I..J 1... ..' W a, JND THE SPIRI1 M.G. GLAZE BROOK DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT By the Same Author THE FAITH OF A MODERN CHURCHMAN (Modern Churchman's Library) THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY'S CRITICISMS ON THE FAITH OF A MODERN CHURCHMAN BY M. G. GLAZEBROOK, D.D. CANON OF ELY LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1920 All Rights Reserved PREFACE In March 1918 I published a little book entitled The Faith of a Modern Churchman. Being the first of a series of manuals planned by the Church men's Union, it was intended to serve as an intro duction to tie other volumes, giving an outline of the whole subject of which they were to treat the parts in detail. " The author's first aim," I wrote in the preface, " has been to present something like a connected view of Church doctrine, as seen from the modern standpoint." To do this in just over a hundred pages, and without employing the technical terms which are the shorthand of theology, was a very difficult task. It demanded rigid compression, and many omissions. Especially it required the omission of those hesitations and qualifications which are so dear to the professional scholar and so puzzling to the ordinary reader : for, as every good teacher knows, outlines must be drawn firmly and boldly, or they make no impression. Quite deliberately, therefore, I adopted the method, of stating in each case only the opinion which I believed to be best supported by weight of scholarship and inherent probability, and of stating it broadly : knowing that only thus could I meet the needs of the unlearned, and hoping that the learned would have charity and understanding enough to make allowances. Though not all the learned have justi- vi PREFACE fied my hope, the reception accorded to the book has, on the whole, been more favourable than I expected. On page 71 of my manual the following words refer to the Virgin Birth of our Lord and the resur rection of the flesh : " It is impossible to prove a negative ; it is not open to Christians to refuse belief on a priori grounds ; and from very early times these miracles have been included in the Creeds. Modern Churchmen, therefore, do not deny that these wonders happened. But they do claim that, in view of the nature of the evidence, men should not be regarded as heretics who decline to affirm them." Again on page 79, after mentioning other clauses of the Creed which are not taken in their literal sense, I wrote, " Are these the only clauses which may be or ought to be interpreted symbolically ? The claim is being made in the case of two others — " Born of the Virgin Mary," and " He rose again from the dead." Now in the year 1914 the Bishop of Ely had re published an old essay on these subjects, adding a somewhat minatory preface, in which he described how a bishop ought to deal with any of his clergy whose teaching was not sound in respect of them. Very naturally, therefore, he wrote to me to com plain about the words quoted above from page 79. But I venture to think that he made a mistake in sending his letter to the press: for he thus con verted a remonstrance into a challenge. Any one who reads his letter will see that I could not avoid making a public reply : and accordingly I wrote a long letter which was published in The Times. On the ground of authority, to which the bishop had limited his attack, my reply was, I believe, generally accepted as adequate. At any rate no answer was forthcoming : but my suggestion that PREFACE vn the way of reason was still open to him was followed by another letter to The Times in which he promised " publicly to challenge the arguments by which in his book The Faith of a Modem Churchman he endeavours to justify his conclusions." That promise was fulfilled last December when he published a book with the title Belief and Creed. The first chapter contains a reply to my letter in The Times, which is too little convincing to demand any long notice. But the other four chapters are more important; for they contain an elaborate criticism of eight pages of my little manual. So, after much hesitation, I decided that it was my duty to defend a position which is not merely my own, but is held by many thousands of my fellow Church men. The method adopted by the author of B. and C. is that of the scholastic controversialists — to take the incriminated pages paragraph by paragraph, or sentence by sentence, and to give a lengthy refuta tion of each in turn. It is a method which offers many advantages to the critic, but cannot be adopted in writing a reply : for a review of B. and C. on the same scale — of eight pages to one — would occupy some 2,500 pages. Clearly, therefore, I must adopt a different plan. After consideration I decided to proceed as follows : Three of the chapters in B. and C. (ii, iii, and v) are short. Each of these, besides a variety of minor matters, contains two or three cardinal sentences, which appear to me to deserve serious examination. If the allegations of those sentences can be disproved, a refutation of the rest, however tempting, is not necessary. So I propose generally to confine my observations to those vital points. The fourth chapter requires a different treatment viii PREFACE — though it occupies nearly half the book, most of it is devoted to what is really a side issue. Follow ing many scholars of repute, I hold that St. Paul's teaching about the nature of the resurrection changed considerably during the period covered by his extant epistles. The Bishop of Ely, on the other hand, maintains (B. and C. p. 130) that " there does not exist a particle of evidence to show that St. Paul in the slightest degree changed his position in regard to the four fundamental beliefs which dominate his doctrine of the Resurrection." Though muchimportance attaches to the controversy, its decision could not decide the primary issue which was raised in our correspondence. The space which the Bishop devotes to it is altogether out of pro portion. How could I best attempt to restore the argument to right proportions, and yet to give a sufficient justification of the statements made in my manual? It seemed necessary to restate my views at greater length, giving reasons and references on a moderate scale, and then to examine only the more important of the criticisms which have been offered. But in order that the reader may bestow his freshest attention upon that which is the real subject of debate, I have thought it well to devote my first chapters to the main issue. For the same reason I have given the last place to my reply to the Bishop's first chapter, which revives the old controversy in The Times. I fear the de fence is hardly more interesting than the attack ; and what happened in April 1918 is now almost ancient history. Yet for the sake of completeness I feel obliged to devote a chapter to the subject. Ely, August 4th, 1919. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION I II. ACCEPTED SYMBOLISM 20 III. THE VIRGIN~~BIRTH 41 IV. POINTS OF VIEW 56 V. SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES 71 VI. BISHOP CHASE'S THEORY EXAMINED 117 VII. FAITH OR FEAR ? 