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theses with the thought and practice of the Roman world, beginning with the circumference and moving to the centre. The first element which was absorbed was the least Roman, the Graeco-Oriental cults. Christianity had been originally the worship of God, as he was understood by the Jews, combined with the belief that Jesus was he whom God had appointed, or would appoint, as his representative at the day of judgement. To this were now joined the longings for private salvation of the less fortunate classes in the Roman Empire, and their belief that this salvation could come from sacraments instituted by a Lord who was either divine by nature or had attained apotheosis. It thus became, partly indeed, the recognition of the Jewish God as supreme, but chiefly the recognition of Jesus as the divine Lord who had instituted saving mysteries for those who accepted him. Christianity became the Jewish contribution to the Oriental cults, offering, as the Synagogue never did, private salvation by supernatural means to all who were willing to accept it.

Such Christianity became, and such in some districts, notably in Rome, it remained for one or two generations. But in Ephesus and possibly elsewhere a further synthesis was accomplished. This sacramentalised Christianity began to come to terms with Greek philosophy, as the other mystery religions tried to do. It asked what was the philosophic explanation of its Lord, and it hit on the device of identifying him with the Logos--a phrase common to several types of philosophy though used in quite different meanings.

The development of this second synthesis was comparatively slow. Probably some of the systems which are loosely described as gnostic were unsuccessful attempts at its accomplishment; but in the end the Alexandrian theologians Clement and Origen followed the lead given them by the Fourth Gospel and some of the apologists to the triumphant construction of a system which really reconciled in part and seemed to reconcile entirely the Christian cult and the later Platonic metaphysics.

Although the general fabric of the Christian philosophy which was thus built up was in the main Platonic, not a little was borrowed also from the system of the Stoics, especially on the border ground between metaphysics and ethics. This paved the way for a further synthesis, accomplished more easily, more thoroughly, and with less perceptible controversy than had attended either of the others. Probably the culmination of this conquest of the Christian Church by the ethics of the Stoa was reached by Ambrose, who gave to the Christian world Cicero's popularisation of Panaetius and Posidonius in a series of sermons which extracted the ethics of Rome from the scriptures of the Christians. The ethics of the Stoics were almost wholly adopted by the leaders of Christian thought, especially in the West, and the teaching of Jesus as represented in the Gospels was interpreted in the interests of this achievement, which, like the other syntheses, was largely effective in proportion as it was unconscious.

Probably it was the early stages of this movement which had rendered possible the acceptance by one another of Christianity and the Empire. Certainly there is still much need of study, even if it produce only the statement of problems, as to the changed character of Christianity between the time of Tertullian and Eusebius.

The next few centuries, so far as they were not occupied in struggling against the eclipse of civilisation which began in the fifth century, were occupied in working out the implications of these syntheses. The results were codified in Catholic theology and in the civil and canon law of the early Middle Ages. But one more step remained; after nearly a thousand years Aristotle was rediscovered, and the final achievement of Christian theology was the synthesis effected by St. Thomas Aquinas between the Christian theology and the philosophy of Aristotle.

It is a great record of great achievement, for no one who studies the history of religions with any degree of sympathetic insight can doubt but that each synthesis was a real step in progress towards that unification of aspiration with knowledge which it is the task of theologians to bring about, and to express as clearly as they may.

Many centuries have passed since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas; and the element of tragedy in the study of the history of religions for the Christian theologian is that he is forced to admit that never again has there been a time when the unification of aspiration and knowledge has been so completely realised by organised Christianity. It was not long after this time that epoch-making changes were made, first in the domain of astronomy and afterwards in other sciences. They have revolutionised human knowledge. Nor have human aspirations stayed where they were. The ideal of justice which men see to-day is different and assuredly better than that of a thousand years ago. It extends beyond the sphere of the law-courts to every branch of human life. But the doctrines of the Church remain formulated according to the knowledge and aspirations of the past. The divergence between knowledge and theological statement has become more and more obvious every year. There has been no synthetic progress in theology since the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, for it is impossible for the student of history to feel that the Reformation can be regarded as a synthesis. Indeed it seems ominously like the first step in that disintegration which has always been the last stage in the story of each religion. It is absolutely certain that the world will once again some day achieve what it has often had and often lost--the closer approximation of knowledge and aspiration--so that its religious system may satisfy the soul of the saint without disgusting the intellect of the scholar. What is uncertain is whether this achievement will be made by any form of organised Christianity or is reserved for some movement which cannot at present be recognised.

