C|xc0I0gixa:l UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF THE REV. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.LiTT., Professor of Theological Encyclopcedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York; THE LATE REV. STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D., Sometime Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis, United Free Church College, Aberdeen. This Library is designed to cover tlie whole field of Christian Theology. Each volume is to be complete in itself, while, at the same time, it will form part of a carefully planned whole. It is intended to form a Series of Text-Books for Students of Theology. The Authors will be scholars of recognised reputation in the several branches of study assigned to them. They will be associated with each other and with the Editors in the effort to provide a series of volumes which may adequately represent the present condition of investigation. SEVENTEEN VOLUMES OF THE SERIES ARE NOW READY, viz. : of An Introduction to the Literature the Old Testament. Christian Ethics. Apologetics. History of Christian Doctrine. A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. Christian Institution!. The Christian Pastor. The Theology of the New Testament. The Ancient Catholic Church. Old Testament History. The Theology of the Old Testament. By S. R. DRIVER, D.D., D.Litt., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. [Eighth Edition, us. By NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D., Emeritus Pastor of the First Congregational Church, New Haven, Conn. [Third Edition, ics. 6d. By A. B. BRUCE, D.D., late Professor of New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow. [Third Edition. los. 6d. By G. P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D., late Pro- fessor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. [Second Edition. 125. By ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGiFFBRT, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. [us. By A. V. G. ALLEN, D.D., late Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Episcopal Theo- logical School, Cambridge, Mass. [izs. By WASHINGTON GLADDEN, D.D., LL.D., Pastor of Congregational Church, Colum- bus, Ohio. [ios. 6*1. By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., LL.D., late Professor of Systematic Theology in Yale University, U.S.A. [Second Edition, izs. By ROBERT RAINY, D.D., late Principal of The New College, Edinburgh. [121. By H. P. SMITH, D.D., Professor of Old Testament Literature, Meadville, Pa. [iss. By the late A. B. DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D. Edited by the late Principal SALMOND, D.D. [IM. Jf itlernathmal ontinued. Christian Doctrine of Salvation. The Reformation. Vol. I. In Germany. Vol. II. In Lands beyond Germany. Canon and Text of the New Testament. The Greek and Eastern Churches. Christian Doctrine of God. By GEORGE B. STEVENS, D.D., LL.D., late Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University. [125. By T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., Principal of the United Free Church College, Glasgow. [xos. 6d. each. By CASPAR REN& GREGORY, D.D., LL.D., Prof, in the University of Leipzig. [125. By W. F. ADENEY, D.D., Principal of Lancashire College, Manchester. [125. By WILLIAM N. CLARKE, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Hamilton Theo- logical Seminary, N.Y. [IDS. 6d. VOLUMES IN PREPARATION : Theological Encyclopaedia. Canon and Text of the Old Testament. Contemporary History of the Old Testa- ment. An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament. The Life of Christ. Contemporary History of the New Testa- ment. Biblical Archaeology. Christian Symbolics. Philosophy of Religion. The History of Religions. Christianity in the Latin Countries since the Council of Trent. Doctrine of Christ. Doctrine of Man. The Doctrine of the Christian Life. The Christian Preacher. Rabbinical Literature. By C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Sym- bolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. By F. CRAWFORD BURKITT, D.D., Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. By FRANCIS BROWN, D.D., D.Litt., Presi- dent, and Professor of Hebrew and Cognate Languages, Union Theological Seminary, New York. By JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., United Free Church, Broughty-Ferry. By WILLIAM SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. By FRANK C. PORTER, Ph.D., D.D., Yale University, New Haven, Conn. By G. BUCHANAN GRAY, D.D., Professor of Hebrew, Mansfield College, Oxford. By C. A. BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York. By ROBERT FLINT, D.D., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Divinity, University of Edin- burgh. By GEORGE F. MOORE, D.D., LL.D., Pro- fessor in Harvard University. By PAUL SABATIER, D. Lit. By H. R. MACKINTOSH, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, The New College, Edinburgh. By WILLIAM P. PATERSON, D.D.. Pro- fessor of Divinity, Universityof Edinburgh. By W. ADAMS BROWN, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. By ALFRED E. GARVIE, D.D., Principal of New College, London. By S. SCHHCHTER, M.A., President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, N.Y. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. ZTbe Jnternatfonal ZTbeological EDITED BY STEWART D. F. SALMOND, D.D., Late Principal, and Professor of Systematic Theology and New Testament Exegesis, United Free Church College, Aberdeen; CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York. THE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BY GEORGE BARKER STEVENS, PH.D., D.D. INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY L THE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY GEORGE BARKER STEVENS, PH.D., D.D. LATE DWIGHT PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IN YALE UNIVERSITY SECOND EDITION EDINBURGH T. & T.. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1911 Printed by MORRISON & GIBB LIMITKD, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH LONDON : 8IMPK1N, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. KEW YORK : CII AKLKS SCUIBNER'3 EONS. FIRST EDITION . . 1901 SECOND EDITION . . 1906 REPRINTED . ,1911 The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are Reserved, BS sr fl.JL TO MY TEACHER COLLEAGUE AND FRIEND GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D., LL.D. I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION PREFACE THE aim of this volume is to set forth, in systematic form, the doctrinal contents of the New Testament accord- ing to its natural divisions. The general method pursued is that which is now common in this branch of theological science. Brief explanations of the mode of treating cer- tain portions of the New Testament, with respect to which important critical differences exist among scholars, are given in the chapters introductory to the several parts of the work. My indebtedness to other writers has been acknowledged by means of references to the literature of the subject in the footnotes. But all such acknowledgments must, of necessity, be very partial. I wish especially to express my obligations to the writings of my teachers in earlier years, Professors Weiss and Pfleiderer. Wendt's Teach- ing of Jesus has been very helpful, especially in its treat- ment of critical and historical considerations bearing upon interpretation. Beyschlag's New Testament Theology has been read with interest and profit. Holtzmann's Lehr- buch der neutestamentlichen Theologie is a valuable encyclo- paedia for the student of the subject. Its summaries of the results of critical exegesis and its copious citations from the most recent literature render it a work of great value for reference. Professor Bruce's writings have been of real service, especially his volume on the theology vii Vlll PREFACE of Paul. No one has written on the subject with finer insight and discrimination. The brilliant treatise of Pro- fessor Menegoz, entitled Le Peclie et la Redemption d'apres St. Paul, has afforded me many useful suggestions. With none of these writers, however, have I been able in all respects to agree. Especially do I dissent from the interpretations given by Wendt and Beyschlag to those portions of the New Testament which relate to the person and work of Christ, and from the presuppositions on which Holtzmann's construction and estimate of New Testament history and theology rest. Appended to the volume will be found a select bibliog- raphy which comprises the most important recent litera- ture of the subject. Articles and brochures on minor topics in Biblical Theology, which would be likely to interest only the specialist, have not been included. In accordance with its somewhat general purpose the list is limited to more comprehensive works. A much fuller bibliography, arranged on a different principle, is prefixed to Holtzmann's Lehrbuch. As respects its aim the present work is not apologetic or controversial. It seeks to expound, not to defend. It also recognizes the boundaries between the explicit teach- ings of the New Testament and inferences which may be drawn from them, however natural or apparently necessary such inferences may seem to be. The limitations of space which were prescribed for the volume have rendered it necessary to bestow careful attention upon the question of proportion and to present the various subjects which are discussed as succinctly as possible. Every chapter has involved a study in condensation. PREFACE IX The reader will observe that while much importance is attached to the influence of current ideas upon the teach- ing of Christ and the apostles, I do not believe that Chris- tianity is a mere product of the age in which it arose. I hold to the unique and distinctive originality of Jesus and to the supernatural origin of his gospel. The truths and facts which constitute this gospel are, indeed, historically conditioned, and of these historical conditions the Biblical theologian must take full and careful account. But that movement of God in human life and history which we call Christianity transcends its historical relations and limita- tions, and can be justly estimated only by recognizing its divine origin and singularity. This view of the Christian religion is not merely an assumption which is carried into the present study, but equally a conclusion which is estab- lished by the study itself. GEORGE BARKER STEVENS, YALE UNIVERSITY, January, 1899. CONTENTS PART I THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY 1 CHAPTER II THE GOSPEL AND THE LAW 17 CHAPTER HI THE KINGDOM OF GOD 27 CHAPTER IV THE SON OF MAN . < . . . . . . .41 CHAPTER V THE SON OF GOD . .54 CHAPTER VI THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 65 CHAPTER VH GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 76 CHAPTER Vm HUMAN NATURE AND SINFULNESS 92 zt Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE THE TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS ....... 104 CHAPTER X THE MESSIANIC SALVATION ....... 119 CHAPTER XI THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD 135 CHAPTER XII THE PAROUSIA AND THE JUDGMENT 150 PART II THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 167 CHAPTER II THE IDEA OF GOD 177 CHAPTER III THE SINFUL WORLD . . . . ' , . , . .187 CHAPTER IV JESUS' TESTIMONY TO HIMSELF 199 CHAPTER V THE HOLY SPIRIT 213 CHAPTER VI ETERNAL LIFE . * , 224 CONTENTS xiii CHAPTER VII PACK ESCHATOLOGY , 234 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 245 CHAPTER II THE DISCOURSES IN THE ACTS 258 CHAPTER in THE EPISTLE OP JAMES 276 CHAPTER IV THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PETER 293 CHAPTER V THE EPISTLE OF JUDE AND SECOND PETER . , 312 PART IV THE THEOLOGY OF PAUL CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 325 CHAPTER II FLESH AND SPIRIT 338 CHAPTER III ADAM AND THE RACE 349 XIV CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PAGE THE LAW OP GOD 362 CHAPTER V THE DIVINE PURPOSE . . . . . - . . 375 CHAPTER VI JESUS CHRIST 389 CHAPTER VII THE DEATH OF CHRIST 403 CHAPTER VIII JUSTIFICATION . 417 CHAPTER IX THE HOLY SPIRIT - 431 CHAPTER X SOCIAL MORALITY 446 CHAPTER XI THE CHURCH . . . .. ... . . . . 458 CHAPTER XII ESCHATOLOGY 470 PART V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 483 CHAPTER II THE OLD AND THE NEW COVENANT .... 490 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER III PAGE THE MEDIATOR 498 CHAPTER IV THE HIGH PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST 506 CHAPTER V FAITH AND HOPE 515 PART VI THE THEOLOGY OF THE APOCALYPSE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 523 CHAPTER II THE LAMB OF GOD . . 536 CHAPTER m THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY 543 CHAPTER IV THE ANTICHRISTIAN WORLD-POWER . , . . . 550 CHAPTER V CONFLICT AND VICTORY . __L . 557 PART VII THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY 564 b XVI CONTENTS CHAPTER II PAGE THE IDEA OF GOD . 569 CHAPTER HI THE LOGOS , 577 CHAPTER IV THE WAY OF SALVATION 586 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . t . . .593 GENERAL INDEX .... = .... 597 INDEX OF TEXTS ........ , 605 THE THEOLOGY OP THE NEW TESTAMENT THE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT PART I THE TEACHING OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY THE task which lies before us in this part of our work is to present as clear a picture as possible of the teaching of Jesus on the basis of the Synoptic Gospels. The account of his teaching which is preserved in the fourth Gospel is so different in form from that contained in the Synoptics that it requires a separate treatment. In con- nection with the study of the fourth Gospel, the two types of tradition will be brought into frequent comparison. Jesus did not commit his teaching to writing. He spoke his message and did his work, and left the recording of his words and deeds to those whose lives had been deeply impressed with their divine significance and value. How long a time passed before the first disciples began to make written memoranda of the Lord's life we cannot say, but, probably, several years. At first there would be no occasion to write narratives of his sayings and acts, since they were vividly photographed upon the memories of all his followers. The leading events of his life and his most characteristic sayings were preserved in oral tradition, and 2 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS were constantly rehearsed, in a more or less stereotyped form, in the preaching and teaching of the apostles. As time passed on, however, it became necessary to compose written narratives of the Lord's words and deeds. The gradual dispersion of the Christian community from Jeru- salem, the addition of new members to the company who required definite instruction, and the passing away of some of the eye and ear witnesses, would be among the motives which would prompt to the writing of these narratives. The prologue of Luke's Gospel (i. 1-4) is very instructive in this connection. Luke says that before he wrote his Gospel many narratives (Si^Y^o-et"?) of the Lord's life had been written. 1 He implies that these were, in general, fragmentary and insufficient ; that he was acquainted with some of them, and proposed to use them in constructing his own fuller account of Jesus' life. These numerous writers (TroXXot) of primitive Gospels, as we may call them, had written, Luke says, in accordance with the tradition of the Lord's words, which had been handed down from the beginning (of his ministry) by those who had seen and heard him (avToVrat). These earlier writers to whom Luke refers were not themselves apostles or im- mediate disciples, but they were acquainted, at first hand, with the primitive tradition of the Lord's words and deeds as it had been preserved among the eye and ear witnesses. That original tradition may have been oral, or written, or both ; these writers had access to it, and based their narratives upon it, and Luke, in turn, had access to their work, besides possessing independent knowledge, derived from carefully tracing the course of events from the very beginning (avwOev) of the Master's life. Moreover, in dedicating his book to a certain Theophilus, probably a man of noble birth who had recently become a convert and who was, perhaps, the author's patron, Luke dis- 1 The so-called Logia of Jesus, recently discovered in Egypt, are of interest as illustrating the existence, in the second century, of a hitherto unknown collection of reputed sayings of Jesus. Even if unauthentic, they illustrate the many, if not the earlier, efforts which were made to preserve the Lord's words in writing. INTRODUCTORY 3 closes to us one of the first uses of the written Gospels - the instruction and confirmation in faith and cer- tainty of those who were dependent upon the testimony of others for accurate knowledge of Jesus' teaching and work. Have any of these primitive Gospels to which Luke refers been preserved to us? The Gospel of Mark is probably one of them. A critical comparison of Mark and Luke shows that Luke has freely used our second Gospel in the construction of his narrative. Moreover, the earliest tradition which has been preserved to us, the testimony of Papias, 1 recorded in Eusebius, 2 respecting the origin of Mark's Gospel, agrees strikingly with Luke's description of the earlier Gospels, which he knew and used. Papias testifies that Mark was known as the inter- preter of Peter ; that he wrote down with accuracy, but not in chronological order, the events of Jesus' life ; but that he did this from information given him by Peter, because he was not himself an eye-witness. 3 This would accord exactly with what Luke says : He drew up a narrative in accordance with knowledge which had been delivered to him by an eye-witness (Peter). It is one of the best attested results of New Testament criticism that Mark's Gospel is the earliest of our three Synoptics, and that it supplied the framework on which the Gospel of Luke is constructed. But Mark was one of the " many " to whom Luke refers. He was not an apostle nor was he a personal follower of Jesus. Does there still remain to us any specimen of the tradition which the first disciples who personally accom- panied Jesus preserved? Have we any written narrative 1 Papias was bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, and died about 163. According to Irenaeus (d. about 202) he was a disciple of the apostle John. Against Heresies, Bk. V. ch. xxxiii. 4. He composed a treatise in five books (now lost) entitled, Interpretation of the Lord's Oracles, \oyiur a Ecclesiastical History, III. 30. 8 The testimony of Irenseus is to the same effect : " Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter." A the Christian Messiah, pp. 122, 123; Schiirer, Jewish People, Div. II. 29. 12. 2 See Dalman, Der leidende und der sterbende Messias der Synayoge, who has shown that the dying Messiah, ben Joseph, and the suffering Messiah, ben David, must be kept entirely distinct. Cf. Weber, Judische TTieologie, 79. The contrary view is represented by Wiinsche, Die Leiden des Messias. 16 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS leges as destined for themselves alone. The favors of heaven should stop with them and be their exclusive pos- session. This attitude of mind involved the great per- version of Israel's history. By failing to receive Christ and his world-wide conception of salvation, they broke with the sublime purpose of God in their own history, and failed to attain the true goal of their existence as the theocratic people. These illustrations of Jewish ideas will serve to show how uncongenial to the spiritual truth of Jesus was the soil in which he must plant it. To the thought of his age God was afar off, his service was a round of rites and observances, righteousness was an external, and largely a non-moral, affair, and the great hope of the nation was to subdue, by divine intervention, the surrounding nations and to obtain supremacy over the world. With all these ideas and hopes the teachings of Jesus came into the sharpest collision. He aimed to show men that God was near to them and that they could live in fellowship with him. He taught that all outward rites were valueless in themselves and that God cared most about the state of the heart. For him righteousness consisted in Godlikeness ; that is, in love, service, and helpfulness. CHAPTER II THE GOSPEL AND THE LAW IN his teaching Jesus took his stand, as we have seen, upon the Old Testament. He did not aim to introduce a wholly new religion. He clearly foresaw that some of his disciples would suppose that it was his purpose to break with the Old Testament system, and he warned them against this serious mistake by telling them that any of them who should feel themselves free to break the least commandment of the Old Testament law, and should teach others accordingly, should be called the least in the King- dom of God (Mt. v. 19). His constant manner of speak- ing in regard to the Jewish religion and Scriptures shows the reverence in which he held them. 1 There is in one of his parables a significant expression in regard to the gradual progress of his truth in the world : " First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear" (Mk. iv. 28). This statement might be fitly applied to the whole process of revelation of which the Old Testament represents the earlier stages. It would as truly describe Jesus' idea of this process as it does the growth to which he immediately applied it. The Old Testament represents the first steps in a great course of revelation and redemption which reaches its consummation in Christ himself. While, therefore, Jesus builds upon the Jewish religious system, he also builds far above and beyond it. While 1 On this subject I would refer the reader to the following discussions : R. Mackintosh, Christ and the Jewish Law, 1886; E. Schtlrer, Die Predigt Jesu Christi in ihrcm Verhiiltniss sum alien Testament und sum Judenthum, 1882 ; W. Bousset, Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz sum Judenthum, 1892 ; L. Jacob, Jesu Stellung zum mosaischen Gesetz, 1898. o 17 18 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS salvation, historically considered, is from the Jews, it is none the less necessary that the Jewish religion should be greatly elevated and enriched. The actual religion of the people, though embodying essential and permanent ele- ments of true religion, is not adequate to the needs of the world; it must be further developed, supplemented, and completed at many points before it can become the univer- sal, the absolute religion. There were imperfections in the Jewish religion which were incidental to its character and purpose. It was in its very nature provisional and preparatory. It was adapted to an early and rude stage of human development. A con- venient illustration is found in the principle of retaliation which, within certain limits, the Old Testament sanctioned. "Ye have heard," said Jesus, "that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil," etc. (Mt. v. 38, 39). Another ex- ample is found in his conversation with the Pharisees when they asked him why, if a man and wife became one in marriage, Moses commanded to give a bill of divorce- ment. Jesus answered, " Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives : but from the begin- ning it hath not been so. And I say unto you," etc. (Mt. xix. 8). Jesus in effect, undermined the Jewish law of clean and unclean by setting forth the principle that it is not what enters into a man which defiles him, but that it is that which proceeds out of him, that is, from his heart, which defiles him (Mk. vii. 15). The Levitical system of sacri- fices would not long survive among those who appreciated the force of the principle that " to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mk. xii. 33). It is obvious, then, that the actual effect of the Gospel in doing away with the Jewish sacrificial and ceremonial system was a natural and logical result of the principles which Jesus laid down, and may be said to have been contemplated by him. THE GOSPEL AND THE LAW 19 But the question now arises, Did Jesus intend to abro- gate the whole Old Testament religious system, and, if so, by what means? This question also involves another, If he did do away with this system, how is the fact to be reconciled with his frequent assertion of its divineness? The most important passage, in its bearing on these prob- lems, is Mt. v. 17 : " Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." This passage must be read in the light of the explanations and applications which follow it. Jesus pro- ceeds to say that not a jot or tittle shall pass away from the law, a statement which, if read by itself, would seem to indicate the perpetual validity of the whole Old Testa- ment system, ritual, sacrifices, and all. But to the state- ment in question he immediately adds : " till all things be fulfilled, or accomplished." He does not, therefore, say that no part of this system shall ever pass away (as it has done, and that, too, in consequence of his own teaching), but only that no part of it shall escape the process of ful- filment ; that it shall not pass away till, having served its providential purpose, it is fulfilled in the gospel. What, now, is this fulfilment which is to be accomplished for the whole law, even for its least portions ? This question is not to be answered in a single sentence or definition. The fulfilment of the old system by the new is a great historic process, the adequate understand- ing of which requires a careful study of the whole New Testament. Its salient features, however, may be briefly indicated. Jesus fulfils the Old Testament system by rounding out into ideal completeness what is incomplete in that system. In this process of fulfilment, all that is imperfect, provisional, temporary, or, for any reason, need- less to the perfect religion, falls away of its own accord, and all that is essential and permanent is conserved and embodied in Christianity. Some of the elements of this fulfilment are as follows : (1) Jesus fulfils the law perfectly in his own personal life. The character of Jesus was the realization of the ideal which the law contemplated. He was a perfectly 20 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS righteous person, and it was righteousness which the law demanded and aimed to secure. But it is not merely or mainly the personal fulfilment of the law's ideal to which Jesus refers in saying that he came to fulfil the law. (2) Jesus fulfilled the law in his teaching by setting forth therein the absolute truths of religion and the uni- versal principles of goodness. This point may best be illustrated from the context of the passage under review. Our Lord says that the true righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20). Their righteous- ness consisted in the punctilious observance of the bare letter of the law, quite to the neglect of its spirit. Jesus then proceeds to show the difference between such exter- nal, superficial righteousness and that which corresponds to the law's true ideal. He says (v. 21 s ovpav&v} ? Was this title probably employed by Jesus himself? There is no indication in Matthew's usage that the phrase " the King- dom of heaven " bears any different sense from its alterna- tive designation. The two are used interchangeably in the first Gospel (cf. Mt. vi. 10, 33; xii. 28; xxi. 21, 43). It seems probable that the genitive denotes the origin and the consequent attributes of the Kingdom. 2 In contrast 1 Several monographs on the subject have appeared within recent years, such as: E. Issel, Die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes im neuen Testa- ment, 1891 ; O. Schmoller, Die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes in den Schriften des neuen Testaments, 1891 ; J. Weiss, Die Predigt Christi vom Reiche Gottes, 1892 ; A. Titius, Jesu Lehre vom Reiche Gottes, 1895 ; W. Liit- gert, Das Reich Gottes nach den synoptischen Eoangelien, 1895. 2 So Beyschlag, N. T. Theul. I. 42 (Bk. I. ch. ii. 1). Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, I. 371 (orig. p. 299), following Schiirer, maintains 27 28 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESTJS to earthly kingdoms, this Kingdom is heavenly in origin and character ; it is governed by heavenly, that is, spiritual and eternal, laws. 1 It emanates from heaven, and heaven is the seat of the authority which obtains within it. Its law is the will of God. It exists among men in proportion as they live in conformity with the divine will, and realize in personal and social life the purposes of God's holy love. The Kingdom of God on earth is therefore the domain in which God's holy will is done in and among men. We must now consider its relation to Old Testament ideas. Jewish religious thought was penetrated with the idea of a coming King and Kingdom. Out of Zion the law was to go forth (Is. ii. 3) ; the herald of good tidings should declare, Thy God reigneth (Hi. 7) ; a great suc- cessor of David should sit upon the throne of Israel (Jer. xxiii. 5 ; xxxiii. 17). In later prophecies, under the stress of foreign oppression, the idea of a coming Kingdom of God which should overthrow all opposing powers came out in even stronger relief : " In the days of those kings that "heaven" is here a metonymy for " God." The Rabbinical use of this periphrasis, to which Wendt appeals, cannot establish this view in the face of the fact that our sources never represent Jesus as using "heaven" as a name for God (per contra, see Mt. v. 34). Weiss understands by "Kingdom of heaven," the Kingdom to be perfected in heaven, in contrast to the Jewish theocracy. Bibl. Theol., 138, c. 8. 