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 Beginnfngs of the church. 
 
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 3 1924 029 306 821 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029306821 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST F. SCOTT, D.D. 
 
 FBOFEBSOB OF HEW TESTAMENT CBITICIBM IN QUECN's THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE, 
 
 KINGSTON, CANADA 
 
 AUTHOR 07 "the FOUBTH GOBPEL; ITS PUHPOBE AND THEOLOGY," 
 
 "the kisgdou abd the Messiah/' etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1914 
 
B,? 
 
 COPTRIGHT, 1914, BY 
 
 CHABLBS SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published September, 1914 
 
 C L. -/-ttS-TV-) I&^-^AjS^ 
 
 
THE ELY FOUNDATION 
 
 The Ely Lectures rest on the foundation estab- 
 lished by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, in the following 
 terms: 
 
 "The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars 
 to the Union Theological Seminary of the City of New York 
 to found a lectureship in the same, the title of which shall be 
 The Elias P. Ely Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity. 
 
 "The course of lectures given on this Foundation is to com- 
 prise any topics serving to establish the proposition that Chris- 
 tianity is a religion from God, or that it is the perfect and final 
 form of religion for man. 
 
 "Among the subjects discussed may be: The Nature and 
 Need of a E«velation; The Character and Influence of Christ 
 and His Apostles; The Authenticity and Credibility of the 
 Scriptures, Miracles, and Prophecy; The Diffusion and Bene- 
 fits of Christianity; and The Philosophy of Religion in its 
 Relations to the Christian System. 
 
 "Upon one or more of such subjects a course of public lec- 
 tures shall be given, at least once in two or three years. The 
 appointment of the lecturers is to be by the concurrent action 
 of the Faculty and Directors of said Seminary and the under- 
 signed, and it shall ordinarily be made two years in advance." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The present book consists of a series of lectures 
 delivered in January and February of this year at 
 Union Theological Seminary, New York, in terms 
 of the Ely Foundation. For the many kindnesses 
 which I received during my visit to the Seminary 
 I desire to express my warmest thanks to Presi- 
 dent Francis Brown and the members of the staff. 
 To Dr. J. E. Frame, Professor in New Testa- 
 ment Literature, I am further indebted for much 
 helpful criticism of the lectures in the course of 
 their delivery. 
 
 My object has been to investigate the aims and 
 beliefs of the Christian community in the time 
 preceding the advent of Paul. No discussion of 
 this dark period can be other than tentative; and 
 I am well aware that many of my conclusions are 
 open to question. They may serve, however, to 
 suggest new lines of inquiry into problems of car- 
 dinal importance which have not yet been ade- 
 quately explored. A detailed study of that ini- 
 tial period is more than ever necessary in view of 
 the more recent developments of New Testament 
 vii 
 
vui PREFACE 
 
 criticism. Not a few scholars of the foremost 
 rank are seeking to explain almost the whole con- 
 tent of Christian doctrine from the Hellenistic 
 beliefs and practices to which the new religion 
 was gradually assimilated. It may indeed be 
 granted that these influences were operative from 
 an early time, and have left deep traces even on 
 the teaching of Paul; but they ought not to be 
 emphasised in such a manner as to allow no place 
 for a more primitive Christianity. Between the 
 death of Jesus and the beginning of the gentile 
 mission there was a momentous interval, in which 
 the church grew up in its native Jewish soil, un- 
 affected by alien modes of thinking. I have 
 sought to concentrate attention on this fact, and 
 to estimate its bearing on the genesis of Christian 
 belief. 
 
 In my attempt to interpret the primitive ideas 
 I set out from the hypothesis that Jesus imparted 
 his message in the terms of Jewish apocalyptic. 
 The application of this theory to the Gospel nar- 
 rative has already led to many fruitful results, 
 but its significance for the early history of the 
 church has not yet been fully appreciated. I have 
 tried to show that the apocalyptic conceptions of 
 Jesus were normative also for his disciples, and 
 found their natural outcome in the building up 
 of the Christian community. 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 My thanks are due to my friend and colleague, 
 Professor William Morgan, D.D., who has ren- 
 dered me valuable assistance in the correction of 
 the proofs. 
 
 E. F. Scott. 
 
 Kingston, Canada, 
 March 31, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTUBE PAGE 
 
 I. The First Days 1 
 
 II. The Ecclesia 29 
 
 III. The Gift of the Spirit 57 
 
 IV. Jesus as Lord 84 
 
 v. The Relation of the Church to Judaism 109 
 
 VI. Life in the Primitive Community . . . 133 
 
 VII. Baptism 162 
 
 VIII. The Lord's Supper 192 
 
 IX. Stephen 224 
 
 X. The Earliest Christianity 251 
 
 Index 281 
 
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 LECTURE I 
 
 THE FIEST DATS 
 
 Christianitj'j it has been finely said, grew up 
 in the dark. A few years after the death of Jesus 
 it had its roots securely planted and was spread- 
 ing over Palestine and throwing its offshoots 
 into the surrounding gentile world. It had de- 
 veloped customs and institutions of its own and 
 a theology that was already rich and many-sided. 
 But the initial period of which this wonderful 
 growth was the outcome is almost hidden from 
 us. Within a generation the church had appar- 
 ently lost the record of its earlier history and 
 could only replace it by a few doubtful traditions. 
 All had come about so gradually, by a process so 
 obscure and fortuitous, that even the surviving 
 actors were now uncertain as to the true course 
 and significance of the events. 
 
 That first dark period, however, was the most 
 momentous that has ever been in the history of 
 our religion. It was then that the church came 
 into being and was moulded into the form which 
 
 1 
 
2 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 it has essentially preserved amidst all subsequent 
 changes. If we would understand the complex 
 movement of the following centuries, we must 
 try to know something of the influences at work 
 in those earliest years. Theoretically, this is 
 acknowledged by scholars; but in practice they 
 have too often treated the first period as negli- 
 gible, because it has left so little impression on 
 the records. Sometimes, indeed, they have de- 
 liberately passed it over in order to enhance the 
 achievement of the Apostle Paul. The original 
 disciples, we are told, had failed to apprehend the 
 real drift of Jesus' teaching. They clung to the 
 one belief that he was the promised Messiah, but 
 otherwise remained on the ordinary plane of 
 Judaism, and would eventually have found their 
 place as a minor Jewish sect. It was Paul who 
 rescued Christianity and who may almost be said 
 to have created it. New Testament criticism is 
 now retreating from this position, so long ac- 
 cepted as self-evident, that the work of Paul was 
 altogether revolutionary. It is coming to be 
 recognised, in view of a more exact study of his 
 life and writings, that he owed far more to the 
 primitive church than has usually been granted, 
 and that his relation to it was one of substantial 
 sympathy. The gentile mission itself, it is now 
 generally admitted, was not an innovation brought 
 about by Paul. He entered upon it when it was 
 already well in progress, and could only claim 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 3 
 
 that he had laboured in it more than them all. 
 Paul must always remain the greatest figure in 
 the early history of the church, but the estimate 
 that would make him the sole builder is the re- 
 sult of a threefold illusion. He was the most 
 brilliant personality of the apostolic circle; and 
 the work which he shared with others has there- 
 fore been credited to him alone. His writings 
 have been preserved to us and are our only first- 
 hand records of the life of the primitive church; 
 thus we infer that it had no other teacher. Lastly, 
 the period which lies behind him is one of ob- 
 scurity. Since we cannot discover how much 
 was given to him, we are willing to believe that 
 he borrowed nothing and simply originated what- 
 ever he taught. Before we can rightly under- 
 stand Paul, or the great movement in which he 
 played the chief part, we require to free our minds 
 of these illusions and to allow room beside him 
 for his fellow labourers. 
 
 The dependence of Paul on the primitive church 
 is coming at last to be recognised; but criticism 
 still insists on a dividing line between the prim- 
 itive church and Jesus. It is assumed that after 
 our Lord's death the import of his message be- 
 came half obliterated. Another interest began 
 to occupy the minds of his followers, and from 
 this, much more than from his own teaching, 
 the new movement took its departure. Now it 
 cannot be denied that this hypothesis contains a 
 
4 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH ■ 
 
 measure of truth. There were meanings in the 
 thought of Jesus which his disciples were unable 
 to fathom, and his gospel, as they proclaimed it, 
 could not but suffer an impoverishment. It was 
 inevitable, too, that the events in which his life 
 had culminated should partly overshadow his 
 previous ministry and transform men's attitude 
 toward him. But when all this is granted, we 
 have still to remember that the disciples had 
 learned the message of Jesus, and cannot have 
 entirely missed its meaning. It is incredible 
 that after his death they should have wrested his 
 cause from its true purpose and changed it into 
 something different. That they continued to 
 cherish the message as they had received it from 
 Jesus is no mere matter of conjecture. If direct 
 evidence were needed, we have it in the existence 
 of our Synoptic Gospels, which, on any theory of 
 their origin, are based on the reminiscences of 
 the primitive church. The community that has 
 bequeathed to us these Gospels must have trea- 
 sured the teachings of Jesus with a remarkable 
 fidelity. Even the discrepancies in the threefold 
 record are highly significant, proving as t|iey do 
 that the tradition was not a formal and mechan- 
 ical one. The message of Jesus had worked it- 
 self into the life of the church and so passed down 
 to the next generation as its most precious her- 
 itage. 
 
 We cannot be wrong, therefore, in believing 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 5 
 
 that, despite all apparent differences, there is an 
 inner connection between the various phases of 
 New Testament history. It has been too much 
 the custom of criticism to insist on the differences. 
 We are asked to suppose that Christianity ad- 
 vanced, not by an orderly process but by a 
 series of sharp transitions — from Jesus to the 
 primitive church, from the primitive church to 
 Paul. At each of these stages there was a break 
 with the past and a fresh beginning. But if the 
 principle of development means anything, we 
 cannot be content with this account of the early 
 history. The differences are real enough, and 
 it was necessary for a time to emphasise them; 
 but the task that now devolves on criticism is to 
 discover the hidden links of continuity. It is 
 proposed in these lectures to investigate that 
 primitive period which lies between Jesus and 
 Paul, in order, if possible, to determine the nature 
 of its thought and beliefs. According as we 
 understand that critical period of transition, we 
 shall be able to trace the development of the 
 world-wide church from the immediate work of 
 Jesus. 
 
 At the outset we have to reckon with a dif- 
 ficulty which might seem to preclude all investi- 
 gation. Since the earliest period is one of dark- 
 ness, have we the necessary data for any judgment 
 concerning its beliefs? The Epistles of James 
 
6 THE BE0INNIN6S OF THE CHURCH 
 
 and Peter can no longer be accepted as first-hand 
 documents; the Johannine literature, whatever 
 be its authorship, is certainly the product of a 
 later time; and apart from these writings we 
 have nothing that even pretends to represent 
 the mind of the first Apostles. But our sources, 
 though meagre, are not wholly insufficient. In 
 the first place, we have the introductory section 
 of the book of Acts (chaps. 1-12), in which the 
 author professes to set down the earliest events 
 in something like historical order. These chap- 
 ters of Acts are no doubt composed, in great 
 part, of legend; but the primitive mark upon 
 them is unmistakable. We are conscious that 
 behind the idealised pictures there are authentic 
 memories of conditions that belonged to the past. 
 This impression, which forces itself on every un- 
 biassed reader, has now been largely justified by 
 the detailed examination to which the chapters 
 have been subjected in recent years. Literary 
 analysis is at best uncertain; and the critics of 
 this section of Acts have by no means reached a 
 complete agreement. Yet they may be held to 
 have proved that in his second work as in his 
 first Luke employed a method of compilation, and 
 that he incorporated in his narrative documents 
 of high antiquity and value. Some of these doc- 
 uments can still be detached, and can be assigned 
 to a date when the memory of the events must 
 have been fresh and vivid. Even those portions 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 7 
 
 of the record which bear the clearest traces of 
 later manipulation cannot wholly be set aside. 
 The author is working on material given to him, 
 and preserves enough of it to indicate at least 
 something of its original character. Again, the 
 Epistles of Paul supply evidence of first-rate value 
 not only for the contemporary life of the church 
 but for earlier conditions. In several passages 
 Paul refers explicitly to what he had received 
 from the Apostles before him. Attentive study 
 of his writings can discover many other passages 
 in which the reference is implied although not 
 directly expressed. Indeed, it may be affirmed 
 that the teaching of the primitive church forms 
 a constant background to the Apostle's thought. 
 Even in his statement of doctrines which are 
 characteristically his own we can make out a 
 penumbra — a suggestion of older and simpler 
 ideas which he was seeking to interpret. Our 
 third source is the Synoptic Gospels. Their very 
 existence, as has been said already, is a fact of 
 the highest importance for the understanding of 
 the apostolic age. We are reminded that the 
 teaching of Jesus was a living power in the church 
 and that all its beliefs and activities were in- 
 fluenced directly by that teaching. But in a 
 more definite manner the Gospels throw a light 
 on the beginnings of Christian history. Into its 
 recollections of the life of Jesus the church uncon- 
 sciously transfused some portion of its own life. 
 
8 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Incidents were described from the point of view 
 of actual conditions; sayings were adapted so 
 as to bear more immediately on present difficul- 
 ties and needs; later reflection on the Gospel story 
 was thrown back on the historical picture. There 
 can be little doubt that the narrative as we now 
 have it contains a large deposit from the early 
 history of the church; but the task of sifting out 
 the accretions from the original substance is one 
 of extreme delicacy. It has certainly been car- 
 ried out too rashly, and in too hard and pedantic 
 a fashion, by many recent critics. They have set 
 to work with a preconceived idea of what Jesus 
 must have said and what the church must have' 
 added, and have failed to reckon with the pos- 
 sibility that he and the church may have partly 
 shared the same outlook. But, although the task 
 is difficult, we are assisted, in some measure, by 
 the comparison of the three Gospels. In not a 
 few cases their differences afford us a clew that 
 woxJd otherwise be wanting, and enable us to 
 separate the thought of Jesus from the elements 
 that filtered in at a later time. 
 
 These, then, are the chief sources of our knowl- 
 edge. They are, indeed, scanty and their data 
 have often to be pieced together by conjecture; 
 but when we consider the obscurity which over- 
 hung the earliest Christian history it is surprising 
 that so many glimpses are afforded us. Our con- 
 cern is with the primitive beliefs as we can ascer- 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 9 
 
 tain them with the help of these sources. But it 
 is necessary, in the first place, to direct our atten- 
 tion to the historical circumstances in which the 
 church arose. 
 
 On the night when Jesus was arrested in Jeru- 
 salem, during the Passover week, the disciples, 
 smitten with panic, had deserted him. What was 
 the nature of this desertion? The Gospel narra- 
 tives, in their present form, leave us with the 
 impression that although the disciples fled they 
 still remained in the city and there received the 
 evidence that the Lord had arisen. But the 
 evangelists wrote under various influences, which 
 may easily have led them, at this point, to dis- 
 guise or modify the facts. They may well have 
 desired to mitigate the apparent weakness of the 
 disciples — to assign to Jerusalem, from the very 
 outset, a place of unique importance — to com- 
 bine the story of the empty grave with that of 
 the appearances. It is certainly natural to sup- 
 pose that in the panic which overtook them the 
 disciples made their escape altogether from the 
 zone of danger and hastened back to their homes 
 in Galilee. When we examine the New Testa- 
 ment evidence more closely we find a number of 
 evidences which have survived the later editing, 
 and which point to Galilee rather than Jerusalem 
 as the scene of those experiences which convinced 
 the disciples that the Lord had risen. (1) Mark 
 
10 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 preserves the significant prediction: "After that 
 I am risen I will go before you into Galilee' 
 (Mark 14 : 28). Signs are not wanting (cf. Mark 
 16 : 7) that this reunion in Galilee formed the 
 subject of the lost ending of Mark's Gospel. (2) 
 In the twenty-first chapter of John, the so-called 
 " appendix," which is synoptic rather than Johan- 
 nine in its character, we meet with the tradition 
 of an interval during which the disciples resumed 
 their old life in Galilee and there saw the Lord. 
 (3) The same tradition has left its marks on the 
 closing chapter of Matthew (28 : 10, 16 /.), 
 although the original outlines of the story have 
 now become much faded. (4) Paul, whose brief 
 account of the resurrection is the earliest and 
 most important of all, says nothing as to the 
 locality of the visions, but his references would 
 suit Galilee better than Jerusalem. He speaks, 
 for instance, of an appearance to James, and there 
 is no evidence that James had accompanied Jesus 
 to the capital. Moreover, the "five hundred 
 brethren at once" could hardly have been gath- 
 ered elsewhere than in Galilee, where the ma- 
 jority of Jesus' adherents still remained. 
 
 What, then, was the effect of those appear- 
 ances which in all probability took place in 
 Galilee? It is commonly assumed that the faith 
 of the disciples had been shattered by the appar- 
 ent ruin which had befallen Jesus and his cause. 
 They had accepted him as the promised Messiah; 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 11 
 
 but in view of his ignominious death their belief 
 in him could only be restored by a stupendous 
 miracle. The desertion at Gethsemane, followed 
 by the denial of Peter, is brought forward as 
 evidence of this collapse of faith. But we can- 
 not fairly draw a large inference of this kind from 
 the desertion. It was nothing but the result of 
 a sudden panic such as might easily overtake a 
 band of peasants confronted for the first time 
 and in a strange city with the terrors of legal pro- 
 cedure. As the later events abundantly proved, 
 it argued no radical lack of courage — much less 
 a shattering of faith. If we can attach any value 
 to the solemnly repeated statements of the Gos- 
 pels, the disciples were already prepared for the 
 closing events at Jerusalem. Jesus had fore- 
 warned them of a coming catastrophe and taught 
 them that through su£Eering and death he would 
 fulfil his Messianic work. It can hardly be 
 -doubted that the teaching of Jesus, in the latter 
 days of his ministry, turned largely upon this 
 thought; and any failure of faith on the part of 
 his disciples could be only for a moment. Their 
 mood, when once the crisis was over, would be 
 one not of disillusionment and despair but of 
 intense expectation. All had happened as Jesus 
 had foretold. Their belief in him would be even 
 stronger than before and would be only waiting 
 to break out into victorious certainty. 
 
 The narratives of the resurrection are beset 
 
12 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 with many problems, some of which may be 
 partly solved by critical analysis while others are 
 involved in a mystery that can never be lifted. 
 For our immediate purpose it is not necessary to 
 discuss these complex problems. One fact stands 
 out clearly amidst all the confusion of the records 
 and IS now recognised by every fair-minded 
 scholar — that the disciples underwent some ex- 
 perience which convinced them that the Lord was 
 risen. According to Paul, who expressly says that 
 his testimony was that of all the Apostles,* the 
 fact of the resurrection was established by a series 
 of visions of which the first was seen by Peter. 
 Of the empty tomb we have no mention by Paul, 
 although some have discovered a hint of it in 
 his emphatic statement that " Christ died and was 
 hurled." Paul speaks, indeed, as if all the ap- 
 pearances were of the same order as that which 
 he himself had witnessed on the road to Damas- 
 cus, when Christ was manifested not in the body 
 which he had worn on earth but in a spiritual 
 body consisting of heavenly light. But prob- 
 ably it was not till a later time that the church 
 began to reflect on the nature of the resurrection 
 and arrived at the theories which are suggested 
 by the conflicting narratives in the Gospels. The 
 original witnesses were satisfied with the fact. 
 Christ had appeared to them and was therefore 
 risen. 
 
 * I Cor. 15 : 11. 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 13 
 
 From the time of Paul onward Christian 
 thought has dwelt on the resurrection and has 
 sought to correlate it with the wider problems 
 of faith and immortality. These later specula- 
 tions must be left out of account when we try to 
 estimate its significance for the first disciples. 
 They viewed it, so far as we can gather, under 
 two aspects. On the one hand, it inspired them 
 with the conviction that Jesus was still living. 
 Their fellowship with him had only been inter- 
 rupted for a brief season and was now resumed, 
 although he was no longer an outward and visible 
 presence. They were his servants, as before, and 
 could depend upon his aid and direction. In 
 this belief that they were co-operating with the 
 living Master we can discern the ultimate secret 
 of that enthusiasm which carried them to vic- 
 tory. They were engaged in the service not of 
 a rule or tradition, however sacred, but of the 
 living Christ. Here, too, we may discern the 
 secret of the progressiveness of early Christianity 
 — of its power of adapting itself to new conditions 
 and welcoming the new influences that might 
 seem to be working for its destruction. It was 
 not bound down to the past, for Christ was still 
 living and offering a new revelation. His life as 
 it had been was remembered and treasured be- 
 cause it served to illuminate his present and abid- 
 ing life. We are wont to think of the mysticism 
 which has entered so profoundly into Christian 
 
14 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 thought as a later development. The first traces 
 of it have been discovered in Paul, and are set 
 down to his peculiar temperament and experi- 
 ence or to the ideas which he borrowed half 
 unconsciously from the Oriental cults. But the 
 disciples were possessed from the outset with 
 a conviction which naturally took the form of 
 a mystical sentiment. Assured that Jesus was 
 still living, they sought to continue in his fellow- 
 ship; and the outward communion was replaced 
 by a sense of his inward presence. "Wherever 
 two or three are gathered together in my name, 
 there am I in the midst of them." These words, 
 although they can hardly have been spoken by 
 Jesus himself, afford us a vivid glimpse into the 
 minds of his earliest followers, to whom he was 
 still the living and present Lord. 
 
 But the resurrection had another and more 
 definite significance. It served to convince his 
 disciples not only that Jesus was still living but 
 that he had now entered on his supreme office as 
 the Messiah. During the whole New Testament 
 period this is the grand inference which is drawn 
 from the fact of the resurrection. It is the 
 crowning proof, the palpable guarantee, of Jesus' 
 Messiahship. "If Christ is not risen," says Paul, 
 "your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 
 His meaning is that the very basis of the Chris- 
 tian gospel is the belief that Jesus is the Mes- 
 siah and that this belief is attested by the fact 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 15 
 
 of the resurrection. The earliest missionary 
 preaching seems all to have taken this as its 
 starting-point. Jesus was proclaimed as Messiah 
 on the ground of his resurrection, and in his 
 Messiahship the whole meaning of his gospel was 
 made to centre. A question here arises which is 
 of crucial importance and difficulty and which 
 has never been sufficiently answered by New 
 Testament scholars. Why was the resurrection 
 accepted as the convincing proof of the Mes- 
 siahship? According to one view, Jesus was 
 marked out by this great miracle as a super- 
 natural person, who could be no other than the 
 Messiah. But it is doubtful whether the miracle 
 in itself would have compelled this inference. 
 We have evidence that the Jewish mind of the 
 time fully entertained the possibility of a resur- 
 rection in the case of men specially favoured by 
 God. Popular legend told of "women who re- 
 ceived their dead raised to life again" (Heb. 
 11 : 35). When Jesus first appeared, as we know 
 from the Gospel narrative, Herod surmised that 
 this must be John the Baptist risen from the 
 dead. The idea of resurrection was by no means 
 so strange to Jesus' contemporaries that his ap- 
 pearance after death would leave them no choice 
 but to acknowledge him as the Messiah. Again, 
 it has been held that the resurrection proved the 
 claim of Jesus because it cancelled the reproach 
 of his cross. He had suffered as a false Messiah, 
 
16 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 but God had vindicated him— had declared that 
 his witness was true. The disciples may, indeed, 
 have used this argument in defending the Mes- 
 sianic claim of Jesus against Jewish unbelief. It 
 enabled them to show that the stumbling-block 
 of the cross had been gloriously removed and 
 that God himself had given his answer to the 
 blind judgment of men. But to themselves, as 
 we have seen, the cross was no stumbling-block. 
 Jesus had taught them to regard his death not 
 as a catastrophe which needed to be justified but 
 as the necessary fulfilment of the divine plan. 
 Once more it has been suggested that the proof 
 from the resurrection owed its strength to proph- 
 ecy. In Peter's speech at Pentecost certain 
 passages from the Psalms are quoted at length 
 and applied to the resurrection j and in the early 
 preaching generally this line of argument seems 
 to have been enforced. "Christ rose from the 
 dead," says Paul, "according to the scriptures." 
 But it cannot have been on the ground of proph- 
 ecy that the resurrection was held to be the de- 
 cisive proof of the Messiahship of Jesus. The 
 Old Testament passages in question have no ob- 
 vious bearing on the event. They cannot have 
 constituted the proof, but were evidently sought 
 out to support it by the ultimate authority of 
 scripture. 
 
 Why was it, then, that the resurrection was ac- 
 cepted by the disciples as absolute testimony that 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 17 
 
 Jesus was no other than the Messiah? It is 
 difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were 
 influenced in the last resort by some declaration 
 of Jesus himself. They were aware that he had 
 foretold his rising from the dead and had connected 
 it with his elevation to the Messianic office. In 
 his later teaching, as recorded in the Gospels, he 
 dwells on the thought that his approaching death 
 will be followed by an exaltation. The Son of 
 Man will suffer many things and be put to death, 
 but will rise again and manifest himself in glory. 
 The authenticity of these predictions has often 
 been called in question; and it may be admitted 
 that they have not been reported literally. They 
 follow one another according to an artificial 
 scheme and bear evident traces of later theo- 
 logical reflection. But there is no reason to 
 doubt that they preserve at least the substance 
 of actual sayings of Jesus; and they help to ex- 
 plain his attitude in the closing days, when he 
 held unwaveringly to his Messianic claim in the 
 face of impending death. The disciples; we may 
 beUeve, understood the resurrection in the light 
 of these anticipations of Jesus. He had ilecla^ed 
 that although he must die he would rise from 
 death as the exalted Messiah, and now "he had 
 risen, as he said." 
 