To trace the whole of these syntheses would be a reasonable programme for many volumes. These lectures are limited to the discussion of the evolution of the first and the beginning of the second--that is to say, the change of Christianity from a Jewish sect to a sacramental cult and the beginning of the movement which introduced Greek metaphysics into its theology.

At the beginning of the first century the control of the Jewish nation was in the hands partly of Rome, partly of the high-priests and their families. The latter, as was natural, held in the main a conservative attitude towards the laws and customs of their people. They were rich men--some of them probably could appreciate the culture if not the thought of Rome--and the class in modern Europe which most closely resembles them is that of the aristocratic Turks of Constantinople--orthodox but not enthusiastic adherents of the religion of their fathers. They doubtless regarded themselves as the leaders of the people: it was with them, naturally enough, that the Roman world had to deal, and the price of their failure to keep the peace between the populace and Rome was their political extinction and their personal ruin. The populace demanded that the leaders should secure national independence; Rome required that they should induce the people to cease from asking it. The task was an impossible one, but history does not accept impossibility as an excuse for failure.

Closely connected with them were the Herods, who at intervals assumed a more or less dominating influence in Jewish affairs. At the time of Christ one of the family was ruling over Galilee, and another was destined in a short time to inherit not only this dominion but also that of Judaea. But though for political purposes the Herods were capable of playing Jewish cards, they had become completely absorbed into the cosmopolitan society of the Empire. They were as little typical of anything really Jewish as an educated Indian prince frequenting London society is typical of Hinduism.

Ultimately more important than the high-priests or the Herods were two other classes which were destined respectively to ruin their nation and to save their church. The one was the party of the patriots, the other the Scribes and Pharisees.

It is possible, but not certain, that these Jews were influenced by and possibly helped to produce some parts of that curious literature known as Apocalypses, which seems in the main to have been intended to comfort the discouraged and to inspire them with enthusiasm by giving them the assurance that a better time was at hand.

A very different type of Jew was represented by the Scribes and Pharisees. They believed implicitly that the law of Moses and the tradition of the elders had a divine sanction, and that to live in accordance with it, not to take part in political intrigue, was the way of Life. Their main object was to interpret the Law in such a way as to make it possible to follow, and to extend its explanation so as to cover every possible problem in practical life. They were opposed to Jesus during his life, and afterwards bitterly opposed to his followers. It is therefore natural that there is in the Christian Scriptures a large amount of polemic against the Pharisees, and there would be probably more against the Christians in the rabbinical writings had it not been for the activities of the mediaeval censors, so that statements in the Talmud which originally referred to the Christians are concealed by being referred to the Sadducees or other extinct parties of Jews for whose reputation neither Synagogue nor Church cared.

Owing to the fact that generations of Christians have seen the early history of the Scribes and Pharisees almost wholly through glasses coloured by early controversy, it is hard to be fair to the Pharisees. Taken at their best they probably represent the highest form of a religion based on codified ethics which the world has ever seen. They did not feel that the Law was external, for it represented the will of the Father, which could not be alien to that of his children if they understood it aright. The "word" was not in heaven or across the sea, but very nigh unto them, in their mouth and in their heart that they might do it. That is to say, the Law was not something imposed entirely from without by a wholly external authority, but was rather the very perfect expression of what man would of himself choose to do if he had perfect knowledge. Thus the best of the Pharisees no doubt felt that obedience to the Law and to tradition was a labour of love, and the story which is told of the death of Akiba may be regarded as typical of the best both of his predecessors and successors. He was being put to death by torture when the hour came that every pious Jew repeats the Shema, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul." He recited as far as "with all thy heart," and then stopped and smiled. "How," said one of the bystanders, "can you smile when you are dying in agony?" "Every day," he replied, "have I repeated these words, and I could say without hesitation that I loved the Lord with all my heart, but to say that I loved him with all my soul, that is to say, with all my life, was hard, for how can a man say what he has done with his life before the day of his death? But now that the day of my death has come and the hour for repeating the Shema has returned, and I have loved the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my life, why should I not smile?"