129 VIII. THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY 135 INDEX 151 NOTE In order to avoid a tiresome repetition of names, quotations from the Bishop of Ely's book, Belief and Creed, are distinguished only by being printed in italics. As a rule, each quotation is followed by a reference to the page from which it is taken. THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT CHAPTER I SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION The question at issue, which deeply concerns a large body of Churchmen, is not the general question whether the symbolical interpretation of any clauses in the Creed is legitimate. That was settled long ago, when men began consciously to repeat the words " He descended into hell " in a metaphorical sense, and when the compilers of the English Prayer Book substituted " the resurrection of the body " for " the resurrection of the flesh " in the Creeds. It is admitted on all sides that three clauses are, and must be, now understood in a sense different from that which they bore in the first five centuries. The question for us is more definite. Is it per missible for those who recite the Apostles' Creed to give a symbolical interpretation to the two clauses " Born of the Virgin Mary " and " He rose again (i.e. in the flesh) from the dead " ? In order to answer that question satisfactorily we must first answer three other questions which are involved in it. (i) Are those two clauses essentially different in 2 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION character from the others which have long been understood in a metaphorical sense ? (2) Is the evidence for the statements which they contain so convincing that a reasonable man should not hesitate to accept them in the literal sense ? (3) When and under what conditions is it dis honest to join in affirmations of which only parts are understood literally ? (1) The clauses of the Apostles' and of the Nicene Creed may be divided into two classes. Some are definitions or descriptions ; and these, the late Bishop of Oxford has said, " are inadequate and only symbolically true." > Others are statements about events happening in time, past or future, which are commonly described as " historical facts." In one sense all the clauses of this latter class also are symbolical. For their importance ultimately de pends upon their representing or guaranteeing some spiritual truth. If they did not do this, no one would care to recite them. Now a narrative which is not historical, in the sense of recording an actual event, may be representative of a spiritual truth : and there have been cases in which a narrative, once supposed to be historical, has been retained in a place of honour, as representative of a spiritual truth, by generations which did not believe it to be literally true. The Bishop of Ely has himself described how this change took place with regard to the clause "He ascended into heaven " : The meaning of the terms in question, so far as 1 Constructive Quarterly, March 1914, p. 34. TWO CLASSES OF HISTORICAL FACTS 3 it has ever changed, has changed gradually, and there is no evidence, so far as I know, that at any stage there had ever been any controversy, or anything of conscious unveracity on the part of those who used them {Belief and Creed, p. 46). Is there any reason why the process of change, thus described, should be legitimate with regard to certain historical clauses, and illegitimate with regard to others ? If there is such a reason, it must rest upon some principle according to which the historical clauses can be divided into two groups. Can we discover any such principle ? Only one, so far as I know, has been suggested. Bishop Gore draws a distinction in the following manner. The same principle of interpretation which is applied to the theological clauses " must be applied to all that lies outside our present human experience," such as the Creation and the Descent into Hell. But " Born of the Virgin Mary," like " He was crucified," lies within our possible or actual human experience, and therefore it must be treated as a plain statement of an objective fact. If we ask how he knows that such an event is within possible or actual human experience, the answer is ready : " Though we do not know wholly how a natural birth of a child occurs, we can describe it in suffi ciently accurate language. And though we do not know wholly how the birth of a child from a virgin mother would take place, we can describe the event with the same definiteness." * 1 Constructive Quarterly, March 1914, p. 64. 4 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION This is nothing but a revival of the old fallacy, against which our early logic lessons used to warn us, that conceivability is the test of truth. The Greeks had a very clear conception of centaurs, and their artists made very lifelike representations of them. Does it follow that such creatures are within our actual or possible experience ? Countless pictures on glass and canvas assure us that for sixteen centuries the Church had a very definite conception of the manner in which our Lord ascended into heaven ; and yet Bishop Gore himself (in the article already quoted) tells us that *' heaven is not really a locality above our heads," so that what (according to the Acts) the disciples witnessed was only a symbolic act. Unless, therefore, some firmer ground for a dis tinction can be discovered, we have no more right to speak of the Virgin Birth as " within human experience" than of the Ascent into Heaven. The extant evidence for both miracles is practically the same — an early tradition which is preserved in the Creed and in two passages of the New Testament. Both alike are so completely outside actual human experience that they call for exceptionally strong evidence, which is not forthcoming. Both alike may be plausibly explained as natural products of the mental atmosphere of the early Church. Both alike have always been understood to represent important spiritual truths. Therefore, if one of them admits of symbolical interpretation, surely so does the other. If a distinction is to be made between them in that respect, the Virgin Birth has THE DISTINCTION FAILS 5 less claim than the Ascension to literal acceptance : for, whereas nothing in the New Testament contra venes the latter, there are several passages which, if naturally interpreted, throw doubt upon the former. Bishop Gore' s test, therefore, fails ; and no other has been proposed. There may be excellent reasons for disallowing the symbolical interpretation of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of the Flesh : but they must be independent of any assumption that these two miracles are within, while the Descent into Hell and the Ascension into Heaven are without, possible or actual human experience. (2) Our second question can be answered more briefly. Is the evidence for these miracles so con vincing that a reasonable man should not hesitate to accept them in the literal sense ? The Bishop of Ely has himself supplied a clear answer. About the Virgin Birth he writes (p. 78), " The evidence is slight." And his. opinion of the evidence for the Resurrection of the Flesh is made quite clear (B. and C. pp. 137-141), when he substitutes for the traditional view a theory of Bishop Westcott' s which, as I shall show,1 cannot be reconciled either with the Creeds or with the Gospel narratives, or with the writings of the earliest Fathers of the Church. On his authority, therefore, we are entitled to answer the question in the negative. (3) In seeking an answer to the third question it seems convenient to start from a set of facts 1 See infra, pp. 123-125. J5 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION which are practically undisputed among instructed Christians. The clause in the Creed which tells of the Ascension was, as we have seen, deprived of its literal meaning long ago, but in such a way as to bring out more clearly the rich spiritual meaning which was always implicit therein. The millions of Christians who now treat it as a symbol are not doing it dishonour. They recognise, indeed, that a beautiful story, created by the dramatic instinct which is so large an element in popular piety, was welcomed by an unscientific generation, and accepted as literal truth. But they see also that^for ages that story served, not unworthily, to enshrine the mystery which it appeared to reveal. And now that they know it to be only a shrine, they still maintain it in a place