 The resurrection, therefore, was the triumphant 
 proof that Jesus was the Messiah; but its sig- 
 nificance in this respect needs to be defined more 
 
18 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 closely. By his rising from the dead it was proved 
 that he had now attained to his Messiahship— 
 that the dignity which had hitherto been latent 
 had become actual. The Messiah, according to 
 Jewish expectations, was to reveal himself at the 
 beginning of the new age, over which he would 
 preside as the representative of God; and it was 
 only in a future and potential sense that Jesus 
 could claim in his lifetime to be the Messiah. He 
 believed, if we rightly understand the obscure 
 hints in the Gospels, that by death he was to win 
 for himself the Messianic office, invested with 
 which he would return to bring in the kingdom of 
 God. Thus the resurrection was a necessary mo- 
 ment in the destiny which he contemplated, and 
 his prediction of it affords no real difficulty. Con- 
 vinced, as he was, that through death he would 
 obtain Messiahship, he declared that he would 
 rise from death into a new and higher state of 
 being. These hopes of Jesus were familiar to his 
 disciples; and by their visions of the risen Master 
 they were assured that the exaltation had now 
 been accomplished. The resurrection was proof 
 not of something that Jesus had been in his 
 earthly life but of the sovereign place to which 
 he had since attained. For the first time they 
 now beheld him in his true character as the Mes- 
 siah. More than once in the New Testament we 
 meet with an explicit statement of this concep- 
 tion, which seems to have been taken for granted 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 19 
 
 in the earliest theology of the church. "Let all 
 the house of Israel," says Peter at Pentecost, 
 "know assuredly that God hath made this Jesus 
 whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ" (Acts 
 2 : 36). Hitherto he had been "Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, a man approved of God among you by 
 miracles and wonders and signs"; now God had 
 appointed him Lord and Christ. So Paul, in 
 the opening verses of Romans, speaks of Jesus as 
 "born of the seed of David after the flesh, but 
 now declared Son of God with power by the resur- 
 rection from the dead." * To the disciples this 
 was the central significance of those visions which 
 they had witnessed. They were satisfied that the 
 potential dignity had now become actual. Jesus 
 had risen out of the limitations of his earthly 
 life into the position of lordship and power to 
 which he had been destined. His rising again had 
 been at the same time his entrance on the Mes- 
 siahship. 
 
 The appearances, then, seem to have taken 
 place in Galilee; and in any case the disciples had 
 returned there for a short interval after the Lord's 
 death. Immediately afterward, however, we find 
 them in Jerusalem, along with a considerable 
 number of other adherents of Jesus who had not 
 belonged to the inner circle. Nothing is told us 
 of the reasons for this migration, which was 
 * Romans 1 : 3, 4. 
 
20 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 fraught with such momentous consequences. 
 Luke, indeed, who would naturally have been our 
 informant, is anxious above all the others to dis- 
 guise the fact that the disciples ever left Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 How is the migration to be explained? Ac- 
 cording to one view the followers of Jesus were 
 attracted by a natural sentiment to the city 
 which had been consecrated for them by his 
 passion. But their memories of Jesus were far 
 more entwined with Galilee than with Jerusalem. 
 By abandoning their native province they cut 
 themselves off from the sacred associations of 
 the past years. It has been more plausibly con- 
 jectured that they felt the need of a wider field 
 of propaganda than Galilee could afford them. 
 From Jerusalem as a centre they would be able 
 to proclaim their message to the Jewish nation 
 and to the world at large. But it is hardly con- 
 ceivable that at the very beginning, when they 
 were still overwhelmed with their wonderful ex- 
 periences, they drew up a deliberate plan of 
 action and chose out a centre for missionary 
 work. Their choice, in any case, would not 
 readily have fallen on Jerusalem — the stronghold 
 of the opposition which had brought about the 
 Lord's death. Another theory has been put for- 
 ward in recent years,* to the effect that the settle- 
 
 * Cf. Spitta., "Zur Geschich. undLitt. des Urchristentuins," 
 I, 290. 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 21 
 
 ment at Jerusalem was more or less accidental. 
 The disciples had been interrupted in their ob- 
 servance of the Passover, and availed themselves 
 of a provision in the Law which allowed of a 
 second observance at Pentecost. But in the time 
 of Jesus the Passover pilgrimage was no longer 
 insisted on, and the disciples would feel no ob- 
 ligation to keep the feast over again. Moreover, 
 it cannot be imagined for a moment that in the 
 first glow of their faith in the resurrection they 
 were troubled by meticulous scruples about the 
 omission of a legal duty. The true explanation 
 of the removal to Jerusalem is almost certainly 
 to be sought in the enthusiastic hopes which had 
 now taken full possession of the disciples. As- 
 sured that the Lord was risen, they were looking 
 for his immediate return in power to establish 
 the kingdom of God. Where ought they to be 
 in order that they might not miss him at his 
 coming? According to a well-known prophecy, 
 he would manifest himself in the holy city. " The 
 Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his 
 temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom 
 ye delight in" (Mai. 3 : 1). It is told us in the 
 early chapters of Acts that the disciples were 
 continually in the temple, and this is usually 
 adduced as evidence that they adhered strictly 
 to Jewish forms of piety notwithstanding their 
 new-born faith. But may we not here discern a 
 reminiscence which had come down from the 
 
22 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 earliest days, although its true import had possibly 
 been forgotten when Luke recorded it? The dis- 
 ciples had hastened to Jerusalem, impelled by a 
 sublime hope of sharing in their Master's triumph. 
 Like Simeon in the Gospel story, they resorted 
 every day to the temple, believing, like him, that 
 they would there witness the coming of the 
 Lord's Christ. 
 
 Another significant detail is preserved for us 
 in those opening chapters of Acts. We are told 
 that the community, numbering about a hundred 
 and twenty in all, held a solemn meeting and, 
 on Peter's suggestion, cast lots for one who should 
 take the place of Judas in the inner group of the 
 twelve. The account is evidently based on some 
 primitive and trustworthy source, otherwise the 
 obscure Matthias, who is never heard of again, 
 would not have been lifted into such prominence. 
 It may be doubted, however, whether Luke has 
 rightly appreciated the motive of this election. 
 Its purpose, according to the speech attributed 
 to Peter, was to provide another ofiicial mission- 
 ary who could bear witness to the work and 
 resurrection of Jesus on the strength of personal 
 knowledge. But if this alone was to be his voca- 
 tion, there was no reason why he should have 
 been adopted into the family of the twelve. 
 Outside of this original band, there were not a 
 few who were fully commissioned as apostles 
 and who were far more active and successful in 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 23 
 
 apostolic work than Thomas or Andrew or Bar- 
 tholomew. For the appointment of Matthias 
 there can only have been one motive — to make 
 up the symbolic number of twelve, which had 
 been fixed by Jesus himself in order to signalise 
 the nature of his community. We shall return to 
 this point later, but meanwhile it is important to 
 note that one of the first acts of the church was 
 to restore the symbolic number. It was deemed 
 essential, if the community was to answer its 
 true character, that it should have a nucleus of 
 twelve. 
 
 In his account of this incident, and through- 
 out the earlier chapters of his book, Luke has 
 construed the facts according to a given theory, 
 and by so doing has altered the historical per- 
 spective in such a manner as to mislead all sub- 
 sequent investigation. The plan of his double 
 work — for the Gospel and the Acts must be 
 taken together — is a truly magnificent one. He 
 sets himself to show how the message destined 
 for all mankind found its way to all, diffusing it- 
 self in ever-widening circles over the whole world. 
 The movement which had originated in a remote 
 province was centred at last in Jerusalem, and 
 from there extended to the cities of Israel, to 
 Syria, to the more distant gentile lands, until 
 it became a power in Rome itself. It was, indeed, 
 in this manner that the gospel spread, but Luke 
 has exhibited the progress from the point of view 
 
24 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of conscious design. He regards Christianity as 
 from the first a missionary religion. Jesus chose 
 the twelve to be his Apostles, and immediately 
 after his departure they arranged to carry out 
 the great propaganda. Already in the initial days 
 at Jerusalem they were looking to the future and 
 laying their plans in view of it. Luke fails, there- 
 fore, to allow for the spontaneity with which the 
 mission developed itself, and which is apparent 
 when we read between the lines of his own story. 
 The advance was not the result of design, but 
 of the inherent universality of the new religion. 
 It passed on from race to race by channels of 
 its own making, and broke, with a living power, 
 through every restriction which men had placed 
 upon it. To understand the primitive church in 
 its true character, we must divest our minds of 
 Luke's theory. There came a time, no doubt, 
 when the mission was consciously undertaken and 
 absorbed the whole energy of the church, but at 
 the beginning, as we shall find reason to believe, 
 the missionary motive was entirely absent. The 
 disciples did not feel summoned to carry the 
 gospel to the world, or even to the masses of their 
 own countrymen. They expected that in a few 
 days or weeks the Lord would himself return to 
 fulfil his kingdom according to his own plan, 
 and their part was simply that of waiting for 
 him. If new adherents were added to the church/ 
 even in those first days it was not because of any/ 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 25 
 
 hdeliberate propaganda. The plan of a mission 
 dawned on the disciples slowly and gradually, 
 and in some measure through the failure of their 
 earlier hopes. 
 
 This initial phase of the life of the church can 
 still be distinguished in the book of Acts in spite 
 of the meagreness and confusion of the narrative. 
 The believers are a small company, gathered 
 around their leaders, the twelve disciples. They 
 are constantly together and pass their time in 
 prayer — directed, we cannot doubt, to the speedy 
 return of Christ. They throw their few posses- 
 sions into a common stock, for the end is now at 
 hand, and for the short remaining time it is 
 needless to entangle themselves with the affairs 
 of this world. Daily they frequent the temple, 
 in the hope that perhaps this day the Lord will 
 appear. This is the picture given us of the 
 earliest period, and we can detect no trace in it 
 of the sense of responsibility for a mighty mission. 
 We have to do, rather, with a company of vision- 
 aries, full of an intense inward life but purposely 
 avoiding all interests outside of their own im- 
 mediate circle. The conditions are changed in- 
 deed when a few years have passed and we find 
 ourselves confronted with the expanding mission- 
 ary church which has taken the whole world for 
 its province. Yet the later church grew out of 
 that earlier one, and when we look beneath the 
 surface we can see that the primitive ideals were 
 
/■ 
 
 26 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 never wholly abandoned. The Christian church 
 as it exists to-day bears the impress that was 
 stamped upon it in that far-off time of its 
 origin. 
 
 The conclusions we have thus far been led to 
 may be briefly summarised. After the arrest of 
 Jesus the disciples had fled to Galilee, panic- 
 stricken by the disaster but with their faith un- 
 shaken. Jesus had taught them that he was the 
 destined Messiah — that he would rise again, in- 
 vested with higher attributes, and return in 
 power. In Galilee one and another of the dis- 
 ciples were visited with experiences which con- 
 vinced them that he had indeed risen; and the 
 twelve, accompanied with some hundred en- 
 thusiasts, came back to Jerusalem in the expec- 
 tation of meeting him. At flrst the little com- 
 munity was quite without plans for the future, 
 and its whole thought was directed to the great 
 crisis that seemed just imminent. None the less, 
 the believers were unable to conceal the hopes 
 that possessed them, and others were infected 
 with their confidence. New adherents began to 
 offer themselves unsought, and as these grew in 
 number, and the Lord's coming was delayed, the 
 mission assumed a deliberate character. A rude 
 organisation, too, became necessary, all the more 
 so as practical difliculties arose in the distribu- 
 tion of the common goods. Thus, step by step, 
 the church took on itself the form of an institu- 
 
THE FIRST DAYS 27 
 
 tioiij with its own peculiar traditions and its own 
 practices and beliefs. 
 
 Our inquiry is concerned with that earliest 
 period when the community was still in the proc- 
 ess of moulding, under the influence of the 
 primitive ideas. The period is a clearly marked 
 one, ending with the death of Stephen; but how 
 long it extended is a matter of dispute, which 
 will never, perhaps, be finally settled. Our nat- 
 ural impression, as we read the book of Acts, 
 is that of a considerable interval dividing the 
 career of Paul from the first settlement in Jeru- 
 salem. But the result of more recent chrono- 
 logical study has been to throw back the conver- 
 sion of Paul to an ever earlier date. At the 
 latest, it cannot have been subsequent to the 
 year 35 — five years after the crucifixion. More 
 probably we must assign it to the year 33 or 32. 
 It is difficult to realise that the momentous 
 initial period occupied only the short space of 
 two or three years, but we must remember that 
 in great epochs the changes that would normally 
 require a generation may be crowded into months. 
 In view, too, of the shortness of the period, we 
 are compelled once more to ask ourselves the 
 fundamental question whether the changes were 
 so radical as has commonly been supposed. In 
 point of time, Paul was separated by only a brief 
 interval from Jesus; may he not have approached 
 him, more closely than might appear at first sight, 
 
28 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 in the broad outlines of his teaching? The answer 
 to this question is to be sought, at least in part, 
 in the study of that primitive community which 
 forms the bridge between Jesus and Paul. 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 THE ECCLESIA 
 
 The followers of Jesus called themselves by 
 two names, given them, apparently, by Jesus 
 himself. In their relation to him they were the 
 /jadrjTai — the "learners" or "disciples." This 
 was the ordinary name applied to the adherents 
 of a religious teacher, and we read in the Gospels 
 of "disciples" of John the Baptist and of the 
 Pharisaic rabbis. But in the case of Jesus' dis- 
 ciples it seems to have borne a reference to the 
 subject of instruction as well as to the teacher. 
 The hope that attracted men to Jesus was that 
 of learning the true nature of the kingdom and 
 the conditions of entering it. In their relation to 
 one another the disciples were the aBek^oC, or 
 "brethren," and this name likewise derived a 
 special meaning from the subject of Jesus' mes- 
 sage. The kingdom which he proclaimed was to 
 recognise no distinctions of rank or class — no 
 other bond than that of love and mutual service. 
 In his own company of followers Jesus sought to 
 exemplify this new order which was soon to be 
 universal. "One is your Master, and all ye are 
 
 brethren." * 
 
 * Matt. 23 : 8. 
 29 
 
30 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 These two names which Jesus had given were 
 retained after his death and were in general use 
 during the whole of the first century. They were 
 at last displaced by the name "Christians," but 
 this was imposed from without and was adopted 
 slowly and reluctantly. If not bestowed in ridi- 
 cule it was at any rate a sectarian name, marking 
 the belief in Christ as the peculiar tenet of a 
 group or party, and we can understand the un- 
 willingness of the Christians to accept it. They 
 claimed to form a society altogether unique in 
 its character, and by this name they found them- 
 selves classified as one of the many religious or 
 philosophical sects of the age. At the same time 
 some term was necessary to denote the broth- 
 erhood, as distinguished from the individual 
 "brethren" who composed it; and the term 
 adopted was "the Ecclesia." It is hardly too 
 much to say that in this name we have the key 
 to the early history of Christianity. By the des- 
 ignation which it chose for itself the community 
 expressed its consciousness of what it was and of 
 its place in the divine order. 
 
 At what time the name "Ecclesia" originated 
 we do not know, but it must have been employed 
 almost from the outset. When Paul goes back 
 in memory to his earliest Christian days he uses 
 the term "church" or "church of God" as a 
 matter of course,* and we may infer that it was 
 * Gal. 1 : 13, 22; I Cor. 15 : 9. 
 
THE ECCLESIA 31 
 
 already established before the date of his con- 
 version. He clearly implies, by all his references, 
 that it was the recognised name of the Christian 
 brotherhood alike in Palestine and in the various 
 centres of the gentile mission. In two passages 
 of Matthew's Gospel* Jesus himself alludes to the 
 "church." We shall have occasion to consider 
 these passages later and to question their au- 
 thenticity — indeed, it is highly improbable on 
 every ground that the name was ever used by 
 Jesus. Nevertheless, it grew out of ideas which 
 were closely related to his work and message. 
 The nature of that relation will become apparent 
 when we have examined the origin and purport 
 of the name. 
 
 The word "Ecclesia," as it occurs in ordinary 
 Greek, denotes a civic meeting or assembly. In 
 classical times it signified the governing council 
 of free citizens in a city-state, but at a later pe- 
 riod it assumed a more general meaning. Thus 
 within the New Testament itself we find it ap- 
 plied to the riotous gathering which assailed Paul 
 in the theatre of Ephesus. It is important to 
 note, however, that even in the later usage a 
 suggestion of its original meaning continued to 
 adhere to it. An iKKXrjaia was not a chance 
 meeting of any kind, but a meeting of citizens 
 summoned for some object that bore on their 
 * Matt. 16 : 18; 18 : 17. 
 
32 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 corporate life.* It has sometimes been main- 
 tained that the name eventually given to the 
 Christian community meant nothing more in 
 the first instance than the daily or weekly meet- 
 ing. But this theory is inadmissible on linguistic 
 if on no other grounds. Some peculiar signifi- 
 cance must have attached to the meeting before 
 it could be described by the august and expres- 
 sive name of "the Ecclesia." 
 
 In any case, the name had evidently a specific 
 reference which cannot be wholly explained from 
 its meaning in ordinary Greek. In Paul's Epistles 
 it is frequently qualified by the added words tow 
 6eov;^ and it may be regarded as fairly certain 
 that the term "Ecclesia" is only a shortened form 
 of the full designation "the Ecclesia of God." 
 With this clew we are enabled to trace it to its 
 true origin in the Old Testament, where it ap- 
 pears, in the Septuagint version, as the equivalent 
 of the Hebrew "Qahal." Two words are used 
 in Hebrew for the community of Israel. One of 
 them refers to the community as such, whether 
 met together or scattered, and is rendered in the 
 Greek translation by avvayaryq. The other is 
 reserved for the actual gathering, for whatever 
 purpose, of the members of the community; and 
 eKKKrjaCa corresponds with this second word.J 
 
 * Sohm, "Kirchenrecht," I, 16. 
 
 1 1 Cor. 1 : 2; 10 : 32; 11 : 22; 15 : 9; Gal. 1 : 13; I Thess. 
 2 : 14; c/. Acts 20 : 28. 
 
 % A full and luminous discussion wiU be found in Hatch, 
 "The Christian Ecclesia." 
 
THE ECCLESIA 33 
 
 There are signs, however, that in the later (Xd 
 Testament period the distinction between the 
 two terms had ceased to be carefully observed. 
 Books such as Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles 
 employ "Qahal" freely, apart from any idea of a 
 formal assembly. It had come to be an alterna- 
 tive to the other and more usual term for the 
 community, although suggesting, in a more sol- 
 emn and emphatic manner, that the community 
 was called by God. 
 
 The Christian brotherhood, then, designated it- 
 self by one of the scriptural names for the chosen 
 people, but why this particular name eKKkijaCa 
 was preferred is not altogether clear. It was of 
 rare occurrence, and is found most often in un- 
 familiar books which contain little of spiritual 
 value. We might have expected that the church 
 would rather have sought a title for itself in the 
 Psalms or the greater prophets, from which it 
 derived the main proof texts of its message. As 
 a matter of fact, the name "Ecclesia" gives way in 
 a number of New Testament passages to the pro- 
 phetic name "the people of God," and this may 
 possibly represent an earlier usage which com- 
 peted for some time with the other. It is true 
 that the unusual character of the word "Ecclesia" 
 was itself an advantage, especially as the more 
 common Old Testament term had been already 
 appropriated by the synagogue, and some have 
 supposed that the disciples purposely chose out 
 
34 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 a recondite word so as to make their title more 
 distinctive. But the choice of the word can be 
 sufficiently explained from the accepted religious 
 usage of the time. There are various indications 
 that the Jewish teachers had already taken the 
 word "Ecclesia" and stamped it with a particular 
 meaning. It denoted for them the congregation 
 of Israel in its ideal aspect as the assembly of 
 God's people. It expressed the conception not 
 merely of a community but of a holy community.* 
 By the connotation it thus bore it commended it- 
 self to the disciples as the name which best de- 
 scribed the inward nature and purpose of their 
 brotherhood. 
 
 One further question of a preliminary kind re- 
 mains to be considered. In the Epistles of Paul, 
 as elsewhere in the New Testament, iKKXtjaia 
 seems often to be used in a restricted and local 
 sense. Paul speaks of the "church" at Corinth 
 or at Thessalonica; of the "churches" under his 
 supervision; even the little group of Christians 
 worshipping in some particular house constitutes 
 a " church." From this it has been inferred that 
 the local meaning of the name is the primary one. 
 Each separate congregation of the faithful was at 
 first an eK/cXr^crta; and the way was thus prepared 
 for the wider conception of a transcendental 
 
 * This is demonstrated by Schiirer, "The Jewish People in 
 the Time of Christ," vol. II, Division II, p. 59 (E.T.). 
 Schiirer concludes: "SuvaTuyfj only expresses the empiric 
 matter of fact; IxxXijofa contains as well a judgment of value.", 
 
THE ECCLESIA 35 
 
 "church" which, was reflected in all the separate 
 communities.* But the name itself, viewed in 
 the light of its origin, requires us to assume that 
 from the outset the ideal significance was upper- 
 most. A Christian assembly could be an eKKKrjaia 
 only so far as it stood for the whole communion 
 of saints and bore its character. The references 
 of Paul to individual "churches" are found, on 
 examination, to bear out this larger sense which 
 was always associated with the word. When he 
 alludes to the "church at Corinth" he is thinking 
 not so much of the separate group of Christians 
 as of the holy community which it represents. 
 There is only one Ecclesia under many forms of 
 manifestation, and in each of these forms the 
 entire church is, in some manner, present. At 
 the beginning this ideal unity of the church was 
 the more easily discerned as it corresponded with 
 the visible fact. The one company of disciples, 
 waiting at Jerusalem for the Lord's coming, 
 could feel that it constituted the " church of God." 
 
 What, then, was the conception which the dis- 
 ciples sought to embody in that name "Ecclesia"? 
 The broad answer to this question is not hard to 
 determine. The church regarded itself as a holy 
 community chosen by God to inherit his prom- 
 ises, as Israel had been in the past. As in its 
 corporate capacity it was the Ecclesia, so its 
 *So Batiffol, "L'Bglise naissante," pp. 80 #. 
 
36 rUE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 individual members were the dyioi, or " saints." 
 They had been called by God, set apart by him 
 for a special service and privilege. But to under- 
 stand this conception of the church as the holy 
 community we require to analyse it further. In 
 the light of the New Testament evidence we can 
 distinguish two ideas that were implied in it. 
 Ultimately, as we shall see, they were one and 
 the same, but they need first to be considered 
 separately. 
 
 (1) On the one hand, the church claimed that 
 it represented Israel in its ideal vocation. Ac- 
 cording to the Old Testament, God had chosen 
 for himself one people out of all the nations of the 
 earth, and in the observance of its covenant with 
 God Israel was to find its true life and destiny. 
 It was assumed in the earlier times that nothing 
 more was required than a formal worship, and 
 that the nation, so long as it maintained the an- 
 cestral rites and sacrifices, fulfilled the conditions 
 of the covenant. But the prophets, with their 
 ethical conception of religion, revised this tra- 
 ditional view. They held that Israel as a nation 
 had been unfaithful to God, and had no more 
 right to call itself his people than the surrounding 
 heathen whose customs and morality it prac- 
 tised. Yet Israel was still God's people in virtue 
 of the "remnant" — the pious and righteous few 
 who stood apart from the general corruption. 
 They were only a small minority, but they con- 
 
THE ECCLESIA 37 
 
 stituted the true Israel inasmuch as they alone 
 were faithful to the higher calling of the nation. 
 In the sight of God the "remnant" was Israel, 
 and through it he would work out his purposes 
 although the nation as a whole must fall. This 
 prophetic idea of an Israel within Israel, a com- 
 munity that was spiritually a people of God, reap- 
 pears under many forms in later Jewish thought; 
 and it was in this sense that the disciples advanced 
 their claim to be the Ecclesia. They took their 
 stand on the acknowledged fact that the true 
 Israel was something other than the actual Israel. 
 Age after age, amidst all defections and corrup- 
 tions, God had preserved for himself a remnant 
 in which were vested the hopes and prerogatives 
 of his chosen people. It had now found its em- 
 bodiment in the Christian church. 
 
 The view has been generally maintained, or 
 even taken for granted, that the name "Ecclesia" 
 was adopted by way of challenge and implied a 
 feeling of antagonism to the nation and the na- 
 tional religion. As contrasted with the unbeliev- 
 ing Jews, the church, in spite of its apparent in- 
 significance, declared itself to be the true Israel. 
 But in the beginning, at all events, the name con- 
 noted no opposition of this kind. The disciples 
 were anxious to preserve a friendly attitude to 
 the nation and considered themselves a part of 
 it. They adhered to the Law and the established 
 institutions. They limited their activities to 
 
38 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 their own country and were conscious of no man- 
 date to the outside world. So far, indeed, from 
 involving a challenge, the name "Ecclesia" was 
 itself a recognition of the prerogatives of Israel. 
 It was the Jewish people whom God had chosen; 
 and the church, as the genuine core of the nation, 
 was working for the regeneration of the whole 
 and awakening it to the sense of its unique place 
 and privilege. That this was the original inten- 
 tion is clearly expressed in Peter's speech at 
 Pentecost, which has certainly been compiled out 
 of genuine reminiscences of the earliest mission- 
 ary preaching. "The promise," says Peter, "is 
 to you and to your children" — Israel as a nation 
 is summoned to identify itself with the heirs of 
 its higher traditions. It was only at a later time, 
 when church and synagogue had definitely parted 
 company, that advantage was taken of the name 
 "Ecclesia" to point a contrast. Paul now argues 
 that only those who share the faith of Abraham 
 are to be reckoned as Abraham's children. He 
 declares boldly: "We are the circumcision, who 
 worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ 
 Jesus" (Phil. 3:3). In the Johannine writings 
 the belief has hardened into a dogma that the 
 Jews have now been rejected and that "Israel," 
 in the religious sense, is equivalent to the Chris- 
 tian church. 
 