It is not surprising that it was the school of these men who saved the Jewish Church from extinction when the nation was destroyed; neither is it surprising, though it is sad, that there was deep hatred between them and the Christians; for in religion, as in other things, a really lively hatred requires some degree of relationship.

It was into this world of Jewish thought and practice that Jesus came preaching in Galilee. The content of his preaching is given by Mark as "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Therefore the two questions of primary importance are the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God, and of repentance.

The phrase "the Kingdom of Heaven" is common in the later Jewish literature and familiar in Christian ears. But it is not actually found before the Christian era, though similar expressions were customary, and the concept which it covers is often met with in the Old Testament. It means primarily the sovereignty of God in the world, not a kingdom in the local sense, or even in the sense of an organisation. Though in the Old Testament God is frequently referred to as a king whose rule is universal even now, the dominion of a king is not complete or perfect unless he be recognised by his subjects, and the dominion of God is not yet thus recognised or submitted to throughout the world. The Jewish view seems to have been that men had fallen away from the rule of God in the days before Abraham, and that when Abraham recognised the Lord as his God, then for him--but not for others--the sovereignty of God was complete. Similarly, when Israel recognised the Lord as their God there was a nation which accepted the sovereignty of God. The time would come when all the world would make this same recognition, but the day was not yet present, and there was more than one opinion as to the probable course of events which would lead up to it.

In general the Jews believed that the universal recognition of the sovereignty of God would bring about, or would at least be coincident with, the coming of the Golden Age, so frequently spoken of by the prophets, and described with imaginative profusion in the apocalyptic writings. But it is by no means always clear whether the Golden Age was the condition or the result of the coming of the Kingdom. Would the heathen, who knew not God, be converted or be exterminated? It is not surprising if there was a tendency to confuse the recognition of the sovereignty of God with the phenomena attending it, and to speak of the Kingdom of God when the conditions of its attainment were really meant.

There were two special features in the Jewish expectation of the future recognition of the sovereignty of God which were especially liable to be confused with it in this manner. In the first place, some of the prophets had spoken of the coming of the Golden Age and the restoration of the national fortunes of Israel. Sometimes this restoration had been associated with the house of David, sometimes with the dynasty of the high priest; but frequently no such association was present, and Christian scholarship has in general greatly exaggerated the amount of evidence, especially for a Davidic king. The reason for this exaggeration is partly verbal. The custom has arisen of speaking of this Golden Age as the "Messianic" Age, which can only mean the age in which the "Messiah" will appear. "Messiah" is itself a technical term, but "Messianic" can only be applied to a person appointed by God to some high office, and to a period of history only if such a person be central in it. The really most striking feature of most of the descriptions of the Golden Age in the Old Testament and in the apocalyptic books is that there is no mention of any Messiah at all. But the later literature emphasised the coming of King Messiah, and the Jews therefore refer to this period as "the days of the Messiah." There is no evidence that this phrase was used until after the Christian era. For this reason it is a great pity that scholars, who personally, of course, know better, constantly use so misleading a term as the Messianic Age. It would be far better if it were described as the "Golden Age" or the "good time."