of honour, as a consecrated symbol of a reality which cannot be unveiled for mortal eyes. It is that mysterious reality, not any outward form, which has in all ages been the true object of faith. And yet there remain in most countries a con siderable number of simple believers, whose astronomy is for all practical purposes that of the first century, and in whose eyes the physical ascen sion is the support and guarantee of the spiritual truth. To such the old pictures give perfect satis faction, and raise no questionings. So we have as members of the same Church, and often worshipping side by side in the same congregation, representatives of three distinct modes of religious thought : (a) Those who honestly understand the words in their original sense. THREE VIEWS OF THE ASCENSION 7 (J3) Those who, like the Bishop of Ely, believe the statement to be literally true up to (say) a hundred yards from the earth's surface, but beyond that point interpret it symbolically.1 (7) The majority of Christians, at least in Protest ant countries, who are conscious or unconscious symbolists, repeating the clause without misgiving as a beautiful image of a truth which no human language can adequately express.8 Strange though it may seem, such a grouping of diverse elements is almost inevitable in an ordinary congregation. For our generation is the heir of all the Christian ages, and includes representatives of every historic mode of Christian thought ; who yet hold, value, and try to rule their lives by, the truth for which the narrative stands. The situation, it may plausibly be argued, is unstable and logically indefensible : for whereas these various classes of men are bound together by a common faith, the bond would be broken if some were openly to reject the statement of " historical fact " upon which to others that faith appears to depend. Here is a very serious practical problem. Shall it be solved by logic or by love ? Logic would insist that the symbolists, whether of class (a) or (/3), must (as the German proverb puts it) " empty out the child with the bath." For the sake of avoiding 1 See infra, pp. 38, 39. a There are also a few good people, of whom the Bishop of Chelmsford has recently made himself the spokesman, who do not see that they are contradicting themselves when they say that obviously such clauses were never meant to be understood Uterally, and therefore there is no symbolism in treating them symbolically I 8 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION a minor inaccuracy, they must destroy a practical union which is both real and valuable ! Common sense -and common charity have dictated another answer, which has been generally accepted by the symbolists. They are content to use the old formulas in the new sense, neither concealing nor obtruding their own interpretation. When they act thus, are they doing a wrong either to themselves or to others ? That must be con sidered. A man wrongs himself, and (what is far more) does wrong in the sight of God, if he consciously acts in a way which is disingenuous. Whether the course in question is disingenuous or not depends largely upon the character of his mind. The more poetical and sympathetic among us can use symbolic speech without affectation ; the few who are quite prosaic are unable to do so. It depends also upon his definite belief in the religious truth which the state ment is understood by all to represent. If he possesses both faith and imagination, he does no harm to himself by using symbolic language. A man wrongs others in such a matter only if he either tries to deceive them as to his views or aggressively insists upon the differences which divide him from them. For his neighbours have no right to demand that he shall use words in the particular sense which they approve ; but they have a right to resent any attempt on his part to impose a new interpretation, or to emphasise distinctions among those who worship together. If any should ask why I have stated the case from WHEN IS SYMBOLISM DISHONEST? 9 the side of the symbolist rather than of the literalist, I would refer them to St. Paul's treatment of a somewhat similar problem.1 When he discussed the quarrel between those who ate meat and those who abstained, it was from "the strong" — the liberals hke himself who ate meat — that he demanded concessions, not from " the weak," the tradition alists. He thus established a precedent which is valid to-day : for in all such disputes it is only the strong who can yield. Those whom the Apostle would call the weak cannot be asked to make concessions, but only to exercise charity — " Who art thou, that judgest the servant of another? "? Can we not fancy St. Paul addressing us in ' words very Uke those which he wrote to the Romans ? " Let not then your good be evil spoken of : for the kingdom of God is not symbolism or liter alism, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. . . . the faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth." ' In these last four pages we have been giving reasons which appear to most Churchmen to justify an established practice — the symbolic interpretation of one clause in the Creed. We have now to inquire whether the same reasons justify a similar practice with regard to two other clauses. If the argument of pages 2-5 is sound, no valid distinction has been 1 1 Cor. x. 23-33 ; Rom. xiv. - Rom. xiv. 4. 3 Rom. xiv. 16, 17, 22. io SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION drawn between different " historical clauses " ; and it follows that, mutatis mutandis, the principle of interpretation which has long been accepted for " He ascended into heaven," may be appUed to " Born of the Virgin Mary," and " He rose again from the dead." So we seem to find a clear answer to our original question. It is permissible for those who recite the Apostles' Creed to interpret those two clauses symbolically, so long as they hold to the spiritual truths which those clauses represent. Although I am confident that the Bishop of Ely cannot consistently refuse his consent to the main propositions of the last few pages, he would seem to be committed by repeated statements in his book to repudiate the application which has been made of them in the last paragraph. And yet I am not without hope that, in the end, he may admit the force of my contention. I may indulge that hope without presumption, because he has himself laid down a principle which would justify a much greater divergence between belief and creed x than any which liberal Churchmen have desired to see permitted. On certain Sundays in the year he joins, though (he tells us) with intensely keen distress, ,' in reciting the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed, which are as follows : " Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith." " Which Faith, except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish ever lastingly." 