'VgCve thefe Books' forzihefoMndmg of a,CeUrge «t this Colony" 1903 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE SACRAMENTS THE NEW TESTAMENT THE KERR LECTURES. THE CHRIST OF HISTORY AND OF EXPERIENCE. By David W. Forrest, D.D. 8vo, Fifth Edition, 6s. [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.] ' We admire the clear, often eloquent writing, the philosophic breadth and fulness of treatment, the keenness of the critical faculty.' — Critical Review. THE RELATION OF APOSTOLIC TEACHING TO THE TEACHING OF CHRIST. By R. J. Drummond, D.D. 8vo, Second Edition, ios. 6d. [Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark.] ' No book of its size has taken such a hold of us for many a day. It is a strong book, the book of a scholar and thinker.' — Expository Times. MORALITY AND RELIGION. By James Kidd, D.D. 8vo, ios. 6d. [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.] ' We are not acquainted with any other book that has so clearly- shown the vital unity between religion and morality. ... It is a strong book by a strong man.' — Methodist Times. THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF GOD AND THE WORLD AS Centring in the Incarnation. By Professor Orr, D.D. Sixth Thousand, crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. [Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot.] Principal Fairbairn says : ' I am greatly impressed with the largeness of its view, its learning, and its grasp. You have made all theologians your debtors, and given a signal proof that in Scotland, at least, theological learning is in anything but a state of decay.' THE SACRAMENTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT BEING THE KERR LECTURES FOR 1903 Rev. JOHN C. LAMBERT, B.D. EDINBURGH T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1903 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON I SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. NEW YORK I CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS. LITf The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are Reserved. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND TO MY WIFE THE KERR LECTURESHIP. The "Kerr Lectureship" was founded by the Trustees of the late Miss Joan Kerr of Sanquhar, under her Deed of Settlement, and formally adopted by the United Presbyterian Synod in May 1886. In the following year, May 1887, the provisions and conditions of the Lectureship, as finally adjusted, were adopted by the Synod, and embodied in a Memorandum, printed in the Appendix to the Synod Minutes, p. 489. On the union of the United Presbyterian Church with the Free Church of Scotland in October 1900, the necessary changes were made in the designation of the object of the Lectureship and the persons eligible for appointment to it, so as to suit the altered circumstances. And at the General Assembly of 1901 it was agreed that the Lectureship should in future be connected with the Glasgow College of the United Free Church. From the Memorandum, as thus amended, the following excerpts are here given : — II. The amount to be invested shall be £3000. III. The object of the Lectureship is the promotion of the study of Scientific Theology in the United Free Church of Scotland. The Lectures shall be upon some such subjects as the following, viz. : — A. Historic Theology — (1) Biblical Theology, (2) History of Doctrine, (3) Patristics, with special reference to the significance and authority of the first three centuries. B. Systematic Theology — (1) Christian Doctrine — (a) Philosophy of Religion, (6) Com parative Theology, (c) Anthropology, [d) Christology, (e) Soteriology, (/) Eschatology. (2) Christian Ethics — (a) Doctrine of Sin, (b) Individual and Social Ethics, (c) The Sacraments, (d) The Place of Art in Religious Life and Worship. Further, the Committee of Selection shall from time to time, as they think fit, appoint as the subject of the Lectures any important Phases of Modern Religious Thought or Scientific Theories in their bearing upon Evangelical Theology. The Committee may also appoint a subject connected with the practical work of the Ministry as subject of Lecture, but in no case shall this be admissible more than once in every five appointments. IV. The appointments to this Lectureship shall be made in the first instance from among the Licentiates or Ministers of the United Free Church of Scotland, viii The Kerr Lectureship of whom no one shall be eligible who, when the appointment falls to be made, shall have been licensed for more than twenty-five years, and who is not a graduate of a British University, preferential regard being had to those who have for some time been connected with a Continental University. V. Appointments to this Lectureship not subject to the conditions in Section IV. may also from time to time, at the discretion of the Committee, be made from among eminent members of the Ministry of any of the Noncon formist Churches of Great Britain and Ireland, America, and the Colonies, or of the Protestant Evangelical Churches of the Continent. VI. The Lecturer shall hold the appointment for three years. VII. The number of Lectures to be delivered shall be left to the discretion of the Lecturer, except thus far, that in no case shall there be more than twelve or less than eight. VIII. The Lectures shall be published at the Lecturer's own expense within one year after their delivery. IX. The Lectures shall be delivered to the students of the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of Scotland. XII. The Public shall be admitted to the Lectures. PREFACE. The following course of Lectures was delivered to the students of the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of Scotland in January and February of this year. As being originally a United Presbyterian Foundation, the Kerr Lectureship was previously attached to the United Presbyterian College in Edinburgh ; but on the happy Union of 1900 it was transferred to the Glasgow College of the United Church, and the present course is thus the first that has been delivered under the new auspices and arrangements. Owing to the limitations of time, only eight Lectures were actually read ; but, as printed now, the book is divided into ten Lectures, which is in accordance with the original plan. It is right that I should record here my obligations and sincere thanks to my brother-in-law, the Rev. John K. Fairlie, Fenwick, for the great service he rendered me in delivering the whole course of Lectures on my behalf — loss of voice having made it impossible for me to discharge this part of my duty personally. JOHN C. LAMBERT. Fenwick, March 1903. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. SCOPE AND SOURCES OF THE INQUIRY. PAGE The Subject of the present Course of Lectures . . . . i Its present importance due to two causes : — I. Ritualistic over-estimation of the Sacraments . . i 2. Critical challenge of their Institutional Authority ... 3 Recent concentration of the best scholarship upon our topics, and the promise this gives ....... 4 I. The New Testament Writings our proper and immediate authorities . 5 Unreasonableness of Bishop Gore's claims for the priority of the " ancient Catholic tradition " ..... 6 II. Neither the name Sacrament nor any corresponding idea to be found in the New Testament ...... 7 The history of the word sacramentum .... 7 Futility of "the Sacramental principle" as an instrument of definition ..... . . 9 Institution by Jesus the distinguishing feature of the Christian Sacraments . . . . . . .13- The mutual correspondence of Baptism and the Lord's Supper . 14 III. Modern Criticism and the reliability of our Sources . . .15 1. Canonicity and historicity . . . . .16 2. The New Testament Writings the product of the apostolic age 17 3. Source - criticism and conjectural - criticism as affecting our inquiry ....... 18 4. Eichhorn's theory that the oldest stratum of the tradition cannot be identified with the original facts . . .22 IV. Two Special Problems of great importance for our study : — I. The authorship and evidential value of the Fourth Gospel . 26 The conversation with Nicodemus, and the discourse on the Bread of Life . . .... 27 Views of Wendt and Harnack . . 28 Position taken in the present Lectures . 29 j.. The credibility of Acts . . . . 29 The traditional view really the critical view . . 31 Luke's sources are personal authorities . . 31 Plan of the further course of these Lectures . . 34 Xll Contents LECTURE II. BAPTISM INSTITUTED BY JESUS: ITS HISTORICAL RELATIONS AND MEANING. I. Did Jesus institute Christian Baptism ? Scantiness of the evidence .... The critical question mainly one of the historical value of Matthew xxviii. 19 Harnack's objections to the historicity of this verse . The main lines of critical stricture : — 1. The verse canonises a later ecclesiastical situation 2. The narratives of the Forty Days are legendary The attempt to place the Institution at an earlier stage 3. A comparative study of the Synoptic texts tells against the passage ...... 4. The Matthew logion is irreconcilable with statements of Paul Its universalism contrary to the facts of early Christian history Views of Dr. Moffatt on this point 5. The Trinitarian formula is "foreign to the mouth of Jesus" And had no authority in the apostolic age These objections are all severally weak They disappear before the positive fact of the universal practice of Baptism from the beginning .... II. We start from the position that Baptism was instituted by Jesus But the command of Jesus had definite historical presuppositions I. The Baptism of John ..... John's baptism also had its historical roots : — ( 1 ) The theocratic washings of the Jews (2) The Messianic lustration of the prophets (3) The proselyte baptism of the later Jewish Church 2. The Baptism carried on by the disciples at the beginning of our Lord's ministry ..... III. Relation of the Nicodemus episode to the baptism of preparation Nicodemus the representative of a class Attitude of the Pharisees to John's baptism . Christ's attitude to Nicodemus read in the light of the historical situation ..... The Baptism of water and the Baptism of the Spirit . IV. The terms of the Baptismal Commission I. Disciple-making : what it means, and what it involves The Individual, not the Community, the primary object of saving grace ..... 2. The connection of Baptism with disciple-making The difference between Christian Baptism and the Baptism of John ...... The High Church fallacy at this point . 3. The Threefold Name and its purpose . The significance of Baptism as instituted by Jesus Contents xm LECTURE III. BAPTISM: THE GENERAL APOSTOLIC PRACTICE AND DOCTRINE. The Pauline material demands separate treatment Questions as to Subjects and Forms meanwhile postponed I. Evidence of Acts : — The baptism of the Spirit The Christian rite not administered to the original members of the community .... The significance of this fact . The baptisms of the Day of Pentecost The relation of Baptism to faith and repentance Its relation to the forgiveness of sins . And to the gift of the Holy Ghost . The term ' ' baptized " never employed as a general designation Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch . The mission to Samaria The case of Simon Magus Visit to Samaria of Peter and John . The meaning of the imposition of hands The case of the Ethiopian eunuch The incidents in the house of Cornelius Dr. Moberly's peculiar views . Significance of the events at Caesarea Peter's report to the Church . His utterance on the subject at the Jerusalem Conference II. Evidence of the other Non-Pauline Writings : — The applicability of the argument from silence Importance of considering a writer's doctrinal scheme The witness of James ... The witness of I Peter .... Baptism and the Ark How Baptism brings a "good conscience" The witness of Hebrews Importance of its testimony " The teaching of baptisms " . The sprinkling of the heart and the washing of the body The witness of the Johannine literature Christian Baptism never mentioned directly The Apocalypse . The Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle The Nicodemus episode . The feet-washing .... The blood and water of the Cross " He that came by water and blood " Summary of the general apostolic evidence l'AGE 82 S3 S5 86S7 87 89 909i 9292 93 9497 9«99 100 102103 104105105107109 no 1 n 112"j114 117117 11S H9 121122 123125 126 XIV Contents LECTURE IV. THE PAULINE DOCTRINE OF BAPTISM. I. Evidence of Acts : — Here we find the initial facts of Paul's experience and activity I. Paul's conversion and baptism : — The three accounts and the differences between them . Where the emphasis lies .... Corroboration at this point from the Pauline Epistles . The visit of Ananias and the baptism of Paul . Paul's reception of the Holy Ghost His baptism and the washing away of sins Forgiveness as a subjective experience . 2. The place of Baptism in Paul's missionary activity : — No mention of the Sacrament in general descriptions of his work ..... Specially referred to on four occasions . Lydia, the Philippian jailor, Crispus, and the twelve disciples of Ephesus ..... The case of Apollos Relation of Christian Baptism to the Baptism of John II. Evidence of the Pauline Epistles : — Recent critical verdicts .... I. The Thessalonian Epistles Bearing of their silence regarding Baptism on Paul's early doctrinal teaching .... 2. The four Great Epistles Galatians — Relation between Faith and Baptism Psychological importance of the latter First Corinthians — Its significance for Paul's sacramental teaching ... I- 13-17 VI. n. Force of the Middle Voice . X. 1 ff. Self-consecration and the obedience of faith XII. n-13. The one Spirit and the one Body XV. 29. Baptism for the dead Second Corinthians — Baptism as a seal Romans vi. 3 ff. Untenableness of Weiss's theory that Paul introduces here a second principle of salvation The true key to the passage . Baptism and the profession of faith . The symbolism of immersion . 3. The Prison Epistles Ephesians — The Church as the Body of Christ Baptism and unity Baptism and the Word Colossians — Baptism and the circumcision of Christ Philippians — Its soteriological teaching PAGE 12S129129 131 132133134 136 138 I3S 139140142 144145145 1 48 14S152 153154156157160163 166168 169 171 172 173174'75 17717S 1791 S3 Contents xv 4. The Pastoral Epistles ..... Harmony of their teaching with that of the recognised Pauline Epistles ....... The " bath of regeneration "in Titus iii. 5 Critical questions as affecting the interpretation The language quite consistent with the Pauline doctrine Baptism a Palingenesia in conscious experience Review of the Pauline evidence . . . . No ground for the view that Paul transformed the primitive doctrine PAGE I84 I85 I87 l88 188 190 191 192 LECTURE V. BAPTISM: ITS SUBJECTS AND FORMS. I. The Subjects of Baptism : — Is there Scriptural justification for the Baptism of Infants ? I. No decision upon this point in Christ's words 2. The apostolic evidence unfavourable to the view that Infant Baptism was practised from the first Peter's Sermon on the Day of Pentecost . The baptisms of " households " The absence of positive evidence for Infant Baptism Weakness of the argument from Circumcision 3. The apostolic evidence confirmed by the post-apostolic writings and history The Didache' Justin's Apology Irenaeus and TertuUian Origen Absence of any fixed practice down to the fourth century Conclusion from all the evidence : Infant Baptism not the rule of the first age ..... But may have received the sanction of the Apostle John Infant Baptism, however, has strong Scriptural foundations ( I ) The organic continuity of the two dispensations . (2) Christ's attitude to little children . (3) Paul's language regarding the children of the Church In particular, what he says as to their " holiness " (4) The harmony of Infant Baptism with the doctrines of grace .... The significance of Infant Baptism II. The Mode of Administration : — I. The New Testament evidence . (1) Meaning of pa-irrifa (2) Narratives of actual cases of Baptism (3) Paul's figurative references to the rite The New Testament favours immersion, but does not represent it as a ceremonial necessity .... 193194 196 196 198 201203 204204206207 20S209211 212212 213 216 218 218 219221 222 222223224225 XVI Contents 2. Confirmations of the New Testament evidence in later docu ments and history ...... 225 Conclusion : the validity of the Sacrament does not depend upon the Mode ........ 227 III. The Administrator : — In the New Testament Baptism is administered by private persons ........ 229 It is not a clerical function in sub-apostolic times . . .231 The inconsistency of the Roman Catholic view . . . 232 The distinction between the invalid and the irregular . . 233 IV. The Formula :— The Trinitarian Formula only found in Matthew xxviii. 19 . 234 " Into the name of Jesus Christ" the ordinary Formula . . 234 Unsatisfactory explanations ..... 235 The proper conclusion is that slight importance was attached at first to a precise Formula .... 236 The bearing of questions as to Subjects and Forms upon the larger doctrinal question .... . . 238 LECTURE VI. THE SUPPER OF JESUS: THE HISTORICAL FACTS, Difficulties of the subject : to what due The mystery of the Supper .... The historical Supper of Jesus the only true starting-point I. The Sources : — The four narratives of the Supper . Are there two groups of texts ? . The view of Westcott and Hort Tendency of recent criticism to reject their view . There are two groups — Mark-Matthew and Paul-Luke Mark and Paul the most original . Paul's account not less historical than Mark's The grounds of its historicity Relations of the four narratives to one another II. The Occasion of the Supper : — Was the Last Supper a paschal supper ? . Discrepancy between the Synoptists and John Features in the Synoptists which support John's narrative Is it necessary to choose between the two ? Views of Spitta and others Impossible to set aside the testimony of the Synoptists as to the paschal character of the Last Supper The theory of an anticipated Passover Suggestions of Chwolson .... Mr. Power on the rule " Badhu " The Lord of the Sabbath Lord also of the Passover 240 241 242244 244 244245 246246 24724S249 250 250 251 252 253 254256257258259 Contents xvn III. The Acts and Words of Jesus :— The First Part of the Supper The Second Part ..... The words about the " fruit of the vine " Discrepancy between Luke and the other Synoptists The preference must be given to Mark and Matthew Comparison of the four narratives shows the impossibility of arriv ing at the ipsissima verba of Jesus But, except at one point, there is substantial similarity . The one difficulty : "This do in remembrance of Me " . No such injunction in Mark-Matthew Weakness of the grounds on which its authenticity is denied Peculiar view taken by Professor Menzies Why Paul recorded the words which are not found in Mark and Matthew ..... The historical character of the saying favoured by reasonable critical opinion .... 260 261264264265 266 26726826S269 270 272 274 LECTURE VII. THE SUPPER OF JESUS: ITS SIGNIFICANCE. Some important Preliminary Considerations : — 1. The original Supper the type of all subsequent celebrations . 275 2. The historical Supper must be dealt with historically . . 277 Bishop Gore's unwarranted assumption .... 278 3. The relation between the acts and words of Jesus . . . 280 4. The influence of the underlying thought of the Passover . . 282 The Meaning of the Supper : — I. The First Part :— The action must be read in the light of Christ's commentary upon it 284 The breaking of the bread ... . 286 Not a mere incident of distribution . . . 287 Nor an expression only of the fact of Christian unity . . 287 A lesson on the doctrine of the Cross . . . 288 Threefold meaning of the First Part of the Supper : — ( 1 ) The breaking a warning that the death was near . 290 (2) The giving a token of a free sacrifice . . 291 (3) The eating a spiritual appropriation of Christ 291 II. The Second Part :— The leading thoughts of the First Part repeated . . . 294 Two novel features : — I. The idea of the New Covenant . . . 295 Not explained by the analogy of the Passover . . 295 The roots of the idea in the Sinaitic covenant . 296 And further in the " new covenant " of prophecy 297 But the thought of the Passover is still present . . 298 Conclusions to which we are led .... 298 Little help derived from primitive religions . 301 b XVU1 Contents 2. The eschatological idea : The new wine in the kingdom of God ..... -304 Exaggerated views of Spitta .... 305 The true significance of the words . . . 307 Their claim to fuller doctrinal and liturgical recognition . 309 III. Institutional character of the Supper as a whole : — Weakness of all general objections . . . .310 Considerations that support the testimony of Paul and Luke . 312 ( 1 ) Historical associations of the Last Supper . . 312 (2) The actual repetition of the Supper from the first, and the belief that Jesus had enjoined this . . 313 (3) The inconsistent arguments of objectors . . . 314 Summary : — The meaning of the Supper in the mind of Christ . 315 LECTURE VIII. THE LORD'S SUPPER IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH: ITS OUTWARD CONNECTIONS AND FORMS. I. External Relations of the Supper : — I. The New Testament evidence : — (1) The primitive community in Jerusalem . . . 319 Transition from the original institution to the Supper of the community ..... Origin of the common meals of the Jerusalem Church . Influence especially of the koivuvIo, Domestic character of the " breaking of bread " (2) The Lord's Supper at Corinth .... The Greek social meals ... Relation of the Agape to the Eucharist . Julicher's views not justified by the evidence The Eucharist the culminating point of a preceding meal (3) A Communion at Troas .... The order corresponds to that at Corinth The bread-breaking on the first day of the week Preceded by the preaching of the word Held in the evening ... (4) Jude's reference to the Agape . Summary of the New Testament evidence 2. Extra-Canonical evidence : — The Didache ... Pliny's letter to Trajan . . Justin Martyr, TertuUian, and Cyprian . Severance of Eucharist from Agape : To what due II. Forms of the Supper : — I. Succession of the two acts ... 2. The elements .... Harnack's views as to the use of water instead of wine The element of truth in his representation 321 323 324 326327 32S329 33i 333334 335 33633733S 33S 33934034i342343345 347 347 349 Contents xix r.\ui'-, The form of consecration . . 349 No evidence of any fixed formula . . . 350 The doctrinal significance of this fact . . 352 The administrant . . . 353 Household celebrations of the Supper .... 353 Celebration did not depend upon the presidency of an ordained person . . • • ¦ 355 LECTURE IX. PAULS DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. Alleged Pauline influences on the history and doctrine of the Supper . 357 Peculiar views of Dr. Percy Gardner .... 357 I. Paul's teaching confined to three passages in I Corinthians 358 Each of these introduced for a hortatory purpose . . . 359 1. The first passage (1 Cor. x. 1-13) : — A locus classicus for the general idea of the Sacraments . 360 Meaning of the terms "spiritual meat" and "spiritual drink" 361 The " spiritual rock " . . . . . 362 Jewish legends not determinative of Paul's conception . . 364 The doctrinal teaching of the passage . . . 364 2. The second passage (1 Cor. x. 14-22) : — The sin of participation in heathen feasts . . . 363 A real communion in the Supper between the Christian and Ch rist 366 But the nature of the communion defined by the analogies . 367 These analogies do not support materialising constructions . 369 The body and blood mentioned with reference to the sacrifice of Christ, not to His glorification . . . • 37i The "one bread " and the " one body "... 372 Connection of the religious and ethical ideas . . 373 3. The third passage (1 Cor. xi. 17-34) : — Paul's view of the primary significance of the Supper . 375 " Guilty of the body and blood of the Lord " 376 Eating and drinking unworthily . . 378 The judgment that follows unworthy participation 378 The eschatological outlook : "Till He come" 381 II. Paul's doctrine as a whole thoroughly consistent . 382 No contradiction between chapters x. and xi. . . 382 Three main aspects in Paul's view of the Supper, as in that of Jesus . 383 His doctrine thus harmonises with the Lord's original intention . 383 III. The subordinate place of the doctrine of the Supper in Paul's theology ........ 386 This shows (1) that the Supper was not a creation of his own . 387 (2) that it was not, in his view, the most essential channel of grace ..... 388 XX Contents LECTURE X. THE LORD'S SUPPER: JOHANNINE AND OTHER TEACHING, AND THE LATER TRANSFORMATIONS. I. The remaining New Testament evidence : — The absence of direct reference to the Supper Dr. Moberly's strange explanation of this "reserve " James and ,the Petrine Epistles The Epistle to the Hebrews ... The Johannine writings ... The discourse on the bread of life .... The sacramental view of this passage held by High Churchmen ~ and advanced critics for contradictory reasons . Historical considerations show both to be wrong . The three main lines of the discourse Meaning of the words " flesh " and " blood " The " eating " and " drinking " . Primary meaning of the passage .... Its sacramental bearings from the point of view (a) of Jesus ; (b) of the Evangelist . .... John does not carry the doctrine of the Supper beyond the Pauline standpoint . . ... But he confirms our previous results II. Bearing of later Christian literature on the New Testament evidence : " Catholics " study the subject in the reverse order Weakness of the patristic authority No consistent doctrinal type in the Eucharistic teaching of the early Fathers ...... On the contrary, a rapid and extraordinary transformation Two lines along which this transformation may be traced : — I. Development of the idea of the Eucharist as a sacrifice 2. Conception of Christ's presence and of the Eucharistic gift Significance of Cyprian for this twofold transformation How the transformation is explained : — (l) By the separation of the Lord's Supper from the Agape (2) By the influence of heathen worship . (3) By influences from Old Testament Judaism . This transformation a retrogression and not a spiritual evolution ConclusionIndex of Texts . . . , Index of Subjects and Names . 38939° 39o39i393395396397399 400402 403 404 407 407 40S40S410411411414 416417 41S419 420421423 426 THE SACRAMENTS. LECTURE I. Scope and Sources of the Inquiry. I HAVE chosen as the theme of the present course of lectures, " The Sacraments in the New Testament." It is a subj'ect the permanent importance of which will be admitted by every one who thinks of the place which the sacraments have held from the beginning in the life of the universal Church ; the place which, with very varying interpretations of their meaning, they still continue to hold. But there are movements and tendencies around us at the present time which appear to make the subj'ect one of very special moment and even urgency. From two opposite directions the question of the sacraments is forced in these days upon the attention of Christian students. On the one hand, we have a powerful and aggressive ritualistic movement, characterised by what can only be described from the Protestant point of view as an exaggerated valuation of sacramental ordinances. In England this movement has led to what is commonly described as a crisis in the Anglican Church ; and even in Scotland, here and there, it has made its pulsations felt. And this flow ing tide of ritualism is a fact which not merely affects the Churches immediately concerned with it, but vitally 2 Scope and Sources affects the relations of the Christian Churches to one another ; insomuch that it is evident that until the doctrine of the sacraments is brought to a better settlement than at present obtains, it is hopeless to dream of any realisation of that ideal of Christian unity which in the divine Pro vidence is working so strongly upon the mind of the modern Church. For, apart from the question of relation to the State, which is after all a matter of external policy rather than one on which the essential life of the Church can be said to depend,1 and apart from views as to the superiority of this or that particular form of Church govern ment, it is, at bottom, opinions which are entertained with regard to the sacraments that present the main obstacle to union, and even to brotherly co-operation between the Churches. It is the High Church theory of the sacraments which necessarily turns the ministry into a separate priesthood ; and it is the doctrine of a specific ministering priesthood, again, which forms the logical basis of that cognate theory of orders and apostolical succession which constrains High Churchmen, deliberately though often regretfully, to unchurch all Christians who do not stand in what they regard as the fixed line of the divine transmission of grace.2 Hence the import ance of having clear and correct views as to sacra ments is urged upon us not only by the constant duty of seeking to arrive at the truth in this as in all other matters of Christian belief, but by serious practical questions of the day, and by those dreams and aspira tions regarding the unity of Christ's Church on earth which are cherished more and more eagerly, and on 1 Cf. Principal Marshall Lang's The Church and its Social Mission (The "Baird Lecture" for 1901), p. 113. 2 See Principal Rainy, Ancient Catholic Church, p. 514 ; and cf. Bishop Gore's argument that the necessity for the apostolic succession rests upon the fact that the ministry is "a stewardship of divine mysteries" (The Church and the Ministry, p. 70 ff.). of the Inquiry 3 very different quarters of the field, by multitudes of Chris tian men.1 But if, on the one hand, this ritualistic overestimation of the sacraments, as I have ventured by anticipation to call it, challenges us to a serious consideration of the subject, we are quite as insistently summoned to the same task by a very decided tendency towards their underestimation, if not their complete depreciation, which has sprung up within recent years in the field of critical scholarship. There are many New Testament critics who assure us that baptism and the Lord's Supper must now be placed on an altogether lower platform from that which has hitherto been accorded them in all the organised Chris tian Churches. Not only must they be interpreted in ways which largely deprive them of any special significance as means of grace, but they must be stripped of their institu tional authority as ordinances that have come to us from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now the latter certainly is the footing on which they have hitherto stood in the view of the universal Church, with exceptions too minor to be dwelt upon.2 However the various sections of Christianity may have differed as to the meaning and value of these two rites, it has been taken for granted on all hands that both of them were appointed by Jesus Himself before His departure from the world, and that it was His desire and purpose that they should be observed by His people " all the days, even unto the consummation of the age." But modern critical scholarship no longer suffers us to take this for granted. On the contrary, it frequently assumes, as if it were a matter hardly worth 1 Recent Roman and Anglican literature is full of this spirit, while its practical influence has been written broadly upon the history of Scottish Presbyterianism during the latter half of the nineteenth century. For illustra tions of the growth of the constructive conception of the Church among modern Congregationalists, see Mr. D. Macfadyen's Constructive Congregational [deals, passim. 2 The principal exception is presented by the Society of Friends. 4 Scope and Sources debating, that the baptismal commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel was not spoken by Jesus, but was inserted into the tradition at a later time ; and that thus we have no sufficient ground for believing that Jesus ever instructed His disciples to go and teach all nations, baptizing them. And as for the Lord's Supper, while the critical assault at this point is by no means so vigorous as in the case of baptism, there is at all events a formidable body of opinion, especially in Germany, which maintains that a careful comparison of the various accounts of what took place at the Last Supper of Jesus forbids us to con clude that the Lord gave any instructions that this parting meal should be repeated, or even Himself anticipated that this would be done. In the course of the following lectures, these critical attacks upon the authority of the sacraments will have to be discussed in detail, as regards both baptism and the Lord's Supper. But I refer to them now, because they bring before us one of the special reasons why there is need on the part of Christian students for a renewed examination of the whole subject, and also because the recent concentration of the best scholarship, from one side and the other, upon these particular topics justifies us in hoping that renewed examination at this stage will not simply amount to a profitless circuit round a barren doctrinal threshing-floor, but will really yield some fruit of knowledge which may help us to a clearer under standing of the sacramental teaching of the New Testa ment. Whatever we may think of its qualifications in other respects for the discussion of such a subject as the sacraments, it cannot be doubted that the critical scholar ship of the present time is possessed of a body of material and a scientific apparatus which were not within the reach of previous generations of Christian students. No one now questions the fact that the historical treatment to of the Inquiry 5 which the life of Jesus was subjected during the latter portion of the nineteenth century led to a wonderful quickening of the springs of knowledge and thought regarding our Lord's human nature and His life on earth. And there can be just as little doubt that the thorough going, if often hypercritical, investigations to which in recent years both baptism and the Lord's Supper have been sub jected, have done something to clear the jungle-paths of doctrinal study, and to open up fresh points of view ; and so have given the hope at least of ultimate arrival at a truer, because more historical, doctrine of the sacra ments. The influence of a reasonable criticism has already shown itself in modifications of attitude and statement on the part of some scholarly High Churchmen. And the way may thus be opening for such a return to Scriptural views upon this subject as would do more perhaps than any thing else to promote the sense of real Christian unity between those who still stand severely apart from one another, even while they all claim not only to have faith in the one Lord, but to keep the one feast and to practise the one baptism. I. I have described my subject as " The Sacraments in the New Testament." For it is to the New Testament that we must go, and go first of all, if we wish to discover the proper outlines of any Christian doctrine. The progress of critical science has not weakened, but powerfully re inforced, the Protestant principle of the normative authority of Scripture. The old form of the doctrine of inspiration has been generally abandoned, without doubt ; but that does not mean, as is sometimes assumed, that the Church has any the less a positive doctrine on the subject. To Christian people Christ's words are always words of eternal life, and the words of His apostles still come home to the mind of the Church with an authority to which no subsequent utterances can possibly make any claim. Besides, even putting the matter upon the lower 6 Scope and Sources ground of mere historical evidence, the New Testament contains the writings which form the original documents and witnesses of Christian history, the primary deposit in literature of the revelation of God in Christ, the only written records we possess of the mind of Christ Himself. How strange then it appears when even a scholar so eager and candid as Bishop Gore applies himself in his latest work1 to an exposition of the Eucharist by first setting forth, in the course of between two and three hundred pages, what he takes to be the mind of the Church upon the subject, and then devoting about two dozen pages, towards the end of the volume, to the evidence of the New Testament. And what does he mean by " the mind of the Church " ? Not the mind of his own Church at the present time, for no one knows better than he how hope less it would be to attempt any formulation of a mind so divided against itself as that of the modern Church of England ; not the mind of the Reformers, for he declines, and quite properly, to accept their opinions as in any sense binding and authoritative ; not the mind of the mediaeval Church, for he is a strenuous opponent of the scholastic dogma of transubstantiation ; but the mind of the Christian Church during the first four or five centuries, in other words, " the ancient Catholic tradition." Now Dr. Gore fully admits again and again that Scripture is and must be our highest court of appeal. Catholic tradition or ecclesiastical authority, he holds, can never be regarded as absolute or final, except when it can justify itself at the bar of Scripture.2 Yet he insists that Scripture must be read " in the light of the Catholic Fathers and ancient bishops." " The common and original mind of the Church," he tells us, " is to give us our point of view in approaching the Scriptures." But in saying this he seems to forget the rightful claim of the New Testament to be 1 The Body of Christ. = Ibid. p. 225 ff. of the Inquiry 7 itself, in the strictest sense, the representative of the Church's common and original mind. How are we to discover that original mind, if we debar ourselves mean while from the use of the original documents ? Surely it is a strange, inverted, unhistorical process which would arrive at the mind of Christ and His apostles independently of what every one admits to be the immediate and authori tative sources, and would only at length have recourse to these after it had been determined, without their aid, what the original mind of the Church really was. This may still be the method of those who follow " the Catholic tradition," but, at all events, it is not the way of modern historical scholarship. Zahn is only expressing the general view of critical students of every school, when he says that scientific investigation concerns itself less and less with the thoughts of the Fathers and doctors of the Church, and more and more with the original facts themselves.1 II. It is to the New Testament, then, that we must primarily go in search of a Christian doctrine of the sacraments. But here we are met by the initial difficulty that in the New Testament itself neither the word sacra ment, nor any corresponding general idea, is to be found. As for the word, it is not till we come to TertuUian that we find sacr amentum employed by any Christian writer to denote either baptism or the Supper.2 Tertullian's use of the term was evidently suggested, not by its classical meanings, whether legal or military,3 but by the fact that 1 Brot und Wein im Abendiuahl der alten Kirclu, p. I. 2 The use of the word by Pliny in his account of the worship of the Christians of Bithynia is only an interesting coincidence. See Lecture VIII. p. 341. 3 No doubt traces of the military meaning are to be found in TertuUian, as when he says, speaking of baptism, "We were called to the warfare of the living God in our very response to the sacramental words" (Ad Mart, iii.); but in this case it can only be said that he is taking a suggestion from etymology for a very natural application in practical directions of the idea of the sacrament ; a suggestion which is often followed still, with regard especially to the sacrament of the Supper. 8 Scope and Sources in the old Latin versions sacramentum had been used as the equivalent of fivo-rrjptov, a word which frequently meets us in the Greek New Testament, though never as applied to the sacraments.1 Sacramentum, then, in Tertullian's use of it, simply means a mystery. And if it be asked how it was that the word came to be applied to the sacraments of the Church, the answer is that this was suggested in part by the very nature of the sacraments as symbolic rites with underlying meanings, but also by the fact that in the age of TertuUian the sacraments had come to be regarded by Christians themselves as having a certain analogy to the mysteries of the Grseco-Roman world, and had even, in the development of the praxis, incorporated within themselves certain of the ritual observ ances that belonged to the pagan mystery-rites.2 But while this explains to us historically how the word sacra ment became a technical term in the usage of the Church, it does not help us very greatly in the attempt to fix its proper meaning and application. The word is convenient, no doubt, seeing that we need some term to express the general idea that has to be drawn from the characteristics of the rites which we class together under this name ; and it is further sanctioned by early and continued use. But neither its derivation nor its subsequent history is of much service to us in the effort to discover the true and proper meaning 1 It is applied, indeed, to marriage, which in Eph. v. 32 is called fj.voT-qpi.ov P-tya.. But marriage has no such special marks as entitle it to be called a Christian sacrament. It was not instituted by Christ, nor is it in any way distinctive of Christians. Its elevation to the rank of a sacrament by the Catholic Church was due in part to a misunderstanding of this very passage. The sacramentum magnum (uvorripiov u^ya) of the Old Latin and Vulgate versions appeared to justify in this case the Churchly tendency to multiply the number of the sacraments. But the use of the word sacramentum in this instance by the early translators no more entitles us to find a sacrament in marriage, than we should be entitled to find one in the "sacramentum of godliness'' (1 Tim. iii. 16), or the "sacramentum of the seven stars" (Rev. i. 20), or the "sacramentum of the woman and the beast" (Rev. xvii. 7). '- See Anrich, Das antihe Mysterienwesen, passim. of the Inquiry 9 of the Christian sacraments. We have still to look else where in search of a consistent and distinctive conception. Now, in this matter of endeavouring to define the nature of a sacrament, Anglican High Churchmen are given to expressing themselves in a way which is very perplexing, because it is exceedingly fast and loose. Ever since the days of the Tractarian movement, they have been accus tomed to operate extensively with the phrase " the sacra mental principle," as an instrument of definition ; and in this respect the men of the later Oxford School do not differ from their predecessors. To refer only to the repre sentatives of the lux Mundi circle, this is the method followed alike by Gore, Paget, and Illingworth. From " the sacramental principle " they all set out. But what precisely they mean by this expression, or its underlying idea, it is very difficult to discover. Sometimes, with a view to showing its entire reasonableness, and the manner in which it is rooted inextricably in the very constitution of the world in which we live, they stretch it out so far and wide that it includes the whole relations of nature to spirit, of body to soul, of symbol to reality. Thus Illingworth brings art and music under the sweep of the sacramental principle ; x while Gore tells us that " handshaking is the sacrament of friendship ; kissing, the sacrament of love ; the flag, the sacrament of the soldier's honour." "- Or, com ing to the special sphere of religion, they point, by way of explaining the principle which underlies the sacraments, to the use of symbolic rites not only in the ancient Jewish worship, but in all the natural religions down to the lowest fetishism.3 And the curious circumstance is, that these writers usually appear to imagine that the very familiar facts which they are able to marshal in this fashion under the broad banner of the sacramental principle, are largely 1 Divi?ie Immanence, p. 143 ff. " Op. cit., p. 38. 