 The conception of the Ecclesia as the true 
 Israel pervades the New Testament, and has con- 
 
THE ECCLESIA 39 
 
 stantly to be borne in mind before its language 
 becomes intelligible. Again and again the pa- 
 triarchs are described as "our fathers." The 
 division into twelve tribes is supposed to hold 
 good, in some ideal sense, of the Christian com- 
 munity (James 1:1; Rev. 7:4/.). Terms and 
 images are freely borrowed from the Old Testa- 
 ment and are transferred to conditions prevailing 
 in the church. It is assumed that between the 
 ancient Israel and the new there is an essential 
 solidarity, so that the life of the one can be il- 
 lustrated and interpreted by that of the other. 
 This strain in New Testament thought has often 
 been misunderstood, with the result that criticism 
 has involved itself in needless difficulties. The 
 allusions to Israel have been supposed to mark 
 those writings in which they occur as of Jewish 
 origin or as bearing in some special manner on 
 Jewish interests. One writing in particular, the 
 so-called Epistle to the Hebrews, has been uni- 
 versally regarded, until quite recent times, as the 
 appeal of a Jewish teacher to the Jewish section 
 of the church. But in reading this and other New 
 Testament books we must take account of that 
 conception of the true Israel which had now 
 entered into the very substance of Christian 
 thought. Long after it had become predomi- 
 nantly gentile the Ecclesia continued to be in- 
 fluenced by the ideas suggested by its name. In 
 no merely figurative sense it conceived of itself 
 
40 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 as Israel — one with the ancient community of 
 God's people and heir to its privileges and tra- 
 ditions. 
 
 The belief which we have here considered had 
 two consequences, both of them natural and in- 
 telligible, although they took opposite directions. 
 (a) On the one hand, it tended to keep the church 
 anchored in Judaism. The new Israel had suc- 
 ceeded to the old, and must preserve a certain 
 continuity with it, or its title would be imperilled. 
 There could be no question of breaking away from 
 the ancient law and ritual. Those who sought 
 membership in the Ecclesia must first submit 
 themselves to the requirements of the Jewish 
 religion, for in this way alone could they be in- 
 corporated in the stock of Abraham. When we 
 follow the great controversy that threatened to 
 break up the unity of the early church, our sym- 
 pathies are wholly Tvith Paul, and we are liable 
 to do an injustice to his Jewish opponents. We 
 assume that by force of custom they clung to the 
 Law, in spite of the new faith which had made it 
 obsolete, and sought to narrow Christianity into 
 a mere phase of Judaism. But from their own 
 point of view they were just as consistent as 
 Paul, and as eager to maintain what seemed to 
 them a necessary Christian principle. If the 
 church was the community of God's people, it 
 must hold to the Law; otherwise its identity with 
 the historical Israel would be destroyed, and it 
 
THE ECCLESIA 41 
 
 would forfeit its right in the promises made to 
 the fathers. Paul's adversaries, it may be sur- 
 mised, were far more influenced by a motive of 
 this kind than by any conviction of the intrinsic 
 value of the Law. 
 
 (6) Paul himself represented the other tendency, 
 which was implicit from the first in the concep- 
 tion of the Ecclesia. As for some minds it em- 
 phasised the relation of the church to Judaism, 
 so for others it loosened that relation and at 
 IJfast cancelled it altogether. The church cor- 
 responded with Israel, which God had chosen to 
 inherit his promises, but what was meant by 
 Israel? Not the actual nation, but the elect 
 company of the faithful, who had realised the 
 conditions of Israel's calling. Their right to be 
 God's people was not founded on racial descent 
 but on knowledge of God and living obedience 
 to his will. Apart from the nation there had al- 
 ways been an ideal Israel consisting of God's 
 true servants, and to this hidden community the 
 promises had been given. Thus the name of 
 Israel was emptied of all its reference to the 
 nation and retained only its spiritual content. 
 The church became a purely religious fellowship, 
 in which all men of whatever race were free to 
 participate. 
 
 These two opposing ideas were not long in 
 declaring themselves, and their conflict and in- 
 teraction determined the whole course of early 
 
42 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Christian history. But in the beginning their 
 latent antagonism was not perceived. The church 
 was content to regard itself as the holy commu- 
 nity, wherein Israel asserted its true vocation and 
 renewed on a higher plane its covenant with God. 
 As yet there was no suggestion of a breach with 
 the religion of the Law. The church was fully 
 conscious of its call to the new service imposed 
 on it by Christ, but it accepted the service as in 
 some manner the fulfilment of the work of Israel. 
 Hence the name which it chose for itself: "the 
 Ecclesia." The new community was identical 
 with that which had existed at all times within 
 the Jewish nation and which was now advancing, 
 under a fresh impulse, to the realisation of its 
 hopes. 
 
 (2) This brings us, however, to another meaning 
 of the name — a meaning even more significant of 
 the nature and outlook of primitive Christianity. 
 The church conceived of itself not only as the 
 true Israel but as the community of the future, 
 the people of God which would inherit the new 
 age. In countless passages Paul addresses his 
 readers as the elect, the saints, the heirs of sal- 
 vation. He describes them as passed out of 
 darkness into light, saved from condemnation, 
 endowed with the Spirit of adoption, citizens of 
 heaven. These terms, and others like them, have 
 entered so thoroughly into our own religious Ian- 
 
THE ECCLESIA 43 
 
 guage that we scarcely pause to think of their 
 original import. But they all run back to that 
 other meaning which was bound up with the con- 
 ception of the Ecclesia. The church believed it- 
 self to be the community of the kingdom. Here 
 we discover the clew not only to many of its most 
 perplexing phenomena but to its connection with 
 the historical work of Jesus. 
 
 We know from the Gospels that Jesus came 
 forward with the proclamation that the kingdom 
 of God was at hand; in other words, that the new 
 age, in which the will of God would prevail, 
 was on the point of dawning. Strictly speaking, 
 therefore, his message had reference to the future. 
 The kingdom was yet to come, and he sought to 
 enlighten men as to its nature and conditions 
 and so prepare them for its coming. Nevertheless, 
 while he proclaimed a future kingdom, he thought 
 of it as so near at hand that its influences could be 
 felt already. His miracles were the evidence that 
 a higher power was breaking in. His teaching 
 was the revelation of that new righteousness 
 which would soon be established everywhere. 
 It was possible for men to apprehend the king- 
 dom as a present reality and to throw in their 
 lot with it even now. 
 
 In this twofold aspect, therefore, we have to 
 understand the work of Jesus. He foretold the 
 kingdom in order that men might be wrought to 
 a "change of mind" in view of the approaching 
 
44 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 crisis, but he aimed also at something further. 
 He desired, in the present, to build up a commu- 
 nity that should inherit the coming kingdom. For 
 this reason he gathered around him his band of 
 disciples and imparted to them his knowledge 
 of God and of the higher law. By renewing their 
 wills and bringing them into fellowship with God 
 he sought to conform them to the conditions that 
 would prevail hereafter. The kingdom was still 
 future, but a community was already in being 
 which had broken with the present order and had 
 identified itself with that which was to come. 
 
 It is from this point of view that we must 
 understand the consciousness which found expres- 
 sion in the name "Ecclesia." The disciples were 
 aware that Jesus had destined them to be mem- 
 bers of the kingdom and that as his followers 
 they had entered potentially on their inheritance. 
 No doubt there was a meaning in his thought 
 which they did not fully grasp. The kingdom, as 
 he conceived it, was, above all, a new righteous- 
 ness and a new relation to God; and his essential 
 teaching remained unimpaired when, in the course 
 of time, the apocalyptic framework fell away. 
 But the message was given within that frame- 
 work, and it was this aspect of it that chiefly 
 occupied the minds of the disciples. They saw 
 themselves as the holy community, the heirs of 
 that new age which would presently be inaugu- 
 rated when the Lord returned in power. They 
 
THE ECCLESIA 45 
 
 felt that for them it had already, in some sense, 
 begun, and that they had their part in a higher 
 supernatural order. The apocalyptic mood of 
 thought is now remote from us, and we find it 
 difficult to put ourselves in the attitude of those 
 first believers to whom it was an intense reality. 
 We are apt to interpret their hopes and convic- 
 tions in a figurative sense and to strip away 
 what seem to us the mere fantastic wrappings. 
 But in doing so we miss what was precisely the 
 determining factor in the life and thinking of the 
 early church. It looked daily for a tremendous 
 crisis in which the old order of things would be 
 swept away and a new world would emerge 
 wherein God would reign. He would form for 
 himself a holy people to inherit eternal life in 
 that new world. And the church believed itself 
 to be the nucleus of that future community. It 
 was like a fragment of the heavenly order thrown 
 forward into the present, and had mysterious 
 powers and functions committed to it. Its affin- 
 ities were not with any earthly society but with 
 the assembly of the first-born in heaven. 
 
 There is nothing more impressive in the New 
 Testament than the magnificent confidence which 
 underlies the argument of the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians. It is there assumed that the church 
 has nothing less than a cosmical significance, 
 representing on earth the same divine power 
 which is working in heavenly places. God has 
 
46 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 purposed to reconcile all the warring elements in 
 his creation, and the beginning of this great con- 
 summation is his church. How was it possible, 
 we ask ourselves, for the Christian brotherhood 
 to conceive in such term of its mission? It was 
 still an obscure and persecuted sect, and scarcely 
 a generation had passed since it came into being 
 with that handful of adherents in Jerusalem. By 
 what strange development had it arrived so 
 speedily at that lofty consciousness of its nature 
 and calling? But the answer is that from the 
 very first, in spite of its outward insignificance, 
 the church had believed itself to be a supernatural 
 community and had found warrant for this be- 
 lief in our Lord's own teaching. He had fore- 
 told the kingdom, had called his disciples to pos- 
 sess it, had taught them that even now they 
 might break with the old order and have their 
 portion with the new. From the moment when 
 they were reunited in Jerusalem under the im- 
 pulse of the resurrection they laid claim to a 
 citizenship which was in heaven. 
 
 ' The conception of the Ecclesia was thus a two- 
 fold one. On the one hand, the church was the 
 true Israel, continuous with that elect body which 
 had always existed in the nation; on the other 
 hand, it was the new heavenly community. These 
 two ideas, different as they might appear at first 
 sight, merged in one another. When the prophets 
 
THE ECCLESIA 47 
 
 distinguished an Israel within Israel they had in 
 view the fulfilment of God's promises in the bet- 
 ter time that was coming. A deliverance was at 
 hand, but it was reserved for the faithful "rem- 
 nant" which constituted the true nation. At a 
 later period this thought was amplified and de- 
 fined under the light of the apocalyptic hope. 
 A belief grew up — we find clear traces of it as 
 early as the book of Daniel — that in the new age 
 God would raise to life again his servants of past 
 days and unite them with those still living, thus 
 forming for himself a holy people. This tra- 
 ditional hope was reflected in the conception of 
 the church. It was at once a new community 
 and a regenerated Israel, entering at last on its 
 inheritance. The principles for which it stood 
 had ever been central in the history of God's 
 people, and were now carried to their fulfilment. 
 Its members would sit down in the kingdom of 
 God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the 
 faithful Israelites of the past. Thus at the be- 
 ginning the two ideas of the new community and 
 the true Israel coalesced, but they tended to 
 separate as the apocalyptic mood which had fused 
 them grew less intense. Conceiving of itself as 
 heir to the historical Israel, the church took on 
 the organisation of an earthly society, although 
 the conditions of membership were now ethical 
 and religious instead of racial. The institutions 
 of Judaism were borrowed, with necessary adap- 
 
48 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tations to the changed requirements. The gospel 
 itself was regarded as the "new law," and was 
 exhibited as a body of definite statutes, like the 
 Law of Moses. But there always remained the 
 other side to the church's consciousness. Al- 
 though outwardly a society like any other, it 
 claimed to be invested with mysterious attributes 
 and to be separated from the world. 
 
 From the outset, then, the church thought of 
 itself as the new community corresponding with 
 that supernatural order which would presently 
 be revealed. Here we have a fact that cannot be 
 too much insisted on, for the customary neglect 
 of it has warped our whole attitude toward the 
 beginnings of Christian history. We take for 
 granted that the church entered on its career 
 with horizons and ambitions which were in keep- 
 ing with its narrow circumstances, and that it 
 stumbled on its great vocation by a sort of ac- 
 cident. For a time it was nothing but an insig- 
 nificant sect of Judaism and aspired to no higher 
 destiny; then, under various influences, it grew 
 to a fuller consciousness and emerged as a world- 
 wide power. But the truth is that at no time in 
 its history has the church been possessed with so 
 lofty a sense of its calling as in those days of small 
 beginnings. It held the belief that the world was 
 face to face with a mighty crisis in which the 
 whole present order of things would come to an 
 end and a new age would set in. The people of 
 
THE ECCLESIA 49 
 
 Christ were to reign with him in this new age. 
 Outwardly they might appear an obscure and 
 struggUng sect, but they knew themselves to be 
 "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy 
 nation" (I Peter 2:9). They believed that al- 
 ready they belonged to the new order and had 
 their share in the powers and privileges of the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 The ideal picture of the eariy church which 
 is set before us in the opening chapters of Acts 
 has fared ill at the hands of criticism. It has 
 been ascribed almost wholly to the pious retro- 
 spect of a later writer, to whom the first age ap- 
 peared as a unique period when the hand of God 
 was manifestly with his people. Visions were 
 then granted to the saints, miraculous energies 
 were intrusted to them, which were afterward 
 withdrawn. By marvellous signs it was made evi- 
 dent that through the church God was seeking to 
 work out his redeeming purposes. Now, it is not 
 difficult to argue that the picture must be largely 
 fanciful and that the young community, strug- 
 gling for its very existence in the midst of poverty 
 and danger, can have been surrounded with no 
 such halo as that which Luke bestows upon it. 
 Yet in one sense his description is truer to the 
 facts than the more sober and probable one which 
 modern historians would put in its place. The 
 primitive disciples lived in an atmosphere of 
 hopes and visions. They never doubted that they 
 
50 THE BEGINNINGS 0.F THE CHURCH 
 
 were endowed with supernatural powers, that 
 they constituted a society which was not of this 
 world. They lost sight of the difficult present, 
 with its afflictions that were but for a moment, 
 as they looked to the glory that would be re- 
 vealed. It was this initial mood of elevation and 
 confidence that made possible the subsequent 
 triumph. 
 
 '' A discussion of the nature and purpose of the 
 Ecclesia has been necessary before we could ap- 
 proach a question which is of crucial importance 
 in the study of Christian origins. What was the 
 relation of Jesus to the church? Was he in some 
 conscious and literal sense its founder or did he 
 at the most communicate an impulse which had 
 its outcome in the later organisation? A number 
 of sayings in the Gospels undoubtedly seem to 
 indicate that the church was directly contem- 
 plated by Jesus, and that he laid down rules for 
 its guidance and administration. But it is more 
 than probable that such sayings, as we now have 
 them, have been adapted and modified. At the 
 time when our Gospels were written the church, 
 as an institution, had become a central interest 
 in Christian thought, and it was inevitable that 
 references to it should be sought for in the words 
 of Jesus. Precepts that had originally borne a 
 more general import were now applied to the 
 circumstances of the church. Parables of the 
 
THE ECCLESIA 51 
 
 kingdom were so altered in thought and language 
 as to foreshadow the later conditions. It is sig- 
 nificant that sayings and parables of this kind are 
 most frequent in the Gospel of Matthew, which 
 seems to have been written with the requirements 
 of the church in view and was accepted from the 
 first as the Catholic Gospel. According to Mat- 
 thew, our Lord on two occasions* employed the 
 actual word "Ecclesia" — once in regard to the 
 treatment of the erring brother and a second 
 time in the famous promise to Peter: "On this 
 rock I will build my church." If this passage is 
 genuine, our whole conception of the work and 
 aims of Jesus would need to be revised; for the 
 words scarcely admit of any other interpreta- 
 tion than that which has always been given them 
 by the church of Rome — that the purpose of 
 Jesus was to found an organisation of which he 
 expressly designated Peter as the head. But it 
 does not seem possible to accept the words as 
 authentic. They occur in connection with a 
 cardinal incident impressively recorded by all the 
 three Synoptists; yet only Matthew appears to 
 know that Jesus uttered them. Not only so, but 
 they are quite out of keeping with the incident, 
 disguising its real character and breaking up a 
 sequence of thought which in Mark's version is 
 clear and intelligible. It is not too much to say 
 that nowhere in the Gospels do we have stronger 
 * Matt. 18 : 17; 16 : 18. 
 
52 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 evidence of interpolation than in this memorable 
 passage. 
 
 That Jesus provided for the upbuilding of a 
 regular society for the perpetuation of his work 
 is hardly conceivable in view of the apocalyptic 
 character of his message. Adopting, as he did, 
 the current anticipation of a great crisis, already 
 imminent, his perspective of the future did not 
 admit of any far-stretching horizons. He looked 
 not for a gradual development, brought about by 
 historical forces, but for an abrupt change ef- 
 fected by the immediate act of God and "within 
 this generation." Apart, however, from these 
 apocalyptic hopes in which he acquiesced, the idea 
 of an organised church was alien to the essential 
 nature of his thinking. He declares repeatedly 
 that all earthly institutions are part and parcel 
 of "this age." In the kingdom of God the re- 
 lations between man and man will be wholly 
 changed, and there will be no place for the old 
 social organisms. The very meaning of the king- 
 dom consists in this — that men will yield spon- 
 taneous obedience to the will of God, and through 
 love to God will serve one another. All the con- 
 straints imposed by outward rule and ordinance 
 will be needless in the new age, when men are 
 wrought into inward harmony with the divine 
 will. 
 
 It has sometimes been argued that the univer- 
 sality of Jesus' message impHed an anticipation 
 
THE ECCLESIA 53 
 
 of the church. If he intended his gospel for all 
 mankind, not merely for Israel or the small 
 section of Israel that had the opportunity of 
 hearing him, must he not have instituted a soci- 
 ety for the purpose of safeguarding and diffusing 
 it? There can, indeed, be no reasonable quiestion 
 that he conceived of the message as appealing to 
 all men, and drawing multitudes from the East 
 and the West to participate in the kingdom of 
 God. To think of him as confining the number 
 of his elect to those few whom he was able to 
 reach by his personal ministry is utterly to mis- 
 take the purpose of his work. But it is not 
 necessary to infer that he looked for the great in- 
 gathering as the result of a concerted mission by 
 an organised church. To his own mind the truths 
 he proclaimed were self-evident, and he may have 
 believed that the world would spontaneously ac- 
 cept them now that they had been revealed. 
 Or, more probably, he may have supposed that 
 the enlightenment would be effected by some 
 supernatural means after he had given his life 
 as a ransom for many. In what manner he ex- 
 pected his message to diffuse itself we cannot 
 tell, but there is no indication that he deemed it 
 necessary to institute a society for this end. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to maintain the view 
 that Jesus deliberately founded the church and 
 assigned to it the work which it was destined to 
 accomplish in the course of the long centuries. 
 
54 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Nevertheless, the church was his creation, not 
 merely in so far as he gave the impulse that called 
 it into being, but in a more definite sense. The 
 new age which he proclaimed was associated in 
 his mind with a community of God's people, and 
 he sought to gather around him a band of fol- 
 lowers who should be the nucleus of this com- 
 munity. We are used to think of the disciples as 
 called by Jesus that he might prepare them for 
 their subsequent work of Apostleship, and it is 
 true that in the Gospel records they appear as 
 helping him in the dissemination of his message. 
 But it was not primarily for active service of 
 this kind that he summoned them to his fellow- 
 ship. His real purpose was clearly expressed in 
 the significant number of twelve to which he 
 limited his personal followers. They were repre- 
 sentative of the new community which God 
 would choose for himself, as formerly he had 
 chosen Israel. Their vocation was not so much 
 to proclaim the kingdom to others as to lay hold 
 on it themselves and exemplify the higher moral 
 order and the closer relation to God. "Rejoice 
 not," he said when they returned from the mis- 
 sion on which he had sent them, " that the demons 
 are subject unto you, but that your names are 
 written in heaven." This was their real task 
 and glory — to be themselves the first-fruits of the 
 new people of God. 
 
 Jesus, then, had no thought of founding a 
 
THE ECCLESIA 55 
 
 society that would perpetuate his work when he 
 had himself departed, but the church was none 
 the less his creation. The Ecclesia which grew 
 up at Jerusalem and gradually expanded into a 
 world-wide organisation was only the enlarge- 
 ment of that brotherhood which he had himself 
 formed when he called to himself twelve disciples 
 as heirs of the kingdom. It has been said " Jesus 
 gave the promise of the kingdom, and instead of 
 it there came the church." By this is implied 
 that after his death his followers misunderstood 
 or abandoned the lofty hopes he had cherished, 
 and contented themselves with building up an 
 earthly society. Between his aim and theirs there 
 was practically nothing in common. But when 
 we examine more closely into the history of the 
 primitive age we discover the thought of Jesus 
 still operative in the minds of his disciples. He 
 had chosen them as the nucleus of the new com- 
 munity, and their work was influenced through- 
 out by this estimate of their calling. They desig- 
 nated themselves " the Ecclesia." Their f unction,r 
 as they conceived it, was not so much to build^ 
 up the church as to be the church. In course of 
 time, no doubt, the earlier ideal gave way to that 
 of a great society, formally organised and con- 
 secrating itself to moral and religious work. But 
 while it thus changed its character, the church 
 continued, and has continued to this day, to 
 bear the impress of its origin. It was conscious 
 
56 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 that although an earthly institution it was still 
 allied with a supernatural order, which by means 
 of it was realising itself on earth. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 The church, if we have rightly understood its 
 original character, was the direct outcome of the 
 work of Jesus. He had foretold the kingdom of 
 God, and had chosen his disciples as the nucleus 
 of the new community that should possess it. 
 After his death they maintained the conscious- 
 ness of their vocation. They believed that Jesus 
 would shortly return as Messiah to bring in the 
 kingdom, and that they themselves were the des- 
 tined people of God. Though not yet delivered 
 from the present age, they had thrown in their 
 lot with the future, and had part in the higher 
 order which was soon to be established. This 
 was the constitutive idea of the primitive church, 
 and in the light of it we are able to explain much 
 that would otherwise be dark and unintelligible. 
 
 The conception of the church as the community 
 of the new age is vitally related to another which 
 meets us everywhere in early Christian thought. 
 Indeed, as we shall find reason to conclude, the two 
 conceptions are wholly dependent on each other 
 and cannot be separated. The church, as con- 
 trasted with mere earthly societies, regarded itself 
 57 
 
58 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 as a spiritual organism, quickened and controlled 
 by the power of the Holy Spirit. Throughout 
 the book of Acts we are made to realise that 
 this was the grand characteristic of the church; 
 and the evidence of Acts is more than confirmed 
 by Paul. In many respects, it is true, Paul ad- 
 vances on the earlier doctrine — enlarging and 
 deepening it, and applying it in new directions. 
 But he takes for granted that in his underlying 
 thought his readers are at one with him. They, 
 like himself, are convinced that the Spirit has 
 been imparted to the church as the one rule of 
 its life, the earnest of its hopes, the power that 
 guides it in difficulties, and insures its welfare 
 and peace. All the activities of the church are 
 the varied manifestations of the Spirit, which has 
 been communicated to all its members and to 
 them alone. 
 