1 Beyschlag, I. 42 (Bk. I. ch. ii. 1), holds that it was the title which Jesus preferred to use. Wendt, Teaching, I. 371 (orig. p. 299), thinks that Jesus did not use the phrase, because Luke, even where he follows the \6yia, uses "Kingdom of God," and because the first evangelist, even when incorporating Mark into his narrative, employs " Kingdom of heaven." Cf. Briggs, Messiah of the Gospels, p. 79. Weiss, Bibl. Theol., 138, c. 8, gives a wholly different reason for holding that Jesus did not speak of the "Kingdom of heaven." The term was "selected by the evan- gelist, because with the fall of Jerusalem the hope of a perfecting of the theocracy in Israel on earth vanished." Bruce, Kingdom of God, p. 59, aptly points out that while Jesus' employment of the phrase (in the sense which Weiss attaches to it) would be quite out of the question on Weiss's theory that Jesus conceived of the Kingdom as consisting merely in the realization of Jewish theocratic hopes, it is quite competent to inquire whether his use of it is not in itself quite as probable as this theory. The phrase does not seem to be used in the eschatological sense which Weiss attaches to it. In any case, the natural meaning of the title does not favor Weiss's theory of Jesus' doctrine of the Kingdom. THE KINGDOM OF GOD 29 shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people ; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever " (Dan. ii. 44). The suffering and degradation of the nation under foreign rule during the years immediately preceding Christ's appearance served to intensify, if they also served to secularize, this expectation. The prophetic declarations concerning the coming King- dom are rooted, in turn, in the whole Old Testament con- ception of the relation of God to his people. The idea of a government of God among men a "theocracy," as Josephus happily expressed it was absolutely funda- mental in the life of the Jewish nation. It lay at the basis of the covenant-relation. As God's " peculiar treas- ure," Israel was to be unto him "a Kingdom of priests, and an holy nation " (Ex. xix. 5, 6). When, therefore, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God he spoke the language of current religious thought in Judaism. He touched a responsive chord in the heart of the nation. We may find just here the motive of Jesus in employing the term, and the fitness of it for the purposes of his teaching. It is a priori probable from the dominance of the idea under consideration in Jewish thought that the phrase "Kingdom of God" was a current expression in Israel. The term is several times employed in the New Testament in such a way as to indicate that it was in common use among the people (Mk. xv. 43; Lk. xiv. 15, xvii. 20). The nation was living in constant expectation of its appearance (Lk. xix. 11; Acts i. 6). That Jesus' idea of the Kingdom was intended to have some connection with the Old Testament Messianic, hope and with the expectations current in his time does not admit of reason- able doubt. The point to be determined is, How far was Jesus' conception of the Kingdom new? This ques- tion can be satisfactorily answered only after an investi- gation of the teaching of Jesus upon the subject. One or two general considerations, however, may here be pre- sented. 30 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS The noblest minds in the Jewish nation, such as the great prophets, conceived it to be the destiny of Israel to bear the knowledge of God which she possessed to all mankind. The Messianic King was to have universal sway. His Kingdom was to be as wide as the world. The knowledge of Jehovah was to fill the earth. Nations should come to its light, and kings to the brightness of its rising (Is. Ix. 3, 4; Jer. xxxi. 34). But to this splendid ideal the nation as a whole did not rise, and it sank farther and farther away from it as the time drew near the birth of Christ. The great coming good was more and more conceived of as a monopoly of divine favor to be enjoyed by Israel alone, and thus the Kingdom or reign of God, instead of embracing in its idea and intent the whole human family, became narrowed so as to include only the lineal descendants of Abraham. At the same time the idea of the Kingdom became more and more worldly, or political. The idea of power which, in the prophetic con- ception of the Kingdom had been combined with that of righteousness, became the dominant element in the Messi- anic hope. The Messiah was conceived of as a second David, who should reconstitute the Jewish nation in power and glory, throw off the yoke of foreign domina- tion, and trample Israel's enemies in the dust. The later Jewish literature is permeated with this conception of the Messianic reign, and the New Testament contains unmis- takable traces of its prevalence at the time of Christ. The question now arises : Did Jesus fall into line with these Jewish conceptions or did he rise high above them even as they were cherished by the loftiest prophetic minds ? Weiss has elaborated and defended the former view. 1 He holds that it was the expectation of Jesus to reconstitute the Jewish nation in freedom, prosperity, and happiness. The course of events, however, generally forced his mind away from the dream of political independence and tem- poral well being to the idea of founding a spiritual society composed of such as were possessed of certain qualities of heart. i In his various writings, but most fully in his Life of Christ. THE KINGDOM OP GOD 31 Now, while we do not deny a development in Jesus' doc- trine of the Kingdom, we cannot help thinking that this is a statement of the case which the facts do not warrant. This theoiy does not attribute to the mind of Jesus as great a breadth and spirituality of view as the prophets them- selves enjoyed. It is derogatory to the originality of Jesus. We maintain, on the contrary, that he took up the best ideals of Jewish prophecy and lifted them to even grander heights. He set aside the limitations of view in which the idea of the Kingdom of God had been apprehended in Old Testament times, and gave that idea its true univer- sality and spirituality. The Kingdom of God was for him something larger, because more spiritual, than the Jewish state had ever been; something more spiritual than any outward organization could ever be. Jesus' idea of the Kingdom was rooted in the Old Testament, but it rose above the limited conceptions in which the Old Testament had presented the Messianic hope ; much more did it rise above the popular ideals and stand in sharp contrast to them. This view is confirmed by the very way in which Jesus appeared announcing his Kingdom. He proclaimed it as something new and distinctive. The time of preparation for it had passed ; he was now to begin its establishment (Mk. i. 15). What he says of his truth in general is applicable to his doctrine of the Kingdom ; it is new cloth and must not be stitched onto the old garment of Juda- ism ; it is new wine and must not be put into old wine- skins (Mk. ii. 21, 22). It was not strange that the people were astonished at his teaching (Mt. vii. 28, 29 ; Mk. i. 27), because there was in it a breadth of view and an ele- vated spirituality to which they were wholly unaccustomed. But we have still more direct proof that Jesus' idea of the Kingdom was far removed from this notion of a pros- perous political commonwealth. The Gospels narrate a series of incidents in which his view comes out in strong- est contrast to that conception. What else, indeed, is the meaning of his temptation at the very beginning of his ministry? Whatever view be taken of the historical 3.2 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESTJS character of that event, all our sources bear witness to the fact that on the very threshold of his public work Jesus faced the choice between the temporal and spiritual con- ceptions of his messiahship. The popular demand for a wonder-working leader who should achieve power and glory in the world he promptly and decisively repudiated. He chose instead the method of spiritual leadership and the way of self-sacrifice. The same idea of the Kingdom is clearly reflected when, being asked, who is greatest in the Kingdom of God, he replies that humility is the test of greatness in that King- dom (Mt. xviii. 4). Of similar import is his saying that he who serves most is greatest in his Kingdom (Mt. xx. 26). But even more sharply does the contrast between the political conception of the Kingdom and Jesus' idea appear when, being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God should come, he said, " The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation : neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, There ! for lo, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you" (Lk. xvii. 20, 21). In view of this con- trast we are not surprised to find that after the resurrec- tion his disciples had not entered sufficiently into his thought to suppose that the expected Kingdom had yet been established. "'We hoped that it was he which should redeem Israel " (Lk. xxiv. 21), they said, but it is clear that they regarded this hope as disappointed. To the same purpose was the question which they put to him during the forty days : " Lord, dost thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" (Acts i. 6). It is obvi- ous that by the redemption of Israel and the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel they referred to the reestablishment of the Jewish state and the fulfilment of the nation's hopes for temporal prosperity and victory over its foes. Jesus' whole teaching and conduct during his entire ministry had not seemed to them, who had constantly heard and ob- served him, to have accomplished anything in this direc- tion. From their standpoint he had done nothing which looked toward Israel's redemption. It may not be per- fectly easy to explain why, on the supposition that Jesus' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 33 view was in sharp contrast to the popular idea, his dis- ciples had not been able to rise into fuller sympathy with his conception; but it is certainly far harder to explain why, on the supposition that his view resembled the popu- lar expectation, the disciples, who still cherished the popu- lar idea, should have regarded his teaching and action as standing in sharpest contrast to all their long-cherished hopes. No conclusion is warranted except this, that the teaching of Jesus concerning his Kingdom and his method of establishing it were so wholly out of line with the ambi- tions and expectations of the Jewish people that even his own disciples were ready, at the end of his public career, to declare his anticipated work a failure. But this con- clusion may be further tested by what Jesus directly taught concerning the nature of the Kingdom and the method of its progress. Jesus taught that membership in the Kingdom was de- pendent upon certain ethical and spiritual qualities. The Kingdom is composed of those who possess a certain kind of character. It cannot, therefore, be an outward organi- zation whose members are bound together by any such bonds as common ancestry, language, self-interest, or the occupancy of a common territory. If Matthew's version of the beatitudes is followed, they contain a forcible setting forth of the spiritual qualifications for membership in the Kingdom. Humility, meekness, eager desire for right- eousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, and peacemaking are the conditions of participating in the Kingdom and the characteristics of its members. It has been the more common view of interpreters that Matthew's version was more original than Luke's (vi. 20 sq.) which represents Jesus as offering the blessings of the Kingdom to those who are literally, rather than spiritually, poor, hungry, and sorrowing. 1 But if Luke's version is followed, the inward, 1 So, for example, Tholuck, Meyer, and Weiss. Meyer says : " Cer- tainly Luke has the later form of the tradition, which of necessity took its rise in consequence of the affliction of the persecuted Christians, etc. This, also, is especially true of the denunciations of woe, which were still unknown to the first evangelist." Commentary, ad loc. Lk. vi. 20. 34 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS spiritual nature of the Kingdom is clearly implied. It can- not be supposed that Jesus teaches that the physically poor, wretched, and outcast, as such, compose his Kingdom. He must mean (according to Luke) that the blessings of the Kingdom are a reward for hardships and sufferings voluntarily endured. The Kingdom is a compensation for distress, calamity, and want because it is a spiritual treas- ure. Its joys and comforts are an antidote for the miseries of earth. In this view of the original import of the beati- tudes, even more than in that which Matthew has given, is the Kingdom presented as a spiritual good, a boon to the inner life. In either case, participation in it must be de- pendent upon inner conditions or qualities of life. Form- ally different as the beatitudes are in the two Gospels, both versions clearly imply the spiritual nature of the Kingdom. One of the most significant hints respecting the nature of the Kingdom is contained in the Lord's prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to pray : " Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth" (Mt. vi. 10). The second of these petitions is an explanation and ampli- fication of the first. 1 The Kingdom comes in proportion Holtzmann, "VVendt, and Briggs, however, hold to the greater originality of Luke's version. According to Wendt, the beatitudes originally ex- pressed, not the conditions of participating in the salvation of the King- dom, but the worth of this salvation : Even the poor are really rich ; the sorrowful are really happy, if they possess this heavenly good. The woes are regarded as the reverse side of these blessings. Lehre Jesu, pp. 53- 67. A similar view is taken by Briggs, who urges literary considerations in favor of the originality of Luke, and lays stress upon the voluntariness of the poverty and hardships which were the condition of sharing in the blessings of the Kingdom. Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 172, 173. 1 Wendt, Lehre Jesu, pp. 97, 98, following Luke's version (xi. 2 sq.) of the prayer in preference to Matthew's, treats the words: "Thy will be done," etc., as an addition by the first evangelist. No reason is given for this judgment, and it seems to involve an unwarranted impoverish- ment of the prayer. Weiss justly remarks that the first petition points to the preliminary condition, the third to the final purpose of the coming Kingdom, thus suggesting a logical sequence and completeness of thought. Moreover, a reminiscence of the third petition is found not only in Mat- thew (xxvi. 42), but in Luke (xxii. 42). "Luke," adds Weiss, "has omitted this petition, because if the second one is fully granted, it involves the fulfilment of the third ; and that was sufficient for his Gentile readers. It was not without special purpose, however, that Jesus added this request. THE KINGDOM OF GOD 35 as God's will is done among men. The Kingdom is com- posed of all who obey that will. The perfect doing of God's will by men would be the perfection of his Kingdom on earth. Although Jesus has nowhere explicitly defined the phrase, Kingdom of God, a clear view of its essential nature, as he conceived it, is implied in these words. They justify the conclusion that by the Kingdom of God Jesus meant " the reign of divine love exercised by God in his grace over human hearts believing in his love, and con- strained thereby to yield him grateful affection and devoted service." 1 Another prominent idea of Jesus respecting the King- dom is that it is a growing affair. Its coming is a long historical process. Various aspects of this progress of the Kingdom in the world are set forth in a group of parables which are designed to illustrate its nature. One of the most significant of these is preserved by Mark alone (iv. 26-29). It likens the growth of the Kingdom to the slow and mysterious development of seed-grain when it is sown in the earth. It pictures the husbandman as sowing the seed and then waiting while Nature does her work. He sleeps and rises awaiting the movement of the divinely appointed process, and powerless to understand the mys- tery of growth. Meantime, the natural processes are going forward. " The earth bringeth forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." " So is the Kingdom of God." It comes slowly, silently, mysteriously. Divine forces are operating to carry for- ward its development. In a rudimentary form the King- dom of God had always been in the world ; in an important sense it came when Christ came and entered upon his historic mission ; but in a still wider view it keeps on coming through all the courses of human history, and The perfect realization of the Kingdom of God will undoubtedly bring with it the fulness of all promised blessings, but the desires of the disciples were still preponderatingly directed to the external welfare of the nation." Life of Christ, II. 350 (Bk. IV. ch. xi.); cf. Das MaUhCiusevanf/cliitm, p. 184. Bruce, Kingdom of God, p. 46. 36 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS reaches its culmination only in the completion of the work of redemption. Of the other parables which are based upon the analogy between spiritual and natural growth (Mt. xiii.) that of the Sower is designed to depict the reception with which his truth meets from various classes of hearers ; that of the Mustard-seed describes the great results which flow from small beginnings the extension of the Kingdom, while the parable of the Leaven depicts the tendency of the King- dom to permeate society the intensive development of the spiritual life in humanity. The incomparable value of the Kingdom, justifying the greatest sacrifice in order to obtain it, is set forth in the parables of the Treasure hid in the field and in that of the Merchant seeking goodly pearls, while the parables of Tares and of the Drag-net set forth the idea that the out- ward appearance of belonging to the Kingdom will be assumed by some who are not genuine members of it; there will be counterfeit Christians whom God alone can distinguish from the true. These parables also serve, indirectly, to illustrate the nature of the Kingdom's de- velopment. It encounters constant hindrance and embar- rassment arising from the insusceptibility and wickedness with which it constantly meets, and is compelled to con- tend. Again, the Kingdom is universal in its design and scope. It is for all who fulfil the spiritual conditions of partici- pating in its benefits. It knows no racial, social, or terri- torial limits. It is true that Christ offered himself and his Kingdom to the Jewish people. They were the people of revelation. Their history had been a special preparation for the coming of the Kingdom in its completed idea and form. To them, therefore, an economic precedence was accorded, in agreement with the providential law which Paul afterwards enunciated : " To the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Rom. i. 16). The Jews were the "sons of the Kingdom " (Matt. viii. 12) by right and privilege, but not in such a sense that they should not be "cast forth" in case they failed to fulfil the conditions of repent- THE KINGDOM OF GOD 37 ance, humility, and purity of heart. This the nation as a whole did. " Therefore," said Jesus, " the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof " (Mt. xxi. 43). The teaching of Jesus concerning his Kingdom has everywhere the note of universality in it. It was for all men who would enter it. The most abandoned sinners might enter it, and did enter it in greater numbers than did the religious leaders of the time (Mt. xxi. 31). To say that the Kingdom is universal in idea is but to say that Christ came to save the lost. The Kingdom is a gracious boon to sinful and needy humanity. Its universality is involved in its spirituality. No external limitations can be imposed upon its destination so long as the conditions of entering it are internal. As for the apostle Paul the universality of the gospel stood connected with the inner condition of receiving it, namely, faith, so in the teaching of Jesus there is the closest connection between the spirit- ual conditions of entering the Kingdom and its essential universality. John the Baptist may have conceived of the Kingdom of God whose coming he heralded as consist- ing of a purified Israel the "wheat" of the nation which should be left after the " chaff " had been winnowed out and consumed by the Messiah, but the conception of Jesus was vastly broader and higher. He knew that his King- dom was not to come in the world by any quick transfor- mation of the Jewish nation as such or by some sudden stroke of divine power as the people expected and as even the prophets often described it as doing. He knew that it would not spring up complete in some great crisis, but that its coining would be a great and gradual movement of God in history which should go on through the ages. It results from this conception that the Kingdom may be spoken of now as present, now as future. It was already present in its beginnings when Jesus was on earth, yet its consummation was future. He dwells now on the one, now on the other aspect of his Kingdom without speaking explicitly of the relation of the two aspects and without any consciousness of contradiction between them. That 38 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OP JESUS which involves a world-historical process must be, at any given moment, in the nature of the case, both past, pres- ent, and future. The most explicit recognition of the Kingdom as a present fact is found in such passages as : " The Kingdom of God is among you " (ei/ro? V/JLWV, Lk. xvii. 21) ; " The Kingdom of God is come upon you" (e' t>/u,a?, Mt. xii. 28). But numerous other passages imply the same idea, as when Jesus says that from the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of heaven was being taken by violence (Mt. xi. 12) stormed, as it were, by the lost and perishing in their eager desire to enter it. In like manner the parables of the Sower, the Tares, the Mustard-seed, and the Leaven all rest upon the view that the Kingdom is a present force which has already begun to develop itself in the world. Jesus spoke of persons who were entering it at the time (Mt. xxi. 31 ; xxiii. 13), and called upon men to seek it (Mt. vi. 33), and to enter the narrow door into life (Mt. vii. 13), which is but a name for the blessing of the King- dom. Moreover, the humblest member of the Kingdom of God (Mt. xi. 11), that is, the least disciple of Christ, is said to be greater than John the Baptist ; that is, he enjoys greater privileges and stands upon a higher plane of reve- lation. This saying assumes that the Kingdom is a pres- ent reality. And yet, entrance into the Kingdom is often spoken of as something that is to take place in the future, and the Kingdom itself described as something that is yet to come. When Jesus said, on one occasion, that some of those who heard him speak should not die till they saw the Kingdom of God come with power (Mk. ix. 1), he doubtless referred to some future epoch at which the Kingdom should ad- vance to a new stage of its development. When, again, he spoke of the time when men should come from the east and from the west to sit down in the Kingdom of God (Lk. xiii. 29), and when, at the last supper, he referred to the repast which he should enjoy with his disciples in the Kingdom of God (Mk. xiv. 25), he seems clearly to have had in mind the consummation of the Kingdom in THE KINGDOM OF GOD 39 heaven. He probably spoke of the Kingdom in this es- chatological sense when he said to his disciples that unless their righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Phari- sees they should not enter into the Kingdom of God (Mt. v. 20). Both the present and the future aspect of the Kingdom are recognized in the words : " Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein " (Mk. x. 15). The question now arises : On what principle is this ap- parent inconsistency in the use of the title to be explained? Some scholars hold that, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus did expect that his Kingdom in its heavenly perfec- tion was to be suddenly and miraculously introduced, and that he afterwards came to perceive that the Kingdom was to be established on earth by a process of development. 1 On this view one set of expressions might be regarded as reflecting his less mature conception, and the other as dis- closing a new aspect of his thought concerning the King- dom. The capital objection to this theory is that we do not find Jesus speaking in his earlier sayings of his King- dom as belonging to some future epoch, and supplement- ing this idea later by referring to it as already present, and as subject to an earthly development. 2 Another solution is that Jesus always thought of his Kingdom as future, and the apparent references to it as already present are merely proleptic, and really refer to the course of Christian history which must precede the coming of the Kingdom. This view is frequently ex- pressed in Meyer's Commentary. It seems to me to pro- ceed upon an unnatural interpretation of many texts. It is, for example, a singular inversion of a natural sequence of ideas to suppose that the petition : " Thy Kingdom come," refers to the end of the world, and that the suc- ceeding petition, " Thy will be done on earth," etc., refers to a condition which must be fulfilled in the life of believ- ers before the previous petition can be realized. It is 1 So, substantially, Beyschlag, Leben Jesn, and Baldensperger, Das Selbstbeicusstsein Jesu, passim. 8 For a detailed critique of this theory, see Wendt, Teaching. I. 380 sq. 40 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS equally unnatural to interpret the words : " The Kingdom of God is among you," as meaning only that the Messiah, the King and bearer of the Kingdom, was in their midst (Meyer). We conclude, therefore, that the varied language of Jesus respecting the coming of this Kingdom is best ex- plained by supposing him to have taken a comprehensive view of its nature and progress. He conceived of the Kingdom as already present, but in its fuller development and in its final perfection it was still future. This large, free use of the term, according to which now one, now another, aspect of the Kingdom is dwelt upon, renders it impossible to define the Kingdom adequately in any single formula. It is difficult to define, not because it means nothing in particular, but because it means so much. Specific features of Christ's conception of the subject will come up for consideration as we proceed. CHAPTER IV THE SON OF MAN To determine the meaning of the title " Son of man " is one of the most difficult tasks which confronts the stu- dent of the New Testament. When we carefully examine the passages in which it is used in the Synoptics we find that they naturally fall into three classes. In one group of sayings the title is used with reference to Jesus' earthly life: "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins" (Mk. ii. 10); "is Lord of the Sabbath" (ii. 28); " hath not where to lay his head " (Mt. viii. 20) ; " is come to seek and to save that which is lost " (Lk. xix. 10). In a second group the title is associated with his sufferings and death : " The Son of man must suffer many things " (Mk. viii. 31) ; " is delivered up into the hands of men " (Mk. ix. 31) ; " goeth (to death) even as it is written of him" (Mk. xiv. 21). In a third group the title is used in connection with his parousia. Examples of this usage are: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven" (Mt. xxiv. 31), and "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him," etc. (Mt. xxv. 31). The second of these groups of pas- sages emphasizes the humiliation, the third the majesty, of the Son of man. Most of the passages of the first group may be regarded as more or less akin to those of the second or the third. The question, then, may be put in this form : Does the title denote primarily humiliation, or some kindred thought, or does it suggest exaltation and majesty ? A preliminary question arises here: was "the Son of man" a current Messianic title in Jesus' time? Most 41 42 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS scholars have answered this question in the negative. 1 In favor of this view it is said that Jesus' use of the title per- plexed the Jews, who thereby showed that they were not familiar with it: "How sayest thou, 'the Son of man' must be lifted up? Who is this, 'the Son of man'?" (Jn. xii. 34). But to this it is replied that it was the strangeness of the new conception of the Son of man, not the strangeness of the title itself, which perplexed the Jews. The idea that the Messianic Son of man should suffer death was what surprised and shocked them, and led them to say : " We have been taught to think that the Messiah abides forever; who is this Son of man who must suffer and die?" 2 The conclusion that the designation was not a current Messianic title has also been derived from the question which drew out Peter's confession (Mt. xvi. 13). Jesus asks : " Who do men say that the Son of man is?" Various replies are given, among them Peter's that he is the Messiah, showing that "the Son of man " in this question could not have been understood by the dis- ciples as a synonym for the Messiah. This would be a forcible consideration but for the fact that Matthew's ver- sion of the incident is an amplification of the simpler narra- tive in Mark (viii. 27), where the title " Son of man " is not employed in the conversation. Moreover, it is not found in Luke's version of the narrative (ix. 18 s Kpirijpiov rov 0eoC- See the Hebrew Lexicon of Brown, Briggs, and Driver, under OT6K. 58 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS vah said unto me (the anointed king), Thou art my son ; this day have I begotten thee " (installed thee in thy kingly office). (5) The nation of Israel : " Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn," etc. (Ex. iv. 22). This relation is still more fully elaborated in the song of Moses (Deut. xxii. 6-10) .* From these examples it will be seen that the Old Tes- tament idea of sonship to God is that of special nearness to him of special endowments or privileges conferred by him. The nation, its members, especially its king, bear this name as the chosen representatives of Jehovah the special objects of his providential favor and the agents for accomplishing his will. A " son of God " in the Old Testament sense is one uniquely loved, chosen, and en- dowed by God. The title is not used as a specific desig- nation for the Messiah, although the passages cited in which the ideal theocratic king is called Jehovah's "son" and " first-born," point to the appropriateness with which the Messiah might be called par eminence "the Son of God." The historical basis of such a usage is undoubtedly laid in the Old Testament. If the head of the nation is in a peculiar sense God's son, with even greater propriety may the antitypical king who is to sit on David's throne forever and establish his kingdom to all generations be so designated. In this usage which we have traced, we find, no doubt, the generic sense which the title bears in its application to Jesus, although we may expect to find something distinctive in that application of it. Among extra-canonical Jewish writings only the Book of Enoch and fourth Esdras employ the title in question. Examples of its use are as follows : (Jehovah speaks) " For I and my Son will unite with them forever in the paths of uprightness in their lives ; and ye will have peace." 2 "For my Son, Messias, shall be revealed with those that are with him," etc. (4 Es. vii. 28). "And it shall come to pass after these years that my Son, Christ, 1 See Brigps, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 100, 129. 