lark has 
 
16 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 preserved a unique parable that grew out of this observa- 
 tion of nature's ways : 
 
 So is the Kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed 
 on the ground, 
 And should sleep and rise night and day, 
 And the seed should spring up and grow, he knows 
 not how. 
 The gTOund bears fruit of itself. 
 
 First the blade, then the ear, then the ripe grain in 
 the ear. 
 But when the grain is ripe, he sends forth the sickle 
 at once. 
 Because the harvest is come.(^) 
 
 One of the most pungent reproaches of the Pharisees 
 was inspired by ordinary weather maxims of his day, 
 which are those of our day as well, because they are 
 founded on universal experience: 
 
 In the evening you say, "Fair weather !" 
 
 For the sky is red. 
 And in the morning, "Stormy to-day !" 
 
 For the sky is red and threatening. 
 You know how to judge the sky's appearance, 
 
 But the signs of the times you cannot judge. (^) 
 
 Other representative instances are these : 
 
 As the lightning-flash shines from sky to sky, 
 So will be the [coming of the] Son of Man.(^) 
 
 For he makes his sun to rise on evil and good. 
 And sends rain on just and unjust. (*) 
 
 JVom the fig tree learn its parable : 
 When its branches become soft and burst into leaf 
 You know that summer is near; 
 
 (») Mark 4:20-29. 
 
 (*) Matt. IC: 2, 3. 
 
 (^) Luke 17:24; Matt, 24:27, 
 
 (*) Matt. 5:45. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 17 
 
 So, when you see all this, 
 Know that He is near — at your doors !(^) 
 
 Xo man having put his hand to the plow and looking 
 
 back. 
 Is fit for the Kingdom of God.(-) 
 
 Enter in by the narrow gate, 
 Because wide is the gate and broad the road that leads 
 to destruction, 
 And many are they that enter in by it; 
 Because narrow is the gate and contracted the road that 
 leads to life, 
 x\nd few are they that find it!(^) 
 
 Listen : the sower went forth to sow. 
 And it chanced that in his sowing some seed fell along- 
 side the road. 
 
 And the birds came and ate it up. . . . 
 And other seed fell among the thorns 
 
 And the thorns sprang up and choked it 
 
 And it bore no fruit. (*) 
 
 The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. 
 
 Which a man took and sowed in his field — 
 A\'hich indeed is the smallest of all seeds. 
 
 But when it has grown it is larger than the herbs, and 
 becomes a tree, 
 So that the birds of the air come and roost in its 
 branches. (^) 
 
 Why, what man is there of you, who, if his son ask a 
 loaf, will give him a stone? 
 Or, if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent? 
 
 (^) Mark 13:28, 29. 
 
 (2) Luke 9:62. 
 
 («) Matt. 7:13, 14. 
 
 (*) Matt. 13:4, 7. 
 
 (') Matt. 13:31, 32. 
 
18 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 If yoii then, wicked as you are, know how to give good 
 
 gifts to your children, 
 How much more will your Father who is in Heaven give 
 
 good gifts to those that ask him ! ( ^ ) 
 
 Hut let us not fail to note that as Jesus looked upon 
 Xature, he did not see merely a collection of beautiful ob- 
 jects, or a succession of interesting events, or st thesaurus 
 of illustrations, but almost a living Thing, radiant with 
 the glory of an immanent God. He saw everywhere his 
 Father's hand ; in the smallest things he read proofs of his 
 Father's love : 
 
 Observe the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap, 
 
 No storehouse nor granary have they, 
 
 And God feeds them. 
 How much more are you worth than birdsl(-) 
 
 Two sparrows are sold for a farthing, are tliey not? 
 And not one of thoni falls to the ground without your 
 Father. («) 
 
 Rarely does Jesus go outside of his personal experience 
 for an illustration. In one case he is thought by some to 
 have done so; but, though we have no account of such a 
 thing, it is by no means impossible that at some time of 
 his life he had stood on the shore of the Mediterranean in 
 a storm: 
 
 There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, 
 
 And upon the earth distress of nations, 
 
 In perplexity for the roaring of the sea and its billows. (*) 
 
 Equally broad and precise was Jesus in his observation 
 of animate nature. The fauna of Palestine, great and 
 small, wild and domestic, are used by him with much ef- 
 fectiveness in his teaching. He speaks most frequently 
 
 (^) Matt. 7:9-11. 
 
 (=^) Luke 12:24. 
 
 r) Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6, 7. 
 
 (') Luke 21:2;-). 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OE (i ALT LEE 10 
 
 of the domesticated animals: the ox, the ass, the sheep, 
 the fatted calf, the goat, the swine, the cock, and even of 
 those snarling curs that infest Oriental towns, where they 
 aerve as scavengers, not as coni])anions, and are called dogs 
 by Western visitors, merely because they cannot be called 
 anything else. Song-birds are rare in Syria, but the spar- 
 row and the raven are plentiful and are often mentioned : 
 
 The foxes have dens, 
 And the birds have roosts, 
 But the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.(^) 
 
 Where the carcass is, 
 
 There the vultures will be gathered. (2) 
 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! that kills the prophets 
 
 And stones those that have been sent to you, 
 How often would I have gathered your children, 
 As a hen gathers her brood under her wings, 
 And you were not willing !(^) 
 
 IV 
 
 All human interests were the interests of Jesus; noth- 
 ing pertaining to man was foreign to him. One of the most 
 illuminating incidents in his career was when he sat by the 
 wellside one day, adust, athirst, aweary, and, forgetting 
 self utterly, taught a poor Samaritan woman to whom the 
 ordinary Jew would have disdained even to speak. To 
 her he uttered some of the deepest truths that ever fell 
 from his lips, concerning the AVater of Life and the spir- 
 itual nature of worship. It followed that there are no 
 "sacred places," but every place is sacred where the spirit 
 of man rises above the restraints of time and plac^ and 
 circumstance into fellowship witli the Divine Spirit. ("*) 
 
 (') Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58. 
 
 {') Matt. 24:28; Luke 17:37. 
 
 («) Matt. 23:37. 
 
 (*) John 4:0-24. 
 
20 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ISTeither the teaching nor the incident can have been in- 
 vented by the author of the fourth Gospel, or by anybody 
 else; each corresponds too closely to the nature of Jesus 
 to admit of a doubt as to its substantial accuracy. 
 
 While all classes of men appealed to Jesus, the poor 
 from whom he sprang were alw^ays closest to his heart 
 He was not one of those who, so soon as they attain some 
 small measure of fame and social vogue, promptly and 
 completely forget former associates and associations. He 
 speaks much more often and more tenderly of the poor, 
 the maimed, the halt, the blind, the sick, the beggars, than 
 of the rich. Perhaps the highest words of praise that he 
 even uttered were about a certain unnamed, poor widow, 
 who out of her great love put into the Lord's treasury all 
 that she had;(^) and next to hers, he praised the act of 
 another woman who sacrificed in his honor her dearest, 
 her costliest treasure, an alabaster vase of nard. (^) 
 
 It was the common complaint against Jesus by his ene- 
 mies that he made companions and friends of tax-gatherers 
 and sinners, as if a modem evangelist should single out 
 '^bootleggers" and women of the street for his best min- 
 istrations. Fancy the Billy Sundays doing that! Yet 
 Jesus did not shun the rich, as we have seen; he dined 
 with them on occasion ; even so he did not permit cour- 
 tesies to seal his lips, but spoke his message to them as 
 others, with utter plainness, albeit with kindness. He 
 now and then in his discourses refers to rich men, nobles, 
 kings, to give point to a precept; and he cites their ways 
 in parable or sermon to make plain some spiritual truth. 
 But it is the ordinary peasant folk wdiom he knows best, of 
 whose life he is an intimate part, whom he always has in 
 mind whatever the subject of his discourse. They are his 
 "little ones," whom it is worse than death to "offend," or 
 cause to stumble. 
 
 r) Mark 12:41-44; Luko 21:1-4. 
 (-) Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-0 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 21 
 
 And whoso puts a snare in the way of these little ones 
 
 that trust in me. 
 Better were it for him to have a great millstone hung 
 
 around his neck 
 And be thrown into the sea.(^) 
 
 As we listen to Jesus we catch pictures of the villages 
 of Galilee, with their flat-topped houses (^) and adobe 
 walls, (") through which robbers could so easily dig. We 
 see their streets and lanes, thronged by the busy people. (*) 
 We see the well by the house, into which ox or ass might 
 accidentally fall, in which case he is to be drawn out even 
 on the holy Sabbath. (■'^) We see the barns(^) of the richer 
 and the dunghills (^) beside them, and in the adjoining 
 yard the plow, the threshing-floor and the great stone for 
 threshing and grinding grain, turned by ox or ass. With- 
 in the house we see the lamp and its stand, the beds and 
 couches, the table, cup and platter, and the key to the 
 great door or gate.(^). The marvel is, however, not that 
 Jesus mentions so many of these things, but that he makes 
 every one of them illustrate some vital spiritual truth. 
 The lamp he uses many times and it affords one of the 
 best instances of his method: 
 
 The body's lamp is the eye : 
 So, if your eye is clear-sighted, 
 
 Your whole body will be light; 
 But if your eye is diseased, 
 
 Your whole body will be dark. 
 If then the light in you is darkness, 
 
 How great the darkness !(^) 
 
 ^Mark 9:42; Matt. 18 :G; Luke 17:2. 
 [*) Mark 2:4; 13-15. 
 
 ') Matt. 6:10. 
 
 ) Luke 14:21. 
 
 ') Luke 14:r>. 
 
 ') Matt. 0:26; Luke 12:18. 
 
 ) Luke 14:35. 
 ?) Matt. 5:15; Mark 4:21; Luke 16:20; Matt. 23:25, 26; Matt. 
 16:19. 
 
 (•) Matt. 0:22, 23. 
 
22 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAxMTY 
 
 And again: 
 
 I am the Light of the world ! 
 He that follows me will not walk in the dark, 
 But will have the light of life.(^) 
 
 Other effective illustrations from the daily affairs of the 
 household are: 
 
 I am the Bread of life. 
 He that comes to me will by no means hunger, 
 And he that puts his trust in me will never thirst. (-) 
 
 Now salt is good, 
 But if the salt becomes tasteless. 
 
 With what will you season it? 
 It is not fit for soil or dunghill — 
 
 Men throw it away. 
 He that has ears to hear, let him hear!(^) 
 
 We are not surprised to find that his own trade fur- 
 nishes Jesus with some of his most impressive illustra- 
 tions. The ox-yokes, clumsy and heavy as they seem to 
 us of the West, he likens to his way of salvation, which 
 he commends as less burdensome than the requirements of 
 the Pharisees: 
 
 Come to me, all you tliat lahor and are heavy laden. 
 
 And I will give you rest. 
 Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. 
 
 For I am meek and lowly in heart, 
 And you will find rest for your souls. 
 For my yoke is easy, 
 And my burden light. (*) 
 
 The importance of a good foundation for a house sug- 
 gests the eloquent peroration of the Sermon on the Mount : 
 
 (1) John 8:12. 
 
 (2) John 6:35. 
 
 (M Luke 14:34, 3.5; IMat.t. 5:13: :\rnik f)-J,0. 
 (') Matt. 11:28.30. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE ZO 
 
 So, then, everyone that hears these words and does them, 
 Will he likened to a prudent man, who huilt his hoiu^e 
 on the rock. 
 
 And the rain came down, 
 
 And the floods rose, 
 
 And the winds blew, 
 -And beat upon that house, and it did not fall, 
 
 For it was founded on the rock I 
 
 And everyone that hears these words of mine and does 
 
 them not. 
 Will be likened to a silly man, who built his house on 
 
 the sand. 
 And the rain came down, 
 And the floods rose. 
 And the winds blow, 
 And smote upon that house, and it fell, 
 And great was its fall I ( ^ ) 
 
 Hardly less effective, though less poetic, is the reference 
 to the man who began to build with so little consideration 
 of the cost of the enterprise and the extent of his owm re- 
 sources, that he was unable to finish and so became the 
 mark for the jeers of all the town. (') Hardly a town in 
 Galilee, or anywhere else, would fail to furnish forth an 
 apposite case. 
 
 The social relations of the time supply Jesus with no 
 small part of his material : king and subjects, neighbor 
 and friend, host and guest, owner and tenant, employer 
 and worker, borrower and lender, judge and suitor, sheriff 
 and prisoner, robbers and their victim, and, oftenest of 
 all, master and slave. How often these social incidents 
 are made the basis of parable or wise saying could hardly 
 be effectively set forth without quoting the larger part of 
 the words of Jesus. Any reader of the Gospels can call 
 on his memory for instances or easily find them for him- 
 
 C) Matt. 7:24-27. 
 (') Luke 14:27-30. 
 
24 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHBISTIANITY 
 
 self. He can hardly read anywhere, indeed, without find- 
 ing them. But it may perhaps be allowable to cite a few 
 instances of the use made of the relation of master and 
 slave : 
 
 No house -servant can be a slave to two masters, 
 For either he will hate the one and love the other, 
 Or he will cling to one and scorn the other. 
 
 You cannot be slave to God and Mammon. ( ' ) 
 
 Every one that lives in sin is sin's slave. 
 
 Now the slave does not always remain in the house, 
 
 But the son remains always; 
 So, if the Son sets you free, 
 
 You will be freemen indeed. (^) 
 
 Keep your loins girt. 
 
 And your lamps lit. 
 And be like men waiting for their master, 
 Until he shall return from a wedding-feast. 
 That, when he comes, they may admit him at once. 
 Happy those slaves whom the master finds awake when 
 he comes !(") 
 
 Occupations of men in the fields about ISTazareth are 
 likewise often drawn upon for illustrative material : work- 
 ing in the vineyards, plowing and sowing and reaping, 
 winnowing the wheat, watering the cattle, the fisherman 
 casting his nets. The hills round about were grazed by 
 many sheep, and caring for them was an important part 
 of life in N'azareth. The shepherd's work suggested sev- 
 eral parables, and is the basis for an elaborate allegory in 
 the fourth Gospel : 
 
 My sheep hear my voice, 
 
 And I kuow them and tliev follow me; 
 
 (M Luke 16:13. 
 (^) John 8:34-30. 
 (') Luke 12:35, 36. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GAEILEE 25 
 
 And I give them eternal life, 
 
 And they will not he lost — no, never ! 
 
 And no one will snatch them out of my hand.(^) 
 
 I am the Good Shepherd : 
 
 The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 
 He that is a hired man and not the shepherd, 
 
 Who does not own the sheep. 
 Sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away 
 
 (And the wolf makes them his prey and scatters them) 
 Because he is a hired man and cares nothing for the 
 sheep. (^) 
 
 Not only agriculture but ^'business'^ furnishes its fair 
 share of illustrative instances: the merchantman seeking 
 goodly pearls, (") bankers and interest, (*), as well as the 
 coins in which all transactions took place — ^^talent," 
 ^'pound'' (mina)y "penny" or "shilling" (denary), "far- 
 thing" or "mite" (lepta).C) 
 
 Toothing seems too insignificant to merit the attention 
 of Jesus, or too homely or too familiar to serve his pur- 
 pose. He shows us the housewife mending the family 
 clothes, or spinning flax or wool to make new garments ; 
 sweeping the house with lighted lamp to find her lost 
 coin ; or putting yeast in her meal to make bread, as well 
 as the small, flat loaves into which she bakes it, the oven 
 in wdiich it is baked and the rude stone hand-mill in which 
 she grinds her meal. He shows us the store-room or 
 "treasury" out of which the householder brings things new 
 and old ; and the "treasure" or hoard of every family in the 
 East, generally a sum of money buried in the dirt floor or 
 under the pavement : 
 
 C) John 10:27, 28. 
 
 C) John 10:11-13. 
 
 (') Matt. 13:45, 46. 
 
 {*) Luke 19:13. 
 
 C) Matt. 18:24: Luke 19:13; Mark 12:42, etc. 
 
26 FUNDAMEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Treasure not for yourselves treasures on earth. 
 Where moth and rust destroy. 
 And where thieves dig through and steal; 
 But treasure for yourselves treasures in Heaven, 
 Where neither moth nor rust destroys, 
 And where thieves do not dig through and steal. 
 For where your treasure is, 
 There will be your heart also.(^) 
 
 Clothing, that for every day and that for special occasions, 
 often figures in the discourses of Jesus; the cloak and 
 tunic, (^) girdle, sandals, staff, purse, scrip(^) (or, as we 
 say, ''grip"), and for more formal occasions the robe, 
 "long robes," "wedding garment." (*). In short, from the 
 parables and sayings of Jesus a whole volume on Jewish 
 archaeology might easily be compiled. 
 
 Popular customs not infrequently furnish an apt simile 
 or other illustration, especially the religious: the habits 
 of prayer, the interior of the synagogue and its form of 
 service. The chief events of life — birth, marriage, death — 
 which have not only an individual but a social signifi- 
 cance, are very prominent in the teachings. The marriage- 
 feast, in particular, everywhere in the East one of the 
 chief social functions, is a favorite subject, the main theme 
 of several parables and an object of frequent allusion. 
 The music and dancing by hired entertainers that are 
 usual accompaniments of Oriental social occasions, are by 
 no means forgotten. (^) Even the street games of the vil- 
 lage urchins are levied upon for illustration. C') 
 
 On everything included in the broad term "politics," 
 public events and policies, Jesus is significantly silent. 
 Things military, war and weapons, so prominent in ancient 
 times and especially under Eoman rule, he mentions spai-- 
 
 (^) Matt. 6:19-21. 
 
 n Matt. 5:40. 
 
 (•') Matt. 10:10. 
 
 (*) Luke 15:22; Matt. 22:11. 
 
 (^) Luke L5:25. 
 
 ( ''■ ) Matt. 1 1 : 1 ()- 1 9 : Lu ke 7:31 -.34. 
 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE Zi 
 
 ing]y, and more because they are tilings generally familiar 
 to his hearers than because they filled any large place in 
 his own thinking; 
 
 "Or what king sets out to encounter another king in 
 battle, without first sitting down and considering whether 
 he is able to meet with ten thousand the one advaneinii' 
 against him with twenty thousand. And if not, while 
 the other is still a long way off, he sends envoys and asks 
 terms of peace.''(') 
 
 If we did not positively know that Jesus was country- 
 bred, we could with absolute certainty infer it from his 
 words ; for everywhere it is the processes of nature and tlse 
 life of country-folk that suggest to him spiritual analogies, 
 not the life of camp or city. 
 
 (') Luke 14:31, .S2. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 JESUS THE PEOPHET AISTD TEACHER 
 
 OuE Gospels warrant us in concluding that his prophetic 
 function bulked largest in the consciousness of Jesus. His 
 mission, as he conceived it, was to make God known to 
 men, that he might bring men back to God — made es- 
 pecially clear in the Eourth Gospel, but by no means ob- 
 scure in the others. But to realize this purpose, to make 
 God known effectively, Jesus must be teacher, no less than 
 prophet. Among the greatest teachers he was, if we con- 
 sider his method merely ; while he was the great Teacher 
 of the ages, if we consider also his message. In this chap- 
 ter we are to consider the method chiefly, while the two 
 chapters to follow will be concerned mainly with the mes- 
 sage. It may not prove possible in all cases to preserve 
 this distinction with exactitude, but as a general descrip- 
 tion it should pass muster. 
 
 To his ovm generation, the chief pedagogic trait of Jesus 
 seemed to be his tone of authority. Frequent in the Gos- 
 pels are passages like this: ^'The multitudes were aston- 
 ished at his teaching, for he taught as one having author- 
 ity, and not as their scribes." (^) How did their scribes 
 teach? Just as a modem preacher teaches: they took a 
 text from the Law and then expounded and enforced it. 
 They sheltered themselves behind the authority of Moses 
 and the Prophets: they claimed no authority of their own. 
 
 (^) Matt. 7:28, 20; 13:54; 22:33; Mark 11:18; Luke 4:32; 
 John 7:40. 
 
 28 
 
JESUS TJIE PKOPHET A::^D TEACHER 29 
 
 But Jesus differed sharply from them in that he claimed 
 independent, essential authority: 
 
 You have heard that it was said, 
 
 "Eye for eye, 
 
 And tooth for tooth." 
 But / say to you. 
 
 Resist not the evil man. 
 
 You have heard that it was said, 
 
 '^Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 
 And thou shalt hate thine enemy.'' 
 But I say to you, 
 
 Love your enemies^ 
 
 And pray for those that persecute you.(^) 
 
 Many of the words of Jesus are redeemed from insuf- 
 ferable conceit, from wicked arrogance and pretension, 
 only if we concede to him what he claimed, unique author- 
 ity as Teacher. The Pharisees continually revolted against 
 this claim ; his owm disciples often protested and grumbled 
 among themselves ;(^) but he went on calmly announcing 
 his great truths, mostly to dull ears and unbelieving hearts. 
 He never bated one jot of his claims; in no case did he 
 soften his teachings to make them more palatable. To the 
 end, his tone was that of one born to command speaking to 
 those born to obey. Not that he was imperious, overbear- 
 ing, haughty — every reader of the Gospels knows that he 
 was the reverse of this, but every reader also knows that 
 he was authoritative. 
 
 Why do not teachings of such character jar our sensi- 
 bilities ? Why did they not expose Jesus when he spoke 
 to the scoffs and jeers of the multitude? The record 
 shows that men might reject his teaching, they might hate 
 him with deadly hatred, they might conspire to put him 
 to death ; the one thing they miglit r\o\ do was to langli ar 
 
 (^) Matt. 5:38, 39, 43, 44. 
 (*) e.g. John G:60, 06. 
 
30 FUA'DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIA^^ITY 
 
 him. True or false, he spoke with an authority that 
 separates his teaching from all other teaching. 
 
 The secret of this authority of Jesus as Teacher can of 
 course be sought in nothing else than in his character. 
 When a Marcus Aurelius speaks, the imperial purple may 
 dazzle men and make them see in his commonplaces pro- 
 found wisdom; but there was no rank, no adventitious cir- 
 cumstance, to give undeserved weight to what Jesus said. 
 To all appearances he was nothing but an ordinary peasant 
 of Galilee. But he w^as more: so much more that men 
 hung on his words and treasured them in memory. What 
 he was determined what he spoke and feathered the arrows 
 of truth that he sent always into the gold. Because Jesus 
 surpassed all men in the depth and reality of his life Avitli 
 God, he was God's prophet as none other. Because he and 
 the Father were one, he speaks with the calm, deep certi- 
 tude of one who knows spiritual things, not guesses them. 
 
 The method of Jesus was the intuitional. He relied on 
 the religious intuitions, his own first of all, but next on 
 those of his hearers. The method of most teachers is the 
 logical ; they aim to prove religious truth by reasoning. 
 But all reasoning goes back ultimately to a few ])rinci])l{'s 
 that are intuitively perceived and are themselves incapable 
 of proof. They are deliverances of consciousness, which 
 we must take on faith solely. 'No amount of argument or 
 proof can make these fundamentals more credible to us 
 than they are in themselves. If a man is not convinced, 
 on a mere statement of the proposition, that things equal 
 to the same thing are equal to each other, or that two and 
 two make four, or that right is right and wrong is wrong, 
 then no testimony, no syllogisms, can ever clear the matter 
 up for him. So Jesus ignored the logical process and ap- 
 pealed straight to the intuitions. Jesus never argued. 
 Jesus never proved. Open the Gospels where you will, 
 and you shall find him simply announcing truth, leaving 
 those who have ears to hear, to hear. 
 
JESUS THE PROPJIET AND TEACHEll 31 
 
 It is therefore to wisdom and experience, the intuitive 
 element in knowledge, that Jesus appeals for confirmation 
 of teaching, when he cites any corroborative authority, not 
 10 scholarship and criticism, knowledge painfully acquired 
 by study. Yet he could on occasion worst the scribes in 
 tlieir own rabbinic dialetic. A good example is his retort 
 after they had tried to trip him by asking subtle questions 
 of legalism: 
 
 How do the scribes say that the Messiah is David's Son ? 
 David himself said, in the Holy Spirit, 
 
 Jfliovah said to my Lord, 
 
 ''Sit on my right hand, 
 
 Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet." 
 David himself calls him "Lord"; and whence is he his 
 
 Son?(i) 
 
 The question was unansw^erable, so long as they refused 
 to accept Jesus as the Messiah, and it reduced his critics 
 to silence. A similar case was his reply to Sadducees who 
 quibbled about the resurrection, and propounded to him 
 the problem of the woman who had been married succes- 
 sively to seven brothers, and as climax demanding, '^In 
 the resurrection whose wife shall she be of tlie seven ?" 
 Jesus in reply accused them of misinterpretation of their 
 own standard of authority, the Books of Moses, and nsed 
 against them their own methods of exegesis ; quoting the 
 words of God to Moses at the burning bush, "I am the 
 God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of 
 Jacob," from which he drew the inference, which they 
 were unable to dispute, "He is not the God of dead men, 
 but of living. You greatly err."(") 
 
 The much maligned Friends have come nearer than any 
 other modern Christians to understanding the spirit of 
 Jesus and imitating his method. Unfortunately for the 
 
 (M Matt. 22:41-40; Mark 12:35-37: Luke 20:41-44. 
 (') Matt. 22:23-32: Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-40. 
 
32 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 reception of their truth, they mingled with it much foolish 
 exegesis of Scripture, and taught with equal emphasis 
 error with truth, so that the world has rejected both. But 
 George Fox was quite in line with his Master in urging 
 that the religion of the letter, of the printed book, of rites 
 and ceremonies, is by comparison nothing. But the life of 
 the spirit is difficult; to profess a complicated creed, to 
 practice a florid cult, is easy. Yet Jesus did his best to 
 make the spiritual life the simple life. His teaching, 
 though profound as ocean, is always sane, convincing. Our 
 inmost souls respond to his word ; deep calls to deep. For 
 to Jesus truth was not something written in books, or 
 something handed down on the lips of wise men of old; 
 it was something living, throbbing with reality, some- 
 thing autoptic, indisputable, indestructible. But every 
 man must see it for himself, or it cannot be truth for him. 
 The Master's teaching was described by Peter as "words 
 of eternal life," spiritual truth that must be received by 
 every disciple on its own self -evidencing power, and conse- 
 quently meaningless to any man until by so receiving it 
 he makes it his own. Then it is his inalienable possession 
 forever. 
 
 And so, only on a single occasion, and then because the 
 occasion itself required it, did Jesus ever formally ex- 
 pound the Scriptures of his people, or cite them as his 
 authority. Often he cited them as the authority of his 
 liearers, as an argumentum ad hominem, to prove to them 
 that, from their own point of view, their criticisms and 
 objections were groundless. But he never claimed them 
 as the source of his teachings, or as giving his words 
 higher value. In his treatment of tradition and Scripture, 
 he gave his followers a lesson for all time — a lesson little 
 to the profit of the greater number in all the centuries, 
 because they have refused to heed. Jesus dealt with the 
 substance of truth, not the form, with eternal realities 
 rather than with transitory aud imperfect attempts to 
 
JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACIIEil 3'3' 
 
 express eternal verities. Which is the same as saying that 
 he ignored the Jewish theology of his day. 
 
 We do not heed this lesson, because theology seems so 
 important that we have come to identify theology with 
 trnth. Our minds are so anaesthetized by doctrines said 
 to be drawn from inspired sources that our moral intui- 
 tions do not function when we read the words of Jesus. 
 To the man who believes that anything must be accepted 
 as true, just because it may be plausibly deduced from 
 something that somebody (often an unknown person) 
 wrote in a book two thousand years ago, one appeals in 
 vain to trust his intuitions or to exercise his reason. His 
 intuitions are atrophied by disuse ; his reason has abdicated 
 and turned his soul over to authority. He cannot perceive 
 truth, he dare not reason about truth — he might be danmed 
 if he did! 
 
 There are several possible (and actual) theories about 
 divine revelation. There is the orthodox Protestant the- 
 ory: that God spoke often two or three thousand years 
 ago, mostly to a few peasant folk, and then shut himself 
 up in his Heaven and has ever since refused to speak to 
 anybody. And then there is the orthodox Catholic theory : 
 that God has remained shut up in his Heaven most of the 
 time and for most people, but has now and then opened a 
 window and spoken to a saint here and a saint there. If 
 one had to choose between the Protestant theory and the 
 Catholic, one would choose the latter, as the one that honors 
 God most and insults common sense least. But fortu- 
 nately there is another theory: that God never shut him- 
 self up in his Heaven, but has always remained in his 
 world and among the men he has made, too often unrec- 
 ognized by those who boasted of being on most familiar 
 terms with him, but ready ever to speak to any who cared 
 enough about his word to listen. As that is the most 
 sensible theory, the most God-honoring theory, the only 
 theory that accords with the facts of religious experience, 
 
34 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 naturally both Protestants and Catholics with one voice 
 shout at anybody who mentions it, ^'Heresy ! Heresy ! Put 
 him out!" 
 
 Inspiration meant among the Hebrews that all their 
 great men and women — kings, warriors, lawgivers, no less 
 than poets and prophets — were believed to receive com- 
 munications and direction from Jehovah. Among early 
 Christians inspiration meant that the Spirit of God was 
 given to all believers as guide and teacher, while he be- 
 stowed special gifts on some, who in the aggregate were 
 many. Only at a relatively late period did the idea 
 emerge that inspiration was restricted to the small group 
 who produced the surviving literature, whether Hebrew 
 or Greek ; or that this inspiration was of a special quality, 
 unshared by others ; or that it entirely ceased at a given 
 time. These notions of inspiration have nothing to com- 
 mend them to this generation but their supposed antiquity, 
 and on examination that turns out to be a sham. The 
 commonly prevailing concept of "inspiration" was orig- 
 inally invented by the Fathers of the early Catholic 
 Church, as a weapon against the numerous heretics of the 
 first three centuries. An infallible Bible furnished an 
 inexhaustible arsenal of texts against those who defied the 
 authority of the Church. But heretics could cite texts, 
 too, and the Church soon found herself so embarrassed by 
 her own doctrine of inspiration that it was suffered quietly 
 to slip into the background, while emphasis was laid more 
 and more on the authority of the organization itself and 
 of the Fathers who buttressed it. 
 
 This demand for infallibility seems instinctive; at any 
 rate it is universal. What a pity it cannot be satisfied ! 
 There is authority in religion, but not infallible authority 
 — it is the authority of truth alone. Every other authority 
 on which man has leaned for infallible guidance has 
 showed itself to be no better than a broken reed. Men 
 have found by bitter experience that the Pope is not in- 
 fallible, that the Church is not infallible, that the Bible 
 
JESrS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER OO 
 
 is not infallible, that the human reason is not infallible, 
 that the Christian consciousness is not infallible. Falli- 
 bility, we must conclude, is an inescapable limitation of 
 humanity, inseparable from the possession of finite pow- 
 ers. Even divine inspiration cannot infuse infallibility 
 into a finite mind and spirit ; or, if that be open to debate 
 as an abstract proposition, it is demonstrable fact that 
 inspiration has never yet produced infallibility in man. 
 ''For now we know in part'' must forever continue to be 
 our confession. Absolute truth is known to God alone; 
 to us the search for truth, with, we may hope, an approxi- 
 mation to the goal that increases from age to age. 
 
 When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come 
 He will guide you into all the truth — (^) 
 
 guide you, gradually, ultimately, not reveal to you truth 
 in its fulness all at once and once for all. The Christian 
 world would be delivered from intolerable bondage if it 
 could, in some happy hour, learn that its cherished ''doc- 
 trines" are not absolute and final truths, but guesses at 
 truth, working hypotheses regarding the Kingdom of God, 
 from their very nature subject to constant modification 
 and revision in the light of advancing knowledge and en- 
 larged experience. 
 
 II 
 
 In form, the teaching of Jesus was no less remarkable 
 than in substance, though possibly less unique. All Ori- 
 ental teachers deal much in metaphor, the literary ex- 
 pression of poetry rather than of prose. Jesus abounds in 
 metaphor. He describes his disciples after this fashion: 
 Peter is "a Eock," James and John are "Sons of Thun- 
 der," (") and all are "fishers of men," "sheep in the midst 
 of wolves," "little children," "the salt of the earth," "the 
 
 (•) John 16:13. 
 
 (-) But pcrliaps tliis iiaiiu' was L;i\oii l)y tlieir follow-disciples, 
 not l)y Jesus. 
 
yt) FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 light of the world," and some are ^^eunuchs." To be his 
 disciple is to "take my yoke upon you/' or "take up the 
 cross and follow me/' or "drink the cup that I am about 
 to drink." The Pharisees are a "generation of vipers/' 
 "whited sepulchers/' "actors wearing masks" (the exact 
 sense of "hypocrites"), "wolves in sheep's clothing," and 
 their teaching is "yeast." The relation between character 
 and conduct is not defined with careful precision of words, 
 as a Western teacher would attempt, but expressed in a 
 double metaphor : 
 
 Either make the tree good and its fruit good, 
 Or else make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten. (^) 
 
 Or, again, this time with a touch of scorn : 
 
 Do men gather grapes from thorns, 
 Or figs from thistles ?(^) 
 
 Truth and error are many times expressed in terms of 
 light and darkness, while both death and life are symbol- 
 ized in the growth of a kernel of wheat. Himself, his 
 character and mission, are most frequently set forth in 
 metaphor — he is the Light of the World, the Bread of 
 Life, the Water of Life. Once his metaphor was wittily 
 turned against him, when he seemed to reject the plea of 
 the Syro-Phenecian mother, with the word, "It is not fit- 
 ting to take the children's loaf and throw it to the dogs." 
 In a flash she replied, "True, sir, but even the dogs eat of 
 the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Deeply 
 moved and pleased, Jesus responded, "Madam, great is 
 your trust! Be it done to you as you desire." (^) 
 
 Sometimes the metaphors were so extraordinary that 
 they seemed to his hearers extravagant or meaningless. 
 Nicodemus could not comprehend the saying: 
 
 (TMatt. 12:33. 
 
 (2) Matt. 7:10. 
 
 (») Matt. 15:22-28; Mark 7:25-29. 
 
JESUS THE PliOPIIET AND TEACHER 37 
 
 Except one be born from above 
 
 He cannot see the Kingdom of God.(^) 
 
 And some who had followed him until then, turned their 
 backs on him when he declared: 
 
 Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man 
 
 And drink his blood, 
 You have not life in yourselves. (") 
 
 To this day many of his most characteristic and im- 
 portant words are stumbling-blocks to his professed dis- 
 ciples, because they persist in applying to his Oriental 
 metaphors a principle of literal interpretation that they 
 by no means always apply to the formal definitions of 
 councils and the statements of creeds. Such a case, for 
 example, as this : 
 
 If any man come to me^ 
 
 And hate not his father or mother, 
 
 And wife and children, 
 
 And brothers and sisters. 
 
 Yea, even his own life. 
 Pie cannot be disciple of mine. 
 And whoso does not carry his own cross and come after me, 
 He cannot be disciple of mine.(^) 
 
 III 
 
 Renan is quite justified in his assertion that the wit and 
 humor of Jesus constitute one of the most impressive fea- 
 tures of the Gospels. Certainly, they are the most dis- 
 tinctive feature. Most amazing, therefore, is the failure, 
 the total failure, of interpreters in all ages to recognize 
 what is by all odds the most sliining quality of Jesus 
 among the great religious teachers of the world, the faculty 
 
 (M John 3:. 3. 
 
 (2) John G:53. 
 
 (») Luke 14:20, 27. 
 
o8 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 that sets liim head and shoulders above all others. The 
 reason for this failure is, no doubt, the fact that even now 
 to speak of Jesus as a humorist will strike the majority 
 of pious Christians as a shocking irreverence. And tliis 
 again is because people in general have come to entertain 
 a low and degrading idea about wit and humor. It is 
 quite true that niucli of that humor" of which the Ameri- 
 can people are the proud and sole possessors is nothing bet- 
 ter than a feeble jocosity alternating with dull buffoonery. 
 We are in danger of becoming a nation of clowns and 
 patrons of clowns. We never do anything by halves, but 
 our labors to be funny are our hardest work. We are fond 
 of quoting: 
 
 A merry heart doeth good like medicine, (^) 
 
 but not so fond of another saying of the Wise Man: 
 
 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, 
 So is the laughter of the fool.(") 
 
 As a people we have little appreciation of the happy 
 medium between sobs and smiles, grins and groans. We 
 have never learned that to be cheerful it is not necessary 
 to giggle, nor that to be serious one need not weep. 
 ^'Quips and cranks and wanton wiles" abound in our con- 
 versation, in our newspapers, in our books, to such an 
 extent as to suggest national lack of discrimination between 
 condiments and foods. A dash of tabasco in soup or gravy 
 is appetizing, but a spoonful is torture. Too much fun is 
 worse than none. A continuous round of pleasure ends 
 in complete boredom — as that wise man understood who 
 said, "Life would be quite tolerable but for its amuse- 
 ments." 
 
 The suggestion that Jesus used wit and humor freely 
 in his discourses will give a distinct shock to many read- 
 ers, in whose minds still lingers the Puritan superstition 
 
 nTProv. 17:22. 
 (^) Eccl. 7:0. 
 
JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 39 
 
 tliat a deep gravity of word and demeanor is alone suit- 
 able to the discussion of religious themes. But the Puri- 
 tans and their descendants have shown themselves quite 
 unable to appreciate either the nature of Jesus or the na- 
 ture of wit and humor. Tor wit and humor are by no 
 means restricted to that volatile jesting whose chief func- 
 tion is to conceal absence of thought. They do not con- 
 sist in sheer boisterous banalities. Their purpose is not 
 merely to provoke laughter of light-minded folk. They 
 have their serious use also, and this is by far their most 
 important function in literature and life. 
 
 Jesus always spoke wdth deep inner seriousness, yet 
 much of the time with wit that gives his teachings point 
 and keenness, nearly always with lambent humor that 
 makes his sayings tender and appealing. He at least com- 
 prehended, if some of his followers do not, that a sense of 
 humor is imperatively needed for the attainment of true 
 moral values, and is an indispensable part of the equip- 
 ment of a great religious teacher. 
 
 It is precisely this trait that makes the Synoptic Jesus 
 so human a figure. Other great religious teachers — Con- 
 fucius, Buddha, Moses, Mohammed — have taken their 
 message and themselves with that deadly seriousness which 
 tends to defeat its own purpose. The ethical sobriety of 
 Jesus is wholly consistent w^ith an intellectual gayety of 
 the sort that the French call esprit, and not a little of his 
 power is distinctly traceable to this element, which the 
 Christian sages have so persistently ignored — possibly be- 
 cause the saving gift of humor has been withheld from so 
 many of them, but more probably because they felt that 
 to attribute humor to Jesus would be almost like accusing 
 him of sinfulness. The truest reverence for the Master 
 is to see Him as he was. 
 
 Wit, it is commonly agreed, consists in putting together 
 objects or ideas not usually associated, so as to produce a 
 pleasing sensation of surprise. But the quick flash of wit 
 is like an electric spark, in that it not only surprises but 
 
40 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 illumines. Jesus uses wit not so much to give pleasure 
 as to give light. His sayings never provoke a laugh, but 
 often they make one see truth with a vividness not other- 
 wise possible. Perhaps oftenest his wit takes the form of 
 apothegm, neat, terse, pregnant sayings, frequently para- 
 doxical, that, once heard, fix themselves in memory for- 
 ever. Familiar cases are: 
 
 A house divided against itself cannot stand. (^) 
 
 The Kingdom of God does not come with watching for 
 it.(^') 
 
 A man's life does not consist in the extent of his posses- 
 sions. (") 
 
 To him that has will be given, 
 
 x\nd from him that has not will be taken even what 
 he has.(*) 
 
 Every one that exalts himself will be humbled, 
 
 And he that humbles himvself will be exalted. (^) 
 
 Whoever would be first among you will be your slave. C') 
 
 I came to cast fire upon the earth, 
 Would that it were already kindled ! 
 
 So I have a baptism to undergo, 
 
 And how a^n I distressed till it is accomplished ! 
 
 Think you I have come to give peace in the earth ? 
 No, I assure you, but rather dissension. (') 
 Sometimes the wit takes the form of epigram : 
 
 Give then to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, 
 And to God what belongs to God.(^) 
 
 On a few occasions Jesus seems actually to banter his 
 adversaries, the Pharisees. Thus, when they demanded 
 of him, "By what authority do you do these things ?" such 
 as driving the traders out of the Temple, he replied: 
 
 M Mark 3:25. 
 
 ') Luke 17:20. 
 
 ') Luke 12:L5. 
 
 *) Matt. 13:12. 
 
 ") Luke 14:11 (repeated several times) 
 
 «) Matt. 20:27. 
 
 ■) Luke 12:40-51. 
 
 ») Mark 12:17, etc. 
 
JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 41 
 
 I will also ask you a question: 
 
 The baptism of John — 
 
 Was it from Heaven or from men ? 
 
 His nonplussed critics dared say neither the one nor the 
 other, and so replied, ^^We don't know." So Jesus closed 
 the matter by saying, ^^l^either do I tell you by what 
 authority I do these things." (^) At another time, when 
 messengers came from the Baptist, asking for a clear dec- 
 laration whether he was the Messiah or not, after answer- 
 ing them Jesus spoke to the crowd in this bantering way: 
 
 What went you out into the wilderness to see? 
 
 A reed swayed by the wind? 
 But what went you out to see? 
 
 A man robed in soft garments? 
 
 Lo, people who wear gorgeous clothing and live in 
 luxury are in palaces. 
 But what went you out to see ? A prophet ? 
 
 Yes, T assure you, and more than a prophet. (^) 
 
 The truth is of course that we have been so long pre- 
 occupied with the profound spiritual truth in the words of 
 Jesus that we have failed to note their pungency. Few 
 teachers have been so signal masters of the art of packing 
 a great thought into a few simple words. But as we read 
 further in the Gospels we discover that epigram and para- 
 dox not infrequently pass over into hyperbole. With some 
 persons, exaggerated statement of fact or truth is uncon- 
 scious, the result of over-eagerness to make a strong im- 
 pression on hearer or reader; but Avith others, as with 
 Jesus, exaggeration is deliberate, in which case it is al- 
 most invariably humorous. Only hopeless intellectual 
 dulness could take literally such sayings as : 
 
 If your right eye causes you to stumble, ' 
 
 Pluck it out and cast it from yon. (3) 
 
 (M Matt. 21:25, etc. 
 
 (') Matt. 11:7: Luke 7:24. 
 
 {') Matt. 5:20. 
 
42 rU]^JDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The very hairs of your head are numbered. (^) 
 
 If these shall hold their peace, 
 The very stones will cry out.(^) 
 
 Easier might heaven and earth pass away 
 Than for one dot of an i to lapse from the Law. (^) 
 
 If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you 
 will say to this mountain, 
 ^*^Eemove hence to yonder place/' 
 And it will remove. (*) 
 
 It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, 
 Than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.(^) 
 
 These are examples of that method of overstatement for 
 the sake of vividness, or with intentional humor, which is 
 a fundamental characteristic of American speech and writ- 
 ing. We, if any Western people, ought to be able to com- 
 prehend and rightly evaluate this Oriental element in the 
 teaching of Jesus. To some sober-minded persons even 
 among us, however, all exaggeration seems nothing else 
 than a form of lying ; and to such it will therefore appear 
 to be a shocking and irreverent thing to say of Jesus that 
 on any occasion he exaggerated. They could never com- 
 prehend the principle on which exaggeration may be ethic- 
 ally justifiable, which has been stated (the statement is it- 
 self a good example of humorous exaggeration) in this 
 fashion: ^^When you tell a lie, tell it so big that nobody 
 will believe it, and then it isn't a lie." 
 
 n~Matt. 10:30. 
 
 (2) Luke 19:40. 
 
 (') Luke 10:17, etc. 
 
 {*) Matt. 17:20. How persistently in all the aj^es men have mis- 
 understood and misapplied that saying, as a literal promise of 
 wonder-working powers, and have refused to see the grim warning 
 that lurks under the kindly humor of the saying. Jesus would con- 
 vey to us, that the great thing is not to move mountains but to 
 have faith, and the man who desires faith in order that he may 
 move mountains puts himself on the level of Simon Magus, and 
 will never come within seeing distance of the faith. 
 
 n Matt. 19:24. 
 
JESUS THE rEOniET AND TEACHER 43 
 
 What interpreters of the Puritan temperament have 
 done with the sayings of Jesus is matter of history. See 
 the average commentary or sermon on texts like the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 Whoever smites you on one cheek, 
 Turn to him the other also.(^) 
 Why do you behold the splinter in your brother's eye, 
 And consider not the beam in your own eye?(-) 
 I say not to you, Until seven times. 
 But, Until seventy-times seven. (^) 
 For every idle word that men shall speak 
 They will give account in the Day of Judgment. 
 For by your words you will be acquitted. 
 And by your words you will be condemned. (*) 
 
 Yet let not those of us who clearly see the humor in 
 such words make the opposite mistake from that of those 
 who are blind to the humor: they have been overliteral 
 in interpretation; let us not evacuate such words of all 
 serious meaning. Take the last saying above quoted as a 
 test: hyperbole, no doubt, but that should not be an ex- 
 cuse for lightly dismissing it from our minds as of no 
 consequence. For, though a humorous saying, it has a 
 serious and profound meaning, that justifies itself to every 
 man of sound moral sense. Men will be judged, men are 
 daily judged, on the basis of character, and character is 
 the net result of word and deed. Every act, every word, 
 contributes something to the result. A man is never again 
 just the same man after he speaks or does. Each deed and 
 word automatically reacts, leaving its mark, great or in- 
 finitesimal, helping to fashion character. 
 
 To those unfortunates who lack the sixth sense, the wit 
 and humor of Jesus cannot be other than a stumbling- 
 
 (') Matt. 5:38. 
 
 (^) Matt. 7:3. 
 
 (') Matt. 18:22. 
 
 {*) Matt. 12:3G, 37. 
 
44 FUXDAIVrEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 block. They will to the end of time be no more able to 
 comprehend him than was Nicodemus. Insisting on tak- 
 ing the words of Jesus, as the French say, '^to the bottom 
 of the letter/' they will always turn into foolishness the 
 wisdom of the Wisest. Understanding of humor, like the 
 use of it in teaching, is possible only to one who has some- 
 thing of the equipment of the philosopher: it demands 
 vision broad enough to take in the incongruities between 
 aspiration and achievement, the contrasts of joy and sor- 
 row, the facts of success and failure, of sin and righteous- 
 ness, that make up human life and constitute not only its 
 humor but its pathos. For true humor is never far from 
 tears. 
 
 Even more characteristic of the teaching of Jesus than 
 the humor of hyperbole is a delicate irony, never absent 
 long from his discourses in the Gospels, that makes his 
 words glow and warm. Of this character is the entire 
 passage in the Sermon on the Mount on human worries: 
 
 Wherefore I say to you: 
 Do not worry afeont your life, 
 
 What you will eat and what you will drink ; 
 Nor for your body, what you will wear. 
 
 Is not life more than food, 
 
 And the body than clothing? 
 
 Look at the birds of the air: 
 
 They sow not, they reap not, 
 
 They gather not into barns; 
 Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. 
 
 Are not you worth much more than they? 
 
 And which of you, by worrying, can add to his life a 
 single inch? 
 Then why do you worry about clothing? 
 Consider well the lilies of the field, how they grow; 
 
 They toil not, nor do they spin. 
 But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was 
 robed like one of these. 
 
JESUS THE PROPHET AXD TEACHER 45 
 
 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, 
 
 Which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into an oven, 
 Will he not much more clothe you ? 
 
 men of little trust !(^) 
 
 Briefer passages, perhaps less familiar, will illustrate 
 the quality quite as well. What, for example, could appeal 
 to a popular audience more effectively than this little re- 
 minder of those family jars that were doubtless quite as 
 common then as now: 
 
 For I am come ... to set the daughter-in-law against 
 the mother-in-law. (^) 
 Cases of this gentle satiric humor abound everywhere: 
 Is it lawful on the Sahhath to do good or harm, 
 
 To save life or kill? (^) 
 They that are healthy have no need of a doctor 
 But they that are sick. 
 
 1 am not come to call the righteous to repentance, 
 But sinners. (*) 
 
 He that is without sin among you, 
 Let him throw the first stone at her.(^) 
 
 How unanswerable, how wakening of somnolent conscience, 
 how utterly abashing, that ironic thrust ! In many of the 
 parables, this gentle play of humor adds greatly to their 
 force. For example: 
 
 Ndbody sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak. 
 For the patch will tear away from tlie cloak. 
 And a worse rent follows. 
 Nor do they put new wine into old skins ; 
 
 If they do, the skins burst and the wine run? out. 
 And the skins are spoiled; 
 
 (') Matt. 6:19-34: cf. the somewhat different version in Luke 
 12:22-34, the latter thought by some to bo nearer to the original 
 form of the discourse. 
 
 n Matt. 10:35. 
 
 (^) Mark 3:4. 
 
 (*) Luke 5:31, 32. 
 
 n John 8 -..7- 
 
46 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 But they put new wine into fresh skins, 
 And both are preserved together. (^) 
 
 The parable of the two slaves, in which one is represented 
 as refusing to his fellow the mercy that his master has 
 just shown him;(^) and that of the wedding guests and 
 their frivolous excuses, (^) are other familiar instances. 
 Sometimes the irony is a little less playful, becomes rather 
 sharp pointed, just a pinch of bitter with the sweet, yet 
 without losing its kindliness. As : 
 
 If you were blind, you would have no sin ; 
 
 But now you say, "We see'^ — 
 Your sin remains !(^) 
 
 If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, 
 
 By whom do your sons cast them out?(^) 
 
 How much more then is a man of more value than 
 a sheep !(^) 
 
 Will you lay down your life for me ! 
 
 Truly, I tell you truly. The cock will not crow 
 Before you have thrice disowned me !(') 
 
 Have I been so long time with you, 
 
 And you do not know me, Philip !(^) 
 
 Socrates taught the world for all time the effectiveness 
 of irony in controversy, but no more effectively than Jesus. 
 How could the Pharisaic opposition to his teachings be 
 more neatly satirized than by this comparison of his adver- 
 saries to the sulky children whom nothinc: can please and 
 w^ho ^Svon't play" whatever their companions do? 
 
 To what shall I compare this generation? 
 
 It is like children sitting in the market-places. 
 Who call to their fellows and say, 
 
 (M Matt. 9:16, 17. 
 
 n Matt. 18:23-25. 
 
 ( = ) Luke 14:15-24. 
 
 {*) John 9:4. 
 
 ('■) Matt. 12:27. 
 
 C) Matt. 12:12. 
 
 (■) John 13:38. 
 
 (») John 14:9. 
 
JESUS THE PEOPIIET AND TEACHER 47 
 
 '''We piped to you and you did not dance ; 
 
 We wailed and you did not beat the breast." 
 For John came neither eating nor drinking, 
 
 And you say, "He has a demon." 
 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, 
 
 And you say, "See ! a glutton and a drunkard, 
 
 A friend of tax-gatherers and outcasts.'^(^) 
 
 One should be charitable and gentle in judgment of 
 modern interpreters who have so completely overlooked 
 this side of the Master's teaching, when we note that the 
 delicate point of his humor so often missed its mark with 
 his original hearers. Accustomed as Oriental people are 
 to this method, the average Galilean peasant does not ap- 
 pear to have been a very humorsome person, and the aver- 
 age Pharisee w^as quite destitute of humor — or he could 
 never have been a Pharisee ! Most of those to w^hom Jesus 
 spoke seem to have belonged to the class, still by far the 
 larger part of mankind, who can never understand a hu- 
 morous saying, unless with it they w^ere handed a diagram 
 and mathematical proof of the proposition. Even the 
 Twelve were, as a Scotchman would say, ^Verra slow on 
 the uptake." When Jesus warned them to ^'beware of the 
 Pharisees' yeast," it required an elaborate explanation to 
 make them comprehend that their Master was talking 
 about doctrine, not bread. An incident of the last days 
 affords a fine illustration, both of the irony of Jesus and 
 the dourness of spirit that made his hearers so incompre- 
 hensive. Tbe throngs and acclamation of Palm Sunday, 
 the crowds of eager hearers in the Temple on several suc- 
 c>eeding days, have blinded the disciples to the actual situa- 
 tion. So Jesus says to them, in effect: "This is the hour, 
 not of triumph, but of danger ; our enemies are upon iis ; 
 this is a time for swords ; if your own safety is paramount, 
 provide yourselves with money and weapons." As usual, 
 
 {') Matt. 11:16-19; Luke 7:31-34. 
 