 Luke has described, in a story familiar to every 
 one, the first outpouring of the Spirit. The dis- 
 ciples were met for prayer, according to their 
 custom, when the room was shaken by a rushing 
 wind, and tongues of flame descended on each 
 one of them. They went forth to proclaim their 
 message to the multitude assembled for the feast 
 of Pentecost from all parts of the earth, and found 
 themselves able to address each different race in 
 its own language. It may well be that behind 
 this narrative in Acts there is the record of some 
 day uniquely memorable in the history of the 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 59 
 
 church. Several modern scholars have discovered 
 another trace of the same incident in Paul's 
 allusion to the appearance of the risen Christ to 
 "more than five hundred brethren at once" (I 
 Cor. 15 : 6). But this is a mere conjecture, and 
 has very little to support it. The appearance to 
 the five hundred seems to point to Galilee rather 
 than Jerusalem, and was significant solely for its 
 bearing on the resurrection. Moreover, Luke is 
 not describing the descent of the Spirit on a great 
 number. He thinks of a private meeting of the 
 disciples, who alone participate in the wonderful 
 experience, and in the strength of it make their 
 appeal to the multitude. So far as the incident 
 is historical it goes back, apparently, to some oc- 
 casion when the little company was met at Jeru- 
 salem and became conscious for the first time of 
 the strange phenomenon of the speaking with 
 tongues. But there can be little doubt that the 
 narrative, as we find it in Acts, is mainly legen- 
 dary. For one thing, it is incredible that so mar- 
 vellous an extension of the church (three thou- 
 sand converts in one day) should have taken place 
 at that early time. All our evidence tends to 
 show that the community enlarged itself slowly 
 and gradually, and was still inconsiderable in 
 numbers long after the day of Pentecost. Again, 
 the miracle as represented to us was unnecessary. 
 The many nationalities whose names are recorded 
 all belonged to the circle of Greek-speaking peo- 
 
60 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 pies, and did not require to be addressed in their 
 native dialects. With the Greek language alone 
 Paul was able to prosecute .his world-wide mission. 
 The miracle at Pentecost, if we insist on accept- 
 ing it as historical, can only have been an exhibi- 
 tion miracle, serving no useful end. Once more, 
 and this is the decisive point, the gift of Glos- 
 solalia, or speaking with tongues, was a well- 
 recognised phenomenon in the early church, and 
 had nothing in common with the miraculous gift 
 described in Acts. Paul discusses it fully in 
 chapters 12-14 of I Corinthians, and while various 
 features in his account are not altogether clear, 
 it is quite evident that he had something else in 
 his mind than a speaking in foreign languages. 
 We cannot suppose that Luke was ignorant of 
 the true nature of Glossolalia, which continued 
 all through the first century to be one of the out- 
 standing elements in Christian worship. He him- 
 self refers to it more than once in subsequent 
 passages of Acts, and in such a manner as to in- 
 dicate that he was familiar with its character. 
 How, then, are we to account for this strange 
 transformation of the facts in the narrative of 
 Pentecost? Most probably it has to be explained 
 from that love of symbolism which betrays itself 
 again and again in both of Luke's writings. He 
 is preparing to tell the story of how the gospel 
 was spread abroad among all nations, and he 
 commences with a symbolic incident, in which 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 61 
 
 the later course of events is reflected in minia- 
 ture. Men of all races are assembled to witness 
 the nativity of the church at Jerusalem, and they 
 all hear the gospel addressed to them in their 
 own tongues. The symbolism possibly extends 
 yet further. Pentecost was the commemoration 
 of the giving of the Law, and according to a rab- 
 binical legend, of which we have a reminiscence 
 in Philo,* when God proclaimed the Law on 
 Mount Sinai his voice divided itself into seventy 
 languages, representing all the races of mankind. 
 To Luke the beginning of the church is the 
 counterpart of Sinai. It marked the promulga- 
 tion of the new law, which, like the old one, was 
 uttered in many tongues, as a law for all nations. 
 That the narrative in Acts assumed its present 
 form under the influence of ideas like these is 
 more than possible; and the conjecture is partly 
 borne out by critical analysis. Luke appears to 
 make use of a primitive fragment, to which he 
 has added his own account of the speaking in 
 strange tongues. It is significant that in Peter's 
 speech, which immediately follows, no reference 
 is made to the miracle, and that the comment of 
 the multitude is simply: "They are full of new 
 wine." Thus it may be inferred that the original 
 story told only of the earliest outburst of the well- 
 known Glossolalia. Luke has taken advantage 
 of this incident supplied to him by his sources to 
 * De Decal. 9 : 11. 
 
62 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 elaborate a symbolical legend, which serves as a 
 frontispiece to the ensuing history. 
 
 Leaving for the present the question of those 
 "spiritual gifts," which come before us first in 
 the story of Pentecost, we have now to consider 
 the theory that was associated with them in the 
 primitive church. They were prized for their 
 own sake, as the means whereby the church was 
 strengthened and helped forward in its mission. 
 Yet Paul acknowledges that even the speaking 
 with tongues, the most characteristic of all the 
 gifts, was itself of subordinate value. The chief 
 importance of this and of all the accompanying 
 gifts lay rather in the evidence afforded by them 
 that a divine power was at work in the church. 
 It was the community of the Spirit. 
 
 Behind the doctrine of the Spirit as it meets us 
 in the New Testament there lies a long and com- 
 plex history which has only been partially un- 
 ravelled by the investigations of modern scholars. 
 It is probable that the conception was originally 
 foreign to the religion of Israel and that its roots 
 must be sought in primitive animistic belief. 
 The Spirit appears in the earlier literature of the 
 Old Testament as something independent of 
 Jahveh.* It is an irresponsible power, apparently 
 demonic in its nature, which takes possession of 
 * Volz, "Der Geist Gottes," pp. 10 #. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 63 
 
 certain men from time to time, and causes them 
 to act in a manner that cannot be explained. 
 The man on whom the Spirit has fallen "becomes 
 another man," whether for good or evil; his own 
 will is overmastered by a supernatm-al impulse. 
 But this primitive conception of a power that 
 acted independently could not maintain itself 
 alongside of Hebrew monotheism. Under the in- 
 fluence of the prophets the Spirit is transformed 
 into the Spirit of Jahveh and is strictly subor- 
 dinated to his will and purposes. At the same 
 time the earlier ideas continue to be attached to it. 
 Its action is manifested in strange occurrences — 
 abnormal energies and impulses, endowments 
 that are beyond the measure of human wisdom. 
 It is a supernatural power, breaking in upon the 
 settled order of things, and is thus the peculiar 
 attribute of the divine life. God himself pos- 
 sesses the Spirit in unlimited measure, while in 
 men it appears as something alien and intermit- 
 tent. Man is flesh and not Spirit, and the weak- 
 ness of his nature can only be overcome at in- 
 tervals by the descent upon him of the higher 
 influence. 
 
 The action of the Spirit was discerned in all 
 supernatural phenomena but more especially in 
 the enlightenment of the prophet. This may 
 partly be accounted for by the ecstatic character 
 of prophecy in the earlier times. The prophet 
 uttered his message in a condition of frenzy, which 
 
64 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 seemed to be due to the entrance of the Spirit 
 into the human agent. But in later prophecy 
 these physical accompaniments were entirely ab- 
 sent. The one mark of the prophet was his 
 possession of a higher insight and illumination; 
 and it was in this that the great ethical prophets 
 discerned the operation of the Spirit. The idea 
 that the Spirit is manifested above all in prophecy 
 connects itself with a larger idea which pervades 
 the Old Testament and which requires a some- 
 what closer consideration. 
 
 We read in the book of Numbers* how seventy 
 elders were endowed with the Spirit in order that 
 they might act as assessors to Moses in the work 
 of judging Israel. Two men who were not of 
 the authorised number began, like them, to proph- 
 esy, and when complaint was made to Moses 
 he exclaimed: "Would God that all the Lord's 
 people were prophets, and that the Lord would 
 put his Spirit upon them." The passage belongs 
 to one of the later strata of the Pentateuch and 
 reflects a train of thought which meets us again 
 and again in the prophetical books. Isaiah t 
 anticipates a time when the Spirit will be poured 
 out on all the seed of Israel. Jeremiah | declares, 
 in a memorable passage, that a day is coming 
 when men will require no longer to teach their 
 brethren, for all alike will know the Lord, from 
 
 * Num. 11 : 16 Jf. t Isaiah 44 : 3; 32 : 15. 
 
 t Jer. 31 : 33, 34. 
 
" THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 65 
 
 the least to the greatest. It is not diflGicult to 
 perceive the thought that underlies these and 
 similar passages. Israel is the chosen nation and 
 in its ideal character is endowed with the true 
 knowledge of God. The nation as such has fallen 
 short of its vocation, and the higher enlighten- 
 ment is only given intermittently to the prophets, 
 who exemplify what is central and essential in the 
 life of Israel. But these individual men to whom 
 God reveals himself are the guarantees of a holy 
 nation in the future. A time is coming when the 
 ideal conditions will be realised and all God's 
 people will be prophets and will receive of his 
 Spirit. This, then, is the characteristic Old Testa- 
 ment doctrine. The Spirit is the divine power 
 bestowed on those whom God has set apart to 
 be his servants. But since Israel as a nation is 
 God's servant, his Spirit ought to reside in all 
 Israelites, not merely in the few chosen natures. 
 As yet this cannot be; but in the future age, 
 when Israel is a holy people in fact as well as 
 in name, the Spirit will be a universal possession. 
 "It shall come to pass afterwards," says the 
 prophet Joel in words which are quoted in Peter's 
 speech at Pentecost. " I will pour out my Spirit 
 on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters 
 shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, 
 your young men shall see visions; and even upon 
 the servants and the handmaids in those days 
 will I pour out my Spirit." * 
 
 * Joel 2 : 28, 29. 
 
66 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 The gift of the Spirit is thus conceived as the 
 peculiar blessing of the new age; and it is only a 
 variant of this idea when Isaiah connects it more 
 specifically with the Messiah: "The Spirit of the 
 Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and 
 understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, 
 the spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord."* 
 In the figure of the Messiah the future community 
 is summed up and personified. He receives the 
 gift that through him it may become the abiding 
 possession of the people whom he governs. Their 
 whole life, under the direction of the Messiah, 
 will be controlled and illuminated by the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 In the Old Testament, therefore, we have to 
 do with two conceptions: a more general and a 
 more definite one. On the one hand, the Spirit 
 is the divine as contrasted with mere natural 
 power, and its action is perceived in all that is 
 inexplicable by ordinary law. On the other hand, 
 it is the divine power which is shaping the des- 
 tinies of Israel, and which will fully manifest 
 itself in the future elect community. In that 
 coming reign of God what is now exceptional will 
 be the normal order. Israel will enter on its new 
 career as a holy people and will serve God per- 
 fectly in the power of his Spirit. 
 
 It has often been remarked as strange that the 
 conception of the Spirit, which is so prominent 
 * Isaiah 11 : 2. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 67 
 
 in the Old Testament and which was again to 
 occupy so large a place in early Christian thought, 
 should scarcely appear at all in our Lord's own 
 teaching. From this it has been inferred that the 
 church came by its doctrine indirectly — borrow- 
 ing perhaps from the current Jewish theology or 
 perhaps from the kindred ideas of certain hea- 
 then cults. The silence of Jesus on the work of 
 the Spirit seems to have perplexed the Gospel 
 writers themselves. They find the explanation 
 of it in the theory that in our Lord's own life- 
 time the Spirit was concentrated in himself, 
 being united with him either from his birth or 
 from the moment of his baptism. After his 
 death, according to this^ theory, it was detached 
 from his own personality, and was bequeathed by 
 him to the church at large. 
 
 Now, if the idea of the Spirit was indeed foreign 
 to the teaching of Jesus, the emphasis which was 
 afterward laid upon it would present an almost 
 insoluble problem. We should have to conclude 
 that from the very outset an alien element of far- 
 reaching importance was added to the thought of 
 Jesus. But when we look more closely we become 
 aware that the conception is everywhere present 
 in his own teaching, although it is implied rather 
 than directly expressed. 
 
 We may turn, in this connection, to one of the 
 few passages in which he makes explicit mention 
 of the Spirit and which is fully attested by all 
 
68 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the Synoptic writers. The passage in question 
 is that in which he rebukes his enemies, who 
 had attributed his wonder-working powers to the 
 agency of Satan. After showing the perversity 
 of this charge he argues, "If I by the Spirit of 
 God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God 
 come unto you"; and the words are immediately 
 followed by his denunciation of blasphemy against 
 the Holy Spirit. Many exegetical details in the 
 passage are obscure, but its general meaning 
 admits of little doubt. In his ability to work 
 miracles, Jesus perceives the clear sign that the 
 kingdom is at hand. His enemies in their wilful 
 blindness had accused him of traflBc with Satan — 
 failing to discern that operation of the Spirit 
 which was to manifest itself in the new age. For 
 this utter want of sympathy with the divine 
 action, this incapacity to recognise it when it 
 was most evident, there could be no forgiveness. 
 Jesus, therefore, presupposes the Old Testa- 
 ment conception. To him, also, the Spirit is a 
 power which reveals itself in supernatural action, 
 and he looks forward to the new age for its larger 
 manifestation. His miracles are evidence to him 
 that the kingdom is at hand, for they are effected 
 by that power which belongs to the kingdom and 
 which is now breaking in upon the present order. 
 This, it is necessary to observe, was the real sig- 
 nificance which Jesus attached to his miracles. 
 He did not regard them as works peculiar to him- 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 69 
 
 self and as marking out his personal dignity and 
 authority; for he insisted that the disciples, also, 
 if they had faith in God, might exercise a similar 
 power. He pointed to them, rather, as the signs 
 of the kingdom. Miracles were now possible be- 
 cause the new age was near and the Spirit was 
 already becoming operative. A supernatural 
 order was presently to set in, and these were its 
 premonitory signs. 
 
 When we take account of this side of Jesus' 
 thinking his comparative silence on the work of 
 the Spirit is not difficult to explain. The con- 
 ception of the Spirit was covered for him by that 
 of the kingdom. As he thought of the new age 
 about to dawn he took for granted the super- 
 natural power which would rule in it and which 
 would reveal itself in the new community. From 
 the time of the prophets onward the coming of 
 the kingdom and the descent of the Spirit on 
 God's people had been correlative ideas; and Jesus 
 did not think it necessary to enforce, in ex- 
 plicit terms, what was self-evident. Whenever he 
 speaks of the kingdom he presupposes the new 
 and higher principle which will take possession of 
 men, enabling them to enter into God's purposes 
 and to rise above the limitations of their old 
 nature. Without the gift of such a power the 
 new life which he anticipated was not to be 
 realised. In this sense the disciples understood 
 him. When, after his death, they constituted 
 
70 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 themselves as the Ecclesia to which the kingdom 
 had been promised, they looked for some evident 
 sign that the Spirit had, indeed, been given them. 
 Only thus could they have full assurance that 
 they had received their part in the new age. 
 
 The conception of the Spirit, then, as we find 
 it in the primitive church, was taken over directly 
 from Jesus himself. Like the prophets, he thought 
 of a future in which all God's people would be 
 brought into a closer relation to God and would 
 be endowed with higher powers and deeper insight 
 into the divine will. He chose his disciples as the 
 heirs of the future, and as such they claimed to 
 participate in the Spirit. As the men around them 
 belonged to the present world and were bound 
 down to the conditions of the natural life, so they 
 had been given their place in the new, divine 
 order. Paul, in his development of the idea of 
 the Spirit, maintained that through faith in 
 Christ a man's nature was radically transformed. 
 Hitherto he had been carnal, a mere creature of 
 earth, devoid of all capacity for the higher life; 
 but now he became a "spiritual man," renewed in 
 his whole being and destined to immortality 
 through the entrance into him of a divine prin- 
 ciple. How far this doctrine was elaborated by 
 Paul himself we cannot say; but, at all events, it 
 was implicit in the belief which was held from 
 the very beginning. The church regarded itself 
 
THE OIFT OF THE SPIRIT 71 
 
 as in a literal sense a supernatural community. 
 In virtue of their possession of the Spirit, the be- 
 lievers in Christ had undergone a change and were 
 subject to conditions that were not of this world. 
 At this point, however, we are met with a dif- 
 ficulty which might seem almost to suggest an 
 alien influence working on the mind of the church. 
 Jesus, as we have seen, connected the Spirit, in a 
 peculiar manner, with his miracles. In those 
 marvellous works he saw an irruption into the 
 present of that higher order which would be 
 realised in the future, and he declared that his 
 disciples also might share in the miraculous gift. 
 But when we turn to the life of the primitive 
 church we no longer find the Spirit associated 
 with miracles. The evidence of its presence 
 is 'discovered rather in the strange phenomena 
 that signalised Christian worship, and more espe- 
 cially in the Glossolalia or speaking with tongues. 
 But while miracles have now a less conspicuous 
 place, it must be remarked that the idea of miracle 
 is still the underlying one wherever the work of 
 the Spirit is in question. It is assumed that the 
 one characteristic of all spiritual action is power; 
 that is, an energy which cannot be explained from 
 merely natural law. When Paul undertakes to 
 test the genuineness of those who pretend to a 
 larger measure of the Spirit he says that he will 
 look solely to their "power"; "for the kingdom 
 of God is not with word but with power." His 
 
72 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 meaning is that the Spirit which is given to the 
 children of the new age is, above all, dynamic 
 in its nature. Those who possess it grow capable 
 of varied activities that seem quite beyond the 
 range of ordinary human effort. The "spiritual 
 gifts," when we examine them, all run back to 
 this fundamental idea. In their different ways 
 they are the manifestations of a higher mode of 
 action, and can only be accounted for on the 
 hypothesis that a divine power has now found 
 entrance into the habitual order of the world. 
 The thought is expressed more than once in the 
 New Testament that the miracles of Jesus had 
 been only the beginning of a miraculous history. 
 "The works that I do shall they do also, and 
 greater works shall they do because I go to the 
 Father" (John 14 : 12). And this, we can hardly 
 doubt, was the accepted belief of the early church. 
 Our Lord's miracles were handed down in the 
 Gospel tradition not because they were his but 
 because they were typical and prophetic of the 
 new era which they had inaugurated. The char- 
 ismatic gifts, the stronger capacity for labour 
 and suffering, the moral achievements of the 
 Christian life, all had their source in that Spirit 
 of power which had first revealed itself in the 
 works of Jesus. 
 
 It is true, nevertheless, that the Spirit was 
 chiefly identified not with miracles, in the strict 
 sense, but with those ecstatic phenomena of 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 73 
 
 which Glossolalia was the most remarkable. 
 The real nature of this spiritual gift can be 
 gathered with suflScient certainty from Paul's 
 account of it in I Corinthians, which enables us 
 to correlate it with the similar phenomena which 
 have appeared from time to time in religious 
 history and have not been unknown even in our 
 own days. Indeed, the records of the Irvingite 
 movement, the Camisard rising at the end of the 
 seventeenth century, the Welsh revival of a few 
 years ago afford us the best commentary on this 
 chapter in the life of the primitive church.* The 
 "speaking with tongues" seems to have consisted 
 in the outpouring of broken words and inarticu- 
 late sounds under the influence of uncontrollable 
 feeling. Stirred to his inmost soul by new aspi- 
 rations, longings, intuitions which craved to be 
 expressed and for which he could find no lan- 
 guage, the worshipper was thrown back on those 
 unintelligible cries. He was like a child who has 
 not yet acquired words for the struggling thoughts 
 and emotions which overmaster him. We can 
 well understand how in that initial period of 
 surging religious life, when the mighty truths of 
 Christianity were breaking on men's minds for 
 the first time, a manifestation of this kind was 
 inevitable. Christian devotion had not yet 
 
 * A psychological analysis, in the light of kindred phe- 
 nomena, has been attempted in two very able recent works: 
 Mosiman, "Das Zungenreden"; Lombard, "La Glossolalie." 
 
74 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 formed for itself a language, and the new enthu- 
 siasm had to find relief in those improvised modes 
 of utterance. Such, then, was the "speaking 
 with tongues," and this name applied to it is 
 "highly significant. Several explanations of it 
 have been suggested, but it is almost certain that 
 we have the real clew to its meaning in Paul's own 
 words : " Though I speak with the tongues of men 
 and of angels." Paul is here contrasting ordinary- 
 human eloquence with the mysterious speech 
 which came of its own accord in Christian wor- 
 ship. This Glossolalia he identifies — and the 
 theory was evidently current in the church — with 
 the language of the angels. Under the influence 
 of the Spirit men offered praise to God in a super- 
 natural tongue, similar to that with which he 
 was worshipped in heaven. 
 
 Why, then, was the Spirit supposed to manifest 
 itself most of all in this peculiar phenomenon? 
 The answer to this question is probably to be 
 sought in the actual sequence of events. Believ- 
 ing themselves to be the community of the king- 
 dom, the disciples were seeking for some sign 
 which would make it evident that the powers of 
 the age to come had been imparted to them, and 
 on one memorable occasion while they were met 
 for prayer the Glossolalia suddenly broke out. It 
 was something wholly new and inexplicable, and 
 they welcomed it as the sign they had been wait- 
 ing for. Henceforth they regarded this as the 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 75 
 
 typical manifestation of the Spirit, all the more 
 so as the experience was found to repeat itself in 
 all the Christian societies. The belief that the 
 Spirit was operative in the new gift seemed to be 
 confirmed by prophecies of scripture, especially 
 by that striking passage of Joel which is cited 
 in Peter's speech at Pentecost. But the appeal 
 to scripture, here as elsewhere, was doubtless 
 an afterthought. The Glossolalia impressed the 
 mind of the church not because it seemed to cor- 
 respond with the signs foretold by Joel but be- 
 cause it was itself so novel and extraordinary. 
 It could only be explained on the ground that a 
 divine power had now been communicated, a 
 power which could be no other than the Spirit. 
 
 The speaking with tongues was the most strik- 
 ing of the charismatic gifts, and was apparently 
 the first to manifest itself in a signal fashion. But 
 when it was once recognised as the work of the 
 Spirit it was found to be merely the index of a 
 new power which was now active in the com- 
 munity, and which was capable of expression In 
 many different forms. Paul enumerates a vari- 
 ety of "gifts" — faith, miracles, healings, prophecy, 
 helps, and administrations — all of which are the 
 acknowledged fruits of the Spirit. Though it is 
 one it is manifold in its activity and is the mould- 
 ing principle of the Christian life in all its aspects. 
 Not only the charismatic gifts but the abiding 
 virtues of faith, hope, love are the outflow of 
 
76 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 that Spirit which is now the possession of the 
 church. This developinent of the conception may 
 be attributed in large measure to Paul himself, 
 who discovered the far-reaching possibilities of 
 the early theory. The Spirit which was at first 
 associated only with strange, unaccountable 
 phenomena became in his view a moral and re- 
 ligious power consistently active in the Chris- 
 tian life. But the idea worked out by Paul was 
 implicitly present from the beginning. The 
 church, as the community of the new age, claimed 
 to be governed by the Spirit — the principle of the 
 new supernatural order. This principle was sup- 
 posed to manifest itself in certain specified modes 
 of action peculiarly impressive in their nature; 
 but in the last resort it underlay and animated 
 the whole life of the church. 
 
 We here arrive at a question of primary im- 
 portance, which requires to be answered before 
 we can rightly understand the New Testament 
 doctrine either in its earlier or its later phases. 
 Much is told us of the working of the Spirit in 
 individual believers. It was recognised that the 
 divine power laid hold on the varied aptitudes 
 of men, purifying and enhancing them and ap- 
 plying them to their proper service in the com- 
 mon cause. We hear of men who were "full of 
 the Spirit" as distinguished from ordinary mem- 
 bers on whom the grace had been bestowed in 
 inferior measure. Nevertheless, it seems clear 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 77 
 
 that the Spirit was considered, in the first in- 
 stance, to be the common possession of the church 
 as a whole. This, indeed, was the characteristic of 
 the church — that it was~the spiritual community. 
 Formerly, the gift of the Spirit had been reserved 
 for favoured individuals and granted to them 
 only at rare intervals; the new Israel, in its whole 
 extent, was endued with the Spirit. Thus the 
 belief was maintained from the outset that the 
 individual received the heavenly gift only through 
 incorporation with the church. By the rite of 
 baptism he was assimilated to the body within 
 which the Spirit was operative, and was so ren- 
 dered capable of sharing in its influence. The 
 various endowments of which we hear in the New 
 Testament have all some relation to the common 
 life of the church. Although exercised by in- 
 dividuals, they are supposed to belong to the 
 church as a whole and to work together for its 
 welfare and enrichment. Paul's discussion of the 
 spiritual gifts in I Corinthians may be said to 
 revolve upon this idea. He holds that the gifts 
 are a common possession. Diverse as they are, 
 they are all wrought by one and the selfsame 
 Spirit, which dwells in the whole Ecclesia, though 
 it distributes its influence among the several mem- 
 bers. And since the individual possessors of 
 the gifts are so many instruments of a common 
 Spirit, they ought to feel that rivalry and self- 
 assertion are out of place. They are like parts of 
 
78 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the body, which interact spontaneously with each 
 other and direct their varied activities to the 
 same end, in virtue of the one principle of life, 
 controlling the body as a whole. 
 
 The difficulty of understanding the primitive 
 age arises very largely from our failure to appre- 
 ciate this idea of a community governed by the 
 Spirit. We read back into the early history our 
 own conception of the church as a normal society 
 and forget that the spiritual idea was radical and 
 constitutive. The church had examples before it 
 of organised societies — the Roman Empire, the 
 Jewish theocracy, the various sects and brother- 
 hoods within Judaism — and by all of these, in 
 course of time, it was profoundly influenced. 
 But its original endeavour was to break away en- 
 tirely from such models and to stand forth as the 
 new community, ordered solely by the Spirit. 
 There was no set ministry, for the gifts of the 
 Spirit were bestowed on all; no stated mode of 
 worship, for the Spirit moved as it listed and its 
 impulses must not be quenched; no formal scheme 
 of doctrine, which might exclude the new revela- 
 tions imparted from time to time by the Spirit. 
 The scattered groups of Christians were not con- 
 federated by any outward ties; together they 
 made up the church, in which dwelt the one Spirit, 
 and no other bond of union was deemed neces- 
 sary. Even the concerns of ordinary life were 
 lifted out of the domain of mere prudential ar- 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 79 
 
 rangement. At each stage of his missionary jour- 
 neys Paul left himself to the direction of the Spirit; 
 and some of his most momentous decisions were 
 taken with no clearly defined purpose, on the im- 
 pulse of a vision or a prophetic warning. Thus 
 in the whole constitution and activity of the 
 church, effect was given to the idea of the Spirit. 
 As other societies were conformed to the rules 
 and traditions of this age, the community of the 
 future sought to yield itself without reserve to the 
 control of the higher power. To adhere stead- 
 fastly to this ideal proved in the course of time 
 impossible. As the church grew in numbers and 
 enlarged its field of action, it was compelled to 
 submit to some form of organisation, and more 
 and more, as the enthusiasm of the first age 
 dwindled, system had to take the place of spon- 
 taneity. Right on from the latter part of the first 
 century we can trace the phases of this change, 
 until at last the free community of the Spirit be- 
 came the official church, with its dogmas and hier- 
 archies. 
 