3 Divine Immanence, p. 128 ff. i o Scope and Sotirces unperceived or unappreciated by others who do not accept their sacramental doctrines. Such persons are assumed to know nothing about the true philosophy of nature, or the laws of psychology, or the uses of symbolism in religion, and to be guilty of " a sham spiritualism " which leaves the body " brutish and uncheered," an " unreal spirituality which consists in a barren and boastful disparagement of ritual observances, or of outward things." x But now, having made their principle so wide that it really embraces the universe, they suddenly, by a quite unexplained transition, make it so high that it means specifically the embodiment of special divine grace in " sensible objects," by which is denoted both " material ceremonies " and " material substances," in such a manner that these become " the means or instruments of divine energies, the vehicles of saving and sanctifying power."2 But clearly these are ideas quite distinct from anything that has gone before, ideas which properly ought to be classed under a different " principle " from the one that has hitherto been expounded. Indeed, this is practic ally admitted by the writers to whom I am referring, for they base their interpretations of the sacramental principle, in this new and transformed conception of it, upon nothing less than the positive institution by Jesus Christ of baptism and the Lord's Supper as two definite material channels through which the divine energies are to be supernaturally dispensed. So far good. Here, at all events, whatever we may think of the significance assigned to these two ordinances, we have a definite use of the word sacrament, and one that can be justified, as we believe, from the New Testament. But now comes another sudden and mysterious transition; for, having elevated the sacramental principle from the level of ordinary symbolism to the height of the two positive institutions of Jesus Christ, they immediately 1 See especially Paget's essay on " Sacraments" in Lux Mundi, passim. - Gore, op. cit., p. 36 ; Paget, op. cii., pp. 406, 416. of the Inquiry 1 1 proceed to broaden it out again upon this higher plane, and to transmute rites and ceremonies, which have no shadow of a claim to rest upon our Lord's express appoint ment, into efficacious vehicles of grace in the very same sense as that which they have already attributed to baptism and the Eucharist. Thus Bishop Paget writes : " It is most unfortunate that the associations of controversy hinder men from frankly and thankfully recognising the wide range of sacramental action in Christian life." " Differences," he goes on to say, " in the manner of appointment or in the range of application may involve no difference at all in the reality of the power exercised and the grace conveyed." x " May involve " sounds cautious ; but, as a matter of fact, he assumes at once that no differences are involved, and so brings actions and ceremonies for which it is impossible to claim the personal authority of Christ, under the category of " sacramental acts " through which " the spiritual energy of the Church is sacramentally conveyed." Thus, by one leap, we pass from a natural symbolism, of which every thinking being is fully aware, to a magical embodiment of divine grace in " material ceremonies " and " material substances " ; and then, by another leap that is no less startling, from an embodiment of grace in baptism and the Lord's Supper, by the immediate institution of our Lord Himself, to its no less certain embodiment in various rites of the later Church, for which it is utterly impossible to claim the authority or sanction of Jesus Christ, and the pagan connections of which, in some cases, it is very easy to trace.2 And all this is done in the name of " the sacramental principle," which is 1 Paget, op. cit. , p. 424 ff. 2 Dr. Illingworth frankly admits the irruption of the pagan element, and, indeed, regards it as a historical necessity in accordance with the laws of evolu tion (op. cit., pp. 141-143). The problem, however, which he does not appear to have faced is the precise bearing of his evolutionary views upon his sacramental theories. He regards it as " inevitable, in accordance with all the laws of historic evolution," that the sacraments of Christ should "attract to themselves the access ories of Jewish and Grseco- Roman worship," and weave around themselves a 1 2 Scope and Sources thus alternately expanded or contracted, lowered or exalted, to suit the exigencies of a theory. We get little help, then, from so vague a magnitude as the sacramental principle, with what Bishop Paget himself confesses to be its " different and shifting meanings," in our endeavour to arrive at a distinct notion of the sacraments. Paget sees in " the manifold employment " of the principle "that characteristic excellence of Christianity which is secured in the very nature of sacraments, namely, its recognition of the whole problem with which it claims to deal." x But there is one preliminary and not unimportant problem, at all events, which it leaves unsolved. It does not tell us plainly what the rites are that are entitled to the name of sacraments. There is a difficulty in believing in the reality of " sacra mental grace " in cases where it is left uncertain whether a particular ceremony is a real sacrament or not. And yet, owing to this loose notion of a sacramental principle, there prevailed for centuries the greatest vagueness upon the subject, a vagueness which is illustrated by the fact that in the twelfth century Hugo of St. Victor, in his De Sacra- mentis Christiana Fidei, enumerates as many as thirty sacraments which had been recognised in the Church.2 And while eventually seven came to be regarded by Catholics as the proper number, a number, however, which was not ecclesiastically fixed till the Council of Florence in 1439 ;3 this finding must be described as purely arbi trary, inasmuch as it has no New Testament authority, and " sacramental network " of other ceremonies. But the question is, by what right this network of pagan and Jewish ceremonial is elevated to the dignity of the super natural. Here we have the same unexplained leap as before, though now it is made in the name of evolution. 1 Op. cit., p. 425 ff. 2 The chief historical explanation of the multiplication of the sacraments lies in the fact that, before the idea of a sacrament came to be defined, the Church had adopted numerous ceremonial practices for which there was no authority in Scripture, and which in reality were taken from the religious customs of the surrounding pagan world. 3 See Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 254 ff. of the Inquiry 1 3 does not proceed upon anything that can be described as a settled principle. How, for example, can marriage, which is in no sense exclusively characteristic of Christians, and rests upon no appointment of Christ, but upon a natural human relationship between the sexes, be classed along with baptism and the Lord's Supper? And how, in particular, can a Church which glorifies celibacy, and re gards matrimony as an inferior condition, reasonably elevate the latter at the same time into a special and mysterious channel of the divine grace ? The true way out of this sacramental labyrinth is to attach ourselves to those two institutions of the New Testament for which we can claim a definite institution by Jesus Christ, as the distinctive rites of His Church. Even Roman and Anglo-Catholic writers fully recognise the separateness of baptism and the Supper among all other ordinances, when they describe them as " the two great sacraments," or " the two main expressions of the sacramental principle," or " the vital and distinctive acts of the Christian Church " ; and when they further acknow ledge that it is in the institution by Christ Himself of these two ordinances that the authoritative affirmation of the sacramental principle must be sought. The point they ought to consider is whether they have any right to speak of sacraments at all, in any kind of equivalent sense, in those cases where no definite appointment by Christ can be alleged. Let us, at all events, note the fact that there are only two ritual observances which spring directly out of the historical revelation of Jesus Christ as given us in the New Testament. These alone can be said to rest clearly upon His personal appointment, and to be bound up with His own word. By these features, baptism and the Lord's Supper are broadly distinguished from all rites and ceremonies devised by the Church herself, however seemly and suggestive to some Christians these 1 4 Scope and Sources may appear to be. This fact of appointment by Christ puts baptism and the Supper on the level of the original revelation of which they themselves form a part, and makes each of them, in Augustine's phrase, visibile verbum — the word of the gospel made visible. For we are not to think of these two ordinances as ordinances merely, even with this proviso added, that they are divinely ordained. In the language of Dr. Dale : " The sacraments are not divinely appointed forms for the expression of our faith in God or our love for Him ; they are the expressions of divine thoughts, they are the visible symbols of divine acts." l This uniqueness, then, that belongs to them, both as resting upon our Lord's immediate appointment and as embodying within themselves His divine and personal word, separates them absolutely from all other rites and ceremonies whatsoever. And, again, their mutual corre spondence, as being connected respectively with the entrance upon the Christian life and the maintenance and strength ening of that same life, justifies us in classing them together under a common name. It is true that no common name is given them in the New Testament, but their close association with each other is certainly implied. Nearly every commentator holds that in the opening verses of the tenth chapter of I Corinthians, where Paul speaks of the baptism of the Israelites into Moses, and their participation in the same spiritual meat and spiritual drink (1-4), he is referring to the two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. This passage in itself goes to justify us in speaking of two sacraments, and in making the necessary abstraction with a view to the for mation of a general idea upon the subject.2 And this 1 Lectures on the Ephesians, p. 358. 2 Beyschlag says : " Here, then, a certain unexpressed idea of sacrament emerges ; it gives us in the two symbolical ordinances instituted by Christ the notion of signs and pledges, to introduce or to confirm God's covenant of grace with the Church " (N. T. Theology, ii. 238). of the Inquiry 1 5 conclusion is confirmed when we find a similar close association of baptism with " the breaking of bread " in the record of the Church's life during her early Pentecostal days (Acts ii. 41, 42). And, notwithstanding the objec tions of some modern critics, we cannot but maintain the significance of the fact that circumcision and the Passover, the two most distinctive rites of the old covenant — the rite which stamped the Jewish male child as a member of the chosen people, and the rite in which the covenant was renewed from year to year — are brought in the New Testament into the nearest relation with baptism and the Lord's Supper. On the one hand, we have Paul connecting the thought of baptism with " the circumcision of Christ" (Col. ii. 11); and, on the other, the Lord's Supper is represented in all the Synoptic Gospels as springing out of a Passover feast ; while Paul again says with regard to Christ's death, of which, in his view, the Supper is the express proclamation (1 Cor. xi. 26), "For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ" (1 Cor. v. 7). III. Our subject is, "The Sacraments in the New Testament." And the phrase recalls us to the fact that the storms of criticism, which have been beating all round the New Testament writings, compel any one who proposes to use these writings as authoritative sources for the dis covery of the truth about the sacraments, to face the main questions which modern criticism has raised regarding them. The very institution by Jesus of baptism and the Lord's Supper, which we have hitherto regarded as fundamental for the proper idea of the sacraments, is widely challenged, as has already been said, and will have to be specially dis cussed. But, meanwhile, something must be said as to the authority and evidential value of the New Testament generally, and also as to the particular claims of certain of the books with which we shall be more especially concerned. 1 6 Scope and Sources i. With regard to the New Testament as a whole, it is sometimes asserted, in the name of historical science, that we have no ground for treating this collection of writings as in any sense normative, or for attaching any unique weight to its evidence as to the Christian origins, through some idea that the title " Canonical " carries with it a right to peculiar deference before the bar of historical judgment. " No writing of the New Testament," we have been re minded, " is born with the predicate Canonical. The pro position, ' A writing is Canonical,' only means that the determinative factors of the Church from the second to the fourth century, perhaps after all kinds of vacillations in judgment, declared it to be Canonical." And the same writer goes on to say, " One who treats the idea of the Canon as fixed, submits himself therewith to the authority of the bishops and theologians of those centuries. But if in other respects we do not recognise their authority — and no Protestant theologian does — we are only acting con sistently when we bring their authority into question at this point also." x The argument has a plausible air, and no doubt it contains an element of truth, so far, namely, as it relates to the absolute fixity of the Canon. But it passes into a fallacy when the essential idea of the Canon, namely, that it is a collection of writings possessed of a special and divine authority, an idea which anticipated all the discus sions of the early Fathers and bishops, and which, indeed, these discussions evidently presuppose and start from, is confounded with the quite different and secondary question as to the exact limits of the Canon itself. These limits have often been the subject of dispute on the part of theologians who had no hesitation whatever as to the essential idea on which the Canon is built, or as to the claims to inspiration and authority of all the more im- iWrede in his Ausgabe u. Methode der sogenannten Neutestamentlichen Theologie, p. II. of the Inquiry 1 7 portant writings. Luther's disparaging language about the Epistle of James has often been quoted ; but it must be remembered that it was precisely the lofty views which Luther took of the Canon as a whole that suggested his doubts as to the Canonical rights of this particular book. And there are Christian scholars at the present time who might feel it difficult to place 2 Peter on a much higher level than they would assign, let us say, to the Didactic ; but who would not abate one jot of the historic claim of the great body of the New Testament Scriptures to an authority that is quite other and higher than that of any extra-canonical writing. Professor Harnack is usually re garded as a competent and thoroughgoing critic. His views on inspiration, moreover, are not such as are com monly received among ourselves. But with respect to the right of the vast bulk of the New Testament, judged from the historical point of view, to be set in a place by itself as the norm and measure of Christian doctrine, he expresses himself in the most positive manner. " Strictly speaking," he says, " the notion that the New Testament in its whole extent comprehends a unique literature, is not tenable. But it is correct to say that between its most important con stituent parts and the literature of the period immediately following there is a great gulf fixed." x 2. The historical justification of the claim of the New Testament to speak to us with an absolutely unique authority, depends very largely, without doubt, upon our being able to bring the great mass of the writings within the limits of the apostolic age. If this can be done, it not only furnishes the best guarantee for the accuracy of the record which they contain of the historical revelation of God in Christ, but sets the New Testament authors in the full light and glow of that special inspiration which flowed from personal contact with Jesus Christ Himself, or with those chosen apostles 1 History of Dogma, i. 135. 1 8 Scope and Sources who had been His constant companions throughout the days of His earthly ministry. And the whole course of recent investigation entitles us to say that, with comparat ively few exceptions, this can now be done in the name of historical criticism itself. The strenuous attempts made by Baur and his school, in the interests of their theory of historical development, to bring down the dates of most of the New Testament writings into the second century, have now been completely discredited, and shown to rest on a purely arbitrary extension of the framework of the early Christian history. The great trend of recent criticism, as will be shown afterwards in more detail, has been a steady movement backwards in the direction of the traditional positions.1 And this being the case, it has an obvious bearing upon the claim of the New Testament writings generally, to stand in a group by themselves as the authori tative records of the Christian revelation, setting before us authentically the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints, and enabling us to build upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. 3. But even if it is granted that the New Testament writings can properly be described as coming to us from the apostolic age, it may still be held that the various MSS. have been subjected to so much revision and alteration that, as they lie before us now, they are something very different from the original documents. This is the line that is frequently followed in recent criticism of the New Testa ment. " Source-criticism " and " conjectural-criticism," com pilation theories and interpolation theories, play a leading role in much of the work that is being done at present in the field of exegetical scholarship. And the tendency of this kind of criticism, it must be confessed, is to produce upon the mind of the reader a feeling of " undefined mis- 1 Cf. Harnack, Chronologic der Altchrisllichen Litteratur, vol. i. pp. x, xi. of the Inquiry 19 trust," as Harnack calls it, as if the New Testament were enveloped in " a web of illusions and falsehoods." But before yielding to any such feeling of mistrust or despair, there are certain considerations which the student ought to set clearly before his mind. One is that these analytic critics rarely agree among themselves as to what is primary and what is not, what has been interpolated and what omitted, so that their individual theories " have not been confirmed by progress towards a coherent theory." x Wrede, after noting this fact, draws the conclusion that since these differences among the critics show the impossibility of dis tinguishing between what is original in the tradition and what is secondary, we must be content to draw a distinction between " what is relatively clear and what is doubtful." 3 But instead of coming to this very weak conclusion, by which the whole New Testament is hung up in the air, so to speak, and left floating there in a sea of mist, it is surely open to us rather to conclude that these elaborate attempts at doctrinal reconstruction on the basis of mere conjecture have shown themselves to be self-condemned. Those con flicting schemes of analysis, and the confusions they pro duce, ought not to be turned to the disadvantage of the subject-matter with which the critics in question have been dealing. They do not really prove anything against the New Testament documents ; they only prove that their authors, in forsaking the textual criticism which rests on an objective basis, the basis, namely, of documents and texts, and soaring into the realms of arbitrary supposition, have been dealing with quantities and qualities that altogether elude their grasp.3 Moreover, the fact must not be lost 1 See Chase, The Credibility of Acts ("Hulsean Lectures"), p. 15. - Op. cit.,y. 62. s Dr. Robertson Nicoll, whose keen instincts as an appreciator of style will be admitted by every one, has frequently pointed out the pitfalls that beset the most ingenious source-criticism even when the critic is dealing with the litera ture of his own tongue and time, and u, fortiori when he has lo do with a 20 Scope and Sources sight of, that dealers in source-criticism, in their manipula tions of the text, have very frequently special theoretical axes of their own to grind. Spitta, for example, who is one of the most ingenious and assiduous of the band, has a theory of the Lord's Supper of which some notice will have to be taken in later lectures. He holds, among other things, that the original Supper had no relation whatever to the Passover, whether external or internal, historical or doctrinal, and that in nothing that our Lord said on the occasion was there the slightest intention to refer to His own death. A theory of this sort, of course, cannot be got to square with the existing texts of the Gospels. And so, in order to make it good, Spitta employs the interpolation expedient very freely. He cuts out one important passage in Mark (xiv. 12— 1 6),1 and another important passage in John (vi. 5 1—5 9).2 In Luke's account of the institution of the Supper he accepts neither of the two rival texts, the ordinary and the " Western," but adopts a composite reading of his own which rests upon no solid documentary authority.3 And as he uses the knife with the utmost freedom, he assumes that it was used with an equal absence of hesita tion by the early editors of the Gospels. Thus he believes that John's Gospel originally contained an account of the Last Supper, but that this account was soon removed from the text because it showed too plainly that the Supper had no connection with the Passover ; and it seemed inexpedient to retain in the document a narrative of the language that is foreign and dead. "It is past dispute," he writes, "that English criticism is unable, as a. rule, to assign authorship to an anonymous contemporary book. It is unable to distinguish between the work of two col laborators. It is unable, in short, to perform any of those achievements which are believed possible when the Scriptures are handled " (British Weekly, 8th August 1901). 'See his essay, "Die urchristlichen Tradi tionen iiber Ursprung u. Sinn des Abendmahls," in his Zur Geschichte u. Litteratur des Urchristentums, p. 226 ff. - Ibid., p. 218 ff. 3 Tbid., p. 295 ff. of the Inquiry 2 1 institution of the Supper which was not in harmony with what had come to be the prevailing opinion in the Church.1 In Dr. Moffatt's Historical New Testament there is a very full, able, and interesting discussion of the con jectural-criticism that rests upon these hypotheses of interpolation and compilation, in the course of which he says some rather severe things about the " literalist " or ,/' worshipper of the status quo!' The literalist, he affirms, " is to be treated with constant suspicion in New Testament interpretation." 2 But though he has so little confidence in the literalist, by whom he means the man who accepts the best available texts,3 his graphic charac terisations of " the frolic of paradox and conjecture " cer tainly suggest that the conjecturalist, after all, is a yet more dangerous person to follow in the forest-paths of New Testament interpretation. The literalist, at all events, goes upon a text that is supported by positive documentary evidence; while the conjecturalist pieces his text together by a scheme of his own devising, and not infrequently with a view to supporting some pet doctrinal or historical theory. The question we ought to consider is, whether the most ingenious hypotheses of the various analysts, especially when they are mutually destructive, should be allowed to produce in our minds a feeling of misgiving or suspicion regarding our actual historical documents. And on this point it is satisfactory to be able to make use once more of the testimony of a historical critic at once so able and so liberal as Professor Harnack. Harnack says : " The oldest literature of the Church, treated from the literary-historical point of view, is true and reliable in its chief features and in most particulars. In the whole New Testament there is only one writing, 1 Op. cit., p. 220 f. Cf. his fuller treatment of this point in his essay, " Un- ordnungen im Texte des vierten Evangeliums," p. 186 ff. of the same volume. 2 Op. cit., p. 624. 3 Dr. Hort is taken as an example, ibid., p. 649. 2 2 Scope and Sources 2 Peter, which probably can be described as pseudonymous in the strictest sense. . . . Moreover, the number of writings that have been interpolated in the second century (as the Pastoral Epistles) is very small, and some of the inter polations are as harmless as those in our song-books and catechisms." 1 a. But now supposing that it be granted that there is no proper reason for regarding our texts with constant distrust, if we have no better grounds for doing so than those which are furnished by the criticism of conjec ture, there is still another difficulty that has been raised in our path, and one which has a very special bearing upon any investigation of the subject of the sacraments. The analytic criticism of which we have been thinking occupies itself only with the question of the text, and seeks to find its way behind our present texts to earlier documents. But a new school, writing in the name of " the scientific history of religion," has been insisting of late that the conjectural-critics are only wasting their time by applying themselves to the illusory task of textual reconstruction, with the idea that they are thus getting back not only to the oldest stratum of written tradition, but to the actual facts of the original history. It is an utterly unscientific procedure, we are now told, to identify the earliest written tradition with the original facts them selves. Even if we have succeeded in getting down to the lowest stratum that can be unearthed from our texts, that is no guarantee for the original facts of history. It reflects the state of contemporary doctrine and practice at the time when the earliest texts were written ; but it does nothing more. "The same factors which within the tradition that has been fixed in writing have operated to transform the old in ways that we can recognise, have played, even previous to this, a decisive role." Hence 1 Chronologie, vol. i. p. viii. of the Inquiry 1 3 it is asserted as beyond question that the most important remodelling of the Christian tradition took place within the very first decade of the history, i.e. at a period ante cedent to the earliest written documents of Christianity.1 And so, to take the case of the Lord's Supper, the New Testament furnishes us with accounts of the institution of that sacrament which do nothing more than reflect the state of the cultus and the faith and love of the com munity at the time when those accounts were penned. They enable us to see what Christians of those days believed Jesus to have spoken and done, but they cannot be accepted as furnishing any firm basis for the attempt to discover what actually He did and said. In answer to this line of argument, it has been pointed out, very justly, that if it is unscientific without further inquiry to identify the oldest tradition known to us with the historical events themselves, it is no less unscientific simply to postulate as a certaipty a course of development which makes the Christianity that meets us in our earliest records something quite different from the Christianity of Jesus Christ Himself.2 Besides, we have to ask whether this transformation of original Christianity within the first ten years of its existence, which is assumed to have taken place, can be justified on any grounds of a historical character. A remodelling of Christianity at the hands of Paul, who was not one of the original apostles ; a rapid modification of it after it had been transplanted to Gentile soil : these are theories for which, at least, some show of argument can be made. But in regard to this theory, which comes to us in the name of the new scientific method of the history of religion, we have no data what ever, and from the nature of the case can have none. For 1 Professor Eichhorn of Halle in his Das Abendmahl im N.T. p. 15 ; cf. Wrede, Aufgabc u. Methode, pp. 6, 26, 63. 2 Carl Clemen, Der Ursprung des heiligen Abendmahls, p. 12. 24 Scope and Sources the advocates of the new method insist that over the original history there lies an impenetrable veil. Behind the heavy curtain that hangs in front of the stage, a swift development, we are assured, is going on ; but what its precise nature is, it is impossible to say. This only is certain, that when the curtain is at length lifted, it is not the Jesus of actual history nor the Christian facts of the first days that appear before us in the forms of the earliest written tradition. Thus no means are left us of testing the truth of this theory of a rapid trans formation during the first years of Christian history, inas much as all knowledge is precluded of those original types from which as a starting - point the development would have to be measured. The theory, therefore, is one of pure assumptions throughout. And if we proceed to inquire whether, at least, it presents some show of probability, it is difficult to see how any such claim can be made on its behalf. For, in the case supposed, we have to do not with the doctrines of a later generation, or with communities far removed from the direct teaching and influence of the apostles, but with the very first years of Christian history, and with the original apostolic community itself. If under the eyes of the Jerusalem apostles, and within the space of ten years, the truth about the origins of Christianity was subjected to a complete metamorphosis, so that we have to do no longer with facts, but merely with religious formulations which find their explanation in the subject ive needs and desires of the community,1 then, instead of speaking of a new and more scientific history of reli gion, it is time for us to abandon the idea that history can ever be written at all. Granting the perfect honesty 1 The demands of the community, i.e., were not satisfied by the real Jesus ; and so, in accordance with the ordinary laws of demand and supply, the historical tradition had to be remodelled to meet the subjective craving for something higher. See Eichhorn, op. cit., pp. ii, 13. of the Inquiry 25 and sincerity of the apostles, and these surely are no longer in question, granting that they had memories like those of other people, and even an ordinary measure of intellectual sanity, it is impossible to suppose that at the bidding of their subjective feelings, but in some wonderful, unanimous fashion, they could entirely trans form the great facts of Christian history within the com pass of a single decade. To regard this as a probability is to surrender absolutely the very principle on which all our knowledge of human history is built, the principle, namely, of the credibility of well-authenticated testimony, and to abandon the whole world of the past, either to the vagaries of purely arbitrary opinion, or to the sway of a universal scepticism. IV. In entering upon a study of the New Testament teaching with regard to the sacraments, we are met not only by general questions of New Testament Introduction such as those that have been referred to, but by the par ticular questions which literary criticism has raised as to the character and claims of individual books. Owing to the limited nature of our subject, it is fortunately unneces sary for us to traverse the whole field of the New Testa ment writings, and attempt to arrive at a decision upon all the debated topics of date, authorship, genuineness, sources, and mutual relations. A good many of the books have nothing directly to tell us about the sacraments ; their evidence is only of a negative kind — sometimes not even that ; and questions of Introduction in these cases need not be entered into with any particularity. And even where such questions require to be discussed more fully, we shall find that, as a rule, they will be most suitably dealt with as they severally emerge in the course of our inquiry. But there are two large problems, of a wider nature than the rest, about which we shall find it most convenient to say something at the present stage. These 26 Scope and Sources are the authorship and evidential value of the Fourth Gospel, and the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles. No questions are more fundamental than these for the study of the teaching of Jesus on the one hand, and the growth of apostolic doctrine and institutions on the other. And both of them, in particular, have an immediate and very important bearing upon any attempt to discover the original and proper significance of baptism and the Lord's Supper. I. In the case of the Johannine problem, as every student is aware, the two opposite schools of opinion have drawn much nearer to each other than they formerly stood.1 On the one hand, the accumulation of historical evidence in favour of the antiquity of the Gospel, as well as a closer study of the book itself, has completely disposed of the old Tubingen view that it is a work of pure idealism and of very late date, and has made it evident that, at the outside, it cannot be assigned to any period much later than the beginning of the second century, and that it embodies, in any case, a large amount of genuine and authentic tradition. So we have Harnack, while still rejecting the apostolic authorship, bringing the Gospel back to a date which makes the apostolic authorship at least a chronological possibility ; - and Wendt, again, advocating the theory that just as our Gospel of Matthew is based on the original Logia of Matthew the apostle, so the Fourth Gospel, though com ing to us in its present form from an unknown author, rests upon a writing of the Apostle John himself.3 On the other hand, the traditional school, while firmly maintaining the Johannine authorship, is now more ready to admit that the teaching of Jesus in this Gospel has been coloured by the mind through which it passed. Dr. Sanday, for instance, 1 See Dr. Sanday's paper on the tendency of modern criticism on this subject (Expositor, Ser. IV. iv. 321). 2 He grants a period between 80 and no. See his Chronologie, p. 679. J See his St. John's Gospel, passim, but especially Chapters II. and VI. of the Inquiry 2 7 who throughout his whole life as a distinguished New Testament scholar has been a powerful and consistent de fender of John's authorship, admits the presence of a sub jective element consisting of some infusion of the apostle's later reflection and experience with the original material of objective fact.1 In spite, however, of this approximation, so far, between the two poles of opinion, it is evident that we have still to distinguish and to choose between two opposing views of the origin of the Gospel. In particular, in any discussion of the sacraments we have to decide in the case of our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus in the third chapter, and His discourse in the sixth chapter on the bread of life, whether we have to do with an account by an apostle of Jesus of the actual words of the Master addressed to actual people, or with utterances which, at all events, have been highly idealised, and now are not so much addressed by Jesus to actual hearers, as by the evangelist himself to his contemporaries.2 Now, in this matter it will not do to attempt to run at once with the hare and with the hounds — to take the words in question as the ipsissima verba of Jesus Christ, and yet to understand them in a sense which removes them out of all historical relation to the persons to whom He is said to have addressed them. And yet this is what is really done when the words to Nicodemus and the discourse at Caper naum are taken literally and verbally as the words of the Lord, while they are so interpreted as to make Him pro claim the Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration to a Pharisee long before the institution of the Christian rite, and announce the mystery of the Real Presence to a pro- 1 Expositor, Ser. IV. v. 390. 2 Schultzen, e.g., meets the objection that the Jews could not possibly have understood Jesus, if it was the Eucharist that He was referring to in the dis course on the bread of life, by replying that it does not matter whether the Jews could have understood Him or not, since the question is whether the words were understood by the Christians of the evangelist's own time (Das Abenamahl im N. T. p. 78). 28 Scope and Sources miscuous crowd that had failed to understand His simpler teaching. We must not confound the two views of the Fourth Gospel, and draw elements at will alternately from the one and from the other. And when we are called upon to make a choice between them, it appears to me that the more reasonable view on every ground is that which re gards it as a genuine composition of the Apostle John himself, and a work of authentic history, coloured, no doubt, by the medium through which it has passed, as happens less or more in the case of every historical narrative, but conveying without distortion the substance of Christ's teach ing, and the true objective relations in which it was set. Wendt's theory, while so far valuable as reinforcing the growing sense among critical scholars of the genuine his torical element in John, splits upon the rock of the unity of the Gospel, a unity which students belonging to every school of opinion have instinctively felt, which made even Strauss compare this Gospel to the seamless robe of Jesus,1 and which Wendt does not by any means get rid of by describing it as nothing more than a traditional prejudice.2 Harnack, again, who makes it chronologically possible for St. John to have written the book, but declines nevertheless to believe that it was actually written by the apostle, and ascribes it rather to a certain John the Presbyter, of whose qualifications for such a task we know absolutely nothing, is really furnishing us at this point with a reductio ad absurdum of the critical tendency to reject traditional opinions on every possible occasion ; a tendency, it must 1 "This Gospel is itself the seamless tunic of which it tells us, for which men may cast lots, but which they cannot rend " ( Ulrich von Hutten, Vorrede, p. xliv). On this point of the unity of the Fourth Gospel, Holtzmann is quite as emphatic as Strauss. He repeats the old figure of the "seamless tunic," and declares: "All attempts to draw a clear line of demarcation, whether between earlier and later strata, or between genuine and non-genuine, historical and un historical elements, must always be wrecked against the solid and compact unity which the work presents, both in regard to language and in regard to matter." 2 St. John's Gospel, p. 54. of the Inquiry 29 be said, from which Harnack himself is exceedingly free, as compared with many others. It reminds us of the witty description by an American writer, of the decisions arrived at by certain Homeric critics with regard to the origin of the Iliad and the Odyssey. " They concluded," he said, " that these poems were not the work of Homer, but of another person of the same name." 1 On the traditional view of it, John's Gospel undoubtedly presents many difficult problems to the New Testament student. But the diffi culties are still greater on any view that rejects the ancient tradition of its apostolic authorship ; and, with such quali fications as have been suggested, it is to the traditional view that we shall adhere in dealing with any evidence from this Gospel that bears, or is supposed to bear, upon the sacraments.2 2. Turning now to the Book of Acts, we find ourselves confronted by a question which concerns our present study even more deeply than that of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. The old tendency-criticism theory of Acts, in the extreme form which was advocated by Baur and Zeller, has entirely broken down. No one now believes that the book is " a late controversial romance," an elaborate eirenicon, designed to hold the balance between contending Petrine and Pauline parties in the Early Church. Instead of these extreme tendency-theories, however, we have to-day various equally extreme theories, which come to us in the name of source-criticism, and which seek to resolve the book into a thing of shreds and patches finally pieced together in the early years of the second century by some unknown redactor. 