48 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 when quick comprehension of a nice thought was required, 
 the disciples entirely misunderstood. They took his irony 
 literally, as stupid people always do, and replied, ''Here 
 are two swords." Jesus saw that it was vain to attempt to 
 penetrate solid ivory and gave it up, saying, ''It is 
 enough!" — what is the use of my talking any longer. (^) 
 
 Although Jesus could always be patient with stupidity, 
 had faith sometimes provoked him to sharper word?. Tlie 
 button then comes off the foil, and a deadly thrust is made 
 at evil. Irony becomes sarcasm, keen, biting, lethal. Of 
 many examples these will suffice : 
 
 They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne. 
 
 And lay them on men's shoulders, 
 But themselves will not touch them with their finger. (-) 
 You seek me, not because you beheld signs, 
 But because you ate the loaves and were filled. (''') 
 Give not a sacred thing to dogs, 
 
 Nor cast your pearls before swine, 
 Lest they trample them under foot 
 
 And turn and bite you!(*) 
 Can the blind lead the blind? 
 Will not both fall into a pit?(^) 
 
 Why do you call me Master, Master 
 And do not the things that I say?(®) 
 
 Yet even in his bitterest denunciations there is a saving 
 touch of humor — no hardihood of evil could make his 
 words other than severely kind: 
 
 Woe to you Chorazin ! 
 Woe to you Bethsaida ! 
 For had the mighty works been done in Tyre and Sidon 
 That have been done in you, 
 
 rTLuke 22:35-38. 
 C) Matt. 23:4. 
 (S) John 6:26. 
 (*) Matt. 7:6. 
 (») Luke 6:39. 
 («) Luke 0:4G. 
 
S^StJS tHE PROPHIiT AI^T) TEACHER 49 
 
 Long ago would they have repented in sackcloth and aslies.(-) 
 
 Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
 Because you scour sea and land to make a single proselyte, 
 
 And when it is done, 
 You make him tenfold more a son of Gehenna than your- 
 selves !(') 
 
 Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
 Because you pay tithe of mint and dill and cumin, 
 And have neglected the weightier matters of tlie Law: 
 Justice and mercy and faith. 
 
 The former you should have done. 
 
 And not left the other undone. 
 
 Blind leaders ! w^ho strain out the gnat 
 
 And swallow the camel !(•'') 
 
 The sting of such words helps us to understand whence 
 came those shouts of ^'Crucify him! Crucify him!" on that 
 fateful Friday morning in Jerusalem. 
 
 IV 
 
 The instinct of the Galilean people was sound when 
 they recognized Jesus, from the very beginning of his 
 ministry, as the successor of the prophets. ("*) His disci- 
 ples repeated to him on one occasion the gossip current 
 among the people: many besides Herod (') believed him to 
 be John the Baptist risen from the dead: others said he 
 Avas Elijali or Jeremiah reborn in the flesh: generally he 
 was held to be ''one of the prophets." C*) But he v;as mor-- 
 than successor, he was fruition, he was culmination. In 
 him prophetism reaches its climax, delivers its message in 
 its fulness. As God's prophet, elesus did more than all 
 
 rTMatt. 11:21. 
 
 (-') Matt. 23:15. 
 
 (3) Matt. 23:23, 24. 
 
 {') Mark f):15. Luke 7:16; Matt. 14:5; 21:11 ; Jolui 7:40. 
 
 ( = ) Mark (i:14. 
 
 C) Matt. 0:14; Mark 8:28; Liiko 0:10. 
 
50 rUITDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 who preceded him to make God known, understandable, 
 lovable. If we have dwelt long on the unique form of 
 his teaching, we must not let this prevent our appreciation 
 of the far greater import of the substance. 
 
 The history of religions is the record of an age-long 
 contest between prophet and priest, and the priest has 
 nearly always had the better of it. The reason he that 
 runs may read: the prophet seeks to move us by the rav- 
 ishment of high ideals ; the priest subtly appeals to us with 
 a set of plain rules. The prophet is a mystic, the priest a 
 realist. The prophet is the man of vision, an intuitional- 
 ist; the priest a man of precedent, a legalist. Prophetic 
 religion makes a heavy draft on the best on man; priest 
 religion is content to accept man's average — or even a little 
 less. The prophet sets before men a rough and thorny 
 road leading to the heights; the priest opens to men the 
 way of least resistance along the plain. Prophetic re- 
 ligion is only for the thoughtful, the earnest, the aspiring ; 
 priest religion is for the idle, the careless, the selfish. 
 The prophet calls for renunciation, so few heed his words ; 
 the priest permits indulgence, and therefore has a large 
 following. 
 
 So it was ever in Judaism. The prophets enjoined a 
 new life of justice, mercy, righteousness ; the priests sought 
 to establish a cult, with machinery for obtaining on easy 
 terms God's pardon for failure to do what the stem 
 prophet exacted. Piety was to be accepted for righteous- 
 ness, sacrifice for mercy, tithes for justice. The prophets 
 said that God required of his worshipers a pure heart; 
 the priests said that he required clean linen. The one sort 
 of religion cherished as its ideal social justice, the welfare 
 of the people; the other was content with rites scrupu- 
 lously performed by the rich. One stood for democracy, 
 the other for aristocracy. 
 
 The prophets had always insisted that the relation of 
 man to God is personal; the bond between them is an 
 
JESUS THE PKOPIIET AND TEACHER 51 
 
 ethical bond. God is holy; man must be righteous. The 
 priests had always declared that the relation between man 
 and God is mechanical, not vital ; that it is established and 
 maintained by rites and sacraments mediated by appointed 
 persons. The prophets taught that every man has direct 
 approach to God, and so is privileged at any time or place 
 to come into intimate relations with him. This doctrine 
 was ruination to a priesthood, which was under profes- 
 sional obligation to insist that approach to God and for- 
 giveness of sins can be had only through Temple and 
 priests. Priestly intercession was therefore a necessity; 
 God would not hear the cries for mercy of laymen, however 
 penitent, but must first be appeased by offerings and sac- 
 rifices made through a priest, who thus held the Keys of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Against this theory of priesthood and practice of cere- 
 monial religion, Jesus contended as he contended against 
 no other thing. He maintained that it was a perversion 
 of the character of God and of religion, the sin of all sins. 
 The great burden of his teaching was the nearness of 
 God to men, his readiness to pardon sin, his impartial love 
 for all his creatures; and it was upon this basis of the 
 character of God as Father of all mankind that he 
 founded his practical work as institutor of the Kingdom 
 of God. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing else than 
 variations in many keys upon this one theme. (^) For 
 priesthood and all its pretentions, for its fruits as incar- 
 nated in the Pharisees, Jesus manifests utmost contempt 
 and detestation. For purely formal and ceremonial re- 
 ligion he reserves his severest censures ; he does everything 
 possible to make plain that the prophetic type of religion 
 is to him the only religion. It would be superfluous to 
 quote passages in support of this summary characterization 
 of the teaching of Jesus ; any reader who cannot recognize 
 its accuracy, and instantly call to mind a score of sayings 
 
 n"See esp. Matt. 5:45; G:4, 14; 7:11 ; cf. Mark 11:25, 26. 
 
S2 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 that justify it, convicts himself either of unfamiliarity 
 with the teaching or of failure to comprehend it. 
 
 His own work finished, Jesus sends forth his disciples 
 into the world to jDroclaim this prophetic religion, as the 
 most precious truth he has to leave with them, the one 
 truth that the world needs to learn. And what do these 
 disciples ? They instantly, with one accord, abandon pro- 
 phetic religion and devote themselves to establishing a 
 new cult — excusing themselves, no doubt, on the plea that 
 they were making Jesus the centre of that cult. They 
 failed to see that at tlie very time they were deifying Jesus 
 they wTre defying him. They began a process at Jerusa- 
 lem that went on as Christianity advanced, by which the 
 idea of holiness again became ceremonial and Christian 
 prophets were transformed into Catholic priests. Follow- 
 ers of the Christ deserted the Jewish cult only to devise 
 another still more outrageous in pretensions and sterner in 
 spiritual tyranny. They began the greatest apostasy in 
 history; they helped to revive and make permanent as 
 orthodoxy of the ages the gravest and most pernicious of 
 all heresies: that God is well pleased by being worshiped 
 w^ith things instead of with hearts. Hence, to this day, 
 the splendor of Christian churches and the emptiness of 
 Christian lives. 
 
 It lessens the emphasis of this condemnation but little 
 1o urge that the disciples of Jesus merely did wliat tho 
 disciples of Buddha and other great religious leaders and 
 teachers have invariably done: that an irresistible ten- 
 dency of human nature leads men always to supplement 
 religious and ethical teachings with a church and a cult. 
 Even Comt^e, who hoped that he had demolished all 
 previous religions, felt himself compelled to invent a new 
 cult, which he called the worship of hnuianity. True this 
 is, no doubt, but its truth neither explains nor excuses 
 tlie immediacy or tlie couipleteness of the apostasy of the 
 disciples of Jesus. Their one excuse, such as it is, nuist 
 
JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 
 
 53 
 
 be that they never really understood their Master, and 
 that the temporary ascendancy he had obtained over their 
 minds gave place to the renewed ideas of their race and 
 religion, so soon as the power of his personality no longer 
 controlled them. Only on such a hypothesis can we ac- 
 count for their naive belief that their cries of ''Lord, Lord'' 
 were an equivalent for doing what he had commanded. 
 
CHAiPTER III 
 
 JESUS THE EEVEALER OF GOD 
 
 No trait in the personality of Jesus is more arresting than 
 the greatness of his claims. Both implicit and explicit 
 in his teachings are assertions of right to direct the lives 
 of men that^ in the case of any other, would be pronounced 
 f?Tesumptuous, extravagant or ridiculous. He is the one 
 person in all history who could make such claims without 
 being laughed out of consideration by all serious persons. 
 Why? 
 
 We have already noted the tone of authority in his teach- 
 ing that astonished his hearers, but we have not analyzed 
 it, nor even considered it more than casually. Among his 
 injunctions to his disciples was this: 
 
 Be not called Eabbi, 
 
 For One is your Teacher, 
 And you are all brothers. (^) 
 
 Such words can escape accusation of conceit or arrogance 
 only if Jesus was, and knew himself to be, the supreme 
 Teacher of his time and of all time. E'othing but his pos- 
 session of such knowledge can explain or justify his asser- 
 tion for himself and his words of a higher sanction than 
 could be ascribed to the prophets and teachers of Israel : 
 
 The Queen of the South will rise up in the Judgment 
 with the men of this generation and condemn 
 them, 
 
 Because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the 
 wisdom of Solomon, 
 
 n~Matt. 23:8. 
 
 54 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 55 
 
 And see I One greater than Solomon is here ! 
 
 ]\[en of Xineveh will rise up in the Judgment with this 
 
 generation and condemn it. 
 Because tliey repented at the proclamation of Jonah, 
 And see! One greater than Jonah is here!(^) 
 
 And so, whenever he saw fit, Jesus asserted and exercised 
 the right to set aside tradition. In the Sermon on the 
 Mount he repeatedly contrasts his own teaching with Jew- 
 ish tradition, and even with the Law: 
 
 You have heard that it has been said. . . 
 But / say to you . . . 
 
 recurs again and again, and the "V^ is very emphatic. 
 Jesus refused to admit the validity of the cut-and-dried 
 Pharasaic piety; their parvitudes regarding observance of 
 the Sabbath he annulled in a single phrase: 
 
 The Son of Man is Master of the Sabbath also. (2) 
 
 The punctilious pedantry of rule that ignored the state of 
 affections and will from which all true obedience springs, 
 and concentrated attention and effort on the mere outward 
 act, was an abomination to Jesus. In like manner he set 
 aside the precepts regarding fasting, begun in the Law 
 and greatly elaborated by tradition, sweeping away the 
 whole system: 
 
 Now, when you fast, be not like the hypocrites ; 
 
 For they put on gloomy looks. 
 
 So as to let men see they are fasting. 
 I tell you truly, They have received their reward. 
 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 
 
 So as not to seem to men to fast. 
 
 But to your Father who is in secret ; 
 And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.(*) 
 
 (M Matt. 12:41, 42. 
 
 (') Matt. 5:27, 28; 33, .34; 38, 39; 43, 44. 
 
 (=>) Mark 2:28: Luke 6:5. 
 
 (*) Matt. C:1G-18. 
 
oG FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 He even warmly approved the practice of his disciples, in 
 the face of criticism by the Pharisees, and made feast days 
 of the fasts of his people. (/) The mass of accumulated 
 tradition, so dear to the teachers of his people, could not 
 stand before his profoundly spiritual intuition. This was 
 especially true of those tribal taboos, coming down from a 
 past of superstition and priestly imposture, that claimed 
 all the sanctions of the Law, but never had the slightest 
 title to a divine origin. At one swoop he made null and 
 void the whole elaborate rules of ^^clean" and ^'unclean/' 
 when he said : 
 
 Not that which enters into the mouth defiles men, 
 Rut that whicli comes out of the mouth. (-) 
 
 And yet even this was not the sum of his offending, in 
 the eyes of Pharisees ; he deliberately set aside, on his own 
 authority solely, positive precepts of the Law that they 
 regarded as indubitably of Mosaic origin. And by so do- 
 ing, he of course virtually claimed to be superior as reli- 
 gious teacher and lawgiver to Moses, who was believed to 
 have received the Law directly from God. Thus Jesus 
 said, 
 
 Moses for the hardness of your hearts suffered . . . 
 
 But I say to you . . .(^) 
 and thereupon laid down a new principle regarding di- 
 vorce — or reaffirmed a principle yet more ancient than 
 Moses, as others believe. 
 
 Some moderns have been inclined partially to excuse 
 the Pharisees, if not boldly defend them, on the ground 
 that their fault was after all only that they were too reli- 
 gious, as Paul said the Al;henians were. But this exculpa- 
 tion ignores the chief clause in the indictment: Jesus de- 
 nied that the Pharisees were religious at alL In modern 
 
 (') Luke 5:3.3-30. 
 
 (^) Matt. 15; 18-20; Mark 7:15, 18-23 
 
 (») Matt. 19i3-12; Mark 10:2-12. 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 57 
 
 phrase, they did not practice religion, but religiosity. They 
 had a semblance of piety, but were strangers to the real 
 thing. They were full of bounce and bluff. They were 
 ^^long" on promise, "^short" on performance. So Jesus 
 called them ^'hypocrites," actors of a part, pretenders to 
 religion under whose mask was an essentially irreligious 
 character. The case against Pharisaism did not rest 
 chiefly on its officious and offensive priggishness, as so 
 many readers of the Gospels infer, but on its confusion of 
 ethical values. Pharisaism not merely made the unim- 
 portant important, which is vexatious, but not serious; it 
 made the important unimportant, which is often vexatious 
 and always serious. The weighty accusation of Jesus was. 
 
 You leave the commandment of God 
 And hold the tradition of men.(^) 
 
 In proof of his charge he specified their traditions regard- 
 ing ^'Corban,'' or dedication of property to Jehovah, the 
 chicane by which Pharisees nullified the fifth command- 
 ment and evaded obligations to parents. On another occa- 
 sion, he reproached Pharisees for nullifying the obligation 
 of oaths by traditional glosses on the Law : 
 
 Woe to you, blind leaders ! Who say, 
 "Whosoever swears by the Temple, 
 
 It is naught; 
 But whosoever swears by the gold of the Temple, 
 He is bound." 
 Senseless and blind ! 
 
 For which is greater, the gold. 
 
 Or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? 
 
 x\nd (you say) "Whosoever swears by the altar. 
 
 It is naught; 
 
 But whosoever swears by the gift on the altar, 
 He is bound.'' 
 Blind! For which is greater, the gift. 
 
 Or the altar that makes the ffift sacred? 
 
 (') Mark 7:8, 0, 13; Matt. 15:3, G. 
 
58 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 He who swears by the altar. 
 
 Swears hy it and by everything on it; 
 And he who swears by the Temple, 
 
 S-wears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 
 And he who swears by Heaven, 
 
 Swears by the throne of God 
 
 And by Him who sits upon it.(^) 
 
 Modern Pharisaism is a worthy lineal descendant of 
 the ancientj malefic, vulpine, ophidian. It also nullifies 
 the Law under pretext of greater piety. To do this, it 
 has invented a Pentalogue of its own: Thou shalt not 
 drink alcoholic liquors ; Thou shalt not use tobacco ; Thou 
 shalt not go to the theatre; Thou shalt not play cards; 
 Thou shalt not dance. And in most of our highly "Chris- 
 tian" circles, if a man but flaunts his obedience of these 
 five w^ords of man he may with impunity flout all Ten 
 Commandments of God. 
 
 If Jesus precisely appreciated the spiritual condition of 
 the ancient Pharisees, what shall be said of the modem? 
 Shall we say, as he said, that the outcasts of society are 
 entering into the Kingdom, while the sons of the Kingdom 
 are shut into the outer darkness ? Certainly it is a fact 
 that the lives of a great part of those who flatter themselves 
 that they are "saved" are sordid and selfish and unutter- 
 ably small and mean. Willingness to renounce self, to 
 give life for others, is quite as often found among "sin- 
 ners" as among "saints." Of our friends and neighbors, 
 how often the stingiest, crossest, most annoying, least oblig- 
 ing, are members of churches "in good standing," while 
 some of the finest people w^e have ever known make no 
 particular boast of having any religion. Is a "salvation" 
 that does so little for men and women in this world, that 
 so palpably fails to make them better members of the 
 family, better neighbors, better in business relations, a 
 thing really worth while ? Does the character of the aver- 
 age "Christian" afford good ground for hope that he will 
 
 {') Matt. 23:16-22. 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 59 
 
 fare better in the next world tlian an ^^unsaved" man of 
 average decency? When the sheep come to be divided 
 from the goats there will be great surprises, for that line 
 of division will not run along conventional ecclesiastical 
 lines. 
 
 II 
 
 'Not only some but all the words of Jesus, not his w^ords 
 merely but his deeds also, imply possession of this unique 
 character and authority. He never sought honor of men, 
 but he accepted as his due their homage and their recogni- 
 tion of his singular and transcendent personality, when 
 these were spontaneously offered him. Instances that will 
 at once suggest themselves to readers of the Gospels are : 
 
 You are God's Son, 
 
 You are Israel's King;(^) 
 
 You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God;(^) 
 and the exclamation of the hitherto doubting Thomas, 
 
 My Master and my God!(^) 
 
 Of the same order were the acclamations of the multitudes 
 at his entry into Jerusalem: 
 
 Hosannah to the Son of David ! 
 
 Happy he that comes in Jehovah's name.(*) 
 
 Jesus was not content, however, with merely accepting 
 such tributes: he explicitly avowed himself to be Son of 
 God, in some exceptional and extraordinary sense, tliiu. 
 other men could not claim for themselves : 
 Before Abraham was boi'u, I am.(^) 
 
 ') John 1:40. 
 
 ') Matt. 1G:16. 
 
 ') John 20:28. 
 
 *) Matt. 21:9. 
 
 =^) John 8:58. 
 
(iO rUNt>AMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 I and the Father are one.(^) 
 
 He that has seen me has seen the Father. (-) 
 
 It is true that the most explicit of these declarations are 
 found in the fourth Gospel, on the historical accuracy of 
 which more doubt lias been thrown by modern criticism 
 than on the Synoptics: yet the words in John are little 
 more precise in assertion than these in Matthew : 
 
 All things have been delivered to me by my Father, 
 
 And no one knows the Son, save the Father ; 
 Nor does any know the Father, save the Son, 
 
 And he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him.("') 
 
 And at the trial before the Sanhedrin, according to the 
 first Gospel, the high priest demanded of Jesus on his 
 oath the truth about his mission: ^^I adjure you, by the 
 living God, to tell us whether you are the Messiah, the 
 Son of God." And under the sanctity of that oath, well 
 knowing that he was condemning himself to death, Jesus 
 made reply, "You have said" — a strong affirmative in the 
 idiom of liis people. (^) There is no real difference, 
 therefore, between the fourth Gospel and the first or third 
 in this recognition of the unique Sonsbip of Jesus. 
 
 And therefore, especially in the case of, critics unwilling 
 to accept this idea of the unique Sonship, serious doubt 
 has been suggested whether in any of these accounts we 
 have trustworthy words of Jesus — some have even gone 
 so far as to deny that anything more than a few detached 
 sayings can with certainty be attributed to him. Even 
 the most destructive of critics have not ventured to ques- 
 tion the authenticity of a baker's dozen or so of the words 
 ascribed to Jesus in the Synoptics ; on the ground, as they 
 admit, that these are of such character that they cannot be 
 
 n~John 10:29; cf. 10:35, 36. 
 (-) John 14:9. 
 
 (■'} Matt. 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22. 
 (*) Matt. 2(1: 04. 
 
JESUS THE KEVEALEIl OF GOB Gl 
 
 rationally supposed to have been invented and fathered on 
 Jesus by his contemporaries or by a later generation. That 
 is a sound critical principle; and a just application of it 
 will be found to validate the greater part of the reported 
 sayings of Jesus, not a few merely. 
 
 The words of Jesus must be accepted as his, because of 
 most it may be fairly said that we cannot rationally sup- 
 pose them to have been invented by men who believed 
 precisely the contrary, as practically all his generation 
 did. And more: with certain few exceptions, men have 
 gone on believing the contrary to the present moment. 
 The disciples of Jesus were devoted to his person, but his 
 gospel never penetrated their minds. They heard, they 
 remembered, they recorded, but tliey never understood, 
 much less believed. One of the plainest things in the 
 Gospels is that there was no intellectual contact between 
 Jesus and those who heard his message. Even the Twelve 
 failed to comprehend : to the last he had no real disciples. 
 Nineteen centuries before Hegel he might have uttered 
 that philosopher's plaintive words : ^'Only one living man 
 understands me — and he misunderstands!" This may well 
 be our ground of confidence in the substantial accuracy of 
 the reports : it would have been manifestly out of the ques- 
 tion for the followers of Jesus to have originated sayings 
 that they never understood and on wliich they promptly 
 turned their backs. 
 
 But if the discourses of Jesus in the main must be ac- 
 cepted as his, for the conclusive reason that the invention 
 of them by his disciples is an intellectual and moral im- 
 possibility, there is, as has already been noted, one impor- 
 tant exception : the apocalyptic discourses attributed to 
 him. The principal discourse of this character belongs to 
 the last teachings in the Temple, and is said to have been 
 given in response to questions that his disciples were led to 
 ask by a prediction of Jesus that a time was soon comins; 
 in wdiich not one stone of that building, the pride of all 
 
62 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Jews, would be left upon another. The simplest form of 
 this discourse is in Mark, chapter thirteen, but it is re- 
 edited and much enlarged by Matthew and Luke. Some 
 parts of the Marcan discourse may have been uttered by 
 Jesus, in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, to foresee 
 w^hich required no supernatural prophetic gift. Judea was 
 seething with disaffection toward the Roman rule, and a re- 
 bellion was morally certain to come ; and one who had an 
 idea of the irresistible power of Rome in that age could not 
 be doubtful of the result of such a clash. But the rest of the 
 discourse so exactly corresponds to the ideas of the age, has 
 so many features in common with Jewish apocalypses, is so 
 in harmony with the later preaching of the apostles, that 
 we have here the only part of the teaching of Jesus that 
 his disciples were competent to invent and send forth to 
 the world under the authority of his name. We cannot 
 doubt, when we compare this discourse with those that we 
 have such solid reasons for accepting as genuine, and noting 
 the wide difference in tone and viewpoint, that it is mainly 
 the work of the disciples, who were inspired to undertake 
 it by a few words of Jesus that they misinterpreted.^ 
 This conclusion is strengthened when we find on turning 
 back to the earlier teaching and studying it again with 
 this thought in mind, we find occasional evidences that 
 the first Gospel especially apocalyptizes some of these 
 earlier teachings. (^) 
 
 Before passing on, one other thing is worthy of note. 
 Some of the modern interpreters of Jesus insist that he 
 
 O My critics have a bad habit of accusing me of ignorance of 
 every book or idea that I do not choose to mention in my writings. 
 May I then enter here this caveat, as a la^A^er would say: I am not 
 ignorant of the books of Schweitzer, Bousset and others, which main- 
 tain the eschatological discourses of Jesus to be his best authenti- 
 cated words and his most characteristic teachings. From which 
 follows logically enough their theory of Interimsethik. To discuss 
 adequately the reasons for rejecting this view would require the 
 writing of another volume, at least as large as this. 
 
 (2) For example, compare Matt. 16:28 with Luke 9:27 and 
 Mark 9:1. 
 
JESUS THE EEVEALER OF GOD DO 
 
 did not put into his utterances the fulness of meaning 
 that the present generation thinks it finds there. In other 
 words, we idealize Jesus too much. But if this were true, 
 were it not sufficiently wonderful that a religious teacher 
 gave the world a mould into which twenty centuries have 
 been pouring their spiritual ideas, without either over- 
 flowing or breaking it ? If we have new religious thoughts, 
 we do not need for their adequate expression other words 
 than Jesus has given us. Surely this sets him apart as the 
 unapproachable Teacher of the world. Yet, is not rather 
 this the truth : so far from reading into the words of Jesus 
 spiritual wealth imdreamt of by him, we have not yet 
 plumbed the depths of meaning that are really there ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 Just as the form of his teaching was shaped by his life 
 among the peasants of Galilee, so its substance was the 
 product of the religious experience of Jesus. From early 
 childhood he would no doubt be instructed in the Law and 
 Prophets, like every Jewish child. The quickness with 
 which he was able, on occasion, to cite an apposite passage 
 from these writings is convincing testimony to the thor- 
 oughness of his instruction. A writer may think out and 
 look up citations at his leisure, but they must come in- 
 stantly to a speaker's mind or not at all. Jesus seems also 
 to have acquired in some way considerable knowledge of 
 rabbinic tradition, though never under formal instruction, 
 but its only effect on him was to produce disgust and revul- 
 sion. His progress in religious knowledge was normal and 
 regular, and he was never compelled in later years to un- 
 learn what he had learned earlier, as all his disciples more 
 or less had to do. 
 
 And yet we may be sure that what Jesus learned was the 
 least part of his religious knowledge. The really signifi- 
 cant and valuable part he obtained from no luiman teacher, 
 
64 FUNDAMENTALS OF CIIKISTIANITY 
 
 but from private meditation, and from prayer, through 
 which he entered into fellowship with God such as no other 
 man had ever known. The story in Luke's Gospel of his 
 visit to the Temple at the age of twelve is something more 
 than the instance of religious precocity for which it is 
 usually taken: it is a hint of the early da^vning of that 
 consciousness of unique relationship to God which he after- 
 wards expressed in ''Father" and ''Son." This sense of 
 intimate and unbroken fellowship with God, of complete 
 harmony with God's will, became the fundamental fact of 
 his consciousness. Out of the deeps of that experience he 
 spoke to men of the Father in Heaven, in hope of bring- 
 ing them also into fellowship with him — 
 
 We speak what we know, 
 And bear testimony of what we have seen, 
 And you do not receive our testimony. (^) 
 
 All that Jesus said about God came from the heart of 
 his personal experience. To him God was never a Mon- 
 arch, ruling over subjects whose only right is the right to 
 obey; nor yet a Judge, before whom sinful man is ar- 
 raigned to answer for his misdeeds, meting out punishment 
 in proportion to transgression; but a Father, whose love 
 for his children is as immeasurable as his Being, whose 
 mercy is therefore everlasting. "This is the heart of the 
 Gospel of Jesus, that Man and every man is the child of 
 God, that the spirit which we are is one with the Spirit 
 whose we are."(^) This is beyond compare the greatest 
 gift of Jesus to the world, this new conception of the 
 character of God and his relation to all mankind. His 
 relation to the world, and his immutable righteousness, 
 the Hebrew prophets had taught clearly enough. Even 
 the enlightened heathen were not ignorant on this point. 
 Socrates maintained strenuously that God is not the author 
 
 C) John 3:11, 32. 
 
 (-) Francis A. Henrv, "Jesus and the Christian Religion," p. 58, 
 New York, 191G. * 
 
JESLTS THE REVEALEK OF GOD Bf) 
 
 of evil, but ouly of the good.(') What the world was hun- 
 gering to hear was this assurance of the universal Father- 
 hood of God. 
 
 Header, can you think back far enough into your child- 
 hood days to realize for a little what the name "father" 
 once meant to you ? Why, father was the greatest man in 
 the world — you pitied other boys who had to get on sonic- 
 how^ with the kind of fathers they had! Father knew 
 everytliing, father could do anything, father Avould always 
 take care of his boy and see that he came to no harm. And 
 father was always bringing home the most marvelous 
 things, he could make the most surprising contrivances, 
 he could teach the most amusing games and tell the most 
 fascinating stories. O father was a wonder ! 
 
 And wdiat Jesus meant to teach ns children of a larger 
 growth was to look up to Our Father in Heaven, and think 
 of him in like terms. The fountain of all wisdom, the 
 source of all power, tenderly caring for his little ones, 
 showering gifts upon even the ungrateful, forbearing 
 towards the sinful, merciful towards the penitent — such, 
 said Jesus, is your Father-God. He wished to reawaken 
 the trust of which advancing years and what we call world- 
 ly Avisdom have bereft us; he urged ns to "receive the 
 Kingdom of Heaven as a little child," as the only way by 
 which w^e can possibly enter in and possess its glories. 
 Jesus did not repudiate or deny or belittle any truth re- 
 garding God that the Jews had attained : he enriched their 
 knowledge, he "revealed the wdiole truth, opened the whole- 
 ness of truth." (") 
 
 The worst foes of Jesus have ever been, as he himself 
 phrased it, "they of his own household." Worse than all 
 attacks on his teaching by unbelievers have been misrep- 
 resentations of it b}^ professed believers. To this day 
 
 (M Plato's ''Republic," bk ii, §379. 
 
 i^) (iloorcre Harris, "A Century's ("hango in Religion." p. 71,. 
 Boston, 1914. 
 
Q() FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 many Christian theologians and preachers vehemently 
 deny that Jesus ever intended to teach the universal father- 
 hood of God. In this they become the allies of a destruc- 
 tive school of criticism, which maintains that Paul and not 
 Jesus was the true founder of Christianity, the first to 
 teach universalism in religion. But if the historic inter- 
 pretation of Paul is correct, he taught no real universal- 
 ism: his is a limited universalism of races and nations, 
 while as to individuals he taught the narrowest sort of 
 particularism, an election of a few to salvation and con- 
 demnation of the greater number to perdition. 
 
 As we shall see later, this interpretation does Paul great 
 injustice; he is fairly entitled to the praise of being the 
 most powerful advocate of universalism among the first 
 generation of Christians. The Twelve, if left to them- 
 selves, would never have taught or practiced universalism, 
 and would have made of the religion of Jesus nothing 
 more than an obscure Jewish sect. This is the clear testi- 
 mony of the Christian documents. But this merely es- 
 tablishes the fact that Paul, who probably never saw the 
 face of Jesus, understood him better in this fundamental 
 matter than his most intimate companions. But the docu- 
 ments also make the fact indisputable that Jesus first 
 taught what Paul afterwards so successfully championed, 
 and that our religion is rightly named Christianity and 
 not Paulinism. Our tlieology is another question alto- 
 gether. 
 
 It is quite possible to quote some words of Jesus that 
 seem inconsistent with the view here adopted, such as his 
 address to the Twelve when he sent them out to proclaim 
 the Good News of the Kingdom : 
 Into a way of the heathen go not, 
 And a town of the Samaritans enter not ; 
 But go rather to the lost sheep of IsraeFs house. (^) 
 
 But this was a special mission, necessarily confined to a 
 
 {') Matt. 10:6. 
 
JESUS THE KEVEALEK OF GOD 67 
 
 limited sphere, and the injunction merely indicates that 
 the time for larger proclamation of the Good News of the 
 Kingdom had not yet come, and does not imply purpose 
 to restrict the Kingdom to Jews. It may also be con- 
 ceded that other Avords of Jesus, sometimes cited to prove 
 a larger aim than a mere national and racial gospel, are 
 not altogether decisive: such as, 
 
 The Sabbath was made for man.(^) 
 The tax-gatherers and harlots go into the Kingdom of 
 God before you.(^) 
 
 But there are declarations not at all reconcilable with 
 the notion that Jesus taught the Jewish religion of ex- 
 clusiveness : 
 
 Many will come from the east and the west, 
 
 And will sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in 
 
 the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 But the Sons of the Kingdom will be cast forth into tJie 
 
 outer darkness. (^) 
 
 You are the salt of the earth, 
 You are the light of the world. (■*) 
 
 More than once Jesus recognized the superior receptiveness 
 of the gentiles, as wdien he declared to the nobleman, ^'I 
 have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." (^) It' 
 we may not plead as evidence, because of their doubtful 
 authenticity, Matthew's words of the Great Commission, 
 ^^Go and make disciples of all the nations" (or gen- 
 tiles), (^) we are not so enjoined from citing the words 
 preserved by Luke, essentially identical in meaning: 
 
 rTMark 2:27. 
 
 (-) Matt. 21:31. 
 
 (») Matt. 8:11, 12. 
 
 (*) Matt. 5:13, 14. 
 
 (») Matt. 8:10; Luke 7:9. 
 
 (•) Matt. 28:10. 
 
68 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 You will be my witnesses^ 
 
 Both in Jenisalem, 
 
 And in all Judea and Samaria, 
 And to the uttermost part of the earth. (^) 
 
 And most significant of all, perhaps, is the fact that the 
 universal ism of Jesus is the reason assigned by Luke for 
 his rejection at his own home, ISTazareth. As the third 
 Gospel relates the story, Jesus told the Jews plainly that 
 they were not God's "chosen" people, in any such sense 
 as to exclude other peoples from his love and mercy. And 
 the worst of it was, that he proved his point from their own 
 Scriptures. He cited the instance, familiar to every one 
 of them, of Elisha's lodging with a poor widow of Zarc- 
 phath, and followed this with the equally familiar story of 
 the cure of ^aaman of leprosy. (^) 
 
 Yet, after all, our reliance should be on the general 
 drift and spirit of the teachings, rather than on any 
 isolated "proof-texts" that can be made to mean pretty 
 much anything we desire them to mean. The significance 
 of most of the parables is unmistakable. If we might per- 
 vert into a narrow sense such as those in the fifteenth chap- 
 ter of Luke — the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, the Lost 
 Son — we cannot so easily limit the Sower and the Tares, 
 with the interpretation of Jesus himself, "The field is the 
 words.^r^) The Sheep and the Goats, the Talents, the 
 Wise and Foolish Virgins, (^) and above all the Good 
 Samaritan, (^) are incapable of perversion to Jewish ex- 
 clusiveness. In the last named parable, Jesus makes a 
 
 (M Acts 1:8. 
 
 (2) Luke 4:10-30. 
 
 (^) Matt. 13:3 sq. 18 sq. 24 sq. and the pavallol passa.ffos. 
 
 {*) Matt. 13:3S. There can be little doubt that the author or 
 final editor of the first Gospel was not a hearty universalist. He 
 shows in many cases a disposition to edit the sayinfjs in a particu- 
 laristic sense. Compare, for example, his story of the Syro-Phene- 
 cian woman, with the version of Mark, as f]^iven in any Harmony, 
 and likewise his version and Luke's of the sermon at Nazareth. Yet 
 Matthew aives most of the parables that have a universal trend. 
 
 n Luke 10:30 sq. 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 69 
 
 member of a despised and Lated race a better exemplar of 
 true religion than the most pious Jews, priests and Levites. 
 This must indeed have been gall and bitterness : 
 
 The fourth Gospel is so outspoken in its universality 
 that not a few critics have made this an objection to its 
 authenticity : 
 
 For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten 
 
 Son, 
 Tliat whosoever trusts in him should not perish. 
 But have eternal life.(^) 
 
 ^'^Miosoever'' is a word very prominent in the Johannine 
 writings, and its content is as large as humanity. So when 
 certain Greeks sought the disciples in the Temple, wishing 
 to see Jesus, the Master hailed this as the climax of his 
 career : 
 The hour is come that the Son of Man should be honored. (-) 
 
 It may, of course, be argued by the champions of Paul 
 or others that the fourth Gospel was not written until many 
 years after the great apostle to the gentiles had made uni- 
 versalism part and parcel of the Gospel. No one will 
 question the historic fact that it was through Paul mainly 
 that the principle of universalism gained general accep- 
 tance; but that is quite a different proposition from as- 
 serting that he invented the principle. He never claimed 
 to do so, but in this, as in all his preaching, asserted that 
 he was the interpreter and ambassador of Jesus. The 
 fourth Gospel at least shows how Christians had come, by 
 the close of the first century, to understand the teachings 
 of Jesus — that they were by that time vuuxnimous in at- 
 tributing the universalism oi their message to Je^ns and 
 not to Paul. 
 
 (^) John 3:16. 
 (') John 12:23. 
 
70 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 IV 
 
 As life Avitli God was the secret of the character of Jesus, 
 so love of God is the foundation-stone of his teaching. 
 To love his Father in Heaven was the spontaneous im- 
 pulse of his pure soul, which found in God the companion- 
 ship and sympathy denied it among men. Every word 
 and act of his life was a manifestation of this love — 
 
 My food is to do the will of him that sent me, 
 And to accomplish his work.(^) 
 
 When, therefore, Jesus was asked, ^'What is the first 
 commandment of the Law ?" without hesitation he repeated 
 the words, the Shema of the synagogue service : 
 
 Hear Israel: 
 
 Jehovah our God is one Jehovah : 
 
 And thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all the heart, 
 And with all the soul, 
 And with all the mind, 
 And with all the strength! (2) 
 And because Jesus saw that if God were so loved, as a 
 merciful and tender and holy Father, there could be but 
 one result, he gave as the second commandment, again 
 quoting familiar words of the Law : 
 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (^) 
 
 (^) John 4:34. 
 
 C) Mark 12:29; Deut. 6:4, 5. 
 
 C) Mark 12:31; Lev. 19:18. To Matthew Arnold it seemed 
 passing? strange to find these words in Leviticus, but that was be- 
 cause he did not fully understand their significance there. In 
 Leviticus the words are clan ethics — "neighbor" is another Jew; 
 as Jesus spoke them, they are universal ethics, "neighbor" is any 
 fellow man. Inasmuch as Jesus did thus quote from the Law to 
 express his own profoundest teaching, all modern Jews and some 
 modern Christians, deny his originality. He is not the one and 
 only Teacher, they declare, but the last in a long line of Jewish 
 prophets, and if his outlook seems a little broader and further, it 
 is not so much that he is greater as that he is later. As somebody 
 has said, "A dwarf can see further than a giant — if he is mounted 
 on the shoulders of the giant." We need not pause to controvert 
 this view. 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 71 
 
 . Fatherhood and hrotherhood, thuu, were correlative and 
 complementary ideas and words with Jesus. Love of God 
 necessarily implied love of fellow, and the two constituted 
 the principle of the Kingdom of God : a human society of 
 which God was founder and head and all men members; 
 bound together, not by law^s and institutions, but by the 
 stronger, if less palpable, tie of human brotherhood. A 
 Kingdom would seem logically to imply a king and sub- 
 jects, but Jesus never uses either word, or anything equiv- 
 alent to them. God is not King but Father ; men are not 
 subjects but chihlren — that is his way of describing both; 
 and this is a fact that is unimpeachable testimony to his 
 habitual thought of God. 
 
 And it is equally fact that Jesus had little to say about 
 man's relations and duties to God; he confined himself 
 mainly to men's duties and relations to each other. What 
 he did say about worship and service of God was, that it 
 might not be suffered to take the place of justice and 
 mercy to our fellows. Nothing so stirred Jesus to holy 
 indignation as pretense of piety by men who robbed and 
 maltreated those whom they should have loved and served 
 as brothers. To the outcast sinner he was always tender, 
 and to such of these as showed desire to forsake their sins 
 he spoke words of peace and pardon. To the sinful w^oman 
 who anointed his feet and kissed them weeping, he said, 
 "Your sins are forgiven" — she had learned love and was 
 "saved." To Zaccheus, eager to make restitution to any 
 whom he had wronged, he said, "To-day has salvation 
 come to this house" — the grafting tax-gatherer had learned 
 social righteousness and so had become a new man. But 
 for the proud Pharisee Jesus had only words that sting 
 and burn. Forms and creeds were nothing to him; he 
 looked straight through them to the reality. 
 
 Jesus summoned all men to the noble life: the life of 
 personal purity, of sacrifice of self, of service to others, 
 as the one cure for tlio world's otherwise immedicable ills. 
 
72 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 
 
 He appealed to the heroic strain not wholly lacking in any 
 of us. Wickedness was in his eyes nothing else than the 
 ignoble life, the self-centered life, and this was the only 
 "heresy" that he recognized. 
 
 The Law came hy Moses, 
 
 But grace and truth by Jesus Christ. (^) 
 
 If we accept the words of Jesus as the guide of life, he 
 becomes our Saviour from the theologians, as well as our 
 Saviour from sin. For theologians of all ages have, wit- 
 tingly or unwittingly, led men back to the Pharisaic notion 
 that right belief is the all-important thing, w^hereas with 
 Jesus right conduct is all-important. And the theologian 
 has justified himself on the ground that belief determines 
 conduct, and therefore to have right conduct you must 
 first have right belief. Which is true to a degree, but 
 leaves unstated this yet more weighty truth : right belief 
 may be necessary to right conduct, but is no guarantee of 
 right conduct. The belief of the Pharisees w^as mainly 
 right ; their conduct was wholly wrong, and so Jesus con- 
 demned them. Nothing can be clearer than that Jesus 
 never intended to make "salvation," or deliverance from 
 moral evil, dependent upon any theory of what he was or 
 did. He made it depend on a changed attitude towards 
 God and man, and it was his chief mission to be the means 
 of so changing the relations of men to God that His will 
 should be done upon the earth and thereby His Kingdom 
 be established. 
 
 'No, we cannot get away from the fact that Jesus said 
 very little about beliefs, that he spoke almost wholly of 
 conduct. He made the real test of character, the real 
 righteousness, consist in the behavior of men towards their 
 fellows. If he does not say it in so many words, he every- 
 where implies, that if a man is in right relations to his 
 fellows he cannot be in wrong relations to God. And he 
 
 n~Jolin 1:17. 
 
JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOD 73 
 
 does say, in just so many words, that a man cannot be in 
 right relation to God, so long as he leaves nnrighted a 
 wrong done to a fellow. The remedy for injury to a 
 fellow man is not prayers and gifts to God — what men 
 call piety — but restitution, redress, apology. When David 
 had stolen Uriah's wife and murdered her husband, his 
 repentance was wholly inadequate when he declared : 
 
 Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, 
 And done this evil in Thy sight. (^) 
 
 That might have answered the ethical demands of an 
 earlier time, but Jesus taught a very different ethic : 
 
 So, if you are bringing your gift to the altar, 
 
 And there remember that your brother has something 
 
 against you, 
 Leave your gift there before the altar 
 
 And go your way — 
 First be reconciled to your brother, 
 
 And then come and offer your gift.(") 
 
 It is perhaps in his parables that Jesus illustrates most 
 clearly, certainly most strikingly, the behavior appropriate 
 to members of his Kingdom. The Good Samaritan ('M 
 will instantly occur to every one. Hardly less known is 
 tlie parable of the Sheep and the Goats, (*) wlierein the 
 ultimate test of character and determination of final des- 
 tiny is made to depend on mercy and kindness shown to 
 one's felloAvs in distress. The necessity of cultivating a 
 forjriving spirit towards one's brother, instead of a spirit 
 of bitterness and revenge, is illustrated in the possibly less 
 read parable of the Two Slaves. (^) Even harsh judgment 
 of a brother is forbidden; criticism of a brother's faults is 
 
 (^) Ps. 51:4. Of course the ethical question is wholly unaltered 
 if the critical view be accepted that David did not write the 
 Psalm. 
 
 ( = ) Matt. 5:23, 24. 
 
 (») Luke 10:30-37. 
 
 (*) Matt. 25:31-40. 
 
 (») Matt. 23:18-S^. ' ' 
 
74 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 
 
 reproved with gentle irony ;(^) and as for anger, it is de- 
 clared to be equivalent to murder. (") These are so hard 
 lessons for human nature to learn and obey, that Jesus 
 repeats them in various forms, again and again ; and on the 
 duty of forgiveness, in particular, more stress is laid than 
 on any other element of his teaching. He practically makes 
 willingness to forgive a test of membership in the King- 
 dom: 
 
 If your brother wrongs you, rebuke him. 
 
 And if he repents, forgive him. 
 And if he wrongs you seven times a day, 
 
 And seven times a day turns to you and says, "For- 
 give," 
 Forgive him !(^) 
 
 For, if you forgive men their trespasses. 
 
 Your Heavenly Father will forgive you also ; 
 
 But if you do not forgive men, 
 
 Neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (*) 
 
 And that this is no arbitrary decree, any student of the 
 teachings of Jesus, who has really tried to walk in his 
 ways, well knows. 'No one can receive love who is not 
 ready to give love. That was why the sin of Dives was ir- 
 reparable — he had refused love to Lazarus, his brother 
 who was in poverty and want, and so was incapable of re- 
 ceiving God's love. In the parable of the Workers in the 
 Vineyard, (^) eTesus teaches his followers what is for them 
 perhaps the hardest lesson of all: that they must treat 
 men, not according to seeming desert, but according to 
 actual want. We must not ask. What have thr-y done? 
 but, What do they need? We must give them, not what 
 justice requires, but what love prompts; not the least they 
 
 n"Matt. 7:1-5. 
 (2) Matt. r):21, 22. 
 r) Luke 17:4. 
 (*) Matt. G:14, 15. 
 n Matt. 20:1-16. 
 
JESUS THE PvEVEALEE OF GOD 
 
 75 
 
 will accept and our conscience permit, but the most we can 
 spare, and even more than we can spare. As we often say, 
 but seldom do, we must give until it hurts. How unbusi- 
 nesslike ! But how divine ! Eor to give men what they 
 have earned, or Avhat they seem to us to have deserved, is 
 justice — a good thing, but a cold. To give men what they 
 have not earned or desei^ed, yet need, is that greatest thing 
 in the world, that godlike thing we call love. And this, 
 Jesus said, is the whole of Law and Prophets. It is also 
 the whole of his gospel. And it is man's only adequate 
 self-expression. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 
 
 Those Avho account themselves the only ^^orthodox" Chris- 
 tians are nsually quite insistent that ministers shall 
 "preach the simple gospel." This cant phrase (for such 
 it now is) is oftenest on the lips of those who have not 
 the slightest idea of what the real "gospel'' is. Gospel is 
 Good News, the English equivalent of svayyEkiov , the 
 word used in the New Testament documents to denote the 
 Message of Jesus and his apostles. The original content 
 of that Message is very clear. According to Mark, the 
 oldest record that we have of the ministry of Jesus, he 
 began his work in Galilee by announcing: 
 
 Tlie time is completed, 
 
 And the Kingdom of God is at hand. 
 
 Repent and believe in the Good N"ews.(^) 
 
 This was the gospel of Jesus : a declaration that the King- 
 dom of God was about to be established, and a summons to 
 men to "repent" and "believe" as conditions of membership 
 in the Kingdom. In other words, they were to accept the 
 Message and relate themselves to it. It was a call to a new 
 ideal of life, to a new purpose in life, to a new conduct 
 of life. 
 
 And the kernel of the Good News was the immediate 
 coming of the Kingdom of God. By this Jesus seems to 
 have intended his hearers to understand the world as God's 
 
 {') Mark 1:15. 
 
 76 
 
JESUS THE HEliALD OF THE KINGDOM 77 
 
 spiritual empire, a realm on earth with the fundamental 
 characteristics of Heaven, a world in which men will b3 
 godlike. The chief note of Heaven, in the mind of Jesus, 
 clearly was that it was a divine realm of ideal perfection, 
 because in it God was all in all, and his will was perfectly 
 done. The Kingdom of God on earth w^ould be realized 
 when God became the dominating influence in the hearts 
 and lives of men, when his will is done here as it is in 
 Heaven. 
 
 Our Avord ^^kingdom" fails to express the idea of Jesus ; 
 for, while PadiAeux did originally mean ''kingdom,'' t<> 
 the generation of Jesus it had come to be the equivalent 
 of the I^atin imperium, and to mean the Roman Empire, 
 an authority conterminous with the world itself. There 
 could be, in the nature of the case, but one such universal 
 imperiuvi, in the sense of a visible government, with an 
 Imperator at its head, divided into provinces, each with 
 its administrator responsible to the Emperor; and its great 
 army, distributed into legions, all absolutely loyal to the 
 Imperator or commander-in-chief. But there could be 
 alongside of this political and military impermm, and 
 conflicting with it not at all, because moving in a totally 
 different sphere, a religious or "spirituar' Empire, as vast, 
 as perfectly organized, as loyal to its Head. But the 
 words of Jesus nowhere afford us a hint that he had any 
 conception of a Kingdom like that. He never describes 
 the Kingdom of God in terms that can be stretched to 
 cover such a conception. That was a notion of the King- 
 dom that came to prevail among Christians in consequence 
 of Imperial favor, after (^)nstantine and liis successors had 
 made the Holy Catholic Church both in form and spirit a 
 more or less religious counterpart of the political institu- 
 tions of the Eoman State. 
 
 elesus used the word that he found on the lips of all men, 
 because it was the only word available. If a religious 
 teacher is to make himself understood at all, he must con- 
 
78 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 form to the speech of his day. He may indeed introduce 
 a fcAv new words, or he may try to give a deeper signifi- 
 cance to commonplace words, and in either case he takes 
 the risk of being misunderstood. Nothing is plainer from 
 the Gospels than that, in this matter of the Kingdom, Jesus 
 shot over the heads of his entire generation. True, his 
 hearers hung upon his lips. They remembered many say- 
 ings with wonderful accuracy. In due time they wrote 
 down his words and passed them on to others. But they 
 misunderstood, with unanimity and perseverance that one 
 refrains from calling perversity only because they so evi- 
 dently could not help themselves. Their misunderstanding 
 was as honest as it was tragic. 
 
 For the mind of the Jew was then full of an idea of the 
 Kingdom of God that he derived from the Empire under 
 which he lived. He was more than he realized imder the 
 spell of that tremendous institution, the like of which had 
 never been known before. The '^Empires" of Egypt and 
 Babylonia, of Assyria and Persia, and even that of the 
 great Alexander, had been limited and ephemeral things to 
 which it was a joke to apply the name imperium. But 
 here was an authority extending to the very confines of 
 civilization, with common laws, institutions, language. 
 There seemed every reason why it should endure forever. 
 1^0 forces were visible or computable by ordinary human 
 foresight that could smash this vast military, legal and 
 social organization. And as matter of fact, it did endure 
 through fourteen centuries thereafter. ISTothing else human 
 and mundane has so nearly deserved the oft-applied epi- 
 thets, "perpetual" and "eternal." 
 
 It is rather common to say that the Jew hated the 
 Roman Empire. It might be more exact to say that the 
 Jew hated the Roman, not the Empire. A universal 
 imperium of which Jerusalem should be the centre, the 
 power of which should be wielded by a Son of David, was 
 his dearest dream — that vision summed up his ideas of 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 79 
 
 human felicity and glory. So much admiration did the 
 Eoman Empire exact from those who unwillingly sub- 
 mitted to it. So completely as this did it dominate their 
 thought and imagination. The Jew translated the King- 
 dom of God into terms of this visible organization. 
 