 It is mainly from Paul that we derive our knowl- 
 edge of the earlier conditions, when the spiritual 
 idea was still operative; and even the statements 
 of Paul are not fully applicable to the period 
 before him. Allowance must be made, on the one 
 hand, for his own broadening and deepening of 
 the primitive belief; and, on the other, for the fact 
 that he describes the action of the Spirit in 
 
80 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 churches of heathen origin. It is certain that in 
 the process of the gentile mission Christianity 
 was profoundly affected by the contemporary 
 pagan religions, and this influence was especially 
 felt in connection with the doctrine of the Spirit. 
 Ecstatic phenomena formed a regular part of 
 many heathen cults, and the ideas involved in 
 them were readily transferred to Christian wor- 
 ship. Paul himself draws a parallel between the 
 Spirit which his converts had received as Chris- 
 tians and that which had formerly impelled them 
 to the service of dumb idols.* From this it has 
 sometimes been inferred that the spiritual mani- 
 festations were chiefly or wholly associated with 
 the gentile type of Christianity. In Judaism, it 
 is urged, there was nothing that corresponded 
 with these phenomena, and they could only have 
 crept in from the heathen religions in which they 
 had long been familiar. Such reasoning, however, 
 fails to take account of the new motives and forces 
 which were born with Christianity and which 
 made it from the first essentially different from 
 the parent religion. Moreover, we have to reckon 
 with clear evidence that already in the earliest 
 days fl,t Jerusalem the phenomena declared them- 
 selves. Apart from the express testimony of 
 Acts, we can gather from Paul's references that 
 the spiritual gifts had always had their place in 
 Christian experience. He assumes as fundamental 
 * I Cor. 12 : 2. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 81 
 
 articles of belief that the Spirit is bestowed on all 
 Christians, that without it no man can have part 
 in Christ, that it is the quickening power which 
 has its issue in all the new activities. These con- 
 victions could never have become so generally 
 and firmly established unless they had been held 
 from the very commencement. 
 
 At the same time, it is highly probable that 
 the spiritual idea fell into abeyance at Jerusalem 
 much earlier than in the gentile lands. From the 
 glimpses afforded us in Acts we receive the im- 
 pression that the Jerusalem church, even in the 
 days of Paul, was becoming rigid and formal in 
 its character; and since the purpose of Luke is to 
 magnify the mother church, his unconscious wit- 
 ness to its decline is the more significant. The 
 change may be attributed to various causes work- 
 ing in combination. (1) In Jerusalem Christian- 
 ity had always before it the spectacle of the great 
 Jewish organisation, and was led to assimilate 
 itself to this model. Not only so, but constant 
 intercourse with the temple and the scribal schools 
 tended to modify its beliefs in the direction of 
 Judaism. Those elements in its worship and 
 doctrine which were most distinctively Christian 
 were apt to be weakened or altogether sup- 
 pressed. (2) Again, the presence of the original 
 disciples, while it conferred a glory on the cen- 
 tral church, must have brought about a certain 
 arrest in its development. Those chief Apostles, 
 
82 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 who had been companions of the Lord himself, 
 had a natural right to leadership, and their au- 
 thority overbore that of the Spirit. Of this we 
 have the most signal example in the history of 
 Paul, whose new movement, sanctioned, as he 
 could not doubt, by the will of the Spirit, was yet 
 obliged to justify itself before the tribunal of the 
 Apostles. We are not directly told why Paul at 
 last abandoned Syria and sought new fields of 
 labour in distant lands, but it may be surmised 
 that one of his compelling motives was to escape 
 altogether from the Jerusalem sphere of influ- 
 ence. Only thus could he secure full liberty for the 
 exercise of his spiritual gift. There was genuine 
 meaning in Paul's contention that he, even more 
 than Peter and the other Apostles, was the cham- 
 pion of the original Christian tradition. The 
 church had come into being as a spiritual com- 
 munity, but at Jerusalem it had half forgotten its 
 true character and had put outward authority in 
 the place of the Spirit. (3) Once more, the very 
 fact that the church at Jerusalem occupied the 
 foremost position served to limit its free activity. 
 The young gentile communities could allow room 
 for the impulses of the Spirit — yielding to them 
 in many cases rashly and mistakenly, but at 
 least preserving the Christian tradition of free- 
 dom. The mother church was weighed down by 
 the responsibility that rested on it. It was con- 
 scious that all the churches looked to it for guid- 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 83 
 
 ance and example, and that it must sustain the 
 dignity of Christianity before the world. Under 
 these conditions the old spontaneity was no longer 
 possible, and the gifts of the Spirit were with- 
 drawn. 
 
 But the later church at Jerusalem is not to be 
 confounded with that which arose in the first 
 days. Those earliest believers were lifted above 
 the world of the present and felt that they bore 
 their part in a supernatural order. They con- 
 stituted the new community, in which the Spirit 
 moved like a mighty rushing wind. It was in 
 this period that the Christian beliefs and insti- 
 tutions had their origin; and they never entirely 
 lost the distinctive form which was then impressed 
 on them. We cannot understand their develop- 
 ment in the later history until we trace them back 
 to that first age, when they issued from a living 
 experience of the Spirit of God. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 JESUS AS LORD 
 
 It has been maintained, in the previous lec- 
 tures, that the church was the outcome of Jesus' 
 proclamation of the kingdom. He had foretold 
 the imminent approach of the new age and 
 chosen his disciples to be the nucleus of the holy 
 community that should possess it. They were 
 assured by their visions of the risen Christ that 
 his promises were on the way to fulfilment; and 
 in the strange phenomena which began to mani- 
 fest themselves in the daily meetings they per- 
 ceived the a£tion_oithe Spirit. The power char- 
 acteristic of that new age on which they were 
 about to enter was already working in the chosen 
 people of God. 
 
 In this account of the beginning of the church 
 there has been little reference to what we are 
 accustomed to consider the one decisive factor. 
 Did not the whole movement originate in a per- 
 sonal devotion to Jesus? By the marvellous 
 experiences which convinced them that he had 
 risen, the disciples had attained to an absolute 
 faith in his Messiahship. He had been unjustly 
 condemned, and on them, as his followers, there 
 84 
 
JESVS AS LORD 85 
 
 devolved the great task of vindicating him and 
 presenting him in his true character to an unbe- 
 lieving world. Even his work and message were 
 half forgotten in the absorbing interest that now 
 centred on his person, and the whole faith of the 
 church found utterance in the brief formula of 
 confession: "Jesus is Lord." 
 
 It is from this point of view that the history of 
 the first age is usually presented, and in one sense 
 we have no choice but to accept it. Faith in 
 Jesus was the ultimate spring of the new move- 
 ment. All the hopes which now filled the hearts 
 of his disciples were awakened by the belief that 
 he was the Messiah and by the knowledge of 
 him which had made that belief possible. Yet it 
 does not appear that the immediate interest of 
 the primitive church was in the person of Jesus. 
 The attempt to discover the source of our re- 
 ligion in the loyalty of the disciples and their 
 anxiety to vindicate the claims of their beloved 
 Master has in two ways proved seriously mis- 
 leading: (1) It has concealed the relation be- 
 tween the teaching of Jesus and that of the early 
 church. He himself, it is affirmed, was wholly 
 concerned with the gospel of the kingdom, while 
 the disciples turned from his message to himself. 
 In this manner his cause took a fresh direction 
 after his death. The truths insisted on by Jesus 
 fell largely out of sight; while he, in his own per- 
 son, became the one object of faith. Out of this 
 
86 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 estimate of what he had been and done his fol- 
 lowers evolved a profound theology, which was 
 not, however, the theology of Jesus. (2) It has 
 unduly limited our conception of the aims and 
 character of the church. We assume that at the 
 outset it was wholly occupied with the defence of 
 Jesus' Messiahship. In their general religious out- 
 look the disciples, as we conceive them, were 
 hardly to be distinguished from the body of their 
 countrymen, and in one point only did they hold 
 an independent position. The Messiah, for them, 
 had already appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. From 
 this rudimentary belief historians have tried to 
 deduce the whole wealth of later Christianity, 
 but the effort is a hopeless one. There must have 
 been some broader basis to allow for the rearing 
 of such a superstructure. 
 
 So far, indeed, from providing the starting- 
 point, the mood of personal devotion to Jesus 
 seems to have arisen as a later stage in Christian 
 development. Strangely enough, it manifests it- 
 self first in Paul, who did not belong to the circle 
 of immediate disciples; and it may be that his 
 attitude was due, in some measure, to this very 
 fact. Paul had not listened directly to the teach- 
 ing of Jesus and could not share in the hopes and 
 enthusiasms which he had communicated to his 
 personal followers. From the first his mind had 
 been concentrated on Jesus himself — on his risen 
 life, on his sacrifice and the divine love of which 
 
JESUS AS LORD 87 
 
 it was the pledge and evidence. To the disciples, 
 on the other hand, the person of Jesus was asso- 
 ciated with his message. Their belief in the com- 
 ing of the kingdom had preceded their knowledge 
 of his Messiahship, and it continued to occupy 
 the foremost place. The faith in Jesus, so far 
 from absorbing or supplanting, served only to 
 reinforce it. That this was the attitude of the 
 disciples we can gather from the speeches of 
 Peter, in which Luke has reproduced for us the 
 substance of the earliest Christian preaching. It 
 is true that the Messiahship of Jesus is the cen- 
 tral theme of these discourses; but they give it 
 prominence in order to bring out the larger issues 
 involved in it. Jesus has entered on his Mes- 
 sianic office; therefore the kingdom must be at 
 hand, and God's people must avail themselves 
 of the offered redemption. The emphasis is laid 
 not so much on the person of Christ as on the 
 work he is about to accomplish, and the note of 
 pure loyalty and devotion is almost entirely ab- 
 sent. 
 
 We might certainly have expected that in those 
 first days, when the impression of the Master's 
 life was still fresh on the minds of his disciples, 
 the personal element in their faith would have 
 expressed itself more strongly. But the apparent 
 aloofness is not difficult to understand if we try 
 to realise their circumstances and outlook. They 
 believed that the coming of the kingdom was only 
 
88 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 a matter of days or weeksj and their thoughts 
 were directed wholly to the great future that was 
 so near at hand. Their faith in Jesus could not 
 be separated from their hope of that future. His I 
 death, as they viewed it, was simply the first r 
 episode of a great drama still in process, and was I 
 presently to be followed by a glorious return. It 
 was not till a later time that the attitude to Jesus 
 became one of personal devotion. As the king- [ 
 dom delayed its coming the hopes and desires ' 
 which it had awakened were drawn more and more 
 to the Lord himself. The meaning of his life 
 and death, the divine worth of his personality 
 were discerned more clearly as the perspective 
 widened, while in Christian experience his in- 
 ward and abiding presence was ever more in- 
 tensely realised. Other influences, likewise, played 
 their part — the mystical sentiments that gathered 
 around the Lord's Supper, the ideas that crept 
 in from gentile forms of worship, the adoption 
 by Christian thinkers of the Logos speculation. 
 These causes all combined to enhance the personal 
 significance of Jesus as time went on, until in the 
 Fourth Gospel he appears as the one object of ^ 
 faith. The Christian revelation is identified with 
 Christ himself. 
 
 In the earliest days, then, the belief in the 
 kingdom was primary. Jesus had impressed on 
 his disciples that the great consummation was at 
 
JESUS AS LORD 89 
 
 hand, and the thought now uppermost in their 
 minds was that they were the elect community 
 destined to inherit the new age. But this hope 
 of the kingdom had become essentially different 
 from what it had been in Jesus' lifetime. An 
 absolute guarantee had been given for its fulfil- 
 ment; for Jesus was now the Messiah. The death 
 which, according to his teaching, was the con- 
 dition of his Messiahship had been accomplished; 
 and his resurrection was evidence, beyond the 
 reach of doubt, that he had entered on his sup^-eme 
 office. Hence the coming of the kingdom was 
 certain, and Jesus himself, in his Messianic char- 
 acter, would preside over its inauguration. On 
 the one event of the Parousia, the return in glory 
 of the Master whom they had known, the whole 
 faith of the disciples was centred. To this ex- 
 tent it may be maintained that after Jesus' death 
 his own person became the chief interest in Chris- 
 tian thought. The expectation of the kingdom 
 was now bound up with the belief in his Messiah- 
 ship and expressed itself in terms of it. But the 
 wider belief was the primary and fundamental 
 one. The disciples clung to their faith in Jesus 
 and waited eagerly for his return, because through 
 him they would possess the kingdom. 
 
 We have now to consider more closely what 
 was implied in that Messianic belief on which the 
 church was content to rest its entire hope for the 
 future. One aspect of it, already touched upon, 
 
90 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 requires at the outset to be clearly apprehended. 
 The belief that Jesus was the Messiah had refer- 
 ence not to the life which he had lived on earth 
 but to his present exalted life. In his resurrec- 
 tion he had not merely risen from the dead but 
 had entered on a higher state of being, as the Mes- 
 siah appointed by God. Paul has declared in a 
 well-known passage that he concerned himself no 
 longer with the earthly life of Jesus: "Yea, though 
 we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now 
 henceforth know we him no more" (II Cor. 5 : 
 16). This saying of Paul is often quoted as mark- 
 ing the contrast between himself and the earlier 
 disciples. With all his passionate devotion to 
 Christ, he lacked the personal knowledge which 
 had been vouchsafed to the others and was more 
 than half conscious how much he had lost. But 
 the attitude of mind which is expressed in the 
 verse was not peculiar to Paul. We find it re- 
 flected in all the writings of the New Testament, 
 and we cannot but regard it as the common at- 
 titude of the primitive church. The followers of 
 Jesus, even those who had known him best, en- 
 deavoured to think of him not as he had been 
 but as he was now. His life on earth had been 
 only preliminary to that on which he had now 
 entered and in which he revealed himself in his 
 true dignity as the Messiah. It is significant that 
 the incidents recorded in our Gospels are almost 
 exclusively those which adumbrate, in some man- 
 
JESUS AS LORD 91 
 
 ner, the Messianic vocation of Jesus; and the in- 
 ference has been drawn from this that the Gospels 
 were mainly intended as missionary handbooks 
 supplying evidence for the cardinal topics of Chris- 
 tian preaching. But undoubtedly the evangeUsts 
 wrote, in the first instance, for the church and 
 collected those reminiscences of Jesus' life which 
 they found current in the church tradition. If 
 these are of one prevailing type we must dis- 
 cover the reason in this — that faith was directed 
 to Jesus as the Messiah. The events even of his 
 earthly life were remembered and cherished only ' 
 as they seemed to throw light on that higher activ- , 
 ity to which he had now attained. 
 
 At the same time we must not conclude, as 
 some have done, that the figure of Jesus was 
 merged wholly in that of the heavenly Messiah, 
 with the result that the earthly life became in- 
 different to faith. On the contrary, as we are 
 reminded by the very existence of our Gospel 
 records, the memory of it was the chief treasure 
 of the church and exercised a decisive influence. 
 (1) In the firstiplace, it transformed the Messiah 
 into a living personahty endowed with attributes 
 that could awaken love and reverence and fidel- 
 ity. It may be true that in the early Christology, 
 especially that of Paul, the Jewish speculations on 
 the Messiah are simply transferred to the exalted 
 Jesus;* but the abstract Jewish Messiah could 
 
 *Thi8 is the view maintained by Wrede ("Paxilus") and 
 Bruckner ("Die Entstehung der Paulinischen Christologie"). 
 
92 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 never have become the object of a religion. Be- 
 hind all the wrappings which were borrowed from 
 theological speculation there was the person of 
 Jesus as he had been visibly manifested in his 
 grace and truth. It was to him and not to the 
 ideal figure with which he was now identified that 
 his people directed their faith. (2) Again, the 
 belief in the Messiahship had its ultimate guar- 
 antee in the historical life. While they were still 
 with him, and knew him only as Master and 
 Teacher, the disciples had learned to surmise the 
 higher dignity of Jesus by their experience of 
 what he had been to them. Their confidence in 
 the resurrection was itself grounded in this ex- 
 perience: "He hath loosed the bonds of death," 
 says Peter, "because it was not possible that he 
 should be holden of it." * This impression which 
 Jesus had made on those who had known his fel- 
 lowship was the underlying security for all his 
 claims. The acceptance of him as Messiah and 
 viceregent of God was in the last resort a personal 
 homage to the sovereignty of his moral nature. 
 (3) Once more, as the life confirmed the belief in 
 the Messiahship, so it was illuminated by it and 
 invested with a new significance. Jesus had now 
 exchanged his earlier state of being for a higher 
 one; yet his new life was in some way continuous 
 with that which he had lived on earth, and his 
 will as it now was had been revealed in his former 
 words and actions. The morality of the church 
 * Acts 2 : 24. 
 
JESUS AS LORD 93 
 
 thus based itself on the character and example of 
 Jesus. His sayings were collected and grouped 
 together as the authoritative standard of all Chris- 
 tian teaching. 
 
 In the belief, then, that Jesus was Messiah, it 
 was implied that this dignity had been bestowed 
 on him since his death and had been attested by 
 his resurrection. His earthly life, while it still 
 profoundly influenced all Christian thought, was 
 regarded as only the prelude to that true life on 
 which he had now entered. But the belief in 
 Jesus' Messiahship was itself no more than an 
 aspect of the whole belief of the church. Perhaps 
 the ordinary presentation of the early history has 
 nowhere erred more grievously than in taking for 
 granted that faith in the Messiahship was a bare 
 dogma which had no necessary connection with 
 anything else. Even if we admit that the primi- 
 tive belief consisted wholly in the confession 
 "Jesus is the Messiah,"- we have to remember 
 what was involved in that confession. To the 
 Jewish mind the title "Messiah" did not signify 
 a personal dignity but an office and an official 
 work. The Messiah was the representative of 
 God in the establishment of the kingdom; and so 
 entirely did the emphasis fall upon his work that 
 in many of the apocalyptic visions of the future 
 he does not appear at all as a personal figure. 
 The hope of Israel was for the coming of the king- 
 dom, and the Messiah, even when he is made 
 
94 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 most conspicuous, is nothing but the instrument 
 through which this hope is to be fulfilled. This is 
 well illustrated by the fragment preserved to us in 
 the Gospels from the preaching of John the Bap- 
 tist. John's mind, it is evident, was absorbed by 
 the one thought that the kingdom was near at 
 hand, but in order to press home this thought he 
 embodies it in a picture of the Messiah, who is al- 
 ready on his way to execute the divine judgment. 
 To the primitive disciples the idea was no longer 
 va,gue and abstract, as in earlier Jewish thought, 
 but it was still associated with the traditional 
 hopes. The Messiah stood for the kingdom, and 
 the affirmation that he had appeared in Jesus 
 gathered up in one brief statement a whole clus- 
 ter of beliefs. It meant, in the first place, that 
 the kingdom would presently become a reality; 
 for the divine agent who would establish it had 
 now been appointed. It meant, further, that 
 the heirs of the kingdom would be those who 
 stood in a given relation to Jesus. As Messiah 
 he would designate the members of the new 
 community, and none could enter into it except 
 through him. Once more the belief that he was 
 Messiah impressed a new meaning on all the con- 
 ceptions which had hitherto attached themselves 
 to the hope of Israel. His teaching was now 
 authoritative, and in the light of it the whole re- 
 ligious attitude of men had to be radically changed. 
 Thus the confession of Jesus as Messiah, so far 
 
JESUS AS LORD 95 
 
 from standing by itself as an unrelated doctrine, 
 derived all its meaning from the ideas connoted 
 by it. From the beginning it was the symbol 
 of a new faith and of a new outlook on the 
 world. 
 
 The disciples believed, then, that Jesus had 
 been exalted to the office of Messiah and that he 
 would shortly return to fulfil his appointed work. 
 \' But at a very early time the designation "Mes- 
 \siah" gave place to another, in which the faith 
 of the church expressed itself even more clearly 
 and definitely. Already in the days of Paul the 
 confession which marked out the Christian be- 
 liever, and which in all probability was solemnly 
 uttered in the rite of baptism, was embodied in the 
 words "Jesus is Lord." What is the meaning of 
 this title, and how did it come to be applied to 
 Jesus in preference to the title of Messiah? We 
 have here a question the importance of which has 
 only been recognised in recent years and which 
 takes us at once to the very heart of primitive 
 Christian belief. 
 
 Within the last few years attention has been 
 directed to the striking parallels afforded by the 
 contemporary cults. Adonis, Serapis, Mithra 
 were each known to their worshippers under the 
 title of KvpiK, "the Lord"; and we have begun 
 to learn from the Egyptian papyri how closely 
 analogous to Christian usage were the various ap- 
 
96 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 plications of the name. "There are gods many 
 and lords many," says Paul, suggesting by his 
 words a distinction which would be familiar to 
 his readers. The "gods" were the acknowledged 
 members of the Pantheon, while the "lords" 
 were the new divinities introduced for the most 
 part from the East and worshipped by special 
 groups of devotees. One peculiar use of the term 
 Kvjoto? was in connection with the Csesar worship 
 which from the time of Nero onward played such 
 an important part in the religious observances 
 of the age. The deified emperor could not be re- 
 garded as a god in the strict sense, and took rank 
 with the divinities who stood outside of the old 
 national religions. In subapostolic times the rec- 
 ognition of Jesus as Lord acquired a fresh sig- 
 nificance from the Christian aversion to Caesar 
 worship; and it may be that this contrast is oc- 
 casionally hinted at in the New Testament. 
 For example, when Paul declares that Jesus has 
 the "name which is above every name" he may 
 be thinking of the usurpation by an earthly king 
 of the supreme title of Lord, which is due to 
 Christ alone. But the sharp conflict with Csesar 
 worship belongs to a later phase of the history, 
 and may be left out of account in the investiga- 
 tion of purely New Testament ideas. 
 
 The application to Jesus of a name already as- 
 signed in current usage to the Oriental divinities 
 is certainly very striking; all the more so as the 
 
JESUS AS LORD 97 
 
 cults in question all centred in the idea of re- 
 demption. The worshipper of Attis or Osiris, in 
 speaking of his "lord," had in mind the concep- 
 tion of a redeemer, no less than the Christian 
 when he ascribed the same name to Jesus. We 
 cannot wonder that not a few modern scholars 
 have been tempted to explain the name as one of 
 the terms that were adopted by the new religion 
 from the prevailing cults to which it bore a super- 
 ficial resemblance. If this could be proved, our 
 estimate of early Christianity would require in 
 some important respects to be modified. 
 ■ But against this view there is one argument 
 that seems to be practically decisive. It can be 
 gathered from the evidence that the name was 
 employed in reference to Jesus at a date so early 
 that it cannot have been borrowed from any alien 
 religion. (1) Luke apparently knows of no time 
 when the church did not regard Jesus as KvpiK. 
 Already in Peter's speech at Pentecost we have 
 the emphatic statement, "God hath made him 
 both Lord and Christ" — which implies that from 
 the beginning the idea of Messiahship was con- 
 joined with that of Lordship. (2) Paul regularly 
 speaks of "the Lord" or "the Lord Jesus," and 
 assumes that this was the name most widely cur- 
 rent in all the churches. Especially noteworthy 
 are those passages in the Epistles where the name 
 is expressly associated with the common tradition, 
 e. g., " I have received from the Lord that which 
 
 .^ 
 
98 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus 
 took bread." It can hardly be doubted that Paul 
 is here reproducing the language of those earlier 
 Apostles from whom he had taken over the broad 
 outline of the Christian teaching. To them Jesus 
 was "the Lord," and it was from them that the 
 name was transmitted to the church at large. 
 (3) Several expressions in the New Testament are 
 marked by their Aramaic form as terms which 
 had come down from the original worship of the 
 church, when a mission outside of Palestine had 
 not yet been thought of. Among these primitive 
 expressions, cherished and left untranslated be- 
 cause they preserved a link with the earliest days 
 is "Maranatha" — "the Lord cometh," or "come, V 
 O Lord." This prayer or promise was adopted 
 as the Christian watchword, and of itself is suf- 
 ficient evidence, though we had no other, of the 
 early adoption of the title "Lord." It was em- 
 bodied in a phrase which had acquired a ritual 
 value at a time when the gentile mission was just 
 beginning. (4) Scarcely less decisive is the other'v 
 expression several times used by Paul with a 
 solemn emphasis, "Jesus is Lord." It is evident 
 that he intends these words to recall a formula 
 well known to all Christians as the summary of 
 their belief, and the formula, we may be almost 
 certain, was that of the confession pronounced 
 at baptism. On such an occasion and for such a 
 purpose no language could be employed which had 
 
JESUS AS LORD 99 
 
 not been consecrated by the earliest traditions 
 of the church. 
 
 We can have little hesitation, therefore, in con- 
 cluding that the name "Lord" as applied to Jesus 
 was part of the original Christian teaching. Ideas 
 derived from the heathen cults may have gath- 
 ered around it in later days; indeed, it may itself 
 account in no small measure for the entrance of 
 those alien influences into Christianity. The mis- 
 sionaries proclaimed Jesus in the gentile lands 
 under a name that was already bestowed on cer- 
 tain divinities; and in this way a confusion would 
 arise in the minds of heathen converts. Elements 
 that belonged to the service of the other "lords" 
 would find their way imperceptibly into Christian 
 worship. This much may be granted, but if we 
 go further and maintain that the name was 
 actually borrowed from paganism, we must as- 
 sume that in its very inception the church was 
 affected by foreign influences. Some radical 
 critics have not shrunk even from this conclu- 
 sion.* They fall back on a theory that the dis- 
 trict of Galilee to which the original disciples be- 
 longed was Hellenistic as much as Jewish, and 
 that we must therefore reckon from the outset 
 with an infusion of pagan ideas. A theory of 
 this kind is necessary if the name "Lord," which 
 reaches so far back into the history, is to be traced 
 
 * A typical writer of this school is Maurenbrecher, "Von 
 Jerusalem nach Rom." 
 