1 On the fact that the exploitation of John the Presbyter, in the interests of a theory of the non-apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel, is no simplification of the problems which the Gospel presents, see the remarks of Mr. Headlam in his chapter on " The Dates of the N.T. Books " in Criticism of the New Testa ment (" St. Margaret's Lectures"), p. 173 ff. 2 For a recent and admirable summary in favour of St. John's authorship, see Professor Marcus Dods in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Gospel, Expositor's Greek Testament, vol. i. 30 Scope and Sources Now, both tendency-criticism and source-criticism have their own value when rightly understood and properly applied. Tendency, in the sense not of a conscious discolouring of the facts, but of an attempt to interpret them correctly, is a characteristic of every historian with any gift of historical insight and any feeling for historical perspective. And the writer of Acts certainly appears to have had a definite plan in his mind, by which he was guided in the selection and arrangement of his material. As for sources, it is plain that he must have had them, both of an oral and a written kind. And recent source-criticism, although, as has been said, its favourite methods of analysis are, for the most part, exceedingly arbitrary and unconvincing, has done good service, at all events, by reminding us that the writer of Acts depended upon authorities, and so did not write history out of his own head, or supply, like some of the source-critics themselves, a pound of imagination to every ounce of ascer tained fact. But while it is certain that the author had sources, sources which would vary in immediacy and value, and while it must be maintained that, being human, he saw the facts in the light of his own faith and knowledge, and through the atmosphere of contemporary custom and belief, it cannot be admitted that in Acts we have not so much a history of the Church during the first Christian generation as the ideas of a later writer regarding that history — a commentary, as it has been called, rather than a text.1 There might be something to say for such a view, if it were absolutely proved that the book was composed by some person unknown, at a time when all the primary witnesses had passed away, so that the writer, lacking any direct contact with the historical 1 Cf. Dr. Moffatt's remark : "As a historical document, not merely for the period 75-100, but for some points in the age of which it treats, Acts is a most serviceable and invaluable writing" (op. cit., p. 419). of the Inquiry 31 realities, was left free so to idealise his materials that little more than " a genuine core " of history is left. But within recent years a reasonable criticism has tended more and more to the view that the book was written not much later than the year 80, a conclusion which is strongly confirmed by the researches of classical students like Pro fessor W. M. Ramsay on the relations between the Early Church and the Roman Empire,1 and which makes it perfectly possible for Luke to have been the author.2 And as the critical study of the book has also gone far not only to confirm the Lucan origin of the " we " sec tions, but to establish a unity of authorship between those sections and the rest of the work,3 it is hardly too much to claim, as Dr. Chase does in> his recent " Hulsean Lec tures," that the traditional view of the authorship of Acts is really the critical view, namely, that it comes to us along with the Third Gospel from the pen of Luke the " beloved physician " and faithful companion of St. Paul.4 As for Luke's sources, a subject on which much has been written, some very competent students of Acts have been led of late to the conclusion that certain phenomena of style, which they themselves were at first inclined to attribute to the use of different literary sources, are more naturally explained on the simpler hypothesis of instinctive variations of manner on the part of a sympathetic writer, and that Luke depended much less upon earlier documents, and much more upon personal intercourse with primary authorities, than is frequently assumed. Granted the possibility that Luke was the author of Acts, and we 1 See his St. Paul the Traveller, p. 386 ff. 2 Even Holtzmann, while advocating a later date and a non-Pauline author ship, admits that if 80 or thereabout be taken as the terminus ad quem, it is conceivable that Luke himself was the author (Hand- Commentar. Acts, Dritte Auflage, p. 8). 3 See Bartlet's article on "Acts," Encyclopedia Britannica, 10th edition, xxv. 60. 4 The Credibility of the Book of Acts, p. 296. 32 Scope and Sources shall find that there is no part of the history contained in the book that may not have been communicated to him by personal eye-witnesses.1 Hence, while it is prob able that Luke made use of written documents, it is not impossible that many, if not most, of these documents were nothing else than notes of conversations with personal witnesses which he himself had written down ; so that instead of speaking so much about his sources, in the sense at least of literary sources, we should rather think of his authorities, and should find them in those " eye witnesses and ministers of the word " on whose testimony he rests the claim of his work to be an accurate history. I believe, then, that we are justified by a scientific but sober criticism in holding that in Acts we have an account of early Christianity which is thoroughly reliable in all leading points. It may be that such a writer as Professor Ramsay has somewhat exaggerated the claims of Luke as a great philosophic historian, and we may need the reminder that the author of Acts was neither " a New Testament Thucydides " nor " a first - century Mommsen." 2 But without claiming for Luke all that has sometimes been claimed on his behalf, we believe that we have good reason, at all events, to claim for him nothing less than he demands for himself, namely, that his work rests on the testimony of the original witnesses and ministers of the word, that in it he has " traced the course of all things accurately from the first," and that it aims at imparting " the certainty " concerning the Christian tradition (Luke i. 2—4). It is true, of course, that the passage in which Luke asserts his character and claims as a historian occurs in the preface to the Gospel, and not in the Acts itself. But even if we do not choose to accept the very probable view that originally 1 See Chase, op. cit., p. I5ff. ; Bartlet, "Acts" in Century Bible, p. 22 ff. 2 Professor Adeney, ' ' Luke " in Century Bible, p. 4. of the Inquiry 3 3 the two books circulated together as parts of a single work, and that the preface to the Gospel was really an introduction to the whole,1 it can be hardly questioned that, as the two books were certainly written by the same author, that author would be as careful in the one case as in the other to satisfy his " historical conscience " ; while, as regards the apostolic history, it must be remem bered, the original authorities were more within his personal reach than they were in the case of the history of Jesus. Even in respect to the speeches and sermons in Acts, which are of special importance for our present investi gation, we have every reason to believe that what Luke gives us is substantially what was actually said. The view that these addresses are " free compositions " due to dramatic idealisation, which are to be placed on the same level as the imaginary speeches often put by the Greek and Latin historians into the mouths of their leading figures, according to the literary habits of the time, is one that does not bear the slightest critical examination. The discourses have been summarised, no doubt, and are reproduced by the author in a literary style of his own. But to imagine of Luke, and much more of some unknown author towards the end of the first century, that he was capable of writing all these speeches and sermons out of his own thoughts, is to attribute to him such marvellous powers of historical imagination as would throw far into the shade Thucydides and Tacitus, and every other great 1 This view is strongly confirmed by recent investigations of the " Western " text by Blass and others. The fact that it is in Luke's Gospel and in Acts that "Western" readings are most numerous, goes to prove that before the Gospels were formed into a separate collection, the Lucan books circulated together as a single work. And Dr. Chase points out that the view which regards the preface to the Gospel as a preface to both parts of Luke's history is corroborated by the phraseology of the preface itself, and especially by the expressions: "Those matters which have been fulfilled among us," "ministers of the word," "to write unto thee in order" (Luke i. I, 2, 3). See Chase, op. cit., pp. 6-7, i6ff. 34 Scope and Sources historian that ever lived. The theological standpoint of the Petrine speeches, in particular, is such as no Gentile Christian, writing more than a generation after, much less a Gentile Christian writing towards the close of the century, could possibly have conceived for himself; and can only be explained on the assumption of their true historical character.1 And as reasonable critics do not question that the author in his earlier work gives us a genuinely historical account of the words of Jesus, there is every ground to believe that in this second part of his narrative he furnishes us with a version not less historical of the words of Peter and Paul. And now, having cleared the ground in some measure by these preliminary discussions and statements as to what we are to understand by the sacraments of the New Testament, and what right we have to go to the New Testament writings for authoritative guidance upon the subject, I shall briefly indicate, in closing, the plan which I propose to follow in the further course of these lectures. Taking up baptism first, I shall deal in the next lecture with its institution by Jesus Christ, its relations to pre ceding historical baptisms, and its meaning as appointed by our Lord. In the third lecture I shall speak of the general apostolic doctrine of baptism, as that is to be gathered, first from the record in Acts of the preaching and practice of the original apostles and the primitive community, and then from the other non-Pauline writings of the New Testament. Paul's teaching regarding baptism demands separate consideration, on the ground alike of its amount and its distinctiveness ; and lecture four, accord ingly, will deal with the Pauline doctrine, as that is sug gested in Luke's narrative of the apostle's own conversion 1 Cf. Headlam, "Acts" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, i. 33; Bernard in his chapter on "The Historical Value of the Acts of the Apostles" in Criticism of the New Testament (" St. Margaret's Lectures"), p. 22 ff. ; and especially Chase, op. cit., pp. 122 ff., 159. of the Inquiry 35 and baptism and subsequent missionary activity, and directly indicated in the Pauline Epistles themselves. In the fifth lecture I shall speak of the teaching of the New Testament generally, with regard to the subjects, mode, administrator, and formula of baptism, and the relation of these matters to the general baptismal doctrine. In this connection, and as reflecting some light upon the New Testament at points where its testimony is not explicit, use will be made of illustrations and confirma tions which come from the literature of the early post- apostolic Church. Passing next to the Lord's Supper, I shall devote two lectures to the Supper of Jesus in the upper room, dealing in the sixth with the historical facts, and in the seventh with their doctrinal significance. The eighth lecture will be devoted to the Lord's Supper in the apostolic Church, with regard especially to its outward connections and form. In lecture nine we shall consider Paul's doctrine of the Lord's Supper ; for here also, as in the case of baptism, Paul's teaching requires separate treatment. Finally, in the concluding lecture, I shall endeavour to gather up any New Testament evidence that remains, and to glance also at the manner in which the later literature of the Early Church serves as a com mentary upon the teaching of the New Testament itself. LECTURE II. Baptism instituted by Jesus : its Historical Relations and Meaning. In entering upon a study of the New Testament teaching with regard to baptism, our earliest task must be to dis cover what Jesus Christ Himself says on the subject, and what meaning His words yield when examined in the light of their historical connections and by means of a careful exegetical method. And first of all, we must face the question whether Jesus ever instructed His disciples to baptize, whether the rite can thus properly be said to owe its institution to the Master. It may surprise us, on first looking into this matter, to discover how scanty in amount is the direct evidence that the ordinance rests expressly upon an injunction of Jesus. Once only, namely, in the well-known passage at the end of Matthew's Gospel, is the statement distinctly made that He commanded His disciples to baptize. " Go ye therefore," the words run, " and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt, xxviii. 19). In Mark's Gospel, it is true, we have a parallel passage, in which He is represented, not indeed as instructing His disciples to baptize, but as implying that they will do so in connection with their preaching of the gospel. " Go ye into all the world," we read, "and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that disbelieveth, shall be condemned " (Mark xvi. 36 Baptism : Ils Historical Relations and Meaning 3 7 15, 16). But as it is now agreed by nearly all scholars, on the authority of the best MSS., that the last twelve verses of Mark did not form a part of the original Gospel, but were added by a later hand, it is impossible to say whether or not we have to do here with a statement that possesses original and independent value. There are those who regard it as a real strand from the original tradition, and some interesting evidence has been alleged in favour of its having come from the pen of that Aristion who is mentioned by Papias as one of the disciples of the Lord.1 But the view more commonly taken, and which appears to have most evidence on its side, is that it is simply an early compilation derived from the statements of the other Synoptic evangelists, so that it does not do more than reflect the ideas that prevailed in the community at the time when it was written.2 Passing to Luke, we find that he has nothing to say about the institution of baptism, a fact which is all the more noticeable because he records a missionary commis sion similar to the one which in Matthew is bound up with the instruction to baptize. He represents our Lord, after His resurrection, as saying to the Eleven and them that were gathered with them, " that repentance and remission of sins should be preached unto all nations, beginning from Jerusalem " ; but he makes no mention of a baptism that is to accompany the preaching of the gospel (Luke xxiv. 47). And when we come to the fourth evangelist, we find that he also is absolutely silent as to any baptismal commission being given by Jesus to the Church. Now, certainly all this is striking. Particularly striking is the silence of Luke at the very point where we might have expected him to speak, namely, when he is reporting 1 See Mr. F. C. Conybeare's article, "Aristion, the Author of the last Twelve Verses of Mark" (Expositor, I v. viii. p. 241). 2 See H. J. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar, in loco. 38 Baptism instituted by Jesus words of Jesus as to the universal proclamation of the gospel of repentance and remission of sins. To any theory that would exalt baptism to the central place in the propagation of Christianity, these silences of three of the evangelists appear to be little short of fatal. For, assuming that Jesus did speak the words ascribed to Him in Matthew, it is difficult to believe that the other evan gelists would have omitted to report them, if they had thought that in these words He was bestowing upon the Church the essential means by which salvation was to be communicated to men. And even when we take an altogether different view of the sacrament from that which regards it as the medium of regeneration, we have to face serious difficulties and objections before we can vindicate the common Christian belief that in baptism we possess a holy rite which was expressly ordained for the Church by the risen Jesus. If, then, Matt, xxviii. 19 is the only original passage in the New Testament in which our Lord is said to have instituted the ordinance of Christian baptism, the critical question resolves itself very largely into one of the historical value of Matthew's statement. Now, regarding the text of Matthew at this point, there is no dispute. The verse occurs in all our ancient authorities, and textual criti cism has nothing to say against it. But none the less, a powerful phalanx of distinguished critics, especially in Germany, and not only those of the most advanced type, but even such writers as Weiss, Weizsacker, and Harnack, have declared Matthew's representation to be historically untenable.1 Harnack, in view of his weight as a critical historian, and the wide circulation which his writings have obtained among English-speaking students, may fitly be 1 Against this, of course, we must set the fact that the genuineness and authenticity of the words are strongly upheld in Germany by Zahn, Cremer, and other eminent critical writers, and are accepted without hesitation by nearly all the best representatives of English scholarship at the present time. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 39 taken as a representative of this position. And Harnack affirms in the most unqualified manner, " It cannot be directly proved that Jesus instituted baptism, for Matt. xxviii. 19 is not a saying of the Lord."1 Divers reasons have been given for this very unfavourable judgment of Matthew's statement. Harnack follows up the assertion just quoted by alleging two reasons: "(1) It is only a later stage of the tradition that represents the risen Christ as delivering speeches and giving commandments. Paul knows nothing of it. (2) The Trinitarian formula is foreign to the mouth of Jesus, and has not the authority in the apostolic age which it must have had if it had descended from Jesus Himself." Both of these, it is evident, are reasons which rest upon pretty wide assump tions ; and, in any case, they must be pronounced very inadequate as a foundation for the dogmatic utterance by which they are preceded. But Harnack's brief statement is abundantly supplemented by Scholten and Holtzmann, to whom he specially refers us for fuller information, and by many others as well who have written more particularly upon the subject.2 It is somewhat difficult to classify the various objections," coming as they do from so many differ ent quarters of the field of criticism, and tending in some cases to run into one another. But I shall endeavour to indicate as clearly as possible the main lines of stricture. 1. One objection of a rather general nature, repeatedly pressed by Holtzmann and others, is that Matt, xxviii. 19 belongs to a class of passages peculiar to the first evan gelist, which canonise the dogmatic, constitutional, and liturgical situation in the Jewish-Christian circles for which 1 History of Dogma, i. 79. 2 See especially Scholten, Die Taufformel, p. 4ft". ; Holtzmann, "Die Taufe im NT.," Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie, 2ier Jahrgang, viertes Heft, p. 402 ff., and Neutestamentliche Theologie, i. 378 ff. ; Teichmann, "Die Taufe bei Paulus," Zeitschrift fiir Theologie und Kirche, 1896, Heft 4, P-357ff- 40 Baptism instituted by Jesus the First Gospel was written.1 These passages, it is held, bear clearly upon them the stamp of a later age, which felt the necessity of sanctioning a rite that had come to be practised by referring it back to Christ Himself. This objection, however, evidently depends upon certain critical views as to the composition of the narrative which, to employ his own phrase regarding the First Gospel, are " peculiar to " Holtzmann and his school. It is a kind of criticism which is built on large but very precarious presuppositions ; and if we are not prepared to start from the hypothesis that what we have before us in Matthew is not a record of the original tradition, but a narrative deliberately constructed for the purpose of canonising the later doctrine and practice in certain circles of the Church by attributing them to the teaching of Jesus, so that this, that, and the other statement are nothing more than the " peculiarities " of the writer, it would be useless to attempt to discuss the question whether or not this passage in particular bears clearly upon it the stamp of a later age, 2. Another ground of objection of a wide and general kind is connected with prevailing ideas as to the nature of our Lord's resurrection. The old high-and-dry natural ism has been largely abandoned by recent critics of the resurrection story ; we have a significant illustration of that in the attempt of a writer like Keim to find, by means of what has been called his " telegram-theory," an objective explanation of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.2 The critical treatment of the narratives of the resurrection, very largely through Ritschlian influences, has become much more subtle than it used to be, and yet hardly less negative. It is no longer denied that Jesus rose from the dead, but it is affirmed that we have no 1 See Holtzmann, " Die Taufe im NT.," p. 402 ; Teichmann, op. cit., pp. 357, 370 f. Other passages supposed to belong to this class are xvi. 16-18, xviii. 15-18. "Jesu von Nazara, iii. 605. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 4 1 ground for believing that He resumed for a while His earthly life, that He met His disciples on something of the old terms of intimacy, and gave them fresh instructions and commandments before His final departure to the presence of His Father. A distinction is drawn between the Easter message of the empty grave and the Easter faith which had to be held even in the absence of that message.1 No faith can be built, we are told, upon the Gospel narratives of the forty days. They are evidently legendary, and belong to a later stage of the tradition. Paul, says Harnack, knows nothing of a risen Jesus who delivers speeches and gives commandments. And Scholten, one of the two writers to whom he expressly refers us, de velops this position at length. He points to the fact that in passages like Rom. viii. 34, and Eph. i. 20, the resur rection and the ascension appear to be identical. The resurrection is a resurrection to God's right hand. No room is left for a second earthly life between the resur rection from Hades and the ascension to heaven. And it is not compatible with this oldest representation, he maintains, that Jesus came back to earth to give His apostles the command to baptize.2 To which the answer is, that in the passages which Scholten quotes Paul is not speaking as a historian of the life of Jesus, but is simply dealing, for doctrinal purposes, with those great moments in the work of Christ which bear upon the Christian salvation. " It is God that justifieth," he cries, " who is he that shall condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at 1 See Harnack's What Is Christianity? p. l6off. Harnack tells us that the story of the doubt of Thomas and the blessing pronounced by Jesus upon those who have not seen and yet have believed, is written down in the Fourth Gospel, "for the exclusive purpose of impressing upon us that we must hold the Easter faith, even without the Easter message." But this is to miss entirely the very point of the narrative. Thomas was rebuked, not for refusing to do without the Easter message, but for not believing that message when he received it. 2 Op. cit., pp. 5-6. 42 Baptism instituted by Jesus the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Rom. viii. 33, 34). Surely it stands to reason that we could not expect Paul, in the course of such an argu ment, to pause between the mention of the resurrection and the mention of the intercession at God's right hand, in order to speak of the appearances of Jesus to His disciples ? He does not interpose between what he says of the death and what he says of the resurrection any reference to the burial of Jesus, or to the manner in which His spirit was occupied during the period of disembodiment. Why, then, should he speak of the days between the resurrection and the ascension, if these had no immediate bearing on his present argument ? There are some scholars who have felt themselves unable to set aside the weighty evidence that comes from various quarters in favour of the direct institution of baptism by Jesus, while yet they have been strongly influenced by the critical tendency to minimise, if not to reject altogether, the Gospel narratives of the resurrection appearances. The attempt has accordingly been made to find a place for the institution of baptism by Jesus at some period previous to His death. Some have gone back to the hour in which Jesus said, " But I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened until it be accomplished" (Luke xii. 50). Keim, again, would assign the institution of both sacraments to the night on which Jesus was betrayed.1 And the late Professor Bruce, with the apologetic purpose of showing that even on the naturalistic view of the resurrection it is not necessary to conclude that Christian baptism does not rest on the Lord's personal authority, went so far as to say that it is conceivable that Jesus gave the direction concerning the rite on some occasion previous to His death, say on the eve of His passion, and at the same 1 Jesu von Nazara, iii. 286. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 43 time that the Holy Supper was instituted.1 Such theories, however, have little to recommend them. They are really arbitrary expedients for avoiding the difficulty supposed to be created by a narrative which makes Jesus speak the words regarding baptism at a time subsequent to His death. There is no hint in the New Testament itself that the formal institution of the rite took place at some earlier period in the ministry ; and it is only on grounds of a purely hypothetical nature that we can be asked to believe that this was the case. 3. Passing from this wider and looser sort of criticism, we come to a more direct line of objection based upon a comparative study of the texts of the Synoptic evangelists. Scholten states the case here very fully and clearly. Among other things, he points out that the words reported in Matthew are not found in the genuine text of Mark (Mark xvi. 1—8), which preceded the redaction of the Canonical Matthew. It is not likely, he says, that they were present in the supposed lost conclusion of Mark, since Luke, who numbered Mark, at all events the Proto- Mark, among his sources, does not appear to be aware of the appointment of baptism by Jesus ; and we cannot suppose that he would have been intentionally silent if he had known of it.2 Now, without doubt, as we have said already, an argument like this tells powerfully against any view which ascribes to baptism the central and essen tial place in Christ's gospel of redemption. If Jesus appointed baptism as the very means of salvation, and if the rite was so understood by the apostles and the Early Church, it is difficult indeed to see how a careful writer like Luke, whose express aim it was to set forth in their due order and proportions the things which were fully established in the faith of the Church, should refer to a commission to preach repentance and remission of sins 1 Kingdom of God, p. 257. - Op. cit., p. 4 f. 44 Baptism instituted by Jesus in Christ's name unto all nations, without making the slightest reference to the baptism that was to accompany the preaching of the word. If, however, baptism was intended by Jesus, and was understood by His disciples, to be a rite possessed indeed of a real value, but altogether subordinate to " the word of faith," the case is quite differ ent. It is impossible to lay it down as a canon of criticism, that if one evangelist makes a statement which is not found in the others, that statement immediately becomes liable to suspicion. A sane and reasonable criticism rather inclines to find in the fact of occasional independence, side by side with general interdependence, a confirmation of the trustworthiness of the several narratives. Such in dependence assures us that a later writer does not simply repeat in a mechanical fashion what has been said by an earlier one, but, while stamping with his own approval what he does repeat, feels himself free at the same time to weave into his narrative fresh strands from that original tradition from which all our Gospels have been derived.1 4. When we come to the contents of the verse, we are met by still another series of objections to its genuineness. Much has been made by some critics of the alleged irrecon cilability of Matthew's narrative with Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians that he thanks God that he has baptized so few in the Corinthian Church (1 Cor. i. 14).2 This state ment is held to amount to proof positive that Paul knew nothing of the command to " make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them." Teichmann maintains that if the first disciples had ascribed the importance to baptism which is found in the Matthew passage, Paul, who was so careful to uphold his equal authority as an apostle, would not have deviated from the practice of the rest.3 But is not this to 1 Cf. Hort, Christian Ecclesia, pp. 8-9. 2 So, e.g., Holtzmann, Teichmann, and McGiffert. 3 Op, cit., p. 370 ff. , Its Historical Relations and Meaning 45 lose sight of the fact, which Harnack freely admits, that Paul knows of no other way of receiving the Gentiles into the Christian communities than by baptism, and to speak as if his having refrained, for certain specified reasons (1 Cor. i. 15, 17), from baptizing his converts with his own hands, indicates some indifference as to whether they were baptized or not ? As for Paul's claim to be as much an apostle as any of the Twelve, without doubt this was a point on which he laid the utmost stress. But in allowing others to baptize where he himself had preached, he was only doing as Peter did with his converts in the house of Cornelius, when he " commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." And neither in Peter's case nor in that of Paul does this imply any falling short of the view of baptism that is set before us in Matthew. For the words in the baptismal commission do not ascribe any mysterious efficacy to the rite. They simply lay down the rule for Christ's messengers, that baptism is to accompany disciple- making. And all our evidence goes to show that both Paul and Peter invariably saw to it that, on profession of their faith in Jesus Christ, their converts were baptized. Sometimes a special argument against the historicity of the verse is found in the universalistic prescription as to disciple-making with which the command to baptize is associated. Scholten maintains that the later narratives regarding Peter, and especially Peter's attitude in the case of Cornelius, may be held as proving that it was only through a special revelation, and by the light of subsequent events, that the apostle was led to give his consent to the admission of Gentiles into the Christian Church.1 But this is a clear case of confounding a fresh revelation as to a method with a previous revelation as to a fact. It was not the admission of Gentiles into the Church that filled Peter with astonishment in the house of the centurion at Caesarea. 1 Op. cit., p. 7. 46 Baptism instituted by Jesus He was already familiar with the idea that Gentiles should be welcomed into the fellowship of the new covenant, as they had been welcomed into the fellowship of the old one. We have a striking illustration of this fact, when we find that one of the seven deacons, who were elected at a very early stage in the history of the Jerusalem community, was not a Jew, but "a proselyte of Antioch" (Acts vi. 5). Hitherto, however, Peter had not doubted that it was by the way of Judaism that Gentiles must seek to draw near to Christ. They must be circumcised after the custom of Moses, if they hoped to be saved. But now he finds that God's plan is much simpler and grander than he and his fellow-apostles had thought. Those men at Caesarea were not proselytes, but uncircumcised Gentiles ; and yet upon them the Holy Ghost was poured out, as on the first dis ciples at the beginning. And so, by and by, when the question came up formally before the Jerusalem conference, whether or not Gentiles must submit to circumcision before they could be received into the Church, Peter rested his decision in the matter upon the events at Caesarea, reminding his hearers that God had shown that no difference was to be made between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, since faith was the only thing needful as regards eligibility for salvation. " God," he said, " made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith." In his Historical New Testament, Dr. Moffatt makes a good deal of this same line of argument. " The universal mission," he writes, " can hardly have been known to the first disciples, or else they lived in flagrant disobedience of their Master's solemn command, and only reluctantly recognised its fulfilment in the Pauline gospel." And he speaks rather contemptuously of " the desperate plight to which literalists are reduced " in this matter, as illustrated by Dr. Hort's suggestion that in their recognition of Paul's special call as the apostle of the Gentiles, and in their Its Historical Relations and Meaning 47 agreement and fellowship with him, the Twelve were in effect carrying out the Lord's commission.1 Such a positive command, he maintains, could not have been fulfilled in this way. " It demanded active personal propaganda on the part of the disciples, and this is precisely what was not forthcoming, to judge from our records of the apostolic age." 2 Well, no doubt it is true that until Paul appeared on the scene the apostolic Church had not come to a full sense of its missionary calling. But it has often happened since that Churches and individuals, into whose thoughts no doubt ever fell of the genuineness of the divine commission at the end of Matthew, have not fully realised its meaning and urgency till God sent into their midst some flaming missionary personality — a Xavier, a Zinzendorf, a Carey, an Alexander Duff.3 In regard to the Twelve, signs are not wanting that even from the very first their eyes were lifted up to those wide horizons of gospel ministry to which their Lord had appointed them. In Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost we find him saying, " For to you is the pro- 1 Christian Ecclesia, pp. 85-90. 2 Historical New Testajnent, p. 648 f. It is a little amusing to find Dr. Moffatt frankly saying, "It is very tempting to regard the whole commission, verses 18-20, or even 16-20, as a later addition"; but adding, "The main drawbacks are the absence of a textual basis and the abrupt state of what would be the original Matthew " (p. 649). This suggests a clever surgeon who has laid some one on his table, and feels it " very tempting " to saw off his legs ; but who has to admit, as the " main drawbacks" to the operation, that the limbs of his subject are perfectly sound, and that if they were removed, his body would ter minate rather abruptly. It is interesting to compare a critic's temptation to regard the great commission as no word of Jesus, but a later fabrication, with the way in which these same words came to Dr. Livingstone, "found" him, as Cole ridge would have said, in an hour of sore trial. " Felt much turmoil of spirit," he writes in his diary, "in view of having all my plans for the welfare of this great region and teeming population knocked on the head by savages to-morrow. But I read that Jesus came and said, ' All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' It is the word of a gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honour; and there is an end on't." (Entry in Livingstone's diary for 14th January 1856. See Blaikie's Personal Life of David Livingstone, p. 181.)3 Cf. Dr. R. J. Drummond's Apostolic Teaching and Christ's Teaching, P- 157. 48 Baptism instituted by Jesus mise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him " (Acts ii. 39). And again, in his sermon in Solomon's porch, he reminds the people that the days have come when the promise is about to be fulfilled that in Israel all the families of the earth shall be blessed (Acts iii. 25). But alongside of this it has to be remembered that there were certain words of the Lord, addressed specially to the Twelve, which might naturally lead them to believe that personally they were to stand in a peculiar relation to the House of Israel. In the regeneration, He said, they were to sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28 ; Luke xxii. 30). Moreover, according to Luke, Jesus had instructed them to begin from Jerusalem the work of evangelising the world (Luke xxiv. 27), and had implied that they were to preach in all Judaea and Samaria before going forth to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts i. 8).1 Further, even if we assume that only the Eleven were pre sent when the universal commission was given, a doubtful assumption in view of certain statements in both Luke and John,2 at all events the words were addressed to the apostles as representing the whole Church no less than was the case at the institution of the Lord's Supper. And when the Twelve recognised that God had made Paul an apostle just as truly as themselves, and had called men like Barnabas, and Silas, and Apollos, as well as Paul, to that special work of preaching to the Gentiles, for which their own birth and education rendered them much less fit, it argues neither ignorance nor forgetfulness of the Church's missionary com mission, but rather a very definite recollection of it, when they agreed that such men should go unto the Gentiles, 1 Similarly, it is to be noticed, even Paul himself, though expressly set apart by God to preach Jesus among the Gentiles (Gal. i. 16), yet, as a matter of fact, made a point of preaching to the Jews first. See Rom. i. 16, and Acts, passim. - Luke xxiv. 47 (cf. 33) ; John xx. igff. See Westcott, Gospel of St. John, p. 294 ; Hort, Christian Ecclesia, p. 32 ff. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 49 while they themselves wrought among the circumcision. The familiar principle of the division of labour in the things of the gospel, by which, while the great commission comes to every preacher of Christ, some preach to their fellow- countrymen and others go to the heathen, was just as applicable then as now. On every ground, then, it appears quite unnecessary that we should force ourselves to a choice between the alternatives of supposing, on the part of the original apostles, either entire ignorance of the Church's universal commission, or flagrant disobedience of their Master's command. And in view of the account we have, not merely in Acts xv., but in the second chapter of Gala tians,' of the attitude to Paul of Peter, James, and John at the time of the Jerusalem conference, in view, too, of what we know as to Peter's previous action in the case of Cor nelius, it is surely rather misleading to say that the first disciples reluctantly recognised the fulfilment of the universal commission in the Pauline gospel. We might as well say that a Presbytery reluctantly recognises the fitness of a young man to preach the gospel, because it carefully examines his credentials of character and scholarship, and desires to hear something of the message he intends to pro claim, before it gives him the right hand of fellowship and a definite commission to go forth into the world as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. 5. I have kept to the last a difficulty which is felt by many to be the most serious of all — the fact that baptism is associated in this verse with the use of the Trinitarian formula. Some scholars who hold to the genuineness of the verse in other respects, are inclined to escape from this last difficulty by conceding the possibility that the formula, at least, was not spoken by Jesus, but inserted into the logion at a later time, in accordance with what had come to be the ordinary liturgical usage. But apart from the fact that there is no textual basis for excising this part of the verse, 4 50 Baptism instituted by Jesus it must be remembered that if some difficulties would thereby be avoided, others would be created, which, to say the least, are equally great. Besides, when we look at the chief objections, they do not appear to be overwhelming, except upon certain question-begging presuppositions. The for mula, Harnack tells us, is " foreign to the mouth of Jesus." But if we accept the account of our Lord's parting discourse in John xiv.-xvi. as a substantial reproduction of words that He actually spoke, we certainly find there an anticipation of such an association of the Son and the Holy Ghost with the Father as is distinctly expressed in the baptismal formula.1 And if we are not aware of any good reason why we should cease to believe the statements of all the evangelists that Jesus not only rose from the dead, but met with His disciples after He was risen, and gave them His parting instructions before He ascended to the Father, it will appear not merely natural, but altogether inevitable, that the instructions then spoken should partake of the character of fresh revelations, and should not be absolutely limited by the utterances of the previous ministry, or deserve, if they go beyond them, to be described as " foreign to the mouth of Jesus." As for Harnack's further objection, that the Trinitarian formula had not the authority in the apostolic age which we should expect, this raises the whole question of the bap tismal formula, which will have to be specially discussed in a future lecture. Meanwhile the fact must be noted, that apart from the present passage the New Testament speaks only of a baptism into the name of Jesus Christ, and never of a baptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The explanation may be, as some have held, that the threefold formula was really used all along, and that when we read of baptism into the name of Christ, this is not a formula, but simply an expression of 1 Cf. xiv. 16, 26, xv. 26, xvi. 15, and. passim. Its Historical Relations and Meanino- c i the fact that through baptism a man became a member of the Christian community. But it is perhaps more probable that the triple formula was not used in the apostolic Church, and that it was not used because the apostles did not under stand that in speaking these words Jesus was prescribing anything of the nature of a fixed ritual formulary. When Harnack says that the Trinitarian formula had not the authority which we should expect, he seems to be manufac turing the very difficulty which he employs as an objection to the genuineness of the verse. What right has he to assume that those who heard these words would understand them to be meant as an authoritative liturgical rubric ? A sug gestion of Professor Bruce's at this point is worthy of con sideration. The disciples, he says, did not feel themselves bound to the formula, if in baptizing they expressed what was necessarily implied in becoming a Christian. And he reminds us that when they asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He gave them that wonderful prayer which has passed into all Christian liturgies ; and yet we never hear of that prayer again in the New Testament.1 This surely does not prove that the Lord's Prayer was not spoken by Jesus. It only proves that the age of the apostles was an age of freedom from forms. When we come to the Didache, however, we find Christians enjoined to repeat the Lord's Prayer three times every day.2 And similarly, while the Didache describes Christian baptism, precisely as the Book of Acts does, as " baptism into the name of the Lord," 3 in its liturgical directions for the performance of the rite it prescribes the use of the Trinitarian formula.* So we have the analogies of a form of prayer and a formula of baptism, both given by Jesus, both living in the mind of the Church, both coming by and by into liturgical use, but of the employment of either of which in the 1 Kingdom of God, p. 260. 2 viii. 2, 3. 