2 Enoch, CV. 2. THE SON OF GOD 59 shall die," etc. (4 Es. vii. 29). The title is similarly used several times in chs. xiii and xiv. This usage is clearly a reproduction of that found in the Old Testament, but with this distinctive feature that " my Son" is here almost a synonym for "Messiah." Since the Messiah is the special object of Jehovah's love and favor he is preeminently his Son. This sonship to God was inseparable from the idea of messiahship. Only one who was the Son of God in a special sense could be the Messiah. From Jewish usage, then, it appears that the title was in occasional use as an approximate synonym for " the Messiah." This same relation between the two terms seems to exist in the New Testament usage. In Mat- thew's version of Peter's confession the two titles are united in such a way as to indicate that they are kindred but not strictly synonymous : " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt. xvi. 16). l The same cor- relation is found in the language of the high priest : " Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mk. xiv. 61 ; cf. Mt. xxvi. 63). In both these cases the title has an official sound. It is noticeaHe liow Jesus in speaking of himself in both connections calls himself " the Son of man." The title which was closely allied to " the Messiah " he carefully avoided, except when speaking of that inti- mate fellowship which he sustained with the Father. Jesus did indeed admit that the title was applicable to him in its official sense, but in his own spontaneous use of it he denoted by it rather a personal relation of fellow- ship and intimacy with God. " According to the Jewish idea" (which is reflected in the two passages just noticed), " the Messianic king was also ' Son of God ' ; according to Jesus' idea, 'the Son of God' as such was the Messianic king." 2 We now turn to a more particular examination of Jesus' direct use of the title in its application to himself and to 1 If the shorter forms in Mark and Luke be regarded as more original than this, we have still the significance of the first evangelist's combina- tion of the titles to consider. * Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, II. 133 (orig. p. 436). 60 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS others. The most significant passage is one which both Matthew and Luke have preserved from the Logia : " All things have been delivered unto me of my Father : and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him " (Mt. xi. 27 ; Lk. x. 22). Here Jesus asserts in connection with his sonship to God a unique and incomparable knowledge of God and inti- macy with him. That the sonship of Jesus, as here asserted, has in it something distinctive as compared to the sonship of other men, cannot be doubted. Besides the affirmation of an altogether exceptional mutual knowl- edge between him and God, we observe that God is to him the Father and he is to God the Son in an absolute sense. In addition to these considerations it must be remembered that Jesus never elsewhere puts himself in the same category with others when speaking of God's fatherhood or men's sonship to God. Is the sonship of Jesus to God essentially different from that of other men, or is it different only in degree ; different in the sense of being normal and perfect while theirs is but partially realized in fact ? This inquiry raises another question : What constitutes men " sons of God " ? Glorified spirits are said to resem- ble the angels and so to be " sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" (Lk. xx. 36). Peacemakers are "sons of God " (Mt. v. 9), and men are required to love all men, even their enemies, in order that they may become (yevrja-Qe) sons of their Father who is in heaven (Mt. v. 45). Thus it appears that conformity to God's will, likeness to him in moral motives and action, constitutes men sons of God. God is perfectly good ; he blesses all, the unjust as well as the just. Men become sons of God by becoming like him. This likeness of men to God in its perfection would involve completeness of love (Mt. v. 48). Now it. is noticeable that other men become sons of God ; Jesus is the Son of God without qualification. He does not have to attain this sonship by gradual or partial approach, but possesses it from the first. He perfectly THE SON OF GOD 61 fulfils the divine will, absolutely conforms to the divine good pleasure. He perfectly knows God as his Father in the most intimate and unbroken fellowship. The title Son is for him rather personal than official ; as he uses it, it emphasizes rather his relation to God than his relation to his life-work. In view of these distinctive features of Jesus' language concerning his own sonship and that of other men, our previous question recurs : Was his sonship different from that of other men in degree only or also in kind? All will admit that his sonship is unique in the sense that its ideal is perfectly realized in him, while in others it is but partially fulfilled. Beyschlag says that there is in his sonship " a sublimity and uniqueness of his relation to God which raises him above all other sons of men." 1 He regards the sinlessness of Jesus as proving that his relation to the Father is original, perfect, and absolute, and that his sonship is thus perfect and absolute, while that of others is but partial and relative. 2 Wendt thinks that Jesus occasionally " designated himself in distinction from all others as 4 the Son of God ' in a preeminent sense." " He has thus regarded himself as ' the Son of God ' tear' ef o^y, since he knew that this mutual relation of loving intercourse subsisted between God and himself in unique perfection." 3 Most recent scholars also agree that the term " Son of God " as used in the Synoptics is primarily an ethical one. It emphasizes the perfect union, the absolute intimacy, and mutual knowledge which subsist between the Father and Jesus. It is, as we have seen, a personal rather than an official name. It speaks of a relation sustained to God, whether applied to Jesus or to others. The term is not used in a metaphysical sense as denoting commu- nity of essence. If the use of the title involves some- thing more than ethical union, it must be by suggestion and implication, rather than by direct assertion. Those 1 N. T. Theol. I. 71 (Bk. I. ch. iii. 8). 8 Leben Jesu, pp. 178, 179. 8 Teaching of Jesus, II. 125, 128 (orig. pp. 420, 432). 62 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS who hold that it implies no such significance may fairly challenge their opponents to show that it does. They stand upon the direct and primary reference of the title and may maintain that its import is exclusively ethical until something more is shown to be involved in it. It is not strange that at this point there should be a dividing of the ways. Wendt, for example, holds that the language of our sources does not warrant us in ascribing to the paternal and filial relation which Jesus regarded as exist- ing between God and himself, a character different in princi- ple from the paternal and filial relation which, according to his teaching, exists between God and the members of his Kingdom. 1 Beyschlag, after reviewing the passage, says very emphatically : " All these facts make it so certain that the consciousness of Jesus was at bottom purely human, that only an unconquerable dogmatic prejudice, springing from scholastic tradition and misunderstanding of what religion requires, can resist the force of this testi- mony." 2 He maintains the sinlessness of Jesus and the absolute ethical uniqueness of his relation to God, but asserts that the notion that these facts involve a con- sciousness of preexistence or any character transcending human perfection is " a very curious error," through fall- ing into which Paul and John started the Church on a wrong path in the development of theology. A widely different conclusion is drawn by Reuss. After discussing the title "Son of God," he concludes that the relationship which it emphasizes is, indeed, ethi- cal. But he adds that its use necessarily gives rise to further reflection. " In other words," he continues, " this moral relation, if it is really such as we have just de- cribed, does not explain itself, nor is it explained, by any analogies supplied by the history of man. We are neces- sarily led to regard it as the manifestation of a metaphysi- cal relation of a much higher order, and absolutely beyond the reach of any analogy our world can furnish." 3 Keuss 1 Teaching of Jesus, II. 124 (orig. p. 429). 2 N. T. Theol. I. 75 (Bk. I. ch. iii. 10). Hist. Christ. Theol. I. 202 (orig. I. 234, 236). THE SON OF GOD 63 concludes that the apostolic theology was a legitimate development from Jesus' self -testimony as given in the Synoptics. In an elaborate article on " The Formation and Con- tent of the Messianic Consciousness of Jesus," 1 Hermann Schmidt has discussed the view maintained by Beyschlag that the Synoptic representation does not carry us beyond an ethical human perfection in Jesus. He maintains that we cannot free ourselves thus from meta- physical considerations in treating of this subject, so long as we deal earnestly with the fact of Jesus' sinless- ness. It is futile, argues Schmidt, to assert the ethical perfection of Jesus, and then leave it unexplained and in- explicable. Jesus' consciousness of his sinlessness and of the perfect realization in himself, of the moral ideal, is not accounted for unless a fundamental and permanent dis- tinction between himself and other men is recognized. "The ethical as such is always mediated through the will ; now there meets us in a race in which all others are in themselves incapable of reaching the right relation of sonship, a personality which not only can of itself become, but from the first is, what, in case of others, can only be attained through aid from without, so that the conclusion cannot be avoided that a peculiar essence, a specific nature, and, indeed, one that is not mediated through the will, lies at its basis ; that is, that the life of Jesus has a distinc- tively metaphysical background." 2 We must, of course, draw a line very carefully between the precise meaning of our passages as determined by exe- gesis and inferences, however natural, which are derived from that meaning. But we must also admit that the exe- getical result, in the case before us, raises a problem re- specting the person of Jesus Christ, with which the mind cannot decline to deal. As Son of God Jesus stands in a unique relation to the Father. The title involves his ethi- cal perfection. Now we cannot simply stop short with these assertions ; to do so is to decline the problem to 1 Studien . Kritiken, 1889, p. 423 sq. 2 Op. cit., 435. 64 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS which this uniqueness gives rise. Why was Jesus the only sinless man ? Was his sinlessness an accident ? Why has it never been repeated? If, as is admitted, he possessed the clear consciousness of sinlessness, what is the explana- tion of so exceptional and marvellous a fact ? These questions lead over into the field of doctrinal theology which it is not my purpose to enter. My present task requires me simply to expound the conception of the person of Christ which is presented in our sources. The passages examined ascribe to him the consciousness of sinless perfection and of perfect union with God. The nature of that union they do not describe; its inner mystery they make no effort to resolve. The Synoptic tradition does not refer to the pre-existence of Christ. That basis or background of his uniqueness we meet first in Paul. It must here suffice to have pointed out that even the data furnished by the Synoptics do give rise to a great problem concerning the person of Christ. How is he to be explained ? What is the nature of that relation to God which he sustains and which is certainly represented as unique and incomparable ? I have already indicated divergent explanations. We shall see that Paul and John answered these questions by attributing to Christ a personal, eternal pre-existence with God. CHAPTER VI THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD THE teaching of Jesus concerning God rests upon an Old Testament basis. In contrast to the pantheistic and polytheistic systems which prevailed among ancient ori- ental nations, Jesus adhered to the Jewish conception of Jehovah as the one only God, the Almighty Creator and Lord of all. He emphasized the spirituality and holiness of God. The doctrine of Jesus is the ethical monothe- ism of Israelitish religion, elevated, enriched, and purified. There is nothing in his doctrine for which the Old Testa- ment does not supply a beginning and basis. It would not, however, be correct to suppose that Jesus added nothing to the Old Testament idea of God. True to his principle that he had not come to destroy, but to fulfil (Mt. v. 17), he cleared away from the foundations which had been laid in the earlier stages of revelation what was temporary and inadequate, and reared upon them a permanent structure. He illustrated the maxim which he commended to his followers when he said that the representatives of his truth and Kingdom would bring out of their treasures things new and old (Mt. xiii. 52). This fulfilling of the idea of God did not consist in sup- plying foreign elements, but in developing, expanding, and clarifying the germs of doctrine which the Jewish people already possessed, and especially in rescuing their idea from certain prevalent misapplications and false inferences. It would not have accorded with the genius of Jesus' teaching for him to give any direct and formal instruction concerning the nature of God. He does not aim to define God; he rather describes how he acts. His teaching is r 65 66 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS not abstract, but concrete. In apothegm and parable he pictures how God feels, and what God does in certain conditions. He aims to rescue the idea of God from the realm of cold and powerless abstraction, and to make it a practical, living power in the heart. Jesus sought to in- spire in men an intense and constant sense of God's pres- ence and care. Hence he did not speak of the attributes of God, but unfolded his character and set forth its relation to human life. It was not so much the terminology of Jesus which was new ; it was the way in which he filled old terms with new meaning by taking them into the field of character. When, for instance, he spoke of God's fatherhood, he showed by what he said about it that it meant for him a certain disposition of God towards men a way of feeling and acting towards them, and involved a corresponding attitude and action on man's part towards him. In speaking of God, Jesus mainly employed two titles, King and Father. The former is but infrequently used. It is, indeed, a noticeable fact that although he spoke so often of the Kingdom of God, he seldom spoke of God as King. It is, however, quite consonant with the principles which we have just noticed, that Jesus did not discard this current Old Testament designation of Jehovah. He referred, quite in the spirit of Is. Ixvi. 1, to the exaltation of God on his heavenly throne, and described Jerusalem as "the city of the great King" (Mt. v. 35). It is Jehovah in his mode of dealing with men who is pictured in the parables of the Unmerciful Servant (Mt. xviii. 23 sq.~) and of the Marriage Feast (Mt. xxii. 2 ^.), both of which begin : " The Kingdom of heaven is likened unto a cer- tain king." This quite incidental and indirect recogni- tion of the kingship of God is to be supplemented by such recognitions of the divine power and sovereignty as are involved in the title, "Lord of heaven and earth" (Mt. xi. 25), and in the frequent ascription to God of bound- less prerogative and power (Mk. x. 27 ; xii. 24 ; xiv. 36 ; Mt. x. 28). But Jesus' characteristic name for God was "Father." THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 67 He not only spoke of God as his own Father, but as the Father of men. In this too he built upon the Old Testa- ment, although greatly elevating and widening its idea. "Father" was not indeed the prevalent designation of God in Israel. It is not found, for example, in the Jews' book of devotion, the Psalms, although in one place God is there likened to a Father (Ps. ciii. 13). l The prevailing name for God is " King " ; e.g. : " my King and my God " (Ps. v. 2); "The Lord of hosts is the King of glory" (Ps. xxiv. 10) ; and men are often described as the King's "servants" (Ps. xxvii. 9; xxxi. 16). In the Old Testament God's fatherhood designates a special relation, which he sustains to the Jewish people. This idea finds frequent expression in the prophets. The deliverance of the nation from Egypt was the favor of a Father to a child: "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Hos. xi. 1). The sin of the people is often pictured as the disobedience of children towards their Father: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me " (Is. i. 2). Sometimes the idea of fatherhood is rather in- directly suggested than directly asserted, and God is com- pared to an earthly father in his tenderness or his severity: " The Lord thy God bare thee as a man doth bare his son " (Deut. i. 31) ; " As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee " (Deut. viii. 5). In general, the fatherhood of God to Israel denotes his gracious interest in the nation and the providential care which he exercises over it in making it the vehicle of his revelation and in preparing it to be his agent for ushering in the Messiah. "Is Ephraim (the northern kingdom) my dear son ? is he a pleasant child ? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still : therefore my heart is stirred for him ; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord" (Jer. xxxi. 20). The exilic Isaiah lifting up a plaintive voice from the midst of the nation's disasters, dwells upon the comforting assurance that, even 1 " Like as a Father pitieth his children, So the Lord pitieth them that fear lain." 68 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OP JEStJS if the people's ancestors (who are apparently regarded as a species of patron saints) should cease the care for them, Jehovah will not forget them: "For thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not ac- knowledge us: thou, O Lord, art our Father; our Re- deemer from everlasting is thy name " (Is. Ixiii. 16). Of. Mai. ii. 10 : "Have we not all one Father?" etc. According to this idea of God's fatherhood it was natural that Jehovah should be especially described as Father to the theocratic king, the head and representative of the na- tion, and the type of the Messianic King, who should be preeminently God's Son and who should reign forever. The prophet Nathan, speaking on behalf of Jehovah to David the king, tells him that a descendant of his shall build Jehovah's house, and adds : " I will be his Father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam. vii. 14). A similar idea meets us in Ps. Ixxxix. 26, 27, where the theocratic king is described as confessing Jehovah to be his Father, and Jehovah as declaring him to be his first-born son, the highest of the kings of the earth. What we observe, then, in this Old Testament idea of fatherhood is that it was special rather than universal, and that it had not yet become the determining conception of God's character. God's attitude towards Israel was fatherly, but it was not yet seen that he is, in his very essence, fatherly love, and that all men are the objects of his care and compassion. The legal idea of God was still the dominant one. Power and transcendence were the attributes most emphasized. The recognition of these was right and important, but it was liable to a one-sided development, and such a development it received, espe- cially in the later Judaism. The legalism and the ritual- ism of the later Jewish period sprang, in great measure, from the failure of the people to complement the truth of God's kingly power with the truth of his fatherly love. Legal subjection, expressing itself in rites which were thought to pay honor to God's transcendent majesty, rather than filial reverence and moral obedience, was the dominant note of Pharisaic piety. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 69 We have already seen in examining the title "Son of God," how frequently Jesus speaks of God as his own Father, and that he appears to assume some distinction between the relation of the Father to himself and that to which he refers when he speaks of God as the Father of other men. It is with this latter relation only that we have now to do. The first question which meets us is, whether or not Jesus represents God as the Father of all men. The answer to this question must be involved in the effort to determine in precisely what sense Jesus used the term "Father." It might be used to denote that com- plaisant love which God has for the obedient, but which cannot be felt towards the wilful sinner. Many have held that Jesus uses it in this sense, and that he speaks of God as Father only in relation to believers or the righteous. It is a fact that the prevailing usage of Jesus, according to our sources, is to speak of God as the Father of his own disciples. Of this the Sermon on the Mount presents ample evidence. The discourse is indeed a collection of sayings uttered at various times and places, but it is rep- resented as spoken to the disciples, and there is no critical ground for doubt that at least the earlier portions were so spoken. Addressing his disciples, he says : " Let your light shine, and so glorify your Father " (Mt. v. 16) ; " Love your enemies, that ye may be the sons of your Father " (v. 45) ; "Be complete in love, as your heavenly Father is" (v. 48) ; " Pray sincerely, and your Father will reward you " (vi. 4, 6, 8) ; and in this connection he teaches his disciples to pray, beginning : " Our Father " ; cf. vi. 18, 26, 32. The usage is the same in other connections. In teaching his disciples humility, Jesus warns them against the danger of losing the spirit of equality and fraternity, and enforces the warning by saying: "For one is your Father who is in heaven " (Mt. xxiii. 9). Mark has preserved this saying, addressed to the disciples: "And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one : that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your 70 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS trespasses " (xi. 25) - 1 In addition to the many examples of this usage, already cited, which the first evangelist has derived from the Logia, Luke has preserved one saying, omitted by Matthew, which bears the mark of originality : " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleas- ure to give you the Kingdom" (xii. 32). It must also be admitted that there is no passage in our sources in which Jesus explicitly speaks of God as the Father of all men. From this it is easy to draw the in- ference that the fatherhood of God is to be understood in the limited sense, and denotes God's favor towards the obedient. I believe, however, that this conclusion is quite unwarranted. The fatherhood of God in the teaching of Jesus is neither mere creatorship, nor is it merely a name for the attitude of approval or complaisance which corre- sponds to obedience and goodness on the part of men. It denotes rather the gracious loving attitude of God towards all men. God is Father to all men, not merely because he made all men, but because he made them for himself and kindred to himself, and because they are capable of realiz- ing the sonship to him which corresponds to his father- hood. His fatherhood embraces his universal benevolence. Let us test this view by reference to the passages which bear upon it. Jesus teaches his disciples to love all men, even their enemies. In so doing they show themselves to be sons of God, that is, like God ; " for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust" (Mt. v. 45). Here the argument is simply this: Sonship to God consists in moral likeness to the Father; love all men, whether good or bad, for that is what the Father does. How plain it is that it is as the Father that God loves and blesses all; that his fatherhood is the ground and source of this boundless beneficence. Yet it is also quite clear that beneficence is not the whole mean- ing of fatherhood. God sustains the relation of Father only to personal, moral beings. Jesus says to his disciples : 1 In Matthew this passage, in a slightly changed form, is appended as a comment or explanation to the Lord's prayer (vi. 14, 16). THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 71 It is your Father, not theirs, who feeds the birds (Mt. vi. 26). God's fatherhood includes a personal ethical relation, as well as the disposition of benevolence. It can exist only where the correlative sonship may also exist. God's essential self-imparting goodness and man's creation in God's moral image are the two fundamental elements of God's fatherhood, and they unite to give it the note of universality. God's universal fatherhood is grounded both in what he is and in what he has made man to be. He must be the Father of all men, because he is perfect in love (Mt. v. 48), and love is at once the sum of his in- herent moral perfections, the motive of creation, and the basis of man's kinship to him. 1 The parable of the Prodigal Son proceeds upon the truth of God's fatherhood. This significance does not depend merely upon the fact that Jesus pictures the atti- tude of God towards men by describing the action of a human father. In other parables God is represented by a king and by a householder. It is the content of the parable, rather than its form, which makes it a picture of God's fatherhood. Its purpose is to set forth the divine compassion towards the undeserving. The obedient son is the type of the loyal Jewish religionist ; the wayward son is the type of the lost and despised sinner. The parable shows how God seeks to save the lost; how he calls, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He does not deal with men in mere retributive justice, but in abounding generosity. The parable is a picture of the divine grace. It uses the relations of the human family for its purpose, the most natural and appropriate rela- tions which it could use, but it is the truth of God's love and pity for even the worst of men which makes it a les- 1 An unwarranted appeal in proof of Jesus' universal conception of God's fatherhood is sometimes made to Mt. xxiii. 1-9: "Then spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, . . . One is your Father which is in heaven." But apart from the fact that "Father" (Abba) is here used in a technical sense, as a teacher's title denoting a source of authority, it is evident from the context that the words, " One is your Father" are parallel to, "One is your master, even the Christ," and were addressed to his disciples. 72 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS son in the meaning of the divine fatherhood. The same lesson is taught, however, by other analogies in other para- bles and in various forms of speech which are not para- bolic. The divine fatherhood is the divine love seeking to bring men into that fellowship with God of which they were made capable and for which they are destined. 1 We cannot doubt that in the thought of Jesus God is the Father of all men. Does it follow that all men are sons of God? In other words, are the terms "Father" and "son of God," used in strict correlation? We find on examination that this is not the fact. God is always lov- ing and gracious, whatever men may be. His fatherhood cannot be impaired. He always remains, if we may so speak, what he ought to be ; he always corresponds per- fectly to his idea. With men, however, this is not the case. Ideally and in possibility all men are, indeed, sons of God. But men are not actually what they are ideally. The correlation between God's fatherhood and man's son- ship should be perfect; but on account of sin it is not so. On man's side the true relation which " fatherhood " and "sonship" express has been impaired by sin. God is the Father of all men, since he, on his side, always remains what he ought to be ; but men must become sons of God (in the true sense of moral kinship to God) because their side of the relation has been impaired, and it is by a change in them that this relation of fellowship and like- ness must be restored. Hence our sources speak only of the obedient as sons of God in the true sense of sonship. Others have forfeited their proper sonship by sin, although it is still theirs by right and possibility, but they regain it only by repentance and return to God in obedience and love. In other words, Jesus does not designate as sonship the kinship of nature which all men have with God, but 1 " Fatherhood is love, original and underived, anticipating and unde- served, forgiving and educating, communicating and drawing to its heart. Jesus felt, conceived, and revealed God as this love which itself per- sonal applies to every child of man. That he really desired to charac- terize the eternal heart of God in this way as the prototype of the human father's heart, is shown by his own express comparison between the two" (Mt. vii. 11). Beyschlag, N. T. Theol I. 82 (Bk. I. ch. iv. 2). THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 73 reserves that term to express the closer spiritual relation which is constituted by faith and obedience. This dis- tinction underlies the language of the Synoptists as clearly as it is stated in the fourth Gospel (i. 12): " As many as received him, to them gave he the right (or privilege) to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name." This same conception of God's fatherhood and of man's true sonship to God is presented in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Of both the sons God is the Father; but the younger son forfeits by disobedience and ingratitude his true filial standing. As he himself expresses it, he is " no more worthy to be called " a son. In the true moral sense he is not what a son should be. The natural relation to his Father, however, still remains as the possible basis for the reconstitution of the true relation of obedience and fellowship. He is a son in possibility still ; nothing can ever make it untrue that he was born in his Father's house and that he has a right to his Father's bounty as soon as he is willing on his part to fulfil his side of the relation. If he has lost the rights and dignity of sonship, he has lost them by his own unfilial life, and they belong to him, and may be his as soon as he will " arise and go to his Father," and in penitence and obedience seek his favor and blessing. God is the Father of all men ; in the sense of kinship of nature to God all men are sons of God ; but, in the higher sense in which Jesus used the word, they only are sons of God who seek to fulfil their true relation to God by obe- dience to his will, and ethical likeness to him. The father- hood of God and the sonship of men to God find their point of union in the fact that both terms refer to moral character, the fatherhood denoting God's perfect goodness, the sonship man's likeness to God. Both describe the cor- respondence of the beings to which they are applied to their idea. The two terms are therefore ideally correla- tive, and this ideal correlation is the basis of an actual cor- relation which is realized in proportion as man fulfils his true destiny. Other terms than that of Father are used in our sources 74 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OP JESUS to designate the ethical nature of God, but they point to no different conception of the divine character from that which we have reached. God is called perfect, complete (re'Xeto?, Mt. v. 48), but it is clear from the context that this perfection is perfection of love. God is complete in love in that he bestows his blessings generously and with- out partiality upon all. Men are not thus complete. Even the best of them are inclined to do good only to those who do good to them; to salute only those who salute them (Mt. v. 46, 47). Thus love becomes only a slightly en- larged selfishness. Earthly parents may, indeed, be good to their children and delight to give them good gifts, yet their interest and sympathy for others are likely to remain extremely limited. Jesus is obliged to say of them that with all their generosity and affection, they are still " evil " (jrovrjpol 6We9, Mt. vii. 11) , that is, they realize the life of love but imperfectly. The best of human love is often the operation of an impulse or instinct, rather than an intelli- gent choice distinctly adopted by the will, and applied to all the motives and ends of action. God, on the contrary, is complete in love. He seeks the true good of all beings. His action towards men varies with their conditions and characters, but it is always action which is best adapted to promote the ends of holy love. God is also called good (a^aOo^. In the narrative con- cerning the man who came to Jesus and said: "Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? " Jesus is said to have replied : " Why callest thou me good ? None is good, save one, even God " (Mk. x. 17, 18 ; cf. Lk. xviii. 