1 Belief and Creed, p. 173. » S. and C, p. 168. THE ATHANASIAN CREED n " And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into ever lasting fire." " This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man beUeve faithfully, he cannot be saved." Too learned and too honest to countenance the absurd pretence that the words do not mean what they say, he defends himself for reciting them, though he does not beUeve them to be true, by urging three excuses : (A) The clauses of the Quicunque in question do not belong to the credal portion of that document : in character they answer to the anathema of the Nicene Creed. (B) Everyone in reciting these clauses makes some kind of qualification. (C) Those who have been most conscious of the difficulty have consistently made every effort to obtain relief from the recitation of these " warning clauses " in public worship (B. and C, pp. 168, 169). Although the third of these pleas is that to which I wish to draw attention, it cannot fully be under stood without some previous observations upon the other two. They shall be as brief as possible. As to (A) there are two points which must be mentioned. The ordinary reader, who understands " the Nicene Creed " to mean the creed which forms part of the Communion service, would naturally infer from the Bishop's language that there was an anathema attached to it which has been omitted in common use as not being essential. But the fact 12 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION is J that what we commonly call the Nicene Creed is really a creed which came into use at Constan tinople towards the end of the fourth century, and was confirmed with (some small changes) by the Council of Chalcedon in a.d. 451. It was almost certainly originally a baptismal creed, supplemented by some phrases from the Creed of Nicaea, and, like other baptismal creeds, never had an anathema. The Nicene Creed, on the other hand, was adopted by the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, as a test of orthodoxy for bishops," and, like all such formulas, included an anathema which was never omitted. It runs thus : " But those who say, there once was when He was not, and before He was begotten He was not, and that He came into being out of what was not, or allege that the Son of God is of aUen substance or essence, or created, or capable of change or turning, them the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathe matises." The resemblance of the " warning clauses " of the Quicunque to this anathema, far from lessening its importance, emphasises its intolerance in two ways. For it reminds us that during the fourth and three following centuries, which produced a series of Symbols (creeds) with anathemas,' the Church believed intensely that there could be no 1 This fact is recognised on page 51 of B. and C. » See C. H. Turner, Use of Creeds and Anathemas in the Early Church (S.P.C.K.). 3 Hahn's Symbole und Glaubensregeln contains some fifty of these pronouncements, each with an anathema. ANATHEMAS TAKEN LITERALLY 13 salvation without orthodox belief. And if we compare the Athanasian anathema with the Nicene, we cannot but recognise how much the later excels the earlier in severity and in definiteness. Secondly it is impossible to read the Quicunque impartiaUy without recognising that the anathemas are an essential part of it. They are, in fact, the text, upon which the credal part is commentary. As to (B) I am again obliged to differ from the Bishop. Even if he were right in claiming that no one really believes these " warnings" to be true, that would be a singular argument to put forward in favour of reciting them. But he is not right. I have in my possession a pamphlet entitled For God and for China, published in 1917. The author, Mr. Stanley P. Smith, complains that he was dismissed from the service of the China Inland Mission because he refused to teach " that all the ancestors of the Chinese have gone to an endless hell." And he quotes letters from the authorities of that Mission to the effect that this doctrine is an essential part of the Gospel. I recaU, too, the words of a Cambridge under graduate, spoken to me some ten years ago when he was shortly to be ordained as a missionary. " It would not be worth my while," he said, " to make the sacrifice of going to Africa, unless I were sure that, without the knowledge I can give, they must all suffer eternal fire." The speaker was neither stupid nor insane, but a man of good char acter and abiUty. Only he had been brought up in one of those circles where there still lingers the 14 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION religious atmosphere of those early centuries which produced the anathemas and those later ages which invented the Inquisition. (C) In the light of the above remarks we can better judge what is the bearing of the Bishop's third and most surprising plea. The principle which it assumes, as if it were something quite obvious, may be stated in plain words thus: If a man has made public his objections tot a particular clause in a creed, and has done his best to get it amended or omitted, he can then without any breach of good faith continue to join in reciting it. That plea not only endorses the claim of liberal Churchmen, but goes far beyond it. For whereas we always insist that a man may not repeat a clause in a symbolical sense unless he sincerely holds to the spiritual sense which it bears for all Christians, in the case of these anathemas it is exactly the spiritual sense which the Bishop renounces. He is not one of those survivals from the dark ages who believe God capable of condemning to endless torment all the millions who have never heard the name of Christ, or even professing Christians who are guilty of intellectual error in their faith. Just because he shares the higher conception of God's nature which has gradu ally taken possession of the modern mind, he refuses assent to a statement which involves what he feels to be blasphemy, since it pronounces the character of God to be something far below that of an ordinary good man. Such a statement, if accepted by us, would be more important than any other clause in the Creed : for it must transform our whole con- WHAT THE ANATHEMAS IMPLY 15 ception of God's nature and providence, and of the meaning of Christ's manifestation to the world. Compared with the question whether God is love or is capable of infinite and deliberate injustice, questions about the mode and attendant circum stances of our Lord's Incarnation and Resurrection are of quite secondary importance. If the Bishop permits himself to join in reciting the Athanasian anathemas, which are in essence a denial of God's goodness, while his heart affirms that goodness to be the foundation upon which all faith rests, what reasonable ground has he for disputing the honesty of the symboUst ? This is a question not only for one bishop, but for the whole Church. The Church of England stands alone in requiring all her members to recite the Athanasian anathemas. The Church of England, therefore, has surely less right than any other Church to condemn those who, when they recite certain words of the Apostles' Creed, under stand them not to be literal statements of fact, but apt and consecrated symbols of religious truths. Perhaps some readers may be incUned to ask. If the difficulties are so great, why should the Creeds be recited in our services at all ? The Church did very weU without them for more than four centuries. TiU near the end of the fifth century the only approach to a creed as part of worship was the Te Deum, which is a hymn of praise modelled upon such psalms as " In exitu Israel." Towards a.d. 500 the " Nicene " creed was introduced into the Uturgy at Antioch and Constantinople; and the practice of reciting it gradually spread over Europe. The 16- SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION similar use of the Apostles' Creed began a good deal later. No doubt, in an age when orthodoxy was of more account than faith, it was largely as a test of orthodoxy that this practice originated. But there are phrases in the " Nicene " Creed which have the genuine ring of devotion, so that it could be placed beside the Te Deum as a hymn. And al though through many centuries the recital of the Creeds has been treated (as the Bishop of Ely treats it) mainly as a profession of orthodoxy, still during the last fifty years men have been returning to the older and more religious conception of Creeds as hymns of praise. Just for that reason they have become more critical of the language which is put into their mouths. This return to the older and more religious attitude is admirably described by some words of Professor Bethune-Baker's, which I venture to quote : " The purpose of a Creed is not to profess know ledge, but to declare faith. Faith is on a different plane from knowledge ; and the intention of the Creed is not to state ' historical facts ' or events, but the religious convictions of the Society, and the individual who makes the convictions of the Society his own. ... It has never been belief in the mere fact that counted as the individual's faith, guaranteeing him the fellowship of the Church on earth and in heaven, but always the meaning which it had for him, the inferences he drew from it, the opinions connected with it which he held, or was supposed to hold. . . . Yet the Creeds we have inherited are so ill-fitted for the purpose of express ing clearly the essential convictions (whether in- WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CREED? 