 It was to a generation with mind preoccupied by such 
 an ideal that Jesus vainly tried to communicate his ideal 
 of a Kingdom of spirit. He said again and again, to men 
 as unreceptive as blocks of wood, things like these: 
 
 The Kingdom of God is not coming so that you can 
 see it, 
 Nor will men say, "Here it is !" or "There it is !" 
 For the Kingdom of God is within you.(^) 
 
 Jesus could not hope, so far as we can see, to get on with 
 his hearers save by using the accepted word, but the 
 moment lie uttered it their minds were obsessed by th<:^ 
 phantasy of an empire of this world. It was the only word 
 available, for there were no alternatives that his hearers 
 could have understood better. There were then no repub- 
 lics, still more no democracies. The old Roman res puhlica 
 had perished, and the Greek '^democracies" were never 
 democratic, for they were founded on the economic basis 
 of slavery. But it is notable that, though he uses the word 
 Kingdom, Jesus never describes his ideal as a monarchy, 
 but as a commonwealth, a democracy. The Kingdom is a 
 state of equality, of brotherhood, of mutual service. There 
 can be no aristocracy in it ; no one can claim to be greater 
 than his fellows : 
 
 You know that those considered rulers among the heathen 
 
 lord it over them, 
 And their great men exercise authority over them; 
 
 It will not be so among yon. 
 So, whoever of you wishes to become first. 
 
 Let him be slave of all!(-) 
 
 (M Or "among vou." Luke 17:20, 21. 
 {') Matt. 20:25-27: Lnko 22:2.-), 20. 
 
80 FUA^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Kingdom of God,(^) in other words, is a social order 
 dominated in all the relations of men with each other by 
 the spirit that God shows in his dealings with us — the 
 spirit of love, of universal good will, shown by each to 
 each. In the Kingdom good will is to conquer hatred, 
 trust is to take the place of fear, mutual helpfulness will 
 be found instead of strife. Cooperation will supplant 
 competition, service will be the standard of greatness, and 
 the chief reward will be neither honor nor wealth, but the 
 consciousness of having done one's best for the common 
 welfare. 
 
 II 
 
 ^'Repent and believe in the Kingdom of God,*' was the 
 Good News of Jesus. But theologians have read into these 
 words meanings of which he never dreamed, as well as 
 read out of them all the meaning that he put there, until 
 a positive perversion of his ^^simple gospel" has resulted. 
 ^'Repent" and ^'repentance" are the English words long 
 ago chosen to render the Greek jieTavoeo), fxetdvoia. 
 We must evacuate the words of theological subtleties and 
 get back to the meaning that they had for Jesus and his 
 generation. The words are not very common in classical 
 
 (^) This is the phrase used by Mark thirteen times and by Luke 
 thirty-three times, while Matthew uses it only five times, in all 
 other cases (twenty-four) preferring Kingdom of Heaven (lit. of 
 the heavens). The word (3aoiXEia occurs fifty-six times in Matthew, 
 and of these cases it is attributed to Jesus forty-nine times 
 in direct quotation, besides twice in indirect. This is character- 
 istic of the Synoptics generally. But in John the word occurs 
 but four times, in every instance in words credited to Jesus himself. 
 To those who really wish to understand the teaching of Jesus re- 
 garding the Kingdom, a little book by F. Herbert Stead is worth 
 its weight in gold. It is an inductive study of the Gospels, and as 
 a result this definition is formulated: "The Kingdom of (i!od is tlio 
 fellowship of souls divine and human, of which the law and the 
 life are love, wherein the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood 
 of man, as both are embodied in Jesus the Christ, are recognized 
 and realized." (Edinburgh, T & T Clark. "Bible Class Primers",) 
 
JESUS THE IIEllALD OF THE KINGDOM 81 
 
 Greek, but when used they always denote a change of opin- 
 ion or purpose. A sober second thought often leads a man 
 to change his first opinion, or to do something other than 
 he at first intended. It is this fact of change that is the 
 fundamental meaning of these words. 
 
 It is in this sense that Jesus always uses them, and 
 throughout the ^ew Testament there is no apparent varia- 
 tion from his usage. When a man perceives his past mis- 
 deeds and determines to change his conduct and lead a dif- 
 ferent life, he ''repents" in the Gospel sense. The prodi- 
 gal, when he ''came to himself" and became convinced of 
 his folly, resolved, "I will rise and go to my father," and 
 that w^as his "repentance." So every man through "re- 
 pentance" finds himself and becomes a new man in his at- 
 titude towards God and his fellow^s. He becomes ready to 
 do his part in reorganizing the social order on the basis of 
 brotherhood. He becomes a member of the Kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 With such a change of mind and purpose often goes an 
 abhorrence of the past life, a new sense of the meaninii- 
 of moral obliquity, which theologians have called "convic- 
 tion of sin." But this emotional accompaniment of tlio 
 change is of no ethical value in itself; it may even exist 
 without repentance, or change of mind and purpose, in 
 which case we call it remorse. Repentance is nothing else 
 than change of ethical perception, change of attitude, 
 change of conduct, all resulting ultimately in change of 
 character. It is a deliberate facing about and going in 
 the opposite direction. It amounts to an ethical revolu- 
 tion. It is the birth of a new man. It may be preceded 
 by experiences of greatly various kinds, by moral turpi tud(> 
 of different degrees; it may be accompanied by great 
 spiritual disturbances or may be without marked emotional 
 quality. All these are trifling considerations: the real 
 thing, the only thing of moment, is the change. 
 
 Jesus treats this change as something within the power 
 
82 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of every irian's will : he assumes that any man can, if he 
 chooses, turn about and amend his life. And so every 
 man is summoned to do just this. He has hitherto lived 
 tlie life of selfhood: he must henceforth live the life of 
 brotherhood. He has hitherto been absorbed in schemes 
 for promoting his own advantage; he must henceforth seek 
 first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. His en- 
 tire plan of life must be revised and new ideals must take 
 the place of old. 
 
 But it should not be inferred, because repentance is so 
 plain and simple a matter, that Jesus thought it an easy 
 thing, a change requiring little or no effort. Quite the 
 contrary. He clearly recognized that God will not, be- 
 cause he cannot, save a man who will not '^agonize," strive 
 as an athlete for victory, to enter the narrow gate that 
 leads to eternal life. To be a follower of Jesus is not for 
 the lazy, the indifferent, the cowardly, the mentally limp, 
 the quitters ; it demands an alert mind, a well-braced will ; 
 it offers opportunities . for all that may be in us of the 
 heroic, the aspiring, the intrepid, the enduring. 
 
 ^''Master/^ said another, "I will follow you, but permit me 
 first to bid farewell to my friends at home.'' 
 
 "No man,^' replied Jesus, "who has put his hand to the 
 plough and looks at things behind, is fit for the Kingdom of 
 God.''(^) 
 
 If any man would come after me. 
 
 Let him take up his cross and follow rac. 
 
 For he that would save his life will lose it. 
 
 But he that loses his life for my sake will find it. 
 
 For what good will it do a man to gain the whole world. 
 But lose his own life? 
 
 Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?(-) 
 
 C) Luke 9:61, 62. 
 
 (==) Matt, 16:24-26; Mark 8:34-37; Luke 9:23-25. 
 
JESUS THE IJEllALD OF THE KINGDOM bo 
 
 Modern evangelism, based upon the false interpretation 
 of theologians, has made ^^repentance'^ an adjunct of what 
 thej call ^'conversion/' the chief end of which is supposed 
 to be to secure a sinner's deliverance from God's wrath and 
 condemnation and the consequent danger of eternal punish- 
 ment. The accepted test of a ^'conversion" is an emotional 
 ''experience," the stages of which are: first, "conviction 
 of sin," second, "repentance," and third, "faith," all of 
 which results in the joyful assurance of sins forgiven. 
 Lack of any one of these elements used to be regarded 
 as invalidating the "experience" ; and though judgment is 
 now more lenient, this is still regarded as the normal t^^o. 
 
 But an emotional crisis is no proof of change of char- 
 acter. The fact that a man has a firm conviction that his 
 sins have been forgiven — that he is "saved" — is not ade- 
 quate proof of God's forgiveness ; he may be altogether 
 deluded about his standing with God. The real proof of 
 forgiveness of his sins is the man's attitude towards them ; 
 for the only sins that God forgives are the sins that man 
 has forsaken and hated. The convincing proof of conver- 
 sion is not an inward experience, but an outward and 
 visible alteration of conduct. 
 
 Christian liistory has shown all forms of "experience" 
 to be only too often wholly illusory. The 'New Testament 
 writings nowhere jDropose an emotional test of Christian 
 character. The apostles and Jesus are at one on this point, 
 as perhaps they are not on any other: the reality of the 
 Christian life is to be tested, not by subjective emotion, 
 but by objective fact — the tree is to be known by its 
 fruits, that is, by conduct. Does an alleged conversion 
 make a complete change in a man's life, so as to show that 
 he is ruled by new ideals ? May he be judged on the basis 
 of what he is and does to be a man reborn ? Does he show 
 by word and deed that he lias renounced self and is living 
 tlie life of brotherhood ? Is he plainly seeking first the 
 Kingdom and its righteousness — the reign of justice. 
 
84 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 
 
 mercy and peace in this world — and is he doing what he 
 may to make this ideal a reality? ISTever mind how he 
 feels; what is he doing? 
 
 Nothing so clearly emerges from the present condition 
 of our ^'evangelical" churches as this damning fact: these 
 emotional ''conversions" do not result in the kind of re- 
 pentance that Jesus demanded. Our churches are full of 
 people, as every candid pastor will sorrowfully admit in 
 private, though he might not care to say it in public, who 
 give no slightest indication of changed attitude or pur- 
 pose. Some, it is true, are changed in the sense of better 
 individualistic ethics, but that is all. The "converted" 
 man curbs some of his former vices, perhaps, but he goes 
 right on in his old life of selfhood, without any notion 
 that his life calls for amendment or change. In religious 
 meetings he talks about "love" and "brotherhood," while 
 in his daily business he practices all the ruthlessness of 
 the Hun. Thousands of such "conversions" bring the 
 Kingdom no nearer. How should they? They have no 
 relation to the Kingdom and are not in sight of its ideals. 
 The churches will utterly fail to achieve their declared 
 purpose until there is complete reform of methods and 
 standards. 
 
 It is the theological perversion of "repentance" that 
 has so disastrously promoted the exaggerated individualism 
 of Protestant Christianity, and all but caused men to 
 forget the social implications of the gospel. On the lips 
 of Jesus, Kingdom of God and "eternal life" are synony- 
 mous. He did not teach men to flee from the world, but 
 to overcome it. The main idea of his gospel was not a 
 personal deliverance from sin and the individuaFs attain- 
 ment of peace and happiness here and hereafter, as the 
 immediate end to be sought. His goal was the salvation 
 of the world, of society, as the only way to save tlio in- 
 flividufil — the deliverance of all men, not merely a chosen 
 few, from a maze of evil conditions that make individual 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 85 
 
 transgression inevitable. Religion was not, in his view, a 
 force for personal uplift merely, but a social force to be 
 felt throughout the complex relationships of life. And it 
 is precisely that quality of his teaching that made it so 
 unpalatable to his hearers; and it has ever since been so 
 unacceptable, that men have devoted themselves chiefly 
 to devising excuses for not doing what he demanded they 
 should do. For, as has been well remarked, men will 
 wTangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it — 
 anything but live for it. 
 
 The popular form of Protestant religion was never 
 more happily expressed than by John Bunyan. His Pil- 
 grim, putting his fingers in his ears to shut out every- 
 thing but the inner voice urging him to flee from the 
 City of Destruction, reckless of the fate of wife and chil- 
 dren, with no idea that he owed anything to his fellow- 
 citizens, in a passion of selfish fear lest he himself should 
 be eternally miserable and ready to sacrific every con- 
 sideration of honor and duty if he might thereby secure 
 his own eternal happiness — that is the portrait of the ideal 
 Christian that John Bunyan gives us. Look on this pic- 
 ture and then on that, compare this ideal with the words 
 of Jesus, and see how little they agree. There could not 
 be a more total or a more fatal perversion of the ideal of 
 Jesus. 
 
 The pilgrim's objective in Bunyan's narrative is hope- 
 lessly wrong; our business is not to get ourselves into the 
 Celestial City as speedily as we may, regardless of what 
 may happen to others, like a man who should rusli out of 
 a burning house without stopping to see how his wife and 
 children were to be rescued, so intent on saving his own 
 life as to forget that other lives were to be saved. Our 
 business is to make our own city celestial, to bring into it 
 and make real all that we can imagine possible of splendor 
 and purity and blessedness in Jerusalem the Golden. The 
 true story of a Pilgrim's Progress in the twentieth century 
 
86 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 would tsliuw liiiii reinainiug in the City of Destruction and 
 striving to make of it a City of Salvation. It would 
 picture a man so concerned for the salvation of wife and 
 children and neighbors as to lose all thought about his 
 own.(/) 
 
 It would show him leading his companions to 
 drain the Slough of Despond and batter down the castle 
 of Despair about the giant's ears. It would show him 
 reforming the abuses of Vanity Fair and making it a place 
 of helpful amusement and recreation. And the man who 
 did all this would be none the less but rather all the more 
 capable of appreciating the view from the top of the De- 
 lectable Mountains. 
 
 And theological perversions of ^'believe" and "faith" 
 have been equally disastrous. Since the Reformation and 
 the proclamation by Luther of "justification by faith 
 alone" as the article of a standing or falling Church, there 
 has been a steady drift in the direction of making "faith" 
 an intellectual process, the acceptance of a body of teach- 
 ing, of ecclesiastical dogma, regarding religion. This has 
 made orthodoxy of more value than character. Some re- 
 ligious bodies have explicitly defined faith as acceptance 
 of the historic facts about Jesus and the truth of his teach- 
 ing. Even in those religious circles where this definition 
 is formally repudiated, and it is insisted that faith is some- 
 thing more than intellectual assent, there is a tendency 
 too strong to be resisted to make faith mean just this and 
 only this. 
 
 But on the lips of Jesus, and throughout the E'ew Testa- 
 ment writings, "faith," "believe" denote an act of the will 
 rather than of the intellect. It has an intellectual basis, 
 as every act of the will has, but the essential thing in 
 
 (') William WilberforcG, who spent his life in procuring the eman- 
 cipation of slaves in all English domains, was once reproached by a 
 good "evangelical" woman for showing so little concern for the salva- 
 tion of his soul. ''Madam/' he replied, "I had almost forgotten that 
 I had a soul." 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOlNr 87 
 
 "fail IT' is a docisioii and an act. To ''Ixilievc in the Good 
 [News/' as Jesiis used I he phrase, is to have such confi- 
 dence in tlie p^ospel as leads to obedience. ^Taith" is 
 trust ; not mere assent of the mind, but consent of the will, 
 resulting in conduct. It is to have such an attitude towards 
 Jesus as the pupil has towards his teacher, as the soldier 
 has towards his commander. It is an ethical quality, that 
 is influenced by intellectual processes, but still moves in 
 another plane. 
 
 To have such faith in the founder of the Kingdom is 
 necessary to entrance into it, not because such an arbitrary 
 condition of entrance has been imposed, but because with- 
 out such trust in Jesus and his teaching nobody would 
 make the faintest effort to realize his ideal. Thousands of 
 years of professed allegiance to him have hardly advanced 
 us a step towards the goal that he proposed; and that is, 
 plainly enough, because men have professed allegiance yet 
 failed to give it. Their failure is not to be justly con- 
 demned, in the majority of cases at least, either as hypoc- 
 risy or as deliberate disobedience, but as ignorance. For 
 the teachers and leaders of the Christian world have not 
 themselves comprehended the ideals of Jesus, and so of 
 course could not instruct people regarding them. We 
 are just recovering knowledge of the real significance of 
 the Master's teaching. 
 
 Tlie humility that Jesus prescribed, equally with trust, 
 as a condition of entering the Kingdom, has proved a stone 
 of stumbling to many. It is probable that for some time 
 to come humility will not be a popular virtue. What we 
 are exhorted in these days to do, is to seek all means of 
 ^'self-expression," by which is far too often meant a ruth- 
 less egoism that asserts an inalienable right to live one's 
 own life and scorns regard for the lives of others as a 
 cramping of personality. But much of the prejudice 
 against the teaching of Jesus rests on a misconception of 
 
88 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 its nature. Perhaps the word ^'modesty" would come 
 nearer to conveying the real meaning of Jesus to the pres- 
 ent generation. To be humble is not to cringe and sneak, to 
 be meek is not to be abject and craven; it is to cultivate a 
 modest estimate of self and forbear arrogance, haughtiness 
 and bluster. It is the domineering, flaunting, supercilious 
 spirit that we are to eschew, for these are anti-social, they 
 prevent mutual goodwill. But the Kingdom has no place 
 for the timid, the obsequious, the mean-spirited; it is a 
 Kingdom of gentlemen and gentlewomen, and all that is 
 urbane and companionable, highminded or honorable, 
 breathes in this realm its native air. It was because he 
 taught such a Kingdom as this that the professed follow- 
 ers of Jesus have from the beginning followed him with 
 greatest reluctance, and no further than they must; and 
 that has proved to be a very little way indeed. It is only 
 quite recently that any considerable number of people 
 were ready for such a Kingdom as this, saw in it anything 
 to be desired, or believed that it was possible to establish 
 it. And those people are beginning very seriously to doubt 
 whether the realization of the Kingdom is to be hoped 
 through the agency of that Church which claims Jesus as 
 Founder and Head, notwithstanding it professes to exist 
 only for bringing in the Kingdom. For, in spite of loud 
 professions and claims of loyalty to Jesus, only in the few- 
 est instances can the Cliristian churches be induced to take 
 any serious interest in the Kingdom propaganda, or to 
 undertake anything that has a real tendency to hasten the 
 Kingdom's coming. Nietzsche thought the Sermon on the 
 Mount was "doctrine for weaklings,'' but the difficulty 
 with that teaching has always been that men w^ere not 
 strong enough to follow it. They have feebly evaded its 
 obligations by declaring them impracticable. Jesus is the 
 one Superman. 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 89 
 
 III 
 
 When we interpret ^'tlie Good JN'ews of the Kingdom" 
 to mean that Jesus taught a social gospel, we do not imply 
 that Jesus was in any sense a professor of Sociology. 
 There is no reason to suppose that he held any definite 
 scientific theory regarding society, any more than he held 
 a definite scientific theory regarding religion. He was 
 entirely concerned with the practical aspects of society and 
 religion. But he saw, as clearly as any modern professor, 
 that society and the individual are mutually related ; that 
 each is indispensable to the other, each complements the 
 other, each reacts on the other. 
 
 But which should stand first in our thinking, and 
 which should we regard as of first practical importance ? 
 Or should there be no first ? A perfect dualism in thouglit 
 may be possible, but practical dualism is virtually impos- 
 sible. In actual life, either the Kingdom or the individual 
 will take precedence. The conviction is gaining ground 
 that, if we would be true to the ideals of Jesus, we must 
 give first place to the Kingdom and not to the individual — 
 that the hope of future salvation for the race depends on 
 our giving greatly intensified emphasis to the idea of 
 social salvation. 
 
 The study of biology has done much in recent years to 
 alter our views of the meaning of history and the signifi- 
 cance of social institutions, as well as of the method of 
 social progress. Our notion of the importance of the in- 
 dividual has suffered diminution, and our estimate of the 
 value of the species has been correspondingly enlarged. 
 Throughout nature it is seen that the individual is of com- 
 paratively slight importance; individuals are born, live 
 and die, but the species remains. We begin to see a reality 
 in what we had come to regard as barren metaphysical 
 speculations — that there was truth, though perhaps not 
 all the "truth'' for which they contended, in the "ideas" 
 of Plato and the "universals" of the schoolmen. We no 
 
00 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 longer conceive of the species as the mere classification of 
 individuals, but as a separate entity, of which individuals 
 are manifestations. It is true that our senses report to us 
 only men, yet we refuse to believe that '^man" is a mere 
 figment of the mind, and deny that the only reality is 
 that which the senses perceive. This change of mental 
 attitude should help us to understand better the insistence 
 of Jesus on the supremacy of the Kingdom as compared 
 with the individual. 
 
 And just here Anthropology comes forward with its 
 contribution. It assures us that religion was, in its earlier 
 and cruder forms, essentially a system for securing the 
 welfare of the social group, and all its rites and rules had 
 as their underlying principle the sacrifice of individual 
 interests to social needs. The 'preservation of the group 
 was the paramount necessity, inasmuch as it was the only 
 means by which the preservation of the individual could 
 be secured. As Kipling puts it, in ^'The Law of the 
 Jungle," 
 
 The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength 
 of the Wolf is the Pack. 
 
 Everything else must bend to the one imperious necessity 
 of promoting the highest practicable measure of securi ty 
 and comfort for all, or there could be no life for any. 
 Individualism in religion is a comparatively late develop- 
 ment, and has been fully realized only in modern Prot- 
 estantism. Jesus recognized the equal claims of social 
 and individual interests, so far as these are capable of 
 distinction and realization; he avoided the undue sacrifice 
 of the individual to the group, which was the chief defect 
 of the early religions, and insisted on the dignity and 
 rights of each human soul; he equally avoided the disin- 
 tegrating effect that proclaiming the individuaFs complete 
 inih^pendence of soci;il obligations inovitnbly Ims, by re- 
 quiring the voluntary subjection of the individual to tlie 
 social order. He recognized both the individuaPs right 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 91 
 
 » 
 
 to himself and his duties to liis fellows, lie established 
 a workable equilibrium between two principles hitherto 
 antagonistic, fully reconciled them in his thinking and 
 teaching, and contemplated the best realization of each in 
 his Kingdom. 
 
 IV 
 
 From this conception of the Kingdom as a brotherhood, 
 with its implication of equal rights, privileges and oppor- 
 tunities for all, come all the sayings of Jesus regarding 
 property and wealth. For the members of the Kingdom 
 there is no such thing as property, something that is one's 
 very own, on which nobody else has any claim. To be- 
 come a member of the Kingdom, one must renounce prop- 
 erty forever — henceforth one does not own, one adminis- 
 ters. The property is the King's; we are his stewards. 
 So much has been said of late about ^^stewardship," a good 
 part of it having nothing but a verbal relation to the teach- 
 ing of Jesus, that it is fast becoming a cant word that real 
 men and women shim. 
 
 For the Christian ideal that a member of the Kingdom 
 holds all that is nominally his as a trust from God, to be 
 administered for God, a large part of the Christian world 
 is trying hard to substitute the Jewish ideal of the tithe. 
 We will compound with God by scrupulously giving him 
 a tenth, and then the other nine-tenths will belong to us 
 in fee simple. Stewards ? Yes, stewards of a tenth, but 
 absolute owners of the rest. When we have given God 
 his tenth, he must in justice leave us to the undisturbed 
 enjoyment of what remains — not even our conscience must 
 give us a surreptitious twinge. 
 
 Whatever misguided advocates of tithing may intend, 
 the practical effect of tithing must be to dry up the springs 
 of Christian benevolence. For it substitutes the Jewish 
 law of mathematics for the Christian law of love, l^ot 
 to mention that it utterly misconstrues the significance of 
 
02 i'UNDAMEIirTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the tithe in Jewish history. The later prophets, like Mal- 
 achi, coining from the priestly class, were pleased to 
 represent the tithe as a payment to God, but it was his- 
 torically a payment to the tribe of Levi. That tribe did 
 not receive an allotment of land, what would have been 
 its share being allotted to the other tribes; and in lieu of 
 their share of land, the Levites were to receive a tenth of 
 all produce from the other tribes that had received more 
 than their just portion. (^) Tithe was really rent, and its 
 payment was no gift of God but discharge of a just obli- 
 gation to men. The Jew's religious giving began after he 
 had paid his tithe, and is called in the Law ^'offering" or 
 ^^sacrifice." The natural tendency of a priesthood to iden- 
 tify itself with its deity explains the later treatment of the 
 debt owed the Levites as an obligation to God. Jesus 
 says nothing about religious giving by his followers; he 
 was not in the least concerned with such questions. But 
 Paul, in strict conformity to the principles of his Master, 
 puts the matter on the proper basis, and makes all giving 
 voluntary, not legal: as God hath prospered him.(^) 
 
 The implications of the Kingdom teaching are far- 
 reaching. This universal, redeemed community was to 
 be co-extensive with mankind, not limited to Judea and 
 the Jews. Because of this ultimate solidarity of God 
 and men in a divine community, all men should be de- 
 livered from undue anxiety about the future. The fruit- 
 fulness of the earth and the toil of men have always pro- 
 duced enough for all, and wisely directed labor of all 
 might produce immeasurably more. It is not because the 
 bounty of God has failed, but because the greed and sel 
 fishness of the strong has taken from the weak, that some 
 men are choked with luxury while others die of starvation. 
 Famine is not God's curse upon the race, but man's curse 
 on his fellow. 
 
 C) Num. 18:21-24; Josh. 14:3, 4. 
 C) 1 Cor. 16:2. 
 
JESUS THE IIEKALD OF THE KINGDOM 93 
 
 And this is why Jesus said that it is impossible for the 
 rich to enter his Kingdom. Orthodox exegesis, in its com- 
 plicity with those who exploit and its fear of arousing 
 their wrath, has found all sorts of explanations but the 
 right one of the uncommonly plain and absolutely decisive 
 words of Jesus. It has said that riches tend to make the 
 heart proud, to absorb the mind in many cares, to lead 
 men to worship Mammon rather than God, and other tru- 
 isms that throw no light on the teaching, but rather ob- 
 scure it with a mass of unmeaning generalities. When in 
 fact, the teaching of Jesus is so sharp and clear and un- 
 mistakable that it can be misunderstood only by those who 
 are determined to misunderstand. Wealth is anti-social. 
 Wealth is therefore impossible in the Kingdom of God. 
 Because wealth is never the honest result of a man's effort 
 as producer, but always the result of exploitation of his 
 brother. 'No man, by any amount of industry and thrift, 
 ever accumulated a fortune from the product of his own 
 hand and brain — it has never been done in the history of 
 the race, and it never can be done. The rich man is rich 
 because he has by some means, socially recognized as more 
 or less ^^honest," obtained possession of what others have 
 produced. No rich man can enter the Kingdom, not be- 
 cause Jesus pronounced a fiat of his exclusion, but because 
 he has excluded himself by adopting and pursuing a mode 
 of life incompatible with the Kingdom. Exploitation is 
 irreconcilable with love of the brother as self; it is the 
 antipodes of brotherhood. Love of the brother is the law 
 of the Kingdom; it is the only law the Kingdom has. 
 Wealth and the Kingdom cannot coexist ; the rich man has 
 worked and lived for himself, and so he cannot belong to 
 a brotherhood of love. He must do as the rich young 
 man of the gospels was invited to do, renounce his wealth 
 and follow Jesus, and he can enter the Kingdom on no 
 other terms. 
 
 Wealth is anti-social and unbrotherly, in the same way 
 precisely that slavery was. Everybody can see now the 
 
94 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 essential iniquity of permitting some men to own others, 
 in order that the owners might live by the labor of the 
 owned. That form of exploitation has come to be in very 
 bad odor. But the odor of sanctity still clings to another 
 form of exploitation, and we are very slow to see that 
 Jesus was right in forbidding men to own things, in order 
 that they may live by the labor of others. There are, in 
 fact, but two ways of getting a living in this w^orld: by 
 doing something or by owning something. The former is 
 social and ethical: the latter is anti-social and unethical. 
 Any system that permits one man to say to another : ''You 
 shall work and sweat to earn bread and I will eat it with- 
 out work," is a more or less modified form of slavery, 
 and is absolutely indefensible on ethical grounds. Such 
 a sj^stem is the negation of the Kingdom that Jesus pro- 
 claimed. ''A noble heart," says Bishop Barrow, "will 
 disdain to subsist like a drone on the honey gained by 
 others' labor; or like vermin to filch its food from the 
 public granary ; or like a shark to prey on the lesser fry ; 
 but will one way or another earn his subsistence, for he 
 that does not earn can hardly be said to own his daily 
 bread." 
 
 Jesus condemns wealth, but he never praises poverty. 
 Some of his followers have been less wise and have glori- 
 fied poverty in his name. Men like Francis of Assisi have 
 believed that they found in a life of indigence great spir- 
 itual compensations. But this is to misread both the 
 w^ords of Jesus and the facts of life. A few exceptional 
 men have been able to live the life of the spirit in spite of 
 poverty, but never by means of it ; and only the few, the 
 uniquely endowed, have been able to surmount the ob- 
 stacles of privation and want, and reach the heights of 
 moral excellence. To the many, poverty interposes in- 
 surmountable barriers to the higher life. A rather ad- 
 vanced stage of wealth is shown by the general experience 
 of mankind to be necessary for any community to make 
 appreciable ethical and intellectual advance. The Ben- 
 
JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 95 
 
 aissance, the age of Louis Quatorze, the Elizabethan period, 
 were times of great social prosperity and rapidly increas- 
 ing wealth. 
 
 It is quite true that spiritual gifts cannot be directly 
 acquired by wealth ; millions will not buy intelligence, 
 culture, the enjoyment of music, appreciation of art, love 
 of literature, a pure mind, a lofty soul. These are acquisi- 
 tions of effort, painful, long-continued; each must win 
 them for himself. But a certain degree of physical com- 
 fort, a certain amount of leisure, are the indispensable 
 conditions of winning them. Without community wealth, 
 no one could long enjoy bodily vigor, culture, recreation 
 and social intercourse. Nothing is more deadly to spir- 
 itual interests than continual struggle with grinding pov- 
 erty. Money in pocket will not ensure a well-dressed 
 man; it only makes him possible; he may be a Russell 
 Sa£:e and elect to go shabby, though possessor of millions ; 
 but the man without money has no choice — he must go in 
 rags. 
 
 It was individual wealth that Jesus condemned ; he 
 had nothing to say against community wealth. Com- 
 munity wealth means possibility of a worthy life for all, 
 but does not make certain that all will live worthily. It 
 is an instmment by use of which the higher life is realiz- 
 able, a material good through which we may acquire the 
 spiritual. Education, art, letters, are the costliest prod- 
 ucts of civilization and the most precious. To have them 
 in the highest degree of perfection has always required 
 great expenditure of wealth. It can never be otherwise ; 
 in any state of society the best things will be produced at 
 heavy cost. But they are worth as much as they cost. 
 And their value will be incalculably increased when they 
 cease to be the perquisite of the few and become the prop- 
 erty of all. 
 
 What Jesus accomplished for the world was the moral- 
 izing of wealth. He was not an economist, but a prophet ; 
 he did not teach science but conduct. lie marked out the 
 
96 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 way to the larger production of wealth for the common 
 good, for its juster distribution and nobler use, not by 
 giving us a theory of social progress, but by emphasizing 
 the sole practical method by which men may hope to ad- 
 vance in social relations: the way of brotherhood, the life 
 of the spirit, the selfless life. 
 
 V 
 
 During the lifetime of Jesus his disciples again and 
 again showed how completely they had failed to grasp his 
 idea of the Kingdom. He took great pains to show them 
 how wrong they were and to replace the ideas of their na- 
 tion and generation with his own. He seems to have made 
 some temporary impression, so far at least that they re- 
 membered some of his instructions and afterwards wrote 
 them down. But he had hardly expired when they promptly 
 reverted to type, re-embraced the ideas from which he had 
 temporarily weaned them, and proceeded to establish a 
 cult and form an organization differing as much from the 
 Kingdom in spirit as in name. Peter's second fall was 
 much worse than his first. In the Gospels he is shown us 
 in the act of denying his Master's person ; in the Acts he 
 is shown us in the process of denying his Master's doctrine. 
 In the first denial he was conscious of his disloyalty and 
 promptly repented; in the second he was not disloyal but 
 stupid, a blunderer, and so he remained to the end. 
 
 And Paul was, as he boasted, not a whit behind the very 
 chief of the apostles in this matter. Together with Peter 
 he made the religion of Jesus the religion of a cult. Jesus 
 teaches that men are brothers because they are sons of a 
 common Father : Paul teaches that Christians are members 
 of each other, because they have become members of a 
 mystical Body of Christ. Jesus laid the great stress on his 
 ethical teaching; the aspostles, and Paul above all, lay the 
 great stress, almost the whole stress, on the Person and 
 
J'ESIJS THE IIEKALD OF THE KliSTGDOM 
 
 97 
 
 Office of the Christ. It is noteworthy that though Jesus 
 fully believed himself to be the Messiah, he did not make 
 belief in his Messiahship the condition of entrance into 
 the Kingdom. Peter and Paul made such belief the con- 
 dition of entrance into the Church. 
 
 When the enemies of Jesus crucified him, they did him 
 a smaller injury than his disciples did him by perverting 
 his teachings. The death of Jesus is not the real tragedy 
 of his career, but the denial of all that he had taught. 
 The change was so subtly made, that the very men who 
 made it were not conscious of what they were doing. And 
 the change was so completely made, in a single generation, 
 that the publication of the words of Jesus in the Gospels 
 found men's minds preoccupied with other ideas and his 
 teachings made little impression. The Christians of A. D. 
 80, and afterward, supposed that they were following 
 closely in the footsteps of their Master, when they had in 
 reality cast aside the important part of his instructions, 
 and adopted an ideal of life altogether foreign to his. 
 It required nineteen centuries after that for men to catch 
 sight once more of what Jesus intended and hoped to 
 accomplish. 
 
 Men are saying continually, and almost with exultation, 
 that Christianity has failed. Why should a religion suc- 
 ceed that has never been believed nor practiced? 
 
CHAPTER V 
 JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 
 
 Jesus is the Greek form of the well-known Hebrew name, 
 JeJio-shua, more common in its shortened form, Joshua, 
 which means, ^^Jehovah-help," or, ^'^Jehovah is my deliv- 
 erer." The name was by no means uncommon among the 
 Jews, either before or after the day of Jesus of Nazareth : 
 but everywhere in the JSTew Testament it is implied, if 
 not explicitly declared, that his name was generally believed 
 by his followers to be not an ordinary cognomen, but 
 (prophetically descriptive of his mission and work. The 
 Greek word of similar meaning was 2o)T;f|^, Saviour, 
 Deliverer. This title was often applied to rulers or gen- 
 erals who were regarded by nations as having effected for 
 them some form of deliverance. It is found, for example, 
 in inscriptions in Asia Minor, as one of the titles of Au- 
 gustus Caesar. When so used, it always implies a state 
 of captivity, or a condition of great danger, from which 
 a people has been rescued. 
 
 We have not only the authority of apostles, but of Jesus 
 himself, for saying that he conceived his mission to be 
 one of Deliverance for men. ''The Son of Man is come 
 to seek and to save that which was lost."(^) ''The Son 
 of Man came not to destroy men's lives but to save 
 them."(^) "For I came not to judge the world but to 
 save the world." (^) These are instances in which Jesus 
 is said so to have described himself and his work as to 
 
 (^) Luke 19:10. 
 
 (^) Luke 9:50; omitted from the text in the Revised Version. 
 
 (») John 12:47. 
 
 98 
 
JESUS THE SAVTOUIi OF THE WORLD 99 
 
 make his mission of Deliverance its principal feature. But 
 this still leaves to be answered the question, What is the 
 content of this idea of Deliverance? In what sense and 
 to what degree is Jesus the Saviour of the world ? There 
 have been many answers to this question; some of them 
 deserve careful consideration. 
 
 The popular idea of the nature of salvation is vividly 
 set forth in "evangelistic" campaigns. Our fathers used 
 to talk of salvation by divine grace; we have come to be- 
 lieve in salvation by committees and a Tabernacle and an 
 "evangelist." These religious mass-meetings, commonly 
 known as "revivals/' are considered, by the majority of 
 Protestant Christians at least, a sort of panacea for all the 
 ills of the world. And the Eoman Catholics have their 
 "missions," which are essentially the same thing. To the 
 student of religious history, modern revivals seem little 
 more than recrudescence of primitive religious orgies, such 
 as marked the cult of Dionysius and Cybele, and are found 
 among the howling dervishes of today. The violence of 
 emotion manifested by their votaries is directly propor- 
 tioned to their lack of culture, and rises to climax among 
 the unlettered negroes of the South. Religion in bondage 
 to the emotions is always extravagant, shallow, ephemeral 
 and even dangerous. It often illustrates in the spiritual 
 realm the principle of mechanics : action and reaction are 
 equal. !N"othing can equal the spiritual fervor of a com- 
 munity during a revival — except its spiritual deadness 
 after the revival is over. There are still a few people sane 
 enough to question whether a condition of alternate chills 
 and fever is any more salubrious for the soul than for the 
 body. 
 
 It may be objected, however, that a revival should be 
 considered rather as a means of obtaining salvation than 
 as liaviric: anv direct relation to salvation itself. If wo 
 
100 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 accept that view of the case, we may next ask, What is the 
 popular idea of salvation that makes possible the revival 
 and the evangelist? And the answer must be, that the 
 commonly accepted idea of salvation is, safety and hap- 
 piness in another world. Salvation is identified in the 
 minds of ordinary folk with "going to heaven when you 
 die," just as to be lost means "to go to hell." Is that the 
 idea that Jesus stresses in his teaching? 
 
 'Not at all. Jesus offered men an immediate Deliver- 
 ance, a salvation for this world, the consequences of which 
 v/ould be valid for any and all worlds. This Deliverance 
 was to come to men through the Kingdom of God. And 
 this positive content of his teaching was balanced by the 
 negative idea, what it was to be "lost." To be lost was to 
 stray away from the Father's home and love, and by con- 
 sequence to forfeit all that makes life worth living. "AVhat 
 shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his 
 own soul?"(^) was the reading of our old version; and the 
 Christian world came with a unanimity quite remarkable 
 to interpret this to mean "fail to obtain eternal happi- 
 ness." Eut we have other translations now, and what is 
 more, another idea of this saying of Jesus. "What will 
 it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own 
 life ?" we read to-day. And we understand by this "life" 
 something less speculative and distant than the ohl inter- 
 pretation recognized, something much more immediate and 
 certain and practical, namely, man's entire life, present 
 and future, but especially this present life, with all its 
 possibilities of making character for the future. It is a 
 life of love, that transcends time and death. 
 
 How different from this word of Jesus the preaching 
 that seems to find most favor to-day — at least, it draws 
 the biggest crowds. "Salvation, salvation ! Come and 
 be saved !" thunder the Billy Sundays. Saved from what ? 
 "From the wrath of God," answers the evangelist. P>iit 
 
 n" Mark 8 : 36 : Matt. 10:20; Luke : 25. 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WOULD 101 
 
 this is not the Gospel, it is a relic of Judaism. A divine 
 OQY'H correlated with a divine righteousness, is taught 
 throughout the Old Testament, and Paul and most of the 
 apostles borrowed the thought from that source without 
 questioning its truth. But the distinction of Jesus is that 
 he rejected this teaching concerning God. According to 
 him, it is love that is correlated with righteousness in the 
 divine character. The ''wrath" of God can be reconciled 
 with his teaching only by so spiritualizing wrath as to 
 evaporate all leal significance from the word. 
 
 Yes, according to Jesus, there is no wrath of God. God 
 is our Father ; he loves us ; he has never ceased to love us, 
 all his creatures, the sinful no less than the sinless. His 
 love is like the sunlight, like the rain and dew, bestowed 
 with equal prodigality on all. The Jews once believed in 
 a God who permitted his prophets to send lying oracles, 
 and even himself lied to his own prophets on occasion ;(^) 
 a God who commanded his chosen people to slaughter all 
 the Canaanites;(") a God who would bless one who dashed 
 the babes of an enemy against the stones. (^) But we can- 
 not believe in any great Hun in the heavens who have 
 learned from Jesus what God is like. The man who wrote 
 the seventh Psalm knew no better than to say, '""God i? 
 angry with the wicked every day,'^ but Jesus knew better, 
 and the disciples of Jesus should know better. The older 
 religion and ethics of that progressive revelation contained 
 in the Bible must be compared with and corrected by that 
 highest revelation that God made of himself in Jesus the 
 Christ. Others knew God in part; Jesus only had such 
 knowledge of the Eternal Father as makes his teaching 
 final, the norm of all religion and ethics to his followers. 
 
 (M Thus Elisha, "the man of God," is said to have sent a lying 
 oracle to Benhadad, King of Syria: 2 Kings 8:8, 10 — quite legiti- 
 mate in dealing with an enemy. Ezekiel tells us that Jehovah de- 
 ceived his own prophets. Eze. 14:19. 
 
 (*) Deut. 20:1(5-18, and cf. Joshua passim. 
 
 C) Ps. 137:0. 
 
102 FUNDAMElN^TALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 ^'Come and be saved!" Saved from what? ^Trom hell," 
 says the evangelist. But there is no hell. The popular 
 superstition about hell, so far as it is supposed to rest on 
 Scripture, rests on a complete misunderstanding. ''Hell" 
 is the translation in our common English version of two 
 Greek w^ords. One of these is 5Uq» (Hades), whicli 
 means simply (as the alternative phrase of the Prayer- 
 Book has it) ''the place of departed spirits." The other 
 word is Y^^vva (Gehenna), not a place of the future 
 world, but a definite place in this world, namely, the 
 Valley of Hinnon, a ravine outside the walls of Jerusalem 
 where the refuse of the city was burned. Jesus speaks of 
 it as the "Gehenna of fire," and further describes it as a 
 place "where their worm dieth not and their fire is not 
 quenched.'' That is, since fires were always burning in 
 this valley, the place was a fitting symbol of prolonged 
 suffering. For Jesus as undoubtedly taught retribution 
 in the life to come for sins committed in this life, as he 
 undoubtedly taught nothing about "hell" as a place of 
 future unending torment. 
 
 The popular imagery of hell and its accompanying 
 theological statements are mainly derived from the vision 
 of John in the Eevelation — the "lake of fire" into which 
 he beheld the wicked cast. But it is no more rational to 
 suppose that this "lake" has an objective existence, than 
 to believe literally in a 'New Jerusalem whose streets are 
 pure gold and its gates single pearls. These are the fig- 
 ures of an Oriental writer, of a naturally poetic tempera- 
 ment, by aid of which he sought to convey the truth that 
 character, good or bad, is the most permanent thing we 
 know; that we shall carry with us into the next world 
 the character that we form here; that moral evil involves 
 consequences imperfectly represented by physical suffer- 
 ing, since they are incomparably worse: loss of spiritual 
 blessedness, alienation from God and good, that must re- 
 main as long as moral evil remains. 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 103 
 
 But why should a disciple of Jesus believe, or how can 
 he believe if he would, that God's love for his creatures 
 ends with the grave? How can we say, as Jonathan Ed- 
 wards and his generation said, that the blessed will look 
 down from Heaven on the torments of the damned, not 
 with a pity and sympathy that would mar their enjoy- 
 ment of eternal felicity, but with a holy joy, seeing in 
 these sufferings the crowning glory of God, the vindication 
 of his holiness before the universe? That generation 
 could not understand that one who could be content with 
 his own salvation has no idea of what real salvation con- 
 sists. Nor could it comprehend that one who could rejoice 
 over the sufferings of the lost would be himself a fitting 
 subject of that damnation dealt out so freely by his theol- 
 ogy to others. But our generation can understand that it 
 is vain to exhort men in the name of God to forgive their 
 enemies, if that same God so hates his enemies as to cast 
 them into everlasting fire. We have been shuddering 
 much the last few years over the atrocities of war. What 
 are the atrocities of war, compared with the atrocities of 
 theology ? 
 
 He who maintains that, but for fear of a future hell, 
 men would rush into unbridled license, unconsciously be- 
 trays his own ethical limitations. He shows himself to be 
 convinced that the only successful appeal to men is through 
 their selfish fears, possibly because he is secretly con- 
 scious that he is himself swayed by selfish impulses, and 
 does not believe in his heart of hearts that there are in 
 the world any interests worth considering but his own. In 
 addition, he indicates that he probably has a low and gross 
 idea of pleasures, and in his secret thinking identifies 
 pleasure with vice. The man of nobler impulses, of unsel- 
 fish aims, who delights in refined pleasures, will not be so 
 afraid to trust men as a whole to behave themselves de- 
 cently, if the whip of liell is no longer flourished in their 
 faces. 
 
104: FUNDAMENTALS OF CPTUTSTTANITY 
 
 A better exegesis of Scripture, a better understanding 
 of the nature of God, a better ethic, have together almost 
 deprived even the most orthodox of their last hope of 
 eternal damnation. 
 
 II 
 
 An idea of salvation differing from this popular notion 
 has been held by the ascetics and mystics of all ages. 
 Salvation has seemed to them the attainment of ^'holi- 
 ness," or the moral perfection of the individual. The 
 ascetics proposed to reach this goal by withdrawal from 
 the w^orld and '^mortification of the flesh" — scourgings, 
 fastings, vigils, and the like. The method of the mystics 
 was withdrawal from the world and a life of contempla- 
 tion. No argument is required to show that this is a 
 worthier ideal of salvation than that proposed by the 
 evangelist. The philosopher and the saint have turned 
 their faces towards the light and are moving upward. 
 They have done much as ethical teachers of the race. 
 Men as widely separated in time and ways of thinking as 
 Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Bernard of Clairvaux 
 have urged this ideal upon men, with no small success. 
 But both methods come from the pagan Orient; both are 
 egoistic; both are anti-social; both are, therefore, un- 
 christian. 
 
 Since this notion of salvation is only a baptized pagan- 
 ism — Aristotle's hedonism somewhat spiritualized — we 
 cannot expect to find the theory and practice of it among 
 Christians much exceeding the best pagan ideals and at- 
 tainments. Greek sages found a point of contact between 
 this theory of salvation and their racial love of beauty. 
 They thought of beauty as perfection: they conceived it as 
 symmetry, balance, proportion, enough of everything, too 
 much of nothing. Their first effort to realize this ideal of 
 beauty was through form and color; but they discovered 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUli OF THE WOULD 105 
 
 at length in character and conduct a still higher ideal of 
 perfection. There is an inseparable connection, therefore, 
 between Greek art and Greek etliics, the aim of both being 
 the embodiment of an ideal perfection, of which symmetry 
 is the fundamental principle, and the result x6 '/aXov, 
 the beautiful. Art makes its appeal to the soul through 
 the senses of sight and hearing; character and conduct 
 appeal directly to the sj^iritual intuition, the inner sense 
 of fitness, proportion, beauty. This is why the feeling for 
 beauty has in all ages been clearly perceived to be a power- 
 ful ally of the forces that make for righteousness; and 
 when art and morals become divorced, art becomes lawless 
 and life unlovely — as Puritanism once demonstrated. 
 
 The intellectual clarity of the Greeks led them to recog- 
 nize danger in egoistic emphasis of moral perfection. 
 The Stoics, in particular, strove against this error, witii 
 a good measure of success. They did much to weaken 
 the barriers of class and race feeling, and prepare the 
 way for universal brotherhood of men. The Stoics were, 
 in truth, not far from the Kingdom of God. The medi?p- 
 val ascetics and mystics never reached this widcness of 
 vision; they went to school rather to the C\Tiics, whose 
 chief distinction was to cherish a proud scorn of pride 
 and to find their highest pleasure in contempt of pleas- 
 ures. 
 
 The mystical element in modern Christianity gives to it 
 much of its spiritual fervor and elevation: yet is at the 
 same time one of the chief sources of weakness, since it 
 encourages an egoistic, exclusive, Pharisaic type of re- 
 ligion. Even granting its point of view as partially true, 
 experience convinces most people that perfect keeping of 
 the Law is possible only to such as cherish a narrow and 
 inadequate conception of the scope of moral Law. To one 
 Avho regards his ethical obligations in the spirit of the 
 Sermon on the ]\rount, a Plinrisnic self-satisfaction bc' 
 comes permanently impossible, 
 
106 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The mystics, however, approached the truth so nearly 
 that their missing it becomes a wonder. They held part 
 of the truth. They were right in exalting spirit above 
 flesh. If the outer life becomes too rich, the inner life 
 will not be rich enough. Life does not consist in what 
 we possess, but in how we possess it. The mystics were 
 right in considering moral perfection as the goal of salva- 
 tion. Jesus regarded the Deliverance of the individual 
 that he came to effect as nothing less than his restoration 
 to wholeness, to ethical normality. Salvation is to have all 
 our functions and activities brought into harmony with 
 each other, and with the Power that controls and directs 
 all things. 'Not merely freedom from sin, but capacity to 
 work righteousness, is the promised Deliverance. But a 
 man cannot be thus set in harmony with himself, without 
 being set right with all his fellows. Internal harmony 
 cannot exist while external disharmony prevails. Social 
 salvation and individual salvation must proceed together, 
 and neither can be perfected apart from the other. 
 
 Hence, though individual perfection is the ultimate goal, 
 it is not the immediate aim. As St. Ambrose said, ''We 
 heal our own wounds in binding those of others." The 
 highest welfare of each man is one tissue with the highest 
 welfare of his social group ; and, equally, the highest wel- 
 fare of mankind includes the happiness and perfection of 
 the individual. But happiness and perfection are subject 
 to a law that governs all the highest values : they cannot be 
 attained as direct objects of quest, but are by-products of 
 the quest for other things. This is the meaning of the say- 
 ing, "He who seeks his life loses it, but he who loses his 
 life finds it." Altruism is the only way to social progress, 
 but also the only way to individual perfection. This is 
 the Great Paradox of Jesus and his profoundest truth. 
 
 For always he taught that salvation is not the quest of 
 the individual after his own spiritual good, but strenuous 
 endeavor to secure the good of others. In scientific phrase. 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 107 
 
 if he bad been acquainted with it, be migbt bave said tbat 
 salvation is not individual but biological, not personal but 
 racial, not the rescue of men singly but tbe rescue of so- 
 ciety. Organized religion, tbe Cburcb and its agencies, 
 have up to this time directed effort to the salvation of men 
 after tbe fashion of a fire department, summoned to a 
 great conflagration threatening destruction to a whole city, 
 that should busy itself with the rescue of a few from this 
 house and one or two from that building, but make no 
 attempt to put out the fire. Social salvation is putting out 
 the fire, in the first place, and then investigating its causes 
 with a view to preventing other fires. All experience and 
 analoffv show the utter futilitv of the method religion has 
 pursued for ages, with the result of bettering the world 
 so little that men sincerely wonder if it is not growing 
 worse. 
 
 'No man can solve the problem of sin for himself alone 
 or solve it by himself, nor can he escape by himself from 
 sin, because sin is social as well as individual. To make 
 possible escape for one, there must be escape for all; we 
 are all members of one another, in a profounder sense than 
 the apostle realized when he wrote those words. Instead of 
 seeking personal salvation, one must seek the salvation of 
 his neighbors, and in this social salvation he will find his 
 own. To reverse the process, and make his own salvation 
 the quest, is to cut oneself off from social salvation and 
 make his own impossible. This is to save life and yet lose 
 it. The true saint is not the man withdrawn from the 
 world, and seeking a purification of self from all evil, but 
 the man living in the world who is seeking to make the 
 evil good, trying with all his powers to increase the intelli- 
 gence, beauty and happiness of the entire social order. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Jesus seemed always more concerned with what hap- 
 pens to a man after he is ^'^saved" than with the process. 
 