18, 19; Mt. xix. 16, 17). The import of the conversation hinges on the meaning of the word good. The questioner had used it quite lightly, applying it to Jesus as a compli- ment, or, at most, as a common designation of respect. 1 1 In saying this I am assuming, with most critics (e.g. Meyer, Weiss, Wendt, Holtzmann), that the form of the question given by Mark and Luke : " Good Master, what shall I do," etc. ? is the original, as against Matthew's : " What good thing shall I do," etc. ? Matthew's form of the question seems very natural in view of what we know of the Jewish ideas of virtue, and it seems to lead naturally to Jesus' counter-question. On the other hand, it is quite easy to see how the more concrete form of the THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD 75 Jesus takes up the word and carries it at once into a region far above that in which his questioner's mind had ever pur- sued it. It is as if he had said : " You use the word good ; do you reflect what depths of meaning are in that word ? it is a name for the very perfection of God." The aim of Jesus was to heighten the man's idea of goodness. It had always been for him, as the sequel showed, a round of out- ward actions technically called religious. Jesus would show him what the ethical ideal of perfect goodness is the very nature of God himself. Hence Jesus himself declines the epithet. He is himself passing through the process of human development. This process can reach its perfection only in its end. Hence good in the absolute sense in the sense which excludes all becoming can be predicated only of God. All others become good by the increasing realization in their lives of ethical likeness to God. He alone is absolutely good, the eternally ethically perfect Being. His nature alone is the source and seat of all truth, law, and perfection. conversation which Mark and Luke have preserved could easily be cast into the more abstract form which Matthew has. A certain abruptness in Jesus' mounting at once from a complimentary title to the concept of the divine perfection is avoided by making the "young man's" question abstract and general. This, then, is one of the cases in the field of the higher criticism where the well-known maxim of the lower criticism obtains : Lectio difficilior principatum tenet. CHAPTER VII GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS IT would be a matter of great interest, if it were practi- cable, to construct in thought the world as Jesus conceived it. But we have only scanty materials for so doing. He did not discourse upon nature or history. The fields of philosophy and science lay outside the scope of his teach- ing and work. His references to subjects which lie within these fields are quite incidental. They are made in popu- lar language and embody the popular conceptions which were prevalent in his time. He spoke very often of natu- ral phenomena of the sun rising, the clouds threatening rain, the seed sprouting; of the lily's beauty, the care of vines and trees, the culture of the soil, the habits of animals, the qualities of salt and leaven but without intending to add anything to the popular knowledge of meteorology, botany, or agriculture. The facts of nature and of human life he used simply as means to illustrate the moral and spiritual truths which constitute the peculiar province of his life-work. It is a fair question whether Jesus meant to commit himself to any doctrines concerning the universe or life which are not an essential part of his positive teaching as the founder and head of the Kingdom of God. Would it have been consistent with his Messianic vocation for him to have assumed the rdle of an expert in literary or historical criticism, any more than in astronomy or meta- physics ? If Jesus in teaching a lesson concerning his own work, referred to Jonah as having been swallowed by a sea-monster (Mt. xii. 40), did he thereby mean to authen- ticate that narrative in the Old Testament as literal his- 76 GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 77 tory ? 1 When he spoke of the "law of Moses," and the "book of Moses," or of what " Moses wrote," did he mean to say that Moses composed the Pentateuch in its present form? Did he pronounce upon the authorship of certain Psalms by the way in which he quoted them as what " David said " ? To answer these questions in the affirmative is to suppose that it was the intention of Jesus to assert the correctness of the popular ideas of his time respecting the character of Old Testament stories and the authorship of Old Testa- ment books. On this view we must suppose that in his incidental references to such subjects, Jesus is not merely speaking the popular language and using the current con- ceptions of his time for the ends of his teaching, but that he is committing his authority to the scientific accuracy of the common expressions and ideas which he uses. On this supposition his allusions to Old Testament books and nar- ratives are sometimes made a touchstone for determining critical and historical questions which were as foreign to the thought of his time as were the researches and problems of anthropology or physical science. If his assertion, " Moses wrote," discredits modern criticism, does not his affirmation that the sun rises destroy modern astronomy ? 2 1 It should here be noticed that Matthew alone connects the Jonah-sign with Jesus' resurrection. Luke in the parallel passage (xi. 29, 30; cf. 32) seems to regard the "sign of Jonah" as consisting of Jonah's preaching. This interpretation of the "sign" Matthew has also preserved from the Logia (xii. 41). The additional explanation of Jonah's sign to the Nine- vites as consisting in his deliverance from the belly of the monster finds no warrant in the Book of Jonah itself, nor in the context of our passage. Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites in that he was a preacher of righteous- ness (Jon. iii. 4). With this idea Luke agrees, and also Matthew in xii. 41, 42. The additional explanation given in verse 40 is probably the author's own, suggested by the point of likeness between the experience of Jonah and that of Jesus, mentioned in verse 40 a three-days burial. So Holtz- mann and Wendt ; per contra, Meyer and Weiss. 2 "If indeed the question had ever been put to our Lord, was such a passage written by such a man? then he would either have refused to answer such a question, or he would have resolved the difficulty. Had he pronounced his decision, I would have believed him. Judging, how- ever, from his ordinary method of teaching, I should have expected that, just as he said to the man who desired him to interfere in a question of inheritance, 'Who made me a judge or a divider between you?' He would have said in reply to the question about the age or author of a pas- 78 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS We must conclude that Jesus did not regard it as falling within his province to criticise the popular beliefs of his time regarding the order of the world, or as any part of his mission to extend human information in the fields of historical fact, literary criticism, or philosophical inquiry. When, for example, he spoke of the heart, the spirit, the soul, or life of man, he spoke the language of popular speech, and his purpose was to impress religious truth, not to impart psychological knowledge. His life-work be- longed to a realm which is immeasurably higher than that of human science. He saw the inner meaning of the world and of life, with whose details science is occupied. He penetrated to the heart of Old Testament truth and was oblivious of such questions as those of time, place, and date. Nature he looked upon as the revelation of the di- vine order and beneficence ; he spoke often of her powers and processes, which were for his mind instinct with God; but he was not at all concerned to extend men's observation of natural phenomena, much less to correct the popular impressions concerning them. For him it was quite enough to teach men to see God in nature, as it was enough to show them the imperishable religious truths which formed the essential substance of Old Testament revelation. The question now arises: Can we safely commit our- selves to the guidance of principles like these in seeking to distinguish the positive and explicit teaching of Jesus from those incidental references which he often makes to various ideas and conclusions current in popular thought ? Can we, for example, derive a positive doctrine of the loca- tion of heaven or of the nature of Hades, of angels and evil spirits and Satan, from the way in which he speaks of these subjects ? Or should we conclude that he did not intend to embrace such themes within the range of his positive instruction? He speaks of heaven, as men have always done, in terms of space. It is a name for the seat sage in the Old Testament, ' Who commissioned me to resolve difficulties in historical criticism?'" Bishop Moorhouse, The Teaching of Christ (1892), pp. 41, 42. GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 79 of the divine majesty, where God's will is perfectly done. But at most we can call this but the form of his thought. Its essence does not consist in any local conception. If God is in heaven, he is also in earth. Heaven is often a name for divinity, or God's holy order. The prodigal son sins against heaven (Lk. xv. 18). The baptism of John was from heaven (Mk. xi. 30), that is, providentially ap- pointed and divinely sanctioned. His faithful disciples are to receive the rewards which are stored up for them in heaven (Mt. v. 12 ; Lk. xii. 83), but these terms are most naturally understood as referring to spiritual benefits and blessings, not to external gifts which are hoarded up for men like earthly treasures. The real thought of Jesus concerning heaven clearly transcends the popular form of which he most naturally makes use and rises into the world of the spirit. Heaven is the ideal world ; it is the perfect life, the perfect society, as God conceives and designs it ; it is the true goal of this present imperfect order. A severe literalism might insist that Jesus represents heaven as a place above the earth where God sits on a throne (Mt. v. 34) ; a more discerning search into the aim and import of Jesus' teaching discloses his deep spiritual pur- pose, to kindle in men a living sense of God, of whose perfections, holy laws, and order " heaven " is a convenient and popular symbol. In this case there is no great diffi- culty in distinguishing what is incidental to the popular speech of Jesus from what is central and essential in his thought when he speaks about heaven. In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk. xvi. 19 8*7.) he makes use of the popular idea of Hades as the general abode of the dead, but with this modification of the Old Testament idea of Sheol as a dark and distinction- less realm, that it is composed of two parts separated by a great gulf, across which, however, men converse. It is obvious that no doctrine concerning Hades is meant to be taught in this parabolic use of current ideas. Paradise (Lk. xxii. 43) is apparently the place of happiness in Hades. The other references to Hades are purely figura- tive. Capernaum shall be cast down to Hades (Lk. x. 16), 80 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS a symbol of abasement in contrast to heaven, a symbol of exaltation. Against the Church the " gates of Hades," the greatest opposing powers, so called because the por- tals of the realm of death so securely hold all who dwell within it, shall not prevail (Mt. xvi. 18). Does Jesus, then, sanction the Jewish views of Sheol ? He is neither concerned to sanction nor to deny them. He uses them as convenient forms for teaching moral truth. His revela- tion of God gives him no occasion either to confirm or to reject them. The subject is not within the field of his mission. We will next observe his language concerning angels. The Old Testament was filled with references to super- human beings and their agency. The later Judaism greatly increased their number and functions. God was withdrawn from the world, and angels were conceived of as the medi- ating agents by which he accomplished his purposes among men. In this particular, Jesus did not altogether follow the thought of his time. He represented God as being in living contact with the world, and as directly operative in human affairs. He accordingly spoke less frequently of angel-mediation. In several places, however, he seems to refer to angels in such a way as to show that he believed in their real exist- ence. He will come "in the glory of his Father with the holy angels " (Mk. viii. 38 ; Mt. xvi. 27 ; xxv. 31) ; "angels in heaven" neither marry nor are given in mar- riage (Mk. xii. 25); of the hour of his advent not even "the angels in heaven" know (Mk. xiii. 32). Beyschlag holds that " the holy angels of the Son of man, with whom he will come again in his glory, are the rays of the divine majesty which are then to surround him with splendor; they are the divine powers with which he is to awaken the dead, to dissolve the present order of the world, and set up a new and higher order." 1 Even if the references to angels in connection with the parousia be regarded as poetical, I see no sufficient ground for understanding the other references, just cited, in this way ; and it is notice- * N. T. Theol. I. 87 CBk. I. ch. iv. 5). GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 81 able that Beyschlag does not mention them in his discus- sion of the subject. It must be admitted, however, that most of our Lord's references to angels may be understood, without violence, in a symbolic way. When he said that he might ask his Father and he would send him " more than twelve legions of angels" to protect him from the violence of his enemies (Mt. xxvi. 53), the essence of his thought certainly is that, if he chose, he might be miracu- lously defended against his accusers. It is not at all neces- sary to the clearness and force of his thought to interpret this language literally. What, now, shall be said of Mt. xviii. 10 : " See that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is heaven " ? Considered merely in its form, this passage presents the idea that children (or, the humblest of believers 1 ) have in heaven their guardian angels (cf. Acts xii. 15), who, standing in closest relation to God, represent and mediate the special solicitude of God for their welfare. This idea accords, no doubt, with the popular thought of the later Judaism that God exer- cised his providential care through angelic instrumentality. The question here is whether it is the intention of Jesus to confirm that idea, or whether he simply uses the conception symbolically to enforce the truth of the great value of the " little ones " in the sight of God, and of his tender care for them. We may not be justified in denying that Jesus accepted the popular Jewish idea of guardian angels, but we cannot maintain that it is in any way essential to his thought. I do not believe that he meant to assert any- 1 For our purpose it makes no essential difference whether funpol be understood to refer to literal children (as by Weiss, Wendt, and Holtz- mann) or persons who are figuratively so called (as by Morison, Meyer, and Beyschlag). The critical difficulties connected with the passage, which is found in Matthew alone, are considerable, but in Us present form it appears to me clearly to refer to children. It may well be, however, that this turn was given to it by our first evangelist under the influence of Mk. ix. 36. The parallel, Mk. ix. 42, and the earlier verses of our chapter (Mt. xviii. 1-6 ; ef. Mt. x. 42 ; Lk. xvii. 2) do not seem to refer to children, but to humble, childlike believers. Cf. Wendt, Lehre Jesu, p. 164. 82 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS thing upon that subject. The doctrine which he was teaching was the guardian care of God. That teaching stands in undimmed clearness and undiminished force, whether one suppose him to have conceived of it as actu- ally effected through guardian angels, or regard that idea simply as a convenient means of enforcing his truth upon popular apprehension. A similar view may be taken of such expressions as these: "Him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God " (Lk. xii. 8) ; " There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that re- penteth" (Lk. xv. 10). Certainly the idea in the first of these passages is the same as we find in Mt. x. 32 : " Him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven." Nothing is subtracted from the positive content of Jesus' teaching if " the angels of God " in such expressions be understood as " a kind of poetic paraphrase for God him- self " (Beyschlag). With even greater naturalness may the term be so understood in the parabolic description of Lazarus as being carried away after his death "by the angels into Abraham's bosom" (Lk. xvi. 22). That the teaching of Jesus presupposes the real existence of an order of superhuman and holy beings is highly probable ; but his references to them are too incidental and indefinite to warrant us in holding that he intended to commit him- self to any positive doctrine of their nature and functions. His language concerning them so far as we can judge from our sources was quite reserved ; he used the popu- lar ideas about angels to a certain extent, but always as means to some end lying beyond ; hence his words which touch upon the subject are usually symbolic or pictorial ; they do not readily yield themselves to a literal interpre- tation, but are more naturally understood in a semi-poetic sense. Just as the popular thought of Jesus' time conceived of the activity of God in the world as mediated through good angels, so it attributed the power of evil, both natural and moral, to the agency of wicked spirits. These spirits were thought of as constituting r kingdom of evil of which GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 83 Satan is the head. These malignant powers especially their chief are perpetually active in bringing all manner of evils upon men. In the Old Testament Satan had been described as the accuser, adversary, or destroyer of man- kind ; he is employed as a minister of God for the testing and chastisement of men. In the Book of Job Satan pre- sents himself among the sons of God, the mighty messen- gers of Jehovah, and to him is given permission to put Job to the severest tests in order to determine whether his service to God is genuine and disinterested or prudential and selfish. The evils which he proceeds to inflict upon Job as tests of his sincerity are what we call natural evils sickness, loss of property and of children. The question now arises : How far does the language of Jesus recognize or attest these and kindred ideas ? Without doubt the names " Satan," " devil," and " evil one " are more prominently connected with moral than with natural evil in our sources. In the narrative of the temptation as given by Matthew (iv. 1-11) and Luke (iv. 1-13) it is Satan who presents to Jesus alluring pros- pects of success if he will abandon the divinely appointed path in the pursuit of his Messianic vocation and adopt methods which accord with the popular expectation. Of the origin of this highly figurative and pictorial descrip- tion we cannot be certain. Not improbably its substance was communicated to the disciples by Jesus himself as a picture of the two paths which lay before him at the begin- ning of his ministry. What is quite certain, in any case, is that Satan here appears as the embodiment of the popu- lar Jewish Messianic expectations. If the words rov TTOVIJ- pov in Matthew's version of the Lord's prayer are to be taken as personal (" the evil one "), then we have in the Synoptics a clear reference to Satan as the source of temptation to evil ; but this conclusion is doubly doubtful because, in the first place, it is quite possible that rov trovrjpov should be taken as impersonal ("evil"), 1 and, 1 Undoubtedly the majority of modern interpreters render TOU TovijpoO, "the evil one"; so Morison, Broadus, Meyer, Holtzmann, R.V. ; but many still prefer the abstract meaning, "evil," found in the A.V. ; e.g., 84 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS further, because the shorter form of the prayer, as given by Luke (xi. 1-4), which does not contain these words, is probably the more original. 1 Both Matthew and Luke have preserved from the Mark- source the explanation of the parable of the Sower, in which Jesus says : " When they have heard, straightway cometh Satan, and taketh away the word which hath been sown in them" (Mk. iv. 15; Mt. xiii. 18; Lk. viii. 12). The references to Satan as " the enemy " who sows tares among the wheat (Mt. xiii. 28, 39) are to be employed less confidently because there is some reason to think that the parable of the Tares (peculiar to Matthew) is an am- plification of the parable of the Growing Seed in Mk. iv. 26-29, and that its exposition (xiii. 36-43) was an inter- pretation emanating from the evangelist or in current use among the early disciples. It bears the marks of an alle- gorizing interpretation of the details of the parable and appears to conduct to a different goal, the judgment and its issues, from that which the parable itself contem- plates, which is to show how his disciples must feel and act in view of the fact that there will be counterfeit Christians among them. 2 But whatever view be taken on these latter points, it is a fair question whether in these figurative discourses the references to Satan may not be as figurative as the rest of the language. When it is said that Satan snatches away the seed that is sown in the heart, it is obvious that " seed " and " heart " are figurative designations for truth and the mind which apprehends it. It is not easy to show that " Satan " in such expressions means more than the spirit of worldliness which neutral- izes the power of divine truth. Quite in accord with the representations in Job which describe Satan as the tempter who puts the devotion of Lange, Alford, and Weiss. Professor L. S. Potwin, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1891, has strongly defended this view on various grounds, among them this, that the Septuagint often designates evil by irovripbv, with and without the article, but does not designate Satan by 6 irovnpbs. 1 See Wendt, Lehre Jcsu, pp. 97, 98. 2 Cf. Weiss, Matthausev., p. 352; Wendt, Lehre Jesu, pp. 178 179; Holtzmann, Hand com. ad loc. GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 85 men to the test, is the language of Jesus to Peter : " Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat" (Lk. xxii. 31). Here the testing process to which the Twelve are exposed appears to be the stress under which they are to be placed in deciding between the higher and the lower view of Jesus' work and Kingdom. They are to undergo a test analogous to that to which Jesus himself was subjected in his temptation. Again, Satan is called "the prince of the demons," who, as head of a kingdom of evil spirits, may be likened to a "strong man" guarding his house. Men who have been seized by his vassals are his " spoil " and cannot be rescued except by one who is more powerful than the chief himself (Mk. iii. 22-27; Mt. xii. 25-29; Lk. xi. 17-22). In such passages the view taken of " Satan" must be involved in that which is adopted respecting demons and demoniacal possession. We find that on an earlier occasion when Peter repudi- ated the idea of a suffering Messiah, Jesus rebuked him in these words : "Get thee behind me, Satan : for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men " (Mk. viii. 33; Mt. xvi. 23). Here "Satan" is evidently used as a symbolic name for opposer or tempter. Peter's hos- tility to the divinely appointed course which Jesus must pursue sprang from that ambitious and worldly spirit which was the product of popular Jewish Messianic hopes. He was acting the part of an adversary to God in protest- ing against the cross, as the goal of his Master's life. In this connection we should observe the striking words of Jesus to the Seventy upon their return from their mission: " I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven " (Lk. x. 17). This is certainly a figurative exclamation strongly reminding one of the words in Isaiah's satirical ode against the Babylonian tyrant: " How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning!" (Is. xiv. 12). But whether the whole conception, including that of Satan, is figurative, or only that of the swift fall from heaven, while Satan is still thought of as an actual person, depends largely upon the view taken of the " possession " whose cure was the occasion of the exclamation. The one per- 86 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS fectly clear reference to Satan as the cause of physical infirmity is contained in the description of the deformed woman who "could in no wise lift herself up," as one "whom Satan had bound eighteen years" (Lk. xiii. 11, 16) .* The same idea, however, is implied in the represen tation of the "demonized" (Sai//,owb'/i>oi) as Satan's "spoil," so far as their "possession" is identified with physical maladies ; and to that subject we must now turn. 2 Characteristic examples of this "possession" are as follows : The man " with an unclean spirit " in the syna- gogue at Capernaum which, when Jesus exorcises it, tears the man and cries with a loud voice (Mk. i. 21 sq. ; Lk. iv. 31 sq.~) ; the Gerasene demoniac who dwelt among the tombs, gashed his body with stones, and could not be tamed, being inhabited by a " legion " of demons (Mk. v. 1 sq. ; Mt. viii. 28 sq. ; Lk. viii. 26 sq.^) ; a dumb man who spake as soon as the demon which had caused his dumb- ness was cast out (Mt. ix. 32, 33 ; cf. Lk. xi. 14 and Mt. xii. 22) ; the little daughter of a Syrophoenician woman who was " grievously vexed with a demon " and who, when healed, went home and lay down upon the bed, re- stored to health (Mk. vii. 25 sq. ; Mt. xv. 22 tne epileptic boy (Mt. xvii. 15) who had a " dumb spirit " and who often fell into fire and water and rolled on the ground and frothed at the mouth when the demon seized him (Mk. ix. 17 sq. ; Mt. xvii. 14 sq.; Lk. ix. 37 sq.*). These are all the examples of " possession " which are described with any detail in our sources. 3 1 The idea that it is the special province of Satan to inflict sickness and other natural evils upon men appears in Paul's epistles : 1 Cor. v. 6 ; 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; 1 Thess. ii. 18 ; 1 Tim. i. 20. 2 I would commend to the reader the discussion of this subject by Row in The Supernatural in the New Testament (1876), and the remarks by Bruce in The Miraculous Element in the Gospels (1895). 8 The healings of the "blind and dumb" man (Mt. xii. 22) may be a repetition (so Wendt, Lehre Jesu, p. 100) of the cure already related by Matthew (ix. 32, 33) in close agreement with Lk. xi. 14. The woman "whom Satan had bound" (Lk. xiii. 16) is not explicitly said to have been "possessed." If these two cases are counted, they make seven in all. GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 87 On the general subject we observe : (1) All the symp- toms which are described are such as characterize one or another physical or mental malady. If the phenomena were not attributed to demoniacal possession, we should experience no difficulty in explaining all the examples as cases of disease, such as paralysis, deafness, loss of speech, epilepsy, and insanity. The argument for the reality of possession by demons must rest entirely upon the fact that this term is applied in the Gospels to these maladies, and not at all upon the nature or peculiarities of the symptoms which are described. We note, moreover, that the casting out of demons is commonly associated in our sources with the healing of the sick (Mt. x. 8 ; Mk. i. 34 ; iii. 15 ; Lk. xiii. 20), although it is distinguished from such healing. (2) We find that others besides Jesus " cast out demons." Whatever these maladies were, it is certain that both Jesus and his disciples recognized the ability of exorcists to cure them in some instances. On one occasion the disciples saw one casting out demons in Jesus' name and rebuked him because he did not join their company; but Jesus said : " Forbid him not, for there is no man who can do a mighty work in my name and be able quickly to speak evil of me" (Mk. ix. 38, 39; Lk. ix. 49, 50). Again, when the Pharisees charged him with casting out demons by the aid of their prince, he replied : " If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out ? therefore shall they be your judges " (Lk. xi. 19 ; xii. 27). One of the claims which those who call Jesus Lord and do not obey his precepts, will make in the judgment is (according to Matthew's version) that they have by his name cast out demons (Mt. vii. 22). It is thus evident that, whatever these maladies were, there were men who, in some cases, succeeded in curing them. (3) "Possession" is not represented in our sources as a result or an evidence of extraordinary wickedness. Weiss says : " The radical matter of fact (respecting the demo- niacs) was simply this, that the sinful condition had reached a height where the man no longer had the mas- tery of sin, but sin of him ; and when sunk in this utter 88 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS impotence, and possessing no will of his own, he yielded to the enslaving power of sin, this dominion is referred to a superhuman spiritual power which held sway over him and deprived him of all volition. . . . What was most striking about the appearance of these so-called demoniacs was the conjunction with this yielding to Satan and to the power of sin, of a state of disease, whether of psychical or bodily character, which is regarded as the result of their moral condition." 