3 ix. 5. * vii. I. 5 2 Baptism instituted by Jesus apostolic age as fixed rubrics we find no trace in the New Testament. I have referred to difficulties that are left unsolved if we decline to accept the triple formula as coming to us from the lips of Jesus. The chief difficulty lies in the need for an adequate explanation of the Trinitarian elements that are found in the New Testament, and especially in the Pauline Epistles.1 Weizsacker, Harnack, and others tell us that the Trinitarianism of Matt, xxviii. 19 is sufficiently explained by the apostolic benediction at the end of 2 Cor. (xiii. 14). But is it not rather more reason able to look the other way about, and to explain Paul's language by Christ's words ? 2 Why, except on the ground of a purely a priori anti-supernaturalism, should it be thought a thing impossible that Jesus rose from the dead according to the Scriptures, and met with His disciples, and gave them fresh revelations of His own nature and of His purposes for them and for the world ? And why, except on a purely arbitrary theory as to what Jesus was capable of thinking and saying, should we give Paul the credit of an originality in this matter which we deny to his Master? So far, I have dealt with current objections to the institution of baptism by Jesus Christ, as recorded at the end of Matthew's Gospel. These objections, I have en deavoured to show, are by no means of an insuperable kind. And now we must remember that over-against all such objections we have to set a great positive fact of so weighty a kind, that it leads even a writer like Keim, as we have seen, to confess himself shut up to the belief that the 1 Many of the phenomena in Paul's Epistles, Dr. Sanday points out, fall readily into place, on the assumption that Jesus Himself gave utterance to these significant words, while on any other assumption they become exceedingly intractable (Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 214; cf. Dr. Swete, Expositor, Oct. 1902, p. 254). 2 Cf. Zahn, Einleitung iu das NT. ii. 309 f. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 53 institution of baptism comes to us from the lips of Christ Himself. This fact is, that from the very first days baptism appears to have been the universal practice of the Christian community, and even Paul, with all his originality and independence and tendency towards the most spiritual interpretations of the Christian gospel, seems never for a moment to have doubted or questioned the necessity of employing it as the rite of initiation into the Christian Church. Elaborate attempts have been made to explain the genetic history of Christian baptism apart from any institution by Jesus Christ, through the operation of such causes as the influence upon the minds of the disciples of the baptism of Jesus Himself in the Jordan, the proselyte baptism of the Jewish Church, and the mystery rites of the pagan cults.1 But it is impossible to conceive how, within the brief space of years between the death of Jesus and Paul's earliest references to baptism, the Christian sacra ment should not only have originated in such ways as these, but have spread itself universally, and established its authority both for Jews and Gentiles in a manner so absolute.2 And it is hardly credible that if Christian baptism was a thing of later growth, not the slightest trace should be found of any controversy on the subject at the time of its introduction, and, indeed, no sign should be forthcoming of there ever having been a time or place in the primitive Church in which baptism was not regarded as authoritative. I have referred more than once to Harnack's 1 See Teichmann, op. cit., p. 369 ff. 2 Kremer, a Dutch theologian, tries to make out that it was only Gentiles who were baptized by Paul ; but his arguments are riddled by Teichmann (op. cit., p. 367 ff.). But Teichmann, on his own evolutionary theory of the origin of Christian baptism, is driven to make the exceedingly fanciful assumption that, while in the very first days of the Church it was only Gentile believers who had to be baptized, after the analogy of the proselyte baptism by which they had formerly been admitted to the Jewish community, in mixed Churches, like the Pauline, the Jews allowed themselves to be baptized for the sake of uniformity ! This illustrates the shifts which such theories render necessary whenever the attempt is made to work them out. 54 Baptism instituted by Jesus assertion, that in the apostolic age the Trinitarian formula lacks the authority which it must have had if it had de scended from Jesus Himself. That assertion, we have seen, is open to question in various ways. But this, at all events, is certain, that the ordinance of baptism was possessed in early apostolic times of an extraordinary authority ; and no critic has told us how we are to account for the origin of this authority, if we reject the statement of the First Gospel, that the command to administer the rite came from the lips of Jesus Christ. In the world in which we live, authority, as a rule, is much more easily lost than gained. And even if we were to grant that the Trinitarian formula has not from the first the authority we might expect, it would certainly be a much simpler thing to account, on the traditional view, for the lack of authority in the case of the formula, than to explain, on Harnack's view, the acquisition of an authority so absolute on the part of the rite itself. For all those who deny the genuineness of the statement in Matthew's Gospel, and refuse to accept baptism as a positive institution of the Lord Jesus Christ, there ever remains the problem of showing how baptism came to occupy that position in the apostolic Church which meets us in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the writings especially of St. Paul. II. We start, then, from the position that baptism was instituted by Jesus Christ. But even so, our study of the rite must begin at an earlier stage. When Jesus told His disciples to go forth baptizing, He evidently presumed a knowledge on their part of what baptizing was. He did not explain the term, because He did not need to explain it. The word Bwn-TL^co had already become historically fixed in a clear and definite meaning. The disciples could not fail to connect Christ's use of it with uses with which they were thoroughly familiar. And we also, if we are to understand the term as we find it on the lips of Jesus, Its Historical Relations and Meaning 5 5 must go back to certain earlier rites in which the historical roots of Christian baptism are to be discovered. In the days that preceded the commencement of our Lord's public ministry, the whole land had resounded with a summons to baptism uttered by that great prophet who, because of the prominence which he gave in all his work to this particular rite, was known as John the Baptist. The baptism which Jesus appointed must certainly be interpreted in the light of the baptism of John. It was so that the disciples themselves would inevitably interpret it. Remember that it was from the circle of John's disciples that Jesus drew His first followers, and that Jesus Himself was baptized in the Jordan at John's hands, and almost certainly in the presence of some of those very men to whom the baptismal commission was given. Remember further that, as we learn from John's Gospel, Jesus allowed His disciples in the first stage of His ministry to carry on a work of baptizing on similar lines to those of His forerunner, so that He was even reported to be making and baptizing more disciples than John (John iii. 22, iv. 1, 2). As we keep all this in view, it is evident that when the disciples were told after the resurrection to go forth disciple-making and baptizing, they could not fail to understand this command in the light of that earlier baptism with which John had made them acquainted on the banks of the Jordan, and which they themselves had practised for a time. But when we go back to John's baptism in search of light upon the baptism of Christ, we find that this earlier baptism also has its roots in a remoter past, and can only be understood through a consideration of institutions and ideas with which Israel was already well acquainted at the time when John began his ministry of reformation. No doubt John gave to baptism a depth of meaning it had never had before ; and yet it is plain that under his 56 Baptism instituted by Jesus baptismal doctrine he subsumed ideas which were already present in the minds of those who heard him. Three moments, in particular, in the earlier history of the religion of Israel combine to explain to us the baptism of John as it meets us in the Gospels : ( I ) The theocratic washings of the Jews ; (2) the utterances of the prophets regarding the great Messianic lustration ; (3) the proselyte baptism of the later Jewish Church.1 1. The importance attached to the " divers washings " of the ceremonial law is familiar to every reader of the Old Testament. Not only was it the duty of the priests to wash themselves in preparation for their functions in the sanctuary, but the people also had to perform certain lustrations upon various sorts of occasions, washings not only of the person, but of garments and utensils.2 Some times the religious character of these washings stands clearly in the foreground ; at other times they appear to serve the purpose rather of sanitary prescriptions, or of ceremonial ordinances designed to emphasise the social separation of the Jew from surrounding peoples. But there can be no doubt that underlying them all there was a definite religious purpose. This is made plain by their association with the sacrificial cultus, and also by the fact that both in the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament they are constantly designated by the term Kadapiafioi, which has a distinct religious connotation.3 Now the historical connection between John's baptism and these 1 There is very little ground for the idea, which some have entertained, that John's baptism was genetically connected with the purifications of the Essenes. Nor is there the slightest reason to suppose that John had been influenced by the Pagan Mysteries with their rites of purgation, great as was the influence from that quarter upon the subsequent history of Christian baptism itself. 2 See Lev. xi.-xv. ; Num. xix. 3 Cf. Lev. xiv. 32, xv. 13 ; Mark i. 44 ; Luke ii. 22, v. 14 ; John ii. 6. See Cremer's Biblico- Theological Lexicon, s.vv. KaBapifa and Ka8api Dr. D. W. Forrest, Expository Times, xi. 354. 2 Possibly our Lord's reason for not personally baptizing lay in the purpose to emphasise the distinction between the baptism with water and the baptism with the Holy Ghost (cf. Matt. iii. 2 ; Mark i. 8 ; John i. 33 ; Acts i. 5). 3 So Meyer in his remarks on Matt, xxviii. 19. The only difference he recognises is that after the resurrection baptism was extended so as to apply to all nations. 64 Baptism instituted by Jesus The baptismal work in Judaea of which John tells us must rather be set alongside of that call to repentance and proclamation that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, with which, according to Mark and Matthew, Jesus began His ministry in Galilee (Mark i. 1 5 ; Matt. iv. 1 7). In both cases He was associating Himself for a time with the work of His forerunner. But just as the note of mere preparation soon passed out of the preaching, so, it would seem, this baptism of preparation which Jesus allowed His disciples to continue was soon abandoned also. If baptism had formed part of the regular methods of Christ's ministry, it is hardly possible that there should have been no mention of it in the Synoptic Gospels, especially in the instructions which the Lord gave to the Twelve, and after wards to the Seventy, when He sent them forth in His name (Mark vi. 7 ff '. ; Luke x. 1). But such a thing is never hinted at. We can hardly do other than infer that the baptism which John records was merely a passing phrase of Christ's activity, belonging only to that early period of His ministry when He attached Himself to the work of preparation that was carried on by His forerunner. III. It is in connection with this subject of the baptism of preparation for the kingdom of God as practised by John, and at an early stage by the disciples of Jesus also, that the well-known passage in the third chapter of John's Gospel most naturally comes up for consideration. Here as elsewhere, in dealing with the Johannine account of our Lord's discourses, we have to choose between two opposite views. Either we have in these discourses a correct representation by the evangelist of our Lord's words, if not as to their precise form, at all events as to their meaning and substance, or else we have at best an idealising treatment of them in which the author blends with the original tradition something of his own individual views, and something also of the conceptions of the com- Its Historical Relations and Meaning 65 munity for which he wrote. As has been indicated in the previous lecture, we prefer to abide by the traditional view of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, and also to accept the witness of the original Johannine circle when they say of the evangelist, " We know that his testimony is true " (John xxi. 24). With regard to this particular passage, Wendt makes an interesting suggestion on the lines of his special theory that in the Fourth Gospel we have a genuine Johannine source worked over by a later redactor. In view of the difficulty created by the reference to water in the 5 th verse, while throughout the rest of the passage it is the Spirit alone who appears as the regenerating power, he suggests that in the original record of the incident there was no mention of a birth through water, but that this manifest reference to baptism was inserted by the redactor} This cuts the Gordian knot effectually enough, and explains at once the curious fact, which it is so difficult to account for on any High Church theory of baptism, that the water, though referred to in the 5th verse, thereafter finds no place alongside of the Spirit in what is said about the new birth (vers. 6 and 8), while faith is set forth again and again as the one condition of obtaining eternal life (vers. 15, 1 6, 1 8). This solution, however, though beautifully simple and natural from the point of view of Wendt's theory, has really no textual basis to rest upon, and must therefore be described as a purely arbitrary way of escaping from the exegetical and doctrinal difficulties of the passage. But if we decline to be carried away by arbitrary methods of criticism, however tempting in their seeming simplicity, we must just as little allow ourselves to be imposed upon by arbitrary methods of exegesis. If we regard the words about the birth of water and the Spirit as coming to us from the historical Jesus, we must see that they are inter- 1 See his Teaching of Jesus, ii. 91, and Gospel of John, p. 120, 5 66 Baptism instituted by Jesus preted in the light of the historical situation. Now it is surely not without meaning in this connection that John, who has given us already a particularly full narrative of the ministry of the Baptist, immediately follows up his account of the Nicodemus episode by telling us how Jesus and His disciples took up and carried on John's baptism of preparation (iii. 22-26, iv. 1, 2). This shows that it is in the light of the baptism of John that this episode must be read, and that it is a purely artificial construction to see in it a reference on the part of our Lord to the future sacrament of the Christian Church. When Nicodemus came to Jesus, he came not simply as an individual, but as the representative of a class, as " a man of the Pharisees " and " a ruler of the Jews." His very first words, " We know that Thou art a teacher come from God," show that he was speaking not only for himself but for others. It is evident from all the Gospel narra tives that the Pharisees were greatly exercised at the time concerning Jesus, who and what He was ; and that their concern was largely due to the preparatory ministry and testimony of John. And Nicodemus certainly came to inquire about the expected kingdom of God of which Jesus had been preaching. That plainly underlies his opening words, and it is implied also in the answer which Jesus gave, " Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God."1 Now the phrase "born anew" is so far explained by proselyte baptism, with the ideas and language to which it gave rise ; but it must also be taken with special reference to the baptism of John, which, as we have seen, had now subsumed the ideas suggested 1 That tivwdai in ver. 3 must be taken in the temporal and not in the local sense, i.e. as meaning "anew" and not "from above," is shown by the whole context. Nicodemus so understood it, and was not contradicted by Jesus (cf. vers. 4 and 6). And in ver. 12 what Jesus has said about the spiritual birth is described as belonging to to iiriyma, as distinguished from to itrovp&via. Cf. Cremer, Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre, p. 269. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 67 by the baptism of the proselyte under the new category of a baptism of preparation for the Messiah's kingdom. The Pharisees as a class had refused to submit to John's baptism. Luke tells us expressly that while the people and the publicans " justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John," " the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptized of him" (Luke vii. 29, 30). And the reasons for this refusal to submit to John's baptism are made clear enough in Matthew's narrative (Matt. iii. 7-12). When the Pharisees came to the Jordan, John met them with high and stern demands for repentance, a visible repentance manifesting itself in appropriate fruits. And he went on to show his clear insight into the grounds of their reluctance to yield to these demands, when he warned them not to say within themselves, " We have Abraham to our father." To those proud, self-righteous Jewish formal ists it seemed a thing incredible that the sons of Abraham, before being fit for the Messianic kingdom, should be called upon to submit, like any Gentile proselyte or Jewish publican, to a process of being " born anew." And it is this same Pharisaic resentment of the demand for an ethical preparation, this same positive inability to see its appli cation to men like himself, that breathes through the answer of Nicodemus : " How can a man be born when he is old ? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born ? " Whether Nicodemus was speaking confusedly, as some have thought, " not knowing what he said," like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, or whether there is not rather a certain intention of irony at the idea of this demand for a new birth in such a case as his own, at all events Jesus followed up His first answer by saying more explicitly, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God " (ver. 5). 68 Baptism instituted by Jesus Now, if anything is clear in the whole of this difficult passage, it is that these words are meant to be explana tory of what has been already said in ver. 3. By the use of the specific expressions " water " and " Spirit," Jesus desires to make perfectly plain to His perplexed or un willing hearer what has been already said in the earlier verse. And when at ver. 10 He looks back on His own utterances and asks, " Art thou the teacher of Israel, and understandest not these things ? " He undoubtedly implies that the things of which He has spoken are things which this Pharisee ought to have understood. How strange, then, on the part of any who regard John's narrat ive as genuinely historical, to make the words of Jesus about the birth of water and the Spirit the fundamental description of the inherent qualities of the sacrament of Christian baptism, a subject of which Nicodemus could not possibly have the slightest conception.1 Calvin is sometimes treated rather contemptuously by Catholicising writers for regarding vBaro'i Kal trvevfiaro'i as a hendiadys, analogous to " with the Holy Ghost and fire " in Matthew's Gospel (iii. 1 1).2 And most probably Calvin was mistaken here. For, unlike the expression in Matthew, the present one appears on a background in which the two associated terms find their natural explanation in two distinct con crete historical facts, the baptism of John, namely, and John's proclamation of the Messianic baptism of the Holy Ghost, by which his own was to be transcended. But the 1 It is sometimes argued that the use of the indefinite tis in vers. 3 and 5 implies that our Lord was laying down the universal conditions of salvation ; and that therefore His reference must have been to the future sacrament of the Catholic Church. But nothing is more common, whether in Greek or in any other language, than to use an indefinite pronoun in a sense which is limited by the speaker's audience and circumstances. And it would be very strange if tis was meant to refer to the conditions of salvation for men in general at a future time, while it excluded for the present Nicodemus himself, this particular inquirer after the way of salvation, by setting before him, as the condition of a new birth, a sacrament that as yet had no existence. 2 See Institutes, iv. 16, § 25. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 69 curious thing is that some of the very writers who ridicule Calvin's hendiadys immediately make use of a hendiadys of a much more violent kind, for they treat the two con trasted moments of John's baptism with water and Christ's baptism with the Holy Ghost as if they were simply equivalent to the sacrament of Christian baptism. Calvin's view, as we have said, does not do full justice to the historical background ; but this view violates every element of the historical situation in the most arbitrary fashion, by making Jesus discourse to a Pharisee about a sacrament of which, so far as we are aware, He did not speak to His own disciples until after His resurrection, and do so, moreover, on the express assumption that the Pharisee ought to have known perfectly well what was meant ! Now it is true, as commentators have frequently pointed out, that the absence of the article before both v&aros and ¦n-vevfiaTos indicates that the words should be taken generic- ally. Our Lord's utterance here is not limited to one definite institution, least of all to an institution that as yet did not exist. Water is the natural symbol of spiritual cleansing, and Spirit the only possible principle of a new life. Still, this generic use of the words does not in the least preclude their having a particular applica tion, if that application was one which the hearer would naturally and almost inevitably be led to make. The mention of a birth by water could not fail to suggest to Nicodemus the baptism of John, that baptism of which the whole land had been speaking, but which the Pharisees as a class had rejected for themselves. And when Jesus said to this man of the Pharisees, " Except a man be born of water," He was speaking of the necessity, even for such persons as Nicodemus himself, of that baptism of repentance with its renunciation of the past, by which, John had said, men must prepare themselves for the king dom of God. We must remember that John's baptism 70 Baptism instituted by Jesus was no arbitrary expedient of his own devising, but an ordinance which he had been divinely inspired to employ. When he began that great baptismal ministry, he did so with the full consciousness of a heavenly call. He be lieved, as he proclaimed, that God had " sent him to baptize with water" (John i. 33). And Jesus abundantly ratified John's claim. He ratified it when He came to Bethany beyond Jordan to be Himself baptized, and when He said to His forerunner, who hesitated to administer the rite to such an applicant, " Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. iii. 15). He ratified it afterwards when He declared that John the Baptist " came in the way of righteousness " ; and when He gave as the reason why the publicans and harlots went into the king dom of God before the chief priests and the elders of the people, that the publicans and harlots believed John, while the priests and elders believed him not (Matt. xxi. 32). And once again He set His seal to it when He asked the Pharisees that question which they found it so awkward to answer, " The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?" (Mark xi. 30). And to the testimony which both John himself and Jesus gave as to the divine obligation of this baptism of repentance, we have to add the testi mony of an evangelist ; for Luke tells us, in words which I have already quoted, that the Pharisees and lawyers, by refusing John's baptism, had " rejected for themselves the counsel of God." 1 This, then, was the first way in which Nicodemus and his fellows must seek that new birth which was the condi tion of entrance into the kingdom of God. They must not reject the counsel of God any longer, they must not harden their hearts in Pharisaic pride ; but must come 1 These words are sometimes regarded as the words of Jesus, but there can be little doubt that they are a historical reflection of the evangelist. Cf. Bruce, Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 7 1 humbly and penitently to that baptism of repentance which they in fact especially needed, and which was for them the divinely appointed way of preparing for the kingdom that was about to appear. But that was not all. The baptism of repentance, as the symbol of a dying to the past, was only the negative side of the new birth; and Nicodemus himself, as the teacher of Israel, knew, or ought to have known, as much. The prophets of Israel had testified that a new heart and a new spirit were to be the results of the bestowal of the Spirit of God (Ezek. xxxvi. 25-27); and John had assured his hearers most emphatically that his baptism was only a baptism with water, while He that came after should baptize them with the Holy Ghost. He had said this to the deputation from that very Sanhedrin of which Nicodemus was a member, and had even indicated Jesus as the Coming One from whose hands this spiritual gift should proceed (John i. 19-34). But what did John mean by the phrase " to baptize with the Holy Ghost " ? High Churchmen constantly assume that on the lips of the Baptist these words mean nothing else than baptizing with water in the power of the Holy Ghost; in other words, that they are equivalent to Christian baptism in the ritualistic conception of its mysterious efficacy.1 But there is absolutely no ground for supposing that John was contrasting water baptism minus the Spirit with water baptism plus the Spirit ; the contrast he draws is between his own baptism with water on the one hand, and Christ's baptism with the Holy Ghost on the other.2 To make 1 See, e.g., Althaus, Heilsbedeutung der Taufe, p. I2f. ; Rackham, Acts, p. 30. 2 It is plainly a very large assumption to conclude that while " baptizing with water " simply means baptizing with water, "baptizing with the Holy Ghost " does not simply mean baptizing with the Holy Ghost, but baptizing with water in the power of the Holy Ghost. This is to assume that fiaTTiCw necessarily connotes the idea of water baptism , whether ev OSan is added or not. But the use of the word in the New Testament shows that this is not the case. When Jesus said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished " 7 2 Baptism instituted by Jesus the assumption of these writers is not only to treat John's language unexegetically, by constructing the synthesis " water baptism in the power of the Spirit " out of his antithesis between the baptism of water and the baptism of the Spirit, but it is to presuppose that John, who, according to our Lord Himself, was less than the least in the kingdom of heaven, possessed a definite foreknow ledge of the institutions of the Christian Church ; and it is further to presuppose that John by anticipation was a High Churchman. When John spoke of baptizing with the Holy Ghost, it is hardly possible to suppose that he was referring to a future sacrament of the Christian Church. And when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus of the baptism of water and the Spirit, it is exceedingly unlikely, to say the least, that He was referring any more than John had done to the subsequent Christian institution. By the mention of water He impressed upon His hearer the need of repentance, and of that definite and open repentance which was implied in John's baptism ; and by dwelling upon the baptism of the Spirit He reminded him of the further need for the gift of life itself, a need of which John also had spoken, but for which he had pointed away from himself to the coming Messiah. To the negative cleansing symbolised by water there must be added the positive life that comes from God, that spiritual life by the inflow of which the stony heart should be taken away and the heart of flesh bestowed. " How can these things be ? " Nicodemus exclaimed. And Jesus told him of a way to life which was valid there and then, long before the (Luke xii. 50), and again, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ? " (Mark x. 38), it is evident that the word is used figuratively. Similarly, when the forerunner announced that Christ would baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt. iii. 1 1), this baptism with fire certainly does not mean a baptism with water — all the more as it is set in express antithesis to the baptism of John himself. Its Historical Relations and Meaning 73 Christian sacrament was instituted, or perhaps even thought of by Jesus, and that is valid now, apart from baptism altogether. For whosoever believeth, He said, in the Son of Man may have eternal life (ver. 15). IV. And now, having sought to show that baptism as an institution comes to us from Jesus Christ Himself, and having spoken of those earlier baptisms which, while they are certainly insufficient to account for the origin of the Christian rite apart from our Lord's appointment, have yet a very direct bearing upon its meaning, let us examine more closely the baptismal command as we find it at the end of Matthew's Gospel (xxviii. 19). It is unnecessary to dwell upon the fact that this was a missionary com mission, and that even if it was given to the Eleven alone, which, however, is doubtful in view of the statements of Luke and John (Luke xxiv. 33, 47; John xx. 19 ff.), at all events it was given to them as representative of the whole company of Christian believers that had gathered round the Lord, and of the whole Christian Ecclesia of the future.1 Now, the essential task which Jesus here lays upon His followers is expressed in the word ^.adrjTev- aare, i.e. they are to make men His fiadrjTai. But l^aOrfTr]^ is the very word which is constantly used to express the relation to Jesus of all those who during His ministry were drawn around Him in trust and teachable ness, and who looked to Him as their Master. Not to go beyond the present chapter and the concluding part of the previous one, we read of Joseph of Arimathea that he " also himself was Jesus' disciple " {ifiadrjTevae) ; while the " also " in this verse evidently points back to the ministering women of the two preceding verses, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and who are thus indicated as His disciples likewise. The angel of the resurrection 1 See Westcott, Gospel of St. John, p. 294 ; Hort, Christian Ecclesia, P- 33 ft 74 Baptism instituted by Jesus is represented as saying to the two Marys, " Go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead " ; and they, on receiving this message, " run to bring His disciples word." Finally, the very men to whom Jesus gives the great commission to make disciples are them selves described as " the eleven fj,adr]TaL" It is natural, then, to conclude that fiadrjrevetv in the commission means to bring men into those same relations of personal trust in Jesus in which His disciples already stood, and to do so by the use of means similar to those which Jesus had been wont to employ in drawing disciples around Him, and which the apostles had already employed when Jesus sent them forth to preach the gospel throughout the villages of Galilee (Luke ix. i— 6), or when at the beginning of the ministry Andrew brought Simon to Jesus, and Philip said to Nathanael, " Come and see." Not the slightest hint is given that these spiritual methods of disciple-making, which had been used all along, were to be abandoned now. Now, as formerly, men must be drawn into the circle of discipleship by hearing the message of the gospel, and by believing it. The fiadr/Teva-aTe of the commission, accordingly, im plies a previous KTjpvyfxa — an announcement of the glad tidings, and a summons to faith as the fundamental means of bringing any one into the personal relation of discipleship to Christ. We are confirmed in this conclusion by the parallel passage in the last section of Mark, as given in the Textus Receptus (xvi. 15, 16). Even if it does not furnish us with an original logion of Jesus, it is at all events of very early date, and reflects a primitive, perhaps an apostolic, tradition as to the nature and meaning of the Lord's commission. Now in Mark the command runs, " Go and preach the gospel," while faith in this gospel is made an indispensable condition of salvation, indeed, to judge from the second clause of ver. 16, the one indis- Its Historical Relations and Meaning 75 pensable condition. Similarly at the end of Luke, in the last instructions which Jesus gives to the Eleven and those that were with them, He declares " that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations" (xxiv. 33, 47). In correspondence with this, too, is the whole practice of the apostles in their subsequent ministry. It is evident that they regarded the work of evangelisation as the first step towards disciple- making, and the " hearing of faith " as the necessary pre liminary to baptism. We have an illustration of what must have been their normal course of procedure when we read of Paul and Barnabas at Derbe, that " when they had preached the gospel (evayyeXtad/Mevot), and had made many disciples (fjLad-t]TevaavT€eaiv dfiapTi6~>v, he says, '' can by no means affirm a sin-cleansing power inherent in the same, but can only point to forgive ness as a blessing that is had in view in the performance of the rite." x Peter's meaning, accordingly, is that his hearers are to repent, and, looking in faith to Jesus Christ, are to be baptized with a baptism which points to the remission of sins. There is nothing in his words to imply that since the days of John the Baptist the outward rite had assumed a higher relative importance alongside of repentance and faith than it had possessed in the days of the Forerunner. And then he adds, " and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Now here, again, the assumption is con stantly made that the apostle's language implies that it was through the medium of baptism that the gift of the Holy Ghost was to be communicated. But, as a matter of mere grammatical construction, it seems evident that the second part of the verse depends upon the whole of the first part, and not merely upon the words " be baptized." That is, Peter promises the gift of the Holy Ghost to those who believe and repent and are baptized. And we have already seen that, of the three things which he demands, faith and repentance are primary and fundamental, while baptism is secondary and symbolic. It is further to be remarked that this is not only the natural interpretation of the words from the exegetical point of view, but the only one which is in keeping with the historical situation. Peter and the rest had received the gift of the Spirit, not through any water-baptism, but as the direct reward of a faith that clung to the Lord Jesus, and waited patiently for the fulfilment of His promise. How unlikely, then, especially in view of the fact that nothing is said in the words of institution about baptism 1 Op. cit., p. 13. 90 Baptism : General Apostolic being the medium of this wonderful gift, that they should imagine that what they themselves had obtained by an immediate bestowal from above was to be communicated to others through the performance of an outward rite. Rather, we must hold that in the view of the apostle the essential conditions of the blessing were the same for the three thousand and for the hundred and twenty, namely, a sincere and penitent faith expressed in outward confession ; while for these new disciples the confession was to be made and sealed through the use of this rite which the Lord Himself had ordained, and had ordained neither as a mere arbitrary ceremony nor as a miraculous channel of grace, but because of its symbolic value and its significance as an initiatory rite for those who from time to time should be drawn by the testimony of His disciples into the fellowship of the Christian Church. It is in keeping with this view, which makes faith, not baptism, the fundamental means of receiving the distinctive Christian gifts, that the members of the young community are described immediately afterwards as " all they that believed " (ver. 44). Indeed, it is worth noting, for it is not a little suggestive, that throughout the whole Book of Acts the term " baptized " is never once used as a general desig nation of those who belonged to the Christian community.1 Christians are called " believers " (v. 1 4), they are referred to as "they that believed" (ii. 44, iv. 32, x. 45, xxii. 19); they are continually called " the brethren," " the disciples," " the saints " ; but on no single occasion are they described as " the baptized." And the fact is all the more suggestive because, as baptism was the rite of initiation into a visible 1 Here, moreover, we have clearly one of those " contemporary notes " which are never to be lost sight of in reading the Book of Acts. For while, as an accurate historian, Luke faithfully sets down the facts as he ascertained them, the phrases in which he describes the facts give us glimpses into his own mind and the minds of his contemporaries. Not only in the earliest days of the Church, then, but at the time when this book was written, the characteristic de signations of Christians had no reference to their baptism. Practice and Doctrine 9 1 community, and the outward sign and seal of an inward faith, it would have been so natural to describe the members of the community in terms of this distinguishing rite, just as, under the old covenant, men were described as circum cised or uncircumcised, in terms of the distinguishing cere mony of Judaism. But in Acts we have nothing that corresponds to this. Men are never called either the bap tized on the one hand, or the unbaptized on the other. And this goes to confirm what has been already said regarding the relation of baptism to faith in the preaching and practice of the earliest Church. This view is still further confirmed when we pass to the following chapter, and find that the hortatory part of Peter's sermon in Solomon's porch is summed up in the words, " Repent ye, therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord " (iii. 1 9). Here there is no mention of baptism whatever ; and when we are told in the beginning of the fourth chapter that the result of this second sermon was that " many of them which heard the word believed, and the number of the men was about five thousand " (iv. 4), there is a similar absence of any refer ence to baptism in connection with these fresh accessions to the Church. This does not show, of course, that baptism was not demanded and administered, for demanded and administered it assuredly would be. But it points, at all events, to the conclusion that baptism was not regarded either by Peter or by the author of Acts as the very medium of salvation, since otherwise it could hardly have failed to obtain on such an occasion a central place both in the original preaching and in the historical record.1 1 It is frequently said that the reason why baptism is referred to in the apostolic sermons with such infrequency, as compared with faith, is that it is taken for granted as the sine qud non of Christianity. That it is taken for granted is doubtless true, for genuine faith in those days was invariably followed by a confession of faith, and confession was sealed in baptism. But surely it is 9 2 Baptism : General Apostolic The next passage that specially concerns us is the account of the mission to Samaria in the eighth chapter (vers. 4—25). Various matters of interest meet us here. We notice, first, that the way in which baptism is spoken of, both in the case of the Samaritans generally and in the special case of Simon the sorcerer (vers. 1 2 and 1 3), does not imply anything more than this, that the rite of baptism was administered to those who made profession of their Christian faith. It is not even hinted that any mysterious communication of grace was bound up with the ordinance, whether the forgiveness of sins or the gift of the Holy Spirit. In view of his previous statements, we can only understand the historian to mean that, having professed their faith in Jesus' name, these believers were baptized into that name, and so were reckoned among Christ's disciples. But in Simon Magus we have the case of a man whose profession soon turned out to be unworthy and unreal ; and Peter's language shows quite plainly that, because of this, Simon's baptism availed him nothing. No gift of grace had come to him through the administration of the rite. He was still " in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." Nor is it possible to make any deduction in favour of a ritualistic inter pretation of the incident from the fact that Peter does not call upon him to be rebaptized, but only to repent ; as if this suggested that by means of the sacrament Simon had received, after all, some hidden germ of blessing which at some future time might grow into fulness of life. To speak in this way is really to argue without premises. We might as well say that because Peter in Solomon's porch a mistake to argue in a case like the present from silence to comparative import ance, especially in view of the fact that to Peter's audience the idea that baptism was the medium of the forgiveness of sins and of the gift of the Holy Ghost would be entirely novel. It is worth noting that baptism is far more prominent in the recorded ministry of John the Baptist than in that of the apostles, a fact which it is difficult to reconcile with the High Church theory of the relative values of the two baptisms. Practice and Doctrine 93 summoned his audience to repentance and conversion, but said nothing about baptism, he therefore held that in the case of the converts of that day the rite might be dispensed with. The truth is, that Peter's silence regarding baptism, in the one case as in the other, proves nothing except this, that in all his preaching, faith and repentance were the things he thought of first of all, and most of all. With regard to the visit of Peter and John to Samaria, and the reception of the Holy Ghost by Philip's converts, we must set aside as altogether untenable the idea that the two apostles came from Jerusalem in a capacity of formal authority as representing an " Apostolic College," and that they came to administer a sacrament of confirma tion which could only be imparted by apostolic hands, and without which those Samaritan believers would have lacked something that was essential to their Christianity. Such an idea is a pure anachronism, an ascription to the Church of the apostles of the ways and thoughts of a later age. Instead of bishops being in these respects the successors of the apostles, it is nearer the truth, as Professor McGiffert remarks, to say that the apostles have been made the successors of the bishops.1 The fact that Peter and John are said to have been sent by the apostles (ver. 14) must be read in the light of other statements with regard to still more important occasions than the conversion of the Samaritans. It is " the apostles and brethren " to whom the news is brought of the admission to the Church of Cor nelius and his friends (xi. 1 ) ; it is " they of the circum cision " to whom Peter explains his action at Caesarea (xi. 2) ; it is " the Church which was in Jerusalem " that sends out Barnabas as a delegate to the Christians of Antioch (xi. 22); it is "the apostles and elders with the 1 History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, p. 97. Cf. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populdren Anschauung der apostolischen Zeit, p. 48. 94 Baptism : General Apostolic whole Church " who discuss the question whether Gentile Christians are to be circumcised or not (xv. 22). It is hardly legitimate, therefore, to maintain that the visit of the two apostles to Samaria goes to prove the claim on the part of an apostolic college to be possessed of an absolute official authority, and also of a mysterious power of communicating necessary grace. If in this case the apostles acted in dependently of the rest of the brethren, an explanation may be found in the circumstance mentioned in the 1st verse of the chapter, that at that time the members of the Jerusalem Church " were all scattered abroad throughout the regions X>{ Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles." And whatever the Twelve may have done on this occasion, it is perfectly evident that on similar and not less important occasions it was the Church as a whole by which action was taken. As for the imposition of hands (ver. 17), it was no formal rite of apostolic confirmation, but a piece of natural and beautiful symbolism accompanying prayer (ver. 15). It had come down from Old Testament times (Gen. xlviii. 14; Deut. xxxiv. 9); it was used by Jesus in blessing little children ; Ananias, an obscure Christian of Damascus, employed it in connection with the baptism of Paul ; and so did the prophets and teachers of Antioch in sending out Paul and Barnabas^ on their missionary enterprise. Bishop Gore, indeed, says that " the narrative of the Acts assures us that the apostles laid their hands on all Chris tians after their baptism, in order by this means, to impart to them that gift of the Holy Ghost which is the essence of the Christian life." 1 But so far is this from being a correct statement of the testimony of Acts, that in the great majority of cases in which it mentions baptism, there is not the faintest suggestion of such a thing as the apostolic laying-on of hands, while in some cases — for example, those of Paul, the Ethiopian eunuch, and the first 1 The Church and the Ministry, pp. 257, 25S. Practice and Doctrine 95 converts at Antioch — such a procedure is manifestly ex cluded.1 We have no reason, accordingly, to suppose that the visit of Peter and John to Samaria was due to the fact that Philip's converts lacked the very " essence of the Christian life " until the apostles had laid their hands upon them. Their errand rather was analogous to that of Barnabas to Antioch, as recorded in a later chapter (xi. 22—24). It lS amply accounted for by the interest felt in Jerusalem in a situation so novel as the reception into the Christian fellowship of a non-Jewish community; and perhaps, we may add, by the earlier associations of Peter and John with Samaria in particular, in the days when they had followed their Master (Luke ix. 52 ff., xvii. 1 1 ff. ; John iv.). But how are we to understand the statement (vers. 15-17) that as yet the Holy Ghost was fallen (eVtTre7rrft)/<;o?) upon none of them, and that they were only baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus ; but that when the apostles prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, and laid their hands upon them, the gift was bestowed ? We cannot take this to mean that the Samaritans, up to this point, had not re ceived the essential gift of spiritual life, that they were still, in fact, unregenerate persons. The advocates of a doctrine of baptismal regeneration should be at one here 1 Mr. Knowling says, "Undoubtedly there are cases of baptism (Actsii. 41 ; xvi. 15, 33) where no reference is made to a subsequent performance of this rite, but in these cases it must be remembered that the baptizer was an apostle, and that when this was the case its observance might fairly be assumed " (Expositor's Greek Testament, ii. 217). This statement is doubly misleading. In the first place, it assumes that in all cases of baptism where no reference is made to a subsequent performance of the rite of confirmation, the persons who baptized were apostles. What, then, of the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip the Evangelist, of Paul by Ananias, and even of Cornelius and his friends, not by Peter but by some person or persons unknown ? In the second place, it appears to assume that where an apostle was present at a baptism he was himself the baptizer. But this also very obviously was not the case (cf. Acts x. 48 and I Cor. i. 14-16). As a matter of fact, there is not a single instance in the Book of Acts from beginning to end in which it is expressly intimated of any apostle that he personally performed the act of baptism. 96 Baptism : General Apostolic with those who believe in regeneration through faith, for these men had not only believed but been baptized (ver. 1 2). Besides, when we leave out of sight the special case of Simon Magus, the narrative does not permit us to doubt that the Samaritan believers were already regenerate men (cf. vers. 8, 12, 14). Notice, especially, that when it is said that Samaria "had received the word of God," this is the very same phrase as is applied to Cornelius and his companions after they had believed, and received the Holy Ghost, and been admitted by baptism into the membership of the Church (xi. 1). What the apostles besought in prayer, therefore, on behalf of the Samaritan converts, was not what Bishop Gore calls " the essence of the Christian life," but an outward manifestation, what Paul calls a cpaveptocts (1 Cor. xii. 7), of the indwelling Spirit in those visible and striking forms which had been witnessed in Jerusalem, and which in the early days of the Church were looked upon as the most convincing and satisfactory evi dence of the possession of the Holy Ghost.1 The words e7ri7re7rTQ)«o? (ver. 1 6) and IBcov (ver. 1 8), and the fact that even so unspiritual a person as Simon Magus perceived the manifestation of the Spirit, all show that it is something outward and startling to which the narrative refers. The prayer of the apostles was that the Holy Spirit, who already dwelt in the hearts of those men through faith, might be manifested in charismatic ways, so that not only the Samaritan believers themselves, but all others, might know that the ascended Lord was owning and endowing 1 Weiss (Biblical Theology of the N. T., i. 182) and Gunkel (Die XVirkungen des heiligen Geistes, pp. 6, 7) overstate the case when they say that in Acts the Spirit nowhere appears as the principle of the Christian life, a conception for which we have to turn to Paul with his doctrine of the Spirit as the regenerating and sanctifying power. But it is so far true that in Acts the Spirit mainly comes before us not as the essence of the regenerate life, but as a special supernatural endowment by which the possession of essential Christianity is demonstrated, and believers at the same time are equipped in extraordinary ways (prophecy, miracle, etc.) for Christian service. Practice and Doctrine 97 the Church in Samaria no less signally than He had already owned and endowed the mother Church in Jerusalem.1 The story of the Ethiopian eunuch, recorded in the latter part of the eighth chapter (26-39), supports the view we have just taken with regard to Philip's converts in Samaria, namely, that they had not to wait for the im position of apostolic hands before becoming Christians in the fullest sense of the word.2 For otherwise we should have to infer in the case of this eunuch, who was passing south on his way to Ethiopia when Philip met him in the desert, that the joy with which he went upon his way after parting from the evangelist was a littte premature, since he had not received that gift of confirmation which is supposed by some to amount to the very essence of Christianity ; and we must remember that there were no apostles in Ethiopia from whose hands he might hope to obtain it. The narrative, however, leaves little room for inferences which in any way would unchristianize this interesting convert. And with regard to his baptism, it is worth noticing that it was the eunuch himself who proposed it, and who took the initiative in the whole matter ; a fact which is made still clearer when verse 3 7 1 Gore assumes ' ' that this bestowal of the Holy Ghost was only accompanied by the special charismata of prophesying, tongues, etc., while its essence lay in the bestowal of that presence which is permanent in the Christian Church, and which makes the Christian the temple of God." And this bestowal was "medi ated by the same laying-on of hands " ; confirmation was " nothing less than the instrument of divine bestowal" (The Church and the Ministry, pp. 258, 259). Language such as this appears inconsistent not only with the teaching of the N.T. as to the efficacy of faith, but even with the views of Dr. Gore himself as to the efficacy of baptism. For "baptismal regeneration" is really stripped of its meaning if it does not include, in some form or other, the bestowal of essen tial Christian life. 2 The eunuch is sometimes referred to as the first Gentile convert. But his journey to Jerusalem as a worshipper, and his study of the prophet Isaiah, cer tainly suggest that, if not a born Jew, he was at least a proselyte. No doubt Deuteronomy xxiii. I would seem to exclude the possibility of any eunuch being received into the congregation of Israel. But it is not certain that the prohibi tion was strictly enforced (cf. Isa. lvi. 3-5) ; and in any case we must remember that evvovxos is sometimes employed simply as an official designation. 7 98 Baptism: General Apostolic is omitted, as in the Revised Text. Baptism, then, accord ing to this narrative, was not a rite to which a man passively submitted, but an act in which his will as well as his faith was strongly involved. It was, in fact, the point at which feeling passed into deed, and faith blossomed into open confession. And though verse 37 appears to be a later gloss, possibly a formula of question and answer that had come to be used by way of a baptismal confession, it does not do more than express what the rest of the narrative already implies, that the eunuch was a man of hearty faith, and a man who desired in baptism to make confession of that Jesus whom the evangelist had just been preaching to him. Reserving for the next lecture the account of Paul's conversion in the ninth chapter of Acts, we come now to the incidents which took place in the house of Cornelius. To the primitive Church this was an episode of immense significance, involving as it did the free opening of the door to the Gentiles ; and the sense of its importance is evidenced by the detailed and repeated references to it which are given by the historian. The events at Caesarea seem to corroborate in a very striking manner the con clusions to which we have already been led regarding the place that was assigned to baptism in the preaching and practice of the apostles. Observe, in the first place, that the address which Peter delivered in the centurion's house concludes with the words, " Whosoever believeth in Him (i.e. in Jesus Christ) shall receive remission of sins." In summing up his gospel message, then, Peter gives faith a solitary position as the instrument of salvation, and makes no mention whatever of baptism.1 Observe, again, that 1 It is true that Peter had not said all he meant to say when he was inter rupted by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit (cf. x. 44, xi. 15). But nothing can be made of this circumstance to the advantage of a ritualistic interpretation of the passage. The fact that the apostle broke off his address without any reference to baptism is only the more significant if the responsibility for it is transferred from Peter himself to the Holy Ghost. Practice and Doctrine 99 the faith of Cornelius and his friends (cf. xi. 1 7 and xv. 9) was accepted by God, though they had not been baptized ; for while Peter was yet speaking, and before baptism had been so much as alluded to, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word.1 Now, with regard to this case of Cornelius, the attempt is constantly made to explain away or minimise the very striking fact that the Holy Ghost was bestowed prior to the baptismal act, and quite independently of its adminis tration. Dr. Moberly, indeed, with characteristic boldness, goes much further, and affirms that " the principle that Spirit-baptism was not to be without water is never en forced quite so strongly as when Cornelius and his com panions, even after they had first (for special reasons) received the presence of the Holy Ghost — a presence made manifest by miracle — were nevertheless ordered to be baptized."2 What Dr. Moberly means by "the principle that Spirit-baptism was not to be without water " is ex plained on an earlier page, where he speaks more generally of " the principle that inward acts through outward, grace through means of grace, Spirit through Body."3 And this is the principle which " is never enforced quite so strongly " as in the case of Cornelius and his companions ; although, in point of fact, on that occasion the inward acted immedi ately without any intervention of the outward, grace was be stowed without any sacramental means of grace, the Spirit came down upon those believers through no bodily medium whatsoever ! But Dr. Moberly apart, writers of his school usually treat the case of the household at Caesarea as the solitary exception to a general rule, and attribute its ex ceptional character to the divine purpose of opening the 1 In this case the coming of the Holy Ghost undoubtedly implied the bestowal of the essential Christian life, inasmuch as these persons, up to this point, had been heathens. But on this occasion the essential gift was immediately accom panied by outward manifestations of a charismatic nature. 2 Ministerial Priesthood, p. 108. 3 Ibid., p. 106. 100 Baptism: General Apostolic eyes of the mother Church at Jerusalem to the novel and strange idea that, without circumcision or any preliminary training in the school of Jewish proselytism, a Gentile might be admitted into the kingdom of God. As a matter of fact, however, the events at Caesarea opened the eyes of the Church to this great truth in entire independence of the question whether or not, in this particular case, there was a departure from the customary ordo salutis. In the subsequent references to what took place in the house of Cornelius, it is not the descent of the Spirit previous to baptism that is ever represented as impressing those who heard of it, but the fact that the Spirit should have been given to uncircumcised Gentiles at all. And further, it must be remembered that the case was not so absolutely exceptional as is frequently assumed ; for, as we have pointed out already, it was a repetition in the experience of the first Gentile Christians of what took place at Pente cost in the experience of the first Jewish Christians, namely, a baptism with the Spirit independently of any baptism with water. This did not mean, however, that water-baptism might now be ignored. The Lord had appointed it to be used in connection with all new disciple-making, and so Peter commanded it to be performed, even in the case of these Spirit-filled converts. The case of Cornelius and his friends, accordingly, furnishes no argument against the observance of the sacrament, but it certainly points to a very definite conclusion as to its nature, and goes to show that baptism was not the medium of regenerating grace. The cases of the one hundred and twenty Jewish disciples in the upper room, and of this Gentile company at Caesarea, are exceptional, no doubt ; but they are exceptional chiefly in the sense in which all beginnings are exceptional, a sense which makes them at the same time typical, in regard to all essential matters, for every case that follows. These two parallel episodes, therefore, may be held as proving to Practice and Doctrine i o i us, alike for the Jew and the Gentile, that it is not through the channel of water-baptism that the gifts of the Spirit are communicated to the soul. And now notice what Peter says regarding the baptism of these Spirit-filled persons : " Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ? " That is, he looks upon baptism as a privilege which ought not to be withheld from them, in view of the proofs already given of their possession of the Spirit. Their baptism was not the channel of any mysterious grace, but the symbol, on the one hand, of that remission of sins, through faith in Jesus Christ, of which the apostle had just preached to them ; 1 and a token, on the other, appointed by the Lord Himself, of their admission into the visible community, and their right, uncircumcised Gentiles though they were, to all the prerogatives of the Christian brotherhood. Nor is it without significance that Peter apparently did not baptize these converts with his own hands. His conduct at Caesarea, even on such a special occasion, reminds us of Paul's ordinary practice at Corinth (i Cor. i. 14—17). If either the one apostle or the other had held that baptism was the actual conveyance of saving blessings which in the preaching of the word are only offered, would he not in evitably have magnified the office of baptizing above that of preaching? But evidently neither of them did this. Paul did not, as we know from his own direct statements. And with regard to Peter, while it is quite possible that he sometimes took a personal part, just as Paul occasionally did, in the work of baptizing, it is yet the fact that he is never once said to have done so.2 1 Cf. xi. 17, xv. 8, 9, for the emphasis that is laid on the fact of their faith. 2 Mr. Rackham explains the circumstance that the apostles appear in general not to have personally administered the sacrament, by saying that in this respect they were following their Lord's example (John iv. 2). This is so far true. But notice the immense difference between the preparatory baptism of repentance 102 Baptism: General Apostolic The view we have taken of the narrative in the tenth chapter of Acts is confirmed by the chapter following, where we find Peter back in Jerusalem, and giving an account to the Church of the events at Caesarea (xi. 1-18). It is noteworthy that throughout the narrative the fact that by his orders those Caesarean converts had been baptized is never once alluded to. The news that came to the apostles and brethren in Judaea was not that certain Gentiles had been baptized, as one would expect if their baptism was the essential matter, but " that the Gentiles also had received the word of God." The charge brought against Peter by those of the circumcision who were in clined to find fault with his conduct was not that he had administered the saving rite of baptism to uncircumcised men, but that he had eaten at the same table with them. And when the apostle expounds the whole matter in order to his brethren, he does not so much as refer to the per formance of the baptismal rite, but sees in what took place in the house of Cornelius a Pentecost of the Gentiles, a repetition of the wonders of that momentous day when the Holy Spirit came down upon the first disciples like tongues of fire. This is the point that he emphasises again and again. " The Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning." " Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." " God gave them the like gift as He did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus" (vers. 15-17). Is it not made plain, by these reiterated parallels which Peter draws between the events in the house of the centurion and those in the upper room in Jerusalem, that he does not mean that the gift which carried on by Christ's disciples during His early ministry and this Christian baptism as Mr. Rackham himself regards it. On a previous page he has said : " There was a great difference between the two baptisms. One was the shadow, the other the substance. One was with water only, the other with water and the Holy Ghost" (Acts, pp. 30 and ^3). Practice and Doctrine 1 03 God bestowed upon Cornelius and the rest was mediated or in any way conditioned by the rite of water-baptism ? And when he goes on to ask, " Who was I that I could withstand God ? " it is impossible to understand him to say, " Who was I that I could withhold from those men the gift of the Spirit which God meant them to receive ? " For they had that gift already, and it was Peter's neither to withhold nor to impart. His words can only mean, " Who was I that I could withstand God's evident intention that the Church should recognise those Spirit-filled believers as true Christians, and should welcome them into the brotherhood in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the use of the appointed ordinance ? " And not less sug gestive than Peter's words is the language employed by the disciples in Jerusalem when they had received the apostle's statement. They glorified God, not because the Gentiles had received the grace of baptism, but because, as they said, " to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life " (ver. 1 8). We have yet another account in Acts of that memorable day at Caesarea, and once more it is Peter himself who is the narrator. His final utterance was made at the cele brated conference in Jerusalem, of which we are told in the fifteenth chapter. The question before the assembly was whether or not Gentile Christians ought to be circumcised. And what does Peter say ? His words are worth quoting somewhat fully : " Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us ; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith" (vers. 7-9). And further on he adds, " But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in like manner as 104 Baptism: General Apostolic they" (ver. n). Not only is baptism not mentioned, not only is the Holy Ghost said to have been directly bestowed, but the cleansing from sin is described as the simple result of faith. And more even than that. Speaking to a gathering which included the apostles and elders of the Judaean Church and the delegates from Antioch, the representatives, i.e. of both Jewish and Gentile Christianity, Peter claimed that in these respects the experience of Cornelius and his friends was in no wise exceptional. The Holy Ghost was given to them " even as unto us " ; and God " made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith." Could we have a clearer indication of the fact that baptism, notwithstanding all its meaning and all its value, is not in itself either the sin-cleansing channel or the medium through which the divine life is bestowed ? And the closing words of the speaker are not less emphatic : " We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in like manner as they." That is, so far from regarding the case of Cornelius as something very exceptional, he sees in it an illustration of the ordinary way in which men may hope to be saved. II. This concludes the evidence from the Book of Acts for the general apostolic view of baptism. But now we have to examine the further material that awaits us, outside of Acts, in the non-Pauline books that bear upon our topic. To do this it will not be sufficient merely to pick out the few passages in those writings in which baptism is mentioned, or is supposed to be referred to, and to endeavour from these to construct a doctrine of the sacrament. We have to consider the perspective in which the rite appears when it is mentioned in any particular book. We have also to consider the fact that, upon the whole and speaking comparatively, so little mention is made of the sacrament in connection with the doctrine Practice and Doctrine 105 of salvation. For certainly the argument from silence, though often precarious and always requiring to be em ployed with discrimination and caution, has its legitimate application. If it were only a question of establishing the fact that the rite of baptism was universally observed in the primitive Church, the silence of any particular writer would not affect the sufficient testimony of others. But the case is different when the point that immediately concerns us is the doctrine of baptism, the place which it held in the mind of the Church, and especially its relation to faith and to salvation. Here the only satisfactory method of procedure is to examine each of the books in turn, except such as are so brief or so non-doctrinal that they yield practically no materials for our inquiry ; and, in doing so, to weigh the fact of silence as to baptism no less than the fact of speech regarding it, and again in con sidering the latter to bear in mind the connection in which baptism is set, and the proportional place which it receives in the doctrinal scheme of the author. We shall look, therefore, in what remains of this lecture, and in what we take to be the probable chronological order, at the evidence of James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, the Apocalypse, and the Gospel and First Epistle of John. The remaining non- Pauline books may be left out of view as furnishing no contribution to our present study. And first we shall take the Epistle of James, which is now generally admitted to be either the earliest or one of the latest of the New Testament writings, the idea that it was written soon after Paul's most characteristic doctrinal Epistles, and by way of a polemical rejoinder to Paul's doctrine of faith, being practically abandoned.1 Baptism 1 The chronological problem of James may be regarded as still sub lite. But a powerful case for the very early date which we have assumed has been recently presented by Professors J. B. Mayor in England and Zahn in Germany, the former in the introduction to his Epistle of St. James (2nd ed.) and his article "James" in Hastings' D. B., vol. ii. ; the latter in his Einleitung, i. 52ft. 1 06 Baptism : General Apostolic is never once mentioned in James, nor even, it would seem, in the most distant fashion alluded to. This is a striking fact, if James is the earliest book in the New Testament, the one that stands in the closest relation to the Church of the first days. But we may add that it would be in some respects not less but even more significant if we had to adopt the second century date advocated by many influential critics, inasmuch as it would then testify to a freedom from sacramentarian conceptions in the case of a canonical author of the sub-apostolic age. For in regard to this writer it is inevitable that we should draw some inferences from his silence as to baptism, seeing that he touches repeatedly upon topics from which baptism is altogether inseparable when it is looked upon as the medium of salvation. He speaks, for example, of the way of salvation (i. 21, v. 19, 20), of the spiritual birth (i. 18), of justification (ii. 24); and again and again he speaks of Christian faith. So far from disparaging faith in itself, as is sometimes represented, he implies that it is the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ which entitles men to be regarded as members of the Christian brotherhood (ii. 1), and that it is as being rich in faith that the poor become heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love Him (ii. 5). And as he sees the subjective side of salva tion in a living faith which manifests itself in good works, so he sees its objective side in the will of God regenerating men through the medium of His own word of truth. " Of His own will," he writes, " He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures" (i. 18). Hence he gives this exhortation to his readers, " Receive with meek ness the implanted word which is able to save your souls," i.e. exercise towards it that receptivity of faith which brings this living word with quickening power into your hearts. Practice and Doctrine 1 07 Judging from this Epistle, James did not regard baptism as in any sense the means of regeneration, or even as vitally connected with the work of salvation, otherwise it is difficult to see how he could have re frained so entirely from making any reference to it. And we may remember that it would have been all the more natural for the author to speak of an outward rite like baptism in connection with his doctrine of salvation, if he had held it to form an essential part of that doctrine, inas much as the special point of the whole Epistle lies in its vigorous protest against a one-sided spiritualism, and its emphatic assertion of the essentiality of the outward for a true religious life. And so, even when he uses that word OprjcKela (i. 27), which both in the Authorised and Revised Versions is very inadequately rendered " religion," and which properly denotes the external cultus or ceremonial service of religion, it is not in anything pertaining to the ritual order that he finds the characteristic 6pr)aKeia of Christianity, but in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeping one's self unspotted from the world. According to James, as Coleridge finely says, " the outward service (dprjatceia) of ancient religion, the rites, ceremonies, and ceremonial vestments of the old law, had morality for their substance. They were the letter of which morality was the spirit ; the enigma of which morality was the meaning. But morality itself is the service and ceremonial {cultus exterior, BprjcrKeia) of the Christian religion." 1 From James we pass to 1 Peter, which was probably written during the seventh decade of the first century, and almost certainly by Peter himself. The critical reasons that have been alleged against this position seem to be quite outweighed by the reasons on the other side, together with the strong traditional testimony in favour 1 Aids to Reflection, " Introductory Aphorisms," xxiii. io8 Baptism: General Apostolic of the apostle's authorship.1 Into any discussion of the New Testament doctrine of baptism i Peter must always enter, because of the striking but very difficult passage in the third chapter, in which we find a comparison drawn between the saving power of baptism and the salvation of Noah and his household in the ark from the waters of the Flood. But this passage can only properly be read in connection with the general teaching of the Epistle on the subject of salvation. To begin with, we must notice that while the writer's strain is practical rather than theological, he has much to say about regeneration and salvation and the way of obtaining them. Again and again faith is described as the principle of salvation on the subjective side. Our being begotten again, our hope of a heavenly inheritance, our final and full salvation, are all made to depend upon our faith (i. 3, 4, 5). The salvation of our souls is said to be the TeXo?, the issue or outcome of our faith (i. 9). And as faith is the sub jective means of salvation, the word of God, just as in James, is repeatedly described as the objective means. It is the word of God, more fully referred to as " the word which by the gospel is preached unto you," and with special reference to the glad tidings of Christ's resurrection from the dead, that is expressly set forth as the medium of regeneration (i. 23, 25; cf. i. 3). And as it is this word of God, proclaimed in the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (i. 12) and received in faith, that works regeneration, so also it is the sincere milk of the word, constantly desired and used, that nourishes the young life of the soul, and so furthers its growth in grace (ii. 2, 3). Apart from the one passage in the third chapter, the Epistle does not afford the slightest trace of a suggestion 1 See Dr. Moffatt's excellent statement of the case, Historical N. T. , p. 247 ft'. ; Chase's article on I Peter in Hastings' D.B., vol. iii. ; and Bigg's comprehensive summary of the evidence in his St. Peter and St. Jude in the ' ' International Critical Commentary. " Practice and Doctrine 1 09 that baptism is necessary before faith can savingly appre hend the word of the gospel. But in that passage we find Peter, in connection with what he says about Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison, telling us that in the days of Noah eight souls were carried safely in the ark through the waters of the Deluge ; after which he adds, in the rendering of the Revised Version, " which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism " (iii. 20, 21). The construction at this point is very complicated, and even the figure is somewhat involved. For while baptism is said to present us with a counterpart of the salvation of those who were in the ark, and while water is the common term between the type and the antitype, it was not really water that saved Noah and his family, but the ark which floated on the water. And this, which of course is the historical fact, is brought out in the present passage when Siecrcodrjaav Bl i/oWo? is rendered, as in the margin of the Revised Version, not " they were saved through (i.e. by means of) water," but " they were brought safely through water." x Similarly, it is not the water of baptism that brings salvation to the Christian. As Alford remarks, the parenthetical clause, " not the putting away of the filth of the flesh," which immediately follows, is an express protest against any such idea.2 Baptism does not save us, Peter says, in that material fashion, but only in so far as through it there is made " the claim (eirepcoT7]p,a) to have a good conscience toward God." 3 The apostle is thus thinking of salvation upon 1 eh t\v should be taken as a pregnant construction ; and St' SSaTos, preceded as it is by Steoiiid-qoav, is much more naturally understood as the local than as the instrumental genitive— the water, i.e., was not the instrument of their salvation, but that from which they escaped. Cf. I Cor. iii. 15, ouBriatTat oiirm Sc tis Sti, nvpbs, and Bengel's comment upon the later passage, "ut naufragus mercator, amissa merce et lucro, servatus per undas." 2 Greek Testament, in loco. 3 The suggestions that have been made for the proper rendering of ivept!>T-qua. are very numerous. But "claim" or "demand" appears to be the most no Baptism: General Apostolic its subjective side when he speaks of baptism as saving us. He is thinking of the power of the ordinance, not indeed to bestow the forgiveness of sins, but to bring home to the consciousness, and so to the conscience, of the believer who seeks the sacrament the assurance that for giveness has been divinely bestowed. For baptism un doubtedly has this power to deliver a man from a guilty conscience. The Lord has given to the Church a power of binding and of loosing. Not in any magical sense, but by the operation of a great Christian and social law, it is true that whosesoever sins she remits, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins she retains, they are retained.1 By faithful testimony and pure example, she can keep a sinner alive to a sense of his guilt ; and, again, by welcoming the penitent in the spirit of brotherly love, and restoring the fallen in the spirit of meekness, she can bring home to men's hearts the assurance of the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ. And this power to save men from the burden of conscious guilt was never more strikingly exercised than in the social sacrament of baptism as it was practised in the early Church, when penitent souls came forward to confess their faith in Christ, and were lovingly welcomed, in Christ's name and by Christ's appointed ordinance, into the fellowship of His disciples. But baptism has this power of deliverance, the apostle proceeds to say, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is now on the right hand suitable of all. See Cremer's Lexicon, sub verbo. Much has also been written on the question whether ovv(tSr)aeuii ayaBrjs is the genitive of the subject or of the object. But the analogy in the same clause of oapKbs a-irbBeo-ts jibirov, where the genitive is certainly objective, appears to be decisive in favour of the latter alternative. It is not the claim of a good conscience that Peter means, but the claim for a good conscience ; not the claim presented by a conscience already good, but the claim made by one who desires to have a good conscience toward God. 1 Cf. F. W. Robertson's sermon on "The Restoration of the Erring," Sermons, Second Series, p. 131 ff. Practice and Doctrine 1 1 1 of God (vers. 21, 22). The claim for a good conscience before God, which is presented in baptism, rests wholly upon faith in the Saviour who died and rose again. It is from the risen Christ that the sacrament comes to us, and it is He Himself who makes it effectual as the seal of salvation, when it is used with firm trust in the truth of His word and in His power to fulfil His promises. Next to 1 Peter we place the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, regarding the aim and destination of which so many diverse views continue to be entertained. Into any discussion on these points it is quite unnecessary for us to embark. Whether the unknown author was writing to Jews or to Gentiles, and whether with special reference to the destruction of the temple or not, at all events his work is an elaborate argument designed to show the im mense superiority of Christianity over Judaism, and the fulfilment at the same time in Jesus Christ of what had been only imperfectly foreshadowed in the old economy. For the author of the Hebrews, as Menegoz has said, was an evolutionist and not a revolutionary.1 Judaism and Christianity presented themselves to him not in absolute antithesis, but as the picture and promise followed by the great reality. The difference in emphasis between him and Paul springs largely from their different ways of looking at the old religion and the new. To Paul they presented themselves as law and gospel, and so came into absolute contrast ; but to this writer as two systems of worship, a lower and symbolical, and a higher and archetypal. And as Paul's legal way of dealing with his subject frequently reminds his readers of the fact that he was a trained Jewish lawyer, the author of Hebrews often suggests to us that he may at one time 1 "L'auteur de l'Epitre aux Hebreux est un evolutionniste ; Saint Paul est un revolutionnaire, en prenant ce terme en son sens exclusivement moral et religieux " (La Theologie de l'Epitre aux Httreux, p. 190). 1 1 2 Baptism : General Apostolic have been a consecrated Jewish priest. In any case, it is out of the fulness of intimate knowledge that he com pares Judaism and Christianity as two paths of approach into the presence of God. But, for the very reason that this author sets himself with full knowledge of details to show the relation between the old symbolic worship and the new one of immediate realities, we should expect that if " the sacramental principle," in the sense in which the phrase is used by High Churchmen, had possessed for him the primary significance which it is frequently sup posed to have had,1 he would not have failed to develop it along the obvious lines in the exposition of his subject. He would have drawn an express contrast between the merely emblematic ceremonial lustrations of the old covenant and a baptism which actually regenerates the soul, between a priesthood which depended upon the purely physical principle of hereditary succession and one that is communi cated by apostolic ordination and apostolical succession, be tween a priest who offered in the sanctuary a bull or a goat and one who can call down from heaven the very Lamb of God and lay Him afresh as a sacrifice upon the altar. As a matter of fact, however, the contrast we really find in Hebrews is between a religion that is elaborate, sensuous, and transient, and one that is simple, spiritual, and heavenly. The way of salvation is a spiritual way. The heavenly calling comes to us through a heavenly word. God, who spake in times past to the fathers in the prophets, now speaks to us in His own Son (i. 1,2); while the word of God's Son, who is also our Lord, is confirmed to us by them that heard it (ii. 3). Not to give earnest heed to the word spoken is to neglect the great salvation (ii. 1, 3). And here, just as in James and 1 Peter, this word of salvation is appropriated by faith. For though the author 1 See, for example, Moberly, Ministerial Priesthood, p. 268 ff. ; Gore, Body of Christ, p. 250 ff. Practice and Doctrine 1 1 3 has a peculiar view of faith, not so much as the power that binds us in a personal union to Christ, but rather as a faculty of realising the invisible — " an assurance of things hoped for," as he calls it, " a conviction of things not seen " (xi. 1), — it is faith, nevertheless, that is constantly pre sented as the human side of that work of salvation of which the loving will of God, as expressed in His word, is the divine side.1 The word preached brings no profit unless it is mixed with faith in those who hear it (iv. 2). And in the fourth chapter it is shown throughout that, as it was unbelief that made the word of God of no effect in the former days, so it is faith that now brings the ful filment of the divine promises and an entrance into rest. There is one passage in the Epistle in which baptism is mentioned, and another in which it is probably referred to. In the beginning of the sixth chapter " the teaching of baptisms " is spoken of as one of the elementary sub jects of Christian instruction, in association with repent ance, faith, the laying-on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment (vers. 1, 2). This passage may be held as showing that the administration of the rite was conditional on repentance and faith, and it also proves that instruction was given as to the distinctive meaning of Christian baptism. For by the plural form, " the teaching of baptisms," we are probably to under stand teaching as to the distinction between Christian baptism and other kinds of baptism which were known to the readers of the Epistle, such as the baptism of John and those Jewish lustrations which the writer describes elsewhere as " carnal ordinances " (ix. 1 o).2 But as to 1 Cf. Professor Denney, The Death of Christ, p. 239 f. 2 This passage further makes it evident that, in the circle to which this writer and his readers belonged, it was customary to lay hands on the baptized. But, as we have seen already, the laying-on of hands was by no means con fined to the apostles, and does not appear to have been anything more than an appropriate symbol accompanying a prayer for the bestowal of spiritual blessing. 