108 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 As compared with the average Christian preacher, and cer- 
 tainly as compared with the "evangelist/' he might be 
 described as saying nothing about the process. It is Life 
 that is the great thing in the teaching of Jesus. He does 
 not always use the word, but ten-tenths of his words have 
 to do with life — that is to say, with living. Usually he 
 speaks of the Life, with the emphatic definite article. 
 Sometimes he calls it "eternal" (aeonian, agelong) life. 
 The word "life'' occurs often enough in the Synoptics to 
 umrk it as a characteristic of the thought of Jesus, and only 
 a little careful reading is needed to convince us that where 
 the word does not occur the idea is everywhere present. 
 The fourth Gospel was written, according to its author, 
 expressly to persuade men to believe (trust) in Jesus and 
 so "have Life in his Name." Further than this, Jesus is 
 represented as declaring this to be his great mission on 
 earth : 
 
 Life, 
 
 I came that they may have Lii 
 And may have it abundantly. ( 
 
 It is this new Life in him, as the result of accepting his 
 teaching as the guide of life, the product of personal trust 
 in him, that Jesus has in mind continually, as he makes 
 plain in all his discourses about the Kingdom. Salvation 
 is commonly conceived nowadays as deliverance from di- 
 vine condemnation on account of sin. Ever since Mel- 
 anchthon, the accepted definition of the "gospel" has been 
 "the assurance of forgiveness of sins through faith in 
 Jesus Christ." But what Jesus lays stress upon is deliv- 
 erance from self and resulting devotion of life to others. 
 
 If any man would come after me, 
 Let him renounce self, 
 And take up his cross daily, 
 And follow me.(^) 
 
 (M 'Tohn 10:10. 
 
 {-) Luke 9:23; cf. 12:27; Matt. 10:.38; 1G:24; Mark 8:34. 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUE OF THE WOKLD 109 
 
 Whosoever would become great among you 
 
 Will be your servant; 
 And whosoever would be first among you 
 
 Will be slave of all. (^) 
 
 Christian moralists have ever found this doctrine of re- 
 nunciation a doctrine too hard for them, and have sought 
 by all means in their power to soften the words of Jesus 
 and turn them aside from their plain intent. For this 
 renunciation of self, they have substituted self-renuncia- 
 tion; in place of his unselfishness they exhort us to an 
 enlightened selfishness — the sacrifice of a lower good to 
 gain a higher. In their desire to make religion easy for 
 men, preachers have been tempted to be discreetly silent 
 about the yoke and the cross, but Jesus never concealed the 
 fact that to be his disciple is the acid test of manhood. 
 His idea of the cross, as Ruskin says, ^^has been exactly 
 reversed by modern Protestantism, which sees in the cross, 
 not a furca to which it is to be nailed, but a raft on which 
 it, and all its valuable properties, are to be floated into 
 Paradise." 
 
 The law of renunciation is not popular, but it is im- 
 perative. We must deny self or deny God. The result 
 of putting this truth into the background is a saltless 
 Church, that has lost its antiseptic power — a Church that 
 has forgotten the high ideals of its (nominal) Head, and 
 has learned to speak the world's language and live the 
 world's life ; a Church that puts men's consciences to sleep 
 instead of wakening them, that offers men a soft couch in 
 place of a cross, that finds it easier to camouflage the 
 world's pits of iniquity and misery than to find a remedy 
 for them. 
 
 It would have been fortunate, perhaps, if Christian 
 people had accustomed themselves to use of another equally 
 Scriptural word in place of "salvation," namely, redemp- 
 tion. Salvation seems to imply chiefly, if not wholly, 
 
 n'Malt. 20:20, 27: ef. 28:11 : Mark \):^7>; 10:44: Luke 22:2G. 
 
110 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 rescue froiu impending danger, while redemption implies 
 restoration to a former status. We are saved from some 
 thing; we are redeemed to something. Mr. H. G. Wells 
 struggles to express a thought like this, when he says. 
 ^^Religion is the development and synthesis of the con- 
 flicting and divergent motives of the unconverted, and the 
 identification of the individual life with the immortal 
 purpose of God."(^) The thought of Mr. Wells suffers 
 from his too sophisticated vocabulary. Jesus says the 
 same thing and says it much better, because more simply : 
 
 My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, 
 And to finish his work.(^) 
 
 And just there we reach the crux of the whole matter: 
 what is the will of God ? Christians have always recog- 
 nized that doing the divine wdll is the essence of religion, 
 but have given all sorts of answers as to what this will is. 
 While always talking about it, they have had for the most 
 part only very hazy ideas of what constitutes the purpose 
 of God in redemption and have often interpreted the di- 
 vine will in terms of their own desires. 
 
 So it has come about that most people who call them- 
 selves Christians have scarcely the faintest notion of what 
 Jesus taught and required as the fulfilment of God's will. 
 They talk vaguely about '^^leading the Christian life," by 
 which they show how deep-rooted is the Pharisaic concep- 
 tion of religion as the avoidance of gross sins and the 
 performance of conventional duties. In those inclined to 
 be Puritanical, the Christian life appears to be mostly 
 avoidance of certain amusements long by common consent 
 tabooed. Those who have progressed a little further tell 
 us that a Christian must "be a good citizen," by which 
 they mean that he must obey the laws, pay his taxes with- 
 out dodging and vote regularly. O yes ! if he would be 
 perfect, he must not evade jury duty. That to be a good 
 
 C) "God the Invisible King," p. 94. New York, 1917. 
 (') John 4:34. 
 
JESUS THE SAVIOUE OF THE WOKED 111 
 
 Christian or a good citizen means anything more than 
 these things, Christians in general have no more compre- 
 hension than if Jesus had never lived or the Gospels never 
 been v^'ritten. And it is impossible, or virtually so, to 
 induce ^^good'' Christian people to go beneath these super- 
 ficial matters and see that Jesus taught a social gospel, not 
 an individualistic — that he was more concerned with the 
 salvation of men in society than with men as separate enti- 
 ties. This is so far from being understood by the majority 
 of Christians that they stare and gasp when such an idea 
 is suggested, and at once break forth into indignant de- 
 nial. 
 
 Our difficulty in urging forward the Kingdom is almost 
 exactly the opposite to that which Jesus experienced. The 
 thinking of his generation was less foreign to his ideas 
 than the thinking of ours. The coming of the Kingdom 
 of God was what the Jew understood to be salvation, the 
 Deliverance of his race and nation. ^'Saviour" and "^les- 
 siah'' were one to him. The deliverance that he looked 
 for was so entirely social and political, especially the latter, 
 that Jesus was compelled to stress rather heavily at times 
 the idea of individual redemption and insist that it was 
 included in any scheme of social redemption, ^icodemus 
 found it impossible to comprehend this. He could easily 
 understand why great social changes were necessary and 
 possible, but why any individual change? Was not he a 
 son of Abraham ? What more could be asked to make 
 any man an heir of the Kingdom? In our day it is the 
 other aspect of truth that demands stress. Men must be 
 taught with iteration that not seldom becomes tiresome, 
 that a disciple of Jesus is he, and he only, who accepts 
 the Kingdom ideal of Jesus and who tries to convert to 
 this ideal the society of which he is a part. Only such a 
 man has fully experienced the "salvation" that Jesus came 
 to brine: to men. When we all learn to practice social 
 righteousness, moral perfection of individuals will come 
 almost of itself. 
 
112 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 IV 
 
 Very important in this necessary process of orientation 
 is a redefining of terms. Our entire religious vocabulary 
 requires to be recast, reinterpreted, recharged with mean- 
 ing, to make it fit the idea of salvation taught by Jesus. 
 A few specific instances will make plain the necessity and 
 the method. 
 
 There is no commoner word on our lips than '^fellow- 
 ship," and none from which the true significance has more 
 completely evaporated. ''Fellowiship with God" we have 
 come to think of as some mystical union of our spirits with 
 the Divine, accompanied or followed by some remarkable 
 emotional and ethical experiences. But fellowship with 
 God is not peace of mind or unity with the divine will or 
 any other subjective state; it is wholly an objective thing, 
 most practical. Fellowship is partnership. To have fel- 
 lowship with God is to become his partner in the great 
 enterprise of rescuing the world from the grip of evil. 
 In like manner, to have ^^fellowship with Christ's suffer- 
 ings," of which Paul writes so eloquently, is not to feel 
 sympathetic pangs as we read of his poverty, his loneli- 
 ness, his scornful rejection, his agonizing death. It is 
 rather to share actively whatever may be necessary of like 
 experiences, in order to be his partners in the glorious en- 
 terprise of saving humanity. And ^^Christian fellowship" 
 is not merely to cultivate pleasant relations with our fellow- 
 Christians and enjoy their society, but to be partners with 
 them in carrying on the work of redeeming men for which 
 Jesus gave his life. 
 
 A right view of "salvation" will give new meaning to 
 another much abused phrase in common use, "Christian 
 unity." Jesus prayed for a unity of believers; we are 
 straining every nerve to bring about a imity of beliefs; 
 and we can see no difference between the two ideals. Our 
 objective is the wrong one, and we shall never get any- 
 where by our present method; or, if we do, we shall get 
 
JESUS TIlK SAVIOUR OF THE \VOKLt> llo 
 
 somewhere not worth reaching. An irreducible minimum 
 of creed, ^'a general union of total dissent/' as Lowell sar- 
 castically calls it, if it were possible, would not be w^orth 
 striving after. But we shall have unity of beliefs in 
 religion when we have unity of beliefs in politics and 
 science and business, or unity of taste in music and paint- 
 ing and literature. 
 
 Conventions to discuss unity are futile, because they 
 always concentrate on questions of creed, wdien the real 
 issue is a question of deed. The only unity possible or 
 desirable is a unity of believers, the willingness of all 
 Christians to be one in the prosecution of a common task. 
 Such unity must be based, as all social and political unity 
 is based, on the principle of inclusion, not of exclusion. 
 If a man does not agree with us on the merits of a poem 
 or a painting, we do not say that he is no gentleman and 
 refuse to dine with him. If a man differs from us about 
 the tariff or government ownership of railways we do not 
 advocate his expulsion from the United States as an un- 
 desirable citizen. We maintain social and political rela- 
 tions and cooperation in spite of all such differences. 
 Christian unity, like salvation, is social, not intellectual. 
 The vague and timid efforts at cooperation in Christian 
 enterprises in past years, and the larger cooperation in a 
 measure forced upon us by the recent war, point out the 
 only possible way of advance. The war did not last long 
 enough to form in us a habit of cooperation. Sectarian 
 feeling, almost forcibly repressed for a time, showed a 
 tendency to react with fresh violence as soon as the war 
 pressure was removed. 
 
 "Holiness" marks another idea that demands readjust- 
 ment to the true conception of salvation. Anything was 
 "holy" to the Jew, not because of its ethical character, but 
 because it had been set apart to the service of Jehovah. 
 We have so emphasized the element of aloofness as to let the 
 element of service escape altogether from our idea of holi- 
 
114 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ness. Yet service was the principal thing, the very rela- 
 tion that constituted the holiness. We have made for our- 
 selves an ideal of holiness that is essentially ascetic and 
 egoistic. Our favorite texts with which we have defined 
 and defended our ideal have been such as: ^'Come out 
 from among them and be ye separate," (^) ^^^l ^Ture re- 
 ligion and undefiled is ... to keep oneself unspotted 
 from the world," (^) or perhaps, '^A glorious church, not 
 having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." (^) It is evi- 
 dent that we must again emphasize service as the chief ele- 
 ment of holiness, and get back to the original altruistic 
 ideal of the world. Holiness should not mean to us a sel- 
 fish withdrawal beyond the influence of evil, but a strenu- 
 ous conflict with evil. It is not a life of self-exaltation, 
 but a life of self-immolation, or self-surrender — a life de- 
 voted to realizing the purpose of God in uplifting men out 
 of the slough of sin. We must care much more about 
 cleaning up the foul places of the world than for keeping 
 our own garments immaculate, if we would be really holy. 
 ^^Christian work" — is there a more abused phrase in all 
 our religious vocabulary? It has come to mean little 
 more than getting up bazaars and suppers and other Mrs. 
 Jellyby activities, and serving on the numerous commit- 
 tees of our much organized churches. Most of the so- 
 called "Christian work" of our day is about as valuable 
 as the buzzing of flies on a window-pane : there is no end 
 of bustle and hustle, but nothing of real value is accom- 
 plished. Viewed in the light of delivering men from sin, 
 of rescuing society from its manifold evils, of making this 
 a better world for men to live in, as a means of making 
 better men to live in this world, what could be more 
 pathetically childish or more tragically futile than most 
 of our "Christian work" ? 
 
 (M 2 Cor. 6:17, quoted from Isa. 52:11, 
 {-) Jam. 1:27. 
 (») Eph. 5:27. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SAUL THE URBAI^ PHARISEE 
 I 
 
 Two facts stand out above all others in the formative pe- 
 riod of SauFs life : he was city-bred, and he was rabbi-bred. 
 He tells lis that he Avas a native of Tarsus, in the province 
 of Cilicia ; ^'no mean city/^ as he justifiably boasts, for it 
 ranked with Athens and Alexandria as a centre of educa- 
 tion and culture, since it rejoiced in a university of the 
 first rank and was the home of poets and sages. It re- 
 tained this eminence for several centuries, and celebrated 
 Fathers of the Church, like Theodore of Mopsuestia and 
 Chrysostom, studied there. It is not likely that Saul 
 attended the heathen schools of his native town; Jewish 
 prejudice would be too strong for that;(^) but he could 
 hardly fail to absorb some of the culture of the place, and 
 he shows acquaintance with at least one of its poets, Aratus, 
 from whom he quoted in his address at Athens the line. 
 
 For of him also we are offspring. 
 
 Of Saul's parentage we know positively only one fact, 
 that his father, though a Hebrew, was a Roman citizen; 
 but inferences drawn from this fact are extremely uncer- 
 tain, since we do not know how this citizenship was secured. 
 Of his extraction, Paul tells us further that he was "of 
 the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews." (^) This 
 indicates a pride of race in himself and family, from 
 
 O The Palestinian Talmud says: ''Cursed be he who breeds 
 swine, and who teaches his son the wisdom of the Greeks." 
 C) Phil. 3:5; Rom. 11:1. 
 
 115 
 
IIG I'UNDAMEJsTALS OF CllllISTIA^'ITY 
 
 which we may fairly infer that his training would be of 
 strict Jewish type, beginning in the home and continued 
 in the synagogue scliool. Almost literally from infancy 
 he would be taught the Law, both in word and in scrupu- 
 lous observance. This theoretic and practical reverence 
 for the Law continued to be characteristic of him, so that 
 in later years he could say with perfect honesty, no man 
 challenging, ''as to the righteousness that is in the Law, 
 blameless.'' 
 
 In his speech to the multitude at Jerusalem, Paul said, 
 "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in 
 this city, taught at the feet of Gamaliel according to the 
 strictness of the Law of the fathers, being a zealot for 
 God, even as you all are to-day." (') This implies that 
 at an age not later than twelve or thirteen he was sent to 
 Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish culture, to complete his 
 education. From this fact it seems a tolerably certain 
 inference that his family was one of wealth, or at least 
 well-to-do; no mere peasant or artisan could have sent his 
 son to Jerusalem in this way. Luke tells us incident- 
 ally(^) that Paul had a nephew in Jerusalem towards the 
 end of his life, and some have inferred that the apostle 
 may have had a married sister in the city and lived with 
 her while studying the Law. But we do not know that 
 his sister was in Jerusalem at any time, as absolutely 
 nothing is said about that. 
 
 Like all Jewish boys, Saul was taught a trade, no doubt 
 before he left Tarsus, since his trade was tent-making and 
 that was a prominent Cilician industry. It included 
 weaving the cloth of wdiich tents were made, a heavy can- 
 vas made from the long hair of goats, with wliicli the hills 
 of that region then abounded, l^othing can be inferred 
 from this as to the wealth or social status of his family, 
 for the Jews had a proverb to the effect tliat ''lie wlio 
 
 (M Acts 22::^. 
 
 (-) Acts 2;j:](;. 
 
SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE llT 
 
 brings up a son without a trade, brings him up to be a 
 thief." His trade was more an anchor to windward than 
 a real dependence, though at Thessalonica and Corinth 
 Paul found it very serviceable to him, since he was thus 
 enabled to support himself while he preached the gospel 
 to tlie people, and so convinced them of his utter disinter- 
 estedness — as he put it, he sought not theirs but them.(^) 
 
 This, however, was but a little eddy in the main cur- 
 rent of the apostle's life. Nothing that we know about 
 him warrants us in supposing that he ever had the disci- 
 pline of want and struggle ; he never enjoyed close contact 
 with the soil and the toilers of his world. Easy circum- 
 stances and a habit more studious than active may be 
 assumed during the pre-christian years of his life. His 
 associations were with those who think rather than Avith 
 those that do, and in spite of his trade he was scholar and 
 not artisan. A youth in which the bitter pinch of poverty 
 was unknown, association during his growing years with 
 the best people of his day and nation, the unconscious 
 effect on his character of experiences in the life of two 
 great cities, may be traced in all Paul's waitings. His 
 trade counted for so little in his life that he barely refers 
 to it by way of illustration. The most conspicuous in- 
 stance is, ''For if the earthly house of our tabernacle 
 (tent) be dissolved, we have a dwelling from God, a house 
 not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens." (^) It is 
 superfluous to dwell further on the contrast between him 
 and Jesus in their youth and breeding. 
 
 The ambition of Saul and his family was evidently that 
 he might himself become a famous rabbi, and so he would 
 give himself to study with all zeal. We can get a tolerably 
 clear idea of the instruction in the school of Gamaliel. 
 The curriculum, as we should say, consisted almost wholly 
 of the Law, by which was then meant, first of all, the com- 
 
 n~2 Cor. 12:14. 
 {') 2 Cor. .-):1. 
 
118 FUIs^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 mitting to memory of the text of tlie Pentateuch, and fol- 
 lowing that a like memorizing of the comments handed 
 down from rabbi to rabbi, that were eventually reduced to 
 writing in the Talmud. Such education does not deserve 
 the name of culture, hardly that of intellectual discipline. 
 It was almost purely an exercise of memory, with little 
 to develop the judgment or reasoning powers. Anything 
 like imagination, coordination, initiative, was repressed 
 rather than encouraged. 
 
 This is most apparent when we consider the rabbinic 
 method of interpreting the Law that was so zealously 
 studied. A curious combination of slavish literalism and 
 free allegorizing was the Jewish exegesis, which resulted 
 on the one hand in those glosses so characteristic of the 
 Pharisees, and on the other in a kind of ^^spiritualizing" 
 of the most prosaic texts which made them mean whatever 
 the interpreter desired them to mean. Paul tells us that 
 he was not only a Pharisee but a son of Pharisees, (^) so 
 it is nowise surprising that he acquired in the school of 
 Gamaliel, and never lost, a full faith in the rabbinic ideals 
 and methods, and continued to practice as a Christian what 
 he had learned as a Jew. 
 
 Not only was the early life of Saul such, but his con- 
 version made little change in his external conditions. As 
 preacher of the gospel he was distinctly urban. So far 
 as we know, he never went into the little towns and villages, 
 as Jesus did in Galilee, but sought out the large cities of 
 the Koman Empire. This was undoubtedly good mis- 
 sionary strategy; he could thus find a quicker hearing of 
 his message by a larger number of people, than by any 
 other method. Good generalship always aims to capture 
 the enemy's key positions, and this Paul did when he 
 planted strong churches in the principal Eoman cities. 
 Jesus was an intensive Teacher; Paul was a world evan- 
 gelist. 
 
 (^Acts 23:6. 
 
SAUL THE URBxVX PHARISEE 119 
 
 It is no impeachment of the apostle's judgment^ or be- 
 littling of his mission, to recognize the fact that the neces- 
 sary result of his labors was to keep him all his life in a 
 single groove, and in an environment altogether different 
 from that of Jesus. To suppose their personalities to be 
 unaffected by surroundings so different would be to defy 
 all experience and observation. To expect lives so diverse 
 to produce a common type of teaching would be silly — a 
 sort of silliness of w^hich only some students of the Bible 
 appear to be capable, and they merely because they wnll 
 not think about the Bible and its characters as they think 
 of other books and men. 
 
 II 
 
 Because Saul was such as we have seen him to be, by 
 heredity, environment and training, the writings of Paul 
 are what they are: exactly what we should expect from 
 one sprung from commercial conditions rather than agri- 
 cultural, from the well-to-do middle class and not from 
 peasantry or proletariat, bred in cities and given chiefly to 
 books and study. If the words of Jesus are redolent of 
 the country, those of Paul smell of the city street and the 
 student's lamp. The apostle has neither eye nor ear for 
 the beauties of nature, he can only hear it groaning and 
 travailing togetlier because of man's sin.(') He can, to 
 be sure, appreciate the splendor of the heavens, (^), since 
 sun and star shine equally for town and country. But 
 could there be greater contrast, in their whole attitude 
 towards the world about them, than is afforded by Paul's, 
 ''Does God then care for oxen?",(^) and the saying of 
 Jesus about the sparrows, "'Not one of them falls to the 
 ground without your Father" ?(*) 
 
 (^) Rom. 8:23. 
 
 (2) 1 Cor. 15:40, 41. 
 
 (=*) 1 Cor. 9:9. 
 
 (*) Matt. 10:29. 
 
120 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 It is seldom from the country and from nature, there- 
 fore, that Paul draws illustrations — that inexhaustible 
 fount of Jesus. But even a city-bred man knows a few 
 primary facts about agriculture, and so Paul does several 
 times allude to sowing and reaping as analogies of spiritual 
 processes. (^) He describes character as '^fruit of the 
 Spirit." (") We find also single references to a few other 
 like matters, as plowing, (^) the grafting of fruit trees, (*) 
 ])lanting and watering, (^) and the shepherd's work. (^) 
 This about exhausts the apostle's illustrations from nature. 
 Unless, indeed, we include in '^^nature" the human body, 
 which would not ordinarily be suggested to the mind when 
 we speak of nature. 
 
 The body, its members and functions, suggests to Paul 
 many illustrations of spiritual truth. On one occasion he 
 draws an elaborate parallel between the members that to- 
 gether constitute the body and the various gifts and endow- 
 ments of the individuals who compose the church. The 
 body is not one member, but many, he says, and each is 
 indispensable in its place and function. From this he 
 concludes that we are all one body in Christ, and so ^4f 
 any member suffers all the members suffer with it; or one 
 member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."(') 
 He uses the same figure in addressing the Komans, but 
 with a slightly different application. To the Corinthians 
 he had occasion to insist on the unity of the body, because 
 the spirit of disunion was rife among them ; to the Komans 
 lie emphasizes the importance of each member fulfilling its 
 function. As the body has members differing in use, so 
 the church has members of varying gifts ; as the efficiency 
 of the body depends on the proper functioning of each 
 
 (^) 1 Cor. 3:6-8; 9:7; 2 Cor. 9:0; Gal. 6:8. 
 
 {-) Gal. 5:22. 
 
 (») 1 Cor. 9:10. 
 
 (*) Rom. 11:17 sq. 
 
 {'') 1 Cor. 3:6-9. 
 
 (") 1 Cor. 9:7. 
 
 (') 1 Cor. 12:26. 
 
SAUL THE UltBAN PIIAEISEE 121 
 
 member, each doing well the thing for which it is fitted, 
 so also in the church. (^) 
 
 Writing some years later to the Ephesians, Paul recurs 
 to the same figure, but this time to lay emphasis on the 
 union of believers witli Christ, as the body is united to the 
 head, so that through that union and resulting union of 
 all parts, the body grows in strength and usefulness. (") 
 To the Corinthians again, in another connection he argues 
 that this union with Christ as head is the great incentive 
 to avoidance of all moral evil, especially of those sexual 
 lapses that were so common in heathen society as to affect 
 even the Christian brotherhood. (■^) That disease should 
 suggest analogy with sin would be natural, and the apostle 
 represents ungodly teaching and conduct as a '^gangrene," 
 that eats away the flesh. (*) 
 
 How completely Paul's thought was conditioned by his 
 urban life, we appreciate more fully when w^e extend our 
 study of his illustrations. They almost uniformly indi- 
 cate the city-bred man. Architecture furnished him with 
 numerous and striking analogies, as we might expect from 
 one whose daily wont it had been to gaze on stately temples 
 and palaces. He compares his preaching the gospel where 
 others had preceded him to ^^building on another man's 
 foundation." (^) The making of character he many times 
 likens to the erection of a building — ^^edify" is one of his 
 favorite words. As a skilled master-builder, by his preach- 
 ing he laid the foundation, Jesus Christ, and on that 
 foundation men built: some gold, silver, precious stones; 
 others wood, hay stubble ; but a day would come when fire 
 would test the (piality of the superstructure. (^) To the 
 same intent, but with a slight change of the metaphor, the 
 
 C) Rom. 12:4 sq. 
 
 (^) Eph. 4:12, If), 10. 
 
 (=>) 1 Cor. 6:15-20. 
 
 {*) 2 Tim. 2:17. 
 
 ('^) Kom. If): 20. 
 
 («) 1 Cor. 3:10-12. 
 
122 FU^^DAME^^TALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 
 
 apostle likens the entire body of Christians to a Temple, 
 built on Christ as corner-stone. (^) More briefly, he says 
 to the Corinthians, "We are a Temple of the living 
 God,"(^) where the thought may be that each believer is 
 a Temple in whom God dwells. 
 
 ISText to architecture, the amphitheatre is most fruitful 
 of suggestion, if indeed it should not be put first. The 
 Greek games, as they would be celebrated in a city like 
 Tarsus, and still more at Corinth, seem to have made a 
 deep impression on Saul's mind. One cannot resist the 
 inference that he had often looked on them, and was hu- 
 man enough to enjoy those contests of strength and skill. 
 He most frequently refers to the foot-races, and to the 
 rigorous training (^) necessary for winning them, as well as 
 to the leafy crown that was the victor's reward and held in 
 such high esteem. ''Every man that contends in the games 
 exercises self-control in all things. 'Now they (do this) 
 to receive a perishable wrath, but we an imperishable." (*) 
 The Christian life he compares to a race, and declares, ^'I 
 press on toward the goal of the prize of the high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesas."(^) ''You were running well, who 
 fouled you," he asks of the fickle Galatians. (*^) And lie 
 reminds his converts that a principle of the games is ap- 
 plicable to their new life, one who contends "is not crowned 
 unless he contends according to the rules." (^) Contests 
 with the cestus also afford the apostle a striking and ef- 
 fective illustration: "So do I box, not as one beating the 
 air, but I hit my body under the eye and bring it under 
 control." (^) ^ot asceticism, but mastery of self is the 
 apostle's idea. Tn his first letter to his younger disciple, 
 
 n Eph. 2:20. 
 
 (-) 1 Cor. 3:l(i, 17; 2 Cor. 6:10. 
 
 {■•') 2 Tim. 4:7, 8. 
 
 (') 1 Cor. 9:25. 
 
 (^) (^al. 2:2; Phil. 3:14: 2 Thess. 3:1. 
 
 C) Gal. 5:7. 
 
 (') 2 Tim. 2:5. 
 
 (*) 1 Cor. 0:20, 27. 
 
SAUL TJH^ UIMJAN PHARISEE 123 
 
 Timothy, he exhorts to contend well as an athlete. (^) And 
 when his own life was fast drawing to a close, he summed 
 it all up in the words, "I have contended in the noble con- 
 test'' — which is quite spoiled and meaningless in our ordi- 
 nary English version of ''I have fought the good fight." (^) 
 
 Of those deadlier contests in the arena, in which Chris- 
 tians were pitted against wild beasts, Paul was doubtless 
 never an eye-witness, at least never a willing witness. But 
 though he knew of them only by hearsay, he nevertheless 
 makes two references to them. The first is of a general 
 character, when he speaks of all the apostles, including of 
 course himself, as "men doomed to death . . . made a 
 spectacle to the world, both to angels and men."(^) In 
 the other case the reference is usually thought to be merely 
 figurative, expressive of the writer's vivid sense of the 
 mortal combat he had waged with heathenism in one of 
 its strongholds: "^Vhat would it profit me if, humanly 
 speaking, I fought with wdld beasts at Ephesus ?"('') 
 
 But the favorite source of illustration for Paul is the 
 law, both Jewish and Poman. In the former he might be 
 called an expert, and with the latter he had much more 
 than a casual acquaintance. Many of his allusions have 
 to do with general principles of equity, that find recogni- 
 tion and enforcement in all codes, ancient and modern. 
 Among these may be placed his frequent reference's to the 
 law of inheritance. In his letter to the Galatians he com- 
 pares the state of the Jews under the Law to a minor who 
 is under guardians until he comes of age, when he enters 
 into possession of his inheritance. (''^) Again, he reminds 
 them that a son of a slave cannot be an heir when there 
 is a son of a freewoman, and Christians are sons of the 
 freewoman. Often he informs his readers that they are 
 
 (M 1 Tim. 6:12. 
 
 (-) 2 Tim. 4:7. 
 
 (') 1 Cor. 4:9. 
 
 {*) 1 Cor. 15:32. 
 
 n Gal. 4:1, 2. 
 
124 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 children of God, and as such are his heirs, co-heirs with 
 Christ, (^) and gentiles arc co-heirs with Jews. (") The 
 kindred law of adoption suggests to the apostle another 
 illustration of our new relation to God as believers in 
 his Son: w^e become sons of God by adoption. (^) Tlie 
 law of marriage, as distinguished from the status, affords 
 several illustrations. Both Jewish and Eoman law gave 
 complete control of the wdfe to the husband ; so Paul 
 says, "a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is of 
 the Church." (■*) By most legal codes a wife is freed from 
 the bond of matrimony by the death of her husband and is 
 permitted to marry again if she chooses. The apostle finds 
 in this an analogy to our being made free from the Law 
 by the death of Christ. (') 
 
 Paul was student and preacher, but enough man of 
 affairs to draw some of his illustrations from business 
 and social transactions. Death he describes as ^'the wages 
 of sin";(^) he exhorts Christians to keep out of debt, 
 ''OvvX^ no man anything, save to love one another" ;(^) and 
 to '^buy up the opportunity", (^) as a shrewd merchant 
 buys goods when they are cheap. Many times the apostle 
 compares himself and his fellow^s to stewards — ^'We are 
 stewards of the mysteries of God" — and at the same time 
 points out, as the explanation and defence of his zeal, that 
 the first duty of a steward is the faithful discharge of his 
 trust. (^) The privileges of Roman citizenship suggest a 
 passing allusion to the much greater joys and privileges of 
 the believer, ''Our citizenship is in the lleaveus."(^^) 
 
 (') Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:7. 
 
 ( = ) Eph. 3:6. 
 
 (3) Rom. 8:3, 23; 9:4. 
 
 (') Eph. 5:23. 
 
 (^) Rom. 7:1-3. 
 
 C) Rom. 0:23. 
 
 (') Rom. 13:8. 
 
 («) Eph. 5:10; Col. 4:5. 
 
 (») 1 Cor. 4:1, 2; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:25. 
 
 (^o) Phil. 3:20. 
 
SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 125 
 
 Though he was by no means deficient in manly spirit, 
 perhaps nobody would think of calling Paul a warlike 
 man. Yet circumstances had made him very familiar with 
 Roman soldiers and tlieir discipline and arms, and these 
 often furnisli him an ap])osirc illustration. ^'War the 
 good warfare" he exhorts Timothy. (') One of the best 
 known passages in his letters is his elaborate series of 
 analogies between the '^panoply" or complete armor of the 
 soldier and the Christian virtues. "Stand/' he says to the 
 Ephesians, "having belted your loins with truth, and hav- 
 ing put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having 
 shod your feet wdth the preparation of the gospel of peace ; 
 in addition to all having taken on the shield of faith 
 . . . and receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword 
 of the Spirit." (") Less elaborately, but to tlie same gen- 
 eral effect, he writes to the Thessalonians.(^) He speaks 
 to the Corinthians of "armor of righteousness on the right 
 hand and on the left,"(*) i.e. sw^ord and shield; but re- 
 minds his readers that the weapons of Christian w^arfare 
 are spiritual, not material. (^) He argues that as a soldier 
 does not serve at his ow^n charges, so apostles and other 
 Christian workers are entitled to support ;(*^) and again, as 
 a soldier does not engage in business outside of his w^ar- 
 fare, so as to give an undivided heart and service, so 
 must the Christian do.(^) In quick flash of metaphor 
 he alludes to the trumpet that sounds tlie onset, (^) the tri- 
 umph tliat follows victory, (") and the garrisons in time of 
 peace . (•") 
 
 (M 1 Tim. 1:18. 
 
 (2) Eph. 6:11. 
 
 («) 1 Thess. 5:8. 
 
 (*) 2 Cor. 6:7. 
 
 (») 2 Cor. 10:4. 
 
 («) 1 Cor. 9:7. 
 
 {') 2 Tim. 2:4. 
 
 (8) 1 Cor. 14:8. 
 
 (») 2 Cor. 2:14-1(5: Col. 2:15. 
 
 ('") Phil. 4:7, 
 
126 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Family life and occupations, which figure so largely in 
 the words of Jesus, find but small place in the writings of 
 Paul. He speaks of various household utensils in a single 
 passage,(') and of musical instruments in another. (") 
 The relationships of husband and wife, parents and chil- 
 dren, freemen and slaves, suggest spiritual analogies, but 
 these are of the most conventional type and without much 
 straining cannot be regarded as distinctive features in the 
 Pauline writings. The apostle writes almost as one who 
 had never known a home and home life. His exile for so 
 many years in Jerusalem, apart from kindred, may in 
 some measure account for this strange lack in his letters. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Wit and humor are as conspicuous for their absence 
 from the writings of Paul as for their presence in the say- 
 ings of Jesus. The apostle was what is commonly called 
 ''a serious minded man," a phrase that usually stamps 
 those that use it as unable to distinguish between the 
 seriousness of the genuine humorist and the frivolity of 
 the habitual joker. The one thing that might pass for wit 
 is the occasional pointed antithesis of clauses or sentences. 
 A good example is, ''For the good that I wish, I do not; 
 but the evil that I Avish not, that I practice." (^) This is 
 certainly wit of a very mild type. Occasionally anti- 
 thesis amounts to paradox, ''But the foolishness of God is 
 wiser than men, and the weakness of God in stronger 
 than men."(*) And is not this a case of rather rare 
 hyperbole? "Howbeit, in the church I had rather speak 
 five words with my understanding, that I might in- 
 struct others also, than ten thousand words in a forcigii 
 language." ('"') 
 
 (M 2 Tim. 2:20, 21. 
 
 < = ) 1 Cor. 14:7. 
 
 (") Rom. 7:20. 
 
 (*) 1 Cor. 1:25. 
 
 (^) 1 Cor. 14:10. 
 
SAUL THE UEBAX rilARISEE 127 
 
 On the infrequent occasions when Paul does permit him- 
 self the use of humor, it takes the form of grave irony or 
 biting sarcasm. Humor is for him a weapon to be em- 
 ployed in emergencies, rather than a habitual way of look- 
 ing at men and things. He never plays with an idea or a 
 person ; his earnestness is too deadly for that. Such earnest- 
 ness is well called ^'deadly/' for it is often fatal, or nearly 
 so, to him who possesses it — or is possessed by it. A good 
 instance of w^hat is meant by his grave irony is this from 
 his second letter to the Corinthians: ''What is there in 
 which you were inferior to the rest of the churches, except 
 that 1 was myself not a burden to you ? Forgive me this 
 wrong !"(^) And again, 'Tor you bear with the foolish 
 gladly, being wise."(") The most extended sample of 
 irony in Paul's letters is perhaps that allegory of the body 
 and its members, already cited for another purpose. The 
 apostle is gently rebuking those Corinthians who were 
 puffed up with pride, because they believed themselves 
 possessed of exalted spiritual gifts, and so looked down on 
 those less favored than themselves: 
 
 The body is not one member but many. I£ the foot say, 
 'Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,' it is not 
 therefore not of the body. And if the ear say, 'Because I am 
 not an eye, I am not of the body/ it is not therefore not of 
 the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the 
 hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smell- 
 ing? But as it is, God has set the members in the body, 
 even as he wished. And if they were all one member, whero 
 were the body? But now there are many members, but one 
 body. And the eye canuot say to the hand, 'I have no need 
 of 3^ou' ; nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of 
 you.'(»j 
 
 Of the sarcasm that the apostle occasionally uses, this 
 is perhaps as good a specimen as any: "Man, do you 
 reason thus: that judging tlinse who practice such things 
 
 (M 2 Cor. 12:13. 
 n 2 Cor. 11:10. 
 (^) 1 Cor. 12:12 sq. 
 
138 FUNDAME^s^TALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 
 
 and doing the same, you will escape God's judgment ?"(^) 
 Or this: ^'Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you 
 baptized into the name of Paul?"(") Less severe, but 
 still quite unmistakable, is his reply to the brother who 
 makes his ^'faith" justification for eating things offered to 
 idols, irrespective of the effect of his conduct on others: 
 ^'Have you faith ? Have it to yourself before God. 
 Happy is he that does not condemn himself in what he ap- 
 proves." (^) Sometimes the apostle begins ironically, but 
 warms as he proceeds, and ends with a strong sarcastic 
 thrust. Thus to the Corinthians: ^'We are fools for 
 Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, 
 but you are strong; you are glorious, but we are without 
 honor." 
 
 IV 
 
 As to the literary form of Paul's writings, it is for the 
 most part the plain sober prose appropriate to correspond- 
 ence. His letters, though intended to be read publicly, 
 bear no marks of purpose or expectation on his part that 
 they would be preserved as contributions to a new col- 
 lection of sacred writings. It was a sound instinct, never- 
 theless, that led to their preservation, since the qualities 
 of the letters that made them valuable for instruction in 
 the Avriter's age have proved to be of equal worth in all 
 ages. The saying in the second letter of Peter, whether 
 that is the work of the apostle or another, is most judi- 
 cious: that there are some things in the letters of ^^oiir 
 beloved brother Paul" that are ^'hard to understand," so 
 that the ignorant and unstable use them to their own dam- 
 age. (^) And, could the writer have foreseen the course 
 
 (M Rom. 2:3. 
 (*) 1 Cor. 1:1.3. 
 (') Rom. 14:22. 
 (*) 2 Pot. 3:15, IG. 
 
SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 120 
 
 of Christian thought, he might have added that the learned 
 and wise would make even worse use of them. It is still 
 true, however, that to understand the more important 
 parts of tliem the only requisites are an honest intent and 
 a fair degree of good sense. 
 
 Every Hebrew writer seems to have had in him the 
 makings of a poet; and a few times, in moments of spe- 
 cial exaltation, Paul breaks into the rhythmical utterance 
 of psalmists and prophets. One notable instance is his 
 panegj^ric on love in the first letter to the Corinthians. 
 Inasmuch as, in every one of our current versions, the 
 poetic character of this passage is disguised, in some by 
 being split up into unequal numbered 'S^rses," and in all 
 by being printed as plain prose, it may be pardonable to 
 give it a literary form that indicates its real character: 
 
 Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, 
 
 B.ut have not Love, 
 I am become a brazen trumpet or clanging cymbal. 
 
 And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, 
 
 And know all mysteries and all knowledge, 
 And though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, 
 
 But have not Love, 
 I am nothing. 
 
 And though I spend all my property to feed tlie poor. 
 
 Yea, if I give my body to be burned, 
 But have not Love, 
 It profits me nothing. 
 
 Love suffers long, is kind; 
 
 Love envies not, Love boasts not herself, is not arrogant. 
 Does nothing shameful, seeks not her own. 
 Takes no offence, imputes no evil, 
 Is not joyful over wrong, 
 
 But is joyful with the truth. 
 Overlooks all, trusts all, 
 Hopes all, endures all. 
 Love never fails. 
 
130 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 But if [there be] prophecies, they will be made vain; 
 
 Or tongues, they will cease, 
 
 Or knowledge, it will be made vain. 
 For we know in part and prophecy in part, 
 
 But when the perfect shall come, the partial will be made 
 vain. 
 
 When I was a child, I talked like a child, 
 
 I understood like a child, 
 
 I reasoned like a child; 
 Xow that I have become a man I have renounced the [con- 
 duct] of a child. 
 
 For now we behold through a mirror, in shadow, 
 
 But then face to face. 
 Now I know in part. 
 
 But then I shall know as I have been known. 
 
 So now there remain with us Faith, Hope, Love — these three ; 
 But the greatest of these is Love. 
 
 There is one other passage in Paul's writings com- 
 parable with this in length and poetic exaltation, at the 
 close of the discussion of the resurrection. Here the 
 apostle's passion again demands rhythmical exj)ression: 
 
 All flesh is not the same flesh; 
 
 B.ut there is one flesh of men and another of beasts, 
 One of birds and another of fish. 
 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, 
 
 But the glory of the heavenly is one, and of the earthly 
 another. 
 
 There is one glory of sun. 
 
 And another glory of moon. 
 
 And another glory of stars; 
 
 For star diifers from star in glory. (') 
 
 O The poetry of tliis fine passaj^e is completely spoiled in all F.ng- 
 lish versions by insistence of translators on "supplying" (which 
 in this case means needlessly inserting) definite articles and other 
 words not in the forceful and poetic original, whereby they have 
 "iven us, not Paul, but Paul-and-water. 
 
SAUL THE L'iJBAX PHArdSEE 1^ 
 
 And so is the resurrection of the dead: 
 It is sown in corruption, 
 
 It is raised in incorruption ; 
 It is sown in dishonor, 
 
 It is raised in glory ; 
 It is sown in weakness, 
 
 It is raised in power; 
 It is sown a natural body, 
 
 It is raised a spiritual body. 
 
 * * :K 
 
 So also it is written : 
 
 The first Adam became a living soul, 
 The last Adam a life-giving Spirit. 
 But not first is the natural, but the spiritual, 
 
 Then the natural. 
 The first man is from the earth, earthly, 
 The second man is from Heaven. 
 * * ♦ 
 
 But this I say, brothers: 
 Flesh and blood will not inherit God's Kingdom, 
 
 Nor will corruption inherit incorruption. 
 Lo, I tell you a secret ! 
 
 We shall not all sleep, but all will be changed, 
 
 In a moment, in the wink of an eye, at the last trump. 
 
 For the trumpet will blow. 
 
 And the dead will be raised incorruptible. 
 
 And we shall be changed. 
 
 For this corruptible must put on incorruption 
 
 And this mortal must put on immortality. 
 And when this corruptible shall put on incorruption. 
 
 And this mortal shall put on immortality. 
 Then will come to pass the word that is written : 
 Death has been swallowed up in victory. 
 Where is thy sting, Death? 
 
 Where is thy victory, Death ? 
 The sting of death is sin, 
 
 And the power of sin is the Law. 
 But to God be thanks, who gives iis tlie victory 
 Through our Lord Jesus Christ ! 
 
132 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The ethics of Paul are such as we should infer from 
 our knowledge of his experience. On the surface they 
 do not differ materially from those of Jesus; so far as 
 they have to do with individual character and conduct 
 they may be pronounced practically identical with those 
 of Jesus. But the ethics of Jesus are mainly social; 
 his point of view is the conduct of those who are mem- 
 bers of the Kingdom of God. The ethics of Paul are 
 individualistic. There is no social teaching in Paul's 
 writings, because he never got the social point of vieAv.(^) 
 He virtually tells us nothing about the Kingdom of God, 
 because, although he sometimes uses the phrase, he almost 
 never uses it in the sense of Jesus. He either leaves the 
 words quite undefined, or else uses in the context words 
 that appear to indicate a conception of the Kingdom as 
 future and heavenly, not present and earthly. If we 
 accept 2 Timothy as genuine, we can hardly avoid the 
 conclusion that at the close of his life ''Kingdom" and 
 ^'heaven" had become s^oionymous: ''The Lord will de- 
 liver me from every evil work, and will bring me safe to 
 his heavenly Kingdom.'' (^) 
 
 Jesus was therefore an original ethical teacher, Paul a 
 derivative. The maxims of Jesus have been incessantly 
 cited through the Christian ages as guides of life, to be 
 approved or opposed ; with few exceptions, Paul's maxims 
 are seldom mentioned, and those most often cited are mere 
 echoes of the words of Jesus. It is not the ethics of Paul 
 but the theology, that has been recognized as distinctive. 
 ]^o Christian can discuss a theme like sin, or atonement, 
 
 (^) One of tho best books in Enfjlish on the pviiclical loac'liin,<i:s of 
 Paul is Archibald Alexander's "The Ethics of St. Taul," Glasgow, 
 1910. It is instructive to note that while many y)a£^es are devoted 
 to the apostle's ideas of individual virtue, a sin<ile brief paras^raph 
 quite suffices for an nccoux»*. nf his social and economic ideas (p. 
 321). 
 
 ( = ) 2 Tim. 4:18. 
 
SAUL THE UEBAiq" PHARISEE 1?jZ 
 
 justification^ sanctification, without constant reference to 
 Paul. He may agree with the apostle or he may repu- 
 diate him; the one impossible thing is to ignore him. But 
 Paul may be entirely ignored in a discussion of Christian 
 ethics, for he made no contribution to the subject. 
 
 E\"en when Paul repeats the ethical teaching of Jesus, 
 
 he sometimes narrows the scope of his Master's words. 
 Thus, while he apparently insists as strenuously as Jesus 
 on the primacy of love, the effect of love, in his view, is 
 the transformation of the individual rather than of the 
 world. Still, at his best, he gives us applications of the 
 principles of Jesus worthy of the Great Teacher him- 
 self. Sucli instances are his cluster of '^fruits of the 
 Spirit,"(') and his word to the Ephesians, ''Become kind 
 to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as 
 also God in Christ forgave you."(") An entire para- 
 gTaph in his letter to the Romans is of this character: 
 
 "Let your love be sincere. Hate the wrong; cling to the 
 right. In brotherly love, be affectionate to one another; 
 never flagging in zeal ; fervent in spirit ; serving the Master ; 
 rejoicing in your hope ; steadfast in persecution ; persevering 
 in prayer; relieving the wants of Christ^s people; devoted to 
 hospitality. Bless your persecutors — bless and never curse. 
 Rejoice with those who are rejoicing, and weep with those 
 who are weeping. Let the same spirit of sympathy animate 
 you all, not a spirit of pride. Be glad to associate with the 
 lowly; do not think too highly of yourselves. Xever return 
 injury for injury. Aim at doing what all men will recognize 
 as honorable. If it is possible, as far as it rests with you, 
 live peaceably with every one. . . . Never be conquered 
 by evil, but conquer evil with good."(') 
 
 Of like character are many single maxims, such as: 
 "Love works no ill to one's neighbor; tlierefore love is 
 
 (M Gal. 5:22, 23. 
 C) Eph. 4:. 32; cf. Col. 3:12. 
 
 (») Rom, 12:9-21. From the Nineteenth Century New Testa 
 ment. 
 
134 rUNDAISIE^^TALS OF CliRISTIAXITY 
 
 the fulfilment of the Law."(^) '"I^ow we, the strong, ought 
 to bear the infirmities of the weak."(^) 
 
 What Ave are entitled, therefore, to say of the ethics of 
 Paul is not that, on the whole, they are so different from 
 those of Jesus in quality, as that they are other in the 
 j)lace they take in his thinking. That place is distinctly 
 second. What our fathers called "the plan of salvation" 
 was always first in his mind. And precisely because ethics 
 stood in second place in Paul's thinking, they have always 
 been second in his influence upon succeeding generations. 
 Paul's is the greatest name in the history of Christianity, 
 next to that of Jesus, because of his theology and without 
 regard to his ethics. 
 
 For, as has already been implied, his ethics are not 
 uniformly good, l^obody, for example, can reconcile with 
 his own favorite principle of love, still less with the spirit 
 of Jesus, that injunction of his to the Corinthians re- 
 garding the sinful brother. After admitting that his 
 advice or command ^'to have no social relations" with 
 fornicators and idolaters could not be too literally fol- 
 lowed, "for in that case you must needs go out of the 
 w^orld," he repeats the command, in the case of a 
 "brother," a fellow-Christian, who is guilty of any great 
 sin, "with such a one, no, not to eat."(^) This does not 
 seem to mean, as some have interpreted it, that he is to 
 be excluded from formal fellowship — not to eat with him 
 ceremonially in the Lord's Supper — but that he is to b^^ 
 cast out of the community and utterly boycotted. The 
 Christian conscience of our age can by no means approve 
 that as good ethics, ^or would enlightened Christians 
 of the twentieth century hesitate a single moment to 
 condemn as essentially unchristian such advice, if they 
 found it outside of what they call Holy Writ. Why not 
 
 {') Rom. 13:10. 
 
 (-) Rom. 15:1. / 
 
 ('') 1 Cor. 5:11. 
 
S^iUL TKE URBAN PITARTSEE 135 
 
 have the courage, theu, to say that such words may be 
 writ, but are not holy, wherever they occur ? 
 
 ^or can Paul's instructions about the veiling of women 
 and the silence of women in the churches be longer 
 regarded as good ethics, at least for our day. The good 
 sense of modern Christians has practically blotted those 
 words out of our Bibles. Even men whose boast is that 
 they ''believe every word of the Bible, from the first 
 verse of Genesis to the last of Eevelation" openly ap- 
 prove of women addressing large assemblies on religious 
 topics. They act precisely as if Paul had never written 
 those words — which is, of course, the only sensible thing 
 to do, though it accords ill with their professions of belief 
 in Paul's inspiration and infallibility. For the reasoning 
 by which he supports his commands, if it gave them any 
 authority when he issued them, gives them permanent 
 validity to those who accept the historicity of Genesis. For 
 Paul distinctly bases his words on the principle that woman 
 is man's natural inferior and subordinate, (' ) created after 
 him and for him, and that her spiritual inferiority is 
 manifest in the fact that she was first in the great trans- 
 gression of Eden.(") ]\lilton caught Paul's spirit exactly 
 when he wrote of Adam and Eve, 
 
 He for God only, she for God in him. 
 We repudiate both Milton and Paul. We no longer be- 
 lieve that woman is in any sense man's inferior, or 
 that man is in any sense woman's "head." We do not 
 believe that the family is a little despotism, of which 
 man is ruler by divine right, and wife and children are 
 his obedient subjects. The divine right of husbands has 
 gone into the limbo whither the divine right of priests 
 and the divine right of kings preceded it. There are no 
 "divine rights" among men. Christianity is the reli- 
 gion of democracy, of equal rights for all. 
 
 oTl Cor. 11:1-10; 14:34-30; Tit. 2:3. ' 
 
 C) 1 Tim. 2:11-15. 
 
136 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 And it is to be further noted that even when Paul's 
 ethics are apparently identical with those of Jesus, closer 
 scrutiny discloses a fundamental difference. He exhorts 
 the Eomans not to seek revenge against those who have 
 injured them; but the ground on which he bases his 
 exhortation is that God will avenge them ; since he quotes 
 (not quite accurately) as his authority from the ^'Song 
 of Moses" in Deuteronomy, 
 
 Vengeance is mine, and recompense. (^) 
 
 The ground on which Jesus urges men to forego ven- 
 geance is precisely the reverse of this — not because God 
 will avenge, but because God forgives and we must for- 
 give to be like God. 
 
 Of Paul's exegesis of the Old Testament in general 
 it must be said that its authority, and often its correct- 
 ness, is quite repudiated by the scholarship of our day. 
 It is based on the Septuagint, not on the original Hebrew, 
 and is such as he learned from Hebrew rabbis, whose in- 
 terpretations were often logically as well as grammatically 
 unsound, and absurdly allegorical. A crucial case is the 
 apostle's argument to the Galatians that the promise to 
 Abraham, ^'to him and to his seed," meant Christ, be- 
 cause God said "seed" and not "seeds." (-) But the word 
 in the Hebrew, though singular in form is a collective 
 noun, like our word "sheep," and may mean one or a 
 multitude. The context shows clearly that the promise 
 related to all the descendants of Abraham, "and I will 
 make thy seed as the dust of the earth." ("') Paul's 
 exegesis is not even doubtful; it is quite impossible. On 
 the other hand, his allegorizing of the story of Hagar and 
 the two children of Abraham (*) is not impossible — it is 
 merely absurd. 
 
 (M Deut. 32:35. 
 
 (^) Gal. 3:16. 
 
 (=•) Gen. 13:16. 
 
 (*) Gal. 4:2231. 
 