1 This view, then, is that " possession " was really special wickedness, popularly conceived as the result of the indwelling of demons in men, wickedness which brought on various bodily and mental diseases in consequence of the "profound internal connection" be- tween body and mind. I do not think that the first propo- sition of this theory finds any support in the Synoptists. The demoniacs are represented as the victims of misfor- tune rather than as monsters of wickedness. There is not a single case in which their "possession" is associated with special sinfulness. Frantic ravings, self-injury, ir- rational exclamations and loss of faculties are ascribed to these demoniacs, but never monstrous wickedness. This theory reduces ad absurdum in application to the little Greek girl, the nature of whose malady we can only con- jecture from the fact that after her cure she lay peacefully upon the bed. Whatever " demoniacal possession " was, it is described in our sources as belonging to the sphere of natural, rather than to that of moral, evil. (4) We observe, in one case at least, a quasi-personi- fication of disease. Peter's mother-in-law was " holden " with a great fever which Jesus "rebuked" , and "it left her" (Lk. iv. 38, 39). In one instance the " spirit " which " possessed " the person is described by the characteristic of the malady; it was a "dumb spirit" which had entered into the frantic boy, that is, a spirit causing dumbness (Mk. ix. 17). The woman whom Satan had bound eighteen years "had a spirit of infirmity," that is, a spirit which produced her infirmity (Lk. xiii. 11). These three examples may i The Life of Christ, II. 81 (Bk. III. ch. vi.). GOOD ANto EVIL SPIRITS 89 be regarded as representing three stages of thought through which the mind might easily pass in an age when all sorts of evils were constantly referred to the agency of invisible powers. First, the disease is personi- fied ; then the kind of disease is ascribed to a spirit like itself the disease arid the spirit being half identified and half distinguished ; and, finally, the evil spirit simply in- flicts at will one or another malady upon the person. I do not mean to intimate that there was any such develop- ment of ideas in chronological order, but only that these three examples may be regarded as representing three forms of thought respecting disease which three individ- uals might illustrate, showing to what extent the mind of each was under the power of the idea of demoniacal pos- session as the explanation of severe disease. One might conceive the disease as a spirit ; another as a " dumb " or " deaf " spirit, according to the nature of the malady ; another as simply the malevolent cause of any given physical or mental disorder. (5) Jesus makes a very remarkable allegorical use of the idea of demon-possession to illustrate the tendency of the Jews to relapse, after any temporary amendment, into increased wickedness (Lk. xi. 24-26 ; Mt. xii. 43-45). He describes an unclean spirit who has been cast out of the man whom he has inhabited, as wandering about in dry and desert regions ; when he finds no habitation there, he decides to return into the man in whom he had formerly dwelt. He finds the man unoccupied by any other "spirit," like an empty house waiting for a tenant. Thereupon he associates with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they all enter this man, and thereafter he is inhabited by eight demons instead of one. We may not be justified in basing any argument on this passage either for or against the reality of possession by demons, but it is difficult to resist the impression that while this apologue is appropriate and impressive if regarded as an illustrative use of current popular ideas, it seems very grotesque if understood as a description of real beings and their be- havior. All must, indeed, admit that some use is here 90 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OP JESUS made of popular ideas which it is no part of Jesus' purpose to sanction. Wild, uninhabited regions were commonly regarded as the special abodes of demons. But it would be preposterous to suppose that Jesus means to affirm this to be an actual fact. Does he then mean to say that a man may be tenanted by a large but definite number of evil spirits, say, for example, eight? If not, does he mean to sanction the popular notion of "possession" at all ? Where shall the line be drawn between the simply natural and convenient use of popular ideas respecting subjects which he was in no way concerned to discuss, and his didactic attestation of such ideas ? I have pointed out the phenomena of spiritism which our sources describe, not with the view of advocating any theory, but in order to show what are the considerations with which we have to deal. Into the question about the scope of our Lord's knowledge respecting such subjects, I am not required to enter. Our sole inquiry is: what, if anything, did he teach respecting such subjects as good and evil spirits ? That he frequently spoke of them after the manner of his time we have already seen. Is his author- ity as a teacher committed to the correctness of those ideas ? I do not believe that it is. That Jesus believed, and in his teaching implied, that there are good beings called angels and evil beings called demons and Satan, I cannot doubt, but his language concerning them is popular and not didactic, and his authority is not committed to the prevail- ing ideas which obtained in regard to them, although he spoke with respect to this, as with respect to all subjects outside the scope of his special teaching, in the terms current in his age. 1 His language is pictorial, and his purpose in speaking on such topics always terminates on ethical and spiritual instruction, and not on giving information respect- 1 " If he had denied the current theory (of demoniacal possession), he would have been giving evidence of scientific knowledge or of scientific intuition beyond the culture of his time, and this, as in countless other cases, was not in accordance with his method, which, whether we suppose it divine or human, has nowhere proved his divine mission by foreknowl- edge of natural science." George J. Romanes, Thoughts on Religion p. 193. GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS 91 ing the acts of superhuman spirits. We have seen how Satan is portrayed in language almost wholly figurative. He appears in the pictorial narrative of the temptation, he snatches away the good seed and sows tares, sifts men as wheat, and bows down a woman with infirmity. More- over, Peter is called "Satan" when he opposes divine truth. Much the same holds true of the demons. Collec- tively considered, they are almost synonyms with " Satan " where Jesus says that if he should cast out demons by the prince of the demons, Satan would be divided against him- self (Mk. ii. 26 ; Mt. xii. 26 ; Lk. xi. 18). The dethron- ing of demons in men is the same as Satan falling like lightning from heaven (Lk. xiii. 32). Clear cases of maladies such as speechlessness and mania are attributed to their power. In discussions of this subject some such dilemma as this is commonly presented : Jesus spoke of the casting out of demons by himself and by others ; now he either spoke and acted according to fact, or he knowingly lent the weight of his authority to a superstition which he knew had no foundation in fact. I do not think we are shut up to any such dilemma. Whether demon-possession be in reality a fact or a superstition, the authority of Jesus cannot be fairly cited for either the one or the other view of it. The case is the same as with regard to the 110th Psalm. Jesus cites it as containing what "David said" (Mk. xii. 35-37). Many would here involve us in the dilemma : Either David must have written the 110th Psalm, or Jesus' authority is undermined. No dilemma of this sort is to be admitted. Jesus simply spoke as other people did about Psalms and all other books. He taught nothing concerning their authorship. Nor did he concerning the nature, functions, or actions of angels or demons. CHAPTER VIII HUMAN NATURE AND SINFULNESS THE references which Jesus made to the true nature of man, and to the estimate which God puts upon his well- being, are so numerous and explicit that they furnish suf- ficient materials for the construction of a doctrine. He did not, indeed, directly discuss man's origin, nor did he speak abstractly about human nature or man's relation to God. Nevertheless, in apothegm and in parable, and, still more, in action, he showed what man in his true divine destination is, and indicated the ways in which he falls short of its realization. His teaching includes such points as the following : (1) The life of every man, as such, is of priceless value. If Jesus was speaking to his disciples when he pictured God's care for each separate life by saying : " The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows " (Mt. x. 30, 31 ; Lk. vi. 7), it is still certain that he did not conceive of this estimate of the value of man as applicable only to his followers. Matthew has given in epigrammatic form the substance of Jesus' reason for doing good to men on the sabbath day : " How much, then, is a man of more value than a sheep ! Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the sabbath day" (Mt. xii. 12). The beneficence of Jesus presupposes the value of man, as man, and the divine care for his good. Regard to special institutions like the sab- bath must give way when it conflicts with human interests. Man is the end to which all such institutions are means. "On man's account (Sm rov av6pwirov) was the sabbath made, and not man on the sabbath s account " (Mk. ii. 27). 02 HUMAN NATURE AND SINFULNESS 93 (2) It follows that the forfeiture by any man of his true life is regarded as an unspeakable calamity. " What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? " (Mk. viii. 37; Mt. xvi. 26; Lk. ix. 25). The life of one man in its true meaning and destination outweighs the value of the world. To lose it is to forfeit that which lends meaning and worth to human existence knowl- edge, holiness, love, and truth; it is to lose one's self (Luke has: kavrbv Be a?roXeo-a9 $ ?;/UGi)#eiV). He who thus loses himself loses what no price is adequate to buy back (Mk. viii. 37) ; the loss is irreparable. But the loss of anything can be irreparable only when its value is beyond estimate. Hence Jesus taught that one might better undergo the severest self-denial and suffering than to forfeit his true spiritual life. Such is the import of the sayings : If thy hand or foot cause thee to stumble, cut them off ; it is better to enter into life maimed than retain- ing both hands and both feet, to go into Gehenna (Mk. ix. 43 sq. ; Mt. xviii. 8 5 fcal ^//.et? a^KafjLev rot? oet\erat? rjfiwv) those who still owe us repentance or requital. Such will- ingness to forgive others conditions the divine forgiveness of us (Mt. vi. 14, 15), not because the divine forgiveness is grudgingly granted, but because the desire for Godlike- ness is the essential condition on which alone men can receive spiritual blessing from God. Forgiveness is an activity of love, and if men repudiate the principle of love by refusing to forgive, they thereby close their lives to that fellowship with God which the divine forgiveness implies. Those who will not love their fellow-men banish themselves from the divine favor and fellowship. These thoughts are presented in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Mt. xviii. 23-35). Another aspect of the same teaching appears in the com- mand against judging. Those who unwarrantably and uncharitably judge their fellows show thereby their want of love, and thus expose themselves to God's unfavorable 114 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS judgment (Mt. vii. 1, 2). A censorious spirit towards others springs from a bad heart. Those who have no charity for others' faults commonly show thereby that they have no consciousness of their own. Hence, Jesus calls the man who severely criticises others, and does not correct his own faults, a hypocrite (vii. 3-5). But while love excludes hasty and censorious judging, it does not require an indis- criminating approval of all men, or a mere good-natured indifference to their actions. One who does an injury is to be rebuked as frankly as he is to be freely forgiven, upon repentance (Lk. xvii. 3 ; Mt. xviii. 15 sfjLevov is a gloss) in representing the death of Christ as designed to secure a benefit to his disciples ; the body " is given," and the blood "poured out on your behalf" (yirep vfi&v'). 2 Passing by 1 Most critics (so Tisch., W. and II., Weiss) omit KXtiptvov on the ground of preponderant external evidence. Beyschlag (Bk. I. ch. vi. 9) believes it to be genuine because otherwise the sentence is unnaturally compressed, and because if it were a gloss it would have been more natural for the copyist to have written Sidd^vov from Luke. 2 It should be pointed out that Westcott and Hort (per contra, most editors) bracket Lk. xxii. 10 & , 20 (see their text, and for their reasons, THE MESSIANIC SALVATION 125 minor verbal differences, the one marked peculiarity in the account found in the first Gospel is that the blood is said to be " shed for many unto remission of sins " (TTC/JI TTO\- \cov K%vvvdfj.evov et? a, Trepl TroXXwy, and virep vfji-wv suggest the same meaning ? What could any person familiar with the Old Testament understand by a covenant in Christ's blood, or by the giving up of his life as a ransom, except a sacrificial death? If his " blood shed for many " does not mean substantially the same as "shed for the remission of sins," we must say that the misunderstanding of the early Church was quite inevitable, for certainly no person of the time could have understood the language otherwise. 1 (5) It is now generally agreed that the apostolic the- ology regards Christ's death as directly related to the forgiveness of sins. His death is a testimony to the hein- ousness of sin in God's sight and to God's holy displeasure against it. It thus fulfils a condition of sin's forgiveness, namely, the assertion of its desert of penalty and the vin- dication of the divine righteousness in its condemnation. Was this a product of the " reminiscent phantasies " of his disciples, or had it a place in the mind of Jesus himself ? (6) Luke records that after the resurrection Jesus said to his disciples: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to 1 Cf. Bruce, Kingdom of God, pp. 240-249. THE MESSIANIC SALVATION 133 believe in all that the prophets have spoken ! Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses, and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (xxiv. 25-27). And, again later, he said to them : " These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their mind that they might under- stand the scriptures; and he said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day ; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Lk. xxiv. 44-47). What Jesus specifically said in these explanations of the import of his death, we do not know. But is it credible that the first disciples, after hearing his instruction on the subject, should proceed to build up a subjective theory of his death which had no warrant in his own teaching? Which per- sons are most likely to have correctly apprehended the significance which Jesus attached to his death, men like John and Peter and, I may add, Paul (who passed two weeks with Peter when this subject was uppermost in his thoughts, Gal. i. 18), or an equal number of scholars in our time, however discerning and candid, who undertake to reconstruct the thoughts of Jesus, and to disentangle them from the supposed subjective reflections of his dis- ciples ? Where is the subjectivity likely to be greatest in the interpretations of the eye and ear witness or in the reconstructions of the moderns ? Many adopt the former supposition ; I cannot help preferring the latter. (7) The reported words of Jesus in the Synoptists are not, indeed, very explicit in their bearing upon what theol- ogy calls the problem of atonement, and should not be pressed into the service of specific theories. The phrase Sovvat TTJV "^v^v avrov \vrpov ami 7roXXe5i> contains the idea that by his death Jesus brought back many captives from sin unto God. But the language is figurative, and wo 134 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHING OF JESUS are not told how his death contributed to secure this deliv- erance. If there be allusions in the words spoken at the supper both to the paschal feast and to the ratification of the covenant at Sinai, both would suggest the saving im- port of Christ's death, but neither would show how it availed for men's salvation. The agony of Gethsemane emphasizes the necessity, and illustrates the severity, of our Lord's suffering, but does not disclose to us its function in the divine plan for the salvation of men. The exclama- tion on the cross : " My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me?" (Mt. xv. 34), must not be didactically pressed into an assertion that in his death God withdrew from Christ his favor and fellowship. The Psalm from which it is quoted (xxii. 1) suggests rather the idea of abandon- ment to suffering than that of abandonment to desertion by God. In this view, the exclamation would be an intense expression in bitter anguish of the idea contained in the words : " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." For our present purpose we must rest the question here. The apostolic Church attributed to these words and events, and to such others as were then known, a sacrificial, aton- ing significance (in what sense we shall see). In this it has been followed by the prevailing theology of the Church of subsequent ages. It does not fall within the purpose of the present work to defend the theology of the Church. I have simply indicated the bearings of the question and what the historical presumption in the case seems to me to be. It can hardly be too much to say that the burden of proof rests upon him who holds that in its apprehension of this subject the Church has from the very first gone astray. CHAPTER XI THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD WE have seen that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual commonwealth, embracing all who adopt certain principles and motives of life. The bond which unites its members is likeness in character, kinship of spirit. Very early in his ministry, however, we observe indications that Jesus intended to found a society, based upon the principle of the Kingdom, in which the members should be held to- gether by outward and visible ties of fellowship. This society is the Church or assembly (&dc\ijff(a) of his dis- ciples. It is evident that the idea of the Kingdom is the more prominent and the more fundamental one in the mind of Jesus ; l but it is also evident that he regarded some outward form of association and organization as essential to the most effective promotion of the Kingdom. The common spiritual life which constitutes men members of the Kingdom of God needs to be fostered by reciprocal fellowship and expressed in organized effort. The first indication of Jesus' intention to found such a society may be discerned in the way in which he called upon men to follow him, to leave their occupations even, in order to form a company who should attend him in his journeys and labors. Especially did this purpose become clear when he set apart twelve men as his permanent associates and helpers, and named them his apostles or messengers (Mk. iii. 13-19 ; Lk. vi. 12-16). He warned those who proposed to enter this company that their deter- mination to do so would involve trial and hardship, and required them to make a decisive choice between disciple- 1 The term "Kingdom" occurs one hundred and twelve times in the gospels ; the word " Church " only twice. 135 136 THE SYNOPTIC TEACHIKG OF JESUS ship to him and all rival interests (Mt. viii. 19-22 ; Lk. xii. 25-27). The duties of the Twelve were not sharply defined, but from the announcement made to Andrew and Peter that they were to become " fishers of men " (Mk. i. 17), and from Jesus' charge when he sent them all out on a tour of preaching and healing (Mk. vi. 7-13), we infer that they had a certain official relation to him and that it was his intention to make them his chief agents in the establish- ing of his Church. Their office, however, was character- ized by special opportunity and service, rather than by exceptional prerogative or power. Two of them were distinctly told, when they sought positions of eminence, that no greatness was to be sought in his Kingdom except greatness by and for service (Mk. x. 42-44). Jesus recognized no superiority of outward rank among his dis- ciples. They were all on a footing of fraternal equality and were instructed not to single out one or another of their number and designate him by titles of superior emi- nence (Mt. xxiii. 8-10). The bestowment of divine grace upon them was not conditioned upon any special functions which certain official superiors must perform on behalf of the others, or upon any particular form of organization ; but where even two or three met together in his name, there he promised to be in the midst of them (Mt. xviii. 20). It is maintained by some that the idea of establishing a society of his own, distinct from the Jewish national Church, was foreign to Jesus' original plan, and was only adopted after all hope of winning the Jewish nation to belief in his messiahship had to be abandoned. Weiss, for example, says : " It was among the people that he had desired to establish the Kingdom of God, which was nothing different from the consummation of the theocracy always looked forward to by Israel. It had never occurred to Jesus to bind his followers into an exclusive community separated from the great congregation. . . . The greatest sorrow of his life was caused by the thought of establishing such a distinct Church in the midst of the great congregation of THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD 137 Israel." 1 It is true that the word Ecclesia appears only in the later teaching of Jesus. It is also true that Jesus would gladly have won the nation to belief in himself. But that it was his original and long-cherished idea to make the Jewish theocracy the social form in which his religion should find visible expression, is an opinion which lacks proof and which is, in my judgment, intrinsically improbable. It is refuted not so much by any passage as by the whole genius of Jesus' mission and teaching. His work could not be run into the moulds of Judaism. We detect in it from the very beginning a note of greater breadth and universality. The call of the publican, Levi or Matthew (Mk. ii. 14 sq.), into the company of disciples, and his subsequent confirmation as an apostle (Mk. iii. 18), is an indication that Jesus proposed to allow neither national nor social distinctions to condition membership in the community which he would found. It is quite unwar- ranted to assume as criticism so often does that Jesus had no clear ideas concerning his own person and work until the time when he first explicitly uttered them, or that up to the moment of such utterance, his ideas were the opposite of what he then expressed. The suppositions which are often put forward by critics respecting the vac- illation, disappointment, and sudden transitions in Jesus' ideas of his messiahship, his Kingdom, his death, and the effect of his work in the world, would be far-fetched and unnatural in application to any person of ordinary intelli- gence who had a fairly definite idea of his own powers and life-work. The first passage in which the word " Church " (eV/cX?;- Trarr)p, vi. 57), and he imparts spiritual life to the world through the Son who lives because of the Father (&a rbv Trarepa, vi. 57) ; that is, the Son is made the dispenser of life because of his unique and essential relation to the Father. The work of Christ for men is thus wholly in the sphere of the spirit ; it concerns man's higher life in which he is kindred to God ; it occupies itself not with what is out- ward and incidental, but with what is essential to man's true nature and destiny (vi. 63). Thus it appears how his vocation expresses the nature of God as the all-merci- ful and the all-pervading Spirit, in fellowship with whom man fulfils his destiny. These mystical descriptions are the Johannine counterpart of the Synoptic teaching con- cerning God's boundless and universal love and the pos- sible sonship of man to God which he realizes in a life of love like that of God, which is the type of all moral per- fection (Mt. v. 48). THE IDEA OP GOD 183 As the loving Father, God desires not to condemn but to save men (v. 22) Hence he sent his Son, not to judge the world, but " that the world should be saved through him " (iii. 17). Hence Jesus assured men that the aim of his coming to earth was not to judge them (viii. 15; xii. 47). A process of judgment is, however, inseparable from his saving mission. Truth, like light, necessarily judges everything which it touches. Jesus' disclosures of truth to men, and his very efforts to save them, in- volve their judgment if they spurn his truth and reject his salvation. Hence he says that his truth cannot but test men; his word will judge them and the reason why it will do so is that it is not his mere personal word, but the divine truth which he has received from the Father (xii. 48-50). His primary function is not that of Judge, but that of Saviour; yet his work judges men, and that be- cause he is not alone, but stands in living and perfect fellowship with God, and must deal with men in a way which corresponds with God's own perfect ethical nature. God reveals himself for men's salvation, but it will depend upon their attitude towards his gracious revelation whether it will involve their salvation or their judgment. In this way the teaching and work of Christ God's consummate self-manifestation become the test of men. To Christ God has committed the work of salvation ; but with that is inseparably connected a work of judgment, because he that honors the Son honors the Father, and he that honors not the Son, honors not the Father who sent him (v. 22, 23). This teaching but exhibits in clear light the reverse side of the benevolence of God. It lays the strongest emphasis on the divine willingness to bless and save, but shows how that disposition must be affected by the attitude which men take up towards it. God cannot approve or bless with his favor those who scorn his mercy. Salvation im- plies conditions which must be fulfilled by those to whom it is offered. This truth is brought out in the Synoptic teaching in a less general form, in connection with the divine forgiveness. It is insisted upon that God cannot unconditionally forgive (Mt. vi. 15). He must maintain 184 THE JOHANKINE TEACHING OF JESUS the attitude of disapproval or condemnation towards those who will not fulfil the conditions on which alone his grace can be offered or bestowed. This is the idea which is elaborated in more generic form in the teaching of the Johannine discourses concerning the divine judgment. God is essentially gracious, but he manifests his grace in accordance with the demands of his total perfection. Being what he is, he must judge, and men are therefore approved or rejected by him according as they fulfil or refuse to fulfil the essential moral conditions which belong to the very nature of the filial and obedient life of fellow- ship with God. In entire accord with this idea the discourses speak of God as righteous and holy. These references (xvii.'ll, 25) are, indeed, quite incidental, but they are not on that ac- count less significant. The terms are used in the interces- sory prayer of Jesus as appellatives of the Father. Their connection shows that they do not designate specifically the judicial aspect of the divine nature, but refer to what we may call the divine equitableness or self-consistency. To the "holy Father" Jesus appeals to keep or guard his disciples. The implication of the petition is that the holy, the perfectly good and just, Father will not forsake those who have believed on his Son (xvii. 11). The second petition (xvii. 25) is similar: "O righteous Father, the world knew thee not, but I knew thee," etc. It is an appeal to God as the righteous One to regard the disciples with that tender love and protecting care which are cor- relative to their believing acceptance of Christ. The righteousness of God seems to be conceived of as the guaranty that God will bestow special regard upon those who have heard and obeyed the voice with which he has spoken in his Son. It is the uprightness or rectitude of God which, on the one hand, necessitates his judgment of unbelief and sin, and, on the other, assures his favor to humble trust and devout acceptance of his truth. It is but an outcropping of the idea which is found in the Old Testament, and which underlay Jesus' teaching, that righteousness, self-consistency or self-respect, and benevo- THE IDEA OF GOD 185 lence, mercy or self-imparting goodness, meet and blend in the perfect love of God. It remains to consider the conditions on which God is to be known. The most instructive single passage, in this connection, is xvii. 3 : " And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." Interpreters are divided on the question whether this statement is intended to define the nature of eternal life l or is to be understood as an assertion of the condition on which eternal life is ob- tained. 