8 1 1 4 Baptism . General Apostolic the particular nature of the teaching that was given, the present passage has nothing to tell us. It simply shows that Christians were instructed with regard to the meaning of baptism, as of other important doctrinal subjects.1 In the tenth chapter, again, after describing the new and living way of approach to God which Jesus has opened for us by His sacrifice, the author proceeds, " Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed with pure water" (ver. 22). Calvin and others have sought to interpret these words as pointing to an ethical renewal wrought through the Spirit as aqua spiritalis, the idea of baptism being altogether excluded. But the best commentators of all schools are now pretty well agreed that there is a reference to baptism in the last clause of the verse. At the same time, it is not immediately apparent what precise influence or signi ficance is attributed to the rite. For the author specifies two conditions of drawing near to God — " hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," and a " body washed with pure water " ; and it is the latter phrase that immediately suggests the thought of baptism. The sprinkling of the conscience is a sprinkling not with water but with Christ's blood, the reference being quite evidently to a phrase in the preceding chapter in which the blood of Christ is spoken of as cleansing the conscience from dead works to serve the living God (ix. 14). The question, accord ingly, is as to the relation to each other of the two conditions of approach to God. Now, underlying the 1 It is sometimes assumed that ipoiTio-Bivras in verse 4 is a synonym for "baptized" ; but there is no proof of this, and it is extremely unlikely. It is true that in the second century 0&m? BovXerai) — stronger ex pression could hardly be given to the ideas of personality and voluntary agency. And when he brings in, in verse 12, the figure of the Church as the body of Christ, and then says in verse 1 3 that Christians are baptized into that body iv evi trvevfuiTi, we naturally conclude that he is thinking of the Spirit as the agent by whom the sacrament of baptism is made use of, and not as a kind of supernatural and yet quasi- physical element in which at baptism we were immersed. But when Paul says that by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, he is saying no more than this, that baptism is an institution which the Spirit uses for binding men together into the unity of the Christian body. As the sacrament of initiation into the Church, it is a visible bond of union among all believers. And as such the Spirit employs it, even as He employs the word or any other means of grace. Nothing that is said here implies that some supernatural function resides in baptism as such, of Baptism 163 much less that it is the medium of spiritual regeneration. And when the apostle goes on to say that we were all imbued with one Spirit, that also, in view of his teaching in every Epistle as to the relation of regeneration to faith, cannot be taken to mean that the essence of the Chris tian life is first imparted in baptism. This being imbued with the Spirit must point, not to the objective fact of regeneration, but rather to those subjective experiences of spiritual quickening, and especially of the quickening of brotherly love, which were inseparable from the sacrament of baptism as administered in the apostolic age — experi ences which in our time may be suggested in some measure by corresponding experiences felt by a young Christian on the occasion of a first communion, and to which, by this appeal to the time of their baptism, Paul would recall those quarrelling and divisive Corinthians. It is to be noticed, further, that the construction and emphasis of the verse show quite clearly that Paul is not immediately concerned to prove to the Corinthians their possession of the Spirit, much less to prove that it was through baptism that they entered upon the enjoyment of that fundamental gift ; but to remind them that whether they are Jews or Greeks, whether freemen or slaves, it is one Spirit who is operative in them all, the regenerating Spirit, namely, who was received through the hearing of faith. The whole chapter is an argument on behalf of unity ; and baptism is brought in, just as in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, as a visible symbol and pledge of the unity of all those who through faith have received the one Spirit, a unity of which they were made fully conscious by those joyful experiences which sprang up in their hearts when they were first initiated by baptism into the visible communion of the Christian Church. There remains one more passage in this Epistle — the very obscure reference in the fifteenth chapter to baptism for 164 The Pauline Doctrine the dead (xv. 29). The prevalent tendency is to regard Paul as alluding to a vicarious baptism of Christians on behalf of their dead friends, presumably on behalf of friends who were in full sympathy with the Christian faith, though they died without being baptized. But the grounds on which this interpretation rests are really very slender. Such a baptism may have existed among the heretical Cerinthians and Marcionites in the second century, as Chrysostom and Epiphanius tell us, but that may only prove that these sects misunderstood Paul's meaning, as it has often been misunderstood since.1 On the other hand, it is quite possible that the apostle is here referring to a practice of substitutionary baptism observed in certain pagan mysteries,2 and so finds a witness to the resurrection in the heathen conscience, while the /cat 77/tei? of the next verse adds the more positive Christian testimony to that of the heathen.3 Again, if imep is translated, not " on behalf of" or " instead of," but " for the sake of," a meaning it very frequently bears in the New Testament, we escape from the idea of a vicarious baptism altogether ; and so the verse may simply contain a reference to the fact that persons were sometimes drawn to Christ, and led to profess His name in baptism, by their affection for departed Christian friends, and the hope of meeting them again in the resur rection. They were " baptized for the sake of the dead," 1 It is wrong to quote TertuUian, as is sometimes done, in support of such a practice. He merely cites an explanation of our text as applying to a vicarious baptism, without himself approving of it. Cf. Plummer, Dictionary of the Bible, i. 245 ; Armitage Robinson, article " Baptism " in Encyclopaedia Biblica. 2 See Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Theologie, ii. 181 ; Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen, p. 1 1 9 f. 3 When Findlay (Expositor s Greek Testament) says that this interpretation is forbidden because "61 pairr it;bp.evot, unless otherwise defined, can only mean the recipients of Christian baptism in its well-understood sense," he appears to overlook the fact that vwep tSiv veKpSiv supplies a definition of the very kind that he requires. If Christians in those days did not practise a vicarious baptism for the dead — and we have no evidence that they did, unless it is found here then 61 pa-KTt'cbaevot virip tuv veKpwv can only refer to a kind of baptism that was practised by non-Christians. of Baptism 165 because love for some one who had fallen asleep in Jesus was the motive that first drew them towards Christ Himself. But even if we adhere to what is at present the domin ant interpretation, and regard it as a fact that there had sprung up in the Church at Corinth a practice of vicarious baptism for the dead, grounded on a belief that this brought benefit to departed friends, we cannot infer from Paul's language that he in any way justifies such a practice, or has the least sympathy with the underlying idea that bap tism was an indispensable means of salvation. It is to be observed that there is an air of detachment in the phrases, " they that are baptized " and " What shall they do ? " Notice, too, the transition from the third person to the first person, as he passes from the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth verse.1 If Paul is speaking of certain Chris tians who practise this rite, he speaks of them only as " third persons," and not at all in a self-inclusive manner, so that his argument amounts to no more than an argu- mentum ad hominem. According to his usual method, moreover, he fastens upon that feature in the case which belongs to his immediate subject, namely, resurrection from the dead ; but leaves, in the meantime, quite undecided the relation of such baptisms to the question of personal salva tion. He approves of the faith in the resurrection that serves as the motive for such baptisms, though he has no sympathy with the underlying superstitious ideas about the effect of baptism itself. And if we think that Paul should in any case have distinctly expressed his disapprobation, we may remember that the apostle always deals very tenderly with consciences which superstition has rendered weak (cf. viii. 11, 12), as well as with hearts that are sore through bereavement. Possibly this may have been 1 See Meyer and Alford in loco. Cf. Rev. A. Carr, Expositor, May 1901, p. 376. It is strange to find Weizsacker saying that the custom of substitutionary baptism was " plainly homologated by Paul " (Apostolic Age, ii. 253). 1 66 The Pauline Doctrine \ , one of the matters which he felt would best'' be handled when he came to Corinth in person, and which he even had in view when he said, "And the rest will I set in order when I come" (xi. 34).1 When we pass from 1 to 2 Corinthians, we find that the latter is as meagre in its references to baptism as the First Epistle is copious and varied. With regard, however, to the centrality of faith in all that pertains to the Christian life, and the sufficiency for salvation of the word of the gospel believingly received, we have here, as in all the writings of Paul, a reiterated testimony. It is not baptism but faith that is the distinctive mark of Christianity. When the apostle urges that a strict line should be drawn between those who are Christ's and those who are not, he designates them as believers and unbelievers respectively (vi. 14, 15) ; and that too although in the context he refers to heathenism as the sphere of the unclean, and to Christianity as the sphere of separation from the unclean ; a conception with which baptism, as the symbol of cleansing, would so natur ally have associated itself (vi. 17). And from beginning to end, in passages too numerous to be mentioned, he dwells upon the thought that faith in the word of the gospel is the true medium for the reception of all the blessings of the Christian salvation.2 There is only one passage in which an allusion to baptism may perhaps be found. When Paul says in the first chapter, " Now He that stablisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God ; who also sealed us, and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts " (i. 2 1 f.), it is not improbable that he is alluding to baptism under the figure of a seal. For in Romans we have the parallel description of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith (Rom. iv. 11); while in Colossians, again, baptism 1 Cf. Schmiedel, Hand-Commentar, in loco. 2 See i. 19, ii. 15, iii. 2, 3, v. 18, x. 14, xi. 4, 7, xiii. 5. of Baptism 167 is brought into close relation to circumcision as its Christian counterpart (Col. ii. 1 1 ). And when we find that by the second century the word atppayls has come into use as a regular term for Christian baptism,1 this may help to con firm the view that Paul is alluding to baptism here. But the very fact that baptism is probably alluded to here under the figure of a seal, forbids us to attach to it the idea of a supernatural regenerating function. For the act of sealing is not the creative act, but only its outward ratification. This holds of circumcision, the Old Testa ment counterpart of baptism. The Israelite was born an Israelite, and his circumcision was an act of obedience and submission to the claim which God already had upon him ; it was the sealing of the fact that he was a member of the Israel of God. Of Abraham himself Paul says elsewhere, that his circumcision was " a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was yet uncircumcised." Similarly, the believer is a son of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. iii. 26), and, as a son of God, possesses the Spirit of God ; but his baptism is a certification of this fact ; it is a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was yet unbaptized. And when the apostle proceeds in the next clause to as sociate this sealing with the receiving of the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts, and when in Ephesians he says that Christians are " sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance" (Eph. i. 13, 14), and " sealed in Him unto the day of redemption " (Eph. iv. 30), he is not even then identifying the act of baptism 1 E.g. , Shepherd of Hernias and 2 Clement. Attempts have been made to derive the second century use of crippayh for baptism from the terminology of the pagan mysteries (so Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas, p. 295 ; and Harnack, History of Dogma, i. 208. ) But Anrich has shown very conclusively that the Christian use of the term dates from a time previous to any possible influence of the heathen mysteries upon the Church, and, as it meets us in the N.T., is prob ably derived from the Jewish description of circumcision as a seal (see Anrich, op. cit., p. 120 ff. ). 1 68 The Pauline Doctrine with the fundamental gift of regeneration, and so confound ing the seal of the Spirit with the creative act of the Spirit. Rather, we must say, he is referring to the fact, of which we have abundant evidence in the New Testament, that the ordinance, under the conditions of which Paul is invariably thinking when he refers to the subject, the baptism, namely, of adult converts, was usually accompanied by an intense quickening of the Christian consciousness, a fresh assurance of that reciprocal indwelling of Christ in the Christian and of the Christian in Christ which followed, indeed, im mediately from the communication of the new life-principle that was bestowed in response to faith, but was none the less wondrously stimulated by that sense of union with the body of Christ which baptism into the community necessarily carried along with it. By this earnest of the Spirit the sealing act of baptism was raised to its highest power ; it was not merely a seal set visibly upon the body by an outward rite, but a seal set inwardly upon the heart — a seal of which the believer himself was conscious, but which also made itself manifest to others in spiritual fruits of joy and enthusiasm and brotherly love, and frequently also, during the first days of Christianity, by those outward manifestations (cpavepoocTeK) which are known as the charis matic gifts. In the Epistle to the Romans, to which we come next, we find the immediate efficacy of faith for salvation more plainly and fully expressed than anywhere else in the writings of Paul. His gospel " is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth " (i. 1 6). The righteous ness of God is " through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe" (iii. 22). And, not less emphatically than in Galatians, the apostle asserts and reasserts, as every reader of the Epistle is aware, his fundamental doctrine of justifica tion by faith (iii. 26, iii. 28, iii. 30, iv. 5, v. 1). At the beginning of the sixth chapter, however, for the of Baptism 169 first and last time in the Epistle, the subject of baptism is introduced. And here it is of vital importance to grasp the continuity of the apostle's argument, so as to under stand the connection between his present reference to bap tism and all that he has said in the preceding chapters with regard to faith. Ritualistic interpreters usually deal with Paul's transition at this point from faith to baptism, by assuming that the faith of which he has hitherto spoken is only the condition of saving grace, while baptism is now introduced as the actual means of grace and the real instru ment of salvation. Of this manner of stating the case it must be said that it utterly fails to account for the strong and unqualified language regarding faith which the apostle has already used again and again. It seems impossible, on the ground of this single reference to baptism in the course of his longest and most doctrinal Epistle, to set aside his cardinal thought that in the principle of faith itself there lies the whole potency of salvation. At first sight it might appear that there is more to be said for Weiss's peculiar theory that a distinction is to be made in Paul's teaching, not between the relative values of faith and baptism, but between their respective effects. That Paul taught the doctrine of justification by faith, Weiss holds to be fundamental to any proper exegesis of this Epistle ; but he supposes that after establishing this doctrine in the earlier sections, the apostle brings in baptism at the beginning of the sixth chapter as a second principle of salvation, and teaches that, while faith leads to justification, it is baptism that brings union of life with Jesus Christ and the impartation of the Holy Spirit.1 But however plausible this theory may appear, in view of some of Paul's utterances, the objections to it are really overwhelming. The idea of a man who is justified and adopted into the family of God 1 Biblical Theology of the New Testament, i. 454 ff. ; cf. Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Theologie, ii. 179 f. 1 70 The Pauline Doctrine (for Weiss assigns both of these effects to faith) without being united to Christ is altogether inconceivable. Besides, this view furnishes no explanation of the language regarding faith which Paul uses in this very Epistle. For example, at the beginning of the fifth chapter he describes the grounds of justifying faith, and says that by faith we have access into this grace wherein we stand.1 And not only so, he continues, but we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God ; yea, we rejoice even in tribulation, and experience the love of God shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost given unto us. Now, it is hardly possible to suppose that these are the experiences of a man who has been justified indeed, but is not yet actually a Christian, inasmuch as he has not been baptized. No doubt it may be said that when Paul speaks in this way he anticipates what he is to say in the beginning of the sixth chapter, and assumes that this believing and justified man has also been baptized. Probably he does ; for Paul always took for granted that believers would profess their faith, and so be admitted through the rite of baptism to the Christian community. But what we have to notice is, that he says nothing whatever about baptism in this connection. The grace in which we stand, the hope of glory, the power to rejoice in tribulation, the sense of the love of God shed abroad in the heart through the Holy Ghost, are all attributed to that same faith by which we are justified. But, above all, this theory fails to grasp the coherency of the apostle's thought. For it really assumes that there is no necessary connection between what Paul has said in the earlier part of the Epistle about the faith that justifies, and what he now proceeds to say in this and the two following chapters as to the new life of the Christian in 1 The weight of evidence is altogether in favour of retaining the words tjj ttIotu. And even if they are regarded as a gloss, they are not an interpolation into the apostle's thought, but only an index to his evident meaning. of Baptism 1 7 1 Jesus Christ ; and so it makes him guilty of a very glaring ignoratio elenchi. For the objection which he sets himself to meet when he exclaims, " What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound ? " is an objection to his doctrine of justification by faith, and to meet such an objection by appealing to baptism as a second and entirely different principle of salvation, is simply to evade the point in dispute. In that case, the argument for faith which Paul has elaborated with so much care falls utterly to the ground. In spite of his solemn and thrice- repeated "God forbid!" (iii. 6, iii. 31, vi. 2), he has failed to show that the law is not made void through faith ; he has failed to " establish the law," as he claims to do ; he has not vindicated his position against those who accuse his gospel of antinomianism. For it is no real defence against anti- nomian inferences from Paul's teaching to say that, although faith does not contain within itself the provision for a walk in newness of life, such a provision may be had by submitting to the rite of baptism. The fact would still remain that the faith which justifies the sinner, but does not vitally unite him to Christ as the source of sanctifieation, is in itself essentially antinomian, and may easily lead to very antinomian results. What, then, is Paul's answer to the challenge that his gospel of justification by faith will tempt men to continue in sin ? His answer is, " God forbid ! We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ? " In these words, as Professor Denney has pointed out, there lies the true key to the meaning of the passage.1 It has frequently been assumed that the dying to sin of verse 2 is nothing else than the baptism of verses 3 and 4 ; and so that it is in baptism, and in baptism alone, that our death to sin takes place. But Paul is not as yet speaking of baptism, he is 1 See his illuminating article on "The Righteousness of God and the New Life," Expositor, Oct. 1901, especially p. 306 ff. 1 7 2 The Pauline Doctrine speaking of faith, and is replying to the objection that faith may tempt us to continue in sin so that grace may abound. It is only if this is the case that he really meets the diffi culty and proves that faith can never become an immoral principle, when he asks, " We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein ? " And then, having thus affirmed in verse 2 this great truth, that faith in Christ carries in the very heart of it a death to sin, he proceeds to elucidate the statement by means of the illustration of it which lies in the sacrament of baptism. " Or are ye ignorant," he says, " that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ? We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life." Now, in order to understand the way in which the apostle here identifies the rite of baptism with that death to sin which is wrought by justifying faith, we must remind ourselves once more that what Paul has in view in all his doctrinal references to baptism is the baptism of adult converts. And we must further remember that baptism in the apostolic age was immediately associated with the earliest profession of faith. Apparently there was no such thing in those days as a prolonged probation of the convert, corresponding to the later catechumenate, but faith and baptism were connected with each other immediately, as the inner experience and its outward affirmation and representa tion. It is so with the baptisms of which we read in Acts. The converts of the day of Pentecost, the believers in Samaria, the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius and his household, the jailor of Philippi, were all baptized on the spot. In the case of Paul himself there was an interval of three days between his conversion and his baptism ; but even this was evidently due to the fact that until Ananias came there was no one to summon him to baptism and to administer the of Baptism 173 rite. Apostolic baptism, then, being the baptism of believers, and an act which usually synchronised with the first definite experience of conscious faith, of which it was the profession and consummation, it was both natural and legitimate to speak of it as the correlative of faith. And when Paul says, " Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" he is only assuming with regard to others what he knew to be true with regard to himself — that baptism had been a reality and not a mere empty form, a genuine confession of faith on the one hand, and on the other, in correspondence with that, a divinely appointed symbol and seal of the righteousness which faith procures. There was a special reason, however, why Paul at this point drew the ideas suggested by baptism into the service of his thought ; and that was because the symbolism of the rite offered a beautiful illustration of the precise point he wished to enforce, namely, the intimacy of the union which faith brings about between the believer and the Lord. It is practically certain that in the apostolic age immersion was the ordinary form of baptism.1 And in the disappearance of the convert beneath the water and his emergence again to the light of day, Paul saw a striking symbol of the union with Christ in death and in life which faith accomplishes. And yet the very use he makes of the symbolism of the rite indicates his sense of the real relation between baptism and faith ; for the point on which most stress is laid, as it is the point most naturally suggested by the act of immersion, is that baptism is a being buried with Christ. But a burial is not a death ; it is only a public certification and sealing of death. And, in like manner, baptism is not a dying with Christ, but rather a sealing of that death in Him and with Him which is immediately brought about by faith.2 1 See Lecture V., p. 225. 2 Cf. Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, ii. 236. 174 The Pauline Doctrine A still further reason why Paul may have introduced the thought of baptism at this stage, is that he is making an appeal to the religious consciousness of his readers. " Know ye not ? " he asks ; it is a challenge to the personal experience of those Corinthian Christians. To Paul, as we have seen, his baptism had meant much — not, indeed, the mediating of salvation, but the verifying of it ; the strength ening into fuller assurance of the sense that he was not only forgiven, but joined in a union of life with the risen Jesus, and even called to be a Christian apostle. And for all converts in those days baptism was a thing of great and solemn moment. It was an act by which they definitely cut themselves off from their old life with all its associa tions, and pledged themselves to a new life of attachment to Christ and His community. Such an act, carried out under such conditions, could not fail to be productive of a deepened consciousness of that union with Christ both in death and life of which the apostle here speaks, but which, as the whole course of his argument makes plain, he attributes directly to faith. 3. We pass now to that group of four Epistles — Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon — which are commonly known as the Epistles of the imprisonment. They present somewhat marked differences from the four great Epistles of the previous group ; but the differences are hardly more pronounced than those that distinguish that group again from the Epistles to the Thessalonians, and they are sufficiently explained by the growth of Paul's own experience, the fact of his imprisonment, the develop ment of the Church as a whole, and the special circum stances of the particular communities to which he was writing. Philemon may be left out of account, as dealing almost wholly with personal matters. Of the remaining three, Philippians is admittedly the latest; while Ephesians and Colossians appear to have been written about the of Baptism 1 7 5 same time, and with the view of being mutually supple mentary.1 The special note of Ephesians is the idea of the Church as the body of Christ. By the time when this Epistle was written there were Christian Churches scattered all over the Roman Empire — Churches that were entirely independent of one another. But upon Paul the prisoner there had dawned the splendid vision of those scattered Churches as ideally one Church, a vision to which he gives striking expression when he figures the Church as a body. The influence of this conception runs all through the Epistle. In the great evangelical Epistles of the previous period Paul had spoken especially of the doctrine of personal salvation ; but here he speaks of the salvation of the Church. As the Church is Christ's body, so Christ becomes " the Saviour of the body," i.e. the Saviour of the Church (v. 23). In Galatians Paul had written, "The Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself up for me " (Gal. ii. 20) ; but here he says, " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it " (v. 25). It was with the help of this and similar expressions that Ritschl formed his theory that it is the Church and not the individual which is the proper object of justification. But the New Testament support for this idea is really very slight, and is far more than counterbalanced by the numerous statements which imply a direct dealing of the individual with Christ Himself in the things of salvation. Such statements cannot be explained by any theory that would make the Church the necessary mediary of salva tion ; while, on the other hand, those expressions in which the Christian society as a whole appears as the immediate object of the divine love and redemption are easily and 1 The present inclination of N.T. critics is to assign a slight priority to Colos sians. But even if this could be satisfactorily made out, it would have no bearing on the baptismal teaching of the two Epistles, and for convenience Ephesians is taken first, as the longer and more important of the two. 176 The Pauline Doctrine naturally explained by the fact that what is true of one believer is true of all, when all are ideally regarded as forming a unity.1 And what we have particularly to notice is that even in this Epistle, in which the Church looms so large in the apostle's thoughts, there is no difference in his teaching as to the way of personal salvation. Just as in the earlier Epistles, it is the word of the gospel that is set before us as the objective principle of salvation, and faith in that word as the subjective principle.2 There is only one passage in Ephesians in which baptism is expressly named (iv. 5). But there is another in which it is evidently referred to (v. 2 6) ; and two more in which, as in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, it seems to be alluded to under the figure of a seal (i. 13, iv. 30). With regard to the two last-mentioned passages, however, it is made plainer here than in the corresponding passage in 2 Corinthians, that Paul regards the sealing as lying not so much in the ceremonial act as in those outward mani festations of the Spirit's indwelling which in the early days of the Church were usually associated with the administra tion of baptism. It was not with the baptismal water that men were sealed, but with the Holy Spirit of promise. Baptism was the occasion of the sealing rather than the sealing itself. And it is to be noted, as was said before, and as lies in the meaning of the phrase, that even this sealing of the Spirit is not a creative but a declarative act. Baptism was not the moment of the fundamental bestowal of the Spirit, but the occasion of a striking and joyful experience of the truth of the Spirit's indwelling, by which both the believer himself and those around him were assured 1 As illustrating the weakness of this theory, it might be pointed out that if Christ's self-sacrifice on behalf of the Church, in Eph. v. 25, is used to prove that the proper object of justification is " the Christian society as a whole, and not the individual as such " (Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 122), then Christ's wash ing of the Church in the following verse ought to mean that it is not the individual as such, but the society as a collective whole, that is baptized ! 2 Cf. i. 13, 14, ii. 8, iii. 6-8, iii. 17. of Baptism 1 7 7 of the reality of his possession of spiritual life through union with Christ by faith. In the fourth chapter baptism is directly spoken of in connection with Paul's appeal for a true Christian unity : " There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all " (4-6). The place given to baptism among those great categories of the Christian creed shows the writer's sense of its importance as a bond of union between the members of the Christian society. The unity of the Church, indeed, is fundamentally a " unity of the Spirit " (ver. 3), — a unity which springs essentially from common faith directed to a common Lord. It is, as Paul says farther on in the chapter, " the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God " (ver. 1 3). But if this spiritual unity is to be manifested in the world of visible realities, it must be by means of outward forms ; and baptism is the rite which Jesus appointed for the very purpose of serving as a mark of Christian discipleship. Paul knew nothing of those elaborate organisations which afterwards grew up, by which far separated Churches were linked together in the unity of a single great corporation. To him the Christian society consisted simply of all those who, having professed their faith in Christ, had been bap tized into the fellowship of His people. But because baptism was the distinguishing rite of the members of the Christian society, and the visible bond of their oneness in the Lord Jesus, he very naturally, after appealing to the one Lord and the one faith, appeals to the one baptism in which faith in the Lord is expressed. More difficulty attaches to the passage in the fifth chapter, where Paul, in speaking of marriage, after com paring the husband to Christ and the wife to the Church, says that Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for 178 The Pauline Doctrine it, " that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing (or bath) of water with the word " (ver. 26). Here, it may be taken for granted, we have a reference to baptism. The apostle sees an analogy between the baptismal rite and the customary antenuptial bath of the bride.1 But there is nothing in his language that implies that baptism in itself amounted either to the forgiveness of sins or the imparta- tion of the new life. The passage, it is to be observed, is highly figurative. To begin with, baptism is a rite per formed upon an individual ; and here Paul is speaking of the ideal Church, which can only metaphorically be said to be baptized. Further, as an analogy is suggested between the bath of the bride and the Christian rite, we may con clude that just as the former was meant to be not a mere act of cleansing, but a symbolic rite indicative of the bride's purity, the latter, in like manner, is thought of as a symbol of the purity and holiness of the Church. And that Paul does not mean to ascribe the positive cleansing of the sinful to the water-bath of baptism in itself, is made evident when he attributes the cleansing not to the washing of water alone, but to " the washing of water with the word." It is true that the phrase iv prjpaTt has been the subject of much controversy ; and widely varying suggestions have been made as to its connection with the rest of the sentence and its exact meaning. But there can be little doubt that if we are to be guided by the use of pr)p.a elsewhere, not only in the Pauline Epistles, but in the New Testament generally, it can only mean the word of the gospel, the prjfia evay- yeXiaOev, or word preached, of which Peter speaks, the prjfia t?}? 7ricrTew?, or word of faith, as Paul himself describes it.2 The notion of some of the Fathers, which has been adopted in modern times by Pusey and others, that pi)p,a here is 1 See the Commentaries of Alford, Meyer, and Von Soden (Hand-Commentar) in loco. - Cf. Rom. x. 8, 17 ; Eph. vi. 17 ; Heb. vi. 5 ; I Pel. i. 25. of Baptism 179 the baptismal formula, finds absolutely no support in New Testament usage, and can only be regarded as an exegetical curiosity. As for the construction, the position of iv pr/fian in the sentence compels us to connect it not with dytday, which would be a quite unnatural grammatical combination, since no reason can be suggested for such a strange separa tion of the phrase from its verb, but with the participle KaQaplo-as. The meaning, accordingly, is that the cleansing is effected through the instrumentality of the word of the gospel, a statement which finds a parallel in the saying of Jesus in the fifteenth of John, " Already ye are clean be cause of the word which I have spoken unto you " (John xv. 3). And if it be asked why then this cleansing word is here associated with the bath of baptism at all, the answer is, not only because in Paul's figure the symbolism of baptism was naturally suggested by the symbolism of the washing of the bride, but because baptism in itself is a fitting emblem of the cleansing power of the gospel, being, as Augustine said, a kind of word made visible (" tanquam visibile verbum ").1 It is the word of the gospel, therefore, that Paul represents as carrying within it the true power of cleansing ; and baptism is not regarded as having any inherent efficacy of forgiveness or regeneration, but only as the embodiment and symbol of the living word. The striking similarity between the dogmatic contents of Ephesians and Colossians makes it unnecessary to dwell upon the general teaching of the latter. Let us only note that in this Epistle also Paul continues to lay his customary emphasis upon faith in the word preached and heard, as the immediate and sufficient means of salvation.2 There is one remarkable passage, however, in which baptism is set side by side with the spiritual circumcision, while at the same time it is used, just as in the sixth chapter of Romans, as a figure of burial and resurrection with Christ. " In whom," 1 Tractat. 80, injoannem. - See i. 3-6, i. 23, ii. 5-7. 1 80 The Pauline Doctrine Paul writes, " ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ ; having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead " (ii. 11, 12). Very often it is assumed that the baptism of the twelfth verse is the exact equivalent of the circumcision of Christ in verse 1 1, so that it is by baptism that the spiritual circumcision is effected. But this view is by no means borne out by an examination either of the present passage or of Paul's utterances elsewhere regarding spiritual circumcision, The apostle's immediate object is to fortify the Gentile Christians at Colosse against the efforts of the Judaizers to insist upon their submitting to the Jewish rite of circumcision ; and in the eleventh verse he tells them plainly that they need no outward rite of circum cision, inasmuch as they have been circumcised already with the circumcision of Christ. Now, this contrast between the Jewish circumcision and that regenerating experience which he here describes as " the circumcision of Christ " is a funda mental one in the writings of Paul. And on the other occasions on which he makes use of it, it is faith that he sets over-against circumcision, without giving the slightest hint of baptism. " In Christ Jesus," he says, " neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love " (Gal. v. 6).1 This justifies us in saying with regard to the present passage, that Paul's language in verse 1 1 about the circumcision of Christ does not primarily refer to baptism at all. And this is certainly confirmed by the epithet d-^etpoTroirjTo^, " not made with hands," which he applies to the Christian circumcision, and which shows that he is thinking of something that does not belong to the sphere of external ritual, but to a world of pure spiritual realities. 