This whole conception of the coming Golden Age was in essence peculiarly Jewish, though parallels can be found in the religion of all nations. Cognate to it was another point of view which was not originally Jewish, but had probably been taken over by the Jews from Persian thought. This was the expectation of the Age to Come, which plays so large a part in the fourth book of Ezra and in the later literature. An integral part of the Persian system was the belief that the world would come to an end and be consumed by fire which would purify it from evil, after which the righteous would be raised from the dead and take part in the glorious life of a new world. A supernatural figure known as the Shaoshyant would take part in this process, and especially in the Judgement which would decide whether men should or should not pass on into the life of the Age to Come.

From the time of Daniel, if not earlier, these ideas had been absorbed by the Jews, and though belief in a resurrection was not universal it had been accepted by the Pharisees, and was probably more popular than either the ancient Jewish belief in Sheol or the imported Greek belief in the immortality of the soul, of which traces can be found in the Wisdom Literature. All this is, however, different from the ancient Jewish tradition of a Golden Age in this world, and there are plain traces in Jewish literature of the attempt to reconcile the two systems.

It was obviously possible, by dint of a comparatively small confusion of thought, to identify the Golden Age with the Age to Come, and to suppose that all the unfulfilled features of the visions of the earlier prophets would be realised in the Age to Come. In this case the figure of the Davidic king, if he happened to be part of the picture, could easily be transplanted into the Age to Come, and whereas in the earlier presentation he had the special function of destroying in a holy war the enemies of Israel, he could now have the more universal responsibility of abolishing all evil, and of acting as judge to decide who should enter into the new world.

It is on general principles entirely probable that some such accommodation of thought was effected in some Jewish circles, as it was afterwards among the Christians. But there is comparatively little evidence that such was actually the case. Especially is there very little evidence that the anointed Son of David was transmuted in this fashion. The most that can be said is that some of the many titles which were applied to the expected Davidic king were also applied to the expected supernatural judge. But identity of title does not always mean identity of person, and the general descriptions of the two figures are as a rule quite separate. It would appear that on the whole the better Jews in the time of Christ were looking for the End of the Age and the Resurrection, rather than for the restoration of the kingdom of David, but that there was a popular minority which still had hopes of the restoration of the monarchy.

The most thorough attempt to reconcile the two lines of thought is to be found in the fourth book of Ezra, which elaborates a complete combination of both systems with a clearness quite unusual in apocalyptic literature. According to this the time was approaching when the Messiah, by which is clearly meant the king of Israel, would appear, destroy all opposition, and reign for four hundred years. He and all mankind would then die. The world would come to an end and be restored to primaeval silence. Then would follow the Resurrection and Judgement, and the beginning of the Age to Come. All the features of both systems are thus combined, except that it appears that the Judgement is the act of God himself, rather than of an especially appointed representative.

The general result of reading the literature belonging to this period is to create the impression that recent scholarship has gone much further than is justifiable in the attempt to systematise Jewish thought on eschatology. It has succumbed too readily to the temptation to find system where there is none, to base a chronological development of thought on the discovery, and finally to emend the texts in its light, and sometimes in its aid. It seems extremely doubtful whether there was any "generally recognised" Jewish teaching on this subject. The belief that God would deliver his people, and that his sovereignty would be recognised throughout the world, was no doubt part of the belief of every pious Jew, but the details were vague and there was no systematic teaching on them.

At present the question has apparently reached equilibrium by the general recognition that it is impossible to excise or to explain away the passages in the gospels in which the Kingdom of Heaven is clearly regarded as future, and that it is equally impossible to ignore those in which it is regarded as a present reality. Probably, however, it has even now not been sufficiently perceived that the solution of the problem is not to be found in the literary criticism of the gospels, but in the history of the phrase, Kingdom of God. This rendered inevitable the double use of the phrase. Sometimes it was used strictly, and referred to a present reality within the grasp of all willing to reach out to it, and accept the conditions imposed on its attainment, of which Jesus was so frequently speaking. But at other times, by an entirely natural extension of its meaning, it was used of the period when the recognition of the sovereignty of God would be universal. In this sense it was still future. It was at hand, but not yet present, even though that generation would not entirely pass away before it was accomplished. There is no exegetical obstacle to accepting this view, for it is the plain and simple meaning of simple phrases; but there is the theological difficulty that it represents an expectation on the part of Jesus which was falsified by history. That generation has passed away, and many others after it, and the Kingdom of God has not yet come. Indeed, it is scarcely orthodox any longer to expect it in the manner in which the gospels represent Jesus to have foretold its coming.