2 While I adopt the latter view of the passage, I would maintain a very close and vital connection between the knowledge of God and eternal life. To possess the former, in the sense in which the words are used in our passage, is to possess the latter. This is but to say that the knowledge of God is no merely intellectual affair ; it is a spiritual intuition, and is founded on ethical likeness and fellowship of life. He knows God who obeys and loves him. The knowledge of God is the consent of the whole being to the divine will, the sympathy of the whole nature with God's perfections and requirements. This knowledge of God is impossible, except by a transforma- tion whereby man becomes conformed to God in thought, will, and action. A purity of heart and purpose, whereby one comes into an inner likeness to God, is the necessaiy organ of this knowledge. Here again we meet with the same truth which we found in the Synoptic version of our Lord's teaching : The pure in heart see God, for the pure heart is the eye (Mt. v. 8). Accordingly Jesus teaches that to know him to appre- hend the real significance of his person, teaching, and work is to know God : " If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also " (xiv. 7). The sinful world knows neither him nor the Father who sent him (xvi. 3). Those, however, who recover their spiritual vision so as to see him in his true significance and character, see also the Father who speaks and works through him (xiv. 9). 1 So Weiss and Westcott. 8 So Lticke, Meyer, Wendt, and Beyschlag. 186 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS Those who are born from above, that is, those who receive a divine impartation of life and light from God, see his Kingdom apprehend and consent to its heavenly truths and laws ; and what is this but entering into the knowl- edge of God as he discloses his nature and purposes in human history ? God does indeed reveal himself to man in historic action ; but this outward revelation only becomes a real possession through the soul's appropriation of it ac- cording to its true meaning and power. The light of God came into the world in Christ, but it illuminates only those who open their hearts to it. God can dwell only with him who loves that which is Godlike. Love is therefore the essence of the knowledge of God (xiv. 21- 23). Love is the true bond between the soul and God ; it alone can open the way to the realization of eternal life. Here again we are brought back to the Synoptic teaching that love is the sum of all God's requirements (Mk. xii. 28-31 ; Mt. xxii. 35-40), the indispensable condition of all growth in the life and likeness of God (Mt. v. 43-48). CHAPTER III THE SINFUL WORLD "THE world" is spoken of in the fourth Gospel in three distinguishable senses. It sometimes means creation in general, as when Jesus speaks of the fellowship which he had with the Father "before the world was" (xvii. 5), or "before the foundation of the world" (xvii. 24). Some- times it denotes humanity the present world considered as a realm of rational and moral action. In this sense Christ came into the world as its light (iii. 19) ; that is, he came to man and entered into his life that he might bring to him the blessings of salvation (xi. 27 ; xvi. 28). This idea of the world easily passes over into that which is characteristic of our source, namely, the idea of the world as a sphere of evil the world as alienated from God by sin. Hence Christ came to " save the world " (xii. 46, 47). It was in danger of perishing in consequence of its sinful- ness ; but God in his love sent his Son to save it (iii. 16) . In this sense "the world" means mankind as it is by nature sinful man exposed to the divine judgment and needing the divine mercy. The world, then, in this sense is mankind as the subject of redemption and includes all men so far as they still fall short of the true life of fellowship with God or of likeness to him. Hence the contrariety between Christ's Kingdom and the world (xviii. 36). The people of his time for the most part illustrated the spirit of the world which is alien- ated from God. The world, he declares, did not know God (xvii. 25) ; hates his disciples (xvii. 14) ; cannot receive the Spirit of truth (xiv. 17), and is in bondage to Satan as its prince (xii. 31 ; xiv. 30). Jesus was the champion of a spiritual life and a spiritual Kingdom ; the 187 188 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS people of his time were mainly given over to religious formalism and selfish ambition. Between him and them there was little common ground. Without a marked change of standpoint and temper they could never appre- ciate his truth. They were from beneath, he was from above ; they were of this world, he was not of this world (viii. 23). Jesus described their state as one of bondage (viii. 33-36). It was a bondage, however, which they had imposed upon themselves by sin. From this servitude he offered them freedom through the acceptance of the truth as it was embodied in his own person. The true life of love life according to its perfect pattern, the nature of God himself was open to them. But most were too blind to see it, lacking in the very capacity to desire it. They had become willing captives to the world of self- seeking ambition bondslaves of sin (viii. 34). Steeped in self-satisfaction the people were insensible to their own need and folly. Thougli really blind, they persisted in saying : " We see " (ix. 41). Here was a double fault. To be spiritually blind through wilful self-perversion were, indeed, bad enough ; but how radical must be the moral depravity of those who are not even conscious of their blindness, who have extirpated the very capacity to desire the spiritual life. In the Johannine discourses sin is represented as dark- ness, while truth and holiness are analogous to light. Darkness is the symbol of ignorance, evil, and death. The sinful world loves the darkness rather than the light, and hence rejects him who brings to it the truth and the life. This is, indeed, the world's judgment that it prefers its own folly to the heavenly wisdom which Christ offers (iii. 19-21). He is the light of the world and offers the light of life to those who are walking in darkness (viii. 12 ; xii. 35, 46). By this analogy, drawn from the natural world, the evil of sin is set in contrast to the joy and blessedness of goodness. Light suggests every attribute of goodness its purity, its beneficence, its perfect accord with man's true nature, its divineness. On this white background is set the deformity, the misery, the wicked THE SINFUL WORLD 189 folly of sin. Sin is the eclipse of the soul ; the obscura- tion of man's sense of his divine origin and destiny. It is failure, perversion, moral death. It is a defacing of the image of God in man ; the forfeiture of man's true life as a son of God. The Synoptists also represent Jesus as making use of the figure of light and darkness in his teaching concerning holiness and sin. There, too, light is the symbol of the blessedness of the spiritual life. As the light fills the world with brightness and beauty when the eye which is adapted to it is healthy, so God fills the spiritual world with supreme attraction and interest when the soul is freely open to his heavenly truth (Mt. vi. 22-24). Light is a name for man's true and normal life as a son of God. The resulting doctrine is the same as we have found in John. To refuse the light is to become " full of dark- ness." It is to forfeit one's true life and to renounce his divine destiny. It is, so far, to lose one's own self (Lk. ix. 25). Sin is thus that which is abnormal in the moral life of man. It is discord in a world which is divinely attuned to harmony; rupture in a world which is made for unity ; a shadow which obscures to human eyes the very purpose of the Eternal, spreads its fatal blight over all the relations of life, and darkens the brightest dreams of human happiness and achievement. The contrast of flesh and spirit is also found in our source : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (iii. 6). This passage is a part of Jesus' teaching concerning the " birth from above." It rests upon the idea that there are two orders, the order of nature and the order of spirit. Our natural birth pertains to the former ; by it we are ushered into the realm of personal, independent activity. But if we are to fulfil our supreme destiny, we must experience another birth birth into the world of spiritual interests and realities. To both these realms we are related ; it is not enough to fulfil our relation to one, and not to the other and higher. Jesus does not here represent the natu- ral life as essentially sinful, but only as something lower 190 than man's proper destiny. He must live the spiritual life, the life of God's Kingdom, if he is to attain his divinely destined goal. The inference is inevitable, however, that if the lower life is made supreme and sufficient, the sinful perversion which has been described under other terms must follow. The outward, the incidental, the mere husk of existence, is not inherently evil, although it is compara- tively valueless (vi. 63). But it may become an occasion of evil if chosen and estimated as supreme. Then the lower becomes the enemy of the higher. This false esti- mate Jesus seeks to prevent by leading men to esteem as highest that which is truly highest, by placing first that which is really supreme the spiritual life of love in fel- lowship with God, a primary interest in the highest things. We find essentially the same contrast and the same resulting doctrine in the Synoptic version of Jesus' teach- ing. " Flesh and blood " has not revealed Jesus' messiah- ship to Peter (Mt. xvi. 17) ; he did not derive the knowledge of it from any outward or natural source of information, but by spiritual discernment. He had spirit- ually perceived what Jesus was by that living apprehen- sion, that vital affinity of life with him, which is fittingly described as an inspiration from God. This higher spiritual nature of Peter, this eager interest and devoted attachment to his Master's person, was very strong in him ; the spirit was willing, but on the dark night of Jesus' sorrow and betrayal, it was temporarily overcome, because the flesh was weak. The lower nature the natural fears and aversion to danger asserted them- selves, calling forth the mild rebuke : " Couldst thou not watch one hour ? " (Mt. xiv. 38). The lesson running through both forms of teaching is : Subordinate the lower to the higher; place that first which is first; make the spiritual life primary ; seek God's Kingdom and righteous- ness first (Mt. vi. 33), and let every other legitimate object of desire be sought second. There is no formal definition of sin in the Johannine discourses. It is, however, described as an enslaving power (viii. 34), a perverting principle which gains sway THE SINFUL WORLD 191 over the lives of men (viii. 21). Jesus recognizes the sin or sinfulness of men as something more than the sum of specific acts of sin. There is such a thing as sinful character a state of sin of which sinful acts are the evidence and expression. He also speaks of " sins " (viii. 24; xx. 23) which he evidently regards as having their root in sinful habit and propensity. This is especially manifest in the way in which he is represented as speaking of habitual sinning and of committing acts of sin : " Every one that committeth sin (Tra? 6 troiwv rr)v ap.apriav) is the bondservant of sin," (viii. 34); that is, every one who habitually sins, who lives the sinful life, is in a moral bondage to evil, a bondage of will which springs out of the sinful character which he has developed. But "to sin" sometimes refers rather to the commission of sinful acts, as in the conversation in which the disciples asked Jesus concerning the man who was born blind: "Rabbi, who did sin (rt? rjnaprev'), this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?" (ix. 2). Their idea apparently was that some one must have committed a great act of sin of which the man's blindness was the consequence. Jesus set aside this assumption on which their question rested and said, in effect: His blindness is not the result of an act of sin on the part of any one. In the apostle's own development of the doctrine of sin some important discriminations turn on this distinction between doing acts of sin and living the habitually sinful life. 1 It is obvious that while they are to be distinguished, the former tends to pass into the latter. This tendency, however, is rather implied than explicitly expressed in the discourses. But the recognition of sin as an inner princi- ple or power, reminds one of the Synoptic teaching which pictures sin as having its seat in the inner life (Mt. v. 22 ; xii. 34; Mk. vii. 20-23). As the fruit of a tree is the expression of its nature (Mt. vii. 16-18), so the words and acts of men are the expression of their characters (Mt. xii. 35-37). In its substance, this is the same teaching as that found in John. The heart determines the conduct. The * Cf. my Juhannine Theology, pp. 137, 138. 192 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS man who gives his life over to sin comes under the power of a moral necessity of expressing his evil propen- sities in action. He must act as he is. Moreover, his bondage to evil is cumulative. By a sinful life he welds the fetters of evil more and more strongly upon his soul. The view taken of the nature and practical effect of evil is the same in both forms of the evangelical tradition, although its operation is more graphically pictured, and with a greater variety of illustration, in the Synoptics than in John. Like the Synoptics the Johaimine tradition represents Jesus as assuming that all men are sinful. He describes the work of the Spirit as including the convincing of the world " concerning sin " ; that is, making the world con- scious of the sinfulness involved in its unwillingness to receive Christ. While this is not an explicit assertion of the absolute universality of sin, it clearly reflects the consciousness on the part of Jesus that the world of his time was mainly against him. More explicit are the sayings in which he declares that he is come to save the world (iii. 17 ; xii. 46, 47), especially the locus classicus : " For God so loved the world that he gave his only be- gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life " (iii. 16). If salvation is for the whole world, the whole world must stand in need of it; all men must be regarded as sinful. We found this same presupposition running through the Synoptic teach- ing. No exceptions from the requirement of repentance were recognized. Even kind and generous parents were spoken of as "evil," that is, sinful (Mt. vii. 11). Even Jesus' own disciples whose lives were under the inspiring power of his own, and whom he would unquestionably class with "good" men (Mt. xii. 35), must ask to have their sins forgiven and their hearts more completely delivered from evil desires and passions (Lk. xi. 4 ; Mt. vi. 12-15). The goodness of the best of men is but relative. Evil pervades human life as a subtle atmosphere. Man can be delivered from it only in proportion as he puts his life under tho conquering might of goodness and becomes the bondslave THE SINFUL WORLD 193 of righteousness a good tree which brings forth fruit " after its kind " by a necessity which is founded in the law of life that what a man chooses, says, and does is essentially determined by what he is (Mt. xii. 33-37). The phenomena of " demoniacal possession," which are so vividly described in the Synoptics, do not appear in the fourth Gospel. The only " possession " which is there recognized is that which his enemies maliciously ascribed to Jesus himself. Several times they charged him with having "a demon" (vii. 20; viii. 48; x. 20). The context of these passages shows that this possession which they attributed to him was thought of as a form of madness. When he solemnly asked the Jews why they were seeking to kill him, they replied by the taunt : "Thou hast a demon : who seeketh to kill thee?" (vii. 20). The third passage (x. 20) describes a dispute as to his sanity. Some said: " He hath a demon, and is mad ; why hear ye him ? " The second passage expresses the charge of madness leading to absurd and irreverent presumption. The Jews say : " Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon " (viii. 48) ; and when he still asserts his divine mission and his power to bestow life, they return the charge more vehemently : " Now we know that thou hast a demon" (viii. 52). From these passages we see that "possession" by demons was popu- larly regarded, according to the fourth Gospel, as the explanation of aggravated forms of mania which led its subjects into wild and irrational ideas and actions. We note here the same fact which we observed in the Synoptic representations, namely, that " possession " is not associated with special wickedness. The fourth Gospel strongly confirms the conclusion to which we were led by an examination of the Synoptic passages, that all the symptoms which are ascribed to demoniacal possession are characteristic of various forms of disease, especially of mental disease ; and no one would experience any diffi- culty in explaining them as such if the language of the Gospels did not attribute them to possession by demons. We find no idea of the subject in the fourth Gospel which is not explicable in the same way. Possession is mania; 194 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS and its relation to special wickedness, if it exists, is medi- ate and indirect. In the language which the fourth Gospel ascribes to Jesus, there is no reference whatever to the pos- session of men by demons. This source, therefore, reflects only the popular idea of it, and does not represent Jesus himself as making any reference to the subject. The phe- nomena of " possession," therefore, yield us no data for the doctrine of sin which we are seeking to derive from the Johannine memoranda of the Lord's words. The same cannot be said, however, with respect to the idea of Satan. The reality and power of the devil as a source of wickedness in men are clearly recognized in the discourses under review. It is true that we find a somewhat broad and loose use of the term " devil," accord- ing to which it may be applied to an evil man. Judas is called a " devil " (&a/3oXo9, vi. 70), that is, diabolical in nature, hostile to Christ. This reminds us of the appli- cation of the epithet " Satan " to Peter (Mk. viii. 34 ; Mt. xvi. 23). In the other cases (of which there are but two : viii. 44 ; xiii. 2) " the devil " means the prince of evil. The first of these is the more explicit. Jesus is rebuking the Jews for their insensibility to his truth and their hostility to his work. In the midst of this denunciation he cries out : " Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof "(viii. 44). This sonship to Satan is here set in contrast to the son- ship to God which the Jews claimed for themselves. In both instances an ethical kinship is referred to. The Jews show that they are not truly sons of God, because in accus- ing and opposing Jesus they evince their unlikeness to God and their antipathy to his supreme self-revelation in his Son. Nor are they, in this deeper ethical sense, sons of Abraham. In disposition and action they are totally unlike him (viii. 40). Abraham read the mind and will of God in his revelations ; they, on the contrary, are blind to the meaning of the plainest words of God. Jesus then THE SINFUL WORLD 195 plainly asserts their real kinship to the devil whose evil desires they are disposed to obey. In what follows we have the fullest characterization of Satan to be found in our source. He is described (1) as a murderer from the beginning, (2) as not standing in the truth, and (3) as a liar and the father of lying. I shall briefly consider the meaning of each of these characteri- zations. Interpreters are divided in their judgment re- specting the meaning of the phrase " a murderer from the beginning" (a?r' a/r^r)?). Some suppose it to refer to an agency of Satan in inciting Cain to kill his brother. On this view the meaning of the words would be that from the infancy of the race Satan has been inciting men to murderous thoughts and deeds. The principal objection to this view is that in the Old Testament narrative (Gen. iv. 3 s as equivalent to os yv " who was with the Father" before the incarnation. But on this view the words would be almost identical in meaning with the previous clause : 6 lc rod ovpavov Kara/3ds. 199 200 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JEStTS (vi. 27) corresponds to the Synoptic representation that the Son of man forgives sins (Mk. ii. 10) and seeks and saves that which is lost (Lk. xix. 10). Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of man seems to be a mysti- cal way of depicting the believing acceptance and appro- priation of Christ in heart and life which the Synoptic discourses so often emphasize (e.g. in Mt. xi. 28-30). The lifting up of the Son of man on the cross (iii. 14 ; viii. 28) is the Johannine counterpart of the second group of pas- sages (see p. 41) in which the Synoptists describe the necessity of his sufferings and death (e.g. Mk. viii. 31 ; ix. 31 ; xiv. 21). In the Synoptics we found the correla- tive of this doctrine of the suffering and dying Messiah in the teaching concerning his majesty. After his death he should be exalted to the throne of power and glory in heaven whence he would come to judge the world (Mt. xxiv. 31 ; xxv. 31). The analogue to this idea also is found in the fourth Gospel where Jesus speaks of his ascension to heaven, of his glorification at the Father's side (xii. 23 ; xvii. 5), and of his authority to execute judgment " because he is the Son [or, a Son] of man " (Woo?) shall bear witness of me." In xvi. 13 this usage is still more pronounced since the Spirit is designated by e/rctz/o?, although the neuter TO Trvevpa -7-775 a\rj0eta<; stands in immediate apposition with it. If the use of masculine pronouns in xvi. 7, 8 might seem to be due to the presence of the masculine noun Tra/ja/cX^ro?, this certainly cannot be the case in w t 13 and 14 where 7rapaK\rjro<; is not used. The conclusion which these facts justify is that our sources, with the utmost possible uni- formity refer to the Spirit in terms implying personality. The view that the Holy Spirit is a name for the glorified Christ himself by which he described his spiritual presence with his disciples, is supported by appeal to the following considerations. In xiv. 17, 18 the Spirit's coming and his own coming to his disciples seem to be identical : " He (the Spirit) abideth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you desolate : I come to you." In connection with the promise of the Spirit Jesus assures his followers that they shall soon behold him again : " A little while, and ye behold me no more ; and again a little while, and ye shall see me " (xvi. 16 ; cf. xiv. 19). This is understood to mean that although he will soon be withdrawn from their physical sight, he will still be spiritually present with them and they shall see him with the eye of the spirit. In 216 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS both manifestations he is the same ; the name " Holy Spirit " is but a personification of the invisible relation which he will sustain to them after his ascension. 1 The same identifica- tion of Christ and the Spirit is found in the words of Jesus after his resurrection when he breathed on his disciples and said: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (xx. 22). This, it is said, was a symbolical action in which Jesus imparted to his followers a power from himself; the Spirit which he bestowed was the blessing of his own inspiring and sancti- fying spiritual presence. Thus it appears that the name "Holy Spirit" represents only a hypostatizing of the thought of Jesus' continued invisible presence with his disciples. In reality, the Spirit is identical with himself. The ascription of personal activities and the striking appli- cation of personal pronouns to the Spirit which we have observed would be explained as natural and appropriate on this view, since the Holy Spirit is a person in the sense of being identical with the glorified Redeemer. The Holy Spirit is regarded as Christ's continued life, and this life is personal. Alongside of the passages which seem capable of this explanation, we must now place another group of sayings which explicitly distinguish the Holy Spirit from Christ. The Spirit is called " another Advocate " (a'XXo? Trapd- /cX?7T09, xiv. 16). Christ was an Advocate or Helper; the Spirit will be another. Here the two Helpers are plainly distinguished by the word aXXo? as personally different. The Spirit is another besides Christ. The same distinction is sharply marked in xiv. 26: "But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remem- brance all that I said unto you." It is difficult to conceive of Jesus as saying that the Father would send the Spirit in his name and that he would quicken the memory and 1 So Reuss, Hist . Christ. Theol. II. 469 sq. (orig. II. 524 sq.). Cf. Bovon, Theologie du Nouveau Testament, I. 621, who holds that the fourth Gos- pel, with its practical and religious tendency, gives no indication towards solving the question whether the Holy Spirit denotes a force or a person. The author evidently inclines strongly to the former idea. THE HOLY SPIRIT 217 apprehension of his teaching in the minds of his disciples, if he had meant no more than that he himself would be spiritually present with them. Jesus distinguishes him- self very explicitly from the Spirit, when, in xv. 26, he says that he will send to his disciples the Spirit of truth and that he shall bear witness concerning himself. The Spirit shall glorify Christ and shall take Christ's truth and declare it to his disciples (xvi. 14, 15). Again he says : " It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him unto you" (xvi. 7). On the interpreta- tion under review these passages would mean : I will send you influences from myself ; my presence in another form of its manifestation shall be with you; I will teach you concerning myself ; in my spiritual form of existence I will glorify my historic mission ; it is necessary that my bodily presence be withdrawn from you in order that my invisible presence may be realized. It is, indeed, conceivable that Jesus should have said all this. But do the passages in question represent him as saying it ? It appears to me impossible to sustain this view by exegesis. The Johannine discourses represent the Spirit as a self distinct from Christ. Even Reuss admits that this is the exegetical result which the pas- sages yield. 1 His claim is that this is a case where the problem respecting the real meaning of Jesus lies behind exegesis. The text embodies a misconception. It makes a distinction where there is no difference. It treats a two- fold manifestation of Christ as if two different personali- ties were involved. He thinks that in the passages in which Christ and the Spirit are identified we have the clew to the real meaning of all the others ; that as we have on the surface of the discourses two divergent repre- sentations, one describing identity, the other difference, we must decide which is the more rational and make that determining for the explanation of the other. Applying this test, Reuss concludes that the distinguishing of the Spirit from Christ is due to a speculative motive, and 1 Hist. Christ. Theol. II. 472 (orig. II. 627). 