1 Cf. Gal. vi. 15 ; Eph. ii. 8, 11 ; Phil. iii. 2, 3, 9. of Baptism 181 But now comes the question, What, then, is the relation between what the apostle proceeds to say about baptism in verse 1 2 and what he has just said in verse 1 1 about the circumcision of Christ ? " Buried with Him in baptism," his language runs, " wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." It is evident from the tenses of the verbs in the two verses that he identifies baptism in the closest way with that spiritual circumcision of which he has just been speak ing, and which he declares elsewhere to be mediated by faith. The tenses, indeed, might suggest that the two things are contemporaneous, but no doctrinal inference could be drawn from this as to the relation between the two, since it was the apostolic practice to baptize converts in the very hour of their conversion. And when we inquire further as to that relation, we are compelled by what Paul says in his other Epistles about Christian circumcision, by his language regarding it in the preceding verse, and by his whole teaching as to the bearings of faith and baptism respectively on salvation, to conclude that baptism is here introduced simply as the outward sign of that inward fact of which he has just been speaking. And this view is corroborated by yet another considera tion. It is worth our while to remember that Paul not only distinguishes between the Jewish circumcision on the one hand, and the Christian circumcision on the other, but, even with regard to the Jewish circumcision itself, he distinguishes between its material aspects and its spiritual meaning. The idea, no doubt, was as old as the days of Hebrew prophecy. In the Book of Deuteronomy we read, " And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live " (Deut. xxx. 6 ; cf. x. 1 6). The idea is repeated by Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer. iv. 4, ix. 26; Ezek. xliv. 7). Stephen took it 1 82 The Pauline Doctrine up in his speech before the Sanhedrin, when he denounced those leaders of the Jewish race as " uncircumcised in heart and ears " (Acts vii. 5 1 ). But it was Paul who gave full and final expression to the thought in the magnificent words, " For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly ; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but of God" (Rom. ii. 28, 29). And yet, although Paul speaks thus of the outward circumcision, he imme diately declares that in circumcision there is " much profit every way" (Rom. iii. 1, 2); while, a little further on, he describes it as a sign which was given to Abraham to be " a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was yet in uncircumcision " (Rom. iv. 11). And this teaching of his with regard to the relation between the sign and the reality in the case of the Jewish circumcision, supplies us with a clue to his thought as to the relation between baptism and the circumcision of Christ. Even in Judaism the outward rite was no more than a seal. To Abraham himself it was a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was yet uncircumcised ; and to Abraham's seed it was still a seal and nothing more. The child of Jewish parents was a member of the covenant people from his birth. Circumcision did not make him a Jew, but only stamped him as one. And when Paul in this passage draws an analogy between the two dispensations, he certainly suggests by the language he employs that it is not baptism that makes a man a new creature, but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But he suggests further that baptism is the seal of faith, just as circumcision was under the old covenant; a seal, moreover, that is so closely identified with the reality, that it becomes legitimate to speak of faith in terms of baptism. And if a special reason is wanted for the mention of baptism in the present case, that may be of Baptism 183 found in the fact that the rite, with its symbolism of a burial and a rising again, naturally associated itself with the idea of a spiritual circumcision which consisted in putting off the body of the flesh. But it is to be remarked that even here Paul comes back to his great dominating thought in all such connections, the thought, namely, of faith _ as the fundamental fact which underlies every experience of the divine grace. And so he describes this burial of the old man and resurrection of the new, which are symbolised in baptism, as taking place " through faith in the working of God, who raised Him " (i.e. Jesus) " from the dead." With Philippians we come to the last of the Epistles which Paul wrote during his imprisonment in the Praetorium of Rome. With the exception of the one well-known passage in the second chapter which bears upon the humili ation of Christ, this Epistle is of a practical character throughout. And yet it contains enough of incidental doctrinal reference to corroborate all that we have learned hitherto with regard to Paul's soteriological teaching. Baptism is never once mentioned, nor in the most remote manner alluded to. On the other hand, there is much about the gospel ; indeed, no other Epistle of Paul's, with the exception of Romans, which is five times as long, contains the word " gospel " so frequently. And when he speaks here about the gospel, Paul shows that it is the word, and not the sacraments, that he is thinking of, by identifying this gospel in which he glories with the preach ing of Christ and the speaking of the word (i. 14, 15, 18). But, above all, we have the characteristically Pauline passage in the third chapter, in which the writer declares that his righteousness as a Christian man is " through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith " (iii. 9). And the significance of this statement is all the more marked because in this very passage Paul is setting the Christian righteousness over-against the Jewish righteousness, and the 184 The Pauline Doctrine spiritual circumcision over-against what he disparagingly refers to as " the concision." If he had believed, therefore, that baptism was the true antithesis to the Jewish circum cision, the connection of ideas in the passage would almost have compelled him to say so. And thus, over-against the righteousness of the law which begins with circumcision, he would have set the righteousness of Christ as having its foundations laid in baptism. Instead of that, however, he speaks of the Christian righteousness as a righteousness which stands upon the foundation of faith (eVt rfj Trio-rei.). This, accordingly, corroborates our interpretation of the passage in Colossians where baptism is set side by side with the spiritual circumcision. It shows that baptism was used there not as being itself the spiritual circumcision, but only as the outward representation of it. And the corroboration grows into a positive proof when we find that those very ideas of a union with Christ that amounts to a burial with Him in His tomb and a rising with Him in His resurrection, which were there illustrated by the symbolism of baptism, are here directly connected with the righteousness of faith. For it is on the ground of this righteousness through faith in Christ, as Paul proceeds to tell us in the very same sentence, that he rests his claim to " know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffer- , ings, being made conformable unto His death." 4. Only the Pastoral Epistles now remain to be con sidered ; and as they are admitted on all hands to be very intimately related to one another, the whole group may be taken together. Into the controversies regarding their authorship it is not necessary for us to enter. Critical opinion at present tends strongly to the view that they were composed, not by Paul himself, but by some unknown author or authors during the first quarter of the second century. On the other hand, it is universally acknow ledged that they have come from Paul's school, if not of Baptism 185 from his own hand, while some of the critics hold that they embody genuine notes of the apostle, worked up into the Epistles which we now possess. But without, in the meantime, coming to a decision upon these very difficult questions, let us ask whether in the Pastoral Epistles there is any essential deviation from the views hitherto presented to us by Paul as to the place of baptism in the general soteriological scheme. Now what we find is this, that in the course of the three Epistles baptism is only once referred to, namely, in the well-known passage in the third chapter of Titus — unless we choose to find an allusion to it in the words in 1 Timothy, " Thou didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses" (1 Tim. vi. 12), which would represent the rite simply as a confession of faith.1 Meantime, while there may be noted a certain difference of doctrinal emphasis from anything we have previously found in Paul, that difference leaves unchanged the distinctive Pauline teaching as to the way of salvation. Christianity, no doubt, is regarded as a doctrine, and the word 77-10-™? itself in many cases has acquired the objective meaning of a body of truth which has to be kept (1 Tim. iv. 1 ; 2 Tim. iv. 7 ; Tit. i. 4), the fides qua creditur rather than the fides qua creditur? But this natural growth of language, according to which a word that denotes a dis position or energy of the mind comes by and by to have an objective content, does not affect the fact that in these Epistles faith is still constantly spoken of in the sense of a subjective disposition or power, that Jesus Christ is represented as its personal object, and that it is regarded as 1 The "seal," in 2 Tim. ii. 19, does not appear to be a reference to baptism, for the writer is not speaking of an outward sign that is distinctive of all the members of the Church, but of a mark known to God Himself, by which He distinguishes those members of the Church who are His from those who are not. 2 Cf. Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Theologie, ii. 273 ; and Von Soden, Hana-Commentar, p. 174. 1 86 The Pauline Doctrine the means of salvation. When we read of " the faith which is in Christ Jesus" (i Tim. iii. 13), we are reading of a subjective faith, and a faith which is directed towards Christ Himself. When it is said that in the conversion of Paul the purpose of Jesus Christ was to " show forth all His longsuffering, for an ensample to them which should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life " (1 Tim. i. 16), or that "the sacred writings . . . are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. iii. 15), we have this personal faith in the personal Saviour expressly indicated as the ground of salvation. And even when ttL, no one questions that its primary and classical signification is to immerse. It is evident, however, that in the New Testament it is not used like the verb fidTTTco simply in this literal and general meaning, but has come to bear a technical religious sense, 1 Cf. Kaftan, Dogmalik, p. 609. Its Subjects and Forms 223 in which, while its primary idea may never be lost, the real stress falls upon its spiritual connotation as an act of ceremonial cleansing. This is shown by the fact that the theocratic ceremonies of purification are described as " divers baptisms" (BtatfropoK /3a7TTtcr/iot?, Heb. ix. 10), while BatrTi^to has come to be employed as the equivalent of the Hebrew verb KT}, which is used in the Old Testament to describe the Levitical washings, and which in the Septuagint is translated by XoveaOai.1 The same thing follows from the circumstance that Batni^w, as applied both to the baptism of John and the later Christian baptism, is used absolutely, i.e. without the addition of any qualifying or descriptive phrase, and precisely as we use the word baptize. " John came," we read, " who baptized in the wilderness " ; " they then that received his word were baptized " ; "I baptized also the household of Stephanas." To substitute the word " immerse " for the word " baptize " in statements like these would be to rob them of their most specific meaning. Whether Batrri^w and its corresponding sub stantives are ever used in the New Testament apart from the primary thought of immersion, is a point that is dis puted.2 But whichever view is taken, the fact is not affected that the form of the action is altogether sub ordinate to its ceremonial meaning as an act of symbolical cleansing. (2) As regards the various instances of the actual 1 See Mark vii. 4 ; Luke xi. 38 ; Heb. ix. 10. Cf. Cremer's Lexicon, s.v. ftairTifa. 2 It is strongly held by some scholars that the ceremonial "baptism" before meat of which we read in Mark vii. 4 and Luke xi. 38 was nothing more than a washing of the hands (so Lightfoot, Alford, and many others) ; while the hand washing, again, would seem to have been by pouring, and not by immersion (see Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 10-11 ; Professor A. S. Peake, Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 833). On the other hand, some of the ablest critical writers maintain that the idea of immersion is never absent when pawTlfa is used in the N.T. This is Meyer's position in his notes on Mark vii. 4 and Luke xi. 38. And Dr. Schaff (Oldest Church Manual, p. 50) quotes an emphatic testimony to the same effect from a letter by Harnack. 224 Baptism: administration of the rite, whether by John the Baptist or Christ's disciples, the statements made cannot be said to be decisive either one way or another. The fact that we read of baptism in a river or pool, taken in connection with the strict meaning of BatrrlXw, would certainly favour the thought of immersion ; although, no doubt, it is true that a candidate for baptism might stand in the shallow part of a stream or wayside pond, while the water was poured over his head — a form of baptism which appears to be represented in some of the early catacomb paintings.1 A great deal has sometimes been made of the presumed improbability that there would be a sufficient supply of water in Jerusalem to permit of the immersion of three thousand persons on the day of Pentecost, or that the jailor of Philippi would be provided with a bath or tank in which he and his household could be immersed on the spot. But it is evident that such considerations are too purely hypothetical to count for much in the way of serious argument. (3) When we come to the third line of evidence, how ever, the view that immersion was the original method of baptism finds a very strong support in a figure which Paul uses both in Romans and Colossians in connection with a doctrinal reference to the sacrament (Rom. vi. 3-5 ; Col. ii. 1 2). He speaks of baptism as a burial with Christ into death, and a rising again with Him from the grave. Undoubtedly this shows that immersion was the usual mode of administering the rite as known to Paul. On the other hand, it is too much to say that Paul's language here proves that there is a depth of spiritual significance in the twofold act of immersion and emersion which makes it an essential part of the ordinance, so that any other method of baptism must necessarily be invalid or defective. For we are hardly entitled to say that the apostle's figure was anything more than a striking way of illustrating a mystical thought that 1 See Schaff, op. cit., chap. xvi. "The Didache and the Catacombs." Its Subjects and Forms 225 was altogether his own. The great mass of the New Testa ment evidence goes to show that the idea of cleansing is the primary idea in the symbolism of baptism. The thought of a being buried with Christ is nowhere found except in these two Pauline passages. And the ideas of cleansing and burial are so different from each other that it is difficult, as the late Professor Candlish has said, to suppose " that the same rite was designed directly and properly to represent them both " ; and so the probability is that the comparison of baptism to a death and burial and resurrection with Christ " is merely an incidental allusion, and not the direct and principal signification of the rite." 1 Taken as a whole, then, it would seem that the New Testament evidence is strongly in favour of immersion as the ordinary apostolic mode of baptism ; while, on the other hand, there is little to lead us to think that the mode was ever treated as an absolute ceremonial necessity which could yield neither to time, place, nor circumstance, so that, for example, if water was scarce, or if a candidate's state of health did not permit of his immersion, the act of baptism and admission to the Church could not take place.2 And this conclusion is remarkably confirmed by the witness of the Didache". With regard to the mode of baptism, the prescriptions of the Didache" are as follow : " Baptize ye into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, in living (i.e. running) water. And if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water ; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (vii. 1-3). The triple pouring and the implied triple immersion, or trine immersion, as it is commonly called, need not at present 1 The Christian Salvation, p. 145. 2 See some excellent remarks of Alford on Col. ii. 12. IS 226 Baptism: detain us. It was meant to be a symbol of the threefold name into which the believer was baptized. In itself it may be an impressive expression of Trinitarian doctrine, but there is nothing in the New Testament to lead us to think that it formed a part of the primitive manner of administering the rite. But here we have immersion plainly laid down as the rule for the observance of the sacrament ; since the latter part of the prescription would have absolutely no meaning unless the pouring which is there sanctioned were contrasted with immersion as the regular method. And yet it is just as plain that pouring is here specified as a perfectly legitimate form of baptism, if the means of immersion are not at hand. The significance of this is apparent. It shows beyond contradiction that when the Didache was compiled, and presumably at a still earlier time, while immersion was the rule, it was not an invariable rule ; but that baptism by pouring was quite customary in certain circumstances.1 A century and a half later, in the time of Cyprian, we find that the rule about immersion had become more rigid. Baptism by pouring or aspersion was now confined to the case of the sick, and was hence called clinical baptism. And in the minds of many persons the idea prevailed that such baptisms were not altogether valid, so that those who had been admitted to the Church in this way were spoken of disparagingly as clinici. Cyprian sets himself to combat this idea, and affirms that where necessity compels the outward abridgment of the usual form, God bestows His blessing none the less upon those who are faithful.2 It is to be noted, moreover, with regard to the widely prevalent disparagement of the clinici, that 1 Cf. Harnack's remark on this passage : "We have here the oldest witness for the permissibility of baptism by aspersion. Specially important is it that the author does not betray the least hesitation as to its validity " (Lehre der Zwolf Apostel, p. 23). -' Ep. 76, ad Magnum. Its Subjects and Forms 227 it apparently rested not so much on the notion that the mode of aspersion was in itself defective, as on a suspicion of the sincerity of the motives of those who only professed their faith upon a sick-bed. This is clearly brought out by the decision of the twelfth canon of the Council which met at Neo-Caesarea in 314. In this canon restrictions are placed on the ordination to the priesthood of any who have only received clinical baptism ; but this is done on the sole ground that such persons have professed their faith under compulsion (i.e. through fear of death), and not from free conviction.1 While immersion, therefore, was the ordinary rule of the early Church, as it continued to be the rule of the Western Church for many centuries, and has been the rule of the Eastern Church all along, it seems evident that it was not looked upon as a rule that was absolutely unbending, so that the validity of the sacrament was determined by it. And if there was a measure of liberty in this matter at the beginning of the second century, it is extremely unlikely that there would be less liberty in the age of the apostles, the whole tendency of the Church in the sub-apostolic period being towards fixity rather than towards freedom in matters of ritual. Reading the New Testament usages, therefore, in the light of the following time, we seem to find abundant justi fication for the more liberal rubrics of Protestantism and modern Catholicism, according to which immersion, pour ing, and sprinkling are all legitimate, and the precise mode of baptism is left to be decided by considerations of con venience, safety, propriety, and edification.2 It is noticeable 1 See Neander, Church History (Clark's Edition), i. 324. 2 The Westminster Confession simply declares that immersion is not necessary, and that pouring or sprinkling is sufficient (xxviii. 3). The baptismal service of the Church of England really prescribes immersion in the case of infants, unless the parents certify that the child is too weak to bear it (Book of Common Prayer, ad locum). As a matter of fact, immersion has long ceased to be the practice of the Anglican Church ; and it has often been remarked as curious that the ritualistic party should have made no attempt to revive a usage which is not 228 Baptism: that in the Didache there is not only a concession to the difficulty of providing a sufficient quantity of water, but also a concession to the interests of health and comfort in the permission to use warm water. It is nothing more than an application to much wider circumstances of this same wise spirit of adaptation, when the mode of baptism is adjusted to the vast differences in climate, dress, social custom, and sense of what is becoming, that necessarily belong to a Church which lasts through all the centuries and spreads through all the world. In regard to externals, our observance of the Lord's Supper deviates in many ways from the Supper of the Master in the upper room. In particular, we have divorced our Communion service from that social meal with which it was originally associated, and with which, under the name of the Agape, it continued to be associated for a time in the Early Church. We do not imagine that by so doing we have abandoned anything that is absolutely essential to the proper celebration of the sacrament. And in the case of baptism, it does not seem to be a departure from the New Testament type to maintain that the rite is adequately performed so long as the mode of observance brings out fully what appears to be the essential part of its symbolism, its representation, namely, by the application of water, of Christ's gracious power to cleanse us from our sins. Merely to wash one's hands was an ancient way of declaring one's entire innocence (Matt, xxvii. 24). The sprinkling of a few drops of blood was a recognised means of ceremonial cleansing (Lev. xiv. 6, 7). The gift of a new heart and a right spirit is associated by the prophet with the sprinkling of clean water (Ezek. xxxvi. 25). The baptism of the Spirit, of which we read so often in the New Testament, is conceived of not as an immersion in only prescribed in the Prayer Book, but was undoubtedly the ordinary procedure in the Early Church. Cf. Dr. H. R. Percival, Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1901, p. 621. Its Subjects and Forms 229 the Spirit, but as an outpouring of the Spirit from above (Acts ii. 17, x. 45). These facts all go to show that the immersion of the whole body is by no means necessary in order to symbolise the idea of complete cleansing. And while it must be admitted that, of the various modes of baptism, total immersion is the one which was ordinarily practised in the primitive Church, and the one which most vividly portrays our cleansing through Christ's grace in body and in spirit, it must be claimed at the same time that if pouring and sprinkling sufficiently set forth the meaning of the rite, and if on other grounds they are found to be most suitable to our altered circumstances, our Christian liberty entitles us to make use of them in the administration of the sacrament. III. Leaving now the question of mode, we come to consider the administrator of baptism. So far as can be gathered from the New Testament, the ordinance was one which might be administered by private members of the Church. Doubtless the privileges of private members in this respect would generally be exercised with some supervision on the part of the apostles or other office bearers of the community ; but, at all events, it does not appear that ordination was considered a necessary qualification for the proper performance of the rite. It is a disputed point whether the commission given by the Lord, as reported at the end of Matthew, was addressed to the Eleven alone or to a much larger body of the disciples. But in any case it cannot be doubted that the commission was not meant only for the apostles. It is plain that with regard to the most important part of it, that part, namely, which bore upon the proclamation of the gospel, every disciple of Jesus felt himself under a personal responsibility. We read, for example, at the beginning of the eighth chapter of Acts, that in the days of the persecution which followed the death of Stephen 2 30 Baptism : the members of the Church were scattered abroad, " except the apostles " ; and " they that were scattered abroad went about preaching the word " (vers, i , 4). And if this was the view taken of the principal part of the Lord's commission, it would be altogether unnatural to fasten upon the baptism which was associated with disciple- making, and to elevate that into a peculiar apostolic function. With respect to what took place on the day of Pentecost, nothing is said as to how the three thousand were baptized. If this great number of persons was bap tized by immersion, the task can hardly have been accomplished by the apostles alone ; and at that time there were no other office-bearers among the one hundred and twenty disciples of whom the original community was composed. We know for a certainty that at a later stage baptism, so far from being regarded as the special prerogative of an apostle, was frequently, if not usually, left by the apostles to other persons. This was Paul's way at Corinth, as has been noticed already. And when Peter in the house of Cornelius commanded the centurion and his friends to be baptized, the rite must have been administered by some of the brethren from Joppa who had accompanied him to Caesarea (Acts x. 23, 48); and none of these, so far as we are aware, were either presbyters or deacons. When Paul was baptized, it is not explicitly stated that this was done by Ananias ; but that certainly is the natural meaning of the narrative, and the meaning which is assumed by every one to be correct. And Ananias is described as " a certain disciple at Damascus " (Acts ix. 10), and "a devout man according to the law" (Acts xxii. 12); expressions which do not warrant us in con cluding that he was anything more than an ordinary member of the Christian community. Worthy of notice, too, as suggesting that baptism was not looked upon as the special function of ordained officials, is the fact that Its Subjects and Forms 231 in nearly every case the narratives of particular baptisms are given in the passive form. We are not told who it was that administered the rite to certain converts, but simply that these converts " were baptized " (Acts passim).1 So far the New Testament. And now if we look beyond it for some confirmatory evidence as to the prac tice of the apostolic age, we find that the witness of the Didache' is again very important. For if in the time of the apostles the act had been confined to ordained persons, it would hardly have been possible that such an arrange ment should be ignored in a manual the very existence of which is a testimony to the gradual transition that was taking place from the spiritual freedom of the first days to a certain fixity of liturgical form. But the Didache does not contain the slightest suggestion that baptism was of the nature of a clerical function. " Now concerning baptism," it begins, " baptize ye thus " (vii. 1 ) ; the direc tions are just as general as those we find elsewhere in the same book on the subject of prayer or fasting or hospitality. It is an almost inevitable inference that, in the view of the writer, baptism might legitimately be per formed by an ordinary member of the Church.2 Ignatius, again, whose Epistles were probably written about the same time as the Didache' or shortly after, has nothing to con tradict what has just been said. For while he declares that " It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate the Agape," this does not by any means imply that it is necessary for the bishop to administer baptism personally. On the contrary, the very next words are, " Whatsoever he (i.e. the bishop) shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that 1 Cf. the remarks on this point of the Bishop of Salisbury in his Episcopate of Charles Wordsworth, p. 60. 2 Cf. Schaff, op. cit., p. 184. Similarly Harnack says, "An alle Christen ist das Folgende gerichtet ; der Verf. wendet sich nicht an bestimmte Personen " (Lehre der Zwolf Apostel, p. 22). 232 Baptism : is done may be secure and valid." x And so the statement is nothing more than an insistence that in the interests of Church order the sacrament shall not be observed without the permission of the presiding officer of the community, and by no means a claim that baptism in itself is a clerical, much less a sacerdotal function. In Justin's account of baptism, towards the middle of the second century, no hint is given that the rite was per formed by any particular individual.2 And TertuUian, again, in his treatise on baptism, which was written at the very beginning of the third century, but previous to his becoming a Montanist, while holding that in the interests of good order the privilege of baptizing should be restricted to the office-bearers of the Church, and ordinarily to the bishop, expressly grants that laymen have the right to perform it when bishops, priests, or deacons are not at hand, " inasmuch as what all in common have received, may be dispensed by all in common." 3 It would be going beyond the proper scope of these lectures to enter with any fulness into the later history of the question. But, as bearing upon the doctrinal signific ance of the sacrament, this curious fact may be noted, that in proportion as the tendency grew to regard baptism as the means of regeneration, and to attach a magical efficacy to the use of the correct forms, the Catholic Church was driven, by the stress of the practical interests which are involved in the tremendous claim that baptism is necessary to salvation, to lower the standard of adminis tration. And so it came to be held that in case of need the sacrament might be administered not merely by any member of the Church, but by any person whatsoever, man or woman, orthodox or heretic, Christian or Jew ; and even words repeated in sport by boys at play, as in the case of the youthful Athanasius and his companions 1 Ad Smyrn. viii. 2. - Apol. i. 61. 3 De Baptismo, xvii. Its Subjects and Forms 233 on the seashore at Alexandria, according to the well- known story of Rufinus, constituted a valid act of baptism, as much as if they had been pronounced by the Bishop of Rome himself.1 This looseness in the administration of baptism, ratified as it eventually was by the Council of Trent, is nothing less than a reductio ad absurdum of the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament. It shows how that doctrine breaks to pieces, and dissolves into a fine mist, when it strikes upon the rock facts of human nature. For while it proclaims that baptism is the means of regenera tion and the only door of salvation, it is compelled, by the clamant demands of human hearts, that the gate of heaven shall not be shut in the face of the dying through lack of an outward rite, to declare that the awful grace of the sacrament may be transmitted by one who has no grace of his own either personal or official, nor even the least pretension to any faith in Jesus Christ. In this way baptism is really evacuated of the mysterious content which had previously been imported into it, a fact that is practically admitted when confirmation is brought in as a new sacrament to supply the defects of the earlier one. It must be added that an inconsistency from an opposite direction sometimes appears in the utterances of those who do not regard baptism as essential to salvation, or as a priestly function in any peculiar sense. For they, never theless, describe the sacrament as invalid unless it is per formed by an ordained minister.2 Well, no doubt it is 1 Cf. Schaff- Herzog, Encyclopedia, i. 200 ; Stanley, Christian Institutions, p. 17 ; Allen, Christian Institutions, p. 403. 2 Dr. Charles Hodge indicates, though somewhat timidly, his doubts as to the correctness of this position ( The Church audits Polity, pp. 199-200). As he shows, there is very little in the Westminster Standards to justify it. The definition of baptism in the Confession of Faith (xxviii. 1 ) says nothing about the administrator. And while in the chapter on sacraments generally we are told that ' ' neither sacrament may be dispensed by any but by a minister of the word lawfully ordained" (xxvii. 4), this is no more than seems to be implied with regard to preaching by the expression ' ' a minister of the word lawfully 234 Baptism: proper in an organised Church that in the interests of unity, decency, and order the sacrament should only be administered, unless in very exceptional circumstances, by a duly recognised official of the Church ; but in view of what appears to have been the apostolic practice, it must be maintained that baptism by a Christian layman, however irregular from the point of view of Church procedure, is not invalid in the proper sense of the word. IV. We now come, finally, to the question of the baptismal formula. In an earlier lecture the words of the formula at the end of Matthew's Gospel were dis cussed from the point of view of the critical objections that have been raised to their genuineness and authen ticity. Those objections, as we saw, rest upon grounds of a very a priori character, and cannot be regarded as by any means conclusive. But assuming now that the words were spoken by Jesus, we have to account for what seems to be an omission on the part of the apostles to make use of them in connection with their own obser vance of the baptismal rite. For the triple formula of Matthew xxviii. 19 is found nowhere else in the New Testament, nor is there the slightest allusion to it in connection with any references that are made to the subject of baptism; while, on the other hand, we meet again and again with a baptism into the name of Jesus Christ, or into the name of the Lord Jesus, or simply into Christ. A frequently suggested explanation is that the Trinitarian formula would really be used by the apostles all along, and that when we read of baptism into the name of Jesus Christ, this is not a statement as to a formula which was employed, but only a designation of baptism as Christian baptism.1 In support of this view, it may be said that when Paul ordained." From the point of view of the Westminster divines, the preaching of a. layman in the ordinaiy services of the Church might be irregular, but who would venture to call it invalid ? 1 So, e.g., Plummer, Dictionary of the Bible, i. 241 f. Its Subjects and Forms 235 speaks of baptism into Christ (Rom. vi. 3 ; Gal. iii. 27), any reference to the triple formula would be entirely out of place, inasmuch as he is dealing specifically with the rela tion of baptism to the death of Christ, or to faith in Christ. He is speaking of the sacrament, that is, not with reference to its liturgical form, but as regards certain aspects of its doctrinal meaning ; and in particular, he is setting it in a doctrinal relation to Jesus Christ Himself, so that any mention of the other Persons of the Trinity would be entirely inappropriate. And as for the various passages in Acts where we read of baptism into the name of Jesus Christ, or of the Lord Jesus, it may be exegetically legiti mate to say that these expressions do not necessarily do more than signify the fact that baptism was administered on confession of the name of Jesus as Lord and Christ, so that they simply designate the sacrament as Christian baptism, without any reference to the formula that would be employed.1 This explanation, it may be added, finds some additional support in the fact that the Didache' twice over gives the precise Trinitarian formula in the liturgical directions for baptism in chapter vii., while in chapter ix. it specifies that only those are to sit down at the Lord's Table " who have been baptized into the name of the Lord." It is impossible to suppose that in these two chapters the Didache is speaking of two different formulas. Clearly the Trinitarian formula is the one which it pre scribes ; the instruction to pour water upon the head three times (vii. 3) raises this beyond the possibility of doubt. And when it is said in the later chapter that the partakers of the Lord's Table must first have been baptized into the name of the Lord, this is no more than an announcement that those who partake of the Eucharist must previously have made a profession of Christ, and have been admitted into the community by baptism. 1 Cf. Rackham, Acts, p. 32 ff. 236 Baptism: Exegetically, then, and apart from historical considera tions, this view of the case appears to be very reasonable. But when we find Stephen of Rome, in his controversy with Cyprian towards the middle of the third century, successfully vindicating his contention that those who have been baptized simply into the name of Christ do not need to be rebaptized ; and Ambrose, more than a century later, justifying baptism into the name of Christ alone, on the ground that in naming Christ we are really naming the other two Persons of the Trinity, " inasmuch as the name is one and the power is one," J it is difficult to resist the conclusion that from the first there must have existed in the Early Church the tradi tion of a baptism by the use of the simpler formula. For it is exceedingly unlikely, in view of the develop ment during the early centuries in the doctrine of the Trinity, that if the Trinitarian formula had been regu larly employed in the apostolic age, the shorter formula would have come into use at a later time. Read, accord ingly, in the light of subsequent history, it seems reasonable to regard the constant references in Acts to baptism into the name of Christ as pointing to a corresponding formula that was actually employed. And yet this does not go to prove that our Lord did not speak the words attributed to Him at the end of Matthew's Gospel.2 Rather it shows that in the early days of Christianity little importance was attached to the question of a formula, provided it was made clear when any one was baptized what Christian baptism really meant and what it implied. It is in keeping with this conclusion when we find that, even as regards the shorter form, there is no trace of anything like a rigid fixity. Men were baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, or into the name of the Lord Jesus, or even, it may be, into 1 De Spiritu Sancto. 2 Cf. on this point what has been said already in Lect. II. ; p. 49 ff. Its Subjects and Forms 237 the name simply of Christ.1 And as there was no fixity in regard to the name, just as little was there in regard to the precise relation to the name as expressed by the preposi tion ; for et? and iv and eVt are all employed.2 Indeed, even as regards the Trinitarian formula itself, it is worth noting that while it occurs in the Didache in precisely the same form as in Matthew, the references to it in Justin Martyr and TertuUian do not suggest a careful adherence to an exact verbal form. Justin gives it after a paraphrastic fashion,3 while TertuUian associates the name of the Church with the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.4 And in the Syrian Church an enlarged version of the formula appears to have been in use, similar to that of TertuUian.5 All this goes to show that it is contrary to what we can discover with respect to the teaching of the New Testa ment, and contrary also to the evidence which comes from the early Church, to imagine that the efficacy or value of baptism hangs upon the employment of any fixed form of words. The majestic formula with which we are so familiar, is doubtless sanctioned by the words in which Jesus summed up the essential content of His gospel at the time when He appointed baptism to be the special sign of Christian discipleship, and sanctioned also by the early liturgical adoption of these words in the universal Church, and their use in Christian history ever since. But to turn that formula into a kind of magic " Abracadabra " would be contrary to the very spirit of the Christian religion. Even to this day, it may be pointed out, it is a disputed point whether we should baptize in the name or into the name. 1 See 1 Cor. i. 13, which suggests a baptism into the name of Christ. 2 The variety of expressions as regards both the name and the relation to the name may be seen from the following : — iirl (or iv) rip ovbptan 'I-rjoov XptOTov, Acts ii. 38 ; eh t6 iSvo/ia tov Kvpiov '1-qo-ov, Acts viii. 16, xix. 5 ; 4i> rip ovo/xctrt tov Kvpiov, Acts x. 48 ; eh Xptorbv 'l-qooSv, Rom. vi. 3 ; eh Xpiorbv, Gal. iii. 27. 3 jip0l, i. 61. 4 Be Baptismo, vi. 5 See Scholten, Die Taufformel, p. 39- 238 Baptism: " In the name " is the old form among us, sanctioned by the usage of the Church from Old Catholic times, through what was probably a mistranslation in the Vulgate. But et? in Greek is generally admitted to mean " into " and not " in " ; x and so " into the name " would be the most correct form, seldom as it is actually employed. With regard to this whole question of the formula, however, we must hold with Stephen of Rome rather than with Cyprian of Carthage. Adherence to a liturgical rubric is no doubt proper for the sake of uniformity in an organised Church ; but where the washing of water is administered in faith, with the design of " signifying, sealing, and applying " the benefits of the covenant of grace, the precise language of the formula is a matter of secondary moment. We have dealt in this lecture with the subjects, mode, administrator, and formula of baptism. And we have done so, primarily, because these are matters which have an independent interest of their own in any study of New Testament teaching upon the sacraments. But, as we have seen in passing, much that we learn about these topics has a very close bearing upon the still more important ques tions which have been discussed in previous lectures as to the essential significance and value of the rite. What strikes us all through the New Testament is the spirit of freedom in everything that concerns this sacrament. It is faith that is paramount, not form ; the inward, not the outward ; the spirit, and not the letter. The full value of the rite must always be conditioned by faith in the recipient, a future faith if not a present faith. And the true baptism, the only baptism that can bring God's grace into the heart, is the baptism of the Spirit and not the baptism of water. Baptism is no cabalistic rite, depending for its virtue upon 1 See, however, Dean Armitage Robinson in his article ' ' Baptism "in the Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. i. He holds to the translation "in the name," on the ground that the interchange of the prepositions eh and iv in late Greek can be plentifully illustrated from the N. T. Its Subjects and Forms 239 the use of certain technical words and forms, but essentially a representative one, appealing to us through the eye as the word does through the ear. Like the word, it carries within it the possibility of blessing ; but its virtue is not something magical, inhering in it in any material or quasi- material fashion ; it is a spiritual virtue, like the virtue of the word itself. It has its own place, and that a very important place, in the economy of the Church as well as in the life of the individual. But baptism is not regeneration. It cannot take the place of faith, or even stand for a moment beside it as a religious magnitude. It is the public and orderly recognition, by Christ's own appointment, of our membership in the visible community ; but it is faith and not baptism, the Spirit and not the water, that entitles us to be called the children of God. LECTURE VI. The Supper of Jesus : The Historical Facts. When we pass, in a study of the New Testament doctrine of the sacraments, from baptism to the Lord's Supper, we find ourselves entering upon a sphere of even greater difficulties and keener controversies than before. For the most part, however, the difficulties must be attributed to the controversies rather than the controversies to the difficulties : it is the manner in which the subject has been approached, and the spirit in which it has been handled, far more than its own inherent obscurity, that has led to so much dispute. A distinguished Church historian of the present day has said that " the history of the Lord's Supper is a passion-history." 1 And, indeed, it is not too much to say that the passion of Jesus has been renewed in the history of His feast of love, and the Lord Himself has been wounded continually in the house of His friends. Representatives of all schools of opinion unite in com menting upon the strangeness of the fact that the great sacrament of Christian brotherhood should have been turned, through doctrinal misunderstandings, into the worst root of bitterness and division among the followers of Christ, so that, as a recent Roman Catholic writer has put it, " instead of being a tessara unitatis, it has become a battlefield." 2 But while there are those who endeavour ¦Professor Loofs, in his article "Abendmahl" in the Hauck-Herzog Real- encyklopddie, i. 44. 2 W. R. Carson, An Eucharistic Eirenicon, p. 15. 