But even when it is conceded that Jesus in some places in the gospels did undoubtedly contemplate the coming of the Kingdom in the future, it remains a problem, which has as yet attracted too little attention, whether he identified the eschatological phenomena attending its coming with the reign of the anointed scion of the house of David, or with the end of this age and the inauguration of the Age to Come. In general it seems to me far more likely that he looked for the Age to Come rather than for the reign of the Son of David, though the evidence is admittedly not very full or entirely satisfactory. It is, however, at least clear that in his answer to the young man who asked Jesus what he should do, eternal life is treated as synonymous with the Kingdom of God. The young man asked what was necessary to inherit eternal life, and when Jesus told him that he should observe the commandments, sell all that he had and give to the poor, he was grieved. Jesus then said, "How hardly will those that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God." Obviously eternal life and the Kingdom of God are here identical, and there is no doubt that the Jews expected eternal life in the Age to Come, not in the Days of the Messiah. Moreover, the continuation of the narrative--the implied question of Peter, "Lo, we have left all and followed thee"--introduces the statement of Jesus, "There is no one who has left home, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake and for the good news, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time--houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the Age to Come life everlasting." The distinction here between "this time" and the Age to Come is entirely Jewish, and shows that in the previous paragraph the Kingdom of God and eternal life were associated in the mind of Jesus with the Age to Come.

But, it may be said, did not Jesus identify himself with the Davidic Messiah? Undoubtedly his disciples did so in the circles represented by Matthew and Luke, but it is doubtful whether the gospel of Mark represents this point of view, and the question of Jesus to the Pharisees, how David in the Scriptures could call the Messiah Lord if he were his son, is pointless, except on the assumption that Jesus did not regard himself as the Son of David. On the other hand, the identification of Jesus with the Son of Man, whether by himself or by his disciples, can in no case affect the question, because the figure of the Son of Man in Jewish literature is an integral part of the inauguration of the Age to Come, not of the reign of the Davidic king.

Thus it seems probable that one part of the teaching of Jesus was the announcement that this age is coming to its end and that the Age to Come is rapidly approaching, when the Kingdom of God will be universally realised. Those who wish to pass on into the life of the New Age must prepare themselves by accepting already the sovereignty of God at whatever cost it may be. Nothing physical or social must be allowed to stand in the way; relations, property, eyesight, hands or feet must all be sacrificed if they stand between man and his perfect acceptance of God's sovereignty; few men have lived up to this standard, and to reach it they must repent.

It is thus clear that there was not any essential difference between Jesus and his contemporaries as to either the meaning of the Kingdom of God or the necessity and power of repentance. The difference between them came in the kind of conduct which was necessary for membership in the Kingdom of God and prescribed for repentance. It was at this point that Jesus came into sharp conflict with the two parties previously described, the Fourth Philosophy and the Scribes and Pharisees.

The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees was one of interpretation. Both he and they regarded the Law as the revelation of God's will, and Jesus himself was emphatic in declaring that it was binding and that he did not wish to destroy it. But the Pharisees endeavoured to make the Law cover every detail of human life by combining it with clever verbal interpretations which stretched its meaning in every direction. Jesus, on the other hand, appealed from the letter of the Law to its original purpose, which he held to be the benefit of man. If, therefore, there was any contradiction between the letter of the Law and its original purpose, it was the purpose which was dominant. No one can doubt that in this respect Jesus followed a principle incontestably correct but extraordinarily difficult of application. It contains, moreover, implicit in it an appeal to conscience, for it was really by this rather than by historic knowledge that the ultimate purpose of the Law was revealed. The final test of formularies which appeal to the intellect is whether they are true and of codes defining conduct whether they are right, but the perception of truth and of right depends in the end on reason and on conscience, and the difficulty and obscurity which attend their application constantly frighten men into trying to substitute some easier way for that of Jesus: but here too the saying is true that "narrow is the way that leadeth unto life."