17 teUectual or spiritual) of a Christian, that the use of them in public worship is one of the reasons why some of those who are most Christian in mind and wiU are not found in our churches at all. In these circumstances the Creeds cannot retain the authority which is often claimed for them." • This consideration carries us back to the old contrast, so obvious in the New Testament, between " faith " and " the faith." In the great epistles of St. Paul " faith " is represented as an attitude of love and trust and reverence towards God, which is the inspiration of the Christian life. In the Pastoral epistles we find " the faith " described as a deposit to be guarded, a form of sound words to be held fast.' No one who compares the spiritual climates of Romans and of the epistles to Timothy can hesitate to say which is the purer. The one is evangelical, the other ecclesiastical : and it is the evangelical which is characteristic of St. Paul. A student of his writings, who was also a notable philosopher, wrote in 1877 : " The practical Christian faith is thoroughly one with itself. It is not in it, but in the current theo logical conception of it, that there lies the contra diction of which I have previously spoken. An assent to propositions upon evidence is not an in trinsic element in it, nor that on which it ultimately depends. Its object is not past events, but a present, reconciled, and indwelUng God. ... It is no doubt historically conditioned, but it is not on 1 Bethune-Baker, The Faith of the Apostles' Creed, pp. 32, 33. a 1 Tim. vi. 3 ; a Tim. i. 12, 13 ; Titus ii. 7, 10. 18 SYMBOLICAL INTERPRETATION an intellectual estimate of its own conditions that it depends for being what it is. Without the Chris tian tradition it would not have been what it is*. but a judgment as to the authenticity of that tradition, though it has hitherto followed from it almost as a matter of course, is not essential to it as a spiritual state." l Here is the real issue, upon which I entreat the reader to concentrate his attention. Which is to be the watchword of the Church of England-^-the spirit or the letter ? " The spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father," or " the form of sound words " which was framed to meet the intellectual conditions of the primitive Church ? Are we to return to the attitude of the fourth century when orthodoxy was more esteemed than character, conduct, or spiritual gifts ? Or shall the Church of England maintain the tradition of inteUectual freedom and tolerance which, has been one of her noblest characteristics ever since the Reformation ? There is a real danger that she may lose that fine tradition. For a large and well-organised party among the clergy are urging the bishops to silence or excommunicate the many thousands of loyal Churchmen who, yielding to none in their devotion to Christ's divine person, do not believe that the fourth century has said the last word about the conditions under which He was manifested to the world. Whatever weakness there may be in my presentation of their case, they are not, as a body, 1 T. H. Green, sermon on " Faith," delivered to his pupils at Balliol in 1877. Printed in his collected works. THE SPIRIT OR THE LETTER? 19 either ignorant or superficial. Among them are numbered Dr. Sanday and other eminent clerical scholars, and laymen, such as Professor Percy Gardner, who have more theological learning than nine-tenths of the clergy. They number men and women who are living pure and unselfish lives, devoted to the service of the Church which they love. If they are banned or alienated, the loss to the Church will not be less than it suffered when Wesley and his flock were driven into the wilderness by the episcopal ineptitude which it is now the fashion to lament. As I have already said, they do not deny any articles of the Creed, but only decline to affirm some of them in the literal sense : still less do they seek to impose their own interpretation upon others, for they desire to live and worship in brotherly concord with all who can say from their hearts that Jesus is the Lord.1 They are anxious to learn, very ready to hear reasons and examine evidence. But mere authority, whether of numbers or of office, will not coerce them. 1 1 Cor. xii. 3. CHAPTER II ACCEPTED SYMBOLISM / venture therefore to say that a study of St. Paul's actual words shows that there is no contradiction be tween his teaching and the article of the Creed — "the resurrection of the flesh" (B. and C. p. 40). The argument (pp. 38-40) which leads up to this conclusion is so insubstantial that there is hardly a definite point to take hold of. But there are two remarks which are perhaps worth making. (a) The Bishop seems to have missed the bearing of 1 Cor. xv. 39-41. These verses are a parenthesis, like 29-34, and rather interfere with the sequence of thought. When St. Paul had written (verse 28) " God giveth it a body . . . and to each seed a body of its own," it naturally occurred to him to point out that the variety of creation was not limited to the vegetable world, but equally con spicuous in the animal and the celestial worlds. So he turns aside for a moment.- Having used the word " body " somewhat improperly for plants, he had to find another word for animals, and took the obvious one " flesh." Each word is evidently meant to cover both substance and form. A similar difficulty occurred when he came to celestial bodies. There he compromised, using partly " body " and partly " glory "—all three words, body, flesh, glory, ST. PAUL AND THE APOSTLES' CREED 21 are used to express at once the substance, the form, and the beauty of objects in the vegetable, animal, and celestial spheres. To argue from such a highly poetical use in a single passage that " flesh " and " body" are seriously to be treated as synonyms is to show little appreciation of St. Paul's style. (b) Still more surprising is the contention that because " we may speak of the accession of Richard Duke of Gloucester or of the accession of King Richard the Third," we may therefore speak indifferently " of the resurrection of the flesh or of the resurrection of the spiritual body." In the one case there is a new name for a person who is unchanged, and whose accession depends upon his remaining unchanged ; in the other case, if we may believe St. Paul, there are two objects which, though intimately connected, belong to different spheres of being. The parallel which is drawn between the two cases is so inappro priate as to be positively grotesque. But the statement with which this chapter begins may be considered apart from the reasons which are urged in its favour. Let us place side by side for comparison some of St. Paul's actual words and three or four passages which show how the Church in different centuries has understood the phrase " the resurrection of the flesh." St. Paul's view is sufficiently expressed in two verses : " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven " (1 Cor. xv. 