100 THE BEGINNINOS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 to a pagan origin; but it hardly requires a serious 
 refutation. The disciples, as all the evidence 
 proves, were entirely Jewish in blood and train- 
 ing and sympathy, and before we are driven to an 
 alien source for that title which they applied to 
 Christ we have to consider whether it may not 
 be explained along the lines of native Jewish 
 thought. 
 
 In the Old Testament "the Lord" is uniformly 
 the name for God, and it may appear at first 
 sight as if this divine name were simply trans- 
 ferred to Jesus. This view has been strongly 
 held by some writers, who adduce in proof of it 
 a number of scriptural quotations in the New Tes- 
 tament which are so applied as to identify Jesus 
 with "the Lord." * These passages are certainly 
 surprising in their boldness; but we can draw no 
 other inference from them than that advantage 
 was taken, for the purposes of Christian teaching, 
 of the ambiguous meaning of the word Kvpio?. 
 It is inconceivable that in the first age, when the 
 monotheistic idea was still maintained in all its 
 strictness, Jesus was regarded as one with God. 
 
 In any case, the transference to Jesus of the 
 Old Testament title does not necessarily imply 
 that he was called by the divine name. It is 
 well known that through motives of reverence, 
 or perhaps of superstition, the Jews of the later 
 
 * Cf. I Cor. 1 : 31; 10 : 22; II Cor. 3 : 16; 8 : 21; 10 : 17; 
 Phil. 2 : 10 #.; Eph. 4 : 8; Heb. 1 : 10. 
 
JESUS AS LORD 101 
 
 age refrained from uttering the direct name of 
 God, and substituted for it another, which is 
 rendered in the Septuagint by Ku/sto? and in our 
 own version by "the Lord." This is not a per- 
 sonal name, but a title indicating sovereignty, 
 and has its counterpart in the term "servant," 
 which is used of the worshipper. It expresses 
 that conception of a divine being which was com- 
 mon to all Oriental religions and which was sug- 
 gested by the prevailing character of Oriental 
 monarchy. As each of the neighbouring peoples 
 had its national divinity, who was worshipped 
 as "Baal" or "Moloch," "master" or "king," so 
 to Israel Jahveh was "the Lord." Here, it may 
 be observed in passing, we can discover the true 
 point of contact between the Oriental cults and 
 Christianity in the employment of the name 
 Kvpiof. Judaism was itself an Oriental religion, 
 and from time immemorial had applied to God 
 the same term of homage as was customary in 
 those new faiths which were now invading the 
 Roman Empire. From it and not from its younger 
 rivals Christianity adopted the term. 
 
 In the Old Testament usage, then, "the Lord" 
 is a general rather than a proper name. It did 
 not denote God in his unique and transcendent 
 personality, but was chosen for the express pur- 
 pose of avoiding such a presumptuous reference. 
 God in himself was unknowable, unnamable; and 
 the worshipper was content to speak of him under 
 
102 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 a title that served only to mark his own attitude 
 of absolute submission. God was "the Lord"; 
 he himself the servant. When we consider it 
 from this point of view we can understand how 
 the name was borrowed from the Old Testament 
 and transferred to Jesus. There was no thought 
 of identifying Jesus with the ineffable God; al- 
 though it may be granted that from its association 
 with the idea of God the name had acquired a 
 peculiar shade of meaning and implied not sub- 
 mission merely but awe and worship. But in 
 itself it was only an abstract title denoting king- 
 ship and authority, and this limitation of its 
 meaning had always been clearly recognised. 
 Jesus had now become King of his people— stood 
 over against them in such a relation that they 
 were conscious of his right to their utter obedi- 
 ence. He was " the Lord" and they his servants 
 or "bond-slaves." 
 
 The name may possibly have connected itself 
 at the begipning with a definite aspect of the 
 Messianic belief. According to a Jewish doctrine 
 which finds expression in several of the Apoca- 
 lypses, the new age was to be ushered in by a reign 
 of the Messiah. For a given period he would 
 wield authority as the representative of God, until 
 his work was completed and God himself would 
 assume the sovereignty. These ideas are set 
 forth by Paul in a familiar passage of I Corin- 
 thians: "He shall reign till he hath put all things 
 
JESUS AS LORD 103 
 
 under his feet; then he shall deliver up the king- 
 dom to God the Father, that God may be all in/ 
 all." * The passage is solitary in Paul's writings, 
 and the view it presents is out of harmony with his 
 deeper religious instincts, which refuse to admit 
 a mere transient and provisional value in the work 
 of Christ. We can hardly be wrong in assuming 
 that here, as in other instances, he has for- 
 mally accepted certain traditional elements with- 
 out any attempt to reconcile them with his own 
 characteristic thought. He may have borrowed 
 directly from Jewish speculation, but more prob- 
 ably he makes room for a conception which had 
 already established itself in Christian doctrine. It 
 reappears in the book of Revelation, where the 
 intermediate reign of Christ is definitely limited 
 to a period of a thousand years. The name Kvpwi, 
 then, may possibly have borne some reference to 
 this peculiar theory of a Messianic reign which 
 would give place, in the end, to an absolute reign 
 of God. By and by would come the great con- 
 summation, but as yet it was the opening period 
 of the new age in which the Messiah was to be 
 recognised as Lord. 
 
 The title of KvpicK was broadly equivalent to 
 that of Messiah; but it carried with it a more 
 specific meaning, and here we may discern the 
 true reason for its adoption by the primitive 
 church. It was ascribed to Jesus not only in 
 * I Cor. 15 : 28. 
 
104 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 his capacity of Messiah but in his relation to his 
 people. " For us," says Paul, " there is one Lord, 
 Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 8:6). In the old order 
 now passing away there were many sovereigns 
 who laid claim to men's obedience — earthly kings 
 and potentates, gods many and lords many. But 
 a new community had come into existence cor- 
 responding with the new age, and the only head 
 whom it acknowledged was Jesus Christ. By 
 confessing him as its Lord the church gave ex- 
 pression to the consciousness of its unique char- 
 acter and vocation. It declared itself to be the 
 community of the future, chosen by Christ and 
 owing its allegiance to him alone. 
 
 A twofold reference was thus involved in the 
 designation of Jesus as Lord: (1) On the one a 
 hand, there was the conviction that he had now i 
 entered on the full prerogatives of his Messianic j 
 office. Formerly he had been Master and Teacher,/ 
 now he had commenced his reign. It is true that 
 Paul, in several of his allusions to Jesus' earthly 
 life, speaks of him as " the Lord," and in so doing 
 he seems to be following the uniform practice of 
 the church.* Already, on the night on which he 
 was betrayed, it was "the Lord Jesus" who in- 
 stituted the supper. But we cannot infer from 
 such passages that Jesus even in his earthly life 
 
 * Cf. the designation of James as "the Lord's brother" — 
 itself a striking proof of the use of the x^pioq title by the 
 primitive community in Jerusalem. 
 
JESUS AS LORD 105 
 
 was conceived as exercising the rights of Lordship. 
 It is evident, rather, that the name by which 
 he was now known had come to be inseparably 
 attached to him, so that it was employed even 
 in connection with his earthly ministry. The 
 definite import of the name is that assigned to it 
 by Peter at Pentecost : " God hath now made him ^ 
 both Lord and Christ." (2) On the other hand, 
 by the use of the titlejthe church declared its own 
 peculiar relation to the Messianic king. It had 
 broken with the present order and had thrown 
 in its lot with the new and higher order. Jesus 
 had recognised it as his holy community over 
 which he reigned as Lord. The belief in his Mes- 
 siahship might conceivably be held by one who 
 was still outside of the circle of his people; but to 
 call him by the name of "Lord" was itself the 
 assertion of a claim upon him, a right of citizen- 
 ship in his kingdom. For this reason the bap- 
 tismal confession took the form of "Jesus is 
 Lord." By making this declaration, the convert 
 not merely expressed a belief that Jesus was the 
 Messiah but brought himself into a bond of 
 union with Jesus. Acknowledging him as Lord, 
 he passed over by that act into the Christian 
 church and became possessed of those mysteri- 
 ous privileges of which it held the keeping. So, 
 as contrasted with Messiah, Kvpw<; was the name 
 that implied surrender to Jesus and participation 1 
 in his reign. It was attributed to him by those 
 
106 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 within the chosen community, and their use of 
 it was the mark of their high calling. " No man," 
 says Paul, "can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy 
 Spirit"; that is, to confess him by that name is 
 proof that you are numbered among his people on 
 whom the gift of the Spirit has been bestowed. 
 
 It is from this point of view that we must 
 understand that conception of faith which was 
 henceforth to determine the whole nature of 
 Christianity. One of the earliest names by which 
 the disciples called themselves was "the believ- 
 ers" (ot -Tria-revovTe^) ; and the primary meaning 
 of the name admits of little doubt. The "be- 
 lief" which it denoted was the acknowledgment 
 of the Messianic right of Jesus. While the out- 
 side world averred that he had been justly put 
 to death as a false Messiah, his own followers be- 
 lieved his claim. This was all that was directly 
 signified by faith; yet we altogether misappre- 
 hend its import, even in the earliest days, when 
 we explain it as nothing else than the intellectual 
 assent to a given thesis. The Christian confes- 
 sion, as we have seen, was expressed in the form 
 "Jesus is Lord," and by making this confession 
 the convert not only declared his belief that 
 Jesus was the Messiah but placed himself in a 
 certain relation to Jesus. He submitted his life ' 
 to be ruled by Jesus. He broke with the present 
 order of things and identified himself with that 
 new community in which Jesus reigned. From 
 
JESUS AS LORD 107 
 
 the beginning we find the idea of faith vitally 
 associated with that of "salvation." To accept 
 Jesus as Lord implied that you had transferred 
 your allegiance from this world, which was pres- 
 ently to undergo the judgment and had your por- 
 tion in the kingdom of God. It has been custom- 
 ary to assume that Paul radically transformed the 
 idea of faith which had been given him by the 
 early church. The mere intellectual act of belief 
 became for him an act of will, of entire self-sur- 
 render. Paul was, indeed, the first to analyse the 
 conception of faith and to exhibit it in its true 
 significance for the Christian life; but the con- 
 ception itself was present and fully operative from 
 the beginning. In the same act whereby they 
 acknowledged the claim of Christ, the earliest 
 converts subjected their wills to him, placed them- 
 selves under his protection, threw in their lot 
 with his cause. All that was subsequently meant 
 by faith was implicit in the confession "Jesus is 
 Lord." 
 
 In one respect, indeed, Paul infused a new ele- 
 ment into the primitive conception or at least 
 gave clear expression to an element that had lain 
 hidden. He connected faith in Christ with that 
 personal devotion to him which lay at the heart 
 of his own religion. The love and reverence which 
 Jesus had awakened in his disciples had always 
 remained with them and had given meaning and 
 reality to their belief in his Messlahship. But 
 
108 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 this estimate of his person was merged in that of 
 his office. He was the Lord who would reign in 
 the new age, and by confessing him they were 
 marked out as the people of the kingdom. With 
 Paul, however, the object of faith is Christ in his 
 own person. "He is made unto us wisdom and 
 righteousness and sanctification and redemption" 
 (I Cor. 1 : 30). Faith has its issue in the mystical 
 union with Christ, whereby the life that is in him 
 communicates itself to the believer. This mood 
 of personal devotion appears to have begun with 
 Paul, and may partly be explained from his pe- 
 culiar temperament and the influences by which 
 his thinking was affected. But in the last resort 
 we can recognise in it the inevitable development 
 of Christian thought. Jesus had given his mes- 
 sage under apocalyptic forms, and after his death 
 it continued to be enclosed within this framework. 
 The disciples were absorbed in the thought of the 
 coming kingdom, and their faith was directed to 
 Jesus as the Lord through whom they would pos- 
 sess the kingdom. But as time went on the apoca- 
 lyptic forms tended to fall away. It was under- 
 stood, ever more clearly, that the new life had 
 been given to men in Christ himself and that 
 fellowship with him was the true fulfilment of the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO JUDAISM 
 
 The Christian community grew up at Jeru- 
 salem under the shadow of the temple and the 
 rabbinical schools, and its first members were of 
 Jewish birth and had been nurtured in the na- 
 tional customs and traditions. In view of these 
 undoubted facts, it has been commonly assumed 
 that Christianity at the outset was scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable from Judaism. So far from surmis- 
 ing that they were the pioneers of a new religion, 
 the disciples were anxious to maintain their status 
 as orthodox Jews; and it was the supreme service 
 of the Apostle Paul that he asserted the original- 
 ity and independence of the gospel. He did not 
 .succeed except at the cost of a violent struggle, 
 and even to the end the great mass of Jewish con- 
 verts refused to follow him. Now, we have al- 
 ready seen reason to believe that this reading of 
 the primitive history is a superficial one. The 
 Christian movement, disguised as it was under ; 
 Jewish forms, was essentially new, and this was '■ 
 recognised even by its earliest adherents. But ' 
 the whole question of the relation of the primitive 
 109 
 
no THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 church to Judaism is so difficult and complex, 
 and is so vitally bound up with larger issues, that 
 it demands a separate investigation. 
 
 It may be admitted that in the commonly ac- 
 cepted view there is much that appears to cor- 
 respond with the historical facts. The disciples 
 had evidently no intention of breaking with 
 Judaism, and never expected that their teaching 
 would in the end subvert it. While associating 
 as a brotherhood and holding to their faith in 
 Jesus as the Messiah, they continued to show loy- 
 alty to the ancient ordinances. In the speeches 
 ascribed to Peter in the opening chapters of Acts 
 there is no suggestion of a menace to the beliefs 
 and institutions of Judaism. On the contrary, 
 Peter is careful to preserve an attitude of friendli- 
 ness to his Jewish countrymen. He attributes 
 their rejection of Jesus to ignorance (Acts 3 : 17), 
 and refuses to admit that they have incurred any 
 permanent stain of guilt, much less a final con- 
 demnation. By the acknowledgment of their 
 great error they are to be stirred up to a more 
 earnest repentance; for in spite of all that has 
 passed they are the true heirs of the covenant, and 
 the promises given by God through the prophets 
 still remain valid for them and their children 
 (Acts 3 : 24-36; 2 : 39). The feeUng toward 
 Judaism which thus pervaded the earliest Chris- 
 tian preaching, has not wholly disappeared even 
 in the writings of Paul. He, too, declares that 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 111 
 
 God's covenant with his chosen people cannot 
 fall to the ground and that their seeming rejection 
 can be only temporary. The gentiles are reminded 
 of their incalculable debt to Israel, and are taught 
 to recognise that, notwithstanding its present un- 
 belief, Israel has a prior claim which will yet be- 
 come effectual. 
 
 It does not follow, however, that the disciples 
 aimed at nothing more than to constitute a sect 
 within the parent religion. With the fullest con- 
 sciousness that they had come into possession of 
 something new, they may yet have sought to re- 
 tain their hold on the system they had inherited 
 and to construe their new faith by the categories 
 which it supplied. In the history of every great 
 movement the new wine is poured, to begin i 
 with, into old bottles. Men take for granted that ' 
 the existing order must continue and will not ac-/ 
 knowledge that they have definitely broken with 
 it. They avail themselves of its language and 
 conceptions, and imagine that they are only re- 
 modelling it, when, in point of fact, they are build- 
 ing on fresh foundations. This was inevitably 
 the position of the first disciples. Judaism was 
 their whole world of thought, and the idea of 
 escaping from it did not present itself to their 
 minds. Assuming its validity and permanence 
 as self-evident, they tried to find room in it for 
 their new beliefs and to express them in terms of 
 it. None the less they were sensible of the diver- 
 
112 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 gence of those beliefs from the current Judaism. 
 While they clung to the old presuppositions — 
 for they could conceive of no others — they were 
 secretly aware of their inadequacy and were 
 reaching out beyond them. In one sense it is 
 true that Christianity did not assert itself as a 
 new religion until Paul severed the bonds that 
 united it with the Law. But, when all is said, 
 Paul did nothing more than recognise as a prin- 
 ciple what had always been true in fact. The 
 church, though allying itself with Judaism, was 
 inwardly separate from it — a new organism with 
 a mission and character of its own. 
 
 But the initial acceptance of Judaism is not to 
 be explained wholly from this unwillingness or 
 inability to break away from an established tra- 
 dition. For the very reason that it was aware of 
 its own special calling, the church held fast to the 
 Jewish connection. The inconsistency of the new 
 religion with the old was sufficiently apparent 
 from the first, and in ordinary course a separation 
 would have been effected before the days of Paul. 
 But the earlier Apostles refused to make the 
 separation. They were convinced that in order 
 to realise its essential idea the church required to 
 maintain its link with Judaism. 
 
 At the risk of repetition it is here necessary to 
 insist once more on that conception of the Ec- 
 clesia on which the Christian brotherhood was 
 founded. The belief had come down from the age 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 113 
 
 of the prophets that there had always been in 
 Israel a "remnant" which had stood for the 
 nation in its ideal character amidst all the moral 
 failure and unworthiness. It was claimed that 
 this genuine people of God was now represented 
 by the Christian church. Not only was the 
 church continuous with the true Israel of the 
 past, but its title depended on the fact of its con- 
 tinuity. It was heir to the promises in so far as 
 it could prove itself one with the faithful commu- 
 nity to which they had been given. This concep- 
 tion of the Ecclesia from which it took its depar- 
 ture involved a twofold relation between primitive 
 Christianity and Judaism. 
 
 On the one hand, the church was conscious 
 that it stood apart from the nation. As in the 
 past there had been a clear distinction between 
 the chosen remnant and Israel as a whole, so 
 now the Ecclesia had its own calling in which 
 Israel did not participate. It rested its confidence 
 on other grounds than those of racial descent 
 and prerogative. This is plainly brought out 
 even in those speeches of Peter which seem to 
 prove conclusively that as yet there was no 
 thought of separation. Peter declares, in so many 
 words, that the nation has no share in those hopes 
 which have been awakened by the resurrection 
 of Jesus. The promise was, indeed, made to the 
 Jews, " to you and to your children," but at pres- 
 ent they are outside of the scope of its opera- 
 
114 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tion. It is reserved for the Christian brother^ 
 hood, and men must attach themselves to that 
 brotherhood by faith in Christ before they can 
 obtain their inheritance. On this distinction of 
 the church from the larger community of the 
 nation the whole argument of Peter may be said 
 to turn. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the church laid em- 
 phasis on its solidarity with the nation. The true 
 Israel, into whose traditions it had entered, had 
 been a portion of the actual Israel. It inherited 
 the promises not in its own right but as repre- 
 senting the nation in its higher calling. Israel 
 had been the object of God's choice; and this was 
 still true, although there was only a minority 
 that had proved worthy of the privileges which 
 were offered to all. This conviction, which is 
 marked so clearly in the prophets, was held no 
 less firmly in the early church. It was assumed 
 that the Ecclesia, while it constituted a body 
 apart, was yet involved in the natural Israel and 
 derived its title through the nation. Paul was the 
 first who grasped the idea of a purely spiritual 
 community — a people descended from Abraham 
 in so far as they shared the faith of Abraham. 
 But it is worth noting that even Paul did not 
 succeed in entirely freeing himself from the belief 
 that the higher vocation was in some manner in- 
 herent in the race. To the question, "What ad- 
 vantage, then, hath the Jew?" he answers un- 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 115 
 
 hesitatingly: "Much every way."* He cannot 
 forget that he himself has kinship with the people 
 "to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory 
 and the giving of the Law and the service of God 
 and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of 
 whom, concerning the flesh, Christ came." t If 
 this sense of the prerogatives of the nation still 
 clung to the mind of Paul, we cannot wonder 
 that it coloured the thinking of the older Apos- 
 tles who had not yet contemplated the possibility 
 of a church that should include others than Jews 
 within its membership. Distinguishing though 
 they did between the true and the historical Israel, 
 they yet assumed their interrelation as self-evi- 
 dent. The very idea of an Ecclesia implied that 
 of a chosen nation. 
 
 We have to reckon, therefore, with a twofold 
 attitude to Judaism, and both sides must be taken 
 into account if we would rightly understand the 
 controversy which was in process throughout the 
 lifetime of Paul. The controversy inevitably 
 centred on the relation of Christianity to the Law. 
 The mere racial sentiment bad already been so 
 far relaxed that submission to the Law, with its 
 accompanying seal of circumcision, was accepted 
 as equivalent to actual Jewish descent. And with 
 the rise of the gentile mission the question be- 
 came acute as to whether the Law was obligatory 
 
 * Romans 3 : 1, 2. t Romans 9 : 3-5. 
 
116 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 on those who had complied with the condition of 
 faith in Christ. In the earlier days the question 
 could not present itself in a clear-cut form, as it 
 did later; but from the beginning the church 
 must have held some theory as to the relation of 
 faith and the Law. How far is it possible to get 
 behind the Pauline conflict and to determine the 
 place which was assigned to the Law in primitive 
 Christian thought? 
 
 It is apparent — alike from the testimony of 
 Acts and of Paul's Epistles — that the early dis- 
 ciples conformed to the Law in the same manner 
 as their Jewish countrymen. Indeed, it was this 
 fidelity to the Law that proved the safeguard of 
 the infant church, enabling it to survive within 
 the very citadel of Judaism until it became strong 
 enough to hold its own. The immunity enjoyed 
 by the disciples has often been regarded as one 
 of the chief problems of the early history. They 
 settled at Jerusalem immediately after the death 
 of Jesus, when the very men who had so sedu- 
 lously planned his destruction were still in power. 
 Yet for a period of several years they remained 
 unmolested and were allowed to carry on a vig- 
 orous propaganda. It is the manifest purpose 
 of the writer of Acts to make out that Christian- 
 ity had always suffered persecution at the hands 
 of the Jews, but he has to admit that during the 
 first critical years it was left at liberty. He tells, 
 indeed, of an inquiry into the new teaching on the 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 117 
 
 part of the council, and by the use of a double 
 narrative of what seems to be the same incident 
 he gives us the impression of two separate at- 
 tacks. But it is clear, by his own showing, that 
 the inquiry resulted in nothing more serious than 
 an admonition. Even when a real persecution 
 broke out at last, in consequence of the aggres- 
 sive preaching of Stephen, it was evidently partial 
 in its operation. The Jewish authorities distin- 
 guished between two parties in the church, and, 
 while the adherents of Stephen were dispersed 
 and brought to trial, the Apostles themselves con- 
 tinued at Jerusalem in the enjoyment of their 
 previous freedom. This toleration can hardly be 
 explained on the ground that the new movement 
 was an obscure one, which was purposely disre- 
 garded lest an official ban might bring it into 
 prominence. A wisdom of this kind is rarely to 
 be found among jealous ecclesiastics holding a 
 monopoly of spiritual power. Moreover, it is 
 evident from the sparing of the Apostles after 
 the death of Stephen that no hostility was shown 
 to the Christian movement for its own sake. 
 Nor can we accept Luke's explanation, embodied 
 in the speech ascribed to Gamaliel, that the 
 Jewish leaders had agreed to suspend their judg- 
 ment until it should appear from the success or 
 failure of the mission whether it was of God. 
 As a matter of fact, the eventual success, which 
 ought on this hypothesis to have secured its recog- 
 nition, was the signal for the outbreak of perse- 
 
118 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 cution. It seems possible to account in only one 
 way for the tolerant attitude so long observed by 
 the authorities. They were the appointed guard- 
 ians of the Law, and the disciples, while making 
 no concealment of their new beliefs, remained 
 faithful to the Law. Judaism, it must be borne in 
 mind, was, in the first instance, a ceremonial code, 
 conforming, in this respect, to the general type of 
 ancient religion, in which mere belief played little 
 part. We know that in Greece and Rome there 
 was room for a wide diversity of philosophical 
 opinion so long as the accepted religious cere- 
 monies were observed in due form. Religion, to 
 the ancient mind, was not so much a matter of 
 belief as of praxis; liberty was allowed for an 
 endless modification of doctrine, while the ritual 
 was inflexibly maintained. Judaism, it is true, 
 was based on doctrine to a much greater extent 
 than the other religions of the time, and one be- 
 lief — that of the unity of God — was held with an 
 uncompromising tenacity. But apart from this 
 and the dogmas which immediately flowed from 
 it, opinion was left free. Pharisees and Saddu- 
 cees were at variance on cardinal points of faith. 
 The sect of the Essenes had grafted on the stem 
 of orthodox Judaism many strange speculations, 
 borrowed apparently from the East; yet the Es- 
 senes were not only recognised as pious Jews but 
 were held in peculiar reverence because of their 
 exact observance of the Law. A still more ipn- 
 spicuous instance is that of Philo, who resolved 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 119 
 
 the whole Old Testament teaching into a specu- 
 lative system, derived from Plato and the Stoics, 
 without ever ceasing to regard himself as a faith- 
 ful Jew. Numberless Jews, especially among the 
 Dispersion, seem to have exercised a similar free- 
 dom. Thus, we are not to think of the Judaism 
 of the first century as a strictly uniform system. 
 It contained within itself a hundred sects holding 
 beliefs of the most varied character but all ac- 
 knowledging the validity of the Law. Between 
 the more eccentric sects and the general body of 
 traditional Judaism there might be bitter con- 
 troversy, but their right to a place within the 
 borders of the national religion was not seriously 
 called in question. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that Christianity in 
 its initial period shared in the liberty that was 
 granted, as a natural right, in matters of belief. 
 The authorities may well have been suspicious 
 of the new movement, but they could urge no 
 valid reason for proceeding against it so long as 
 the legal orthodoxy of its adherents was un- 
 doubted. It was only when a party in the church 
 took up a critical attitude toward the venerable 
 institutions of Jewish worship that official Judaism 
 became alarmed, although even then it exempted 
 from the persecution those who remained faithful 
 to the ceremonial religion. 
 