Far more deep-seated was the difference between Jesus and the Fourth Philosophy. It is only necessary to put oneself back in the position of a Jew of Galilee in the first century, inspired by the patriotic teaching of Judas of Galilee and his followers, to understand how extraordinarily unpopular the teaching of Jesus must have been in Galilee. Such a Jew believed that the continuance of the Roman rule was an intolerable injustice, that it ought not to be endured, that resistance to it was right and proper and would be crowned with success by the intervention of God. If he heard Jesus say, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you ... as ye would that men should do to you do ye to them likewise; for if ye love them that love you what thank have you ... love ye your enemies," what would such a man have thought? In the light of the experiences of our own time there is no reason for wonder that Jesus in the end found it impossible to live in Galilee. The marvel is that he escaped with his life.

The contrast between such teaching and that of the Fourth Philosophy is so obvious that it could never either escape attention or be denied if it were not for the absence of any definite mention of this party in the gospels. The probable explanation is that by the time that the gospels were written the Fourth Philosophy had ceased to exist, and that in Greek circles this party was never prominent. The result was that there was no reason to perpetuate any tradition as to controversy between Jesus and the Fourth Philosophy. The only dispute with the Jews in which the Christians of the generation that produced the gospels were interested was that with the rabbis, the lineal descendants of the Pharisees. Thus they preserved the story of arguments between Jesus and the Pharisees, but not between him and the representatives of other schools. This, however, did not mean that the teaching of Jesus called out by the Fourth Philosophy was not preserved. The teaching itself was given, but, just as in the Talmud the sayings of rabbis are often given without historic context, so also in Christian tradition the sayings of Jesus usually appear without the incidents which had called them out. In exactly the same way, except for the final scene in Jerusalem, the priests and Sadducees are not mentioned; they played no part in the life of the Christian generation which produced the gospels. There was, however, a special reason why the non-resistant teaching of Jesus should be preserved even when its historic background was lost. Though the Fourth Philosophy had ceased to have any contact with the Church, the persecution of Christians was an actual problem, and the practical difficulty of right conduct under its stress kept alive teaching which might otherwise have been forgotten.

The question is sometimes asked whether such teaching is really consistent with the violent cleansing of the Temple. The true answer is probably not to be found in any ingenious harmonisation, but rather in accentuating the fact that the "non-resistant" teaching in the Sermon on the Mount deals with the line of conduct to be observed towards foreign oppressors and violence from without. The sacerdotal money-changers and sellers of doves in the Temple were not the "oppressors of Israel." Israel was called on to suffer under Roman rule, and the righteous to endure violence at the hands of the wicked, for that was the will of God, who in his own good time would shorten the evil days. But the manipulation of the sacrificial system as a means of plundering the pious was a sin of Israel itself, against which, protest and force were justified. What the heathen and the wicked do is their concern and God's, but the sins of Israel are Israel's own; against them the righteous in Israel may execute judgement.

It would be an affectation to suggest that this subject does not raise questions of the greatest practical importance for the present age; no one is justified in evading the issues presented. The teaching of Jesus represents a non-resistant attitude which has come to be described as "pacifist," and the world has just passed through a crisis which has proved that "pacifism" and "non-resistance" are impossible policies. What does this mean for those who profess and call themselves Christians? It cannot mean that they ought to adopt a non-resistant policy either in personal or in national affairs, for experience seems to prove that the policy of not resisting evil leads to its triumph rather than its defeat. But this fact gives no justification for explaining away or watering down the plain and intelligible teaching of Jesus. It was his teaching; it may have been right and wise for his immediate hearers; but it is not wise or right as the general basis of conduct, whether personal or national. If Jesus intended to lay down a general principle of conduct we have to admit that he was wrong, or adopt the pacifist position. There is nothing in the context to suggest that he thought of a limited application of his words, nor in the days of persecution which followed did Christians so interpret him. If, therefore, he was wrong it is necessary to ask how we can explain the error.