50). " For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of 22 ACCEPTED SYMBOLISM God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. v. 1). Irenaeus (A.p. 117-195), who composed an elabor ate refutation of all heresies towards the end of the second century, writes thus : " All those who are enrolled for life shall rise again, having their own bodies, having also their own souls and their own spirits, in which they pleased God. Those, on the other hand, who are worthy of punish ment shall go away into it, they too having their own souls and their own bodies, in which they revolted from the grace of God . Both classes shall cease from any further begetting or being begotten, from marry ing and being given in marriage." l These words make it perfectly clear that Irenaeus, representing the orthodoxy of his time, did not think of the soul passing from one body to another of a different kind, but of the reconstitution of the actual earthly body in its completeness. In another place Irenaeus writes : " In the same manner, therefore, as Christ rose in the substance of the flesh, and pointed out to His disciples the marks of the nails and the opening in His side (now these prove the identity of the flesh Which rose from the dead), so shall He also, it is said, raise us by His power. . . . For these are 1 -itAvtcs ol iyypaipivres ris fwiji' avaurijirovTai, fjia ^OJret cufiara Kal ISlas tyovres ^>i/x<£s> Kal ISia -irvei/jiara, iv oh eitipiar-qcav Tip 0«ji, oi St rijs KoXdo-ews Sfioi aire\ctix$l irqd^traev (ti aa/m aeo-tprbs; ojrore lirjS' bnav touto to S&yfia Kal t&v x/"<"-ibSpa fuapbv abrov (tol Airbirmo-Tor Hfj.a koI ASbvarov AiroipatveW voTov ykp alalia irAvrxi 8iatj>6apev olbv re iirave\8eiv els ttiv il- Apjcis bo-w, Kal abrupt iKelvrjv, i£ ^s i\66ri, t^v irpiirrriv o-baraaiv; {Contra Celsum, v. 14). 2 irrel S' iirl w\iov KeKU/ubSriKC rty *KeKripvyi*ivriv p.h rijs aapxbs AvAaravui iv rats iKK\iis vAXai AroSavbvras Awb ttjs 7^1 AvaSbvrat (Contra Celsum, v. 18). ORIGEN'S EVIDENCE 25 Evidently we in the last sentence means the in structed Christians (avperurepot), whose views are more elevated than those of the majority. If there were any doubt about that, it would be removed by a sentence in the following chapter. Referring to 1 Cor. xv. he writes : " And although the apostle wished to conceal the secret meaning of the passage, which was not adapted to the simpler class of believers, and for popular preaching to those who are led by faith to a better life, still he was obliged (lest we should misapprehend his meaning), after saying, ' Let us bear the image of the heavenly,' to add, ' Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrup tion.' Then, as became one who in his epistles was leaving to posterity words full of significance, he subjoins, ' Behold, I show you a mystery,' which is his usual manner of introducing deeper and more mystical topics, which are properly concealed from the multitude." ' What we learn from these passages maybe summed up in a few words. The great majority of Christians in the second and third centuries looked for the resurrection of the flesh in the most literal sense. 1 koItm St fiov\6/j.evos KpbvTeiv 6 dtfioroXos rb. Karb, rbv tAttov Airbfipyrra Kal fi.ii apfibfavTa tow avKovaripois Kal ttj ravS^/iip iKorj t&v Sib. tov markvav ayop.luwv iirl rb fHXriov, 8/i.ws -h,vayKAir6-i) tiarepov birip toO fiil vapaKovaai ri/ias ruv \6yav abrov eliretv, /nerb, rb " (popiffupiev tt\v elxbva tov twovpavlov," rb "tovto St (py/il, ASe\ has well said that these passages are "a veritable mosaic of quotations from the Old Testament." Only those who compare them verse by verse with the Septuagint — which was St. Paul's Bible just as much as the Authorised Version is ours— can appreciate the extent to which the Apostle has used the language especially of the later pro phetic writings, showing how his mind was steeped in the prophetic and apocalyptic thought of later Judaism. A tolerably full list of parallels will be found in a a note at the end of this chapter.8 For 1 H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul's Conception of the Last Things, p. 47. 3 See Additional Note II., p. 115. OLD TESTAMENT SOURCES 73 our immediate purpose it may suffice to quote Dr. Kennedy's summary : " God's Son is to come from heaven • with all His holy ones (Zech. xiv. 4 ; Dan. vii. 13). He is to descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God (Isa. xxvii. 13 ; Ex. xix. n, 13, 16, 17, 18) . The Day of the Lord will surprise them as a thief in the night (Joel ii. 1-11). The Lord Jesus is to be revealed from heaven in flaming fire (Isa. lxvi. 15 ; Ps. xviii. 8 ; Ex. xxiv. 17 ; Deut. iv. 24). He takes vengeance on them that know not God (Isa. xxxv. 4 ; Jer. x. 25). They are punished with destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His power (Isa. ii. 10). He shall be glorified in His saints (Isa. lxvi. 5, xlix. 3 ; Ps. xviii. 1)." Dr. Kennedy's list of references must be supple mented by two to the Book of Enoch. For con venience of the reader I quote the passages in full from Dr. Charles's translation : " And behold ! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly : and to convict all flesh of their ungodliness which they have ungodly com- 1 The parallel is even more complete than Dr. Kennedy has observed. For there are two distinct statements, which corre spond to two passages in the Old Testament, (a) God will bring Jesus and those who have fallen asleep in Him (into the visible heaven, but not to earth), i Thess. iv. 14. This corre sponds to Dan. vii. 13, where The Ancient of Days (= Jehovah) and One Uke unto the Son of Man (= the Messiah) are mentioned as appearing together in the sky. (§) " The Lord will come down from heaven " (to earth), 1 Thess. iv. 16. This corresponds to Exod. xix. 11, the title Lord being transferred, as often in St. Paul's writings, from Jehovah to Christ. 74 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES mitted, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (Enoch i. 9). " And for all of you sinners there shall be no salvation, but on you all shall abide a curse. But for the elect there shall be light and joy and peace, and they shall inherit the earth " (Enoch iii. 7). While the actual quotations show that the back ground of the Apostle's thought was mainly woven out of current apocalyptic literature (for the passages in Isaiah and Zechariah to which he refers are all late apocalyptic insertions, mostly of the third or second century B.C.), the picture will not be complete unless we recall two other facts. The book of Daniel and two of the Apocalypses which are included in the composite book of Enoch [(1) Enoch vi.-xxxv., dated by Canon Charles 167 B.C., and (2) Enoch lxxxni.-xc, dated about 163 B.C.] all foretell a Messianic kingdom of the saints on earth, which is to be preceded by the resurrection in the flesh of the righteous Israelites, in order that they may share in the blessedness of that kingdom. The book of Revelation, written perhaps as much as thirty years after Philippians, when Jewish in fluence was declining, shows how/near the thought of some Christian circles still approached to that of Daniel and Enoch. It tends to prove that the atmosphere breathed by St. Paul and his converts was impregnated with the traditional Apocalyptic conceptions. The John of the vision tells how the Christian saints and martyrs, whose souls had long been " underneath the altar " crying out for ven- REIGN OF MESSIAH 75 geance (v. 9), " came to life,1 and reigned with Christ a thousand years " (xx. 4). A special feature of this vision brings it very near to 2 Thess. i. Christ and the saints are to dwell in " the holy city Jeru salem," ' which has come down from heaven (xxi. 10) : of which we are told " there shaU in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie, but only thejy which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life " (xx. 27). In 2 Thess. i. 9, 10 we read that they that know not God " shaU suffer punishment, even age-long J (aiwviov) destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might, when He shaU come to be glorified in (i.e. among) His saints." It wiU be seen that the book of Revelation suppUes the details of time and place which are not mentioned in the verse of Thessa lonians, but without which it is not intelUgible to us. The general beUef in the Messianic reign on earth was so famiUar that St. Paul could take it for granted in writing to the Thessalonians. When he wrote later to the Corinthians, he mentioned the Messianic reign on earth, with conflicts against the heathen world such as are named in Revelation, though he did not speak of Jerusalem as the Lord's dweUing-place.4 1 t^-qo-av. That this means a resurrection of the flesh is made probable by the subsequent statements that they are to reign over, and afterwards to fight against, the nations of the earth (Rev. xx. 6, 8, 9). 