 Admitting, however, that Christianity was re- 
 garded from the outside as a mere variant type of 
 
120 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Judaism, we have now to consider whether this 
 view corresponded with that of the church itself. 
 Are we to infer from its acquiescence in the Law 
 that it sought to remain on the footing of a sect 
 within the pale of the national religion? The 
 answer to this question has often been confused 
 by failure to allow for a difference between the 
 earlier and later conditions of the church at Jeru- 
 salem. There are clear indications that after the 
 death of Stephen, and still more after the general 
 persecution under Herod Agrippa in the year 42, 
 the mother community became increasingly Jew- 
 ish in its sympathies. A strong party raised op- 
 position to Paul on the express ground that he was 
 subverting the authority of the Law; and it was 
 able to claim, apparently with some show of reason, 
 that the church at Jerusalem was in sympathy 
 with it. But it seems more than probable that 
 the earlier attitude was wholly different. Paul 
 emphatically declares that the party which op- 
 posed him consisted of "false brethren," * and in- 
 sists that between himself and the older Apostles, 
 although there might be divergence of opinion, 
 there was no real antagonism. In this connec- 
 tion his account of the dispute at Antioch is 
 particularly illuminating. He affirms that Peter, 
 although he finally took an opposite side, was of 
 the same mind as himself and was overborne in 
 spite of his real convictions. So thoroughly was 
 he assured of Peter's true sentiments that he did 
 * Gal. 2 : 4. 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 121 
 
 not hesitate to accuse him openly of "hypoc- 
 risy." It is commonly assumed that these senti- 
 ments of Peter — if Paul is correct in his judgment 
 of them — were peculiar to Peter himself. He 
 was a man of open, catholic nature, and his per- 
 sonal intercourse with Jesus had deepened and 
 purified his instincts. At a distance from the 
 contracting Judean atmosphere he had ventured 
 to give scope to his larger view of Christianity, 
 although he shrank back when pressure from 
 Jerusalem was brought to bear on him. But we 
 miss the significance of the whole incident when 
 we read in it nothing more than the individual 
 attitude of Peter. Paul, it is evident, means us 
 to think of Peter as representing the view which 
 was characteristic of the primitive church, al- 
 though it had been perverted by the infiuence 
 of the "false brethren." It is this that gives 
 point to Paul's rebuke of the older Apostle. He 
 appeals not so much to his private conscience as 
 to his knowledge of the true position of the church. 
 Peter, it is suggested, must know in his heart 
 that this practice which he is countenancing is 
 the later innovation, while Paul has taken his 
 stand on the genuine primitive tradition. 
 
 What, then, was this tradition to which Peter 
 had been disloyal? It is clearly set forth in the 
 words of remonstrance which Paul addressed to 
 him, and which he repeats in his narrative of the 
 incident. "We who are Jews by nature and not 
 
122 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 sinners of the gentiles, knowing that a man is 
 not justified by the works of the Law but by the 
 faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in 
 Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the 
 faith of Christ and not by works of the Law" 
 (Gal. 2 : 15, 16). Faith in Christ, and faith alone, 
 is necessary to salvation. This, according to 
 Paul, is not merely his own interpretation of the 
 gospel, but is shared with him by the primitive 
 Apostles. The Judaists, who contend that works 
 of the Law are required in addition to faith, have 
 corrupted the original teaching of the church. 
 
 Now, it might appear at first sight as if Paul 
 here showed a complete ignorance of the earlier 
 situation or viewed it solely through the medium 
 of his own beliefs. The disciples, as we have seen, 
 had no intention of breaking away from the Law. 
 The sharp opposition between works of the Law 
 and faith in Christ did not exist for them, and 
 only emerged in the course of that controversy of 
 which Paul himself was the centre. That Paul 
 should have imputed to Peter a view that was so 
 peculiarly his own has often appeared incredible, 
 and attempts have been made to explain the 
 passage quoted above as a parenthetical reflec- 
 tion with no bearing on anything that was ac- 
 tually said at Antioch. It is, indeed, probable 
 that Paul gives only an abstract of his speech 
 and throws the argument into theological lan- 
 guage which he may not have literally used. 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 123 
 
 But the passage can hardly be construed in any 
 other way than as part of the remonstrance; in- 
 deed, as the essential part, which lends it force 
 and meaning. Paul declares in so many words 
 that to the primitive church as to himself faith 
 was everything and the Law a mere side issue, and 
 on this fact he is content to rest his cause. Nor 
 is there any fair reason to doubt that this account 
 of the primitive position was substantially correct 
 and was so recognised by Peter. The church in 
 its earliest form was composed wholly of Jews or 
 Jewish proselytes by whom the Law was accepted 
 as something normal and inevitable. It was 
 possible for them to continue their adherence to 
 it and yet to be fully conscious that its value was 
 altogether secondary. Jesus himself had con- 
 formed to the Law, as to an established system, 
 while he never confused this conventional rule 
 of life with the higher spiritual requirements, and 
 his disciples adopted it in a like manner. With- 
 out ever questioning that the Law was obligatory, 
 they yet perceived that it belonged to the circum- 
 ference and not to the essence of religion. They 
 disregarded it in their teaching and laid the 
 emphasis on faith alone as the condition of sal- 
 vation. It may seem paradoxical to affirm that 
 the purely Jewish church, confined to the city of 
 Jerusalem, was freer in its attitude toward Judaism 
 than the active missionary church of a later time. 
 But in reality this was not only possible but nat- 
 
124 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 ural. It was their contact with the gentiles, 
 consequent on the mission, which accentuated in 
 the minds of Jewish believers their sense of a 
 special privilege. They were compelled to reflect 
 on their relation to the Law and either to aban- 
 don it altogether or to assign it a definite place 
 alongside of faith. In the earlier period, when they 
 had to deal solely with their Jewish countrymen, 
 the question of the Law could be set aside. They 
 insisted not on that which they held in common 
 with other Jews but on that which was their own 
 possession. Faith in Christ stood out as the one 
 thing needf ulj while the Law was frankly acknowl- 
 edged to be indifferent. It was Paul's service to 
 Christianity that he had the boldness and con- 
 sistency to maintain this ground even when con- 
 ditions were changed and the gospel was offered 
 to the gentiles. But he was justified in his plea 
 that the belief upheld by him was nothing else 
 than the original belief of the church. 
 
 At the so-called council of Jerusalem the prob- 
 lem of the Law was formally discussed by the 
 church leaders and was settled, apparently, on 
 the basis of a compromise; that the Law should 
 still be binding on Jewish converts while gentiles 
 should be left free. From this decision of the 
 council it is perilous to draw any far-reaching 
 conclusions. Apart from the many obscurities 
 and contradictions of the two accounts in Acts 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 125 
 
 and Galatians, we have to make allowance for the 
 special circumstances by which the council was 
 affected. A number of conflicting interests and 
 types of opinion had to be consulted, and the 
 settlement agreed upon may not have repre- 
 sented the normal attitude of the church. More- 
 over, the drift of the mother community toward 
 Judaism had now been in process for some years; 
 and from the decision adopted by the council we 
 cannot form any certain estimate as to the original 
 Christian position. Yet if any attempt was made 
 to preserve a consistency with older traditions 
 we may discern two facts that were acknowleged 
 in the compromise. On the one hand, the Law had 
 never been regarded as more than secondary. If 
 it had held its place from the first as a necessary 
 condition of salvation the Apostles could not have 
 conceded to Paul that the gentiles should be re- 
 leased from its provisions. By advancing half 
 the way with him they in reality granted his 
 whole principle. They recognised that he was no 
 innovator but was merely carrying out to its log- 
 ical issue the authentic teaching of the church. 
 On the other hand, while it was subordinate to 
 faith, the Law had possessed a certain value. By 
 the decision of the Apostles a place was still 
 reserved for it, and we have no right to suppose 
 that they were actuated by mere policy or timid- 
 ity. Their sympathies, on the contrary, seem to 
 have been on the side of the Law, and they did not 
 
126 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 make tlieir partial concession without some mis- 
 giving. The church, as they knew it, had always 
 held to the Law in the belief that thus alone it 
 could realise its vocation. Whatever concessions 
 might be made to the new requirements, the 
 church must still, in some manner, attach itself 
 to the Law. 
 
 In the decision of the council, therefore, we can 
 recognise the attempt to do justice to both sides 
 of a twofold tradition which had come down from 
 the earlier days. Confronted with the definite 
 question whether the Law must be imposed on all 
 who sought salvation through Christ, the Apos- 
 tles had no choice but to declare on the side of 
 freedom. Christianity, they had to acknowledge, 
 was wholly independent of the Law. Yet they 
 did not feel themselves at liberty to break with 
 the Law entirely. Some compromise must be 
 adopted whereby the new religion might still re- 
 main anchored to it as it had been from the be- 
 ginning. What was the motive that underlay 
 this hopeless effort to retain the Law while in 
 principle it was discarded? Other influences may 
 have played their part and have determined the 
 form of the compromise, but behind them all, if 
 our reasoning has been correct, was the feeling 
 that the church must justify its title to be the 
 new Israel. As the Ecclesia it was not merely a 
 spiritual community now asserting itself for the 
 first time, but was one with God's elect people in 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 127 
 
 the past. The destiny it sought to fulfil was that 
 to which God had been guiding his saints through 
 all the centuries of Jewish history. His promises 
 had been given to the fathers and could only be 
 inherited by those who stood in the line of true 
 succession. Thus to early Christian thinking it 
 was imperative that the church should preserve 
 its continuity with the historical Israel. It was 
 indeed the new community, and membership in 
 it was conditioned solely by the confession of 
 Jesus as Lord. But, none the less, it represented 
 Israel, and its claims were rooted in this identity 
 with God's chosen people. For this reason it was 
 deemed necessary that the Law should obtain 
 at least a formal recognition even though the 
 church was now founded on the new principle of 
 faith. In itself the Law could effect nothing to- 
 ward the purpose of salvation, but it was the char- 
 acteristic mark of Israel, inseparable from the 
 covenant which God had made with his people. 
 By discarding the Law the Christian community 
 might sever that vital connection with the past 
 which constituted it the Ecclesia. 
 
 When we thus conceive of the primitive atti- 
 tude a whole side of Paul's polemic becomes more 
 clearly intelligible. He set himself to demon- 
 strate not only that the Law cannot be the ground 
 of salvation but that it has no bearing on the es- 
 sential character of the church. The true Israel, 
 he argues, has always been independent of the 
 
128 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Law. Centuries before Moses God had made his 
 covenant with Abraham on the basis of faith 
 alone, and ever since he had reckoned as his peo- 
 ple those who participated in the faith of Abra- 
 ham. There was no need, therefore, that the 
 Christian church should cling to the Law in the 
 fear that otherwise it might miss the inheritance 
 that had descended through the elect people. By 
 adopting faith as its one principle it maintained 
 its continuity with that true Israel which had ever 
 existed within the nation. In this way Paul vin- 
 dicates the claim of the church to be a purely 
 spiritual community. For him, as for the Apostles 
 before him, the Ecclesia takes up the vocation of 
 Israel and thus becomes heir to those promises of 
 God which cannot be broken. But the conception 
 is now set free from all its national limitations. 
 Bound up though it is with the past history of 
 the Jewish people, the Ecclesia is the communion 
 of faith into which the faithful of all lands and 
 times have the right of entrance. 
 
 It may be concluded, therefore, that in spite of 
 its apparent dependence on Judaism the church 
 was conscious from the outset of a separate place 
 and calling. The fidelity to the Law, which might 
 seem to mark it as a mere Jewish sect, is to be ex- 
 plained from the fundamental conception of the 
 Ecclesia as it was understood by the primitive 
 disciples. They believed that as the new com- 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 129 
 
 munity, ordained by God to possess the kingdom, 
 they were the true Israel and must secure their 
 title by linking themselves with the Israel of the 
 past. For this reason they conformed to the na- 
 tional traditions, but their aim all the time was 
 to attach themselves not to the nation but to the 
 "remnant" — the Israel which was, indeed, the 
 people of God. It was not till the advent of Paul 
 that the confusion of ideas, natural to the early 
 days, was dissolved and the Ecclesia became aware 
 that it could realise its vocation as the spiritual 
 Israel apart from the observance of the Law. But 
 even in the initial period it took its stand on prin- 
 ciples which were radically incompatible with 
 Judaism and whose import could hardly be mis- 
 taken by reflecting minds. (1) It reverted from 
 the legal to the prophetic conception of religion. 
 Ever since John the Baptist a movement had been 
 in process which was essentially a revolt from the 
 Law, although in its earlier phases its true char- 
 acter was partially concealed. Jesus himself was 
 the grand representative of this prophetic re- 
 vival, and for those who based their lives on his 
 teaching the Law could have nothing but a formal 
 value. It was replaced by an inward law of 
 righteousness from which there was no appeal. 
 (2) It demanded a recognition of Jesus as Lord 
 and declared that this confession of Jesus was the 
 one thing necessary for salvation. Paul at a 
 later time gave a new and profounder meaning to 
 
130 THE BEGINNINOS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the idea of faith in Christ. He made it clear 
 that faith was sufficient in itself and could only be 
 neutralised by any attempt to combine it with 
 obedience to the Law. But the truth which Paul 
 established by theological argument must have 
 come home to men in a practical way from the 
 first. It was impossible for the church to serve 
 two masters. By the acceptance of Christ as Lord 
 the authority of the Law was inwardly broken, 
 and the formal emancipation from it was only 
 a matter of time. (3) It claimed to be the com- 
 munity of the Spirit. This, indeed, was the 
 chief characteristic of the church, that it was en- 
 dued already with that divine power which would 
 be manifested in the new age. As distinguished 
 from all other societies, which were subject to 
 rules and ordinances, it was controlled by the 
 direct action of the Spirit. For a community of 
 this kind there was no real place in Judaism. No 
 man can have felt the presence in him of the new 
 power without some sense of the contradiction 
 which was pointed out by Paul: "If ye be led by 
 the Spirit, ye are not under the Law." 
 
 That the bond between Christianity and 
 Judaism was never much more than a formal one 
 is evident, if from nothing else, from the early 
 progress of the mission. It was formerly assumed 
 that Paul was the first to carry the gospel to the 
 gentiles, and that he ventured on this great ex- 
 periment in the strength of his conviction that 
 
THE CHURCH AND JUDAISM 131 
 
 the Law had now ceased to be binding. If Chris- 
 tianity before Paul was a mere sect of Judaism, 
 we have little choice but to accept this theory of 
 its extension. Against all approach to the gen- 
 tiles the Law would have constituted an insuper- 
 able barrier and the wider movement could only 
 have been contemplated after Paul had won his 
 victory. But it is now admitted by practically 
 all students of the apostolic age that Paul en- 
 tered on the mission when it was already in full 
 progress. Right on from the death of Stephen, 
 if not earlier, the gospel had been offered alike 
 to Jews and gentiles, and Paul's chief fellow 
 worker was Barnabas, one of the trusted leaders 
 of the Jerusalem church. We have to think of a 
 mission that began not abruptly, in consequence 
 of a sudden break with primitive tradition, but 
 naturally and imperceptibly. Although them- 
 selves Jews and faithfufin their observance of the 
 Law, the disciples were conscious that it had 
 little to do with the Christian message. They 
 took for granted that faith was the one condition 
 of salvation, and willingly received gentile be- 
 lievers on this ground alone. As yet they acted 
 spontaneously, in accordance with their instinctive 
 sense of the nature and purpose of the gospel. 
 When they came to reflect on all the issues in- 
 volved their judgment was perplexed, and the 
 later Jewish converts, who had not grasped the 
 essential idea of Christianity, were eager to make 
 
132 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the most of their misgivings. But the attitude 
 of the primitive church to Judaism was one of 
 freedom. It was recognised that Jesus Christ had 
 been the mediator of a new covenant independent 
 of the Law. 
 
LECTURE VI 
 
 LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 
 
 The disciples were drawn to Jerusalem by the 
 hope of participating in the triumph of Jesus 
 when he would return as Messiah and inaugurate 
 the kingdom of God. Believing, as they did, that 
 the consummation was close at hand, they had no 
 programme for the future and made no effort to 
 build up an organised society. Their impulse 
 was simply to resume the fellowship in which 
 they had been united during Jesus' lifetime. As 
 his disciples, they had stood to one another in a 
 relation of brotherhood, and now, in the interval 
 of waiting, they aimed at preserving this,relation. 
 Little by little, as the community increased in 
 numbers and entered on its larger mission, the 
 original aim was modified in various directions 
 but was never consciously abandoned. The 
 church of the later time was the direct outcome of 
 that attempt to perpetuate the brotherhood which 
 had been instituted by Jesus. 
 
 We have seen, however, that from the first a 
 deeper significance was involved in the brother- 
 hood of the disciples. Jesus himself had connected 
 it with his proclamation of the new age when all 
 133 
 
134 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 distinctions of rank and class and family were to 
 disappear. The old order was presently to give 
 place to another in which the will of God would 
 be all in all and men would acknowledge their 
 kinship as the children of God. Jesus called his 
 disciples as heirs of this coming kingdom. His 
 purpose, in all his intercourse with them, was to 
 prepare them for the kingdom by moulding their 
 lives into harmony with its conditions. For this 
 reason he sought to inspire them with the feeling 
 of brotherhood. They were to think of themselves 
 , as riot merely comrades in the same cause but as 
 / the first-fruits of a new and more perfect type of 
 !^ society. In their relations to one another they 
 were to exemplify that higher law of love and 
 mutual service which would be fulfilled in the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 From this point of view we must understand 
 the anxiety of the church during the whole of the 
 early period to maintain the feeling among its 
 members that they were all brethren. It is easy, 
 no doubt, to adduce many seeming analogies from 
 the practice of other religious and philosophical 
 sects of the time. Men who had grouped them- 
 selves together round the name of the same 
 teacher for the pursuit of a common ideal naturally 
 took upon them the title of brethren, although 
 its use in many cases was little more than conven- 
 tional. It is easy, too, to show how the circum- 
 stances of early Christianity were sufficient in 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 135 
 
 themselves to compel an intimate form of as- 
 sociation. The scattered Christian communities, 
 struggling for their very existence in the midst of 
 a hostile world, could only survive when the vir- 
 tue of (})i\aBe\^ia — love and helpfulness within 
 the community — was exalted to the highest place. 
 This need for a fraternal bond was never more , 
 urgent than in the first critical years at Jeru- [ 
 salem. But when all allowance is made for the/ 
 various influences which may have strengthened 
 the idea of brotherhood, we have to seek for 
 its origin in that consciousness of their voca- 
 tion that had been impressed on the disciples by 
 Jesus himself. He had taught them that they J 
 stood for the new order of things in which all in- / 
 equalities, all division between man and man, 
 would disappeax. Their relation to one another 
 even now was to anticipate in some measure that 
 which would obtain in the kingdom. It is true 
 that Jesus insisted on a love to men far wider 
 than is contemplated by the "new command- 
 ment" of the Fourth Gospel j and in the parable 
 of the good Samaritan and the precepts of the 
 Sermon on the Mount he protested, in so many 
 words, against the exclusive ideals which were 
 afterward adopted by the church. Yet the 
 cf>i\aSeX<jiia of the later time had its roots in a 
 conception which underlay the whole teaching of 
 Jesus. He looked for a new society governed by a 
 new spirit of love and service, and as the nucleus 
 
136 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of this future community he formed a band of 
 disciples who were united together as brethren. 
 
 The idea of brotherhood, therefore, was in- 
 volved in the very nature of the church and gov- 
 erned the life of its members from the beginning. 
 It would not have been surprising if the disciples 
 of Jesus had been led to isolate themselves in a 
 semi-monastic union similar to that of the con- 
 temporary Jewish sect of the Essenes. Perhaps 
 at the outset there was a real danger that the 
 Christian movement might spend itself in the 
 formation of a sterile community of this kind — a 
 community of enthusiasts secluded from the out- 
 ward world and content with their own fellow- 
 ship. From any such danger the church was 
 saved by two circumstances. On the one hand, 
 instead of remaining in Galilee, where they might 
 have lived as a self-contained society, the dis- 
 ciples were impelled to settle at Jerusalem. In 
 the great city they could only realise their com- 
 munal life in an imperfect fashion, and had to 
 break into separate groups even for the pur- 
 poses of worship. Whether they would or not, 
 they were thrown into constant intercourse with 
 the people around them, and the cause which 
 might otherwise have been confined within a nar- 
 row circle was forced to become active and mis- 
 sionary in its character. On the other hand, they 
 were protected still more effectually by the exam- 
 ple they had inherited from Jesus. In contrast 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 137 
 
 with John the Baptist, he had come eating and 
 drinking and had purposely avoided all appear- 
 ance of carrying on an esoteric mission. He had 
 consistently rebuked the Pharisaic spirit of ex- 
 clusiveness. His teaching, with all its commen- 
 dation of brotheriy love, had never failed to lay 
 the chief stress on the larger human sympathies 
 and duties. With this example of Jesus fresh in 
 their memories, the disciples could not shut them- 
 selves up to a life of secluded fellowship. As the 
 new community they were bound by special ties 
 to one another and stood apart from the worid; 
 yet they entertained no thought of a formal 
 separation. It was by thus perfecting itself as a 
 brotherhood, while maintaining its place in the 
 larger organism, that the church grew at last into 
 a worid-wide power. 
 
 The disciples, then, sought to perpetuate that 
 life of comradeship into which they had been 
 brought by Jesus, and according to the book of 
 Acts they had recourse to a peculiar institution in 
 order to give full effect to the idea that they were 
 brethren. Although they could not unite in a 
 regular monastic society and lived in their own 
 homes, scattered throughout the city, they yet 
 contributed their wealth to a common stock. 
 Each individual was supported and cared for by 
 the community as a whole. There is no portion 
 of Luke's narrative which has been more often 
 
138 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 called in question than this account he has given 
 us of the communal life of the early church. It 
 is objected, for one thing, that we are here dealing 
 not with facts of history but with certain char- 
 acteristic ideas of Luke himself. Alike in the Gos- 
 pel and the Acts his mind turns constantly to the 
 problem of wealth and poverty. The Christian 
 message, as he conceives it, is pre-eminently one 
 of social justice — a message of good tidings to the 
 poor and judgment on their oppressors. In his 
 description of the early communism, it is argued, 
 he has merely set forth in an ideal picture what 
 he imagines to be the true condition of a Chris- 
 tian society. Again, the apparent inconsistencies 
 of the narrative have often been pointed out, and 
 are held to prove that Luke has misunderstood 
 the facts or purposely coloured them in order to 
 bear out his theories. In spite of his assertion 
 that no man called anything his own and that 
 all wealth was divided among the brethren as a 
 matter of course, he yet singles out for special 
 praise the conduct of Barnabas, who parted with 
 his possessions. Likewise in the story of Ananias 
 and Sapphira, it is implied that no member of the 
 church was under obligation to throw his belong- 
 ings into the common stock. Ananias is told 
 explicitly by Peter that his goods were his own 
 and that he was free to dispose of them as he 
 thought best. His offence consisted not in with- 
 holding them but in the falsehood whereby, in a 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 139 
 
 spirit of vainglory, he had professed to renounce 
 everything while only sacrificing a part. In view 
 of these contradictions in the narrative it has been 
 inferred that the so-called community of goods 
 was nothing more than a large liberality such as 
 naturally accompanied the religious enthusiasm. 
 
 But these exceptions which have been taken to 
 the record in Acts cannot be regarded as conclu- 
 sive. (1) It is, indeed, true that Luke lays a 
 noticeable emphasis on the social aspects of the 
 Gospel, but we have no right to set this down to 
 some mere predilection of his own. As a matter 
 of fact, he has little to say about wealth and pov- 
 erty in the later chapters of Acts, although op- 
 portunities were certainly not wanting. The sub- 
 ject appears to interest him only in those parts of 
 his work where he is concerned with the teaching 
 of Jesus and the life of the primitive church. 
 From this it may be fairly concluded that he is 
 influenced not so much by some theory of his 
 own as by those traditions of the Palestinian 
 church on which he has drawn so largely. A be- 
 lief persisted in the Christian communities of 
 Palestine that Jesus had denounced the sins of 
 wealth and taught the equality of rich and poor, 
 and we have no valid reason to doubt that this 
 account of his teaching was well founded. In 
 later Christianity, by a process we can easily 
 understand, his gospel of equality was softened 
 into a demand for generous giving and due con- 
 
140 THE BEGINNINGS OP THE CHURCH 
 
 sideration of the poor. But among the native 
 Palestinian churches the true drift of the teaching 
 was not thus obscured, and Luke has preserved 
 the colouring of this tradition. 
 