CHAPTEK VII 
 THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 
 
 Paul and Jesus were as unlike in spirit as in heredity 
 and environment. No two human personalities could well 
 be more dissimilar; hardly a single quality, bodily or 
 mental, is common to the two. 
 
 The notable thing in the personality of Jesus is the 
 exquisite balance of his faculties and qualities. His spirit 
 was at once strong and restful; he was masculine with- 
 out brutality, gentle without weakness. Normally equable 
 and tranquil, without a trace of irritability or impatience, 
 he was yet capable of fiery indig-nation. Yet at the summii 
 of his passion he never loses his poise, his sense of pro- 
 portion. His speech is calm and measured for the most 
 part, yet when occasion demands it can be vitriolic and 
 burn into the conscience as no other human speech can. 
 He was an idealist, but not a dreamer; an enthusiast but 
 no fanatic. 
 
 The bodily powers of Jesus were as remarkable as the 
 spiritual. His vitality is wonderful; he surpassed in 
 endurance his disciples, men inured to labor, of excep- 
 tional toughness of physique, and though often wearied he 
 was never ill. This vitality, no less than his faith in God, 
 kept him from discouragement. His clarity of vision is 
 surpassed only by his steadfastness of hope. He began each 
 day with fresh and exultant spirit. He was the great 
 Optimist, an optimist without an illusion, who desired 
 all men to share his present joy and coming triumph. He 
 
 137 
 
138 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 was the one man who wanted nothing for himself, every- 
 thing for others. In every respect he seems the normal 
 man, a human being raised to the nth power. 
 
 In contrast we need not take too literally Paul's iron- 
 ical self-depreciation, ^^his bodily presence is weak and 
 his speech despicable" ;(^) but the fact that the people 
 of Lystra, supposing them to be gods, called Barnabas 
 Jupiter and Paul Mercury, (^) is sufficient warrant for the 
 conclusion that Paul w^as by no means of imposing phy- 
 sique. And while few have surpassed him in keenness 
 of intellect, he lacked the temperamental balance of Jesus. 
 Where the one was conspicuous for poise and power, a 
 placid and unruffled spirit, the other stands forth a fiery, 
 tempestuous, impulsive, vehement, volcanic nature. 
 
 Jesus was a Seer of God, not a philosophizer about God. 
 From an early age he became conscious of a peculiar rela- 
 tion to his Father, and his spiritual experiences were an 
 uninterrupted process of development, conditioned by this 
 consciousness. There was no moral crisis, no '^conver- 
 sion" in his life. He studied the Scriptures, to be sure, 
 but as a revelation of his Father's mind and heart, not as 
 a guide to salvation. He did not need the Law whose food 
 it was to do his Father's will. 
 
 Paul had no such relation to God, whom he feared 
 more than he loved, because he believed (and never ceased 
 to believe) that God's wrath is kindled against the evil- 
 doer, and he knew himself to be an evil-doer. To him, 
 therefore, the Law was an inflexible code, an infallible 
 rule of conduct, a means of salvation if its requirements 
 could be met. x\nd so he became ''of the strictest sect of 
 the Pharisees," differing from those against wdiom Jesus 
 hurled his fiercest invectives only in possessing greater 
 sincerity than they. But he was sincerely wrong, as ho 
 came at last to see, and perhaps dimly suspected all along. 
 
 {') 2 Cor. 10:10. 
 (==) Acts 14:12, 
 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE ArOSTLE 139 
 
 It. was entirely in luirniony with such a spiritual expe- 
 rience and such a theory of life that Saul became a fierce 
 persecutor of the Christians. The more doubt he had 
 concerning the foundations of his legalism, the more 
 urgently he may have sought the punishment of those who 
 offered a way of salvation apart from the Law. He 
 was probably not the first, and certainly not the last, to 
 seek an anodyne for intellectual difficulties in some form 
 of activity. There are to-day Christians not a few who 
 will tell you that the one best cure for all doubts is to 
 engage strenuously in '^Christian work." That may stifle 
 doubt, it will never solve it, as Saul found. 
 
 It is not difficult to comprehend the hatred of Saul 
 and his Pharisaic fellows for Jesus and his teachings. 
 To the good, pious Jews of his day, Jesus gave apparently 
 quite sufficient reason for them to suspect him of hos- 
 tility to their religion. It is true that he sometimes said 
 that he had come not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil 
 it, that is, both to render full obedience to it and to ex- 
 pound it in fulness of meaning. Yet how could his con- 
 temporaries reconcile this declaration with his conduct 
 at other times ? Did he not violate their Sabbath rules and 
 justify his conduct ? Did he not criticise their feasts and 
 sacrifices and set aside their taboos ? Did he not show dis- 
 regard for practical piety by eating with unwashed hands, 
 and was he not the unashamed associate of those ac- 
 counted irreligious and even immoral ? If his example 
 should be followed, if his teaching and conduct should be 
 accepted as the norm, what would become of Judaism and 
 its traditions ? 
 
 Jesus had outraged the orthodoxy, he had opposed and 
 denounced the plutocracy, of his time, lie was under- 
 mining both, threatening both with destruction. Under 
 guise of completing the old, he was in reality establish- 
 ing a new religion and a new social order. Pharisee 
 and Sadducee saw this with equal clearness, and for a 
 
140 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 time forgot their ancient enmity in their common interest 
 to crush this innovator. Instead of wondering, as we 
 sometimes do, that so much opposition was quickly de- 
 veloped against the teaching and person of Jesus, we 
 should rather wonder that he was permitted to continue 
 his work so long. 
 
 And the disciples of Jesus, after their Master's death, 
 had been even more revolutionary in conduct and teach- 
 ing. They taught salvation through this crucified Jesus, 
 and not through the Law. The course of Paul the apostle 
 was the justification of Saul the Pharisee — but for one 
 thing: Saul was wrong in denyiug to Jesus the character 
 of the Anointed of God, while Paul accepted Jesus as 
 such. 
 
 Paul's conversion opened to him a new world of love 
 and victorious energy. Up to the very moment of his 
 conversion he had believed that Jesus had been justly 
 crucified as an impostor. The crucifixion proved to any 
 normal Jew that Jesus was not the Messiah — could not be, 
 for God's Anointed was to be a conquering King. "No 
 Messiah could be a suffering malefactor, because God 
 would never permit his Anointed, his Vicegerent, to un- 
 dergo a death of ignominy. But when Jesus appeared to 
 Saul on the way to Damascus, in an instant it becauir 
 clear to the persecuting Pharisee that he had been abso- 
 lutely wrong. Jesus, crucified as a malefactor, was alive ; 
 he was in glory with God; and this Jesus had spoken to 
 him. His whole life lay in ruins at his feet. He had 
 been fighting against God, even while he supposed him- 
 self to be an exceptionally faithful and zealous servant 
 of God! There was not so much a change of character 
 and purpose wrought in his soul during that fateful hour, 
 as a tremendous revulsion of mind and heart against all 
 that lie had taught and done. As soon as he could orient 
 liimself, he amazed his fellow Jews by proclaimiug the 
 very views he had hitherto tried to suppress. T^^aturally, 
 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 141 
 
 they could not understand such tergiversation; to them 
 it seemed treason, betrayal of the religion of their fathers. 
 
 Paul now sought seclusion and the opportunity for 
 meditation and study of the Scriptures of his people from 
 his new point of view. This was necessary, in order to 
 adjust himself to his new life and somehow to reconcile 
 his new experience with his old knowledge, so that hr 
 might have a definite message to proclaim. Keither at 
 this time nor at any other did he seek information or ad- 
 vice from other Christians, and he seems to have taken 
 particular pains to keep himself aloof from the Twelve. 
 He imderstood himself to have received a special and in- 
 dependent mission from the lips of Jesus, and he was 
 always very sensitive about his apostolic authority. He 
 was not only outside of the original Twelve, but he was 
 not even of the Jerusalem circle, like Barnabas and Mark ; 
 and for this reason his apostleship was often challenged 
 and he felt obliged to assert it with the greater emphasis. 
 "Am I not an apostle?" he asks the Corinthians; "have 
 I not seen Jesus our Lord?"(^) ^^^ ^^ reminds the 
 Galatians that his apostleship had been recognized by 
 the Twelve — "James and Cephas and John, they who 
 were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas th(; 
 right hands of fellowship." (") 
 
 Something Paul learned later about the life and work of 
 Jesus, but so far as the record shows he made no special 
 attempt to do this and was quite satisfied with such 
 knowledge as incidentally fell in his way. He was rather 
 inclined to depreciate knowledge of Jesus "^'after the 
 flesh." (^) Of all the ^N'ew Testament writers, he is least 
 affected by the personality of Jesus, for the obvious rea- 
 son that he never came into contact with his Master. 
 It is a heavenly Christ, not the historic Jesus, that pro- 
 
 (M 1 Cor. 9:1. 
 
 (■-) Gal. 2:9. 
 
 (^) See, for example. 2 Cor. 5; 16. 
 
142 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 foundly influences Panl; and if the only Christian liter- 
 ature of the first century now remaining to us were his 
 letters, we should know only a few cardinal facts about 
 the life and teaching of Jesus — indeed, practically noth- 
 ing about the teaching. These letters direct almost ex- 
 clusive attention to the death and resurrection of Jesus. 
 It is the ivorh of Jesus, not his words, that is significant 
 to Paul. 
 
 The reason is obvious, though it may have been partly 
 unconscious: Paul knew as much as any other about 
 these themes and could reason about them better than 
 most; while, if he should dwell upon the life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus, he w^ould necessarily expose himself to 
 unfavorable comparison with those who had been daily 
 companions of their Master, and knew his words at first 
 hand. Possibly the exact truth is, that Paul was not so 
 much ignorant of the teaching of Jesus as determined 
 to ignore it. The very nature of his apostolate ("as one 
 born out of due time") virtually compelled this course. 
 If he were to vindicate his apostolate as specially be- 
 stowed, he must have a special message and be something 
 other than a mere echo of the Twelve. And so, in all 
 his writings, we seldom or never find him confirming or 
 illustrating his own teaching by quoting the words of 
 Jesus. His message is indeed "my gospel." (^) 
 
 II 
 
 It should not surj^rise us, therefore, to discover that 
 Paul claims for his teaching a special quality. He says 
 that he received it '*by revelation," that he "received 
 from the Lord," and the like. These assertions have been 
 interpreted to mean that, through Paul, Jesus has given 
 us teaching that supplements and even overrides his words 
 in the Gospels; so that the letters of Paul are primary 
 
 (M So in Horn. 2:1G; 16:25; 2 Tim. 2:8; besides three times 
 "our" gospel; "the gospel preached by me" (Gal. 1:11), etc. 
 
THE MAlvlNG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 14o 
 
 authority for Christians. The practical result of this 
 interpretation, if not the intended, is to make the words 
 of Jesus secondary in importance. In this view of the 
 case, Paul is not a religious teacher to be studied as a 
 separate personality, but is to be regarded as the organ of 
 the glorified Christ, through whom Jesus has given u^ 
 his final message to his Church and the world. We have, 
 in reality, two gospels of Jesus: one which he gave the 
 world in the days of his flesh, the other spoken through 
 the lips of Paul, after he ascended into glory. 
 
 This astounding theory of the relation of Paul to 
 Jesus is furthermore declared to be the article of a stand- 
 ing or falling Church. (') Pailure to accept it is de- 
 nounced as ^'infidelity'' and "treason." Concerning 
 charges like these, one need only say that a theological 
 cause must be in a desperate way, when its advocate's 
 resort to the tactics of children, who, unable to argue 
 and afraid to fight, sometimes fancy that they are in- 
 juring their adversaries by "calling names." Let us 
 who have become men put away these acts of the child, 
 as Paul himself teaches us. Personal abuse is the last 
 shift of the w^eak. 
 
 To the writings of the apostle, then, be our chief appeal. 
 To any candid reader of these letters, will they present 
 themselves as a second edition, revised and improved, 
 of the gospel of Jesus, or as a new and original work? 
 The first thing that will strike such a reader, and the 
 last thing that will linger in his memory, is the vast 
 difference in tone and content between a Gospel and a 
 Pauline letter. Paul is silent, or virtually so, about the 
 things on which Jesus lays most stress, while on the other 
 hand, Jesus does not liint at, or at most only hints at, 
 the things that are the burden of Paul's teaching. They 
 
 (^) William C. Wilkinson. "Paul and the Revolt Against Him," 
 rhiladelphia, 1914, pp. 4o, 48, G9, 241. Tlie lamented death of the 
 author, since the above words were written, does not make the criti- 
 cism of his views less proper or less necessary; his book still lives. 
 
144 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 move in different planes of thought. They cannot be 
 said to contradict each other, they so seldom meet. 
 
 It may also be pointed out that to assert Paul's im- 
 portance, as the unique organ of a new revelation by Jesus, 
 is to make for him a claim not only in itself incredible, but 
 never made by himself. He makes a different claim, 
 not that Jesus always spoke through him, but that the 
 Holy Spirit sometimes spoke through him. Sometimes, 
 not always. The Holy Spirit, not Jesus. This is not 
 mere verbal quibble, sheer pettifogging of the question, 
 as every ^^orthodox" reader is bound to admit, unless he 
 is prepared to evacuate the doctrine of the Trinity of all 
 real meaning, in which c^ase he ceases to be ' 'orthodox." 
 We cannot ignore this real, this vital distinction of the 
 Persons in the Godhead, in discussing the teaching of 
 Paul. If it is right to say that Jesus spoke through Paul, 
 it is right to say that the Father died on the cross. 
 Orthodoxy long ago decided that such confusions of the 
 persons are inadmissible. According to the whole tenor 
 of the 'New Testament, the glorified Jesus does not speak, 
 never did speak, through anybody. He spoke to Paul on 
 the way to Damascus, but never through him. 
 
 A careful scrutiny of Paul's statements about this 
 ^'revelation" justifies the conclusion that he makes no 
 claim to supernatural or abnormal impartation of knowl- 
 edge to him. When he speaks of "revelation" he seems 
 oftenest to refer to the "appearance" or "manifestation" 
 of Jesus to him near Damascus. In other cases, the term 
 seems to describe that solid conviction to which he came, 
 by aid of the Spirit of God, through meditation and 
 study of the Old Testament, that salvation was not to be 
 found through works of Law, but by trust in Jesus the 
 Christ. That was his "gospel" of which he speaks so 
 frequently, the fundamental thesis of his two most the- 
 ological letters, those addressed to the Galatians and 
 Romans. "Man is not justified by works of Law, but only 
 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 145 
 
 through trust in Jesus Christ/' (^) is the keynote of the 
 Galatian letter; and of the Roman, 'Tor we reckon that 
 a man is justified by trust, apart from works of Law."(^) 
 That is what Paul calls ''my gospel," and it is of this that 
 he insists, "For I also did not receive it from man, nor 
 was I taught it, but I received it through an appearance 
 (revelation) of Jesus Christ." (^) 
 
 It is his originality, not any supernatural revelation, 
 that Paul stresses. "But when God, who set me apart 
 from birth, was pleased to make his Son manifest in me, 
 that I should make known his gospel among the 
 nations, straightway I did not confer with flesh and 
 blood . . . but I went away into Arabia." (*) The ap- 
 pearance of Jesus to him w^as his "revelation," and Paul 
 was convinced that then and there he received his commis- 
 sion of apostleship, and the conviction that Jesus w^as the 
 Messiah and Saviour, especially his own personal Saviour. 
 A new man was born in that hour, and out of that expe- 
 rience and much subsequent study and thought developed 
 those ideas of "faith" and "Law," of "works" and "right- 
 eousness," that became fundamental in his thinking and 
 teaching. 
 
 To stretch Paul's "gospel" so as to make it cover all 
 of his later writings, and to assert in his name that what- 
 ever he taught is to be regarded as part of his "revelation," 
 and therefore to be clothed with a character of super- 
 natural authority; in a word, to strive to invest all the 
 teachings of Paul with the authority of Jesus himself — 
 this is an interpretation of Paul's words that Christian 
 scholarship has never authorized, nor Christian good sense 
 approved. Nothing that the apostle says about his expe- 
 riences requires us to believe that they are different in 
 kind from those of his fellow Christians, though they 
 
 TTGal. 2:1G. 
 
 r) Rom. 3:28. 
 
 {=•) Gal. 1:12. 
 
 (*) Gal. 1:15. 
 
146 FUNDAxMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 may well have differed in degree. They were, in quality, 
 for all that appears to the contrary, just such experiences 
 as all disciples in all ages have had. 
 
 There are just two exceptions to this statement: the 
 appearance of Jesus was admittedly unique; and Paul 
 speaks once of special revelations in which he heard ''un- 
 speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to 
 utter." (^) Since he never uttered them it is the same to 
 us as if they never occurred. Normally he seems to have 
 been led into the truth by the Spirit of God, according to 
 the promise of Jesus. (^) To assume the supernatural to 
 explain the natural is gratuitous and irrational. 
 
 This is particularly true of tlie ''revelation" regard- 
 ing the Lord's supper. f'^) Paul says: "For I received 
 from the Lord, what I also delivered to you, that the Lord 
 Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took a 
 loaf; and having given thanks he broke it and said, 'This 
 is my body, which is for you ; this do in remembrance of 
 me.' In like manner also the cup, after they had supped, 
 saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; this 
 do, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' " The 
 great majority of commentators on this passage insist on 
 interpreting the words "I received from the Lord" as 
 meaning "I received this by direct revelation." 
 
 Did Jesus appear to Paul again and relate this story to 
 him, giving him the exact words in which the holy supper 
 was instituted ? Is it credible that Paul would have passed 
 over in silence an event of so enormous significance as 
 such a second appearance of Jesus to him ? And if that is 
 the meaning of Paul's words, it follows that the narratives 
 in the Gospels are quite incorrect, and that we have here 
 the only trustworthy account of the Last Supper — for, of 
 course, if this is direct rovehitioii from ^lesns, it must bo 
 
 (^"2 Cor. 12:1-4. 
 
 (2) John 1(5:13. 
 
 {') 1 Cot. 11:2^-25. 
 
THE ]\rAKi:sG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 147 
 
 accurate to the last detail. But is not the other alternative 
 far preferable, is it not virtually the only sane opinion, 
 that Paul received this account from his Lord mediately, 
 through some disciple who was present, or through cur- 
 rent tradition '? 
 
 Such, then, must be regarded as the true content of the 
 apostle's idea of ''revelation." 
 
 Ill 
 
 It would be most unfair to Paul to hold him in any way 
 responsible for the exaggerated claims in his behalf of 
 those who have admired him not wisely but too Avell. To 
 do him mere justice, he never thought of making such 
 claims. If he had ever put forward pretensions so enor- 
 mous, no one of his generation would have listened to him. 
 And Jesus excluded the very possibility of such claims 
 by anybody coming after him and professing to speak in 
 liis name, when he enjoined his followers not to be called 
 Eabbi (which of course included a prohibition to call 
 any other man Rabbi) but to regard him as their sole 
 Teaclier and tliemselves equally his disciples. He thus 
 signified in words unmistakable that his teaching was final 
 for them and for all who should trust in him. Any 
 who should come later, claiming special authority from 
 liim as religious teachers, were to be reckoned impostors. 
 
 When Jesus knew himself about to leave his followers, 
 did he modify t^is injunction in any way ? Did he, even 
 by subtlest hint, give warning of his intention to appoint 
 some one outside of the Twelve to a higher authority than 
 theirs, one w^ho w^as to be his chief accredited organ, 
 tlirough whom he was to continue to be the Teacher of 
 his Church? He did not. On the contrary, he assured 
 tlie Twelve that he would send in his stead the Paraclete, 
 tlio Sjurit of Truth, to teach them in all things and guide 
 them into all the truth. And this was his last word to 
 them, as it is his last word to us. 
 
148 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 We have the explicit warrant, therefore, of our Master 
 himself for asserting that anybody who puts himself for- 
 ward, or is put forward by others, in the character of organ 
 or mouthpiece or viceregent of Christ, or in any other way 
 unique representative of Jesus, and so to speak with 
 peculiar authority as if Jesus spoke through him, must be 
 rejected as at the very least the victim of megalomania or 
 delusion or unwise hero-worship. Yet there are those who 
 think they honor both Jesus and Paul when they contradict 
 the words of Jesus and cast Paul for the role of impostor. 
 The utmost that can be said truthfully for Paul, as it is the 
 utmost that he claimed for himself, is that the promise 
 of Jesus was fulfilled to him, and that he, like the Twelve, 
 like all sincere- disciples of Jesus, was taught by the 
 Spirit of Truth. 
 
 The Poman claim, that in the Pope the Church has an 
 infallible organ, through whom Christ still speaks to his 
 faithful ones, is little more incredible or unhistorical than 
 the claim that Paul was made the chief accredited organ 
 of Jesus. For Jesus has no ^^organ," has never had one, 
 though he has millions of organs, since every Christian 
 believer is the mouthpiece of the Christ, in just so far as 
 he permits the Holy Spirit to dwell in him and speak 
 through him. This is the teaching of all the !N'ew Testa- 
 ment documents, including the writings of Paul himself. 
 
 That Jesus of ISTazareth spent his public life in giving 
 to the Twelve a teaching that he declared to be the Way 
 of Life: and that he had no sooner left the world than 
 from his state in glory he straightway deputed another 
 man to be his chief accredited organ; and that through 
 this new mouthpiece he proceeded to set aside the chief 
 part of what he had taught during his lifetime, substitut- 
 ing for his simple ethics a complicated group of theological 
 speculations, so as to make a system of theology the gospel, 
 instead of a proclamation of the Kingdom of God — this is 
 a hypothesis so fantastic, so lacking in all elements of 
 
THE MAKITs^G OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 149 
 
 credibility, that one marvels how it could find a sane advo- 
 cate anywhere. Who can credit that the Heavenly Christ 
 taught through Paul something so different from what 
 the earthly Jesus taught the Twelve ? There is the crux 
 of the whole matter. Can we, if we would, regard the 
 Gospels and the Pauline epistles as literary products or 
 thought products of the same personality? 
 
 It is a historical fact, of course, that the entire Church 
 of the following centuries proceeded to substitute Paul 
 for Jesus, as the authoritative teacher of Christianity. 
 For ''the truth as it is in Jesus" the Fathers taught the 
 truth as it is in Paul. But they did this without conscious- 
 ness of what they were doing, never attempting dogmatic 
 justification for their conduct. Had they stated a reason 
 in the bald terms employed above, it would no doubt have 
 seemed incredible, even in those times when almost any- 
 thing was credible and credited but the truth. The 
 most gullible and careless of the ''Fathers" would never 
 have admitted in so many words, that the glorified Jesus 
 speaking through Paul could stultify the earthly Jesus 
 speaking through his own lips. Such a proposition must 
 be carefully sugar-coated to be swallowed by any. But 
 though this reason was never explicitly given, the Chureli 
 acted as if it believed this to be true. Paul's teaching 
 was quietly put in place of the teaching of Jesus. E'ot 
 one of the great theologians of the Church — Athanasius, 
 Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Calvin — drew 
 any considerable part of his doctrine from the words of 
 Jesus. All without exception. Catholic or Protestant, are 
 expounders of Paul. 
 
 Paul insisted vehemently, almost passionately, on the 
 genuineness of his apostolic call, and rested it on the same 
 ground that validated the apostolate of the Twelve — the 
 risen Jesus had appeared to him also with a command 
 to be his witness. It would not be fair to urge against 
 him his doprecatorv words to the Corinthians, "For T nm 
 
150 ^ITXDA:^[ENTALS of Christianity 
 
 the least of tlie apostles, that am not fit to be called an 
 apostle;" for the words following show this luimility to he 
 due to a sense of personal nnworthiness, not of ofiicial 
 inferiority: ''because I persecuted the church of God."(^) 
 When his official authority was challenged, this humility 
 dropped from him like a garment, and he could say to 
 the same Corinthians, 'Tor I reckon that I am not a whir 
 behind the very chief est apostles.''(^) But though he 
 thus claimed with emphasis entire official equality with 
 the Twelve, and did not hesitate to reprove Peter publicly 
 when Peter was clearly in the wrong, he never claimed 
 more than equality. He never asserted for himself such 
 a relation to Jesus as would make the Twelve by com- 
 parison mere ciphers. Such conceit in Paul is as unthink- 
 able as tolerance of it by the Twelve. 
 
 Prom the time of Constantine it was held that the 
 promise of Jesus to send to his disciples the Spirit of 
 Truth, had been fulfilled in such wdse that the voice of the 
 Church was the voice of Christ. A vast spiritual des- 
 potism was gradually built on the basis of that falsehood, 
 and it required the great convulsion of the sixteenth 
 century to win once more for Christian men a measure 
 of that liberty wherewith Christ made us free, l^ow some 
 would build a new spiritual despotism on the claim that 
 the voice of Paul is the voice of Christ. In our day pure 
 religion must do battle for the principle that the voice of 
 Christ was heard once for all in the words of Jesus, and 
 that all other pretended voices of Christ are delusion or 
 sham. 
 
 IV 
 
 We have touched rather lightly on that event in Paul's 
 life which markejd the crisis in his thinking and doing: 
 the appearance of Jesus to him as he was journeying 
 
 C) Cor. 15:9. 
 (') 2 Cor. 11:5. 
 
THE :\fAKlNG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 151 
 
 toward Damascus. We have noted the significance of the 
 event without inquiring exactly what took place. We 
 have three accounts, all in the Acts of the Apostles, one in 
 the words of the author of that book, the other two pur- 
 porting to be the apostle's own narrative of what happened. 
 There are some remarkable dilferences in these accounts, 
 which will be made plainer if brief summaries are placed 
 in parallel columns : 
 
 Acts 9:3-7 Acts 22:6-10 Acts 26:18-19 
 
 There flashed a light There flashed around I saw a light from 
 
 out of heaven. me a great light out heaven above the 
 
 Saul fell to the of heaven. sun. 
 
 ground. I fell to to ground. All fell to the ground. 
 
 Voice: Saul, Saul, Voice: Saul, Saul, Voice: Saul, why do 
 
 why do you perse- why do you perse- you persecute me? 
 
 cute me? cute me? It is hard for you 
 
 Saul: Who are you, Saul: Who are you, to kick against the 
 
 sir? sir goads. 
 
 Voice: I am Jesus, Voice: I am Jesus of Saul: ^Vho are j'ou, 
 
 whom you perse- ISTazareth, whom sir ? 
 
 cute; but rise and you persecute. Voice: I am Jesus, 
 
 enter into the city Saul : What shall I whom you persecute 
 
 and it will be told do, sir? (quite a long speech 
 
 you what you must Voice: Arise and go follows, nearly a 
 
 do. into Damascus, and hundred words, cor- 
 
 there it will be responding to noth- 
 
 told you of all ing in the other ac- 
 
 things that are ap- counts). 
 pointed you to do. 
 
 Companions heard Companions beheld Nothing said about 
 
 voice, but saw no light, but did not companions either 
 
 one. hear voice. seeing or hearing. 
 
 From careful comparison of these three accounts, as- 
 suming that the first, in the words of Luke, was probably 
 derived dii'cctly from Paul, certain conclusions inevitably 
 follow : 
 
 1. This appearance of Jesus was to Paul alone. The 
 first account says that his companions saw no one, and the 
 second that they saw only the light. The first account 
 says that they heard the voice, to which the second gives 
 an apparently fiat contradiction, that they did not hear 
 
152 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the voice. But the contradition may be only apparent. 
 The. Greek word used means both ^'sound" and 'Voice," 
 and the real fact probably was that the companions of 
 Saul heard a sound, but no words. ]^ot one of the three 
 accounts says or fairly implies that the companions either 
 saw Jesus or heard him speak; the contrary conclusion is 
 clearly implied in the second and third accounts, and is 
 quite consistent with the first. 'No interpretation of the 
 three is possible, without straining words or phrases un- 
 duly, than this : Paul alone saw Jesus and heard him speak 
 intelligible words. The others, at most, saw a light and 
 heard a sound. 
 
 2. This appearance of Jesus to Paul ivas not objective. 
 By ^'objective'' is meant an event cognizable by the senses 
 in the ordinary way. If Jesus had appeared in visible, 
 material form, would not the others have seen him as 
 clearly as Paul? If Jesus had spoken audible words, 
 would not the others have heard him as distinctly as 
 Paul? This is no attempt to evacuate Paul's testimony 
 of its legitimate meaning; it is an attempt to evaluate 
 the testimony in its fair significance, accepting just what 
 Paul tells us, but declining to read into it a meaning that 
 the words do not fairly bear. An objective material ap- 
 pearance of Jesus, that could be detected by the ordinary 
 exercise of the senses of sight and hearing, seems to be 
 carefully excluded from the narrative by the words chosen 
 to describe the event. (^) 
 
 3. The appearance of Jesus was therefore made to 
 Paul's spirit, not to his body. It was a ^^heavenly vi- 
 sion'' (^) but not a physical sight of Jesus that he had; 
 words addressed to his soul, not to his ear, that he heard. 
 
 (^) The latest biography of Paul, by an "orthodox" Presbyterian, 
 the Rev. David Smith, D.D., Professor of Theology in theM'Crea 
 Magee College, Londonderry, a scholarly work, quite abreast of re- 
 cent investigations, takes precisely the above view of the vision of 
 Paul. "The Life and Letters of St. Paul," New York, 1021, p. 53. 
 
 C) Acts 20:10. 
 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 153 
 
 This, we repeat, is his own account of the matter, in the 
 only sense that his words will fairly bear. 
 
 4. Thus accurately to define the appearance of Jesus 
 to Paul, according to the apostle's own testimony, is not 
 to deny its reality, but only its materiality. ]\Iatter is not 
 the only reality in the universe; it is merely the only 
 reality that addresses eye and ear. Things visible to the 
 eye are not the only things we see, nor are words audible 
 to the ear the only words we hear. Seeing and hearing 
 are spiritual processes, usually induced by impressions on 
 the sensorium, but not always. That Jesus appeared to 
 Paul he at least believed to be the most real thing in his 
 life, and why need we doubt the reality of this vision of 
 his merely because others did not see and hear? The 
 change in his character, the total transformation of his 
 life, are things inexplicable on any theory other than his 
 own: the inexpungable conviction of his soul that Jesus 
 met him in the way to Damascus and commissioned him 
 to preach the gospel to the nations. Others have pro- 
 nounced this Delusion; to Paul it was Pact, less open to 
 doubt than any other fact, as certain to him as his own 
 existence. 
 
 'Rot is there any answer, except mere refusal to accept 
 it, to the view that this appearance may have had a mate- 
 rial basis of an extraordinary kind. In saying above that 
 it was immaterial and subjective we have only used words 
 in their ordinary sense, as describing ordinary experiences 
 of ordinary folk. At both ends of the spectrum there are 
 rays invisible to our eyes, because our nerves are not sensi- 
 tive enough to react to these vibrations of the ether. Above 
 and below the musical sounds that we hear are tones in- 
 audible to us, or audible only as noise. Were our ears 
 sufficiently acute, it is possible that every sound would be 
 musical. Science assures us that these are dependable 
 facts, and we cannot therefore say that things do not exist 
 because we cannot perceive them. A Superman is con- 
 
154 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ceivable, with senses of sight and hearing so far developed, 
 that his range of knowledge would be immeasurably great- 
 er than ours. In the realm of spirit, Jesus was a Super- 
 man. And there have been other choice spirits, so much 
 more exquisitely attuned to the Infinite, that they have 
 apprehended things beyond the ken of most. Such was 
 Paul, such was Francis of Assisi. We lesser breeds can 
 do no better than receive gratefully from such men what 
 we cannot perceive for ourselves. The only obstacle to 
 our doing this is our reluctance to admit that others sur- 
 pass us in spiritual insight. 
 
 The one thing that cannot be questioned is the perma- 
 nent effect of this vision upon Paul. It transformed the 
 whole man. Once for all he w^as convinced that Jesus 
 was still living, Son of God, revelation of God's love, en- 
 throned with power. He 'Vas laid hold on by Christ 
 Jesus," (^) who had now appeared to him ''as to the child 
 untimely born."(-) Henceforth Christ was to him the 
 centre of all things and he could say ''for me to live is 
 Christ." (^) And with this new hope of salvation through 
 iove, not through Law, came another conviction into his 
 soul, from which he never wavered, that he was specially 
 commissioned to preach the Christ among the gentiles. ('^) 
 
 Men's religious experiences are determined by the forms 
 under which they conceive religious truth — though it is 
 equally true that religious concepts are modified by experi- 
 ence. Paul early learned to think of God as Sovereign, 
 and of men as subject to a system of divine Law, and he 
 uover learned to think otherwise. To the statutes of God 
 he believed that penalties were attached, penalties both 
 demanded and inflicted by the justice of God, who would 
 
 ~rTPhil. 3:12. 
 (-) 1 Cor. 15:8. 
 (^) Phil. 1:21; Cal. 2:20. 
 (M Cal. l:l(i; Acts 22:21. 
 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 155 
 
 bring every man to judgment. (') The divine Law dif- 
 fered from the human, in that to violate a single statute 
 was to be ^'guilty of all" — that is, a single offence as irre- 
 vocably established the status of a sinner as if he had 
 transgressed all. In this view, one sin was fatal. All 
 men, Jew and Gentile alike, were subject to God's wrath, 
 because all had sinned. (") 
 
 This was Paul's idea of Law. Saul had a quite differ- 
 ent notion. He believed that for the Jew, God had ])ro- 
 vided a way of deliverance from sin through the Law 
 given to Moses. He diligently sought salvation by this 
 means, as ^^a Pharisee of Pharisees," and he has given us 
 a vivid account of the result of this effort in the seventh 
 of Romans. His diligence to obey the Law only increased 
 his sense of guilt, and brought him to the brink of despair. 
 He continued in increasing agony of soul, until the vision 
 of Jesus prompted surrender to him as Lord and trust in 
 him as Saviour, and this brought peace to his troubled 
 S23irit. Martin Luther and John Bunyan have left us 
 records of a similar experience, minus the personal ap- 
 pearance of Jesus to them. Either of them could have 
 written the seventh of Romans out of his experience before 
 conversion, and the eighth afterwards. 
 
 Paul was thoroughly loyal to the Master who had ap- 
 peared to him and appointed him an apostle. Loyalty i^ 
 an attitude of soul, a product chiefly of the affections and 
 will, only partially of the intellect. The most loyal souls 
 sometimes misunderstand their leader. And all experi- 
 ence shows that out of an intensely loyal multitude only 
 a few will have real comprehension of the person or in- 
 stitution that is the object of their utter trust. It need 
 not surprise us, still less dismay, if we find from the 
 letters of Paul evidence that he was loyal, not to the 
 Jesus of fact, the real Jesus disclosed to us in the Gospels, 
 but to an ideal Jesus whom he had created out of the 
 
 (^2 Cor. 5:19; 2 Thess. 1:7, 8. 
 {') Eom. ch. 1. 
 
156 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Messianic hopes of his race, the sacrificial system of Ju- 
 daism and the philosophic ideas that were ^'in the air" in 
 his day. 
 
 Paul did not claim to be the disciple and expounder of 
 Jesus of ^Nazareth. He never appeals to the teaching of 
 Jesus for confirmation of his own doctrine. It cannot 
 justly be said that this was due to his vivid consciousness 
 of the indwelling Spirit of Jesus, so that he felt no need 
 of confirmation of anything that he taught. He often 
 sought confirmation, but nearly always went for it to "the 
 Scriptures,'' that is the Old Testament, or else appealed 
 to the facts of his owm experience. He by no means ex- 
 pected, as Jesus so uniformly did, that his teaching would 
 be accepted for its own inherent, self-demonstrating truth. 
 It was the Heavenly Christ whose disciple Paul professed 
 himself to be, and he all but boasted of his ignorance of 
 the Jesus whose words we have in the Gospels. The Jesus 
 of history, the Jesus of real life, has little to do with the 
 teachings of Paul, and certainly the words of Jesus were 
 not the chief formative influence in his life. 
 
 Being what he was, a theologian by instinct and train- 
 ing, and deeply versed in the Jewish Scriptures and their 
 rabbinic interpretations, Paul was impelled to find an ade- 
 quate theory of the change that had taken place in him 
 and for the new gospel that he felt himself commanded 
 to proclaim. His type cannot exist with a religion alone ; 
 it must have also a theology, a philosophy of religion. The 
 heart of the apostle was fully satisfied with the love of 
 the Christ who had redeemed him from the bondage of 
 sin and death, but his mind craved an intellectual basis 
 for his new religion, a theory that would reconcile liis 
 experience with his changed conception of the Messiah, 
 and at the same time save out of the wreck as much as 
 possible of his old Jewish ideas. His conversion, his trust 
 in the Jesus whom he had once fought, must be justified 
 to his intellect as well as be testified by his consciousness. 
 
THE MAKING OF TAUL THE APOSTLE 1^ i 
 
 It was this imperious necessity that produced Paul's the- 
 ology, and the conditions under which it was wrought out 
 help us to understand both its value and its limitations. 
 
 The organizing thought of Paul's theology is the char- 
 acter and work of the Christ, but above all the work. A^ 
 before his conversion the cross had been his chief reason 
 for rejecting Jesus as Messiah, so now he became con- 
 vinced that the cross was the chief feature of Messianic 
 work. He now saw that the Messiah could die, because 
 Jesus had died yet still lived. He did not die for him- 
 self — that were unthinkable — then necessarily for others. 
 The cross from which Paul had formerly revolted now 
 became his glory; from a badge of shame it was trans- 
 formed into an emblem of unspeakable honor. His gos- 
 pel became the gospel of the cross. The death of Josuh 
 was of so much greater significance than his life that Paul 
 felt he could afford to know little about the life. So too 
 he could truly protest that his gospel was not of men, not 
 based on what he had been told of the deeds and words of 
 Jesus, but on his personal vision of Jesus and his personal 
 ai^prehension of the significance of the cross. 
 
 In the light of this conviction, the Jewisli sacrifices 
 took on a new meaning, and Paul worked out a theory of 
 the sacrificial character of the death of Jesus. He did not 
 understand the significance of that system in the history 
 of his own people. He was quite ignorant of the fact 
 that the Jewish sacrifices were part and parcel of tlint 
 system of exploitation, grafting and priestcraft against 
 which the prophets inveighed so bitterly and so vainly. (') 
 
 {') Isa. 1:11 sq; 5:23; Micah, Chs. 3; 6: Hos. 4:1, 2; 6:6; Amos 
 5:21 sq. In his so-called "temple sermon" (7:22, 23) the prophet 
 Jeremiah is most explicit. "Tims says Jehovah of hosts, the God 
 of Irsael: 'Add your biniit ()fi'orin,c:s to your sacrifices and eat 
 the meat. For on the day I brought your fathers out of Egypt 
 I said naught to them, nor did I give them any command, con- 
 cerning burnt-ofTerings or sacrifices. But only this did I com- 
 mand them, "Hearken unto my voice and I will be your God 
 and you will be ray people; and walk in the way that I ever 
 enjoin upon you, so that it may be well with you." ' " 
 
158 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 
 
 He accepted the system as it existed in his own day, as 
 undoubtedly of divine origin, and saw in it a forecast of 
 the cross. The Christ had died in man's stead, bearing 
 the penalty of man's sin, and God accepted that death as 
 a satisfaction of the demands of divine justice. 
 
 Through ^'faith," or trust in Jesus and his work, a 
 sinner obtains the benefit of this sacrifice ; so that, by a 
 legal fiction, the righteousness of Christ, the perfect ful- 
 filment of the divine Law, is transferred to him who thus 
 trusts, so that he is ^^justified" or acquitted of guilt. (^) 
 This idea of justification by the transference of Christ's 
 righteousness (or God's righteousness, as Paul also calls 
 it) to the sinner through "faith," is illustrated at length 
 in the letters to the Galatians and Romans by the case of 
 Abraham, whose confidence in the promise of God was 
 accounted to him as righteousness. Faith and its result- 
 ing justification constitute "salvation" in Paul's mind, that 
 is, deliverance from the wrath of God and the power of 
 sin and entrance into the eternal life of Christ. Jesus 
 as the Messiah has become a second Adam, a new head of 
 the race. As a result of accepting salvation through him, 
 we have peace with God,(") real freedom(^) and a new 
 character. (*) 
 
 This makes no pretense to being a complete outline of 
 the Pauline theology, but purports to be no more than a 
 tracing of the process by which its cardinal doctrines seem 
 to have developed in his thinking. Many things are 
 omitted, notably the doctrine that has made the greatest 
 noise in the world, that of "election." The point at pres- 
 ent to note is, that this conception of Jesus and his work 
 is the result of Paul's training in the school of Gamaliel, 
 plus some knowledge of Roman law, such as would be 
 
 {') Rom. 3:21-24. 
 
 (-) Kom. 5:1. 
 
 (^) Rom. 6:4. 
 
 (*) Rom. 0:22. 
 
TJIE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 150 
 
 acqnircHl easily by one who possessed and valued the privi- 
 leges of Roman citizenship. 
 
 The notion of Adam's sin as the sin of all men, and 
 physical death as well as spiritual the result of sin, is 
 rabbinic tlieoloo-y. (^) The conception of vicarious sin- 
 bearing is Jewish — and pagan also, for it is found in 
 nearly all religions, especially in such as make much of 
 animal sacrifices. Jewish are also other elements of Paul's 
 teaching, of less fundamental importance, such as his in- 
 cidental remarks about angels and demons. The Law, 
 he says, was given by angels, (") thus following rabbinic 
 tradition in preference to the Old Testament record. His 
 doctrine of the divine predestination, hinted by the propli- 
 ets, developed by the rabbis, is another case of his indebt- 
 edness to Gamaliel. 
 
 Of probably Gnostic origin is his idea of two contrasted 
 aeons, the earthly present and the heavenly future, which 
 took so strouG^ hold of his imagination. He differs from 
 such later Gnostics as Valentinian or Basilides chiefly in 
 ethical passion; intellectually he is their blood brother. 
 His doctrine of the Son(^) is hardly distinguishable from 
 pure Gnosticism — an emanation of the divine essence, be- 
 gotten before all worlds and made the agent of God in 
 creation. The difference is that Paul puts into his doc- 
 trine an ethical content not found in the cold speculations 
 of later Gnosticism. It is these Judaeo-pagan notions in 
 Paul's writings that for ages, with unconscious irony, men 
 have been proclaiming as the real gospel of Jesus, the only 
 pure and undefiled ^^Christianity." 
 
 Paul has another doctrine of the cross, to be sure, wliich 
 is essentially that of Jesus, when he says, ^'I have been 
 crucified with Christ." But this, the really Christian 
 
 (M Rom. ch. 5. 
 
 (^) Gal. 3:19. 
 
 (^) Tt has often been ])ointe(l onl, that tlie ehissioal ])assa<Te. 
 Phil. 2:6-9, is more easily reconcilable with the later heretical 
 homoiousion than with the orthodox Jiomooufiwn. 
 
160 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 doctrine of the cross^ Paul's admirers have always prac- 
 tically ignored. If challenged, no doubt they would give 
 it a perfunctory assent; but it cuts no figure in their the- 
 ology or in their preaching. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 PAUL THE CHPtlSTIAN EABBI 
 
 His contemporaries scarcely tliought of Paul as a theolo- 
 gian. It was left to his successors to appreciate his great- 
 ness as a Christian thinker, but to the men of his own age 
 he was preeminent as missionary and organizer. It was 
 to John, the ^'beloved disciple," and not to Paul, that the 
 title ''Theologian'^ was given by the early Church. The 
 last three centuries have been as much inclined to under- 
 rate John, as the first three underrated Paul, l^everthe- 
 less, it was the underrated Paul whom the Church actually 
 followed. 
 
 We have already seen that the fundamental idea of 
 Paul, as of all who have followed him as a theological 
 leader, was the Sovereignty of God. He was probably not 
 conscious that this w^as a doctrine of the Jewish priest- 
 hood, deeply embedded in the Law, which was mainly of 
 priestly origin, and little sympathized with by the proph- 
 ets, to whom God's Fatherhood made a stronger appeal. 
 The apostle's idea, derived primarily from the Law, was 
 also much shaped by the social and political institutions 
 of his age. It was natural that the Poman Empire should 
 become the t-sqie of divine government amonir its subjects,' 
 even its unwilling and rebellious subjects, like the Jews^ 
 And so Paul generally illustrates God's character and acts 
 from the thrones of emperors and kings and from their 
 courts. His own function appears to him that of am- 
 
 161 
 
162 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 bassador, ( ^ ) and the life of Jesus on earth and his exalta- 
 tion at the right hand of God are described in terms of 
 sovereignty. (') To him God is King, Ruler of the world, 
 absolute despot, and therefore supreme Lawgiver and 
 Judge. The mere good pleasure of God is the cause of 
 all existence and events, and no other explanation is neces- 
 sary or even possible. In God's relation to us, justice 
 therefore becomes the chief element. He is merciful, to 
 be sure, but he must exercise his power of pardon so as 
 not to impair the validity of his Law. And, like the des- 
 pots of this world, he is capricious in his mercy — ^'He 
 will have mercy on whom he will have mercy," (^) and 
 there is nothing more to be said. To violate his Law, 
 which is holy and good, is to deserve a penalty inconceiv- 
 ably great; and the w^rath of God is kindled against all 
 evil-doers. As all men have sinned, all are alike help- 
 less and hopeless before this wrath — nothing remains to 
 them but misery in this world and in the world to come. 
 
 But we have also seen that Jesus in the Gospels presents 
 to us a wholly different ideal of God, which John cau^-lit 
 and set forth better than Paul. Jesus illustrates the char- 
 acter of God, not from the State, but from the family. 
 God is *^Our Father who is in Heaven.'' His chief char- 
 acteristic is love of all the world, an impartial love that 
 sends rain alike on just and unjust. If Paul conceives 
 the mercy of God as arbitrary and bestowed on a few 
 chosen ones, Jesus conceives God's mercy as freely given 
 to all who will receive it. The "wrath" of the Pather- 
 God is directed, not against the sinner, but against sin — 
 it is the revolt of purity from impurity, of goodness from 
 everything evil. Even an earthly father, just so far as 
 he is good, "hates" evil, but does not hate his sinning 
 child; the moment his wrath is kindled against his child, 
 
 r) 2 Cor. 5:20. 
 C) Phil. 2:1-11. 
 (8) Rom. 9:15; cf. Ex. 33:19. 
 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAX RABBI 16'3 
 
 he ceases to measure up to our ideal of a truly good father. 
 
 These decided differences in ideas of God necessitate 
 corresponding differences regarding ^4aw" and "penalty." 
 Paul conceives the Law of a Sovereign in the heavens as 
 like human law in principle : it is a definite statute, whose 
 validity rests on the will and authority of the maker, and 
 has a definite penalty affixed, proportioned to the gravity 
 of the offense. This penalty must be regarded as just 
 punishment of a lawbreaker by an offended ruler, and is 
 imposed, not for the offender's sake, but for the ruler's, 
 to uphold his dignity and authority. On the other hand, 
 a Heavenly Father's law is an ethical principle, an ex- 
 pression of his goodness and love, a demand for that per- 
 fection in his people which is found in himself. Jesus 
 says little about penalty, and leaves us to infer its nature 
 from what he does say about the Father's love. The in- 
 ference that seems best to accord with his teaching is: 
 since God's Law is the expression of his love, what we 
 call the penalty of sin is but the discipline by which he 
 seeks to turn the erring back to himself. As in nature, 
 so in grace, penalty is the inevitable consequence of trans- 
 gressing Law; it is not suffering inflicted in retaliation 
 for transgression. 
 
 Let us pursue this parallel a little further, for it is full 
 of instruction. God has ordained such a connection be- 
 tween things in nature that when we transgress a "law^" 
 w^e suffer certain consequences. What w^e call a "law of 
 nature" is simply a imiform method in which God oper- 
 ates through things. If we act by another method, w^e ex- 
 perience results more or less disagreeable, and by repeated 
 results of this kind we are taught to respect the "law" 
 and conform our conduct to it. When, in our baby days, 
 we put our hand on a hot stove, in spite of maternal warn- 
 ings, the smart taught us to respect God's method of op- 
 eration that we call heat, and so to adjust our relations to 
 it as to make it minister to our comfort, not discomfort. 
 
164 FUNDAMENTALS OF CIIEISTIANITT^ 
 
 The burn was not punishment, not an act of God's ven- 
 geance because we have disobeyed one of his "lawa^," but a 
 means of salutary discipline. But for such lessons in our 
 tender years, we might at a later time do ourselves a far 
 worse mischief. 
 
 Ethical penalty is just like that: a necessary coL'se- 
 quence of wrong-doing, a discipline into right-doing, not 
 an act of vengeance on the part of an angry God. There 
 is no such thing in nature as retribution or punishment, 
 and we have no ground to assume such a principle in 
 God's moral order. Men have transferred their imper- 
 fect laws and institutions to the heavens, and imputed to 
 God the shortcomings and inconsistencies and brutalities 
 of their "justice." A loving father cannot inflict bruises 
 and wounds on his child as retaliation for wrong-doing; 
 but he may permit a large liberty, in the exercise of which 
 his child may bruise and wound himself into a better 
 knowledge of safe and right conduct. The father will do 
 this for the child's own good, because no other Imowl- 
 edge than that gained through personal experience is of 
 real or permanent value. So the Father of our spirits, 
 we may be very sure, will condemn no child of his to 
 misery, temporary or everlasting; but, in order to form 
 in us an ethical character, and to discipline us into right-' 
 eousness, he will permit us to incur the misery that cer- 
 tainly follows wrong-doing, and to remain in misery until 
 we turn to him and seek forgiveness and righteousness. 
 
 The principles of right conduct are founded in human 
 nature and express its highest possibilities and joys. To* 
 act contrary to these principles is to fail to realize our 
 best, to establish a state of disharmony and suffering with- 
 in ; it is not to be conceived as losing eternal blessedness, 
 except as such loss is the necessary accompaniment of los- 
 ing present blessedness. The consequences of ethical 
 transgression are sometimes spiritual, sometimes physical, 
 generally both ; and both are as certain as gravitation. 
 
TAUL THE CTIRTSTIAN RABBI 165 
 
 There is no rational justification for ^'punishment" under 
 human law, but the welfare of society and the welfare of 
 the individual. God needs no protection from what man 
 can do; consequently, the only rational justification for 
 penalty inflicted by him is that it promotes human wel- 
 fare, disciplines men into higher character, brings the 
 wandering child of God back to his Father. 
 
 It appears from comparison of these ideas of God, sin, 
 penalty, that Paul's teachings are not so much Avrong as 
 inadequate. His ideas are too exclusively legalistic and 
 not sufficiently ethical. ''Where there is no law, neither 
 is there transgression" (^) is a saying that clearly marks 
 his limitations. In this he does not stand alone among 
 the apostles, for even the spiritual John defines sin as 
 "transgression of law."(^) Both Paul and Jesus at- 
 tempted to make known the character of God and his re- 
 lations to man through human analogies, and human analo- 
 gies are imperfect illustrations of the divine. That God 
 is both Sovereign and Father may well be our conclusion. 
 Both methods of illustrating his character are valid and 
 helpful. But in our conception of God, one function or 
 the other is almost certain to predominate. Shall it be 
 paternal love or kingly authority? In the teaching of 
 Jesus, paternal love certainly predominates. In the teacl:- 
 ing of Paul kingly authority takes first place. Which 
 shall we follow in our thinking, Jesus or Paul ? 
 
 In our idea of law we must likewise choose as its basal 
 principle either the will of the lawmaker or his character. 
 Is the moral law binding on us because God wills it so, 
 or because this is his only possible self-expression ? From 
 Jesus we get one idea of God's law, from Paul another. 
 To which shall we attribute greater authority? The an- 
 swer cannot be refused by any genuine disciple of Jesus : 
 He is the fullest, the clearest, the highest revelation of 
 God, and his word is for us final autliority. 
 
 (T^Rom. 4:15. 
 (') 1 John 3:4. 
 