2 For the distinction between this and the " New Jerusalem " of Isa. iv. I must refer the reader to Canon Charles's forthcoming edition of the book of Revelation, which is of extraordinary interest. 3 I take this to mean " throughout the thousand years of the Messianic kingdom." See Mr. Major's article on aUbvios in The Journal of Theological Studies for October 191 6. 1 See Charles's Eschatology, p. 365 note. 76 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES Aided by these considerations we can with some certainty reproduce the picture which St. Paul meant to call up in the minds of the Thessalonians by the incomplete phrases which were charged with associations in their minds. We must begin with the general statement which serves as an introduction. " Them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him " (i Thess. iv. 14). That is to say, God will appear in the heaven, bringing with Him Jesus and the saints. What is involved in that general state ment, and what is to follow, the Apostle proceeds to explain, partly in 1 Thess. iv. 14-18, and partly in 2 Thess. i. 6-10. 1 Paul and most of his generation will be still alive at the time of the Coming. They will see the Lord (not God the Father : indeed it is hardly suggested that they will see Him at all) descending from the heaven (iv. 16), and will hear the summons — the voice of an archangel and the tones of a trumpet — which wakens those who are " asleep in Jesus." These will be restored to life, and join the survivors : then all together will be " caught up in clouds " to meet the Lord while He is still in the air. Since the word used of His de scending is KaTaftalvw, which always means coming down to a definite point — in Apocalyptic passages to earth or Hades — we are bound to assume that His descent ends only when He reaches the earth. And plainly the saints return in His train, for they are to attend Him at His "coming" (irapovo-ta, which 1 The second epistle was avowedly written as a supplement, because the first had been partially misunderstood. THE FIRST STAGE 77 always means coming to earth, iii. 13), and they are to be ever with Him and to glorify Him (i v. 17 ; i. 10) . His immediate task will be to judge the wicked, especially those who have denied the Gospel and per secuted the believers. They will be banished from His presence while He dwells among His saints who glorify Him and marvel at Him (i. 8-10). One question still remains to be answered. When the dead in Christ rise, in what body do they come ? Does St. Paul, when he writes to the Thessalonians, mean to imply that their natural bodies are restored or that they are invested with " spiritual bodies," such as are mentioned in 1 Cor. xv. ? There are strong reasons for believing that, in this case, he conceived the natural bodies to be restored. (1) Nothing is said of any change in the bodies of the survivors : the living and the lately dead immediately form one group, without any distinction being indicated : and they all move together to meet the Lord. (2) The words of 1 Thess. v. 23, which are quoted above, seem to exclude the possibility that St. Paul may be contemplating any change in the bodies of the survivors. Body, soul, and spirit alike are to be " preserved entire " ; and that not until but " at the coming of the Lord Jesus." The passages quoted above (p. 22) from Irenaeus prove conclu sively that this is what the orthodoxy of the second century believed, in spite of St. Paul's later writings. (3) Some six years later St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, " Behold, I tell you a mystery — the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 78 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES changed." A mystery is something which has not been previously told. If St. Paul had not revealed this to the Corinthians, among whom he lived and taught for a year and a half (Acts xviii. ii), but left them (as appears from i Cor. xv.) to hold the Jewish belief, how can we suppose that he made the revela^ tion to the Thessalonians a few months earlier? The absence of any evidence that he did so seems to confirm the impression we have gained from the first epistle to the Thessalonians that the teaching which he gave them had been in conformity with the books of Daniel and Enoch. The further ques tion must then be asked, Could he have taught them to believe in a resurrection of the flesh unless that was his own belief at the time ? To me this appears in the highest degree improbable. (4) Since St. Paul had been brought up as a Pharisee, and avowed 'himself such towards the end of his life, we may take into account some words of Josephus, written not very long after the fall of Jerusalem. Of the Pharisees he writes : " They think also that all souls are immortal, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, while the souls of bad men are punished with eternal punishment " (Bell. Jud., bk. ii. 9, § 14). And again, in Antiquities, xviii. 1, § 3 : " They also believe that souls have an immortal power in them, and that there will be under the earth rewards or punishments, according as we have lived virtuously or viciously in this life ; and the latter souls are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but the former will have power to live again." On the other hand A NATURAL BODY 79 it is evident from writings of the first century B.C. that some Pharisees believed only in a " spiritual resurrection " — i.e. that the souls of the righteous would be released from Sheol and rise into a sphere of incorporeal blessedness. This latter view does not appear to have been held by St. Paul at any time. Taking all these considerations together, surely we must decide that when St. Paul wrote from Corinth to the Thessalonians he believed in a resur rection of the flesh. The evidence, such as it is, all points in that direction ; and there is nothing on the other side, except the unproved assumption that he must at this time have held the same belief which appears in the later epistles. Let us now turn to p. 96 of B. and C. : " The ascription to him of a belief ' in the resurrection as the reconstitution of the earthly body of flesh ' is absolutely without justification of any kind." Different readers wUl naturally make different estimates of the arguments which I have submitted in the last eight pages. But I should be surprised if any of them, who has any acquaintance with the laws of evidence, were to endorse the Bishop's denial that any evidence exists. On the same page there is the following note about the interpretation of 1 Thess. v. 23 : "It is clear that the reference is to moral ' preservation ' (note ' sanctify ' and ' without blame ') ; compare iv. 1-8. But even if we give a wider sense to the