240 The Historical Facts 2 4 1 to escape from the region of controversy by falling back upon the idea of unexplained and inexplicable mysteries, we must rather hold that it is precisely the unwarranted magnifying of the element of mystery, the turning of the simple acts and words of Jesus at the supper-table into the mysterium tremendum of the later Catholic Church, that has led to most of the sorrowful strife over the great sacrament of redeeming grace. Not, of course, that the element of mystery in this ordinance can ever be eliminated. The Schoolmen were right when they said that " all things pass out into a mystery." x And in particular there must always be an unfathomed mystery at the meeting-point of the seen and the unseen, of the human and the divine, of grace and the means of grace. We may even admit the truth of a saying of our own " Rabbi Duncan " with regard to the Lord's Supper, " Take away the mystery, and you take away the sacrament." But what we must protest against is the introduction into the Christian view of the Supper of magical and theurgic ideas of which no trace is to be found in the New Testament, and the gradual emergence of which in the later dogma of the Church can be traced with absolute certainty to the influence of extraneous and, as we believe, non-Christian ideas.2 During the last ten or twelve years the New Testament teaching on the subject of the Lord's Supper has been examined and discussed with a critical minuteness and care which had never before been devoted to it. And though the critical scholars are by no means agreed among themselves as to the general conclusions that ought to be come to regarding the nature and significance of the 1 " Omnia exeunt in mysterium" ; cf. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 131. 2 See Harnack, History of Dogma, ii. 146, 147 ; Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, p. 292 ff. ; Loofs, op. cit., i. 46, 47 ; Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen, p. 84 ff. And cf. the frank admissions of Dr. Illingworth, Divine Immanence, p. 141 ff,, and Mr. Inge in his chapter on " The Sacraments " in Contentio Veritatis, pp. 287, 294. 16 242 The Supper of Jesus: ordinance, and some of them have ventilated opinions which appear to be very far from justifiable, at all events their united labours have done something not only to clear the atmosphere, but to indicate the path by which alone the Church can hope to arrive eventually at a harmonious, because a historical, view upon the subject. There are certain things which criticism may be said to have deter mined finally, and which can no longer be ignored except by those who renounce historical criticism altogether, and decline to regard the New Testament as the true court of appeal. One point in particular must be regarded as fundamental — that all accurate thinking on the subject of the sacrament must start from the historical Supper in the upper room. It is of no use to attempt to work here by a priori methods, to set out with fixed dogmatic conceptions of what the Supper means, and then to refer to the New Testament for corroborations of a predetermined theory. This, however, is really the method of the Roman Catholic Church, and of High Churchmen generally. They adhere firmly to the old formula : " The Church to teach, the Bible to prove," and interpret it as meaning that we are only to approach the original documents of the Christian faith by the pathway of the later Churchly tradition.1 Well, this claim might not be altogether un reasonable if the tradition were known to be absolutely pure and perfectly consistent, and if, further, it could be maintained that the Church Fathers had better oppor tunities of standing face to face with the historical Christ and His apostles than we have to-day. But in view of the fact that the scientific historical studies of modern times have brought us into a nearer touch with the realities of original Christianity than was possible to any 1 See Gore, Body of Christ, pp. 241, 242. For a true view of the relation between Scripture and Churchly dogma, see Professor Orr's admirable discus sion, Progress of Dogma, p. 14 ft". The Historical Facts 243 other Christian generation since the close of the first cen tury, in view too of the evident discrepancy between New Testament teaching and much of the teaching of the Fathers, and the no less evident diversities of opinion among the Fathers themselves, this method of appraising the sacraments seems as foolish as it would be to judge of a fountain-head among the hills not by its own clear waters which we are free to approach, but by the distant stream with which all sorts of discolouring matter have meanwhile got mingled — mud from the river banks, dye from the factories, and impurities of every description from hamlet and village and town. And if it is absurd to start from the later dogma regarding the Lord's Supper and draw inferences from that as to the original teaching of Chris tianity, instead of first studying that teaching as it lies plainly before us in the original documents, it is equally absurd, when we come to the New Testament itself, to start, as is so often done, not at the centre, but at the circumference ; not with the narratives of the Supper, but with the sixth chapter of John.1 If there is anything that historical criticism may be said to have determined beyond the possibility of reasonable challenge, it is this, that the only way in which we can hope to arrive at a true doctrine of the Supper is by studying the actions and words of Jesus at the historical Supper in Jerusalem, and that no dogmatic formulation can be justified which does not take this as its point of departure.2 There is nothing in all the life of our Lord that is better established historically than the fact that, on the night before His death, He partook with His disciples 1 Gore, Body of Christ, pp. 21, 242. On the unreasonableness of taking John vi. as the point of departure, see M. Lafon, Revue de Thlologie et des Questions Religieuses, Annee IX. No. 6, p. 540 f. 2 Cf. Schultzen, Das Abendmahl im NT., p. 1 f. ; Lobstein, La doctrine de la Sainte Cene, pp. II f., 23 f. ; Spitta, Zur Geschichte u. Litteratur des Urchris- tentums, p. 208 f. 244 The Supper of Jesus : of a farewell meal. On this point we have the testimony not only of the three Synoptists, but of the Apostle Paul. Indeed, we have so far the testimony also of the fourth evangelist. For while John does not tell us anything as to the special acts and words of the Lord's Supper, he testifies that on the night before He died Jesus gathered His disciples around Him, and solemnly partook with them of a parting meal. On the fact of this last meal of Jesus with His apostles every one is agreed. But as to the occa sion of this meal, as to what precisely Jesus said and did at it, as to His meaning and purpose in what He said and did — on these and many other points connected with the subject all kinds of critical difficulties emerge, which will have to be carefully examined. Our first task, however, must be to clear the ground by arriving at some under standing as to the sources on which we are to rely, the relations between them, and their precise historical value. I. As every reader of the New Testament is aware, we have four different narratives of the Lord's Supper. Each of the three Synoptists gives an account of the scene. John, on the other hand, does not do so ; though he speaks, as has just been said, of a supper that took place on the night before the Master's death. But to compensate for John's silence, we have Paul's very important narrative in the eleventh chapter of i Corinthians. Now, until the appearance of Westcott and Hort's New Testament in 1 8 8 1 , it was generally recognised by critical students that an examination of these four narratives reveals the existence of two distinct groups or types of text, one type being represented by Mark and Matthew, and the other by Paul and Luke. But Westcott and Hort raised a serious difficulty in the way of this principle of grouping. Having come to the conclusion that the original text of Luke at this point is that found in the Bezan Codex and several old Latin versions, they struck out from The Historical Facts 245 Luke's account of the Supper not only the significant words, " This do in remembrance of Me," but the phrase " which is given for you " after the bread, and the whole verse referring to the cup after Supper.1 If this view were generally accepted, it would, of course, throw Luke's narra tive of the Supper entirely out of line with Paul's. But in spite of the deservedly high authority of Westcott and Hort in a matter such at this, recent criticism tends more and more to decide against them in this particular case, and to adhere to the reading of the Textus Receptus.2 On grounds of pure text criticism, much can be said for their view, without doubt. But the textual arguments against it are not less weighty ; and when we fall back, as we are entitled to do in such a case, upon broader con siderations of a contextual and psychological nature, it seems much more likely that the variant text represented by Codex D is due to the error of a copyist than that it is the original text of the evangelist himself. If it is difficult, as Westcott and Hort insist, to see how a copyist with the longer text before him could produce the shorter form of Codex D, it is still more difficult to explain how Luke himself could have given us an account of the Lord's Supper which differs so widely from the accepted tradition 1 The New Testament in Greek, ii. 63 ff. They regard the whole passage, Luke xxii. 1 9^-20, as a later interpolation taken from Paul's narrative in the eleventh of 1 Corinthians. 2 Jtilicher says, "Doch halte Ich die beiden Verse aus ausseren und inneren Grlinden fiir echt lucanisch, und ihre Streichung fur einen methodischen Fehler " (Theologische Abhandlungen, p. 235) ; while Schmiedel describes the " Western " reading as "an abnormity of no significance" (Protestantische AIo?iatshefte, 1899, Heft iv. p. 125). Similarly Cremer (Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopddie, i. 33), Schultzen (Das AbendmahlimN.T, p. 112), Schaefer (Das Herrenmahl nach Ursprung u. Bedeutung, p. 148), Clemen (Der Ursprung des heiligen Abendmahls, p. 21 f.), Schweitzer (Das Abendmahl im Zusammenhang mit dem Leben Jesu, Erstes Heft, p. 46), Berning (Einsetzung der heiligen Eucharistic, p. 42 f. ), Professor Menzies (Expositor, Oct. 1899, p. 243). Even Professors Sanday and Plummer, though maintaining the Westcott and Hort tradition, concede that "either reading maybe original" (Sanday, Hastings' Diet, of the Bible, ii. 636), or that " the whole passage should be treated as at least doubt ful " (Plummer, Hastings' Diet, of the Bible, iii. 146). 246 The Supper of Jesus : of his time, and especially from that form of the tradition which is represented by Paul, and which he must often have heard from Paul's own lips at the Lord's Table ; an account of which it has to be said, either that it contains no mention of the cup at all, or that the words about the drinking of the fruit of the vine are confounded with the words about the cup of the new covenant, while the bread is made to follow the cup instead of the cup the bread.1 We have good grounds, therefore, for retaining the Lucan narrative as we find it in the received text. And this being the case, we shall abide by the familiar arrange ment of our sources, as consisting of a Mark-Matthew group and a Paul-Luke group. But it has to be noted, in the next place, that when each of these groups is examined more particularly, it seems evident that a more original and a less original source is present in each. In other words, Matthew is found to depend upon Mark, and Luke upon Paul. The dependence of the First Gospel upon the Second is a commonplace of present-day criticism ; and a comparison of their respective versions of the Supper certainly supports the prevalent opinion as to their mutual relations. As for Paul and Luke, again, the similarity between their accounts is so great that it can only be explained by regarding them as connected in a very close manner; and every one admits that Luke must have been indebted to Paul, not Paul to Luke. But now, having settled these points — that we have two groups of narratives, a Mark-Matthew group and a Paul-Luke group, and that Mark in the one case and Paul in the other represent the older and more original accounts of the Supper — is it possible for us to go still further, and to assign a priority to one of these two older narratives 1 The blunder of a careless copyist may be accounted for by supposing him to have made the mistake (which it is difficult to attribute to the evangelist) of thinking that the words about the fruit of the vine in verse 17 were the words of institution at the giving of the cup. The Historical Facts 247 over the other? The point has been very keenly can vassed in recent years, and a great deal of significance has often been attached to a decision.1 That Mark's account rests upon the primitive apostolic tradition, is generally admitted. But on behalf of Paul also a similar claim must certainly be made. There are some, indeed, who claim for Paul much more than this. Not only on the ground that 1 Corinthians was written before Mark's Gospel, but on the much higher ground that the apostle's narrative is due to an immediate revelation vouchsafed by the glorified Jesus, they demand for his narrative an absolute precedence over all others. Now, no one doubts that 1 Corinthians was written before Mark's Gospel ; but this in itself does not imply that Paul's version rests on a more primitive tradition than that of Mark. Of course, if the second ground could be sustained, that Paul received from the ascended Lord Himself a direct revelation of what took place in the upper room, his account would be entitled to rank above every other, as the one possessed of the most immediate and the highest authority.2 But few scholars now regard this as implied in the statement, " I received of the Lord that which also I delivered 1 Jtilicher, e.g. , gives the preierence to Mark, and as Mark has not got the words, "This do in remembrance of Me," he finds in this circumstance a support for his theory that the Supper was simply a parable addressed to the apostles, and that Jesus had no intention that it should be repeated after His death (Theologische Abhandlungen, p. 237 f.). Spitta similarly attaches himself to Mark, and as in Mark the thought of Christ's death is not made so prominent as in Paul's narrative, he endeavouis to make out that the Supper had no bearing whatever upon the death of Jesus, but pointed to the glorious Messianic meal in the heavenly kingdom ( Urchristentum, pp. 266 ff. , 282 ff. ). Dr. Percy Gardner, on the other hand, decides very emphatically in favour of Paul, even inclining to the opinion that both Mark and Matthew derived their accounts of the Supper from the narrative of 1 Corinthians ( Origin of the Lord's Supper, p. 12). And as he maintains that Paul's ideas regarding the sacrament were the result of a vision, which again was largely suggested by a recent visit to Eleusis, he comes to the conclusion that the whole fabric of the Christian institution rests upon nothing better than a trance or vision in which Christian ideas were curiously com pounded with the rites of the heathen mystery cults ! 2 This is the view taken by Godet. See his Luke, vol. ii. p. 294, 248 The Supper of Jesus : unto you." The terms of the original are against such an interpretation.1 Nor is it in accordance with the acknowledged principle of economy in the use of the miraculous, that a supernatural revelation should have been made to Paul about a particular historical incident regard ing which he would quite easily and more naturally have been informed by those who were themselves present at the original Supper. Paul's narrative, therefore, it must be held, rests, like Mark's, on the primitive apostolic tradi tion. And when he says that he received it from the Lord, all that he means probably is that the Supper is not a rite of his own devising, nor one which he has imparted to the Corinthians on his own authority, but an ordinance which goes straight back to the positive institution of Jesus Christ Himself.2 Frequently, however, it is suggested that while Paul undoubtedly received the tradition from the Jerusalem community, he so tinged it with his own dogmatic conceptions that it can no longer be regarded as historical in the same degree as Mark's. Against such objections we have to set the solemn words with which the apostle introduces his account of what took place on that night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed. Even though these words do not mean that the narrative of the .Supper came to him directly from the lips of the glorified Jesus, they do mean that it is from Jesus that they . have come, and that Paul has received them and trans- 1 wapaXafip&veiv is never used to denote the receiving of anything through revelation. Galat. i. 12 is no exception, as 12b depends upon 12a. Cf. Schultzen, op. cit., p. 20. Further, the use of the preposition dirb instead of irapd points to Paul's knowledge of the Supper having come to him from Jesus Christ through a mediate channel. It is true that Lightfoot does not recog nise this distinction between the two prepositions ; but see, on the other hand, Moulton-Winer, Grammar of N. T. Greek, p. 463, and Schmiedel, Hand- Commentar, in loco. 2 Dr. Percy Gardner says, " The emphatic iy& in the Corinthian passage ¦ makes the claim to personal inspiration still more clear " (op. cit., p. 5). But the emphasis on the iyii> suggests Paul's claim to authority in his exposition of the sig nificance of the Supper, rather than to an inspired knowledge of its historical form. The Historical Facts 249 mitted them with peculiar care as a sacred trust committed to his charge. The idea that the apostle was not scrupu- ¦ lous to hand on the tradition of the Supper just as he had received it, is one that does not do justice either to his acknowledged character or to his express affirmations in the present case. It is this that leads Harnack to say, in rejecting Spitta's ingenious constructions, " The words of 1 Corinthians xi. 23, 'I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you,' are too strong for me." x Paul's narrative and Mark's, then, have equal claims to be regarded as giving us a faithful account of the apostolic tradition of the Supper. It is impossible to assign any distinct priority to either of them over the other. For deciding what was actually done and said by Jesus at the Lord's Table, we shall treat them as of like value, while we shall consider it right at every point to test the statements of the one by those of the other. As for the narratives in Matthew and Luke, though not so original as the other two, they are the testimonies of thoroughly reliable writers, who were not independent, certainly, of Mark and Paul, but who yet had their own opportunities of contact with the apostolic circle and the primitive tradition, and who doubtless care fully used those opportunities for the purpose of arriving at the truth. We cannot regard it as any absolute presumption against the historical accuracy of a phrase which we find in the First or the Third Gospel, that nothing precisely corre sponding is found elsewhere. The evangelists did not do their work on the lines of an ecclesiastical committee ap pointed to frame a joint-minute ; and it is hardly warrantable to refuse to give credit to a statement in any one of the Gospels on the mere ground that it is not found in another. II. But now, before proceeding to examine in detail the evidence of our four authorities as to what took place at the Supper, there is an important question that ought first 1 History of Dogma, i. 66. 2 50 The Supper of Jesus : to be dealt with, inasmuch as our decision upon it cannot but affect more or less intimately our whole interpretation of the Lord's acts and words at the Table. What was the occasion of the Supper ? Was it at a Passover feast, or at an ordinary evening meal which stood in no relation to the Passover, that Jesus broke the bread and passed round the cup, saying, " This is My body " ; " This is My covenant- blood" ? Until recent years, in spite of the manifest diffi culties suggested by a comparison of the statements of the Synoptists with those of the fourth evangelist, there were not many who seriously questioned, the immediate connec tion of the Lord's Supper with the Passover. But of late a closer comparative study of the Gospel narratives has led not a few to hesitate, while some critical scholars have arrived at the decided opinion that there was no connection whatsoever, whether outward or inward, between the Supper of Jesus and the Jewish paschal meal ; so that no illumin ating ray falls from the ancient rite of Hebrew history upon the sacrament of the Christian Church.1 The question is bound up with the larger question of the whole chronology of the last week of our Lord's life on earth, and with the determination especially of the day on which he died. As every careful reader of the Gospels has noticed, there seems to be a discrepancy at this last-mentioned point between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. From all the evan gelists alike we gather that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, that He lay in the tomb throughout the hours of the Jewish Sabbath, and rose again on the first day of the week. There is no controversy, therefore, as to the day of the week on which the Last Supper took place. Since Jesus died on the Friday, the Supper must have been held on the Thursday evening. But the point in dispute is whether this Thursday was the 14th Nisan, the regular day of the Jewish Passover, or the 1 3th Nisan, the day preceding 1 See Grafe, Zeitschrift fiir Theologie u. Kirche, 1895, Heft ii. p. 136. The Historical Facts 2 5 1 the Passover.1 When we read the Synoptic narratives the connection of the Supper with a paschal meal appears per fectly evident. The three evangelists all tell us that on the day before the death of Jesus the disciples asked Him where they were to prepare the Passover, that Jesus directed them to a certain man in Jerusalem at whose house the feast was to be observed, and that they made ready the Passover in that house according to their Master's instruc tions (Mark xiv. 12-16; Matt. xxvi. 17-19; Luke xxii. 7—13). And Luke further represents Jesus as saying, after He was seated at the table, " With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (xxii. 15). When we turn to the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, it seems perfectly apparent that the Last Supper, whatever its form and character, cannot have been held on the regular night of the Jewish Passover. When Judas suddenly rose from the table and went out, some of the disciples thought that he had gone to buy such things as were needed for the festival (xiii. 29). On the following morning the Jews would not enter the Roman Praetorium, " that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover" (xviii. 28). The day of the crucifixion is described as " the preparation of the Passover " (xix. 14 ; cf. ver. 31). And of the ensuing Sabbath it is said, " The day of that Sabbath was an high day" (xix. 31), evidently because it coincided with the day of the paschal feast, which was legally reckoned, it must be remembered, like all Jewish days, from sunset to sunset. Nor is this all, for the Synoptic narratives themselves, when carefully examined, present several features which go to corroborate John's testimony that the regular Passover of the Jews did not take place till after Jesus was crucified.2 1 As the Jewish day legally began at sunset, the Passover was eaten on the 15th Nisan, according to legal reckoning ; but in popular language it was spoken of as being eaten on the night of the 14th. 2 It is worth noting that the evidence of the recently discovered Gospel of Peter points in the same direction. Aftei telling how Joseph of Arimathea came 252 The Supper of Jesus : They tell us, for example, that the Sanhedrists had resolved not to attempt to put Jesus to death during the feast, lest there should be a tumult of the people (Mark xiv. 1, 2, and parallels). They not only represent Peter as carrying a sword on the night of the betrayal, but tell us that the very officers of the Sanhedrin came out against Jesus with swords and staves ; whereas it was contrary to the law to bear lethal weapons on a Sabbatic day like the day of the feast. Again, they describe the Sanhedrin as assembling for the trial of Jesus on the very day of the crucifixion, and Joseph of Arimathea as purchasing grave-clothes for His burial on the same day ; and yet neither of those things would have been permissible, according to the Jewish law, on the great day of the feast.1 Now, in view of all this, it seems evident that if we are to regard the main Synoptic statements as necessarily implying that Jesus kept the Passover on the evening of the 14th Nisan, the regular time of the Jewish paschal meal, the first three Gospels are hopelessly at variance with the Fourth, if not also at variance with themselves. In that case we should have to make choice at this point between John and the Synoptists, and between a view that the to Pilate and begged the body of the Lord for burial, it proceeds : "And Pilate sent to Herod and asked for His body ; and Herod said, Brother Pilate, even if no one asked for Him, we should have had to bury Him, for already the Sabbath draws on ; for it is written in the law that the sun must not go down upon a murdered person on the day before their feast, the feast of unleavened bread." See Professor Rendel Harris's Gospel of St. Peter, pp. 43, 44. * On these points see Chwolson, Das Letzte Passamahl Christi u. der Tag seines Todes, p. 6ff. , and Spitta, Urchristentutn, p. 222 ff. Schmiedel attempts to minimise those features in the Synoptic narratives which go to support the statements of the Fourth Gospel, by showing that, however impressive in the mass, when looked at in detail they are capable of being explained away one by one (Protestantische Monatshefte, 1899, Heft iv. p. 142 f.). But even if it could be granted that Schmiedel was altogether successful in his process of explaining them away, it has to be remembered that those features require to be looked at in the mass as well as in detail. The striking thing is that there should be so many coincident threads of proof, even in the Synoptic narratives, which tend in" the same direction as the account of the fourth evangelist. The Historical Facts 253 Lord's Supper had no connection with the Passover meal, and a contrary view that it was preceded by it and sprang out of it. The tendency of many modern critics is not only to make such a definite choice, but to decide very strongly in favour of John's representation as being the more probable of the two, a decision which is rather striking in view of the general attitude assumed by some of these same critics to the historicity of the Fourth Gospel as a whole. In support of this position, Spitta and others have alleged a variety of reasons. It is pointed out, for example, that the descriptions of the Last Supper which we find in Matthew and Mark do not suggest that it was a paschal feast. The lamb is never mentioned. No parallels are drawn by Jesus between the Passover and the new Christian rite. And when He is choosing a symbol to represent His body, He takes a loaf of bread, and not a portion of the paschal lamb, as He would naturally have done if He had wished to make the Christian sacrament the antitype of the ritual supper of the Jews. The answers to such pleas, how ever, are very simple. It was altogether unnecessary for the apostolic tradition, when it had made clear that the Lord's Supper was preceded by a Passover meal, to give any description of the latter, inasmuch as all Passover feasts were alike, and nothing was more familiar to the members of the original Christian community than the course of pro cedure that would be followed on such an occasion. It was the new things that happened that night which the apostles were concerned to remember and the evangelists to write down, not what was old and perfectly well known. Again, it is entirely beside the mark to assume that if the preceding feast had been a paschal feast, Jesus would have sought to establish parallels at every point between the two rites. This is to forget that while He came not to destroy but to fulfil, He always maintained a sovereign freedom in His attitude to all traditional forms, so that His fulfilment was 254 The Supper of Jesus : also a transformation.1 As for the suggestion that if Jesus had been keeping the Passover feast He would have iden tified Himself with the Passover lamb by using a portion of its flesh in the first act of the Holy Supper, and not a loaf of bread, it strikes us as revealing a singular lack both of imagination and insight. The lamb was already dead ; but the sacrifice of Jesus was yet to come. The use of some still remaining portion of the roasted meat could not repre sent the surrender of a perfect life and its destruction by death, as those ideas were proclaimed by the breaking of a whole loaf of bread. Besides, we must remember here again the originality of Jesus, and the fact that the religion which He came to found was designed not to reproduce Jewish rites and customs, however sacred, but to fulfil their underlying ideas, while substituting for themselves what was infinitely simpler, more spiritual, and better adapted to the needs of a universal religion. Unless we deny to Jesus all insight into the nature of His own religion and all foresight of its his tory, it will not be difficult for us to perceive that He must have known that broken bread was infinitely better fitted than the flesh of the Jewish paschal lamb to serve to the Church of the future as the symbol of His great sacrifice of love. There is very little weight, then, in the arguments by which some writers endeavour to set aside the evidence ot the Synoptists, that on that night in which He was betrayed, and before instituting the sacramental Supper of His people, Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples.2 Moreover, it has to be remembered that this view is beset by difficulties of the most serious nature. What are we to make of the 1 It is of little use to seek to meet criticism of the kind referred to by dis cussing such questions as, which of the paschal cups it was that Jesus gave thanks for and described as His covenant-blood. Such inquiries, as Professor Bruce remarks, seem "idle, and in spirit Rabbinical." See Expositor's Greek Testament, i. 312. 2 See an article by the present writer on " The Passover and the Lord's Supper" in Journal of Theological Studies, Jan. 1903, pp. 184-193. The Historical Facts 255 unanimous testimony of the Synoptists upon the point in question ? How, especially, dispose of the evidence of Mark, the oldest and most original of the three ? Spitta gets rid of the whole paragraph in Mark's Gospel in which the paschal character of the Supper is affirmed (Mark xiv. 12—16), by pronouncing it an interpolation that stands in no organic connection with the rest of the narrative.1 This, however, is a rather violent way of dealing with a passage that does not happen to square with a peculiar theory. And even if there were far more ground than has yet been shown for the assertion, that the statements which we find in the Synoptics as to the paschal character of the feast do not belong to the earliest tradition, we should still have to ask how it came to pass that so early in the history of the Church another tradition not only sprang up, but became dominant, according to which the Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples was in its initial stage a paschal supper. Spitta himself admits that in Paul's view of the sacrament the connection with the Passover meal is evident.2 If so, how are we to explain this entire transformation ol the supposed original tradition, a transformation so early that it must have taken place not only before Paul wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians, but before he became a Christian and received from the Jerusalem apostles the story of the upper room, a tradition so widely spread that not Paul only, but every one of the Synoptic evangelists, bears testimony to it ? There is nothing in the external history of the Lord's Supper to account for it ; for, so far from being linked to the Jewish Passover in the celebrations of the primitive Church, the Supper was immediately detached from it altogether. Instead of being observed in association with the Passover, it was observed in connection with the common meals of the Christian community. Instead of being celebrated once a year, it appears at first to have 1 Spitta, op. cit., p. 228. - Spitta, ibid., p. 265. 256 The Supper of Jesus : been celebrated every day, and afterwards on the first day of every week. This being the case, it is exceedingly difficult to see how, within a few years of our Lord's death, and at the headquarters of primitive Christianity, a tradition could grow up which was an entire falsification of the facts as known to the apostles themselves.1 If it is thus impossible, on the one hand, to set aside the testimony of the Fourth Gospel, supported as that is by various touches in the Synoptic narrative, that Jesus died on the day before the regular Jewish feast, it seems equally impossible, on the other, to ignore the unanimous testimony of the Synoptists, that He kept the Passover with His disciples on the night before He died, and that it was at the close of a paschal meal that the Lord's Supper was instituted. " That it actually was," says Weizsacker, " there is no doubt. It was on account of the Passover that Jesus went to Jerusalem that evening. It was the paschal feast which was actually held that caused His death to be com pared with the slaying of the paschal lamb (1 Cor. v. 7)."2 If, then, John is right in placing the regular Passover on * the night after the crucifixion, and the Synoptists are also right when they tell us that Jesus ate the Passover with His disciples on the previous evening, the only conclusion • left to us is that Jesus and His disciples kept the feast a day sooner than it w$s Jrept by the rest of the Jewish com munity.3 The one serious textual difficulty in the way of this conclu ion is, that in each of the Synoptic narratives there is a verse which appears to tie us down to the regular 1 Mr. Wright's theory that the Synoptists have mixed tip narratives of the Last Supper with narratives of some earlier paschal supper is purely conjectural, and has very little to recommend it. See his N. T Problems, p. 178 ff. 2 Apostolic Age, ii. 279. 3 So Godet, Beyschlag, Lobstein, and many others. And this view has recently been re-affirmed, after a full and careful review of the whole ground, by Zockler in his article "Jesus Christus" in the Hauck-Herzog Realencyklopddie, vol. ix. pp. 32, 42; and Sanday in the article "Jesus Christ" in Did. of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 634. The Historical Facts 257 night of the Jewish Passover as the occasion of the Last Supper, by telling us that it was on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread that Jesus sent His disciples to make ready the Passover (Matt. xxvi. 1 7 ; Mark xiv. 1 2 ; Luke xxii. 7). Dr. Chwolson, however, has suggested a very interesting explanation of the difficulty, which is all the more worthy of consideration as coming from a non- Christian Jew, writing in no apologetic spirit, but simply as a profound student of Jewish antiquities.1 He endeavours to show that there are plain internal grounds for holding that at this point we have to do with a corruption, slight in itself and yet serious in its consequences, which has crept into the original text.2 He affirms that in all our Jewish authorities, from the time of the Mosaic writings down to the Middle Ages, the expression " the first day of the feast of unleavened bread " is employed to signify not the 1 4th, but only the 15 th Nisan. This definition of time, accord ingly, on the part of the Synoptists, really conveys no intelligible meaning, since it makes Jesus order His disciples to prepare the paschal lamb a day after it had already been eaten — an inconsistency so patent that it is only to be ex plained on the supposition of a textual mistake. And start ing from the view of an original Aramaic form for Matthew's narrative, Chwolson shows that by the very simple and natural omission of three letters of the alphabet, standing in immediate juxtaposition to another group of the same three letters, the statement, " The day of unleavened bread drew near, and^the disciples drew near to Jesus," which he takes to have been the original one, would be altered into, " On the first day of unleavened bread the disciples drew near to Jesus." 3 This hypothesis, he points out, is sup- 1 Father Matthew Power, in his Anglo-Jewish Calendar, p. 3, informs us that Chwolson has recently seceded from the Jewish communion. 2 Das Letzte Passamahl Christi, pp. 3 ff., 10 ff. 3 In Chwolson's belief the original source of Matt. xxvi. 17 ran thus: KBi' 1-idni jnf rth 'T\rvthr\ lanpi anp x'vosi K'aip. Through the oversight of a copyist, U 258 The Supper of Jesus : ported by the Sahidic version of Luke xxii. 7, which reads, " The day of unleavened bread was nigh, on which the Passover must be sacrificed." To complete his view, Chwolson supposes that the parallel passages in Mark and Luke must have been altered so as to bring them into harmony with Matthew, at a time when the knowledge of Jewish usages was no longer in the possession of the Church.1 Worthy of consideration also, in this connection, is the recent theory of Father Power, that in keeping the Passover on the Thursday evening Jesus was really keeping it on the scriptural 15 th moon of Nisan (the evening of the 14th), while the Jewish authorities, in appointing it for the Friday evening, i.e. according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, were going a day beyond the proper scriptural date.2 Mr. Power claims to have discovered the operation of a secret rule called " Badhu," known to the Jewish calendarists, according to which the Passover was never allowed to fall on the irpoadBBaTov, the day preceding the Jewish Sabbath.3 To prevent this from happening, a day was intercalated when necessary in the 8th month (Heshvan) of the preceding year ; and, according to Mr. Power's general chronological scheme, this was precisely what took place in the year of our Lord's death. The Passover would naturally, and according to both scriptural and scientific one of the two groups imp, which occur side by side, was dropped out, and so the meaning was transformed from, " The day of unleavened bread drew near," to " On the first day of unleavened bread" (Das Lctzte Passamahl Christi, p. ii). 1 Cf. Mr. W. C. Allen's statement in his article on "The Aramaic element in St. Mark," Expository Times, vol. xiii. p. 330. Pie expresses the opinion that in Mark xiv. 12, and parallels, we have a corruption that is due to trans lation from Aramaic into Greek. 2 The Anglo-Jewish Calendar for every Day in the Gospels. 3 The reason for this rule appears simply to have been the inconvenience of allowing the Passover and the Sabbath to fall on two consecutive days. The secrecy of the arrangement, again (for it was known only to a small official circle), was due, Father Power tells us, to the unwillingness of the Jews to admit the incorrectness of "the age-long boast of the children of Israel that the new moon is the sole ruler of their liturgical year." The Historical Facts 259 law, have fallen on the Thursday evening, which was the beginning of the itpoadBBaTov ; and it was on that evening that Jesus held it. But the general Passover, of which we read in John's Gospel, was observed on the evening of Friday, according to the prescription of the authorities. Such theories as those of Dr. Chwolson and Father Power, while not conclusive in themselves, are valuable as pointing in directions both of textual criticism and chrono logical study from which some final solution may yet be found of the apparent contradiction between the Synoptics and John's Gospel. But it is not necessary for us to tie ourselves to any such theories in order to explain the fact that Jesus anticipated the rest of Jerusalem in His observ ance of the Passover. If He knew that the Sanhedrin had decided to seize Him and put Him to death before the day of the feast, and if, as we read in Luke's Gospel, He greatly desired to eat the Passover with His disciples before He suffered, a desire which may be ascribed not only to His personal need of human fellowship and divine comfort on the eve of His passion, but to His purpose of turning the covenant rite of the Jewish Church into the covenant rite of His own community, why should He not have held the Passover a day in advance, if that was the only way in which He could hold it at all ? Was the Lord of the Sabbath, it has been asked, not also Lord of the Passover?1 If Jesus was no Sabbath-breaker, although He claimed the right as the Son of Man to treat the Sabbath law with a freedom unknown to the Rabbis, why should He not have claimed and exercised a similar liberty in regard to the Passover regulations, which, in any case, stood upon a much lower plane than the law which was written on tables of stone ? 2 1 So Kahnis and many others. 2 The objection is sometimes raised that in the provision made in the Old Testament law that the Passover may be observed a month later by those who have not been able to keep it at the proper time, it is prescribed that this post- 260 The Supper of Jesus : III. And now, from these discussions as to the histor ical worth of our four different sources and the particular occasion on which the original Supper was celebrated, let us pass to the next part of our task — the determination, as as far as may be possible, of the acts and words which Jesus • used at the Table. Some time during the progress of the paschal meal, but probably towards its close,1 Jesus took a loaf and said a blessing.2 Thereafter He broke the loaf and gave it to His disciples, and said, " Take, this is My body." In Matthew the words are, " Take, eat " ; but it is a matter of little con sequence for the significance of this part of the Supper whether the word " eat " was spoken or not, since there cannot be the slightest doubt that Jesus meant the bread to be eaten. This is shown by the analogy of the second part of the Supper, at which the wine was certainly drunk ; by the blessing or thanksgiving which Jesus had just pro nounced over the bread, which would have been perfectly meaningless if He did not intend that it should be con sumed ; and further, by the fact that Jesus gave the broken bread to the disciples, for this also would have been a poned Passover also, like the regular one, shall take place on the evening of the 14th day of the month. This has been assumed by some writers to invest the number 14 with a kind of sacrosanctity for Passover purposes, and so to render it impossible that even Jesus should have held the feast on another day. But surely it is evident that the 14th day of the second month was named simply because it was the most natural day to fix upon, as corresponding with the 14th day of the first month. Instead of laying emphasis on the number 14, we should rather emphasise the fact that provision was made in the law itself for a valid observance of the Passover on an entirely different day from the proper one. If a postponed Passover was perfectly valid even for a legalist, why should Jesus, in the exercise of His sovereign freedom, not have held an anticipated one ? 1 Mark and Matthew both say, "as they were eating"; and this is borne out by Paul and Luke when they in turn place the taking of the cup "after supper," apparently in distinction from the taking of the bread. 2 According to the usage of the N. T., there is no practical difference in mean ing between the ei)\o7ij