166 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 II 
 
 From these fundamental postulates of Jesus and Paul 
 follow divergent ideas of sin and salvation. Paul's fa- 
 vorite word for sin is dj-iocpTia, a missing of the mark, 
 failure to reach a standard ; but he occasionally uses other 
 unrighteousness, and dSiuia, words, like JtaQdjrTOOjia . 
 transgression, a turning aside from the way of right and 
 truth. It is not so much the use of these words, which 
 are also found in the Gospels, as their constant recurrence 
 in connection with the Law 6 vojiog, that marks the 
 apostle's conception of sin as essentially legalistic. (^) 
 
 It is not so easy to deduce from what Jesus says about 
 sin what his fundamental idea is; he specifies and illus- 
 trates rather than defines. But one can gather from his 
 teaching as a whole that his conception of sin is the asser- 
 tion of self against God and our brothers, since he makes 
 the prime condition of discipleship that a man should ut- 
 terly renounce self. In the mind of Jesus, therefore, sin 
 Avould appear to be the choice of individual good in place 
 of the common good. It is the opposite of righteousness, 
 which means every method by which man shows love to 
 God and his fellows. Jesus never indicated that he re- 
 garded sin as primarily the violation of law, but he vir- 
 tually defined it when he gave as his summary of the 
 Law, "Thou shalt love." Sin is failure to love, refusal 
 to love, and love is essentially selfless. 
 
 "Salvation," as regards the individual, has a twofold 
 meaning in the ^ew Testament, and in all Christiiin lit- 
 erature. It denotes first of all that inward harmony and 
 peace, assurance of safety here and hereafter, which re- 
 sults from trust in Jesus and conformity to the Avill of 
 God. The attainment of this peace is usually called "con- 
 
 (^) The word d|j,aQTia occurs 47 times in Romans alone, more 
 than one-fourth of the number of times (171) in the entire N. T. 
 vouo; is found in Ivoinans 71 times out of 192; l)ut dSixi'a (7) and 
 :xa(j6j:xx(M[ia (9) are much less frequent. 
 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABBI 167 
 
 version," and is normally a sudden and joyful experience. 
 But salvation also denotes the process of fashioning life 
 and character into likeness of the new ideals that this ex- 
 perience brings us — a process that begins at once and con- 
 tinues to the end of life, called by theologians ''sanctifica- 
 tion." It is an experience of deep and growing blessed- 
 ness, rather than of great joy. The goal of salvation is 
 attainment of perfect character. 
 
 Jesus conceived and described his own mission as that 
 of a Deliverer. What sort of deliverance he brought to 
 men he himself explained in the synagogue at E'azareth: 
 it is deliverance from captivity. Men are slaves of sin: 
 Jesus offers freedom. It is also described as rescue of 
 the lost, those who have wandered from Father and home. 
 To effect his purpose he said that he gave his life as a 
 ransom (^) — his life, not merely his death, as theologians 
 have narrowly interpreted him. He also came to reveal 
 God to man, because to know God is Eternal Life;(^) 
 and so his mission may be described as the giving of 
 abundant Life to all who trust in him. (^) 
 
 The works of Jesus illustrate his words, especially the 
 works of healing that fill so large a place in the Gospels. 
 The blind, deaf, palsied, leprous, demoniacs, have bodily 
 infirmities that correspond to spiritual defects and de- 
 formities, from which Jesus is men's Deliverer or Saviour. 
 He came to seek and deliver such, as he makes plain in 
 his parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, the Lost 
 Son. ;N"owhere perhaps is this idea of salvation more 
 sharply defined than in the story of Zaccheus. When 
 this unjust and oppressive tax-collector was convinced of 
 the error of his ways and declared his purpose to live a 
 new life, Jesus said, ^'To-day is salvation come to this 
 house." The salvation of Zaccheus consisted in his adop- 
 
 (^) Mark 10:45. 
 
 (-) John 17:3. 
 
 C) John .3:15; 6:53; 10:10, 28. 
 
168 ftjjn^damentals of chkistianity 
 
 tion of a wholly new attitude toward God and men, which 
 was expressed in his offer of restitution. He had acquired 
 a new social conscience; he had experienced the sense of 
 brotherhood; he had promptly accepted and conformed to 
 the new standard of conduct that brotherly love required 
 of him. 
 
 Jesus represents such an ethical volte face also in the 
 case of the Prodigal. The key-word of that story is, 
 ^'But when he came to himself." For the first time the 
 young man saw himself and his conduct in the true light, 
 and the consequence was immediate revulsion of feeling, 
 determination to forsake the past and change his relation 
 to his father. But Paul represents a like change in our 
 relations to God, we are told, as not of our will but wholly 
 of divine grace, ^Taith is the gift of God."(^) Xo doubt 
 there is a sense in which this is true; everything we have 
 and are is God's gracious gift. Sight is the gift of God, 
 but God does not see for us ; food is the gift of God, but 
 we must procure food for ourselves and eat it for our- 
 selves. Capacity of trust is God's gift, but exercise of 
 trust in a particular case is our act. God does not save 
 us by any miracle. He does not snatch us as brands from 
 the burning, or rescue us from the slough of evil, and at 
 once place us on the pinnacle of righteousness. Witli his 
 aid, to be sure, but by our own effort, we must painfully 
 climb from the depths to the heights. Salvation must be 
 won, not given, and no other salvation would be worth 
 having, even if it were possible. 
 
 That is common sense and sound psychology and Chris- 
 tian experience. Paul's teaching is not irreconcilable with 
 it, if fairly interpreted ; but it has been given an interpre- 
 tation for many generations that makes it totally contra- 
 dictory of our consciousness. If God produces or compels 
 or gives faith, it is his faith, not ours. 
 
 Paul's first premise in working out his doctrine of sal- 
 
 (^) Eph. 2:8. 
 
PAUL THE. CHRISTIAN RABBI 1G9 
 
 vation was : The wrath of God impends over a sinful world, 
 which he will soon bring to judgment. The way of de- 
 liverance from this wrath has been provided by the mercy 
 of God, through the deatli of His Soii^ whieli constitutes 
 a propitiation for the w^orld's sin, because of its sacrificial 
 efficacy. The method of deliverance is ''faith," or glad 
 and thankful acceptance of this sacrifice that divine love 
 in the Father conceived and divine love in the Son con- 
 summated. On the ground of this faith, God holds the 
 sinner to be ''justified"(') or acquitted at the bar of jus- 
 tice, the rigliteousness of Christ being by a legal fiction at- 
 tributed or ' 'imputed" to him. The result is a new man, 
 who brings forth the ''fruits of the Spirit," conduct and 
 character such as a man delivered from sin should exhibit. 
 
 Dante endeavors to improve on the theologians in his 
 statement of this forensic view of salvation, in his De 
 Monarcliia. In the conclusion of the second book he 
 elaborately argues that Jesus, by suffering under the sen- 
 tence of Pilate, delegate and servant of the Emperor, and 
 so the agent of a worldwide imperium, made salvation 
 certain. For all mankind were sinners through the fall 
 of Adam, and so a penalty inflicted by one who had juris- 
 diction over less than the entire human race, would have 
 been insufficient to atone for the sins of all men. In at- 
 tempting to strengthen Paul's argument, Dante has very 
 efl^ectively reduced it to absurdity. iN'o such frigid and 
 rigid calculations can be admitted into modern theology, 
 liowever germane they may have seemed to the mediaeval. 
 
 Another part of the theological notion of sin cannot 
 fairly be charged to Paul, namely, the doctrine known as 
 "total depravity." Total depravity is a doctrine equally 
 slanderous to Paul and to human nature. It is violently 
 
 (M In the Jewish and Roman law of Paul's time, "justification" 
 was the acquittal of the accused by the jud<i:e. It was not pardon of 
 an offence, hut a declaration that he was not gruilty of oflVnce. Paul 
 uses this procedure to describe and illustrate the Christian's ex- 
 perience in the forgiveness of sins. 
 
170 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 opposed to facts of consciousness and expirience, even in 
 its milder interpretation, not that every man is as bad as 
 he can be, but that in every part of his nature he is cor- 
 rupted by sin, so that he can do nothing good. Conscious- 
 ness testifies clearly that we can do good, that we do achieve 
 good, that good and bad are intermingled in every char- 
 acter and in every man's conduct. If it is true that we 
 inherit a bias toward evil from our parents, it is equally 
 true that we inherit a bias toward good ; our parents trans- 
 mit to us characters, as well as estates — capitalized virtue, 
 no less than capitalized wealth. 
 
 On the whole, it must be concluded, even after making 
 all possible allowance for misunderstanding and distortion 
 by interpreters, that the difference between Jesus and Paul 
 regarding sin and salvation is a very real one, beginning 
 in their fundamental ideas and extending through all de- 
 tails. Paul's salvation is a scheme for the deliverance of 
 individuals, not of society. It does not aim at the cstiil;- 
 lishment of a Kingdom of God on earth, but definitely 
 postpones the realization of that Kingdom to the world to 
 come, in the saying that ^^flesh and blood cannot inherit 
 the Kingdom of God."(^) A social religion was wholly 
 outside the ideas of the great apostle to the Gentiles; but 
 it was the chief message of Jesus to the world. 
 
 Ill 
 
 From his idea of God's Fatherhood and universal love, 
 Jesus proceeded to his teaching concerning God's provi- 
 dence, or care for all his children. That poetic and elo- 
 quent passage in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning, 
 ^'Be not anxious for your life,"(") is perhaps his fullest 
 exposition of his thought, but it finds frequent briefer ex- 
 pression in his other discourses: 
 
 (M 1 Cor. 15:50. 
 
 ( = ) Matt. 0:25; cf. Luke 12:22. 
 
PAUL THE CIIRISTIAX RABBI • 171 
 
 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, 
 
 And not one of tlicm will fall on the ground without 
 jour Father. 
 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered: 
 
 So do not fear — you are worth more than many spar- 
 rows. (^) 
 
 So when he sent out his disciples two by two to pro- 
 claim the Kingdom of God through the towns of Galilee, 
 he bade them trust in God's providence. In this case, 
 God's care for them was to be shown through the love and 
 hospitality of their brothers: 
 
 Heal sick, raise dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons: 
 
 You received without pay, give without pay. 
 Take no gold or silver or copper in your girdles, 
 
 No handbag for the journey, nor change of clothing. 
 Neither sandals nor staff, 
 For the worker is worthy of his food.(-) 
 
 Paul also strongly emphasizes the providence of God 
 in the case of believers: 'Tor we know that all things 
 work together for good to them that love God" — but, as 
 the words following show, this is a corollary, not from 
 the love of God for all his creatures, but from God's elec- 
 tion of a few to a special grace ; for the apostle adds, '*to 
 them that are called according to his purpose." (^) This 
 doctrine of the div^ine election is, according to many in- 
 terpreters of Paul, his distinctive teaching, and it lies at 
 the basis of that system of theology known as Calvinism. 
 
 Election, according to these interpreters, is the appoint- 
 ment of some men to eternal life, which logically implie-^ 
 that others are not elect and so cannot attain to eternal 
 life. Election depends upon the divine sovereignty; it 
 is the unconditioned exercise of the divine will, wdiicli it 
 is impious to question. Luther even maintained that this 
 act of will must be conceived as purely arbitrary and with- 
 
 rTMatt. 10:29-31. 
 (-) Matt. 10:5-10. 
 (■') Rom. 8:28. 
 
172 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 out reason, on the ground that to make God's will depend 
 on reason would be to suppose something higher than God. 
 To maintain God's sovereignty, therefore, we must firmly 
 hold that he acts irrationally! ^N'ot all interpreters have 
 drawn so extreme a conclusion from the illustration that 
 Paul borrowed from Jeremiah (^) about the potter and 
 his clay. The apostle repeats the prophet's question, ^'Has 
 not the potter a right over the clay?" May he not make 
 of it whatever seems good to him ? A vessel for honor or 
 a vessel for dishonor, a vessel for use or a vessel for de- 
 struction ?(-) And t]ie answer is not Yes, but No, for 
 men are not clay, not inanimate things with which man or 
 God may do whatever pleases, but creatures made in God's 
 image, whom, since has has made them such, God is Ixnuid 
 by his own character of goodness and justice to treat 
 ethically. 
 
 If the ninth of Romans were, as so many have inter- 
 preted it, an unqualified assertion of God's right to deal 
 with men as he pleases, we could not receive from Paul or 
 any other such a doctrine of God without serious modifica- 
 tion. God's "rights" are the right to be God and the 
 right to act like God. It is not in accord with God's cliar- 
 acter, as Jesus has revealed him to us, to refuse mercy to 
 any. We must seek a better exegesis of Paul. If we 
 study this chapter without theological prepossessions, we 
 shall see clearly that it is of the nature of an argumentum 
 ad hominem, a rebuke to Jewish racial prejudice and re- 
 ligious conceit. Then we shall not try to draw from it 
 consequences that Paul has himself repudiated elsewhere. 
 
 For Paul is nearly as emphatic as Jesus himself in 
 proclaiming the universal love and mercy of God. ISToth- 
 ing could be more explicit than his word to Timothy about 
 "God our Saviour, who would have all men to be saved 
 and come to the knowledge of the truth." (""') And if any 
 
 n'jer. 18:2. 
 
 (-) Rom. 9:21. 
 
 (') 1 Tim. 2 A; cf. 2 Pet. 3:9. 
 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABBI 
 
 173 
 
 doubt whether these are genuine words of Paul, they surely 
 cannot question his assertion to the Corinthians that ''God 
 was in Christ reconciling the world to himself," (^) which 
 he repeats to the Colossians in nearly the same words, that 
 it was God's pleasure that in Christ should all the fulness 
 dwell ''and through him to reconcile all things unto him- 
 self . . . whether things on the earth or things in 
 the heavens." (^) ^or can any sane interpretation, other 
 than the desire of God for all men's salvation, be placed 
 on the arijument in the fifth of Romans, especially in 
 verses 12-21, where an elaborate parallel is drawn between 
 the effect of Adam's sin on the race and the effect of 
 Christ's righteousness — the one as universal as the other. 
 This represents an ideal of salvation, no doubt, not the 
 fact, but an ideal that cannot possibly be reconciled with 
 God's having w^illed that any man shall lose eternal lifo. 
 Calvin would not only set Paul at variance with Jesus, 
 but makes Paul quarrel with Paul. 
 
 This notion of an election of the few to salvation and 
 the many to damnation is not a Christian idea, but a Jew- 
 ish. Both Jesus and Paul had to contend with it and did 
 contend with it. The Jews were absolutely certain that 
 they were an elect people, the special favorites of God, 
 marked out from all others as peculiar recipients of Je- 
 hovah's mercy. They quoted with unction the saying of 
 their great Lawgiver: "For thou art a holy people to 
 Jehovah thy God; Jehovah thy God has chosen thee to 
 be a special people to himself from all the peoples that 
 are on the face of the earth." ('"') Thv whole world wa- 
 
 (M 2 Cor. 5:19. 
 
 {') Col. 1:20. 
 
 (') Doiit. 7:6 and re])eate(l in 14:2. But this was the voice of 
 the Law, of priestly ori^fin. Had they read their prophets better, 
 the Jews would have had less of this conceit: "Verily you are not 
 better to me, men of Israel, than the Kushites. saith Jehovah. I 
 did indeed lead forth the Israelites from Eiirypt, but I also led forth 
 the Philistines from Kaphtor, and the Arameans from Kir." Amos, 
 9:7. 
 
174 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ultimately to be theirs and Messiah's kingdom was to be 
 an everlasting kingdom. In the sure Avord of prophecy 
 they beheld the coming world dominion of the Jewish race, 
 as the Eoman then dominated the world. Salvation was 
 for the Jew: the Gentile had no part or lot in it. That 
 they were made a special people by God in order to be 
 custodians and stewards of his grace, that they were a 
 nation elect to be a blessing to the Gentiles whom they 
 despised, was clearly said in their sacred writings, but 
 never understood by them; and whatever glimmerings of 
 truth the prophets had led some to see had faded out of 
 mind long ago. Nothing but religious conceit and arro- 
 gance was left in the mind of a Jew of Paul's generation. 
 It was these ideas that Jesus found to be insuperable 
 obstacles to success in his mission, and he vigorously com- 
 batted them on every appropriate occasion. In his dis- 
 course at N'azareth he antagonized this national conceit 
 with great boldness aud energy: 
 
 But I tell you truly, there were many widows in Israel in 
 Elijah's days, when the heaven w^as shut up three years and 
 six months, when a great famine came over all the land ; and 
 to no one of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in 
 the land of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow. And there 
 were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; 
 and no one of them was cleansed, but only ISTaaman the 
 Syrian. 
 
 This rebuke of their ])ride produced a quick and violent 
 reaction among his hearers: those who at first had won- 
 dered at the gracious words of Jesus were turned by this 
 discourse into an angry and murderous mob. 
 
 On the other hand, theologians have professed to draw 
 from the writings of Paul a doctrine of election in violent 
 contrast to that of Jesus, not to say contradiction — an 
 election of some men to eternal life and others to eternal 
 deatli, a choice having no ethical basis but only the arbi- 
 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABCI 175 
 
 trary good pleasure of the Almighty; a decree that has 
 condemned the majority of every generation to eternal 
 misery, and that will continue so to condemn them to the 
 end of time. This is the most frightful doctrine that the 
 intellect of man has ever conceived — even Calvin had the 
 grace to declare it ''horrible/' while he maintained it to 
 be true. And the real, Simon-pure Calvinism insists that, 
 in the eternal counsels of God, this decree to elect preceded 
 the decree to create ; so that God deliberately brought the 
 human race into existence with the express purpose of 
 damning the greater part of it. This doctrine imputes 
 to God a cruelty more fiendish than even a Kaiser and 
 his minions were able to devise; yet as a climax its advo- 
 cates have the impudence to say that this is all for the 
 ''glory" of God! The blasphemy of such a doctrine is 
 even gi*eater than its horror. Where is the loving Father 
 of Jesus, who does not will that one of his little ones shall 
 perish ? Ah, says the Calvinist, the "little ones" of Jesus 
 are the "elect" of Paul. But, dear sir, who told you so ? 
 JSTeither Jesus nor Paul, of a certainty. 
 
 Election of some to life and of some to death is a doc- 
 trine utterly incompatible with the conception of God as 
 Father, and not easy to reconcile even with the idea of 
 God as King. A father must have no favorites among his 
 children ; a king should treat all his subjects with impar- 
 tial justice. True, fathers do have favorite children and 
 kings are often unjust; but that is because men are fal- 
 lible and peccable. We recognize and condemn such 
 things as shortcomings, failures to realize our highest 
 ideals of even earthly relations; how then do we dare at- 
 tribute them to God? According to Jesus, man is by 
 nature the child of God and never loses this status, though 
 he may ignore or deny it. However far the country into 
 which he may wander, it is always open to him to return 
 to his Father and be reinstated in home and love. The- 
 ology sees in man one who is by nature a child of wrath. 
 
17G FUNDAMENTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 
 
 the object of God's abhorrence and vengeance. A few be- 
 come adopted sons, by the Father's choice, just as, in Ro- 
 man law, one not a son by blood became one in law by 
 act of the paterfamilias. 
 
 If such could be shown to be the teaching of Paul, he 
 could no longer be accepted as a religious teacher of the 
 Christian world. The God of orthodoxy can no more be 
 ours than the German God. The day is long past when 
 such a theology can be believed. We know today that 
 Jesus understood God better than John Calvin did. But 
 it is by no means certain that such theology is contained 
 in Paul's writings, fairly interpreted ; he has had fathered 
 upon him many things that he never taught, for which he 
 should not be held responsible. Paul does teach a doctrine 
 of election, not an election to eternal life or death, but an 
 election to service. God has chosen all men to salvation, 
 but he has chosen a certain few to be the special means of 
 making salvation known and available to the rest. In one 
 stmse all Israel was so chosen, ''because to them were com- 
 mitted the oracles of God." The divine election was not 
 for the salvation of the elect, but for the salvation of men 
 generally. In Abraham, not merely his desceiidants, but 
 all the nations were to be blessed. 
 
 Theology has hitherto been a deductive science like ge- 
 ometry, a system logically perfect, a chain of inferences 
 from a few definitions and axioms. Tlieology sliouhi be 
 an inductive science, like physics or chemistry. Human 
 experience of what God and man are should furnish its 
 fimdamental material, from which its first principles 
 should be obtained by induction. Deduction should be 
 limited to inferences j)ropei-ly drawn from these materials. 
 So, for example, a doctrine of divine decrees cannot Ix* 
 deducted from assumed facts about God and his plans, or 
 metaphysical speculations about his mental processes, or 
 from assumptions regarding a divine "nature" of which 
 we know less than nothing; what God has "decreed" must 
 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABBl 177 
 
 be learned by patient induction from the facts of nature 
 and history, in which he has given us the only trustworthy 
 revelation of himself. The Bible is of course a most im- 
 portant part of this historical revelation, but it is not the 
 whole. 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 
 
 It is in regard to the forgiveness of sins that Jesus and 
 Paul differ most. So little was Jesus a theologian, that in 
 regard to all the ''great doctrines" — esteemed so essential 
 by theologians, ancient and modern, that to deny them is 
 to deprive one of right to call himself a Christian — the 
 nominal founder of Christianity either said nothing at all, 
 or so little and so vaguely as to make it impossible to 
 say just what he did mean. Impossible, of course, for 
 any but a theologian. And the theologians by no means 
 agree among themselves as to what he did mean, while 
 agreeing that he meant something. It is sheer fact, with 
 no whit of exaggeration, that if we had for the documents 
 of our religion only the Gospels, nobody could formulate 
 a Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity, Predestination, Orig- 
 inal Sin, Atonement or Justification by faith. What most 
 people call ''the gospel" is not in the Gospels. 
 
 It is to Paul that we must turn for material out of whieh 
 to formulate these doctrines. He teaches a doctrine of 
 Atonement, in distinction from Jesus, (^) who teaches only 
 the fact that the Atonement is supposed to explain and 
 justify — the fact, namely, that God forgives sins. Jesus 
 teaches nothing formally and systematically, but his ideas 
 
 (^) It is no doubt true that theologians, having drawn from ex- 
 traneous sources a doctrine of vicarious sacrifice and expiation of sin, 
 have read this back into some of the words of Jesus. It is incon- 
 trovertible, however, that, had we the words of Jesus only, no doc- 
 trine of vicarious atonement would ever have been invented. 
 
 178 
 
PAUL THE SrECULATIVE TJLEOLOGIAX ITO 
 
 are unmistakable. Forgiveness of sins, as he looks at it, 
 is the restoration of the relation of Father and sons which 
 has been interrupted, but not destroyed, by wroni>-(loin,G'. 
 The Old Testament correctly represents this transaction 
 nnder several different figures : 
 
 Yea, thou wilt cast into the depths of the sea all our sins. — 
 Mi. 7:19. 
 
 For thou hast cast all my sins behind thv back. — Isa. 
 38:17. 
 
 Thou didst take away the iniquity of thy people, 
 
 Didst cover all their sins. — Ps. 85 :2. 
 
 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, 
 
 And, as a cloud, thy sins. — Isa. 44:23. 
 
 In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of 
 David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for 
 uncleanness. — Zech. 13:1. 
 
 For I will forgive their guilt and their sin will I remember 
 no more. — Jer. 31 :34. 
 
 As a consequence of the divine forgiveness, we are re- 
 ceived into the same intimate and loving relations with 
 our Father as if we had never sinned. Jesus says nothing 
 that implies any power in forgiveness to restore lost in- 
 nocence, or undo the effects of sin, or annul penalty. The 
 father of the parable could and did restore the wanderer 
 to his place as son in the household, but not all liis h)ve 
 could restore the innocence of youth or give back those 
 wasted years or make good the squandered inheritance. 
 
 Forgiveness is a personal act ; it restores status ; it does 
 not directly affect character; it cannot alter the past. The- 
 ologians have confused personal relationship, always sub- 
 ject to change, with accomplished facts that are unchange- 
 able. They have not discriminated the unrighteousness of 
 sin from its penalty, and popular theology shows, as might 
 be expected, more confusion of ideas than systematic. 
 Jesus sharply makes these discriminations. lie shows us 
 
180 FUNBxVMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 that God is willing to forgive just as soon as the erring 
 child will let himself be forgiven; and his forgiveness is 
 free and unconditional, restoring the child completely to 
 his former status. More than this God cannot do; the 
 sinner must bear the penalty of his misdeeds ; and he must 
 painfully work out for himself a new character. Here 
 God can help ; he cannot give. 
 
 Jesus shows that the forgiveness of God is exactly like 
 man's in quality, when he commands his disciples to for- 
 give one another. We are to forgive our erring brother 
 ^ 'until seventy times seven," that is, without limit. And 
 the reason assigned is, because God's mercy to us is limit- 
 less. The principle is stated in many forms, of which 
 this is one: 
 
 But love your enemies and do them good, 
 And lend never despairing; 
 And your reward will be great, 
 And you will be sons of the Most High I 
 
 For he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.(^) 
 
 Even the one word of Jesus that seems to indicate an 
 implacable attitude on God's part toward any. 
 
 The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be 
 forgiven , 
 
 is misunderstood when it is taken in that sense. This 
 sin is unforgivable, not because the sin is so heinous that 
 the mercy of God here reaches its impassable limit, but 
 because the nature of the sin is proof of a fixed state of 
 wickedness and hatred of God that makes reception of 
 forgiveness impossible. One who blasphemes the Holy 
 Spirit desires no forgiveness, will not let himself be for- 
 given. Here is also the key to the parable of the Pharisee 
 and Publican. God was no less willing to forgive one 
 than the other; but the Publican sought forgiveness and 
 obtained it, while tlie proud Pharisee would not bo for- 
 
 (^) Luke 0:36. 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 181 
 
 given since he had no consciousness that he needed for- 
 giveness. (^) 
 
 When we forgive a man who has wronged us, we do not 
 require him to pay any penalty, either in person or by 
 proxy. AVe just forgive him, take him back into our con- 
 fidence and love as if nothing had happened, and strive 
 so to forget wliat he has done that in time it fades out of 
 memory altogether. But along comes the theologian and 
 tells us that analogies drawn from human forgiveness are 
 misleading when applied to God's. God, the theologian 
 assures us, is a Being of infinite holiness, and sin against 
 him is an infinite wrong, deserving therefore an infinite 
 penalty. And God cannot forgive as man does, for, be- 
 cause his holiness is infinite, somebody must pay this in- 
 finite penalty. But why? What do we really know of 
 these ^'infinites" about which the theologian talks so glibly ? 
 Theology ju2:gles with words as children play with "jack- 
 stones." A good part of theology is no more than an in- 
 tellectual game, and auioug its bio* words, with their vague, 
 shadowy, indefinite meanings, one searches in vain for 
 something like reality and certain knowledge. 
 
 If a mere sinful man is under ethical obligation to for- 
 give his brother seventy times seven, is a holy Being en- 
 tirely freed from that obligation merely because he is 
 "infinite,'' whatever that may mean ? The holier a Beina: 
 is, and the more "infinite" he is, the more ethically obli- 
 gated he should seem to be to forgive, and if his holiness 
 is perfect his forgiveness should be boundless. That is 
 the only sound reasoning from what wo know of thc^ 
 finite to the unknown and unknowable "infinite." And 
 when we speak of God's "obligation" we mean, of course, 
 an obligation from Avithin himself, that he can be nothing 
 else than what he is, perfectly good, hence perfectly mer- 
 ciful. Why is there an ethical obligation on man to for- 
 
 (M Luke 18:10 sq. 
 
182 ruNDA.MENTALS OF ciieistia:^ity 
 
 give ? Jesus says, because God forgives. As our great 
 poet has it, mercy 
 
 is an attribute to God himself, 
 And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
 When mercy tempers justice. 
 
 Jesus even declares God's forgiveness to be exactly like 
 man's, for he bade his disciples pray, 'Torgive us our 
 debts, as we have forgiven our debtors" ; and in addition 
 assured them : 
 
 For if you forgive men their trespasses, 
 
 Your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.(^) 
 
 And in these cases the words ^^as" and '^also" mean '^in 
 the same manner." 
 
 II 
 
 One of the chief functions of Jesus, the greatest in the 
 mind of Paul, was to assure men of the love of God and 
 his willingness to forgive sin. But Jesus did not change 
 the nature of God; he only revealed God more fully to 
 the world. He did not devise any new machinery for the 
 forgiveness of sins ; he only taught men to rely more con- 
 fidently on their Heavenly Father's love. God always 
 forgave sins ; he forgives sins now ; he always will forgive 
 sins. He forgives because he is God, our Father in 
 Heaven. And Jesus is as explicit in what he teaches 
 about the ground of forgiveness, as he is about the fact: 
 God does not forgive because sins have been expiated, but 
 because he loves us. He does not hate men; he never 
 hated men; he never needed to be placated; because he 
 loves all men and has always loved them. 
 
 Not only Jesus, but apostles and prophets, speak with 
 one voice in this matter. ^'Herein is love: not that we 
 loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the 
 
 (') Matt. G:14. 
 
PAUL TKE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 1S3 
 
 propitiation for our sins.''(0 ^^^^s I live, says tlie Lord 
 Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; 
 but that the wicked turn from his way and live."(^) Of 
 course there are texts that can be given a different sense, 
 but the prevailing testimony of Old Testament and JSTew 
 is to the abounding love and mercy of God. The heresy 
 of all heresies is the doctrine that God was once in a state 
 of vengeful w^rath against man, that demanded somehow to 
 be appeased. There was never any excuse for such a 
 heresy, wdien the Scriptures explicitly declared that God 
 was never so estranged from man that He needed to be 
 reconciled. The orthodox theology since the time of Au- 
 gustine, and perhaps before also, has been a criminal libel 
 on the nature of God — criminal because the theologians 
 deliberately closed eyes and ears to the declaration, ''God 
 is love." For their crime there is no excuse, though there 
 must be forgiveness. 
 
 Paul has been made the scapegoat for this theological 
 crime ; theologians have professed to draw most of their 
 material from him. But Paul is not guilty; at least, he 
 is only partially guilty; much that is found in historic 
 Paulinism is not Pauline. The core of Paul's "gospel," 
 as we have seen, was a message of forgiveness and redemp- 
 tion through trust in Christ, not through deeds of law. 
 ''The word of reconciliation" was an inseparable element 
 of the Pauline gospel from the first, but it was only gradu- 
 ally that the simple gospel became a theological system. 
 For their perversion of the apostle's teaching, the the- 
 ologians of a later age were able to make plausible appeal 
 to his fundamental idea of God, as Sovereign, Lawgiver, 
 Judge. He was so conscious of his own failure to attain 
 salvation by works of Law that at times he thought God 
 was angry with him, and with all other men as like sin- 
 ners. An angry God must be placated; the sacredness 
 
 C) 1 John 4:10. 
 C) Eze. 33:11. 
 
184 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 of Law demanded payment of penalty by somebody, if not 
 by the sinner himself, then by somebody else in his behalf. 
 So God set Christ forth ''as a propitiation through faith 
 in his blood, for the exhibition of his righteousness." (^) 
 God, in the apprehension of Paul, could forgive sins only 
 in view of the fact that Christ through his vicarious death 
 had paid the penalty of sin. Through an act of trust in 
 Jesus, the merit of this sacrifice is transferred to the sin- 
 ner and his sins are forgiven. This is historic Paulinism. 
 But Jesus says nothing about his agency in procuring 
 the forgiveness of sins. He does not so much as hint that 
 God is ready to forgive only because of something that he 
 has done or is about to do. In all the teaching of Jesus, 
 man's soul stands face-to-face with God. Immediate com- 
 munion with God, unmediated forgiveness by a Father 
 who loves, was the great Message of Jesus to the world : 
 I say not to you that I will pray the Father for you. 
 For the Father himself loves you.(^) 
 A doctrine of the atonement must be, therefore, largely 
 extra-scriptural and entirely outside of the teachings of 
 Jesus. Consequently attempts to state such a doctrine 
 have been many and contradictory. Only a single saying 
 of Jesus can be fairly quoted in favor of any theory, and 
 that is the remark that he had come ''to give his life a 
 ransom for many."' Even if we say "give his life" is the 
 same thing as "give his death," which is more than doubt- 
 ful exegesis, is it credible that Jesus meant to teach that 
 crude military theory of the atonement held by some of 
 the early Fathers: that the devil had acquired possession 
 of mankind through sin, so that men were his lawful cap- 
 tives, and Jesus could purchase their release only by dying 
 as a ransom for them? Or that hardly less crude mer- 
 cantile theory, like the balancing of accounts in a heavenly 
 ledger — so much blood of Christ over against so much sin 
 
 rTRom. 3:25. 
 
 C) John 16:26. , ,' 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 185 
 
 of man ? If not these things, then what did Jesus mean ? 
 We do not know.(^) It is an isolated saying of his, a 
 metaphor on which no light is thrown by other words. But 
 hoAv slender basis for a doctrine of atonement, this single 
 metaphor of doubtful significance! 
 
 This is the only saying of Jesus that may be fairly 
 quoted as bearing on a doctrine of atonement; but there 
 is another saying that has been unfairly pressed into serv- 
 ice. In the account of the institution of the eucharist, 
 Mark quotes Jesus as saying of the cup, ''This is the blood 
 of the covenant, which is poured out for many." The 
 other Synoptics, with slight variations of no particular siji- 
 nificance (Luke's ''new" covenant is the most striking) 
 give the same words; but Matthew alone adds, "unto re- 
 mission of sins." As to this apparent connecting of the 
 forgiveness of sins wdth the death of Jesus, two things 
 are to be said: first, that these words, occurring only in 
 tlie latest Synoptic, are almost certainly the accretion of 
 tradition to what Jesus actually said; and, secondly, even 
 if Jesus actually did speak these words, it is possible, even 
 I^robable, that he meant nothing more than that the shed- 
 ding of his blood, the offering of his life, would result in 
 bringing to men deliverance from sin — which all Chris- 
 tians admit to be the fact. 
 
 For no means can be conceived so potent as his own 
 voluntary and gaiiltless death, by which Jesus could cre- 
 ate in his followers then and for all time that lofty type 
 of character which gladly renounces self and welcomes 
 death for others as the highest privilege, the crown of 
 Christian service. It is the spectacle of that death that 
 
 (^) There^ can be little doubt that this saying of Jesus is an echo 
 of Tsaiah, whose depiction of the sufferinsf Servant of Jehovah made 
 a deep impression on his mind. As to the fact of tlie life and death 
 of Jesus constituting a "ransom" for men, that is to say, actual 
 deliverance from sin, no follower of his would dispute it. Jesus 
 has delivered men from sin; he has reconciled men to Cod; being 
 lifted up, he has drawn all men to himself. But how? That is 
 where men differ. 
 
186 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 has ever since led men to repentance, change of mind and 
 will toward God and man, a definite break with the old 
 life and the entering on a new life, marked by unselfish 
 love. And this new life, which Jesus came to impart to 
 men abundantly, is salvation, deliverance from sin. For 
 unselfish love is deliverance of man from all evil and the 
 rock foundation of all good. 
 
 But while Jesus cannot fairly be made to support any 
 theory of atonement, Paul's teaching may quite plausibly 
 be made to support the Grotian or governmental theory, 
 whether the apostle so intended or not. His argument in 
 Rom. 3 :21-26 is very like the Grotian demonstration that 
 the death of Christ made it ^^safe" for the Ruler of the 
 world to forgive sin without impairing the majesty of his 
 law. But nothing is clearer to any student of theological 
 thought than that it would be wasted time to advance crit- 
 ical objections against any theory of the atonement, for 
 the various doctrines confute each other in turn. Grotius 
 undermines Anselm, and Abelard and Socinus undermine 
 both. Efforts have been made in recent years to construct 
 some sort of ^^ethicaF' theory, that will combine the merits 
 of all and avoid the defects of each, but with no very grati- 
 fying results. 
 
 The difficulty with all theories regarding atonement is 
 with the very idea of atonement, if that means (as it 
 nearly always does) anything like expiation of sin, trans- 
 ference of penalty, and other like notions, which are 
 neither Christian nor Jewish, but pure pagan. Nothing 
 but ignorance of the real nature of ^'^moral laws'' could 
 have led men to suppose that ethical penalty could be 
 either escaped or transferred. ^NTothing but such ignorance 
 could have made men suppose that extra-ethical sanctions 
 of a future order (the pains of hell) were necessary to 
 ensure a penalty for sin, but for which the ways of evil 
 might be trodden with impunity. Orthodoxy appreciates 
 neither sin nor virtue. Theories of the atonement fail 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 187 
 
 because they are pitched in too low an ethical key. There 
 was doubtless a time when men were inclined to take a 
 too easy view of moral evil and to regard their transgres- 
 sions as mere peccadillos. It then did them good to be 
 told of a God whose anger burned against sinners, and of 
 a forgiveness of sins that was possible only because some 
 one had borne the sinner's penalty for him. But Jesus 
 gave us higher teaching regarding God, lifted the race 
 permanently to a loftier ethical level, and made these 
 crude views henceforth untenable. It has taken many 
 centuries fully to realize this, and a large part of the fol- 
 lowers of Jesus have not yet realized it, but are still ob- 
 sessed by the ideas of a darker time. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Paul's doctrine of the atonement, in its simplest form, 
 was, ^'He died for our sins according to the Scriptures." 
 But what did Jesus say of bis death and its significance ? 
 In most instances he speaks of his coming death merely 
 as a fact. Only in one case, already considered, do his 
 words point to any significance in his death. His plain- 
 est words about the meaning and effect of his death are: 
 
 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, 
 
 So must the Son of Man be lifted up, 
 That everyone who trusts in him may not perish, 
 
 But have eternal Life. (^) 
 
 When you shall lift up the Son of Man 
 Then you will know that I am he.(-) 
 
 And I, if I 'be lifted up from the earth, will win to myself 
 all men.(^) 
 
 But the utmost that Jesus says in such cases is that bis 
 
 (') John ."^iH, 15. 
 ( = ) 8:28. 
 (=") 12:32. 
 
188 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 death will convince men that he is indeed the Messiah, 
 the Saviour of men, and that the effect of his death will 
 therefore be to draw all men to him. So far as this bears 
 on the atonement, it is distinctly favorable to the ''moral 
 influence" theory, which Abelard was the first to propound 
 and Horace Bushnell has been foremost to advocate in 
 our day. It is not his death which Jesus says will have 
 power to save men. but his words: 
 
 I say these things to you that you may be saved. (^) 
 The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (-) 
 
 His own view of the significance of his death, Jesus 
 probably gave most definitely in his parable of the vine- 
 yard. (^) As Son of God, climax of a long line of proph- 
 ets, he was killed because men's selfish interests were op- 
 posed to his mission. Death was the inevitable end of his 
 work. To be sure, a single parable should not be assumed 
 to give an exhaustive exposition of truth, but at any rate, 
 there is no hint of expiation or ransom here. 
 
 It is maintained by some that Jesus does hint at the 
 Pauline doctrine of atonement, if he does not explicitly 
 teach it, in what he says of the cross. Jesus has two say- 
 ings, and only two, about the cross, which he repeats in 
 varied forms at different times. The first has already 
 been cited: it is about his own cross, and it has, as we 
 have just seen, no sacrificial or propitiatory significance. 
 The other saying has to do with the cross of his disciples : 
 "Whosoever does not bear his own cross and come after 
 me, cannot be my disciple." Man crucified with Christ, 
 not Christ crucified for man, is the doctrine of the cross 
 in the teaching of Jesu^. The true doctrine of the cross 
 therefore is the supreme beauty of a life of self-devotion 
 to others — self -surrender so complete that it does not 
 shrink from ''the Jast full measure of devotion" ; and that 
 
 n~John 5:34. 
 
 C) John 6:63. 
 
 C*) Matt. 21:33-44. 
 
PAUL TJIE SPECULATIVE TIIEOLOGIAI^ 189 
 
 all who would have fellowship with the joys and glories 
 of the Kingdom must follow Jesns in the hard and thorny 
 path of utter renunciation of self. 
 
 The same idea fills a large place in Paul's writings. "I 
 am crucified with Christ," he tells the Galatians;(^) and 
 to the Corinthians he speaks of ^'always carrying about 
 in the body the dying of Jesus." (^) He elaborates the 
 thought in many of his letters : he is to die w^ith Christ in 
 order to rise with him;(^) he follows after, so that he may 
 know the sufi^erings of Christ and be conformed to his 
 death ;(*) through Christ the world is crucified to him and 
 he to the world ;(^) and he insists that our hope of sharing 
 the glory of Christ is based on the fact that we have first 
 shared the passion of Christ's self-sacrificing love. (^) But 
 this doctrine of the cross has no relation to atonement. 
 Christian people have, in fact, nearly evacuated this say- 
 ing of all significance by their silly custom of calling every 
 disagi'eeable duty "taking up the cross." The metaphor 
 cannot be misunderstood save by wilfulness; it is what 
 Jesus called on other occasions "renouncing life" or self. 
 The cross w^as the instrument of death, and the condemned 
 criminal bore his own cross to the place of execution, as 
 Jesus did. 
 
 This doctrine of the cross is fundamental in the teach- 
 ing of Jesus, but though it may properly enough be de- 
 scribed as a doctrine of sacrifice, it is not a doctrine of 
 expiation. It may even be called vicarious sacrifice, for 
 though Jesus does not say a word about expiation, he does 
 say much about the redemptive love that always involves 
 the sutTering of the righteous for the wicked, the innocent 
 for and with the guilty. And this is because he con- 
 
 (^) Gal. 2:20. 
 
 n 2 Cor. 4:10. 
 
 (') Rom. 6:4, 8. 
 
 {*) Phil. 3:10. 
 
 {') Gal. 6:14. 
 
 (•) 2 Cor. 1:7; Rom. 8:17. 
 
190 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 ceives salvation in social terms, not in individual. Vicari- 
 ous suffering runs all through life, and finds its supreme 
 expression upon the cross of Calvary. 
 
 But in Paul's view of Christ's death some find expi- 
 atory significance. His doctrine of atonement was worked 
 out to solve his own personal problem, which he assumed 
 to be the problem of all other men, because all other men 
 are like himself, sinners. And that problem was. How 
 could God's Anointed die a shameful death? How could 
 God condemn his Son to the cross? It seemed to Paul 
 that no other explanation was possible, or at least that no 
 other was adequate, except that Christ's death was for the 
 sins of men. The Jewish sacrifices suggested a ready ex- 
 planation, one that w^as indubitable in the mind of one 
 trained under that system: Jesus was the one great Offer- 
 ing by which the sins of mankind were expiated. "He 
 bore our sins in his own body on the tree," as prophets 
 had foretold, as Temple sacrifices had prefigured. 
 
 But Paul's personal problem does not concern us in the 
 least. To us it appears natural, not abhorrent, that Jesus 
 should die. Even if it were no more than the death of 
 any martyr, the death of Jesus rewrote in red all that he 
 had ever taught. And so the reasoning of Paul does not 
 fit our case, and therefore it fails to convince. Especially 
 do we revolt from his idea of sacrificial expiation. The 
 whole notion of appeasing God by the sacrifice of animals, 
 the entire machinery of altars and priests and rivers of 
 blood, has not a point of contact with the present day think- 
 ing and feeling. The moment we make an effort of imag- 
 ination to realize what it really was, our gorge rises. 
 Paul appeals to a state of mind that has forever passed 
 away — at least, among civilized peoples, though his the- 
 ology may still be helpful to African savages. 
 
 Sacrifices are a fine mixture of popular superstition 
 and priestly imposture. Only superstition could have 
 made so many nations for so many ages imagine that the 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 191 
 
 slaughtering of animals might propitiate a divine Being, 
 or remove guilt from a man. And only priestly imposture 
 could have been equal to persuading men of all races and 
 colors for so many generations that God or the gods had 
 ever commanded men to offer sacrifices. (^) Whenever 
 and wherever men have achieved a stage of civilization 
 that enabled them to think rationally, sacrificial systems 
 have inevitably withered and died. Beginning in the twi- 
 light of the race, they could not bear the light of noon- 
 day. They were too physically repulsive and too intel- 
 lectually crude to live in the light. The whole round of 
 Temple services in the days of Jesus and Paul would be 
 unspeakably shocking to the twentieth centur}^ Reader, 
 did you ever visit a slaughter-house? Have you ever 
 smelled burning meat ? A God would be a strange Being 
 whose eyes were pleased with such sickening sights, or 
 who found in that horrid, nauseating stench a "sweet 
 savor." The whole thing is so stupidly absurd as to be 
 unworthy of serious refutation. ^N'o God that we could 
 possibly love and worship ever devised such a method of 
 approach to him and winning liis good graces. (") 
 
 Paul's idea of law, of penalty, of expiation, offends the 
 modern sense of justice and contradicts our ethical values 
 at every point of contact. Without caricature, it may be 
 compared to ideas that prevail in certain police circles 
 to-day. A sensational crime is committed; the public is 
 greatly roused and demands detection and punishment of 
 
 (^) Judaism was better than the pagan faiths, in that it never 
 countenanced the offering of human beings in sacrifice. Readers of 
 Montaigne will recall an instance that he mentions: "Amurath at 
 the taking of Isthmus, sacrificed six hundred young Grecians to his 
 father's soul: to the end their blood might serve as a propitiation to 
 exculpate the sins of the deceased." Essays, bk. T, ch. xxix. 
 
 (-) The judicious reader will observe that nothing is said above 
 that is not fully implied by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews: 
 "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should 
 take away sins"' (10:4). The injudicious reader will, of course, 
 perceive nothing of the sort, not even after it has been pointed out 
 to him. 
 
192 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 the criminal. This the police are unable to accomplish, 
 but obviously something must be done to silence public 
 clamor; so they ^^frame up" a case against some one who 
 can most plausibly be made the scapegoat. He is con- 
 victed by perjury, the public cry is silenced, the majesty 
 of the law has been vindicated, justice is satisfied ! 
 
 But we are no longer content with that brand of ^'jus- 
 tice." We insist that the guilt of the guilty cannot be 
 expiated, justice cannot be satisfied, by the punishment of 
 the innocent. Yet our theology continues to teach that 
 the Almighty could find no better expedient to save men 
 than to ^'frame up" a case against his own Son and put 
 to death the innocent for the guilty. And that which 
 fills us with horror when done by man to man, we praise 
 and glorify when done by God to God. Does the orthodox 
 Christian ever think ? 
 
 We have come of late to understand that there are many 
 survivals of primitive ideas and customs in Christian 
 doctrine and institutions. The Pauline teaching regard- 
 ing atonement is an excellent example. He inherited his 
 thought from Judaism, where it is a palpable survival of 
 the clan stage of Israel's development, when the clan and 
 the family were the social units, and any member of fam- 
 ily or clan, or the whole of either, might be held responsible 
 for an individual's wrong act and could pay the penalty. 
 Transference of penalty, so unthinkable to us, was then 
 normal and usual. Every group must bear the sins of its 
 members, and conversely the individuals must suifer with 
 and for the group. Ideas persist longer than institutions ; 
 and while, in modern society, group responsibility has 
 given way in law to individual responsibility, ideas de- 
 rived from group responsibility are still potent in theology. 
 We find it difficult to persuade ourselves that such savage 
 punishment could be inflicted on an entire family for the 
 sin of one member, as the story of Achan describes, and 
 Ave refuse to believe that God had anything more to do 
 
PAUL TIIK SPKCULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 193 
 
 with the matter than he had with the slaughter of the 
 citizens of Louvain because a few of them were accused 
 of ^ ^sniping" at the German invaders. The notion of 
 transferred or substituted penalty cannot be adjusted to 
 our present social status, in which individual rights and 
 individual responsibilities are so overemphasized that so- 
 cial responsibilities and duties are little felt and social 
 sins not at all. Transference of penalty cannot happen 
 to-day ; not only so, it is quite inconceivable. 
 
 Only a believer in universal salvation can with logical 
 consistency, hold the doctrine of penal substitution. If 
 Christ actually has borne our penalty, then God cannot 
 justly hold us to further penalties for our sins. Therefore 
 all men must be saved. There is no escape from the con- 
 clusion if the premise be maintained; universalism is the 
 rigorously logical deduction from the substitutionary the- 
 ory of Christ's death. 
 
 And the modern ethical sense declares that sin can no 
 more be expiated than transferred. Expiation of sin is 
 impossible, was always impossible, unimaginable even. 
 Nobody has ever been able to show, nobody will ever be 
 able to explain, how a given quantity of suffering can 
 equal a given quantity of sin. Neither sin nor suffering 
 can be measured quantitatively, and if each could 
 be exactly weighed or measured or computed nobody 
 can show how one can be the equivalent of the other. The 
 media-val attempt to e>tii1^1ish a money value for crime 
 (WehrqeU), was not more irrational, nor was the sliding 
 scale for indulgences proclaimed by Tetzel a greater scan- 
 dal. Sin cannot be escaped by expiation; it can be es- 
 caped only by being repented, forsaken, hated. The 
 consequences of sin are indelible ; the effect of an evil act 
 cannot be undone, even by divine omnipotence. Suffer- 
 ing is the inescapable consequence of sin, penalty, but not 
 punishment. Society only evades the problem of moral 
 evil when it hangs or imprisons a wrong-doer; the only 
 
194 rUNDAMEKTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 solution of the problem is to remake him into a doer of 
 right. God cannot dispose of sin by sending the sinner 
 to hell ; God must make the sinner righteous. 
 
 Any theory of atonement is impossible that does not 
 take into account these ethical ideas of our own day. So 
 far as sin is conceived as a personal offense against God, 
 his forgiveness may also be conceived as removing the 
 barrier that sin has made between man and God. But 
 we can no longer receive the teaching that any sort of 
 atonement or forgiveness makes it possible for God to 
 relieve man of the other effects of his sin. These the 
 sinner must bear, and others must bear with him ; for, as 
 no man lives to himself, so no man sins to himself. The 
 worst thing about moral evil, indeed, is not its effect on 
 the individual who sins, but its social consequences. Its 
 effect on his innocent fellows quite outweighs its effect on 
 himself. The sooner we awake to the fact that the past 
 is unalterable by the forgiveness of God, the better for our 
 religious life and the better for the prospect of greater 
 reality in our preaching. Untold mischief has been done 
 by the proclamation from ten thousand pulpits that re- 
 pentance and the forgiveness of sins wipes out all the con- 
 sequences of sin. Hymns like CoAvper's '^There is a 
 fountain filled with blood,'' have led thousands into a 
 religious fool's paradise. Far truer are the words of 
 Omar : 
 
 The Moving Finger writes; and having writ 
 Moves on: nor all thy Piety and Wit 
 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
 Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. 
 
 The present is ours, to make a new record; the past is 
 past. Whoever teaches men otherwise, teaches lies. 
 
 It is often made a reproach to ^'liberal" Christians that, 
 in denying the efficacy of blood-atonement they take a light 
 and inadequate view of sin. But what is often called an 
 inadequate sense of sin will turn out on examination to 
 
PAUL TJIE SPECULATIVE TIIEOLOCUAX 195 
 
 be merely a sense of different sin — an appreciation of the 
 utter inadequacy of an idea of sin that confines it entirely 
 to wrong relations to a God whom one has not seen, w^ith 
 a bland unconsciousness of sin that consists in wrong re- 
 lations to the brother whom one has seen. And as for 
 "light'' views of sin, which is the lighter, that which in- 
 sists the sinner must forever bear the burden of conse- 
 quences that accrue from his evil, or that which says he 
 may escape the consequences utterly by a bath in the 
 "fountain filled with blood" ? 'No, it is your orthodox 
 theologian or preacher with his theory of blood-atonement 
 who takes sin too lightly. 1 1 is your evangelist who ex- 
 horts sinners to come and be washed white in the blood 
 of the Lamb, who takes an inadequate view of sin. God 
 has never promised to w^hitewash moral evil and call it 
 good, whatever presumptuous and silly men may have 
 rashly promised in his name. Poetic phrases of prophets 
 that expressed religious emotion have been made into sci- 
 entific theological definitions, with consequences disastrous 
 to theology' and religion. 
 