phrase to a&fia Ti)pr)Qevt), such ' preservation ' would not exclude a refashioning.' In the resurrection the body will be ' preserved ' because it will be changed.' ' 80 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES Besides what has been said about .this verse on page yj, it may be observed — (a) rr/pelv is a common word in the New Testa ment. Its principal meanings are to guard persons, to observe or keep laws, and tokeep faith or persons unchanged. It would be interesting to see the effect of translating 2 Tim. iv. 7 in the new way : " I have preserved the faith by changing it." I venture to say that there is not a single passage in the New Testament where the idea of change in connection with r-qpeiv is admissible. (fi) Tr/pelv does not stand alone, but the phrase is rvpeip 6\6/c\t]pov. Now if there is a word in Greek which excludes the idea of change it is oXoKXrjpov, which means entire, complete, like the Latin integer. The reasoning in the above notes is similar to that on pp. 38-40 of B. and C, where it is maintained that " the resurrection of the flesh " and " the resurrection of the spiritual body " mean the same thing. If words may be thus interpreted, in defiance of usage and context, it is a hopeless task to interpret any writer's meaning. About " the reign of the Messiah on earth " St. Paul in this passage does not say one single word. The ascription to him of this belief also is absolutely without justification of any kind (B. and C, p. 96). By " this passage " the Bishop evidently means 1 Thess. iv. 13-18, which he has printed in full (B. and C, pp. 92, 93). But why, may I ask, has he taken no notice of 2 Thess. i. 6-10, which is at least as important, and happens to contain aU the THE MESSIANIC REIGN 81 evidence on this particular point ? Since he does not follow Schmiedel in denying the authenticity of the second epistle, I can only suppose that he forgot its existence. For had it been present to his mind he could no more have written the first of the sentences quoted above than he could write " The correspondent tells us that the Fourth Army crossed the Rhine at Cologne in six hours. He does not say a single word about a bridge. Therefore we must assume that they crossed in boats." For, as has been shown above, the reign of the Messiah on earth is part of the background of thought which was common to St. Paul and his Jewish contemporaries, and without assuming it we could attach no tolerable meaning to several of his phrases. Whether con clusive or not, the evidence collected on pp. 72-77 is too solid to be dismissed with a contemptuous wave of the hand. There is another " justification " for ascribing this belief to St. Paul at this stage, which must specially appeal to the Bishop. It is generally admitted that in 1 Cor. xv. St. Paul refers to a Messianic reign on earth.1 Since, as we are told in B. and C, pp. 108- 10, St. Paul did not change his mind, between a.d. 50 and his death, on any doctrinal subject, he must have held that belief when he wrote to the Thessalonians. That is not merely an argumentum ad hominem ; for without believing that St. Paul never changed, one is naturally inclined to suppose that if he held the common Jewish opinion in a.d. 57 he had already held it in 52. 1 See infra; pp. 83, 84. 82 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES (B) " For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order : Christ the firstfruits ; then they that are Christ's, at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when He shall have abolished all rule and all auth ority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death. For, He put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He saith, All things are put in subjection, it is evident that He is excepted who did subject all things unto Him. And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be sub jected to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all " (i Cor. xv. 22-28). " But some one wfll say, How are the dead raised ? and with what manner of body do they come ? Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die : and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind ; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh : but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fishes. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown THE SECOND STAGE 83 a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body " (1 Cor. xv. 35-44). " Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery : We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immor tality " (1 Cor. xv. 50-3). In this famous chapter, as in most of the passages which refer to " the last things," the resurrection is intimately associated with the Messianic kingdom. Here, therefore, we must begin by drawing an outline of the picture which St. Paul seems to have had in his mind. What has been written already on pages 72-77 and 81 may serve as an introduction, so that the mere outline will suffice. (a) The last trump sounds, and Christ appears, descending from heaven (vv. 23, 52). (b) The righteous dead rise in their " spiritual bodies," while the living righteous are transformed into the like fashion (vv. 22, 52). Nothing is said here of their rising to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess. iv. 17). It seems to be assumed that they all await Him on the earth. (c) The Messianic kingdom begins.1 Christ reigns 1 It may be objected that Canon Charles, whom I often quote, has pronounced against the idea that in i Cor. xv. St. Paul referred to a Messianic kingdom {Eschatology, second edition, pp. 408, 447-8). I have his authority, in a letter dated May 16th, 84 SAINT PAUL'S THREE STAGES on earth, but not unchallenged : for He has to put all His enemies under His feet (vv. 24, 25). These are the human enemies described in Thessalonians. And He must also abolish the spiritual powers of evil which misled them (all rule and all authority and power, v. 24). (d) As in Revelation xx. 14 the climax of His victory is the destruction of death (v. 26). (e) The completion of His triumph brings the temporary Messianic kingdom to an end. Christ will then "deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father." So God shall be all in all: that is, the eternal kingdom of God begins (vv. 24, 28). This description, though closely related to the Jewish apocalypses preserved in Daniel, Enoch, and elsewhere, does not exactly correspond to any of them. It nearly resembles those of the first century B.c.in three principal features — thepersonal Messiah, the temporary character of the Messianic kingdom, and the denial of a resurrection of the flesh. It differs from them, however, in placing the resurrec tion at the beginning and not at the end of the Messiah's reign, and from most of them (not aU) in affirming that the spirits when they rise will be invested with a " spiritual body " and not remain disembodied. Another difference follows necessarily from St. Paul's whole teaching. The resurrection, instead of being limited to righteous Jews, is limited 1919, for saying that his real opinion is given in the note on P- 365, where he accepts the ordinary view ; and that pp. 408, 447-8 were allowed to be reprinted from the first edition by inadvertence. RESURRECTION IN ENOCH 85 to faithful Christians.1 Bearing these resemblances and differences in mind, we have to inquire what light the Jewish writings of the first century b.c or a little later can throw upon the meaning of St. Paul's words : " It is raised a spiritual body." Two of the writers of the first century B.C. give no hint of anjr bodily resurrection. The spirits of the wicked, they teach, will remain in Hades below, while " life " and " resurrection " are the privilege of the spirits of the righteous : " They that fear the Lord shall rise (avao-rr]