The answer seems to lie in a comparison of the attitude adopted by the Jews of the first century on the one hand, and by ourselves on the other, as to the working of God in the world. The Jew believed not merely in an omnipotent God, but in a God who constantly used his power quite independently of the action of men. We, on the contrary, believe that the universe is so constituted that human action bears a fixed relation to the course of events. What men do or do not bears a definite relation to the events which will follow, and we no longer look for God to help those who are unwilling to help themselves. One of the means which we possess of helping ourselves is force, physical force. We have the power to use it for good or for evil. It is as culpable not to use force when occasion requires as it is to use it when occasion does not.

This is tolerably plain to us, but it was not tolerably plain to the Jew of the first century. The war has brought out the human limitations of the ethics of Jesus by the intellectual horizon of his own time as clearly as the application of literary criticism to the Old Testament brought out the defects of his knowledge of the authorship of the Jewish scriptures. Just as it was wrong and futile to pretend that when he said "David said" and quoted a psalm, he did not mean to ascribe it to David, it is futile to argue that when he said "resist not evil" and "love your enemies" he sanctioned the patriotic pursuit of war.

Ritschlianism is perhaps an exception: it did at least attempt a synthesis with science approached through Kantian philosophy. But was it successful?

The suggestion has even been made that some of the polemic in the gospels, which is--as the text stands--directed against the Pharisees and Rabbis, was historically intended for the Sadducees. It was too important to be lost, and, as those who were originally attacked had ceased to be important, it was turned against the only Jewish party which still survived to oppose Christianity at the time when the gospels were written. See also p. 32.

Mark x. 17 ff.

Mark xii. 35.

Mark ix. 43 ff.; cf. Matt. v. 29. ff.

See Mark ii. 27. For the meaning of Son of Man in this passage see p. 60.

Neither reason nor conscience is infallible: the tribunal of history condemns many actions which were undoubtedly dictated by conscience. Nevertheless we have no better guides in action, and both reason and conscience have the peculiarity that the more they are used the better do they become, and conversely that if they be neglected they cease to be available in time of need. Men who habitually use their powers in order to circumvent either conscience or reason in the end find they are unable to use them at all. The distinction between right and wrong disappears when conscience dies, and that between fact and fiction when reason is neglected. The one is the danger which besets clever politicians, the other the nemesis which waits on popular preachers.

The situation becomes pathetically impossible when men's theological conscience is shocked by the suggestion that Jesus was wrong, and their political conscience by the claim that he should be obeyed.

JERUSALEM

For the history of the disciples after the death of Jesus we are dependent upon a single source, the Acts of the Apostles, which can, however, be controlled, and to some extent corrected, by the gospels and by the epistles of Paul.

It is now generally recognised that if any one wishes to write a life of Christ he ought to base his work not on the gospels as we have them now, but rather on the information provided by the critical analysis of the gospels as to their sources. These sources, or at least the two oldest and most important, have become well known as Mark and Q. Every one nowadays is aware that behind Matthew and Luke is a document which was almost or entirely identical with our Mark, and that in addition to this both Matthew and Luke used another source, or possibly sources, to which the name of Q is given. In general, however, there is a tendency among those who have acquired this insight into the composition of the gospels from lectures or from little books rather than by the study of a synopsis to attach altogether too rigid an importance to these results.

Mark, though a document of early date and unsurpassed value, is the Greek edition of an earlier Aramaic tradition, probably, though not certainly, in documentary form before it was translated. It would be a miracle if it contained nothing due to the Greek circle in which its present form was produced.

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