 But, after all, the great untruth of the vicarious sacri- 
 fice is that by representing the crucifixion of the Son of 
 God as "substitutionary," theology has excused the sons 
 of God from that daily dying on the cross which Jesus 
 declared to be the essence of discipleship. 
 
 IV 
 
 The difference between Jesus and Paul regarding for- 
 giveness of sins stands out clearly when we consider their 
 terminology. The word continually on the lips of Jesus 
 in connection with sin is "forgive" — in the Greek acpir^i^ii, 
 which means to send away, let go, disregard, and was 
 used in classical Greek as a legal term to denote release 
 from contract, debt, or indictment. Paul uses the same 
 
196 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 terminology a few times, (^) thus showing that the idea 
 of remission of sins was not unfamiliar to him. But if 
 not unfamiliar, it seems to have been unwelcome ; he pre- 
 ferred something quite different. The verb Sixaioo) 
 which Paul uses to denote man's deliverance from sin and 
 guilt, occurs in his writings 27 times, not to mention 
 its cog-nates, 5ixaia)oig (3) and 6ixaia)|ia (5). Law 
 knows no forgiveness ; law either convicts of sin or acquits 
 of g-uilt. Jesus uses 6ixai6a> only once or twice in 
 speaking of man's relations to God, and then apparently 
 not in a forensic sense. (^) Forgiveness, utter and final, 
 not acquittal by legal fiction, is his idea of God's way of 
 dealing with the sinner. A Father may forgive the guilty ; 
 a judge must either convict or find some expedient to 
 acquit. The prayer of Jesus on the cross, "Father, for- 
 give them, for they know not what they do," can find no 
 place in the Pauline theory of justification. Law can 
 never admit ignorance to be an excuse for guilt or a reason 
 for acquittal. 
 
 The same distinction follows in the ideas of "righteous- 
 ness" 8ixaio(Ti)vr] the status of being "just" in tlie 
 fight of God. Jesus everywhere, but especially in tlio 
 Sermon on the Mount, speaks of a righteousness that is 
 personal and essential, a real righteousness that consists 
 of right character and conduct. His idea of righteousness 
 is a relation of reverence, trust and love to a Father in 
 Heaven, which cannot but express itself in obedience. "Be 
 perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," is an ideal 
 rather than a law, a standard but not a statute. Paul's 
 "rigliteousness" is not primarily personal and essential, 
 but legal, and therefore unreal; it is a fictitious righteous- 
 ness that is "reckoned" to us, or with which we are 
 "clotlied" — not ours, but Christ's, bestowed on us by a 
 legal fiction. "Christ lias been made unto us wisdom 
 
 (') For example, Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14. 
 (^) Matt. 12:37. 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 197 
 
 from God, and righteousness and sanctification and re- 
 demption." (^) 
 
 Jesus teaches the insufficiency of mere formal obedience 
 to law, such as the Pharisees rendered, and gives a new 
 and spiritual interpretation of the Decalogue — ''I am come 
 not to destroy, but to fulfil," fill full, complete. He holds 
 up to men a higher ethical standard than they had known, 
 and then holds them up to the standard. But Paul in- 
 sists that the Law was not intended to be kept, that man 
 is unable to obey it — the Law was given to awaken men's 
 sense of sin, to teach them their inability to obey, and so, 
 like a tutor, to bring them to Christ. (^) So, while Jesus 
 insists that his disciples must obey the Law, in a right- 
 eousness exceeding that of Scribes and Pharisees, (^) Paul 
 sweeps the Law altogether away — Christ has abolished it, 
 nailed it to the cross, and made a sport of it. (^) There 
 may be a way of "reconciling" these differing views of 
 the Law, but their likeness is not striking. 
 
 Paul represents the process of salvation as wholly of 
 the grace of God, with which the sinner has nothing to 
 do but either to accept or reject it. Jesus represents sal- 
 vation as the result of man's effort together with God: 
 "By your endurance you will win your lives," i. e., your 
 true lives, eternal Life. Life comes from God, but at- 
 tainment of Life is man's work. Eternal Life is God's 
 gift, as is all that we possess, but it is also a self-creation 
 through self -conquest. 
 
 I am the master of my fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul, 
 is not a pagan sentiment, as has sometimes been said, but 
 profoundly Christian, though its author never understood 
 that fact. Posing as pure pagan, he was Christian in spite 
 of himself. 
 
 ~"H~1 Cor. 1:30. 
 
 ( = ) Gal. 3:24; Rom. 7:7. 
 {') Matt. 5:20. 
 (*) Col. 2:14, 15. 
 
198 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 In a word, Jesus came, not to satisfy divine justice and 
 confer a fictitious righteousness, but to save sinners by 
 making them truly righteous. The atonement is not a 
 legal, but a vital process. God's forgiveness makes the 
 forgiven heart the home of the love that forgives; it 
 brings with it the promise and potency of a new life; it 
 regenerates. Its result is not the imputation of a right- 
 eousness that does not really exist, but the impartation of 
 a righteousness that comes really to exist. The teaching 
 of Paul is not false, but inadequate ; it does not represent 
 the ideas of God, sin, penalty, forgiveness, righteousness, 
 at their highest, as Jesus has helped us to apprehend 
 them; instead, he gives us older and less perfect ideas. 
 
 Yet, if we see in Paul's doctrine of justification by faith 
 and imputed righteousness, not a dogma to be accepted 
 in the precise form of words in which he sets it forth, 
 but an illustration from legal principles of his day of an 
 eternal principle, we shall get from justification by faith 
 and its imputation of righteousness all that it was de- 
 sigTied to convey. To do this, we must lay the emphasis 
 on the faith, rather than on the justification. It is justifi- 
 cation by faith, and not by works of law, as Paul so vehem- 
 ently insists, because works are a product of spiritual con- 
 dition, not its cause. Faith, trust in Jesus as Deliverer, 
 the soul committing itself to him as Teacher and Master, 
 marks the beginning of a new life of God in the man. 
 Henceforth he is a new creation, reborn from above, to 
 grow in the grace and knowledge of God through the power 
 of his indwelling Spirit. Every man who has had a gen- 
 uine Christian experience knows exactly what this means, 
 but to one who lacks that experience such words will ever 
 appear foolishness. 
 
 The real difficulty in Paul's doctrine of a forensic jus- 
 tification, that depended on an "imputed" righteousness, 
 was not felt in his day or for long afterward, but is very 
 serious to us. We have come to see that it is an unworthy 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 199 
 
 idea of God to suppose that he employs a mere ''dodge'' 
 to save men. Our idea of God does not admit of his deal- 
 ing in fictions. God is not merely truthful, he is Truth. 
 No artificial, forensic expedient is conceivable in the do- 
 main of ethical and spiritual relations. If God declares 
 a man just, if he acquits him of sin, it must be because 
 the man is just, is no longer guilty. And that is exactly 
 what forgiveness means. When man turns from sin and 
 God forgives, he is no longer guilty, and therefore he must 
 be acquitted. God judges him according to what he has 
 become and is henceforth to be, not according to what he 
 was. It is not legal fiction; it is ethical fact. But when 
 we have thus evaluated Paul's forensic illustration, in the 
 light of our highest ethical knowledge, the essential thing 
 in justification by faith remains : There is such a thing as 
 trust in Jesus the Christ, so vital and compelling that it 
 grips a man's very soul and makes him completely over, 
 reconstitutes his ideals and aims, determines anew the 
 whole course of life, and puts him in new relation with 
 God. 
 
 Next to the teaching of the unquestioned Pauline writ- 
 ings, and in certain respects of greater weight in the esti- 
 mation of some, is the contribution to the doctrine of 
 atonement made by the Epistle to the Hebrews, long at- 
 tributed to Paul. The majority of scholars now believe 
 that this is certainly not Paul's composition, though he in 
 large part furnished its ideas. The letter is avowedly the 
 work, not of an apostle, or even an original disciple of 
 Jesus, but of a convert who has received his knowledge of 
 Jesus and his words from apostolic sources. (^) That 
 would quite accurately describe Apollos, whom Luther first 
 guessed to have been the actual writer. Wlioever he was, 
 he makes no claim to inspiration or apostolic authority. 
 
 (•) Heb. 1:3. 
 
i^OO FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The so-called ^^epistle" is not a letter at all, but a homily, 
 a religious essay or exhortation, belonging to the same 
 class of early Christian writings as 2 Clement. 
 
 The chief characteristic of the homily is the author's 
 attempt to establish analogies between the Jewish system, 
 the details of which he seems to have imperfectly under- 
 stood, and the new religion of the Christ. ISTo more than 
 Paul did he comprehend the origin and nature of the 
 Jewish sacrificial system. It was not his fault that the 
 science of comparative religion 'did not then exist, and 
 that he was ignorant of the correspondence between Juda- 
 ism and Oriental paganism. But, waiving this funda- 
 mental defect in the homily, a careful examination of it 
 shows that there has been widespread misinterpretation 
 of it. 
 
 The idea of sacrifice so prominent in this writing, is 
 not expiation or propitiation, but purification or cleansing. 
 This is made clear at the very outset, where it is said of 
 the Son that, ^'when he had made a purification for sins, 
 he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." 
 This is the controlling thought of the homily. The argu- 
 ment is twofold: 
 
 First, that Jesus performs for his people essentially 
 the same ofiice that the High Priest performed for the 
 J ews, only much more effectually ; and that he performed 
 it once for all, so that it does not need to be repeated. 
 That office was to put away sin, which was accomplished 
 in symbol by the High Priest going on the day of Atone- 
 ment into the Holy of Holies and sprinldino- the mercy- 
 seat with blood. Jesus, by the shedding of his blood, has 
 once for all effected the purification, sanctification, cleans- 
 ing, perfecting (all of these terms are employed in turn) 
 of all that trust in him. Throughout the first eight chap- 
 ters, Jesus is likened to the High Priest, not the victim ; 
 he is represented as making the sacrifice of purification, 
 not as being the sacrifice. 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE TI1]'X)L0GIAN 201 
 
 Second, in the ninth and tenth chapters, Jesus is also 
 spoken of as the victim, as ^'being offered," but the end 
 of the offering is still to purify his people from their sins. 
 There is no doctrine of expiation or vicarious sacrifice 
 anywhere in the ^^epistle."(^) 
 
 Hebrews is therefore wholly in accord with the view 
 that the real significance of the death of Jesus is that it 
 completed and perfected that revelation of God's char- 
 acter as the loving Father of all men, which it w^as the 
 chief object of the entire life and teaching of Jesus to 
 make to the world. It is most untrue to say that if the 
 death of Christ was not expiatory, it w^as no more than 
 the death of any martyr. His death was in any case as 
 much greater thfin any martyr's, as his life and personal- 
 ity were greater than any martyr's. The significance of 
 any death is not the act of dying, for we all die, but in 
 the character of him who dies. The most orthodox the- 
 ologian is compelled to stress that, and to regard the ex- 
 piatory value of Christ's death as resting on his Person, 
 not on the mere fact of his death. If we deny expiatory 
 value to the death of Christ, the significance of his Person 
 remains, unaffected by any theory of atonement. 
 
 Some sort of death was an inseparable part of the hu- 
 man life of the Son of God. Without experiencing death, 
 lio could not have been a full man. Without death, the 
 Captain of our salvation could not have been "made per- 
 fect through suffering." The particular death of Jesus 
 on the cross was the natural effect and culmination of his 
 prophetic labors, Judaea being what it was in his day. 
 He could not be faithful to his mission and fail so to die. 
 Xot his death of the cross per se, therefore, but his death 
 in obedience to his Father's will, and in the accomplish- 
 ment of his mission of revealing God to men and so recon- 
 ciling men to God, is the significant thing. Jesus died 
 for the world in the same sense that he lived and taught 
 
 n Heb. 9:13, 14, 22, 26; 10:10, 14. 
 
-02 FUXDxilMEJN'TALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 
 
 for the world. His whole life was a sacrifice, an offering 
 to his Father of a lowly and obedient heart, not his death 
 merely. 
 
 It has already been asserted that no doctrine of atone- 
 ment can be deduced from the words of Jesus, without 
 doing inexcusable violence to them. It should be added 
 that this does not necessarily involve the inference that 
 no doctrine of atonement is possible or true. The thesis 
 cannot possibly be maintained that Jesus taught all truth, 
 and that nothing is to be accepted as true in the sphere 
 of religion, if it cannot be found in his words. The thesis 
 that can be maintained is, that Jesus taught all that is 
 fundamental in religious truth, and therefore no doctrine 
 can be accepted as true that is irreconcilable with his 
 teaching. His promise of the Spirit of Truth, to lead his 
 disciples into all the truth, warrants us in hoping and be- 
 lieving that continual progTcss in apprehension of truth 
 is possible to us. But no later development of Christian 
 ideas can set aside positive teaching of Jesus. Whatever 
 contradicts Jesus is not a further increment of truth, but 
 an increment of error. 
 
 Consequently, whatever ideas of atonement we hold, 
 they must, to be worthy of even provisional acceptance as 
 truth, be in full accord with the teaching of Jesus: that 
 God freely forgives men their sins on condition of re- 
 pentance solely; that he forgives men their sins, because 
 he loves us as a Father. And furthermore, the main fea- 
 ture of a doctrine of atonement should be its capacity and 
 tendency to promote that repentance, or change of attitude 
 toward God and man, which alone procures the divine for- 
 giveness. (^) 
 
 (') "The first question to ask concerninjj^ any dogma of the 
 Church is not whether it conforms, or does not conform, to orthodox 
 standards, but whether it serves to reveal or obscure the Figure 
 of the Living Christ. For thousands of willing souls Christ lies 
 buried in a gravp. of theological subtleties. It is for us to roll 
 away the stones, not u> dispute about the inscriptions upon them." 
 E. Herman, "Christianity in the New Age," p. 180. N. Y., 1919. 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN ^Uo 
 
 VI 
 
 Jesus taugiit, tlieu, that the way of deliverance is bv 
 repentance, change of attitude toward God. God forgives 
 the sinner because he is God, our Father. Jesus nowhere 
 claims that he procures from God forgiveness of sins for 
 man ; he makes know^n to man God's love and consequent 
 willingness to forgive sins. Paul taught that deliverance 
 is by way of propitiation and expiation: God forgives 
 l)ecause his Son has made a sacrifice for man, and by trust 
 in that sacrifice the sinner is ''justified." Are these two 
 forms of teaching so mutually incompatible that if we 
 choose one we must reject the other? 
 
 Not if we understand neither as giving us, or attempting 
 to give us, a scientific definition of God's forgiveness of 
 sins. Xot if we understand both Jesus and Paul to be 
 illustrating the character of God and his forgiveness 
 through human relations, l^ot if we concede that all 
 illustrations are not the truth, but the clothes of truth. 
 Illustrations can give us only glimpses of underlying real- 
 ity, helpful but not exhaustive. I^one separately, nor all 
 together, can tell us the whole truth about God and his 
 relation to men. Viewed as scientific definitions, the 
 teaching of Jesus and Paul cannot be reconciled; viewed 
 as illustrations, each may be regarded as exhibiting part 
 of the truth. 
 
 ^Nevertheless, it seems to be open to us to say that one 
 illustration discloses more of God's nature than another, 
 that one conveys a better idea of the essential truth than 
 another, that one conforms better than another to the 
 ethics of to-day, that one is drawn from dead institutions 
 while another is in accord with living experiences. So 
 that the antithesis between Jesus and Paul is not neces- 
 sarily that between absolute truth and absolute error, but 
 that between higher truth and lower, between better meth- 
 ods of setting forth the character of God and his dealings 
 with us and inferior methods. Will religion lose any- 
 
204 FUK^BAMENTALS OF CHElSTlATs^lTY 
 
 tiling, will even theology be seriously damaged, by admis- 
 sion that Jesus understood God better than Paul ? Shall 
 we fear to say that the relation of Fatherhood helps our 
 age to understand God better than the relation of Judge ? 
 
 Truth — meaning our apprehension of truth — is relative 
 not absolute, dynamic not static, progressive not final. 
 Paul's teachings about justification and atonement were 
 finer and higher ideas of God and his relations to men 
 than had been previously known to those who first read 
 his letters. They continued to be helpful ideas for many 
 generations. We are fortunate enough now to have at- 
 tained still better ideas, chiefly through fuller comprehen- 
 sion of what Jesus taught. Must Paul, once an inspira- 
 tion to Christian thought, henceforth be an incubus, be- 
 cause we insist on valuing the form of his teaching more 
 highly than the substance ? 
 
 The essential content of PauFs doctrine of atonement, 
 apart from the form in which it is conveyed, is capable 
 of restatement in terms of individual ethical responsibility, 
 to which the world has now advanced. The difiiculty is 
 more than half eliminated the moment we assent to the 
 proposition that Paul does not give us rigid and precise 
 scientific formulae, that he is not a systematic theologian 
 in the sense that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were 
 such. We shall then attach no more than their proper 
 meaning to words like ^'propitiation,'' ^'redemption," "jus- 
 tification" and the like. Regarding such terms as fluid, 
 not rigid, without doing them violence we can reach an 
 interpretation that will accord with modern ethical ideas. 
 For example, when the apostle says that the death of Jesus 
 was to establish the righteousness of God (not his justice, 
 as Paul's interpreters say), did he necessarily mean any- 
 thing more than this : that the death of Jesus was tlie su- 
 preme act of obedience in a life wholly ruled by tlio will 
 of his Father ? 
 
 So interpreted, the sacrificial or expiatory eiemeut in 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 205 
 
 Paul's atonement teaching is not fundamental, but the 
 vicarious. And this Jesus teaches as clearly as Paul. He 
 could not do less and be a teacher of truth. The father 
 of the Prodigal suffered with and for his wayward son. 
 In all human forgiveness there is an element of self- 
 sacrifice, which justifies the numerous sayings to the effect 
 that Jesus bore the sins of men and gave himself in their 
 behalf. The error has been in pouring the emotional and 
 highly figiirative language of prophets and poets into the 
 mould of hard, precise theologic definition. 
 
 Vicarious suffering cannot be questioned. It runs all 
 through life. Everywhere the innocent suffers for the 
 guilty, not as his substitute, but as his partner. This is 
 the price that men pay for the great blessings of family 
 and social relations. A man can no more escape suffering 
 from the sins of others than he can prevent their suffering 
 for his sins. This is the meaning of brotherhood, the 
 indelible truth of the old clan ethics: we are one race, 
 and the sins of each are the sins of all. By sharing our 
 humanity, the Son of God obligated himself to bear our 
 griefs and sorrows. The solidarity of the race compels 
 such suffering, and Jesus could not have escaped if he 
 would. By so much as his office as Messiah and Deliverer 
 set him above other men, by so much was his burden of 
 the sins and sorrows of mankind increased. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that Jesus bore the sins of the 
 w^orld in a sense unique and to a degree unexampled. 
 Partaker of our nature, he was not actual partaker of our 
 sins, yet he bore them. He bore our sins as a hater of 
 sin and a lover of men — sin offended his moral purity, it 
 debased those dear to him. He bore our sin as one who 
 tries to put it away, to destroy it. He did this as our 
 fellowman; ho did it as the Man in whom God dwelt 
 most richly of all men, so that he became an expression of 
 God and what God did he did through him. This was 
 ^'the joy set before hini" that enabled him to endure the 
 
206 FUNDAMENTALS OF ClIEISTIANITY 
 
 cross, despising sbame: tlie noble gladness of Imowing 
 that his endurance of sin was the deliverance of others. 
 His suffering was truly redemptive, because in all the ages 
 it has led men to forsake evil and seek the noble life and 
 the true. The voluntary suffering of love that we see in 
 him makes all other suffering for sin appear poor and 
 small. 
 
 How can the innocent suffer the penalty of others' guilt ? 
 Because of his purity of soul Jesus must have lived under 
 the most powerful consciousness of the nature of moral 
 wrong and its effects on life and character. In that was 
 a far more acute suffering than the mere consciousness of 
 personal ill desert could have caused. He bore our sins, 
 therefore, because he lived under the crushing weight of 
 the world's sinfulness, took upon his soul the burden of 
 all human souls. His life and death were a solemn tes- 
 timony, out of the depths of this bitter experience, to the 
 hatefulness of everything evil; and equally solemn testi- 
 mony to the excellence of all the good. It was a vindica- 
 tion of the divine character, of the divine standards of 
 conduct. And that he, in whom God visibly dwelt, should 
 undergo this experience, was the highest possible testimony 
 to God's love for a lost world. 
 
 ^^God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." 
 In these words Paul has given us his highest conception of 
 atonement. Other attempts to explain are on a distinctly 
 lower ethical plane. Indeed we should do well to banish 
 the word ^^atonement" from religious literature altogether, 
 and use instead the word "reconciliation," which is both 
 more Scriptural and more rational. It may be granted 
 that there is no single, uniform explanation of the work 
 of Christ in the 'New Testament, or even in the writings 
 of Paul. There has already been too much "systematiz- 
 ing," that has been the root of many evils. Still, "recon- 
 ciliation" is the best word, if not the exclusive word, to 
 describe our loftiest ideal of Christ's work. Eecoucilia- 
 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE TIIEOLOGL^X 
 
 207 
 
 tion is the bringing of God and men into moral unity and 
 mutual fellowship. It is not a doctrine, but a fact of 
 history and experience, that Jesus in his death has been 
 the supreme means of reconciling men to God. All schools 
 of theology will grant that. What they differ about is 
 the process by which reconciliation has been accomplished. 
 It is matter of comparative indifference how reconciliation 
 is accounted for, provided we hold fast to the fundamental 
 thing: this is not primarily a question of law and govern- 
 ment, but of relation between persons. 
 
 One other word that Paul uses has been seriously mis- 
 interpreted, '^propitiation.'' This has almost uniformly 
 been seized upon and employed by theologians to support 
 their ideas of sacriiice and substitution, which w^e have 
 seen to be ethically untenable. In this they have done 
 injustice to Paul. True, in the spoken Greek of apostolic 
 times, it was not uncommon to describe propitiatory gifts 
 to the gods asUaatriQia (\) and Paul may have been 
 acquainted with this usage of the word. But he was cer- 
 tainly much better acquainted with its use in the Sep- 
 tuagint, where it invariably (^) denotes the happoreth, or 
 cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies of 
 the Tabernacle. Here, between the wings of the cherubim, 
 was the sliehhuiJi, the radiance or glory of Jehovah, visible 
 symbol of his presence with his people and his willingness 
 to forgive sins. Since the time of Tyndale, the term 
 ^ ^mercy-seat" has been found in all English versions as the 
 equivalent of UaaxriQiov. Paul(^) and the letter to 
 the Hebre\vs('*) use tliis word metaphorically of Jesus. 
 It is inconceivable that they should have had in mind the 
 lieathen sense of it, rather than the thought it would in- 
 stantly suggest to every Jew. ^N'o, they intended to say 
 of Jesus that he is our ^^mercy-seat," the meeting-place of 
 
 (M DeissTTiann, Biblical Studies, p. 131. 
 
 (^) Ex. 25:17, 22; 20:34: 40:20: T.or. 10:2. 13: Xum. 7:80. 
 
 [■) Rom. 3:2.'). 
 
 (M TTfb. 0:.5: 2:17. 
 
208 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 God and man, the visible symbol of God's presence with 
 his people and the surety of the divine forgiveness. (^) In 
 this sense, the only interpretation that accords with proba- 
 bility, the word is fully in accord with the ideal of recon- 
 ciliation, and certainly suggests nothing of sacrifice or 
 expiation or substitution. (^) 
 
 C) The kindred word Uaai^oc;, found in 1 John 2:2, 4:10, will 
 bear the same interpretation without violence. 
 
 (^) For a full conspectus of the Scripture passages relating to 
 atonement, see Appendix. 
 
CHAPTEK X 
 WHAT THElSr IS CHEISTIANITY ? 
 
 What is Christianity? Is it chiefly a life or chiefly 
 an institution? Is Christianity the Church, historic, 
 present or possible ? 
 
 According to Jesus, Christianity is the Kingdom of 
 God. He cherished a social ideal, a vision of a recon- 
 structed world, a new human society, composed of regen- 
 erated men, a society of which good will to others, mutual 
 service and helpfulness, was to be the law. To be a mem- 
 ber of the Kingdom was to undertake the Great Adventure 
 of the spirit, which may involve much privation and pain, 
 but leads to the heights of achievement and blessedness. 
 The teaching of Jesus affords no hint of purpose to estab- 
 lish an organization, though he must have known (since 
 any man of good sense w^ould know it) that something of 
 the sort would almost certainly grow out of his teaching. 
 Indeed, he must have been sensible that without organized 
 ])ropaganda liis words would be evanescent, and his influ- 
 ence as a teacher would prove no more than a ripple on 
 the world's life. Yet he seemed utterly careless about 
 organization ; his to supply the spirit, others might provide 
 the body, of his new society. 
 
 Paul occasionally mentions the Kingdom, but only oc- 
 casionally and only mentions. He does not use the word 
 in the gospel sense, but rather as something pertaining to 
 the future life. Even in the fourth Gospel the ideal of 
 Jesus has visibly faded from the consciousness of bis 
 
 209 
 
210 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 disciple. Paul's idea of the "gospel/' as we have seen, 
 is not the immediate coming of the Kingdom, but a Mes- 
 sage of forgiveness of sins through the death of the Christ, 
 in consequence of which one is admitted to the heavenly 
 Kingdom. And in Paul's mind organization is a most 
 important thing. He spent his life in founding and ex- 
 tending the ecclesia, local organizations of believers in 
 Jesus after the model of the Jewish synagogue, the chief 
 function of which was to make known everywhere the 
 Message he had delivered to them. So great importance 
 did these groups assume in his eyes, that he declared that 
 Christ died for the ecclesia, that the ecclesia was the body 
 of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The rapid transformation of the '^faith" of Jesus into 
 the Faith, from a spirit and life into a creed, a cult and 
 a Church, is one of the most interesting and fruitful of 
 all historical studies ; but this is not the place for even a 
 brief outline of it. What we are just now interested to 
 note is, that during the first stages of the transformation 
 the continued influence of Jesus is indicated by the earli- 
 est and most persistent name for his religion, '^the Way." 
 By this name, the Church testified in word, even while 
 denying it in deed, that the chief legacy of Jesus to the 
 world was an ideal of life. And, however much overlaid 
 by tradition and ritual, this truth has never been quite 
 lost. ^'Throughout the whole history of the Church," says 
 Weizsiicker very justly, ''the imitation of Jesus, and the 
 contemplation of the whole personality of that sincere and 
 living human soul, has represented a distinct stream, a 
 distinct form of Christianity, of peculiar simplicity and 
 force, which holds the balance against the Pauline 
 form."(\) 
 
 The colossal hypocrisy of embattled nations praying to 
 the same God for power to kill each other has dealt the 
 finishing blow to men's faith in the historic Christianity, 
 
 (') "The Apostolic Age," 1:173. 
 
21i 
 
 the religion embodied in institutions. If Christianity can- 
 not be reinterpreted, if it cannot be reembodied, if it 
 cannot be made to mean something it has never meant 
 since apostolic times, it is doomed. The Church to-day 
 is not an agent for establishing the Kingdom, but a com- 
 petitor of the Kingdom. The first task of the Church — 
 of any church — is to increase its o^vn numbers, property, 
 income and influence in its community. The success of 
 any minister, of whatever badge or title, is measured by 
 his efficiency in accomplishing this specific task. His one 
 duty is ^^to build up the Church," and woe to him if he 
 fails. He is the slave of institutionalism. 
 
 The new Christianity that we must have, if we are to 
 have any, is simply a renew^al of the Christianity of Jesus, 
 so long overlaid by tradition as to be lost sight of, so long 
 denied by the official teachers of religion as to become for- 
 gotten. In its zeal for things, historic Christianity has 
 ignored men. And so far as it has concerned itself with 
 men, it has held up to them a wrong ideal. Its concep- 
 tion of Christian character has long been mainly a series 
 of negatives — a notion that w^as put into a quaint phrase 
 by a late popular ^^evangelist," who described being a 
 Christian as equivalent to ^'quit your meanness," give up 
 your vicious practices and stop neglecting your business. 
 
 And so it has come to pass that the Church is giving 
 to the world a distorted, inadequate, and therefore false, 
 interpretation of Christianity. It is laying emphasis on 
 the unessential things, the negative virtues, and slurring 
 over the essential and positive, until the world no longer 
 connects the essentials specifically with Christianity. Men 
 who are learning to esteem unselfishness, generosity, help- 
 fulness, as the great and fine things of life, do not com- 
 monly tliink of these as Christian virtues. In their view 
 a Christian is a man who does not gamble or drink or 
 swear or smoke or run after women, and especially one 
 
212 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 who carefully shuns the company of men who do these 
 things, and cultivates a spirit of self-righteousness in con- 
 sequence. That to be a Christian is something much finer 
 and manlier than abstinence from personal vices ('^these 
 ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone"), 
 the m.an of the world has no idea whatever, and the ^^Chris- 
 tian" himself has little. 
 
 But the Church has often shown a marvellous power of 
 recuperation. There have been times many before ours, 
 when it seemed in the last agonies of dissolution, and it 
 has nevertheless awakened to new life, much to the dis- 
 comfiture of its foes and to the great delight of its friends. 
 It may be that such an awakening of historic Christianity, 
 such a refashioning of its institutions, is at hand. But 
 nothing short of entire revolution in its ideals and meth- 
 ods, full recovery of the spirit of Jesus, will suffice. The 
 Church must cease to be merely ameliorative and become 
 regenerative. TTndoubtedly there is a vast amount of hu- 
 man misery that, since it cannot be immediately cured, 
 should be relieved; but this should be a mere by-product 
 of Christianity, not its chief aim. If Jesus can do no 
 more than 
 
 make a dying bed 
 Feel soft as downy pillows are, 
 
 he is out of date. It is help in life, not death, for which 
 the hard beset man of to-day is looking and longing; and 
 no religion that does not offer this has the slightest chance 
 of acceptance with him. It is because Jesus is still in 
 the world, as an energizing, creative Spirit, and because 
 he can give help to struggling, despairing men, as no one 
 else ever has given or can give, that there is still hope for 
 Christianity. Let us who know of this power tell the 
 world about it, and a new Christianity will be born out of 
 men's new experience. 
 
WHAT THEl^ IS CHRISTIANITY? 213 
 
 II 
 
 What is Christianity? Is it a form of worship, or a 
 form of sound words, or a form of polity, or a form of 
 ministering the sacraments ? If it is none of these things, 
 but the negation of forms, a thing of the spirit and not 
 of the letter, where shall we look for Christianity to-day ? 
 Is it not true that those who '^profess and call themselves 
 Christians" are concerning themselves mainly with forms ? 
 It will do the reader good to answer these questions for 
 himself, and he will be wise to think awhile before he 
 speaks. The world is answering them now, and if men 
 must choose between the dryness and anarchism that goes 
 by the name of Protestantism and the paralyzing spiritual 
 despotism called Catholicism, they will assuredly choose — 
 neither ! 
 
 That religion is an affair of the spirit is quite emphati- 
 cally and unanimously affirmed by Christian teachers, how- 
 ever their practice may contradict their words. Thus 
 they bear testimony to the truth that the power of Chris- 
 tianity lies in its capacity of development and recupera- 
 tion — a power shown no less strikingly in its institutions 
 than in individual lives. In other words, Christianity is 
 and always has been what it was first proclaimed to be, a 
 way of life, the power of God unto salvation. But de- 
 liverance of a soul is not a mechanical thing; it is a spir- 
 itual process that cannot be accomplished by sacrifices or 
 sacraments. It is quite in accord with human indolence 
 that men should look for a salvation to be accomplished in 
 something done for them. Tt is very sweet — for some — 
 to sing: 
 
 N'othing either o-roat or small 
 Remains for me to do; 
 
 Jesus died and paid it all, 
 All the debt I owe. 
 
 But what if the theology of this is as poor as the poetry? 
 What if there never was any ^^debt" and Jesus has there- 
 
214 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 fore "paid" nothing? What if everything remains for 
 us to do? "But salvation is the gift of God; the Scrip- 
 tures say so ; and we have but to stretch out hands of faith 
 and receive." The premise is correct; the Scriptures "say 
 so" ; yet the conclusion, while it appears to be logical, is 
 really a no7i sequitur. Salvation is as much a gift of God 
 as daily bread, but on the same condition : man must work 
 for it. The ideal of Jesus is a salvation accomplished by 
 men, not for them, from within, not from without. Jesus 
 does not deny God's grace; he tells us how God's grace 
 acts. God inspires the desire for deliverance, God sup- 
 plies the power, but the work must be done by the saved 
 man in his own soul, or he is never saved. Any other 
 deliverance of a free moral agent is inconceivable. Man 
 must be the captain of his o\yd. soul ; God has so made 
 him : his final orders must come from himself. 
 
 In all our theology, our philosophizing about religion, 
 we must keep close to the facts of experience to ensure 
 validity to our results. Only the assured facts of the 
 Christian life can impart this element of reality to our 
 thinking. "The deepest and most precious faith," says a 
 recent writer, "the faith none can afford to lose, is the 
 faith that to discover the truth about reality and to follow 
 this truth loyally, will in the end lead to the highest good. 
 To live by error or illusion is costly." (^) Our deepest 
 conviction should be that it is best for us to know the 
 truth and adjust to it our thinking, our conduct and our 
 hope. And so, as religious experience has developed, as 
 it has advanced, as it has become richer, more complex, 
 as through it we are ever more approximating the ulti- 
 mate spiritual reality, theology has been continually 
 changing. This is a necessity of the case, nothing less 
 than a spiritual law. The greatest error of historic Chris- 
 tianity, an error so grave in results as to be both tragic 
 and pathetic, has been its agelong effort to substitute for 
 
 n~W. G. Everett, "Moral Values," p. 420. N. Y. 1918. 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 215 
 
 tlie ever ripening expression of the inner life of Chris- 
 tians of all ages the Christian experience of a single age, 
 as an unchanging, authoritative, infallible norm of the 
 Christian life for all time to come. Instead of something 
 dynamic, the attempt has been to make theology static. 
 The bane of religion is the dogmatist's search for author- 
 ity, and his insistence that he has found authority where 
 none exists. For, in the usual sense of the word, there 
 is no authority in religion, nothing fixed, unalterable, in- 
 fallible; because religion is life, and life is growth, and 
 growth is change. 
 
 Therefore theology ought to be no bed of Procrustes, on 
 which we place this iSTew Testament document and that 
 religious experience, chopping off a bit here, stretching 
 out a bit there, until everything fits exactly into our pre- 
 ordained ''system.'' That too nearly describes the method 
 of all theology of the past, but such will not be the method 
 of the future. A too ingenious exegesis, w^arranted to 
 make all parts of the Bible agree to a hair's breadth, is 
 impossible to reconcile with the profession that these 
 words are Holy Writ, and therefore demand from us espe- 
 cially honest handling. A scientific exegesis will not press 
 the word of one writer into artificial agreement with an- 
 other, nor evacuate one part of all real meaning to ''har- 
 monize" it with something else, nor read into the text 
 ideas that could never have entered the minds of the 
 writers, in the vain hope of making all say the same things. 
 
 After all, the question comes to this: Is there any sound 
 foundation for religion in the facts of life, interpreted 
 according to our progressive knowledge of man and the 
 world ? Or is religion, as many to-day are telling us, 
 nothing more than a synthesis of the dreams of enthusiasts 
 and the babble of theologians? The sound conclusion 
 seems to be that religion has to do with verifiable facts of 
 experience ; and that its mysteries, some of which may 
 prove insoluble, are yet no greater than the mysteries that 
 
216 FUNDAMENTALS OF CIIEISTIANITY 
 
 confront science. A difference of terminology has long 
 hidden this even from men ordinarily keen-sighted : where 
 religion says ^'faith" science says ''hypothesis." Both in- 
 volve the same mental process and the same spiritual at- 
 titude. The hypotheses of science are the response to the 
 mind's demand for intellectual unity and completeness. 
 They outrun full demonstration. That is scientific faith, 
 and religious faith differs no whit. God is a hypothesis 
 equally with gravitation, and one hypothesis is no more 
 matter of faith than the other. Gravitation is a hypo- 
 thesis that attempts to unify our knowledge of the heavenly 
 bodies and explain their movements. All that we really 
 know is that stars and planets behave as if they were mu- 
 tually attracted in a certain way. Likewise the entire 
 cosmos behaves as if there were a Being who includes and 
 unifies all the phenomena of nature, all the elements of 
 experience, into one organic life process, controlled by 
 intelligence, will and goodness. 
 
 The problem of theology is not a question of knowing 
 everything, or of fully comprehending anything; it is a 
 question of unifying our knowledge and clarifying our 
 ideas and refusing to pretend to believe contradictories. 
 The essence of obscurantism is blind clinging to discred- 
 ited facts and theories of religion, and it is the ''theology" 
 guilty of this unpardonable sin that is here held up to 
 reprobation. A Christian theology will be a necessity so 
 long as there is a Christian life; for religion must not 
 consist of mere vague emotions and aspirations, but must 
 be founded in a definite philosophy of life, corresponding 
 to our scientific knowledge as well as to our inner experi- 
 ence, or it cannot successfully appeal to a world that more 
 and more demands reality as a basis for its living. If 
 such a theology as this is impossible, then religion is 
 doomed to become the sole property of the "neurotic, the 
 erotic and the tommyrotic." 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHKISTIANITY ? 217 
 
 III 
 
 What is Christianity ( Who shall tell lis, Paul or 
 Jesus ? Which teaches the truth that Christians should 
 accept as fundamental and authoritative? And, if the 
 answer to this is, ''Both," then comes the further question, 
 Are their teachings mutually in agreement, or are there 
 elements in each that are mutually contradictory and ex- 
 clusive? Is there a rational way of holding both teach- 
 ings, as to substance at least? Have their words been 
 misunderstood, distorted into semblance of contradiction 
 that does not actually exist ? 
 
 As to the teachings of Jesus, distortion is certain. The 
 fact concerning his work that most moves our wonder and 
 pity is that nobody understood him. The great tragedy 
 of Jesus was not his death but his life. 'No human being 
 has been so solitary. There were those who loved him, a 
 few, but among them all he had not one real friend, not 
 one to whom he could bare his inmost soul and be sure of 
 sympathetic hearing. Weep over the dying Jesus, ye who 
 will, while those who have eyes to see mourn the living 
 Jesus, the man who had none to whom he could unlock 
 his heart. Loneliness is the penalty of greatness, and 
 none was ever so lonely as he, because among all the sons 
 of men he was greatest. 
 
 Yet, in spite of mental impenetrability, a certain meas- 
 ure of the truth did percolate through the souls of those 
 in the inner circle of disciples and became the possession 
 of all his followers. The memory of his hearers, fortu- 
 nately for us, was better than their insight, and they pre- 
 served with remarkable fidelity teachings that they neither 
 believed nor comprehended. Do we lay ourselves open to 
 a charge of complacent conceitedness by this assumption 
 that our generation understands Jesus better than his 
 own ? Some may think so ; some will certainly not lose 
 the opportunity to say so. "But others will reason thus: 
 If nineteen centuries of divine Providence and Christian 
 
218 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 experience have thrown no additional light on the signifi- 
 cance of the Man and the Teaching, what are Providence 
 and Christian experience good for? One is content to 
 leave his critics to wrestle with that problem. 
 
 And if the teaching of Jesns has been misunderstood and 
 distorted, so has that of Paul. There is an element of phil- 
 osophizing about the facts of religion in his letters that is 
 totally absent from the words of Jesns, but that of itself 
 constitutes no real difficulty. Paul could not help being 
 shaped by the school of Gamaliel, nor could he avoid the 
 powerful influence of the prevailing Greco-Roman civiliza- 
 tion of Tarsus. These things imply differences between 
 him and Jesus, but not contradictions. It is to later 
 thinkers, taking shelter behind his name, that we are to 
 look for the contradictions. Historic Paulinism is as little 
 the creation of the apostle, as historic Christianity is the 
 creation of Jesus. Both are sheer perversions of their 
 original. The highly speculative element in Paulinism 
 was mainly the contribution of Greek philosophy through 
 the influence of the Pathers of Alexandria, of whom 
 Clement and Origen were most eminent. They, and not 
 Paul, are the real authors of Christian theology. Both 
 Avere Platonists. They made much use of Paul's writings, 
 but vastly transformed his ideas while most professing 
 to follow the great apostle. 
 
 Under this Greek influence, Christianity w^as made a 
 philosophy for the cultivated, while at the same time, un- 
 der the spell of certain Asiatic cults, it w^as made a mystery 
 for the ignorant. The two tendencies cambined in Ca- 
 tholicism, and Augustine put the capstone on the edifice. 
 His interpretation of Paul has passed current for the 
 original teaching of the apostle to our own day. If Augus- 
 tine failed in any detail to complete the transformation of 
 Paul, Calvin supplied the defect. 
 
 Xo student of the early centuries, however, can avoid 
 the conclusion that, if Christianity means chiefly a scheme 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 219 
 
 of doctrine, Paul is its real source. That is to say, his 
 writings furnish the primary materials out of which later 
 theologians formulated that chain of doctrines that for 
 centuries has been called the ''gospel." Such, for example, 
 as that '^in Adam's fall we sinned all" ; that the Son of 
 God, who lived in the divine likeness and glory, but took 
 upon himself human form, died as a propitiation for the 
 sins of men ; that faith in him justifies the sinner without 
 works of law; that only those specially chosen by God be- 
 lieve and are saved ; that Christ will come again to judge 
 the world, and the bodies of men will be raised from their 
 graves, and the saints will reign with Christ forever. This 
 is historic Paulinism, and it is historically true that the 
 religion of Jesus did not assimilate Paulinism, but suc- 
 cumbed to it. 
 
 The undeniable difference between Paul and Jesus was 
 made an absolute antithesis by the early Church, and has 
 remained an antithesis to this day. Wherever Jesus and 
 Paul agree, the followers of Paul are comparatively silent. 
 Wherever Jesus and Paul seem to differ, they not only 
 follow Paul but exaggerate the difference. In every case 
 where it is at all feasible, they substitute Paul for Jesus. 
 'Now if this antithesis is to be maintained, if we must 
 choose between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Paul of 
 the theologians, we must choose Jesus. Else, let us cease 
 to call ourselves Christians and rename ourselves Pauli- 
 cians, as certain heretical sects once frankly did. And 
 surely of all possible heresies the least pardonable is to 
 ])rofess to follow Jesus and really to follow Paul. 
 
 But if Paul may be reasonably interpreted once more, 
 as he has not been since the days of Augustine, we may 
 keep both him and Jesus as the chief teachers of our faith. 
 What the Christian world can no longer afford to do, is to 
 lot the theologians' Paul thrust Jesus into the background. 
 It can no longer afford to j3ermit the social gospel that 
 was the essence of the original Christianity^ to be over- 
 
220 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 sloughed by a theology called Pauline, but really an un- 
 Panline Greek philosophy long since discarded by phil- 
 osophers, but still held fast by theologians. The freedom 
 that Paul once asserted from the law of works, we must 
 now claim from the law of dogma. Such freedom is our 
 birthright. 
 
 IV 
 
 What is Christianity? Is there place in it for Paul- 
 inism? 
 
 We have reached the conclusion that the divergence be- 
 tween Paul and Jesus would cease to appear serious, in 
 any theologic sense, if a reasonable interpretation of the 
 writings of Paul were substituted for the unreasonable 
 perversion of them that has so long obtained. For it is 
 essentially unreasonable not to distinguish things that 
 plainly differ, to identify things that should be kept care- 
 fully separate in our thinking. The solution of our prob- 
 lem has already been foreshadowed. Most of our diffi- 
 culties in relation to the apostle's teachings disappear when 
 we adopt as the principle of interpretation the simple 
 hypothesis that Paul is not stating "eternal truths," not 
 formulating dogmas for all time, but illustrating perma- 
 nent religious and ethical principles in terms of thought 
 comprehensible by his own age. 
 
 It would be a reasonable corollary from this principle 
 that analogies suggested by institutions then existing would 
 be illuminating to Paul's contemporaries, but that now, 
 when those institutions have ceased to exist, the ideas con- 
 nected with them have also ceased to have force and sig- 
 nificance. It is the identification of the passing show of 
 his own age with the permanent in religion, that has made 
 the great apostle the apparent leader of the blind into the 
 ditch of unbelief. Once let us get it clearly in mind that 
 the ilhistration is not to be identified with the truth illus- 
 trated, tliat the analogy is temporary but the principle 
 
AVIIAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 221 
 
 lierniaiient, and real antagonism between Jesus and Paul 
 no longer exists. Differences remain, but not contradic- 
 tions. 
 
 An instance of what is meant lies on the very surface 
 of the Epistles. Paul's letters are full of assertions that 
 believers are the '^slaves" of Christ, and of illustrations 
 founded on slavery. (^) It was perfectly natural that he 
 should choose slavery as an analogy of the new and inti- 
 mate relation that exists between the believer and Christ, 
 that the sense of obligation, strict and indissoluble, to him 
 who had shown himself to be the Great Deliverer should 
 so express itself. Slavery was a universal institution in 
 the first century, as familiar in all its details as the family 
 relation, and lending itself as easily to illustration of re- 
 ligious truth. But while the family still endures, slavery 
 has gone. What was natural to Paul is unnatural to us. 
 
 We can no longer think in terms of slavery. The insti- 
 tution has so far passed away from our knoAvledge and 
 experience that it has no more reality for us than the rela- 
 tions of feudalism. If Paul had lived in the Middle Ages 
 he would undoubtedly have likened the believer's relation 
 to Christ to that of vassal and overlord, and the illustra- 
 tion would then have been significant and helpful. But 
 analogies drawn from slavery or feudalism or any past 
 state of society are a hindrance rather than a help to men 
 of our age. Before they are valid, they must be trans- 
 lated into terms of our own experience. Untranslated 
 they do not give us any assistance in understanding our 
 relation to Jesus,, but function as a barrier between us 
 and him. Por he is not in reality an owner and we his 
 chattel slaves, nor is he an overlord and we his vassals. 
 
 (^) Three of his letter'* lie befjins by eallinsi himself a slave of 
 Christ (Romans, Philiii])ians. Titns). He describes himself and 
 Timothy to the Corinthians as "your slaves for Jesus' sake"; he 
 falls the former state of unbelief "slaves of sin." and the new status 
 of the believer as "slaves of riirhteousness," "Christ's slave," "slaves 
 of the Lord" and the like. Cal. 1 :10: 1 Cor. 7:22: Eph. 0:5; 2 Tim. 
 2:24: Col. 4:12. 
 
222 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 It is not because we wish to deny the reality of the bond 
 between ns and him that no Christian of to-day can think 
 of himself as slave or vassal to Jesus. We do not desire 
 to make the bond less strait and enduring, but these 
 analogies are impossible to us. '^Slave" and ^S^assal" no 
 longer illustrate truth ; they only obscure truth. 
 
 What are called the ^'great doctrines" of Paul are of 
 the same character precisely: illustrations of religious 
 truth from contemporary thought, analogies from contem- 
 porary institutions. Paul and Calvin had one experience 
 in common, a fundamental experience that conditioned all 
 their thinking. Both had been brought up under the 
 shadow of Roman imperialism; both had been indoctrin- 
 ated with the principles of Roman law. The spirit of 
 Roman institutions had made an ineradicable impression 
 on their minds. They were one in conceiving the char- 
 acter and acts of God in the light of the greatest institu- 
 tion and the greatest personage known to their respective 
 times, the Roman Empire and its Emperor. The sov- 
 ereignty of God, his omnipotent power, his absolute rights 
 over the world and the race he had created, seemed to 
 them elemental truth about God, and so each made this 
 tlie fundamental postulate of his theology. 
 
 Because of their familiarity with monarchs and trap- 
 pings of royalty the Scripture writers generally, and Paul 
 especially, put many of their truths in forms that are for 
 us quite obsolete and meaningless. Or, so far as they 
 have meaning for us, it is a wrong meaning, so wrong as 
 often to be repulsive. The popular caricature of the Scrip- 
 tural teachings about God, though a caricature, retains 
 many of the features of the original : An absentee God, 
 an Almighty King on a distant throne, with a court of 
 angels ever about him singing his praises, flattered by the 
 homage of men and constantly interfering with the affairs 
 of the universe in response to the selfish pleas of syco- 
 phantic Avorshipers — this is the popular "God." These 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIA^'ITY ? 223 
 
 unworthy ideas defile a large part of our hymnology, aud 
 still supply the greater part of the phraseology of our 
 prayers, yet no respectable Christian thinker to-day con- 
 ceives God after this fashion. 
 
 On the contrary, we conceive God in a fashion very dif- 
 ferent. We look on Kaiser and imperialism, not with 
 admiration, but with abhorrence; if God were such as he, 
 we would as soon worship the devil. Emperors are an 
 anachronism. Despotism, on earth or in the heavens, is 
 unthinkable. To us God is not monarch, but Father, and 
 the greatest thing in his personality is not sovereignty but 
 love. lie is not seated on a distant throne, but is the 
 over-present Power in whom we live and move. It is no 
 longer true for us that 
 
 God's in his heaven, 
 
 AlFs right with the world. 
 
 If God were in his heaven, all would be most wrong with 
 the world. All's right with the world, because God is 
 not in some far-away heaven, but is here in the world he 
 has made, in the struggle of his creatures, fighting with 
 them to win greater victories over evil, toiling by their 
 side to bring in a larger good than men have yet known. 
 An autocratic God, despotically ruling the universe from 
 the outside, sufficed the age of Calvin, as it did that of 
 Paul : but we must have a democratic God, an immanent 
 God, a God who dwells with us and in us, a God who is 
 still in the throes of creation, a God who calls us to be 
 liis comrades and helpers in the enterprise of making a 
 new earth wherein righteousness dwells. 
 
 According to the author of Genesis, God created man 
 in his own image, but that statement suggests a much 
 larger content to our minds that it did to his. AVe can 
 no longer think, as that Hebrew writer did, of a God who 
 made a world in six days and '^finished the work that he 
 had made,-' and because he had finished his work ''rested 
 
224 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 on the seventli day from all his work which he had made," 
 and inferentially has been resting ever since. To lis the 
 creation of the world does not seem a work begun some 
 five thousand years ago and finished out of hand in six 
 days, but a process begun uncounted ages ago and still 
 going on. IN^ot instantaneous creation, but continuous cre- 
 ation, is our idea of divine activity. God is not an idler 
 in the heavens but is still a Maker. ''My Father has been 
 working hitherto and I am working," said Jesus. 
 
 Creating man in God's image is God's greatest work, as 
 the writer of Genesis said, but it is a work by no means 
 finished. We may well look for the coming, not of 
 Metzsche's Superman, a Gulliver amidst Lilliputians, but 
 for a race of Supermen, as far greater than men now liv- 
 ing as are the highest races of to-day greater than their 
 savage ancestors — as far greater, perhaps, as those savages 
 were greater than the brutes from which they sprang. Our 
 confidence in the indefinite perfectibility of man rests on 
 our belief in the continuous creative activity of God. He 
 has something to make of man better and higher than we 
 now know, or perhaps can now conceive. The "new cre- 
 ation" in Christ Jesus of which Paul speaks (^) is now in 
 process of creation, and in a deeper sense than that in- 
 tended by the apostle John we may say, ''E'ow are we 
 children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we 
 shall be."(2) 
 
 A larger idea of salvation follows necessarily from this 
 larger conception of God and his works. The epic of re- 
 demption is not the story of a single soul, striving against 
 giants and angels and demons for a few years to attain a 
 solitary holiness, but the struggle of a race through count- 
 less generations to realize an ideal of social righteousness, 
 justice and love. So far as Paulinism can help in this 
 struggle, it will be a welcome ally. By far the greater 
 
 (M 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal, 0:15. 
 (^) 1 John 3:2. 
 