218 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS that the original meaning of the teaching concerning the sending of the Spirit was that Jesus would manifest his own invisible presence to his disciples by spiritual influences. The legitimacy of such a conclusion should not be denied on merely theoretical grounds. The question is whether there are ascertainable facts which require or justify it. If there is a real inconsistency between the terms which describe the nature and coming of the Spirit in some passages and those used in others, we must, no doubt, determine which conception of the subject is the more probably original and correct, and so decide between them. Something like this we were compelled to do in view of the divergent representations in the Synoptic accounts of the parousia'. Let us then more closely compare the description of the Spirit as a distinct per- son with that which is believed to yield the opposite idea and test their alleged inconsistency. When in connection with the promise of the Spirit Jesus speaks of himself as coming to his disciples and of their seeing him (xiv. 18, 19), there is some difficulty in determining to what sort of a coming he refers. Three views have been held, not to mention combinations of these. Some refer the words to the second advent; others to his appearance to his disciples after the resurrection; and others to the work of the Spirit. On either of the first two interpretations the passage would have no bear- ing upon our present inquiry. I regard the third interpre- tation, however, as more probably correct. The context seems to make it clear that by his coming he here means his coming in the gift and work of the Spirit, and that by their beholding him he means the clearer spiritual vision of him which the illumination of the Spirit will make possible. Assuming the correctness of this interpreta- tion, does the passage identify the Spirit with the glori- fied Christ? I think not. The uniform representation of these discourses is that the Spirit continues Christ's work in the world, interpreting and applying his truth, and fos- tering in the disciples the spiritual life. He may there- THE HOLY SPIRIT 219 fore fitly say that he comes to men in the coming and power of the Spirit. The work of the Spirit is done in his name. It is built upon his revealing, redeeming work. His object in affirming that he will come to them is to assure them that they will not be left desolate ; the loss of his bodily presence will not involve their abandonment; they will still be divinely guided and strengthened. In a true sense the whole teaching respecting the Spirit implies the continued presence of Christ with his disci- ples as over against their desertion. But the emphasis in such an assertion does not lie on the distinctionless identity of Christ and the Spirit, but on the certainty that they will still spiritually see and know him. The same may be said of xvi. 16 : "A little while, and ye behold me no more ; and again a little while and ye shall see me," and xvi. 22. " But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice," passages which I would also refer to the coming and work of the Spirit. Nor can the conclusion in question be legitimately drawn from the words of Jesus when he breathed on his disciples, and said: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (xx. 22). This saying is as easily construed in accordance with the view which makes a distinction between Christ and the Spirit as it is in ac- cordance with that which supposes that " Holy Spirit " is here a name for Christ's own spirit, subjectively considered. If a distinction is clearly recognized elsewhere, the appli- cation of it here does no violence to the language. It is only by a misplaced emphasis that these passages can be regarded as excluding a distinction between Christ and the Spirit. That Christ reveals himself and continues his work in the world through the Spirit, no more excludes a distinction between himself and the Spirit than the pres- ence and activity of God in the work of salvation wrought through Christ involves the absolute identity of the Father and the Son. 1 1 The passage "I come again, and will receive you nnto myself" (xiv. 3), is not brought into consideration here because I hold that it refers not to the coming of the Spirit, but either to the coming of Christ at the death of his disciples (so Tholuck, Lange, Holtzmann), or to the 220 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS The Spirit is sent in Christ's name (xiv. 26), that is, the Spirit's work lies in that realm of truth and life which the " name " of Christ symbolizes and comprehends. He is the interpreter of Christ. The revealing, saving activity of Jesus is a disclosure in terms of human life of those eternal spiritual truths and powers which the work of the Spirit will make real and effective in the hearts of men. The life and teaching of Jesus supplies, as it were, the materials, in forms which men can apprehend, upon which the Spirit works. He opened the Kingdom of heaven, he disclosed the nature of God, the meaning of life, and the way to peace with God. The Spirit does not bestow any new or different revelation, but rather opens the eyes of men to see ever deeper meanings in what Jesus Christ has revealed in his teaching and life. The connection, there- fore, between Christ's historic action and the Spirit's work is a very close one. It is of him that the Spirit will bear witness (xv. 26) ; it is his truth into which the Spirit will guide the disciples. The Spirit's work is the invisible continually operative counterpart of the historic action of God in Christ. It is the perpetual action of divine love in carrying forward the work of salvation. The historic action of Christ was temporal; it began and it ceased. The Spirit's work goes on perpetually accomplishing the fulfilment of the great saving process. For this invisible but potent operation Jesus regarded his historic appearance as a preparation ; hence he said : " It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him unto you " (xvi. 7). More closely considered, the work of the Spirit is to foster the spiritual life in the individual. The faith and love of the first believers were largely sustained by the visible presence of Jesus with them. During his earthly life he was always leading their minds away from depend- ence upon his miracles and from mere attachment to his parousia (so Lcchler, Meyer, Weiss) , more probably to the former, at any rate, in its original intention. Reuss does not appeal to this passage in support of his view of the identity of the Spirit with Christ. THE HOLY SPIRIT 221 visible personality to a deeper apprehension of what he said and was. He sought to ground their faith upon deeper reasons than those which appeared so largely to the senses and would be quickly weakened when he should have disappeared from their sight. Only as faith pene- trated into the heart of his spiritual truth and struck its roots into the life of God, could its persistence and growth be assured. Hence he said to Thomas: "Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (xx. 29). This is the beatitude of those who have not seen Christ in the flesh, but who have seen him with the eye of the spirit and who have discerned in him the revelation of God and of the meaning and goal of life. It was only by such a deepening of faith that the spiritual vision of the first disciples could be gradually enlarged and clarified. Gradu- ally their inherited prejudices gave way. They saw the work of Christ and the meaning of his Kingdom in a new light. Their own faith found broader and more secure foundations. That all this might happen it was necessary, he said, that he should withdraw from them his bodily presence. The veil of sense must be rent ; the aid of sight must be surrendered in order that his disciples might walk by faith alone. The inner treasures of the gospel must be opened by the Spirit ; its hidden depths must be fathomed ; its lofty heights must be ascended. His followers must cease to know him after the flesh, for the lower easily becomes a hindrance to the higher. Under the guidance of the Spirit faith must assert its true power, realize its own true nature, adjust itself to that spiritual world to which it belongs, and go forth on its world-conquering mission. It remains to consider the work of the Spirit on the unbelieving world. It is described in the following pas- sage: "And he (the Paraclete), when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: in respect of sin, because they believe not on me ; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more ; of judgement, because the prince of 222 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESTJS this world hath been judged" (xvi. 8-11). The Spirit is here described by judicial analogies as appearing as an ad- vocate against the unbelieving world which has rejected Christ. In respect to the matters of sin, righteousness, and judgment the Spirit will convict the world of being in the wrong and will pronounce upon it the verdict of guilty. There are three counts in the indictment against the world, and the causal clauses which are added to the statement of them give the reasons why on each of them the world stands condemned. With respect to the matter of sin the Spirit will convict the world by showing that it was in the wrong in not wel- coming and believing on Jesus Christ as its Saviour. The sinfulness of men in rejecting him will more and more plainly appear. The Spirit will demonstrate the sinfulness of opposition to Christ. The next element in the verdict is kindred to this. With regard to righteousness the Spirit will convict the world of its false position, because Jesus is going to the Father, and his disciples will see him no more. The righteousness which is here in question is probably the personal righteousness of Christ. The world has deemed him unrighteous, and has crucified him as such. The Spirit will accuse and convict the world of being in the wrong in its estimate of Christ. It will reverse the world's verdict by appealing to his ascension and glorifica- tion. When he ascends to heaven and exerts his rightful spiritual authority over the world, it will be seen that the world has misjudged him. The third element in the Spirit's conviction of the world is in respect to judgment. In the matter of judgment the Spirit will put the world in the wrong because he will show that the prince of the world stands condemned. The result of the Spirit's work will be a victory over Satan. This result is seen as already on the point of being accomplished. " Now shall the prince of this world be cast out " (xii. 31). The Spirit will procure the verdict of history which will vindicate Christ and condemn the spirit of opposition to him. It is probable that this work of the Spirit is conceived of as wrought mediately THE HOLY SPIRIT 223 through the testimony and teaching of believers in whom he dwells. 1 This form of teaching concerning the Spirit is mainly peculiar to the fourth Gospel. The Synoptists speak of the Spirit of God as descending upon Jesus at his baptism (Mk. i. 10), as driving him into the wilderness to be tempted (Mk. i. 12), as speaking in his disciples (Mt. x. 20), and as pervading his life-work (Lk. iv. 18). But these expressions hardly carry us beyond the Old Testament idea of " the Spirit " as a name for the power or presence of God. The elaboration of the doctrine of the Spirit's per- sonal nature and of his offices in redemption is charac- teristic of that form of Jesus' teaching which the fourth Gospel presents. It is the Johannine counterpart of that aspect of the Synoptic teaching concerning the parousia which is expressed in the words of Jesus : " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " (Mt. xxviii. 20). 1 The foregoing points are elaborated with more exegetical detail in my Johannine Theology, ch. viii. CHAPTER VI ETERNAL LIFE THE phrase " eternal life " holds a place of prominence in the fourth Gospel similar to that which is occupied by the title "Kingdom of God" in the Synoptics. Their meaning is also essentially similar. To " see " or " enter into " the Kingdom of God (iii. 3, 5) is the same as to "have eternal life " (vv. 15, 16). Both terms express the realization of salvation the appropriation of the saving benefits which Christ came to bestow. Our present pur- pose requires us to discuss the provision for the bestow- ment of eternal life through Christ, the method of its appropriation, and its essential nature and characteristics. Jesus represents himself as the bread of life of which, if a man eat, he shall live forever the spiritual nourish- ment for the permanent satisfaction of the soul (vi. 35, 50). When pressed for an explanation of these strange words, he said that men should obtain eternal life by eating his flesh and drinking his blood (vv. 51-56). What was his meaning? The interpretation which was adopted by many of the Church fathers and which obtains in the Roman Catholic church is that he referred to the impar- tation of his body and blood to the communicant in the eucharist. A considerable number of modern Protestant scholars apply the words to the Lord's supper. 1 The diffi- 1 Briggs, The Messiah of the Gospels, p. 281, maintains this view on the ground that the discourse is predictive and that Jesus is speaking symboli- cally of his death and resurrection. If this is the case, it would more natu- rally lead to the interpretation given by Augustine and preferred by most I'rotestant scholars, that the reference is to the propitiatory death of Christ rather than specifically to the Lord's supper. The alleged "pre- dictive element," however, is that which requires to be proved. Jesus 224 ETERNAL LIFE 225 culties which confront this explanation appear to me to be very great. Jesus is discussing his mission with his ene- mies. That he should assert in reply to thei,r criticisms that it is necessary for men to partake of a memorial sup- per which was to be founded some time afterwards, seems almost incredible. If that were the meaning of the dis- course, it is difficult to see how it could have been in the slightest degree understood by those to whom he spoke. Moreover, the whole discourse appears to speak of a pres- ent gift of eternal life which is available for men by a believing reception of himself. It does not purport to speak of future events ; it refers to what men may now do and, in consequence, have eternal life. Hence the great majority of recent interpreters l correctly, as I believe reject this application of the discourse. Almost equally difficult, however, is the prevailing Prot- estant interpretation that Jesus here spoke specifically of his death. The giving of his flesh for the life of the world (v. 51) does not seem to denote a giving up of his body to death, but a continuous offering of himself to men as the living bread from heaven. The two expressions to give his flesh to be eaten, and to offer himself as the bread of life appear to be perfectly synonymous; but I do not see how the latter is capable of any specific application to his death. Moreover, it is almost as difficult to suppose that in a disputation with hostile Jews, Jesus would dwell so long in advance upon the saving significance of his death as it is to suppose that he would offer them a mysti- cal exposition of the import of the eucharist. In view of these difficulties there is a strong tendency among recent interpreters to abandon these explanations and to seek an interpretation more in accord with the historic situation of the discourse, and with the natural meaning of the figure of " the bread of life," which underlies this whole descrip- tion of his saving mission. says that the Father is now giving (StSufftv, v. 32) the true bread from heaven, which is his flesh (v. 51). 1 So, e.g. Lticke, Meyer, Weiss, Beyschlag, Wendt, Westcott, and Godet. 226 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS To me it seems more natural to interpret the language of the discourse in a symbolic or mystical sense, as express- ing the idea of the appropriation of Christ himself in faith and love. This explanation yields a natural meaning for the figures of eating and drinking, and agrees well with the historic circumstances in which the discourse was spoken. The Jews demanded a " sign " from him : "What, then, doest thou for a sign, that we may see and believe thee? What workest thou?" (v. 30). The substance of Jesus' reply was that he would give no "sign" except himself. He offers himself to the faith and love of men. His own person and work, when they are truly understood, constitute the true sign from heaven. To receive and appropriate him in heart and life is the true "work of God" (v. 29). This explanation also cor- responds to the current use among the Jews of the figures of eating and drinking. Lightfoot has given abundant examples of this usage. 1 It also agrees in substance with the answer of Jesus to the demand for a sign, as recorded by the Synoptists. No sign, he said, should be given except the " sign of Jonah," that is, his own presentation of divine truth in his person and teaching (Mt. xvi. 4 ; xii. 39; Lk. xi. 29). "For as Jonah became a sign unto the Ninevites " (by bearing to them a divine message and promise), "so shall also the Son of man be to this genera- tion" (Lk. xi. 29). 2 Whatever, therefore, be the exact meaning of " flesh " and of " blood " in our passage, and whatever may be the distinction between them, the dis- course as a whole directly relates neither to the eucharist, nor to the death of Jesus, but to his person as the medium of the supreme self-revelation of God, from which his teaching is, of course, quite inseparable. Those who spiritually receive him as the bread of their souls, enter 1 Horce Hebraicce, by John Lightfoot, D.D. (Oxford tr.), III. 307-309. 3 Our passage furnishes incidental confirmation of the view that the "sign of Jonah " was Jesus' teaching or revelation of God, as represented in Luke, and not an experience analogous to Jonah's being three days in the belly of a sea-monster, as the first Gospel explains it (in xii. 39, though not in xvi. 4). ETERNAL LIFE 227 into loving fellowship with him and make him their guide and inspiration, thereby attain eternal life. 1 Elsewhere Jesus refers to his death on behalf of (\rrrep~y men, that is, in order to secure their salvation. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (x. 11, 15). Here the import of the allegory would suggest that, as the shepherd is ready to make great personal sacrifice to pro- tect his sheep from danger, so Jesus undergoes a self- denying death for those whom he loves. To derive the expiatory idea from this passage, as Meyer does, by ex- plaining the words "lays down his life" as meaning, "pays down his life as a ransom-price," appears to me exegetically untenable. 2 The death of Christ is here re- garded as the supreme proof of self-renouncing love, as in the words : " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends " (xv. 13). In what specific way the death of Jesus avails to secure the eternal life of men, these passages do not tell us. They rest upon analogies drawn from human experience. They are general and indefinite ; yet they clearly speak of some unique service of love which Jesus discharges to the world by his death, to which they attribute a special saving significance and value. Jesus described his work for men as involving a perfect self-giving which stopped not short of the yielding up of his life for them. " For their sakes," he said, " I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth " (xvii. 19). He consecrated himself absolutely to his saving mission in order to secure an analogous conse- cration to truth and duty on the part of his followers. 3 That Jesus regarded his death as an essential element in this self-devotion to his mission is evident from the saying : " Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit" (xii. 24). But it is clear from the context of this 1 Cf. my Johannine Tlifology, pp. 158-164. 2 For a fuller discussion, see The Johannine Theology, pp. 172-175. 8 On the interpretation which assigns a specifically sacrificial sense to "sanctify" (A7ir\v, the life which is truly life)." While, therefore, the eternal life is by its very nature con- tinuous, the emphasis of the phrase lies upon the source and nature of the life rather than upon its continuance. Eternal life is life like that of God, who is its source. The version of Jesus' teaching concerning God which we have in the fourth Gospel lays its main stress, not upon the perpetuity of God's existence, but upon his ethical nature. The life which consists in likeness to him is therefore cor- respondingly ethical. So far, then, as there is any " time- element " in the word " eternal," as used in these discourses, it seems to be this, that the true, spiritual, divine life, being grounded in the very nature of God, is independent of all limitations of time or place. Hence it is often called sim- ply "life," or "the life " (e.g. iii. 36; v. 24; vi. 33; x. 10 et a?.), as if it had a certain absolute character. Whatever be the exact import of the word " eternal," or the philosophy of its meaning, it is a noticeable fact that it is generally described as a present, rather than a future, possession of believers. In the Synoptics, on the contrary, the phrase has a future reference. It stands in contrast to " this time " (Lk. xviii. 30), and designates the promised blessedness of the "coming age" (Mk. x. 30). The two representations are to be understood and explained in the same way as are the two pictures of the Kingdom of God, as present and as future. Eternal life already belongs to him who fulfils the conditions of its realization, but it looks forward to the future for its completion. The present and the future aspects are combined in such words as these: " He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eter- nal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day " (vi. 54). In this respect, as in others, the doctrine of eternal life proves itself to be the counterpart of the Synoptic doc- trine of the Kingdom of God. Both illustrate the prin- ciple that salvation is not a matter of time .and place, but of spiritual attitude and relation to God. It is unaffected by the change which we call death. " If a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death '' (viii. 52) ; he shall ETERNAL LlFE 233 pass through physical death unharmed ; " though he die, yet shall he live" (xi. 25). Eternal life is fulness and richness of being, the realization of the divinely appointed goal of existence through union with God and likeness to Christ. Eternal life is the life whose essence is love. It is the life from which all true fellowship springs. It is the basis of all true unity, harmony, and sympathy. Hence the chief requirement of the dispenser of life is that men should love one another as he loved them (xv. 12). Only on the principles of the eternal life can human society ever be perfected. No true social fellowship can exist except where mutual service and helpfulness, which spring out of love, are the law of action. Men realize the eternal life in pro- portion as they love one another as Christ has loved them. Redemption is accomplished in the degree in which men are brought into likeness to him whose very nature, as love, is the absolute norm of all goodness. CHAPTER VII ESCHATOLOGY JOHN has not preserved to us any of those sayings of Jesus concerning the overthrow of Jerusalem and the end of the age which the Synoptists have apparently combined together in the " great eschatological discourse" (Mk. xiii. ; Mt. xxiv. ; Lk. xxi.). The language of our source con- cerning Messiah's second advent is far less perplexing than is that of the Synoptics, even if it is by no means always easy of interpretation. The principal exegetical difficulty connected with the eschatological sayings of the fourth Gospel arises not from the apparent mingling of logia relating to different subjects, but from a blending of the physical and the spiritual. In general, however, we shall find a larger spiritual or symbolical element than appears on the surface of the Synoptics. This fact will have a bearing upon the validity of the conclusions which we adopted concerning the doctrine of the parousia in the Synoptic discourses. One of the most striking sayings concerning Christ's coming is : " And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself" (xiv. 3). The context seems to favor the view that this coming is the second advent. Jesus has just spoken of going away, and his return to take them to the place which he is to prepare would seem to be the parousia. 1 But it must be admitted that the meaning is more congruous with the situation if the words are understood to refer to Christ's coming at death to the believer and taking him to his heavenly abode. 2 It is not easy to refer the promise to an 1 So Ewald, Meyer, Luthardt, Weiss. 2 So Tholuck, Lange, Reuss, Iloltzinann. 234 ESCHATOLOGY 235 eschatological event, unless it be assumed that Jesus believed that his second advent would occur within the lifetime of those to whom he was speaking. Considered as a word of comfort to the disciples whom he is about to leave, the passage seems most apposite and forcible if it is understood as describing the blissful death of believers. I, therefore, incline to the view that this was probably its original intention, although it must remain doubtful whether the words as reported were not understood by the evangelist as applying to the parousia. The theory of a composite meaning, and that which refers it to a spiritual coming to the disciples, are more difficult to reconcile with the context. 1 In xiv. 18 we read: "I will not leave you desolate (orphans) : I come to you." In the immediate connection Jesus is speaking of the coming of the Spirit, and it is highly probable that to this coming the passage in question refers. It is equally probable that a spiritual coming of some kind is meant in verse 23 where he says that the Father and himself will come to the disciples, and also in verse 28 where he says : " Ye heard how I said to you, I go away and I come again to you." Since elsewhere (xvi. 7) his departure from them and the coming of the Comforter are presented as counterparts, it is probable that the com- ing to them here spoken of is his coming in the gift of the Spirit. These passages certainly give the impression that, according to John, Jesus spoke mainly of his coming in a spiritual sense ; or, at any rate, that he spoke of it in other meanings than that which prevails in the Synoptics a visible return to earth at the end of the present world- period. In chapter xvi. Jesus speaks of his disciples and him- self as seeing each other after his departure from earth: " A little while and ye behold me no more ; and again a little while, and ye shall see me" (xvi. 16). "Ye there- fore now have sorrow : but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh from you " (xvi. 22). It is possible that these sayings refer to his 1 Cf. my Johannine Theology, p. 332. 236 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JEStJS appearances to his disciples after the resurrection, and, indeed, this is the meaning which they at first most natu- rally suggest ; but if they are considered in analogy with xiv. 18, it becomes probable that they also refer to some kind of spiritual fellowship which should continue and compensate for the withdrawal of his bodily presence. In the passage just cited the present physical sight (Oewpelre) of him by "the world" is set in contrast to the spiritual vision of him (oS|recr#e) by his disciples. The passages in chapter xvi. are therefore best understood as affirming a continuance of that mutual knowledge and communion which stands in contrast to the mere outward perception of him by others, which is soon to cease. The whole description, in the context, of the living relations which he will continue to sustain to them after his departure (vv. 23-26), seems to me strongly to reenforce this interpreta- tion. Moreover, the promise of such a permanent fellow- ship would be far more adequate to comfort them in view of his approaching departure than would the assurance of a few temporary appearances to them in bodily form after the resurrection. I would therefore class these passages with those which refer to a spiritual mode of manifestation to his disciples, and would regard them as additional evidence that Jesus spoke of his future coming in manifold forms. 1 Another saying of no little difficulty is that which Jesus addressed to Peter concerning John : " If I will that he tarry (peveiv) till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou me" (xxi. 22). Jesus has just charged Peter to feed his sheep (v. 17). He then speaks to him of the martyr-death which he is to experience in his old age, and adds: "Follow me" (;. 19). Peter thereupon sees the beloved disciple following, and at once inquires of Jesus what his fate shall be. The passage cited is Jesus' reply. The point to be determined is : What is the meaning of the phrase, " till I come " ? To me it seems clear that the writer understood the words to refer to the second advent. 1 The spiritual interpretation of the word "see" in these passages is adopted by Lttcke, Meyer, Reuss, Godet, Uwight, and Plummer. ESCHATOLOGY 237 Peter is told that he is to suffer a violent death before the parousia. He then asks the fate of John. Jesus replies that he need not concern himself about that question ; if it should be his will that John live on till his second com- ing, that can make no difference with his (Peter's) divinely appointed course. Yet Jesus did not say that John should survive the parousia, and therefore the saying which went abroad, that the beloved disciple should not die (y. 23), was based upon an unwarranted inference. Jesus used the hypothetical statement with reference to John only to emphasize for Peter the truth that he need not concern himself about others, but only about his own calling and duty. 1 The explanation which applies the words " till I come " to John's natural death yields a less forcible and appropriate sense. It would represent Jesus as coming to John in death, but not to Peter ; or else it would be the mere tautology of saying : " If I w r ill that John live till he dies." 2 It is probable, then, that this passage is to be added to xiv. 3 as illustrating the idea of an eschatological coming of Christ in the Johannine memoranda of the Lord's words. But it must be frankly admitted that the original import of neither of these references is perfectly clear. All that can be confidently affirmed is that they seem to be treated by the tradition as references to a per- sonal second coming. We are by no means warranted, however, in asserting, as Reuss does, that "the current eschatological ideas of primitive Christianity are not found in the Gospel of John-," 3 especially in view of the numer- ous references to resurrection at the " last day " (vi. 39, 40, 44, 54 ; xi. 24 ; xii. 48), which can be no other than " the day of judgment " (1 Jn. iv. 17), that is, the day of Christ's consummate self-manifestation or parousia. But the spiritual conception of Christ's coming stands out in much clearer relief in our discourses, and is en- titled to be considered the characteristic idea of the 1 So Lttcke, DeWette, Meyer, Weiss, Holtzmann. 4 Still other explanations are referred to in my Johannine Theology, pp. 3:37, 338. 8 Hist. Christ. Theol. II. 498 (orig. ii. 550). 