WHAT THEX IS CHRISTIANITY? 225 
 
 part of what the world has hitherto called "saintliness" — 
 a cultivation of the personal virtues, with absolute disre- 
 gard of duties to fellowmen — is mere evasion of duty and 
 far from the admirable thing it has long been conceived 
 to be. Indeed, the world is nearly ready for the assertion 
 that the greater the '^saint'' the greater the sinner. In 
 this warfare, the "slaclver" will find little tolerance. The 
 old Roman proverb, Unus Christianus est nullus Chris- 
 tianus — one Christian is no Christian at all — had a good 
 deal of truth wrapped up in its five terse words. Quietism 
 is not, as !^ietzsche declared, the logical development of 
 the gospel, but its antipodes. 
 
 Religion begins historically in clan ideas, in the totem 
 and taboo, and not in individual seekings after God. It 
 is in its essence and inmost fiber social, and all its institu- 
 tions have a social origin. Hence redemption must be a 
 social process. Regeneration is not individual, because 
 sin is not individual. But a minute fraction of human 
 evil, if any fraction at all, concerns a single person only. 
 Sin is social ; its consequences affect the entire social group, 
 as well as the erring individual. The cure of sin must 
 therefore be as much social as individual. We must learn 
 to think of sin as an offense against our fellows primarily, 
 an offense against God in our fellows. This larger view 
 of sin will revolutionize Christianity, and make it once 
 more the social force its Founder designed it to be. 
 
 When we thus conceive God and his relations to us, re- 
 ligion takes on a richer meaning than we can find in the 
 writings of Paul. His teaching is not false, but in large 
 part outgrown. His appeal is too much to the individual 
 soul to secure salvation by individual faith. This is a 
 gospel of selfishness, that falls below the best ethical stand- 
 ard of the world outside the Church — a world that has 
 come to acknowledge, if not to practice consistently, the 
 truth that there is in man an instinct higher than self- 
 interest, the instinct of love, altruism, tliought for the 
 
226 rUNDAMEI^^TALS OF CITRTSTIAXITY 
 
 other man. The Church can never win on its present 
 lines, which are the lines of Paulinism. It needs a re- 
 vival of true religion more sorely than those whom in its 
 complacency it calls ''the unsaved." Of course, those 
 within the pale of the Church cannot easily be persuaded 
 that they are not among the securely ''saved/' yet the 
 real fact is that their case is often more hopeless than that 
 of the "unsaved/' because they are so steeped in religious 
 conceit and so ignorant of what real "salvation" is. 
 
 The revival that the Church needs is therefore one that 
 will lift it out of its present complacency and selfishness, 
 that will make it hear the call of God to the heroic in man, 
 that will appeal to that capacity for struggle and self- 
 sacrifice which is the true image of God in us. The 
 Church needs a revival that will inspire it to put far away 
 the desire of glory and happiness and ease, that will make 
 it listen to the divine voice that holds out to us as our re- 
 ward of service, not a lazy heaven, but the joy of creation, 
 the glory of bringing good out of evil, beauty out of ugli- 
 ness, order out of chaos — the stern joy that warriors feel, 
 not the allurements of pleasure and luxury. For ours is 
 a warrior religion. Let hedonism be our philosophy of 
 life, but let it be that exalted hedonism which values most 
 the joy of battle, the joy of struggle, the joy of toil. After 
 all, religion is the Great Adventure. It satisfies the deep 
 Wanderlust of the race, and affords full scope for the 
 red-blooded man's fighting instinct, his passion for achieve- 
 ment of the worth while. 
 
 AVhat is Christianity ? Is it democracy ? The Church 
 of the Messiah in ^N'ew York, to which men like Robert 
 Collyer and Minot J. Savage have ministered in the past, 
 Avhich has lionorable traditions as a Unitarian church, has 
 disclaimed Unitarianism as too narrow for its present 
 
WHAT THEX IS CllRISTIAXITY ? 227 
 
 conceptions of religion and has transformed itself into 
 ^'Tlie Community Cluirch of ^ew York." Is it necessary 
 or probable that Christian churches generally will repudi- 
 ate their historic names and traditions for some demo- 
 cratic or socialistic title more expressive of their new ideals 
 and aspirations ? If religion is to be identified hereafter 
 with democracy it behooves us to understand what is dem- 
 ocracy and in what it differs from historic Christianity. 
 
 Beyond a doubt historic Christianity as a whole has been 
 undemocratic. With few exceptions, all forms of organ- 
 ized I'oligion have had an aristocratic basis. Oligarchies 
 of ministers or bishops have ruled Protestantism, and at 
 times Catholicism, while in these later centuries Roman 
 Catholicism has become an absolute monarchy. There 
 can be no permanent modus vivendi between such Chris- 
 tianity and democracy — one or the other must eventually 
 hold the field. Only a democratic religion can survdve 
 among a democratic people. 
 
 Democracy and real Christianity have a common ethical 
 basis, for democracy is the nile of right. Hegel was jus- 
 tified in his theory of the State as an organism, with a 
 supreme claim on its members, but wrong in making force 
 the living spirit of this body. Right, the common wel- 
 fare, is the animating spirit of organic society. 
 
 Democracy and genuine Christianity have a common 
 goal, for democracy is liberty and Christianity has always 
 been proclaimed as deliverance. Professor Thomas H. 
 Green once defined liberty as "positive power or capacity 
 which each man exercises or holds through the help or 
 security given him by his fellowmen, and Avhich he in 
 turn ]](^l))s to secure for them." Liberty is not freedom 
 from restraint, but power to do and enjoy. The few re- 
 straints necessary in a civilized society, to prevent any 
 from trespassing on the equal liberty of all, arc so far 
 surpassed by the increment of privilege and capacity to do, 
 as to be negligible. That is precisely the conception of 
 
228 FUN^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Christian freedom taught in the New Testament — not a 
 surrender of anything worth while, but the acquisition of 
 new power and privilege. Both democracy and Chris- 
 tianity mean that every man and woman shall enjoy a 
 free personality in a world of equal opportunity. There 
 will always be diversities of gifts and achievements, and 
 these diversities should be presumed to be greater, not 
 less, in a state of freedom than our present state of partial 
 slavery. Social equality does not mean social identity, 
 but it will always be better for the world that many should 
 have silver in their pockets than that a few should have 
 gold. 
 
 Both democracy and Christianity insist on the worth 
 and dignity of the individual, as well as on the value of 
 social institutions. Both demand that every human soul 
 shall be treated as an end ; the exploitation of the present 
 order treats him as a means. Man should live for his 
 own perfectibility, not as a machine for producing wealth 
 for another man. The exploitation of human life and 
 human liberties that has gone on for a century in America 
 under the pretext of equal economic opportunity for all, 
 is no more democracy than Russian autocracy was democ- 
 racy. 
 
 All genuine ideas of democracy find powerful support 
 in the teachings of Jesus ; while the best that we can say 
 of the writings of Paul is that they need not be construed 
 as opposing democracy. But the teaching of Jesus can- 
 not be harmonized with a materialistic democracy. Ma^ 
 terial prosperity was not his ideal, though he distinctly 
 taught that all men might and should have a sufficiency. 
 When we have won the means of living for all, we must 
 still turn to Jesus to learn what to do with life. Let us 
 not be surprised if for a time democracy does not fully 
 comprehend which is the graver problem of the two, since 
 all its energies are just now required for the solution of 
 the firpt, Objectors to all proposals made for the ma- 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 229 
 
 terial betterment of mankind are quick to point out that 
 the present state of mind of the proletariat affords no 
 bright prosj)ect of the higher sort of progress. They 
 argue that workingmen fail to use for self-improvement 
 any leisure gained by shortened hours of labor, and that 
 they therefore deserve no further concessions. 
 
 But what reason was there to expect any immediate en- 
 thusiasm for culture among workingmen? Was it to be 
 rationally supposed that the deadening monotony of their 
 grinding toil would give them an appetite for the higher 
 things surpassing that of their employers ? Is it not true 
 tliat, with vastly greater opportunity and encouragement, 
 the employers often have as little love of culture as their 
 workmen, and use their leisure as badly, if a little differ- 
 ently ? And if this be indisputably true, is it not absurd 
 to blame the workingman for being no more high-minded 
 than his present social betters ? Give him time to become 
 accustomed to some leisure, and opportunity to acquire a 
 taste for literature and music and art by placing these 
 things more easily Avithin his reach, and after a genera- 
 tion or two if his mental grade is no higher than that of 
 the present ''tired business man," it may possibly be timely 
 to criticise his low tastes and small achievement. 
 
 Our reproaches of the laborer for his lack of interest in 
 the higher things are not so much hypercritical as hypo- 
 critical. We are not really surprised that he prefers his 
 newspaper to poetry and philosophy, cheap fiction to Thack- 
 eray and Turgenieff ; that he would rather hear ragtime 
 than symphony; that he goes to a ball game rather than 
 to an art gallery on a holiday. Is not the same true of 
 ourselves, in spite of our pretense of superior "culture" ? 
 In our self-conceit, we say of the ''lower classes," as we 
 contemptuously call them, that they have no capacity of 
 enjoyment, when the higher pursuits are in question. 
 Perhaps we are right ; but let us consider how little they 
 have by comparison of surplus energy, of stimulus, of 
 
2o0 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 leisure, above all, of knowledge. If their tastes are crude 
 and their pleasures unrefined, it is not for us to judge 
 them, since we have for generations deprived them of 
 opportunity to cultivate their spiritual natures. 
 
 The taunting challenge is often flung at the workers 
 that they only envy the rich, and that at bottom their 
 chief desire is to wear diamonds and dine at the Waldorf- 
 Astoria. Even if that were true, what of it? If the so- 
 called better class can find no higher use for its wealth 
 than to spend it in vulgar display and the gratification of 
 sense, is it so discreditable to the workers that they desire 
 the same things that most please their supposed ^'betters'' ? 
 The rich buy pictures — art is usually a good investment — 
 but do not love them. The rich buy books — one must have 
 a ^ ^library" in the house — but do not read them. The 
 rich go to the opera — it is the best place to show off dress 
 and jewels — and talk throughout the performance. One 
 recalls Mark Twain's reply to a chattering hostess: ^'You 
 really must come to our box again Friday night ; they give 
 Faust then." ''Charmed," said Mark; '^I don't think I 
 have heard you in Faust." 
 
 Equally misplaced is that oft-heard bemoaning of democ- 
 racy's contentment with mediocrity, its jealousy of genius 
 and even of talent, its lack of graciousness and charm, its 
 deadly monotony. All these things are true, more or 
 less, of democracy thus far, as they have been true of aris- 
 tocracy at times. They are true of democracy, not be- 
 cause they are inseparable from it, but because democracy 
 has been engaged in a stern fight for existence and has 
 therefore had little surplus of leisure or wealth to cultivate 
 the fine art of living. Yet it might not be amiss for 
 these mourners to recall that it was in the democratic cit- 
 ies of Greece that art and letters most highly flourished; 
 and that the next most distinguished period of culture is 
 found in the Italian democracies of the fifteenth century. 
 
 What are some of the other faults of democracy ? Dem- 
 
WHAT THE^ IS CHEISTIANITY ? 231 
 
 ocracy is vicious? Yes, but democracy might lend its 
 vices to serve as the virtues of aristocracy. Democracy is 
 inefficient? So Germany said; but the Marne and Ver- 
 dun were France's answer, and Chateau-Thierry, Saint-Mi- 
 Iiiel and the Argonne were America's. It has not yet 
 been demonstrated that democracy is inefficient, even for 
 war; but better muddle than tyranny, if we really must 
 choose between the two. It is not clear as yet that we 
 must have either. 
 
 A distinguishing trait of Jesus is his trust in human na- 
 ture. His unshakable faith in God included faith in 
 man, as made in God's likeness. Pessimism was impos- 
 sible to him. Many who profess to be his disciples lack 
 his belief in the indefinite perfectibility of man ; they pro- 
 fess as their faith that man has no possibilities save pos- 
 sibilities of evil. But Jesus saw in man capabilities of 
 all good, and saw him realizing his wealth of future ex- 
 cellence. One who understands this attitude of Jesus, 
 and makes it his own, comes at length to comprehend that 
 democracy is an elemental force. To describe anyone as 
 ^'a champion of democracy" or "a foe to democracy" is 
 as ludicrous as to call anyone a friend or foe of gravita- 
 tion. In the case of either force it is wholly a question of 
 the individual's getting himself aligned with it and acting 
 in accordance with it, or being crushed. When Mrs. 
 Partington tried to sweep back the Atlantic, she did not 
 Tmdertake a more hopeless task than that of an opponent 
 of democracy. 
 
 The remedy for the defects of democracy is more dem- 
 ocracy; education — not in the narrower sense of instruc- 
 tion, but in the wider sense of the harmonious training of 
 all human faculties, alike of body and mind. Mens sana 
 in corpore sano will still do as a condensed formula, with 
 a sufficiently liberal interpretation of mens. We have 
 been making '^education" too exclusively concerned with 
 the acquirement of "all kinds of delightful and useless 
 
232 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 learning/' and too little with character. Eiiskin was on 
 the right track when he said that the learner should be 
 trained ^'not so much to know what he would otherwise 
 not know, but to behave as he would not otherwise be- 
 have." With a large construction of ^'behave," as covering 
 all human conduct, this would be an excellent ideal of ed- 
 ucation in a democracy. 
 
 JSTot the late war merely, but unseen influences of dec- 
 ades have been hastening the world's drift towards democ- 
 racy. Royalty long ago disappeared in England, like the 
 cat Alice saw in Wonderland, until nothing is left of it 
 but the smile. The King is an imposing iigure-head for 
 great state functions, or in a more private way a gracious 
 layer of corner-stones or a dignified opener of museums, 
 but as to power — England's King is only a gown and a 
 crown. Royalties that are not thus content to be reduced 
 to ciphers will soon be wiped off the w^orld's slate alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Democracy is the result of a long process of evolution, 
 in which the underlying Power of the universe has been 
 expressing his character in man and society. So we are 
 able to profess as our faith, ^'God is democracy" with 
 quite as much confidence as when we say, "God is love." 
 But democracy is just beginning to modify religious 
 thought, so long cast in the molds of monarchy and aristoc- 
 racy. The theologian has been saying for ages that the 
 history of mankind is the awful record of continued and 
 wilful rebellion against God. Democracy suggests a new 
 reading of the history of the world. Written in rocks or 
 books it is one story : the glorious record of a painful search 
 after God, a sublime outreach of man towards a higher 
 goodness. Man never "fell" — he has always been strug- 
 gling upwards after the good and true, stumbling and 
 tumbling often, but always up and on again. 
 
 From first to last we find the story of man to be a con- 
 structive process ; a more and more perfect social organism 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHEISTIANITY ? 233 
 
 has been the everlasting goal. All nature has travailed 
 together to bring forth man — body, brain, intelligence, 
 ethical perception, social institutions. If there had been 
 an easier way to produce man and human society, it is 
 rational to believe that God would have chosen it. If 
 there were any less thorny path for man to climb the 
 heights of being than by strife and bloodshed, would God 
 not have taken it? The late dreadful war is of a piece 
 with the whole development of this planet, as geology and 
 history tell the story. 
 
 Thus far, it must be conceded, that while destructive 
 forces have been always in existence, and at times have 
 been so active that they seemed on the point of overwhelm- 
 ing humanity in one red ruin, out of apparent chaos and 
 death have in the end always emerged life and order and 
 beauty. Shall we not have faith that such will continue 
 to be the event? ^N'ot only has the history of the world 
 been a record of social progress, but religion has been the 
 decisive factor in that progress. We may trace the stages 
 of social melioration by the gradual elevation and purifi- 
 cation of men's ideas regarding God and duty. The high- 
 est point in civilization yet reached is coincident with a 
 clearer apprehension of the principle that the welfare of 
 the individual, and even his very existence, is conditioned 
 on the welfare of society. 
 
 Yet the pulpit still proclaims its old gospel of individu- 
 alism, ^'Redemption is individual. You cannot get ahead 
 one inch except on that basis." (^) But the experience of 
 centuries assures us that you cannot get ahead more than 
 an inch on that basis. Real, substantial progress is pos- 
 sible only on the basis of a redemption that is neither indi- 
 vidual nor social exclusively, a redemption that is indi- 
 vidual and social. The salvation that Jesus offers has 
 
 (^) Bishop William Fraser McDowell, "In the School of Christ," 
 New York, 1910. He, however, soon qualifies this assertion, by say- 
 ing of Christ, "His plan included a saved man, a saved society, a 
 saved world." Lecture II. 
 
234 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 been too narrowly conceived and proclaimed: as an indi- 
 vidual process witli incidental results on society. We are 
 coming to conceive it as fundamentally a social enterprise, 
 with incidental results on the individual. The individual 
 and society mutually act and react. For this new concep- 
 tion of religion we go to Jesus, not to Paul. 
 
 yi 
 
 We see then that a final answer to the query, What is 
 Christianity? is conditioned by our notion of the content 
 of ^'Christianity." That content is large, for it includes 
 a philosophy, a religion and a cult. The philosophy of 
 Christianity, or Christian theology, is purely intellectual. 
 As a religion, Christianity signifies a life, the means by 
 which men try to form and maintain right relations with 
 God and their fellows. As a cult, Christianity means the 
 Church and its worship, rites and sacraments. 
 
 All these elements are necessary; each is indispensable 
 in its place. The religious life must have a rational basis 
 to make it permanently possible, and the cult is impera- 
 tive to stimulate the emotional fervor without which the 
 life languishes. Any form of religion that lacks either a 
 theology or a cult, lacks vitality. Deism was a consistent 
 philosophy and inculcated a high ideal of life, but it had 
 no cult and so it died. Comte took warning from that 
 failure and tried to provide a cult for his Positivism, but 
 it was too fantastic for success. Frederic Harrison has, 
 however, for more than a generation maintained at least 
 a semblance of a positivist cult in London, but he has suc- 
 ceeded by virtue of making his Positivist society a feeble 
 imitation of a Christian Church. 
 
 A philosophy of religion is possible only as it proceeds 
 from belief that there is a God about whom we know 
 something, and that we can come into satisfactory rela- 
 tions with him. Hence the controlling element in such 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 235 
 
 a philosophy is the ideal of God with which we begin and 
 from which we proceed through all our deductions. It 
 has clearly appeared in the course of our discussions that 
 Jesus and Paul give us quite different ideas of God. 
 These ideas are so very different that inferences cannot be 
 drawn from both of them combined, while inferences 
 drawn from either taken by itself lead to conclusions so 
 unlike that at times they can hardly be recognized as re- 
 ferring to the same God. The two philosophies that result 
 from taking Jesus or Paul as fundamental authority re- 
 garding God are at variance almost as radically as any 
 form of Christianity differs from Buddhism. Historic 
 Christianity has followed Paul. It is the main object of 
 this book to convince readers that the Christianity of the 
 future must follow Jesus. 
 
 And therefore it cannot be admitted that Christianity 
 is reducible to mere ethics, or even to ^'morality touched 
 by emotion/' as Matthew Arnold defined religion. Ethics 
 may be said to be the science of values in their relation to 
 conduct as a whole. It is the interpretation of the moral 
 experience of the race, by discovery of the principles im- 
 plicit in the experience. It thus becomes the evaluation 
 of all values for the purpose of life. The only decisive 
 test of ethical values is reality — ^'revelation'' cannot over- 
 ride fact. What we seek is the unity of experience in the 
 interest of truth. 
 
 But ethics is also the art of living, the application of 
 the discovered principles to the events of daily life. Here 
 ethics coincides with religion, without becoming identical 
 with it. Religion and ethics agree that the ultimate value 
 is the welfare and character of mankind. Good conduct 
 is that which tends to promote human welfare or develop 
 the highest type of character; bad conduct is the reverse. 
 We call justice, trutli, benevolence, chastity, virtues be- 
 cause experience proves that their practice has been pro- 
 motive of general welfare and character. Polygamy was 
 
236 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 esteemed virtuous for centuries, but has become vicious 
 because of observed social effects. Drunkenness and gam- 
 bling, once uncondemned and then tolerated, are now imi- 
 versally stigmatized as vices, because they uniformly pro- 
 duce deterioration of character and increase human misery. 
 
 ''Virtue'' and ''Vice" are fluid terms. The duty of 
 almsgiving is extolled by Jesus and Mohammed and reck- 
 oned as a virtue in all religions. It was a virtue in a 
 social condition where it was the only possible alleviation 
 of human misery, but indiscriminate almsgiving is any- 
 thing but virtuous in our day. The public and private 
 provisions for systematic relief of suffering are now so 
 numerous and so great, that the giving of alms without 
 careful inquiry is merely offering a premium to profes- 
 sional beggary, the attempt of a certain class to live with- 
 out work. A former virtue has become a vice, in which 
 many people persist because their heads are even softer 
 than their hearts. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself" has long been taken as warrant for handing the 
 poor a small coin and leaving them to wallow in their 
 riotous and sordid slums. It is now seen that we love our 
 neighbor only if we try, not merely to relieve his imme- 
 diate hunger and nakedness, but to extricate him from his 
 poverty and make him share our prosperity. Society is 
 beginning to apprehend that all enterprises for the mere 
 relief of distress are vicious, and that what is demanded 
 is a determined and intelligent campaign for its cure. 
 
 If it be objected to this analysis of conduct that its 
 basis is the old discredited hedonism of Aristotle, it may 
 be replied that "happiness" has been enlarged to include 
 all those experiences of spiritual satisfaction that result 
 from the noblest activities. It was sheer perversity that 
 made Carlyle denounce hedonism as a "pig philosophy." 
 Hedonism may be so narrowed as to become inadequate 
 as an ethical theory, and like nearly everything it may be 
 perverted, but Christian theologians should be slow to con- 
 
WHAT THEN IS CHEISTIANITY ? 237 
 
 demn it after proclaiming for centuries the happiness of 
 Heaven as the goal of all Christian effort. 
 
 The discussion of the preceding pages has been little 
 else than detailed exposition of three propositions, which 
 together form a syllogism : 
 
 There has been progressive apprehension by man of the 
 character of God, and of his purposes in the creation and 
 maintenance of this universe. 
 
 This progressive knowledge of God is contained, in its 
 hidiest form, in the Jewish and Christian collections of 
 literature known as the Old and l^ew Testaments, or the 
 Bible; and it culminates in the words of Jesus, as pre- 
 served in the Gospels. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus is therefore Christianity — ^the 
 norm of religious truth — and all other teaching must be 
 compared with it and corrected by it. Whatever will not 
 bear that test must be laid aside as part of the outworn and 
 outgrown garments of religion. 
 
 These propositions are uncomplicated with any theo- 
 logical speculations regarding the person of Jesus. Obvi- 
 ously, if true at all, they are equally true whether Jesus 
 was human or divine. It is for those who have followed 
 the author patiently through these pages to say how satis- 
 factorily the above propositions have been sustained. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 CONSPECTUS OF N. T. TEACHING ON ATONEMENT 
 
 Those who trust in themselves that they are orthodox, 
 and set all others at naught, make great professions of close 
 adherence to the Scriptures. They assert the teaching of the 
 New Testament especially to he that Christ died as a substi- 
 tute for sinners. All other teaching regarding Atonement 
 they denounce as heresy and a denial of the supreme authority 
 of the Bible. They have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar 
 they shall go. Following is a list of the chief passages in the 
 New Testament relating to Atonement, literally translated 
 into current English, and classified according to their teach- 
 ing. The list is believed to be approximately exhaustive; at 
 any rate, it is fully representative of all the different types of 
 teaching ; and if any important passage has been omitted, it is 
 by inadvertence, and not to evade any difficulty that it might 
 present. It will be seen that only a single text (I Pet. 3 :24) 
 even seems to teach substitution ; and' that is a reminiscence of 
 Old Testament poetry, the language of emotion, not of exact 
 scientific definition. 
 
 1. Atonement Dub to Divine Love. 
 
 John 3 :16, For God so loved the world that he gave his 
 Only-Begotten Son, that every one who trusts in him may not 
 perish but have eternal life. 
 
 Rom. 5:8, But God made known his own love unto us, 
 in that while we were sinners Christ died in our behalf. 
 
 II Cor. 8 :9, For you know the gift of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, that he became poor for your sakes, though he was 
 rich, that you might be enriched by his poverty. 
 
 238 
 
APPENDIX 239 
 
 Eph. 5 :25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also 
 loved the church and delivered himself up for her sake. 
 
 Tit. 3 :4, But when the love toward man of our Saviour 
 God appeared . . . which he poured out on us richly through 
 Jesus Christ, our Saviour. 
 
 I Jn. 3:16, In this we know love, that he for our sakes 
 laid down his life. 
 
 I Jn. 4:9, Cod's love was made evident in our case by 
 this : God sent forth into the world his Son, the Only-Begot- 
 ten, in order that we might live through him. 
 
 2. Object of Atonement. 
 (a) to remove sin. 
 
 Rom. 5:6, Christ died in behalf of the ungodly. 
 
 Eom. 5 :8, While we were yet sinners, Christ died in our 
 behalf. 
 
 Rom. 5:19, For as, by means of the disobedience of the 
 one man, the many were constituted sinners, so also by means 
 of the obedience of the one, the many will be constituted right- 
 eous. 
 
 Rom. 5:21, Him who did not know sin, he made sin(^) 
 for our sakes. 
 
 Rom. 6:10, For in that he died, he died to(-) sin, once 
 for all. 
 
 Heb. 9 :26, To put away sin he has been manifested. 
 
 I Pet. 2 :24, Who himself bore our sins in his own body 
 on the tree. 
 
 I. Pet. 3:18, Because also Christ suffered once for all in 
 behalf of sin, the righteous in behalf of the unrighteous. 
 
 I. Jn. 3 :5, And you know that he appeared to take away 
 sins. 
 
 (h) to vindicate God's character. 
 
 Rom. 3 :21, 26, Apart from law, a righteousness of God 
 has been manifested ... by means of trust in Jesus Christ 
 
 (M That is, treated him as if lie were a sinner. 
 (-) The probable meaning is, ''He died with reference to sin," •v 
 "in relation to sin." 
 
240 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 . . . for exhibition of his righteousness in the present time, 
 to the end that he may be just and the justifier of him who is 
 of trust in Jesus. 
 
 3. Atonement^ How Effected. 
 (a) ly the death of Christ. 
 
 John 3 :1415, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil- 
 derness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that every man 
 who trusts in him may have eternal life. 
 
 II Cor. 5:14, For the love of Christ constrains us, who 
 judge this: that one died in behalf of all; therefore they all 
 died. 
 
 Heb. 2 :9, That he by God's grace, in behalf of every one 
 might taste death. 
 
 See also Rom. 5:8 and I Jn. 3:16 under (1) ; Rom. 5:6, 
 8; 6:10; and I Pet. 2:24, under (2) ; and Heb. 9:15 under 
 (5). 
 
 All passages referring to ^%e cross'' (such as Gal. 6:14; 
 I Cor. 1:18; Heb. 12:2) or to being ''crucified with Christ," 
 (such as Gal. 2:20; 6:14) also belong to this phase of the 
 teaching. 
 
 (&) through Ohrisfs hloodC) 
 
 Matt. 26 :28, For this is my blood of the [new] (') cove- 
 nant, which is poured out for the sake of many [unto remis- 
 sions of sins]. 
 
 Mk. 14:24, This is my blood of the covenant, which is 
 poured out for the sake of many. 
 
 [Lk. 22 :20, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, 
 which is poured out in your behalf.] 
 
 Jn. 6 : 5 3-5 5, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man 
 and drink his blood you have no life in yourselves. He that 
 feeds upon my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life . . . 
 For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. 
 
 n "The blood is the life," Deut. 12:22; cf. Lev. 17-11. 
 (*) Words in brackets are probably interpolations into the orig- 
 inal text. 
 
APPENDIX 241 
 
 Eph. 2:13, You who were once far off, are now made 
 near in Christ^s blood. 
 
 Heb. 9:13, 14, For if the blood of goats and bulls ... 
 sanctifies to the purification of the flesh, how much more will 
 Christ's blood. 
 
 Heb. 9 :22, Apart from shedding of blood comes no re- 
 mission. 
 
 Heb. 10 :4, For it is impossible that the blood of bulls 
 and goats should take away sin. 
 
 Heb. 10:29, The blood of the covenant; also 13:20. 
 
 Heb. 13 :10, Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by 
 means of his o^vn blood. 
 
 I Jn. 1 :7, And the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us 
 from all sin. 
 
 Eev. 1 :5, To him who loved us and freed us from our 
 sins by means of his blood. 
 
 Eev. 7:14, These are they who came out of the Great 
 Persecution; and they washed their robes and made them 
 white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
 4. Atonement Effects Forgiveness of Sins. 
 
 Acts 5:30-32, Jesus, whom you killed ... did God 
 exalt ... to give . . . remission of sins. 
 
 Acts 13 :38, By means of this man, remission of sins is 
 proclaimed. 
 
 Acts 26 :18, The Gentiles, to whom I will send thee . . . 
 that they may receive forgiveness of sins. 
 
 Eph. 1:7, In whom we have ... the forgiveness of our 
 trespasses. 
 
 Heb. 1 :3, When he had made a purification of sins. 
 
 I Tim. 1 :15, Jesus Christ came into the world to deliver 
 sinners. 
 
 5. Atonement Described as Ransom. 
 
 Matt. 20 :28, For the Son of Man came not to be served, 
 but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom instead of many. 
 Mk, 10:45 is a parallel passage. 
 
242 FUlTDAMEIfrTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Eom. 3 :24, Justified freely by his gift, by means of the 
 ransom that is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 I Cor. 1 :30, But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who be- 
 came wisdom to us from Grod, and righteousness, and sancti- 
 fieation, and ransom. 
 
 Gal. 3:13, Christ ransomed us from the law's curse, hav- 
 ing become a curse in our behalf. 
 
 Gal. 4:5, God sent forth his Son . . . that he might 
 ransom those under law. 
 
 Eph. 1:7, In whom we have the ransom by means of his 
 blood. 
 
 Eph. 1:14, Who is the pledge (or first payment) of our 
 inheritance until the ransom (payment in full) of the pur- 
 chase. 
 
 Eph. 4:30, In whom you were sealed unto a day of ran- 
 som. 
 
 Col. 1 :14, The Son of his love, in whom we have the ran- 
 som. (^) 
 
 I Tim. 2:16, For God is one; one also is a go-between 
 of God and men, Christ Jesus, a man who gave himself as a 
 ransom for the sake of all. 
 
 Tit. 2:14, Who gave himself in our behalf, that he might 
 ransom us from all iniquity. 
 
 Heb. 9:11, Christ as a high priest ... by means of his 
 own blood entered once for all into the holy places, obtaining 
 an eternal ransom. 
 
 Heb. 9 :15, He is a go-between of a new covenant, in 
 order that, death having occurred for a ransom of the trans- 
 gressions under the first covenant, those that have been 
 called might receive the eternal inheritance. 
 
 I Pet. 1 :18, Not with perishable things . . . were you 
 ransomed . . . but with precious blood of Christ, like a 
 lamb blameless and spotless. 
 
 Eev. 5 :9, Worthy art thou to take the roll, and open its 
 seals. Because thou wast slain and didst purchase for God 
 
 (^) The words following in the A. V., "through his blood," are 
 almost certainly a later interpolation. 
 
APPENDIX 243 
 
 with thy blood, out of every tribe and tongue, and people, 
 and nation, and made them a kingdom and priests to our God. 
 
 6. Atonement Described as "Mercy-Seat" (' ) 
 
 Eom. 3:25, Whom God set forth as a mercy-seat, by 
 means of trust in his blood. 
 
 I Jn. 2 :2, And he is a mercy-seat with reference to our 
 sins; and not for ours only, but for the whole world. 
 
 Heb. 2:17, That he might become a merciful and a faith- 
 ful high priest in things pertaining to God, to be a mercy- 
 seat for the sins of the people. 
 
 7. Atonement Described as Sacrifice. 
 
 I Cor. 5:8, For Christ, our passover, was sacrificed. 
 
 Heb. 5:1, Every high priest ... is appointed ... to 
 offer both gifts and sacrifices in behalf of sins. 
 
 Heb. 5:7, Who is not under a daily necessity ... of 
 offering sacrifices, for this he did once for all, in offering 
 himself. 
 
 Heb. 9 :14, Christ . . . offered himself without blemish 
 to God; also verses 26, 27. 
 
 Heb. 10 :10, Through the offering of Jesus Christ's body 
 once for all. 
 
 Heb. 10 :12, But he, having offered one sacrifice in behalf 
 of sins. 
 
 Heb. 10:14, For by one offering he has perfected forever 
 those who are sanctified. 
 
 8. Atonement Described as Reconciliation. 
 
 Jn. 12 :32, And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to 
 myself. 
 
 Rom. 5 :9, 10, For if, while enemies we were recon- 
 ciled to God by means of his Son's death, much more, being 
 reconciled, we shall be delivered by his life. And not merely 
 
 (^) A meetin^-plaee, for reconciliation, of God and man. A. V. 
 "to make reconciliation"; other translations ''to make propitiation." 
 
244: FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 
 
 that, but [shall he] exulting in God through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whose means we have now received the reconcilia- 
 tion (of. 11-15). 
 
 II Cor. 5 : :18-20, And all things are from God, who rec- 
 onciled us to himself by means of Jesus Christ, and gave to us 
 the service of reconciliation : namely, that God was in Christ 
 reconciling a world to himself, not reckoning to them their 
 trespasses and having committed to us the message of the 
 reconciliation. On behalf of Christ therefore, we act as am- 
 bassadors, as though God were entreating through us: we 
 beseech, on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God. 
 
 Eph. 2:16, That he might reconcile both [Jews and Gen- 
 tiles] in one body to God by means of the cross. 
 
 Col. 1 :20, 21, And by means of him to reconcile all things 
 to himself, having made peace by means of the blood of his 
 cross . . . And you he has reconciled by the body of his 
 flesh by means of death. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Abelard '-"l^n 
 
 Abraham 136, 158, 1<6 
 
 Descendants of 13o 
 
 Adam and Eve 135 
 
 Adam's sin 15^ 
 
 Alexander V^ 
 
 Altruism l^o 
 
 Ambrose, Saint l|Jo 
 
 Amos •••• J-^ 
 
 Anselm" 149, 186 
 
 Anthropology 9^^ 
 
 Apocalyptic discourses ... 8 
 
 Apollos AA"^2n 
 
 Apostles 96, 150 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas. .. .149, 204 
 
 Arabia |45 
 
 Aratus 11^ 
 
 Aristotle 104, 236 
 
 Arnold, Matthew.. 12, 70, 235 
 
 Asia Minor 98 
 
 Asiatic cults 218 
 
 Assisi, Francis of 94, 154 
 
 Assyria '^^ 
 
 Athanasius 149 
 
 Athenians 56 
 
 Atonement, blood 194 
 
 Conspectus of 238-244 
 
 Doctrine of. .178, 179, 185, 202 
 
 Ethical theory of 186, 194 
 
 Gretian theory of 186, 194 
 
 Pagan 186 
 
 Pauline teaching of 192 
 
 Vital process of 198 
 
 Augustine. .49, 183, 204, 218, 
 
 219 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus 30, 104 
 
 Babylonia 78 
 
 Barnabas 141 
 
 Barrow, Bishop 94 
 
 Beatitudes, of Luke 4, 5 
 
 Of Matthew 5, 6 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux ...104 
 
 245 
 
 Page 
 
 Bible ix, xxiii, 34 
 
 Infallibility of xviii 
 
 Origin xviii 
 
 Place in religion xviii 
 
 Schools xi 
 
 Biology, study of 89 
 
 Blood atonement 194 
 
 Brotherhood, of Kingdom. 91 
 
 Buddha 39, 52 
 
 Bunyan, John 85, 155 
 
 Cfesar, Augustus 98 
 
 Calvin, John.. 4, 149, 176, 218 
 
 Calvanism 171, 175 
 
 Catholics xi, 33 
 
 Cephas 141 
 
 Christ, death of 201 
 
 "Chosen" people 68 
 
 Life 110 
 
 Work 114 
 
 Christianity xv, 66 
 
 Errors of 214, 215 
 
 Failure of 97 
 
 What is it? . . .209, 213, 219, 
 226, 233 
 
 Chrysostum 115 
 
 Church of the Messiah. . .226 
 
 Church, the 211, 212 
 
 Clement 218 
 
 Coins 25 
 
 Collyer, Robert 226 
 
 Community Church of 
 
 New York 227 
 
 Comte 52, 234 
 
 Confucius 1, 39 
 
 Constantine 77, 150 
 
 Conversion 83 
 
 "Corban" 57 
 
 Corinthians 120, 134 
 
 Cult of Comte 52 
 
 Cybele 99 
 
 Dionysius 99 
 
 Peter and Paul 96 
 
246 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Cybele 99 
 
 Cynics 105 
 
 Damascus 140, 151, 153 
 
 Dante 169 
 
 David 14, 73 
 
 Day of Atonement 200 
 
 Decatur xxiii 
 
 Deliverance 100 
 
 Individual 106 
 
 Promised 106 
 
 Way of 203 
 
 Deliverer.. 167, 198, 205, 221 
 Democracy. .226, 227, 228, 232 
 
 Its mediocrity 230 
 
 Its efficiency 231 
 
 Defects, remedy for ...231 
 
 De Monarchia 169 
 
 Dionysius, cult of 99 
 
 Disciple of Jesus, defined. Ill 
 
 Divine revelation 33 
 
 Catholic theory of 33 
 
 Protestant theory of 33 
 
 Spirit 19 
 
 Doctrine of justification. .198 
 
 Of total depravity. .169, 170 
 
 Domitan xx 
 
 Ecclesia 210 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan 103 
 
 Egypt 78 
 
 Election, interpretation of.l71 
 
 By Luther 172 
 
 By Paul 172, 175 
 
 A Jewish idea 173 
 
 Incompatible doctrine. .175 
 
 Elijah 49, 174 
 
 Elisha 68 
 
 Elizabethan period 95 
 
 Empires, Assyria, Baby- 
 lonia, Egypt, Persia ... 78 
 
 Epictetus 104 
 
 Epistles of Paul ix 
 
 Erasmus 4 
 
 Ethical penalty 164 
 
 Transgression 164 
 
 Ethics, defined 235 
 
 Evangelicals xi, 84 
 
 Fatherhood of God 65, 66, 170 
 Fellowship defined 112 
 
 Page 
 First commandment of the 
 
 law 70 
 
 Gospel 50 
 
 Followers of Jesus 82 
 
 Forgive, Greek derivation 
 
 of 195, 196 
 
 Forgiveness, defined 179 
 
 Divine 179 
 
 Of God 180, 181, 182 
 
 Of sins 184 
 
 Fourth Gospel 20, 28, 69, 108, 
 209 
 
 Fox, George 32 
 
 Francis of Assisi 94, 154 
 
 Friends 31 
 
 Galilee 21, 63, 171 
 
 Scenes in 21 
 
 Gamaliel 218 
 
 School of 158 
 
 Gehenna 102 
 
 Genesis x, xi, 223 
 
 To Revelation 135 
 
 Gnosticism 159 
 
 God as Sovereign 154 
 
 God's Law 163 
 
 Love, extent of 103 
 
 Good Samaritan 73 
 
 "Gospel," definition of 108 
 
 First 50 
 
 Fourth ....28, 69, 108, 209 
 
 Of Jesus 64 
 
 Great Commission 67 
 
 Greco-Roman civilization . 218 
 
 Greek theories 104, 105 
 
 Art 105 
 
 Ethics 105 
 
 Green, Prof. Thomas H. . .227 
 Grotius 186 
 
 Hagar 136 
 
 Harrison, Frederic 234 
 
 Hebrew poetry 10. 11, 12, 
 
 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25 
 
 Hedonism 104, 226, 236 
 
 Hegel 61, 227 
 
 Hell, definitions of 102 
 
 Herod 49 
 
 "Holiness," conception of 113 
 Service of 114 
 
INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Page 
 
 Holy Catholic Church 77 
 
 Of Holies 200, 207 
 
 Spirit 180 
 
 Dwells in believers 148 
 
 Spoke through Paul.. 144 
 
 Individualism in religion . . 90 
 Infallibility, demand for.. 34 
 
 Inspiration 34 
 
 Insufficiency of formal obe- 
 dience 197 
 
 Irenseus 9 
 
 Isaiah 14 
 
 James 141 
 
 Jehovah. .34, 98, 113, 173, 183 
 
 Jehoshua, meaning of 98 
 
 Jeremiah 49 
 
 Jerusalem 78 
 
 Destruction of 62 
 
 Jesus 
 
 Condemns wealth. . . .94, 05 
 
 Crucifixion of 49 
 
 Death of 201 
 
 Duties to man 71, 75 
 
 Ethical teachiuss of... 96 
 Great paradox of.. 106, 107 
 Injunction to disciples. .147 
 
 Message of 76 
 
 Mission of 98 
 
 Name of derivation 98 
 
 Not a professor of sociol- 
 ogy 89 
 
 Personality of 137, 138 
 
 Prophet and teacher... 28 
 Authority as... 28, 29, 30 
 
 Epigrams 41, 42 
 
 Ethical sobriety 39, 40 
 
 Hyperbole of 41, 42 
 
 Irony of., . 44, 45, 46, 47 
 Metaphors used.. 35, 36, 37 
 
 Metho-is of . 30 
 
 Paradox of 41, 42 
 
 Simplicity of 32 
 
 Theology of 33 
 
 Wit and humor of . .37, 38, 
 39, 40, 41, 43 
 The Herald of the King- 
 dom 76 
 
 Goal of 84 
 
 Page 
 The Herald of the Kingdom 
 
 The Messiah 31, 59, 60, 
 
 140, 157, 158, 205 
 
 The peasant poet 1, 9, 
 
 10, 14 
 
 Education of 2 
 
 The people's poet 13 
 
 Human interests, love 
 
 of poor 20 
 
 Love of nature 14, 15, 
 
 18, 19 
 
 The revealer of God 54 
 
 Instruction in laws . 63 
 Recognition by Gali- 
 leans 49 
 
 Sends out disciples 52, 56 
 
 Sets aside laws 63 
 
 The Saviour of the 
 
 World 98 
 
 The Son of God 59 
 
 The theologian 178 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth.. .148, 156 
 Discourse at Nazareth. 173 
 
 Public life of 148 
 
 Works of 167 
 
 Jewish sacrifices 157 
 
 Jews ix, 68, 92, 116 
 
 Johannine writings 69 
 
 John XX, 141, 161 
 
 The Baptist 49, 102 
 
 Josephus 2 
 
 Judaeo-pagan nations 159 
 
 Justification for punish- 
 ment 165 
 
 Kipling 89 
 
 Kingdom of God 76, 77. 78, 
 
 79, 81, 82, 87, 88, 100, 105, 
 148, 170, 171, 209 
 
 Coming of Ill 
 
 Orthodoxy of 176 
 
 Law of the Jungle, the. . 90 
 
 Levi, tribe of 92 
 
 "Life," defined 108 
 
 Ivord's Supper 134 
 
 Louis Quatorze 95 
 
 Lowell 113 
 
 Luke 67, 185 
 
 Luther, Martin. 4, 86, 155, 199 
 
248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Malachi 92 
 
 Mammon, worship of 93 
 
 Marcan discourse 62 
 
 Mark 15, 62, 185 
 
 Matthew 67, 185 
 
 Melanchthon 108, 149 
 
 Message of Jesus 76, 184 
 
 Messiah 156, 157 
 
 Messianic hopes 156 
 
 Messianic work 157 
 
 Micah 14 
 
 Millenial doctrine xx 
 
 Milton 135 
 
 Mohammed 1, 39, 236 
 
 Mohammedamism ...xvi, 236 
 
 Moses 14, 39, 56, 72, 155 
 
 Book of 31 
 
 Mystics 105, 106 
 
 Naaman 68, 174 
 
 Nazareth 167, 174 
 
 Nero XX 
 
 New Christianity ...211, 212 
 
 Jerusalem 102 
 
 Testament. ix, xvii, 76, 81, 
 
 83, 86, 183, 206, 228, 238 
 
 Nietzsche's superman ...224 
 
 Nicodemas 44, 111 
 
 Old Testament Scriptures, 2, 
 101, 144, 156, 159, 183 
 
 Omar 194 
 
 Origen 218 
 
 Palestine, fauna 18 
 
 Landscape 15 
 
 Life 15 
 
 Palm Sunday 47 
 
 Parables, of lost coin 167 
 
 Lost sheep 167 
 
 Lost son 167 
 
 Mark's 16, 17, 18 
 
 Pharisee and publican. .180 
 
 Signilicance of 68 
 
 Two slaves 73 
 
 Paraclete, the spirit of 
 
 truth 147, 150 
 
 Paradise Lost 10 
 
 Paul XV, 56, 66, 69, 92, 96, 
 
 97, 101 
 
 Page 
 Paul, the ambassador ...162 
 
 The apostle, code of 138 
 
 Conversion of 140 
 
 Exhortations of 136 
 
 Influence of Christ on.. 142 
 
 Making of 137 
 
 Meditation of 141 
 
 Mission of 14] 
 
 Personality of 138 
 
 Paul, the Christian Rabbi.161 
 
 The evangelist 118 
 
 The scapegoat 183 
 
 The speculative theolo- 
 gian 178 
 
 Paulicians 219 
 
 Pauline theology 158 
 
 Gospel 183 
 
 Teaching 191 
 
 Writings 199 
 
 Paulinism 184, 218, 220, 
 
 224, 226 
 
 Paul's apostolic call 149 
 
 Conception of God 162 
 
 Doctrine of atonement. .187, 
 
 188, 189, 190, 204, 205 
 
 Doctrine of the cross.. 159 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews. 199 
 
 Epistles 221 
 
 Ethics compared with 
 
 Jesus 132, 134, 135, 136 
 
 Exegesis of Old Testa- 
 ment 136 
 
 Gospel 142, 145 
 
 Great doctrines 222 
 
 Humor 126, 127 
 
 Idea of "Law" 197 
 
 Irony 128 
 
 Justification of self ...157 
 
 Loyalty to Master 155 
 
 Maxims 133 
 
 References 123, 124, 
 
 125, 126 
 
 Relation to Jesus 142 
 
 Revelations 142, 143, 
 
 144, 145 
 
 Sarcasm 128 
 
 Wit 126, 127 
 
 Writings 119 
 
 Literary forms of . . 128, 
 131 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Writings 
 
 To Corinthians 120 
 
 To Ephesians 121-133 
 
 To Gallatians 123, 136. 
 
 144, 158 
 
 To Romans 120, 144, 158 
 
 Pentateuch 118 
 
 Perieope xx 
 
 Persecution xx 
 
 Persia 78 
 
 Person and office of Christ 97 
 Perversion of teachings of 
 
 Jesus 97 
 
 Peter 32, 96 
 
 Fall 96, 97 
 
 Pharisees 36, 47, 56, 57, 
 
 58, 72 
 
 Pilate 169 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress 10, 86 
 
 Pope, infallibility of 148 
 
 Positivism 234 
 
 Poverty 94 
 
 Premillennarians xx, xxi 
 
 Priests 50, 51 
 
 Procrustes, bed of 215 
 
 Prodigal 168 
 
 Prolegomena ix-xxiii 
 
 Prophets 50 
 
 Propitiation 207 
 
 Protestant religion, form 
 of 85 
 
 Churches 99 
 
 Providence of God 171 
 
 Purification for sins 200 
 
 Puritans, superstitions.... 39 
 
 Temperament 43 
 
 Quietism 225 
 
 Rabbi 147 
 
 Redemption 109, 110 
 
 Reformation 4, 86 
 
 Religion, defined 215, 216 
 
 Of democracy 1 36 
 
 Origin 22,') 
 
 Philosophy of 234, 235 
 
 Renaissance 95 
 
 Renan 37 
 
 Renunciation, law of 109 
 
 Repentence, defined 81, 83 
 
 249 
 
 Page 
 
 Revelation x, xi, xix, 102 
 
 Revivals 99 
 
 Roman Catholics, mission 
 
 of 99 
 
 Empire. . .xx, 77, 78, 79, 161 
 
 Imperator 77 
 
 Law 176 
 
 Ruskin 109, 232 
 
 Sacrifices 190 
 
 Sacrificial system of Jews 200 
 
 Sadducees 31 
 
 Salvation, defined 110, 166 
 
 For the Jew alone 174 
 
 Ideals of 104 
 
 Ideas of.. 100, 104, 166, 224 
 
 Nature of 99 
 
 Right view of 112 
 
 Samuel 14 
 
 Sanhedrin 60 
 
 Saul 140 
 
 Appearance of Jesus to 
 
 140, 151, 152 
 
 Alone 151 
 
 Effect of vision on Saul 154 
 
 Not objective 152 
 
 To Saul's spirit 152, 153 
 
 The Urban Pharisee. . .115 
 
 Ambitions 117 
 
 Boyhood 116 
 
 Conversion 118 
 
 Denial of Jesus 140 
 
 Education 118 
 
 Environment 119 
 
 Hatred of Jesus 139 
 
 Inspirations 121, 122 
 
 Parentage 115 
 
 Persecution of Chris- 
 tians 139 
 
 Savage. Minot J 226 
 
 "Saviour" and "Messiah" 
 
 one to Jews Ill 
 
 Septuagint 136, 207 
 
 Sermon on the Mount. .44, 45, 
 51.55,105, 170, 171, 196 
 
 Siddhartha 1 
 
 Sin 
 
 Rabbinic theology of... 159 
 
 Ideas of 1()(> 
 
 Theological notion of... 169 
 
250 
 
 Page 
 
 Sin 
 
 Forgiveness of 178 
 
 Remission of 185 
 
 Deliverance from 185 
 
 Expiation of 193 
 
 Escape from 193 
 
 Acquittal from 199 
 
 Social gospel of Jesus Ill 
 
 Socinus 186 
 
 Socrates 1, 46, 63 
 
 Solidarity of God and man 92 
 
 Sources x 
 
 Sovereignty of God. . .161, 163 
 
 Spirit of Truth 202 
 
 Stewardship 91 
 
 Stoics 105 
 
 Sunday, Billy 100 
 
 Synoptic gospels 4 
 
 Talmud 118 
 
 Temple 47, 51, 61, 69 
 
 Testament, old 2, 101, 144, 
 
 156, 159, 183 
 
 New. .ix, xvii, 76, 81, 83, 86, 
 
 183, 206, 228, 238 
 
 Theodore of Mopsuestia . . 115 
 
 "Theologian" 161 
 
 Theology, changes in 214 
 
 Distinctive 133 
 
 Problem of 216 
 
 Science of 176 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Thessalonica 117 
 
 Tithe, Jewish idea of 91 
 
 Truth, 204 
 
 Tyndale 207 
 
 Unity of belief 113 
 
 Valentinian 159 
 
 Vanity Fair 86 
 
 Vicarious, sacrifice . . . 189, 195 
 
 Sufeering 205 
 
 Virtue and Vice, compared 236 
 Vocabulary of religion 112 
 
 Need of change in 112 
 
 Wealth, benefits of 95 
 
 Exploitation of 93, 94 
 
 Moralizing of 95 
 
 Weizsacker 210 
 
 Wells, H. G., definition of 
 
 religion 110 
 
 Woes, 6, 7 
 
 Workingman, attitude of 229, 
 
 230 
 
 Wrath of God 101 
 
 Zaccheus 71 
 
 Salvation of 167 
 
 Zarephath 174 
 
 Zoroaster 1 
 
''iiKi?iiiiiIfM±?'^^' Seminary Libraries 
 
 1 1012 01198 6454 
 
 Date Due ^^^^^ 
 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 
 fjggjKf^^^ - ■ «- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
mmm 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^:J^M!i0:-iSm 
 
 
 ■'^h:iW0;- 
 
 BMSM^.