238 THE JOHANNESTE TEACHING OF JESUS fourth Gospel on the subject. In our examination of the Synoptic teaching we found reasons for believing that Jesus spoke of different " comings " or " days " of his manifestation various epochs or stages in the progres- sive triumph of his Kingdom on earth. The language of the fourth Gospel accords with this view. The idea of the coming of Christ is mainly associated with the dis- pensation of the Spirit, and finds its chief fulfilment in that enlightenment and enrichment of the spiritual life which is to follow his ascension to heaven. And what is this but the meaning of Jesus' saying at his trial that from that time onward they would see him coming in triumph (Mk. xiv. 62 ; Mt. xxvi. 64 ; Lk. xxii. 69) ? His mission was to be vindicated in the dispensation of the Spirit (xvi. 8-11 ; xvii. 1, 2), and his victory was to be assured. His enemies thought that when they lifted him up on the cross, they had defeated his cause ; but Jesus saw that it was from that very event that his real triumph should begin. From that cross he would draw all men unto him (xii. 32). The way of the cross was to be the way to his glory and his crown. From the time when the world condemned and rejected him, the world's conviction of its sin began. From that hour, and more and more as time advanced, Jesus was seen to be sitting on the real throne of power. Thus he comes perpetually in his Kingdom on the clouds of heaven a symbolic way of describing the majesty which is seen to belong to him, according to the vindication of the Spirit and the verdict of history. The resurrection of the believer from the state of death is treated as a part of the bestowment of eternal life. " I will raise him up at the last day " is the refrain which we hear throughout the discourse on the bread of life (vi. 39, 40, 44, 54). The same subject is dwelt upon in the dis- course which was called out by the sabbath-question (v. 19 y its very nature. Its victory may be marked by future events, but the larger truth is that it triumphs because of what it is the true, the eternal life. With this close correlation between the ideas of resur- rection and eternal life agree the words of Jesus to Martha concerning the resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus had said to her: "Thy brother shall rise again" (xi. 23). She replied : " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrec- tion at the last day " (v. 24) ; to which Jesus answered : " I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth on 240 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and belie veth on me shall never die " (vv. 25, 26). It is evident that Martha's idea of the resurrection was that of a future eschatological event. Jesus expressed no objection to this idea, but gave to it its true setting and basis. He did not call in question her belief in a physical resurrection at the last day, but placed before her the more inclusive truth that he is the giver of life; that faith should be fixed upon him rather than upon some distant event; that the life which he bestows involves a present victory over death. Martha's thought was directed to one future crisis in which life should conquer death. Jesus declared that life wins a present and perpetual vic- tory over death ; that for the believer death is robbed of its significance and its power. It is as if Jesus had said : The truth is not merely that in some future seon thy brother shall rise from the state of death and attain im- mortality ; I tell you that he is already death's conqueror ; that at every stage of his existence and through all changes and transformations the eternal life shall triumph. It is possible that the saying of Jesus : " I am the resurrection," etc., was intended to point forward to the raising of Lazarus which followed. But if so, the larger meaning of his words is not thereby restricted. Such a resurrec- tion would be but a special example of his life-giving power, illustrating the truth that the hope of future life should centre in him and in the gift of life which he bestows rather than in any single future event. If this is the general import of the sayings under review, what then is the meaning of death and what the nature of the future resurrection "at the last day" which is not excluded by the language of Jesus on the subject ? Since the life which conquers death is qualitative or ethical, it is probable that death bears a predominantly ethical char- acter. As life is much more than the prolongation of existence, so death must be more than physical decay and dissolution. Death must be viewed in these discourses as including the forfeiture of the true ends of existence ; as that state of deprivation, evil, and loss in which the per- ESCHATOLOGY 241 sonality in some way falls short of its true perfection. Resurrection, contemplated as a future event, is therefore more than a resuscitation or recovery of a body for the soul ; it is the recovery of the total personality from the state of death. Under what form this state of death is conceived the language of the discourses does not inform us ; but if it is conceived (as by Paul) after the manner of the Jewish doctrine of Sheol, then we should say that resurrection means primarily deliverance from the under- world. But there is no trace of these local conceptions in our sources. All is qualitative. Death is a state, and life is a character. Accordingly, resurrection, whatever else it involves, is primarily triumph over the defeat and evil of death through the realization of the destiny which is involved in eternal life. From this conception the nar- rower idea of resurrection, as meaning the endowment of the soul with a suitable embodiment, is not excluded, but included, as the less is included in the greater. From these qualitative conceptions of life, death, and resurrec- tion, it might seem natural to conclude that there could be no resurrection in any sense for unbelievers. We do not, however, find this conclusion confirmed by the language of the discourses, which speak of a resurrection of judg- ment or condemnation as well as of a resurrection of life (v. 29). We can only say, therefore, that while a resur- rection, in some sense, of those who have " done ill " is affirmed, it must have a widely different meaning from that which is associated with the realization of eternal life. The elements of the " resurrection of life " we can conjecture with considerable plausibility from the nature of " life " and of " death " as described in our sources ; but what meaning resurrection can have for those who have not the life we are not told and can only infer by subtract- ing from the idea of resurrection elements which belong to the very nature of eternal life. We certainly cannot conclude that there would be nothing left. At least the notions of a prolongation of existence and of a corporeal embodiment of the soul might remain. In the doctrine of judgment we observe the same com- 242 THE JOHANNINJffl TEACHING OF JESUS bination of present and future, of continuous process and final crisis, which we have noticed in the study of the parousia and the resurrection. But the former aspect receives the greater emphasis. The future judgment seems to be regarded as the culmination of a process whereby divine light and truth are testing and separating men. Jesus speaks of judging men while he lived among them on earth (v. 30 ; viii. 16, 29 ; ix. 39). The princi- ple which underlies this moral testing of men is most clearly expressed in the words : " This is the judgement, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light ; for their works were evil " (iii. 19). Light tests all things by revealing them in their true character. Truth judges by its very nature, and its discriminations are in perfect accqrd with reality. In this sense of judgment it was an essential part of Christ's work to judge men (ix. 39). He divided men into those who accepted and those who rejected his truth. In this sense he occasioned separation and division, even among friends, as the Synoptic discourses assert (Lk. xii. 51-53 ; Mt. x. 34, 35). Christ came to save men, but he could not save without judging. Salvation involves the application of tests and standards ; conformity to these implies approbation as failure and refusal involve disapproval. He must condemn the evil of the world in seeking to lift men out of that evil and in bringing them into the realization of the good. Jesus sees the world saved only as lie sees it tested and sifted and its evil repudiated. "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (xii. 31). But this process by which the world is tested, its good approved and fostered and its evil condemned, by no means excludes the idea of a future final judgment. On the contrary, it requires it as any process implies a fulfilment, a consummation. Hence we read of a judgment which takes place "in the last day " (xii. 48) and of a " resurrec- tion of judgment " (v. 29) which doubtless means, either a resurrection which issues in a condemnatory judgment, or a resurrection which results from the judgment which is ESCHATOLOGY 243 already outstanding against those who have rejected Christ (iii. 18). The final judgment is evidently regarded as the climax and issue of the process of testing which is continu- ally going on through the operation of the truth upon the minds of men. The future is already implicit in the present ; eternal life is already begun here, and by it the "resurrection of life" is already assured; God is already judging the world through Christ; those who refuse his truth are already disapproved, and the future judgment is viewed as the end of a process which is going forward constantly in the life of every man. There is an apparent contradiction between two groups of sayings one of which represents Christ as asserting that he does not judge men , the other as stating that he does judge them : " I judge no man " (viii. 15) ; " If a man hear my sayings and keep them not, I judge him not : for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world " (xii. 47). Yet he says : " If I judge, my judgment is true " (viii. 16), and even : " For judgment came I into this world " (ix. 39). The discrepancy is partly resolved by distinguishing between Christ's primary object in coming into the world and an object which was secondary and incidental to that. His primary object was salvation, not judgment ; to rescue, not to condemn. But in saving Christ was compelled to judge, that is, to test and to separate men, approving the good and condemning the evil in them. A further distinc- tion which it is often useful to observe is that between judging in the neutral sense of testing, and judging in the sense of condemning. When, for example, in ix. 39, he says : " For judgement came I into this world," the context explains that he means for the purpose of testing men by requiring them to take up a definite attitude towards the divine truth which lie had brought to them. To those who are willing to be led, he will give divine light and guidance which he will withhold from the spiritually proud and self-sufficient. He did not come to condemn but to save men. But since saving involves testing, and since testing necessitates moral approval and disapproval accord- ing as men stand the test, it is evident that indirectly and 244 THE JOHANNINE TEACHING OF JESUS incidentally Jesus is compelled to judge in a condemna- tory sense those who wilfully refuse the truth. Hence the saying : " I judge no man. Yea and if I judge, my judge- ment is true " (viii. 15, 16). Although the Son is primarily Saviour and not Judge, yet when the relations between salvation and judgment are considered, we are not surprised to read that all judg- ment has been committed to the Son (v. 22), and that just because he is the Son of man (v. 27). Judgment is insep- arably bound up with his Messianic mission. He brings truth to men in definite, concrete form; he makes God apprehensible to men, so that their attitude towards him becomes one of definite obedience or disobedience. Yet, in spite of these sayings, it is still true that there is a sense in which Christ does not judge men. It is rather his word, his truth, which is represented as pronouncing the judg- ment of condemnation upon the disobedient. "If any man hear my sayings and keep them not, I judge him not ; the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day" (xii. 47, 48). In one sense the Son does not judge men ; his attitude ever remains that of Saviour. It is his truth which judges them ; in other words, their attitude towards his truth itself involves their judgment. This is only another form of stating the distinction be- tween the primary and the secondary aspects of his mis- sion. He comes to save ; but he brings to men an absolute standard of truth and goodness. By that they are tested. In that sense he judges men. If they repudiate that stand- ard, he must disapprove and reject them. In that sense, also, his saving work involves a judgment; but as this judgment is inherent in men's attitude towards the truth, it might be said that it is the trutli itself which judges them. Thus, despite the verbal variations with which the matter is presented, a consistent doctrine of judgment emerges from the passages. PART III THE PRIMITIVE APOSTOLIC TEACHING CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY IT will be our aim in this part of our work to present a brief sketch of the earlier and simpler forms of teaching which obtained in the Church of the apostolic age. But no sooner is this task undertaken than we find ourselves in the midst of the most divergent views respecting the materials to be employed. The questions at issue chiefly concern the epistles which bear the names of James and Peter. It is well known that, even in the early Church, the genuineness of 2 Peter was widely doubted, and this doubt has been shared, in modern times, by many critics of all schools. The Epistle of James and 1 Peter, on the contrary, have, until recent times, been regarded by most scholars as genuine. The Tubingen school denied the genuineness of both these writings, and referred them to the second century. The former was regarded as an illus- tration of a spiritualized Judaism, which aimed to avoid certain practical consequences of Paul's doctrine of jus- tification by faith ; the latter, as the work of a Pauline Christian who was seeking to compromise the Gentile and the Jewish tendencies of thought in the Church. Although these views have been largely modified by the successors of this school, these scholars still regard both these epistles as spurious, and as illustrating the later, rather than the primitive, teaching of the early Church. Harnack regards the Epistle of James as a compilation made about 130 A.D., 245 246 THE PKIMITIVB APOSTOLIC TEACHING and refers 1 Peter to the reign of Domitian (81-96), although he admits that it may have been written a decade or two earlier. He believes that it was written either by Paul or by one who had been strongly influenced by him. 1 Scholars who maintain the genuineness of both these writings are divided in opinion with respect to their rela- tion to the Pauline epistles. In regard to James the principal question is, whether his discussion of faith and works presupposes Paul's teaching on those subjects or is independent of it. Certain coincidences are observable between 1 Peter and Paul's doctrinal letters. The ques- tion is, did Peter's language influence Paul's, or vice versa? Or, are these coincidences such as to establish any direct interdependence? Respecting the Epistle of James, the more usual opinion is that it is pre-Pauline. The more common view refers the first Epistle of Peter to the apostle's later life (60-67). Opinion is divided on the question, whether it is, in any proper sense, dependent upon Paul's writings. It is outside the plan of the present work to enter at length into the discussion of these vexed and difficult questions. For such discussion I must refer the reader to the standard treatises on New Testament Introduction and the History of the Apostolic Age. The position of the more radical scholars of Germany will be found presented (not without important variations of view) in such works as Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, Pfleiderer's Das Urcliristen- tlium, the Eirileitunyen of Holtzmann and Jiilicher, and the Chronologie of Harnack. Conclusions more in accord with tradition are maintained by Weiss, Salmon, Gloag, and Zahn in their Introductions. I would especially com- mend for its thoroughness the elaborate Introduction to the Epistle of James by Mayor, in his Commentary, in which he assigns to it an early date (40-50). Ramsay's discussion of the date of 1 Peter (about 80, as he believes), in his Church in the Roman Empire (pp. 279-294), pre- sents the subject in a new light and is of special historical interest. This date would, indeed, preclude the genuine- 1 Chronologie, pp. 451 sq. ; 485 sg>. INTRODUCTORY 247 ness of the epistle if the tradition that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome during the Neronian persecution (ca. 67, 68) be correct. But the traditions respecting Peter's residence at Rome are obscure and conflicting, and, in his opinion, some of the patristic statements respecting it would require us to suppose that he lived on to a much later time than that of Nero. On this supposition, the first Epistle might still be genuine, even if written so late as the year 80 A.D. In view of these disputed questions, writers on the Theology of the New Testament differ considerably in their judgment respecting the sources of the teaching of the primitive Church which are available for their use. Those who adopt the conclusions of the radical school, as Immer and Holtzmarm, find very scanty materials in the New Testament for the study of Christian teaching during the period between the life of Jesus and the epis- tles of Paul. The ideas which obtained among the early Christians during the first two decades after Christ (ca. 29-52) must be gathered from the early chapters of Acts (with generous allowances for later influences even here) and by inferences from writings which were com- posed long after this period. As compared with Paul, the other New Testament writings are relatively still further removed from the time of Jesus by Harnack and McGif- fert, who date Paul's epistles four or five years earlier than the common view, assigning the great doctrinal let- ters to the years 52 or 53, instead of 57 or 58. Bovon uses only the narratives in Acts as sources for the knowl- edge of primitive Christianity. 1 Most English writers on the New Testament, and some of the ablest German scholars also, hold that we have in James and in 1 Peter, at any rate, examples of the earlier and more primitive types of apostolic teaching. Reuss and Lechler regard James as pre-Pauline, while Weiss, 1 Dr. McGiffert thinks that the Epistle of James was written by some Hellenistic Jew, "where or by whom we do not know," and that 1 Peter was written by a Paulinist, possibly Barnabas. Apos. Age. pp. 579 sq. ; 693 sq. 248 THE PRIMITIVE APOSTOLIC TEACHING Beyschlag, and Zahn treat both James and 1 Peter as examples of primitive, apostolic doctrine. This use of these epistles does not necessarily involve the view that they were written before Paul wrote, but only that they represent the earlier and simpler form of teaching which prevailed among the first Christians before the content of Christian belief was subjected to analysis and argument, as in the writings of Paul and John, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Biblical theologian is confronted with the question how to proceed in view of this uncertainty respecting his sources. Desirable as it is that the points at issue should be determined, we must candidly admit that in the present state of our knowledge they cannot be decided with cer- tainty. Meantime, it is necessary that the Biblical theolo- gian should adopt a working hypothesis for his construction of the apostolic theology. He must follow that view of the literature which seems to him most probable until his- torical and critical research can reach conclusions which shall be entitled to take rank as assured results of science. To secure these results is the task of historical criticism. It is upon the literary critic and the historian of the apos- tolic period, primarily, that the difficulty presses. While the Biblical theologian is embarrassed by uncertainty on such questions, his embarrassment chiefly concerns the arrangement of his materials. His primary task is, not to trace the development of thought within the New Testa- ment period (although every aid for so doing will be of great service to him), but to expound in systematic form the contents of the New Testament books. The doctrinal content of an epistle, for example, may be correctly and adequately exhibited, whatever view be held respecting its author or its date. It makes no essential difference for our purpose whether the Epistles of James and Peter are pre-Pauline or post-Pauline. What they teach must be depicted in substantially the same way, whether it be done in an earlier or a later part of our work. Indeed, the mere chronological relation of books is of comparatively small importance for Biblical theology. Of much greater INTRODUCTORY 249 moment is the logical order the order which may be supposed to represent the development of religious ideas from the more simple and elementary to their more elabo- rate and reasoned forms. The Tubingen criticism looked upon the Book of Acts as a Paulinist production designed to harmonize the views of Peter and Paul, and assigned it to the second century. Their successors, however, have ceased to as- cribe this doctrinal " tendency " to the book, and the drift of criticism has been moving steadily towards the recog- nition of an earlier date. Jiilicher scouts the denial that the book was written by the author of the third Gospel, and dates it from about 100-105. Harnack rejects the "tendency" theory of the book, ascribes it to one who was familiar with Paul's teaching, and assigns it to the period 80-93. Ramsay favors a date not far from 81 ; Sanday gives 80. l The view that the Acts is a "ten- dency " writing, full of artificial combinations and studied exaggerations, irreconcilable with the Pauline letters and generally untrustworthy as a source of history or theology in the apostolic age, is now so generally abandoned that one needs make no defence of his use of the book as pre- senting a substantially correct account of the events which it professes to record. Like the third Gospel, the Acts is, no doubt, based upon such documents and memoranda as were available for the author's purpose. Just now critical scholarship is eagerly engaged in the pursuit of hypotheses respecting these sources, but our present task need not concern itself with them. I shall sketch the doctrinal contents of the " Petrine " portions of the Book of Acts (chs. i.-viii. and certain passages in x.-xv.) in this part of the volume, and occasionally refer to the narratives of Paul's experiences and missionary teaching in connection with the study of the Pauline theology. It must be admitted that the authorship of the Epistle of James is involved in some doubt. Eusebius places it among the Antilegornena. He says : " It is considered spurious ; nevertheless it is used in most of the churches." 2 1 Cf. his remarks on the general subject, Inspiration, pp. 318-330, 2 jScc. Ilist. II. 23. 250 THE PRIMITIVE APOSTOLIC TEACHING Jerome speaks of it as having gradually obtained authority. It appears not to have gained general acceptance until about the year 400 A.D. It is not in the Muratorian canon, nor is it quoted by Tertullian. On the other hand, there are apparent traces of an acquaintance with the epistle on the part of Clement of Rome, the Didacli^ and Hermas? and Irenseus quite certainly alludes to it when he writes: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God" (cf. Jas. ii. 23). 2 The epistle is contained in the ancient Syriac version (ca. 150) and is quoted by the Syrian Church fathers. Origen is the first who refers to the name of the author : " For though it be called faith, if it be without works, it is dead as we read in the epistle current as that of James." 3 Jerome ascribed it to James, the Lord's "brother," that is, in his view, his cousin, James the son of Alphaeus. At the Reformation doubts concerning its canonicity were revived. On account of the supposed divergence of its teaching from that of Paul respecting justification by faith, Luther pronounced it an epistle of straw, that is, worthless in comparison with those of Peter, Paul, and John. Erasmus, Grotius, and others formed a similar estimate of the epistle. To the views of the German radical school reference has already been made. The question of authorship is also complicated by the well-known dispute as to the meaning of " the brethren " of Jesus in the Gospels. On that subject I adopt the so-called Helvidian theory that they were real brothers of Jesus, younger children of Joseph and Mary. I therefore hold that, according to the probabilities of the case, our epistle was written by James, the Lord's brother, mentioned in Gal. i. 19 and 1 Cor. xv. 7, and known in ecclesiastical tradition as the Bishop of the Church in Jerusalem and as James "the just." What we know from the New Testa- ment of his prominence in the Jewish branch of the Church, 1 Cf. Mayor, Commentary, p. 1. sq. 2 Against Heresies, IV. 16. 2. 8 Comm. in Johan. Opp. IV. p. 300. INTKODUCTORY 251 and from tradition respecting his life and character, would accord with this supposition. I think that the language and thought of the epistle also agree well with the same con- clusion. No data exist for deciding the question whether the epistle was written with or without reference to Paul's discussion of justification by faith. An early date (within the period from about 45 to 50), involving independence of Paul, is maintained by such scholars as Ritschl, Weiss, Beyschlag, Mayor, and Zahn. Professor Sanday thinks the epistle should be put as late as possible (ca. 61), because, as he thinks, it implies a settled state of things in the churches addressed. He agrees, however, with Bishop Lightfoot, that James wrote without direct reference to Paul's argu- ments. His references to justification are thought to be sufficiently accounted for by the currency of questions on the subject in the Jewish schools. 1 Dr. Hort holds a similar view of the date, but thinks that the passage, ii. 14- 26, must have had in view some misuse or misunderstand- ing of Paul's teaching. 2 To my mind the mere question of date is of minor interest. The one point which seems to me clear is that there is no polemic on either side between James and Paul. I quite agree with Sanday when he says : " If we suppose direct polemics between the two apostles, then both seem strangely to miss the mark. Each would be arguing against something which the other did not hold." 3 The earlier date, however, seems to me to be favored by such considerations as the following: (#) The Jewish Christians of the dispersion who are addressed are still within Judaism. The church is still called a synagogue (ii. 2). (6) There is no reference to circumcision, the law, etc., themes which became prominent and widely discussed within the decade 50-60. (/3oy, since by that name is probably meant Judas the son, and not the brother, of James, that is, of a James otherwise un- known to us. If the writing of the Epistle of James by the Lord's natural brother be regarded as probable, then the most natural supposition is that our epistle was written by another brother. The prominence of James in the early Church might, not unnaturally, lead Jude to authenticate and commend his letter by naming himself as " the brother of James." That the book is not mentioned by the earlier ecclesi- astical writers may be due, in part, to its minor importance. It was included in the ancient Latin version, but omitted from the Peshito. Eusebius classed it among the dis- puted books, although he mentions its \vide recognition. It is attested by the Muratorian fragment, by Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian. Jerome tells us that objec- tions were felt to it on account of its references to apoc- ryphal writings. Similar scruples were entertained by Luther and Calvin. The Tubingen school held that the heresies which it opposes were those of second century Gnosticism and regarded it as a late Judaizing writing. Its apostolic authorship (in any sense) is denied by most German critics. Pfleiderer says it cannot be earlier than 150 A.D. Jiilicher suggests the period 100-180 A.D. ; Harnack, 100-130 A.D. Von Soden expresses doubts re- specting its authorship, but says that the possibility that a younger brother of Jesus, whose missionary labors had led him into Gentile-Christian circles, may have written the letter about 80-90, cannot be disproved. Among recent writers who are favorable to the genuineness of our epistle are Weiss, Beyschlag, Salmon, Plummer, and Sanday. It is well known that 2 Peter is the most weakly attested of all the New Testament books. No clear rec- ognition of its canonicity before Origen has been made out, and he mentions the fact that its genuineness was INTRODUCTORY 255 doubted. Eusebius says that the epistle was not gener- ally embodied among the sacred books ; but since it ap- peared useful to many, it was studiously read with the other Scriptures. 1 The councils of Laodicea and Carthage (363 and 397 A.D.) adopted the epistle into their lists, and from about that period we may date its general reception. It would lead me too far to rehearse the arguments which are employed in the controversy over the genu- ineness of the epistle. They are briefly summarized by Dr. Sanday in his lectures on Inspiration, pp. 382-385. Two points to which prominence has recently been given may be noticed. Dr. Edwin A. Abbott 2 and Canon Farrar 3 have sought to show that the author borrowed from the Antiquities of Josephus (published 93 A.D.) a supposition which would be fatal to its genuineness. This contention has been ably answered by Warfield 4 and Salmon, 5 who show that the coincidences are in words rather than in ideas, and in not very unusual words, and that they are not found in brief compass or in the same sequence or connection. It has been pointed out that between the recently discovered Apocalypse of Peter and 2 Peter there were noticeable resemblances. The sugges- tion lies near to hand that they are by the same author. Dr. Sanday inclines to this supposition. The obvious interdependence between 2 Peter and Jude has more commonly been explained by supposing the pri- ority of the latter. Spitta, however, elaborately defends the contrary view. 6 In either case the interdependence is not necessarily inconsistent with the apostolic author- ship of both writings. It is not impossible that the apostle might appropriate, with adaptations, the language of the shorter epistle as fitly describing the false teachers whom he wishes to rebuke. The suggestion of Jerome is 1 Ecc. Hist. iii. 3. 2 The Expositor, 1882, p. 49. 8 77jc Early Days of Christianity, Bk. ii. ch, ix. 4 Southern Presb. Review, 1883. 6 Int. to N. T. Lect. xxv. 6 Der zweite Brief d. Fetrus u. der Brief Judas, 1885. 256 THE PKIMITIVE APOSTOLIC TEACHING an interesting one, that in view of Peter's probable defi- ciency in the knowledge of Greek, the differences between his two epistles are to be explained by his employment in their composition of different interpreters. The most recent German writers pronounce almost unanimously against its genuineness. Among other recent scholars who incline to the same conclusion are Hatch, Sanday, and Ramsay. The genuineness is defended by Plumptre, Lumby, Plummer, Salmon, and Spitta. Huther, Weiss, and Farrar remain undecided. For my part, I find the difficulties in the way of belief in its genuineness quite insurmountable. They are such as these : The author quotes the errorists as referring to the first generation of Christians as " the fathers " (iii. 4), thereby betraying the late date of the epistle, since such a mode of expression could not have been in use within the lifetime of Peter. He also betrays the late date of his writing by reckoning Paul's epistles among the ai, thus placing them iipon a level with the Old Testament (iii. 15, 16). He refers to widespread doubt respecting the near return of Christ as existing in his time (iii. 3, 4). He describes the heresies which he rebukes, now as if already present, and now as if future (c/. iii. 3 with iii. 4, 5), as though he was really living in the midst of them, but was trying to place him- self back in thought into the apostolic age and to speak of them as future. It is extremely difficult to imagine Peter using the language of this epistle on any of these subjects. The marked difference in style and ideas be- tween this epistle and 1 Peter also creates a very consider- able difficulty. As I have already intimated, the Biblical theologian cannot help feeling somewhat embarrassed in his work by the existing uncertainty respecting the authorship and date of some of the books which constitute his material. He can only follow what seems to him to be the probabili- ties and adopt a working hypothesis. He can, at least, expound the contents of the books themselves, although he may feel restricted in drawing confident conclusions in regard to certain points of history and comparative the- INTRODUCTORY 257 ology in the early Church. I shall accordingly summa- rize the teaching of the books which I have noticed in this chapter as representing, at least approximately, the primi- tive apostolic teaching. The writings may not all be so early as the traditional view supposes. It is possible that some of them fall outside the apostolic age. In any case, they are the principal sources of our knowledge of the simpler and less elaborated style of teaching which the New Testament presents and which must, on that account, stand in a certain contrast with the other apostolic writings. CHAPTER U THE DISCOUKSES IN THE ACTS THE material of which we have now to take account consists mainly of fragmentary reports of certain dis- courses and defences of the apostle Peter. To these must be added a prayer of the congregation (iii. 24 sj.), Philip's conversation with the Ethiopian chamberlain (viii. 30 sVTotm>ort : Christ preached to the dead in order that they might be judged on the same basis and in the same manner as other men, but live according to God in the spirit. On this view it is much more difficult to explain