 (2) It is possible to make too much of the ap- 
 parent inconsistencies in Luke's account of the 
 primitive communism. From his singling out of 
 special instances in which men parted with their 
 possessions, we may, indeed, infer that there was 
 no formal and binding rule. The sacrifice of pri- 
 vate wealth for the sake of the brethren was a 
 voluntary one, and a certain credit attached to 
 those who made it. This was in keeping with the, 
 whole character of the early church, which was 
 not an organisation imposing a regular discipline 
 on its meinbers but a free community of the Spirit.^ 
 But, although the surrender was voluntary and a 
 few devoted men are specially commemora,ted, it 
 does not follow that their conduct was exceptional. 
 For the most part the disciples were poor and 
 their contributions to the common fund attracted 
 little attention, since they probably received as 
 much as they gave. It was different when men 
 of some substance threw in their lot with the 
 church and, like Barnabas, gave up their posses- 
 sions.. Their action was remembered not because 
 it was an exception to the rule but because it 
 stood out as a signal instance of its observance. 
 The story of Ananias is in this connection par- 
 ticularly instructive. Ananias was evidently a 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 141 
 
 man of wealth as compared with the brethren gen- 
 erally, and the question was whether he, like the 
 others, would make a complete surrender. If he 
 gave at all he must give everything, otherwise he 
 would betray the principle on which the life of 
 the church had been founded. This, it must be 
 observed, is the point which gives significance to 
 the whole story. What was required of Ananias 
 was not merely his liberality — for this he was 
 prepared to give — but his sacrifice of all individ- 
 ual possessions. In other words, the practice 
 of charity was a quite secondary consideration. 
 The aim of the church was nothing less than to 
 establish a new social principle — that of commu- 
 nity of goods — and in reserving part of his wealth 
 Ananias had committed a worse offence than if he 
 had withheld it altogether. He had tried by an 
 unworthy compromise to destroy an essential ele- 
 ment in the new order. 
 
 How far the incident is historical we cannot 
 now discover, and for our present purpose the 
 question is of minor importance. In any case we 
 have here transmitted to us one of the primitive 
 legends of the church, reminiscent of the early 
 conditions and perhaps of a conflict to which they 
 gave rise. The original aim — thus we may read 
 between the lines of the story — was to insure a 
 real community of goods. Members of the church 
 were expected not merely to exercise a mutual 
 helpfulness but to place their wealth wholly at 
 
142 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the disposal of the brotherhood. In course of 
 time, however, as numbers increased and the 
 first ardour began to wane, this ideal became ever 
 harder to realise. Converts of some worldly 
 standing were inclined to reason that they suffi- 
 ciently discharged their duty if they gave liber- 
 ally 1;o the common fund and that they need not 
 sacrifice all. This attempt to substitute mere 
 beneficence for community of goods did not suc- 
 ceed without a struggle. It was argued by the 
 stricter party that to withhold a portion was a 
 worse sin than to give nothing, and the story of 
 Ananias and Sapphira may have grown up in sup- 
 port of this view. Whatever may be its founda- 
 tion in fact, it bears clear traces, in its present 
 form, of some such polemical intention. The real 
 sin of Ananias may possibly have consisted in 
 this — that he was the first to rebel against an 
 ideal which in the nature of things was imprac- 
 ticable. His view of the social obligations of a 
 Christian was destined before long to supersede 
 that of Peter, but we need not wonder at the op- 
 position which it encountered. The change from 
 community of goods to mere liberality in giving 
 involved a radical departure from the original 
 conception of the church. 
 
 There is no reason, then, to question the trust- 
 worthiness of this part of the narrative of Acts. 
 Luke may have heightened the picture of the 
 communism of the primitive church, but the facts 
 
LIFE IN TEE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 143 
 
 may well have come to him from an authentic 
 tradition. On purely critical grounds, there is no 
 section of his history which has better claims to 
 acceptance than that which deals with the com- 
 munity of goods. The institution is described in 
 two separate passages (Acts 2 : 44-46; 4 : 34^.), 
 which bear all the marks of being fragments of two 
 different sources. It was attested, therefore, by 
 both the documents on which Luke appears to 
 have chiefly drawn for his knowledge of the ear- 
 liest days. 
 
 What was the meaning of this communism? 
 No doubt the practice of it was rendered more 
 feasible by the expectation of an almost immedi- 
 ate coming of the kingdom. Within an interval 
 that might be measured by days or weeks the 
 present order of things would come to an end, 
 and earthly possessions would cease to have any 
 value. No better use could be made of them for 
 the short time that remained than to share them 
 with the brethren, so that all might wait for the 
 return of the Lord without worldly distraction. 
 But we cannot account in this manner for the re- 
 quirement — belonging, as we have seen, to the es- 
 sence of the institution — that those who gave up 
 their wealth must withhold nothing. It seems 
 necessary to seek for the true explanation along 
 two lines: First, it was demanded of all who 
 identified themselves with the kingdom that they 
 should make a solemn renunciation of everything 
 
144 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 that belonged to the old life. Jesus himself had 
 called for this complete surrender, and his rule 
 was still insisted on. It was felt that, apart from 
 any benefit which the wealth might bring to 
 others, the sacrifice of it had in itself a religious 
 value, and an attempt to compromise, as Peter 
 impressed on Ananias, was a sin against the Holy 
 Spirit. But again, this renunciation, necessary 
 for those who professed the new faith, was brought 
 into service to the idea of brotherhood. The 
 church was representative of the new order, in 
 which all would be equal and would be animated 
 by a single spirit of love and devotion. In that 
 society of the future there could be no such thing 
 as individual possession, and the aim of the church 
 was to realise in its life now the law of the king- 
 dom. Thus the community of goods was no ac- 
 cident of primitive custom, due to the fact that 
 the disciples were still a little group of comrades 
 who lived together. It was the immediate out- 
 come of the church's consciousness of its voca- 
 tion. The heirs of the kingdom had broken with 
 the ordinances of this world, in which each man 
 held by his own, and had conformed themselves 
 to the law of the new age, when all would be 
 brethren. 
 
 In the earliest form of government and admin- 
 istration we may discern a similar effort to realise 
 in practice the inward idea of the church. The 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 145 
 
 facts, however, as given by Luke are meagre at 
 the best and cannot be accepted without careful 
 sifting. He wrote at a time when the church had 
 attained to a certain measure of organisation, in 
 the light of which he reconstructs the primitive 
 conditions. The little company of believers, held 
 together by a common enthusiasm, becomes for 
 him a regular society with stated officers and or- 
 dinances like the Pauline communities of his own 
 day. He writes, moreover, under the influence of 
 his theory as to the development of the Christian 
 mission. The twelve Apostles are regarded as a 
 sort of sacred college to which the task of the 
 propagation of the gospel has been formally in- 
 trusted. All initiative in the life of the church 
 is vested in the twelve; and if they adopt col- 
 leagues to assist them in practical affairs it is 
 only that they may keep themselves more free 
 for their higher missionary duties. At the head 
 of the twelve stands Peter. He acts as president 
 in all deliberations, and exercises a general au- 
 thority in the concerns of the church. 
 
 But while he thus adapts the facts to a given 
 theory, Luke is sufficiently faithful to his sources 
 to afford us at least some glimpses into the true 
 nature of the primitive organisation. It is evi- 
 dent, on his own showing, that the church recog- 
 nised no official leadership. On the contrary, 
 pains were taken to insure that all the members 
 should rank as equal and be admitted to their 
 
146 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 share in the direction of the common life. No 
 matter of importance was decided without a 
 meeting of the whole community. These as- 
 semblies must have been increasingly difficult to 
 convene as the number of the converts grew, but 
 no decision was valid until it had thus received 
 the general consent. In view of this power exer- 
 cised by the assembly, the primitive church has 
 sometimes been described as a pure democracy, 
 and the description is a just one in so far as we 
 must reckon, here as elsewhere, with the idea of 
 brotherhood. But the authority to which the 
 church submitted was not in the last resort that 
 of the assembly, or of some leader or body of 
 leaders, but that of the living Spirit. Sometimes 
 the will of the Spirit was ascertained by the cast- 
 ing of lots in the presence of the assembly. More 
 usually it revealed itself in the process of earnest 
 deliberation, after prayer had been offered for the 
 guidance of the higher power. Certain individual 
 men were acknowledged to be " full of the Spirit," 
 and to the counsels of such men a predominant 
 weight was given. But obedience was rendered 
 not to the men but to the Spirit that uttered itself 
 through them; and the Spirit, while it made use 
 of special instruments, was the possession of the 
 whole community. Before any deliverance could 
 be accepted as from the Spirit, it had to commend 
 itself to the mind and conscience of all. 
 
 What, then, was the position occupied by the 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 147 
 
 twelve in this self-governing community? It is 
 evident that they were invested with no formal 
 authority, as Luke would appear to suggest. 
 That a special consideration should attach to 
 them was only natural, for they were not only the 
 chosen companions of Jesus but the representa- 
 tives of the church in its character of the new 
 Israel. The first action of the community, on its 
 reassembling at Jerusalem, was to fill the vacant 
 place of Judas so that the significant number of 
 twelve might be again complete. But while they 
 thus enjoyed a certain precedence, it rested wholly 
 on sentiment and carried with it no prerogative. 
 Concerning all of them, except two or three, the 
 record is entirely silent, from which we may gather 
 that they remained in the background, exercising 
 little or no influence in the counsels of the church. 
 The prestige belonging to the original twelve did 
 not entitle to a place of leadership unless it was 
 conjoined with special gifts of personality. 
 
 The belief that the Twelve formed an inner 
 group which directed the life of the community is 
 no doubt due in part to the later confusion be- 
 tween the personal disciples of Jesus and the 
 Apostles. At what time the word "Apostle" 
 came into use we cannot tell. Paul employs it in 
 connection with one of the appearances of the 
 risen Christ, but most probably he avails himself 
 by anticipation of the convenient term in order 
 to include James and other notable disciples with 
 
148 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the twelve. From the literal meaning of the word 
 we should naturally infer that it was first adopted 
 when the mission had commenced and denoted 
 those who were set apart for missionary work. 
 For such work the highest kind of spiritual en- 
 dowment was necessary, and the men chosen 
 would be those who stood first in the estimation 
 of the church. But whatever may have been the 
 origin of the name it was evidently not restricted 
 to the twelve. They may have ranked as Apos- 
 tles by a sort of prescriptive right, but others took 
 their place beside them or above them. From 
 incidental notices in Paul's writings alone* it is 
 possible to draw up a considerable list of "apos- 
 tles" who were not numbered with the twelve. 
 So far as there was a group of leaders in the church, 
 it consisted of these apostles, but their authority 
 was not formal or official. They were simply the 
 men who were marked out by an exceptional gift 
 of the Spirit for work of peculiar importance. In 
 accepting their leadership the church in no way 
 sacrificed its independence, for it was conscious 
 all the time of obeying the Spirit, of which they 
 were the instruments. 
 
 During the first years at Jerusalem a unique 
 position was occupied by Peter. A subsequent 
 age could only explain his pre-eminence on the 
 ground that Jesus himself had commissioned him 
 
 * Cf. Gal. 1 : 19; I Cor. 9:6; II Cor. 8 : 23; Romans 
 16 : 7; I Cor. 12 : 28. 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 149 
 
 to take the place of overseer in his church.* Of 
 such a commission, however, the earlier history 
 knows nothing. It represents Peter as at first 
 the leader among the Apostles, and then as gradu- 
 ally declining in influence until he entirely dis- 
 appears behind James, on the one hand, and Paul, 
 on the other. Indeed, the case of Peter illus- 
 trates for us in the most striking fashion the true 
 nature of the primitive control. Peter held au- 
 thority not by formal appointment or as president 
 of the twelve but in virtue of his personal gift, 
 and he retained it only so long as that gift was 
 indispensable. Without any outstanding qual- 
 ities of will or intellect he possessed in the fullest 
 measure that enthusiastic faith which is the one 
 thing needful at the beginning of a great move- 
 ment. As the most ardent of the disciples, Peter 
 assumed the leadership, but it was never allowed 
 to harden into a settled authority. As the con- 
 ditions changed, men of other gifts came forward 
 and directed the life of the church. Its loyalty 
 was pledged to no individual leader, but only to 
 the Spirit which was ever revealing its will by a 
 new voice. 
 
 Thus, in the government of the church, as in the 
 community of goods, an endeavour was made to 
 give practical effect to the idea of brotherhood. 
 Jesus himself had established no order of prece- 
 dence in his band of disciples, but had declared 
 * Matt. 16 : 18, 19. 
 
150 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 that the whole system of ranks and dignities be- 
 longed to the former age and must now pass away. 
 On this principle the new society based itself. 
 It claimed to be a brotherhood in which the law 
 of equality that would hold good in the kingdom 
 of God was already realised and which was gov- 
 erned solely by the Spirit. Inevitably there were 
 leaders, but they held no stated office. They were 
 agents of the Spirit, which was supposed to reside 
 in the whole church, although it might utter its 
 will by chosen members. At best, the leaders 
 could only offer counsel and suggestion. Before 
 their word was valid it had to commend itself to 
 all the brethren, met in assembly, as the authentic 
 utterance of the Spirit. In the first ardent days, 
 when "the multitude of those who believed were 
 of one heart and one mind," this ideal of a brother- 
 hood was capable of at least a partial fulfilment. 
 The lack of a regular organisation was more than 
 made up by the spontaneous zeal with which all 
 devoted themselves to the common cause. But 
 in the nature of things the early conditions could 
 not last. We learn in the book of Acts how, as 
 the society became larger and more heterogeneous, 
 there arose disputes and jealousies which could not 
 be dealt with except by some kind of an official 
 system. Indeed, the very effort to maintain a 
 communal principle could only result in the defeat 
 of its own object. It became more and more 
 evident that if equal privileges were to be shared 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 151 
 
 by all they must be safeguarded by a fixed order 
 of administration. 
 
 Thus far the attempt to anticipate the condi- 
 tions of the kingdom was an impracticable one 
 and had to be abandoned after a brief experiment. 
 But there was another and more fruitful result of 
 that endeavour to mould the church in accordance 
 with its inward idea. As the heirs of the future 
 kingdom the disciples were committed to a new 
 rule of life. By their mode of thought and action, 
 and their intercourse with one another and the 
 world around them, they were required to exem- 
 plify that higher law which would obtain in the 
 new age. 
 
 We do an injustice to early Christianity and 
 fail to account for its marvellous achievement 
 when we conceive of it merely as an enthusiasm, 
 inspired by the hope of a great consummation in 
 the near future. Its true character is better de- 
 scribed by the expressive name, commonly ap- ^ 
 plied to it in the first age, of "the way" — the new 
 method of life. Jesus himself had come forward 
 in his lifetime with an ethical message. To the 
 very end the mass of the people knew nothing of 
 his Messianic claim, but reverenced him as a 
 "prophet" who taught a better righteousness 
 than that of the scribes and Pharisees. The task 
 devolved on his disciples not only of asserting 
 his Messiahship but of continuing his work as a 
 
152 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 prophet. Nothing is more remarkable in the 
 Epistles of Paul than the large space which is 
 devoted to purely ethical precepts. His letters 
 in this respect, as he himself indicates, reflected 
 his oral teaching, and the practice of Paul was 
 modelled on that of the missionaries generally. 
 They treated the moral interest as a fundamental 
 one, and amidst all theological differences they 
 continued to enforce the same broad principles of 
 morality. It was this ethical consistency more 
 than anything else that preserved the unity of 
 the church through all the changes and contro- 
 versies of the first century. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus had been chiefly concerned 
 with the moral life; yet we mistake its character 
 when we think of him in some vague sense as an 
 ethical teacher. The new righteousness which he 
 taught had a direct relation to his central message 
 of the kingdom of God. In view of the approach- 
 ing advent of the kingdom he sought to effect in 
 men a "change of mind," of such a nature that 
 they should be inwardly assimilated to the new 
 order. The commandments given "to them of 
 old time" were intended only for the present age, 
 and in place of them he revealed the higher rule 
 of obedience that would hold good in the great 
 future. It is from this point of view alone that 
 we can rightly understand the morality of Jesus. 
 Many of his precepts, no doubt, have reference 
 to conditions that would pass away with the 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 153 
 
 present age, and it is not difficult, by a literal in- 
 terpretation, to dissolve them into a mere "in- 
 terim ethic." But we have to regard them as so 
 many applications to existing conditions of cer- 
 tain new principles of absolute moral validity. 
 By the following out of these principles men 
 could anticipate the law of the kingdom and do 
 God's will on earth as it is done in heaven. 
 
 When we apprehend this connection between 
 the ethical teaching of Jesus and his message of 
 the kingdom we can discern the motive which 
 quickened the eariy Christian morality. Since 
 the church was the community of the new age, \ 
 its members were required to exhibit in themselves 
 a new type of character answering to their voca- ' 
 tion. They had part in the kingdom only in so 
 far as their lives were ordered in strict accordance 
 with that higher law which would prevail in it. 
 And for their knowledge of this law they were 
 dependent on the precepts that had been laid 
 down by Jesus. We are sometimes asked to be- 
 lieve that in the fervour of the apocalyptic hope 
 the actual teaching of Jesus fell into the back- 
 ground and has only been preserved to us by a 
 fortunate accident. But the truth is that the 
 hope invested the teaching with an urgent sig- 
 nificance. Jesus, who was now the exalted Lord, 
 had himself marked out the way for his people. 
 If they would participate in the kingdom, which 
 was already on the point of dawning, they must 
 
154 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 know and accept its ordinances as he had taught 
 them. 
 
 In the early chapters of Acts nothing is told 
 us in detail of the endeavour to carry into prac- 
 tice the moral ideals of Jesus. The task which 
 the writer sets himself is to record the more 
 memorable incidents, and he takes for granted, 
 as historians are wont to do, the quiet Christian 
 activity which was all the time the chief business 
 of the church. We are reminded, however, in one 
 striking and comprehensive verse that along with 
 all the outward progress there was a building up 
 of the church from within. "They continued to 
 adhere stedfastly to the teaching of the Apostles 
 and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and 
 the prayers" (Acts 2 : 42). Four elements of the 
 church's life are here singled out as characteristic: 
 obedience to a teaching imparted by the Apostles, 
 association in a brotherhood, participation in a 
 common meal, and meetings for worship. What 
 is implied in that "persistence in the Apostles' 
 teaching" which is here given the foremost 
 place? 
 
 Several modern writers, of whom A. Seeberg* 
 is the chief representative, have taken the brief 
 statement in Acts as the corner-stone of an elabo- 
 rate theory. Reasoning from the well-known fact 
 that toward the end of the first century the can- 
 
 * "Der Kateehismus des Urchristentums " — the first of a 
 series of books in support of the same thesis. 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 155 
 
 didates for baptism were regularly instructed in 
 the main outlines of Christian belief and morality, 
 they have concluded that this custom was in force 
 from the earliest days. The Apostles drew up a 
 formula or catechism — the precursor of the later 
 "Didache" — which became the norm of all Chris- 
 tian teaching and has left its traces everywhere 
 in the New Testament. If this theory could be 
 established all previous conceptions of the early 
 development would have to undergo a radical 
 revision, but the arguments against it seem to be 
 decisive. It is hardly conceivable that in the first 
 days of eager spontaneous faith the new beliefs 
 were set down in a stereotyped form. All our 
 evidence points rather to a condition of things in 
 which the beliefs themselves were indeterminate 
 and the mere expression of them could be varied 
 at will. The Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, the 
 formulae connected with the supper, these were 
 the elements of Christian tradition which would 
 most naturally have become fixed, and yet they 
 have been transmitted to us in widely different 
 versions. Until the conflict with heresy which 
 began near the close of the century, the church 
 refused to bind itself to any defined standards. 
 It was this that opened the door to controversy 
 and division. It was this, too, that made possible 
 the freedom and sincerity and the many-sided 
 development which give a unique character to 
 the thinking of the first age. But the notice in 
 
156 THE BEOINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Acts is in itself sufficiently suggestive without 
 burdening it with fanciful interpretations. It in- 
 forms us that from the very outset an important 
 place was assigned to the work of teaching; that 
 is, to some kind of regular instruction as distin- 
 guished from prophetic appeal. We gather from 
 it, moreover, that this teaching imparted by the 
 Apostles was mainly concerned with the direction 
 of conduct. The members of the church "ad- 
 hered stedfastly" to the instruction given them, 
 making it their aim to follow it out faithfully in 
 their daily lives. 
 
 There is good reason to believe — indeed, this 
 conclusion is almost forced upon us — that the 
 I'jinstructions of the Apostles were based on the 
 \ precepts laid down by Jesus. As the Jewish 
 teachers communicated a tradition which they 
 had themselves acquired from a master, so the 
 disciples of Jesus transmitted his words as they 
 had heard them. The reference in Acts, as we 
 have seen, implies a rule of practice rather than 
 of belief, and the ordinary work of moral instruc- 
 tion was already undertaken by the synagogue. 
 The only teaching which the Apostles were quali- 
 fied to impart was that of the new righteousness 
 as it had been revealed by Jesus. Here, as most 
 scholars would now admit, we are to look for the 
 ultimate basis of our existing Gospels. No re- 
 sult of New Testament criticism is more certain 
 than that Luke and Matthew had access to a 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 157 
 
 collection of the sayings of Jesus, which they 
 interwove with the narrative of Mark. The view 
 is now widely accepted that this collection was 
 older than the narrative, but at whatever date it 
 was compiled it had manifestly passed through 
 a number of expansions and revisions before it 
 reached the hands of the evangelists. We may 
 conclude that a process had begun, even in the 
 earliest days, of collecting the Lord's sayings and 
 grouping them in such a manner that they might 
 be easily remembered and transmitted. That all 
 converts were instructed, as a matter of course, in 
 these maxims of Jesus may be inferred from the 
 Epistles of Paul as well as from the Gospels. 
 Apart from the direct echoes of Gospel sayings, 
 which can be traced in Paul — and these are far 
 more numerous than many critics have been will- 
 ing to grant — we have to consider the whole drift 
 and content of his ethical teaching. He is able 
 to assume that the principles of Christian moral- 
 ity are already known to his readers. In the light 
 of this knowledge which they have received he 
 discusses their difficulties and calls on them to 
 recognise new duties and obligations. It is evi- 
 dent that Paul, in his missionary work, was con- 
 cerned not merely with the proclamation of certain 
 beliefs but with the moulding of that type of 
 character which was required in Christian men. 
 In this part of his work, which he probably re- 
 garded as the most valuable, he followed the path 
 
158 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 marked out by Jesus. For him, as for all the 
 missionaries, Christianity was inseparable from 
 that rule of life which was handed down in the 
 teaching of the first Apostles. 
 
 The statement in the book of Acts, therefore, 
 is confirmed and illustrated by the evidence which 
 is afforded us elsewhere in the New Testament. 
 The Apostles were the missionaries of the king- 
 dom, and sought to awaken that faith in the risen 
 Christ through which alone it could be entered. 
 But along with this primary duty they were re- 
 sponsible for another hardly less important. They 
 continued the work of Jesus as a moral teacher, 
 imparting to their converts a knowledge of his 
 precepts and shaping the life of the community 
 in accordance with them. To the mind of the 
 primitive church these two duties were bound up 
 together. By the act of faith the convert identi- 
 fied himself with the new order and came hence- 
 forth within the sphere of its jurisdiction. But he 
 required to learn the nature of his new obligations. 
 He could have no true part in the future kingdom 
 unless he possessed in himself the will and dis- 
 position that were characteristic of God's people. 
 Thus it was necessary that the preaching of the 
 Christian message should be accompanied by a 
 training in the Christian life, and this could only 
 be based on the commandments of Jesus. His 
 words were treasured and handed down as reveal- 
 ing the nature of that new righteousness which 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 159 
 
 belonged to the kingdom. It is, indeed, probable, 
 as we may gather from Paul's references to the 
 tradition, that the teaching of the Apostles was 
 not exclusively ethical. Sayings of Jesus were 
 transmitted which kept alive the hope of the 
 Parousia and seemed to throw light upon its 
 mysteries. Instruction was given in central facts 
 of the Gospel history, such as the institution of 
 the supper and the appearances of the risen Lord. 
 Stray utterances were preserved from which it 
 was possible to glean directions for worship and 
 administration and for the conduct of the mis- 
 sion, and these acquired an increasing value as 
 time went on. But the primary aim of the Apos- 
 tles was that of educating their converts in the 
 principles of Christian morality. By enforcing 
 the precepts of Jesus they endeavoured, as he 
 himself had done, to build up a community that 
 should be inwardly conformed to the life of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Toward the end of the century the idea took 
 root in the church, and developed in many unfore- 
 seen directions, that Christianity was nothing else 
 than a "new law." Jesus was regarded as a 
 greater Moses, who legislated for the new Israel, 
 and his teaching was formulated as a series of 
 binding enactments. The beginnings of this idea 
 may possibly be traced in Matthew's Gospel, 
 where the cardinal principles of the Christian 
 ethic are gathered up' in a single code, delivered 
 
160 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 from a mountain, like the Mosaic Law. To the 
 primitive age such a conception of the Lord's 
 teaching was entirely foreign, and it may be set 
 down to the relapse into a Judaistic habit of 
 mind, after the church had become organised as 
 an institution. It was not a new law that Jesus 
 had inaugurated, but a new way. Morality had 
 been based hitherto on a number of command- , 
 ments outwardly imposed, now it was identified 
 with an inward temper — a will brought into har- / 
 mony with the will of God. And in this sense the 
 teaching of Jesus was authoritative for his dis- 
 ciples. By obedience to it they sought to realise 
 that type of character which would inherit the 
 kingdom, and of which Jesus himself had been 
 the supreme example. The precepts of Jesus 
 did not exhaust the requirements of the Christian 
 life. As we know from the New Testament writ- / 
 ings, they were expanded and supplemented by 
 successive teachers and were applied in new lan- 
 guage to changed conditions. None the less they 
 remained normative for the later ethical develop- 
 ment. They supplied the constant factor, in 
 virtue of which our religion has maintained its 
 identity amidst all the changes of twenty cen- 
 turies. Before a generation had passed the the- 
 ology of the church had shaped for itself many 
 different channels; its institutions had been re- 
 modelled; its original forms of worship had given 
 place to others. But the Christian morality was 
 
LIFE IN THE PRIMITIVE COMMUNITY 161 
 
 determined, once and for ever, by the teaching of 
 Jesus. 
 
 '^t was all-important for the future of Chris- 
 tianity that its message of salvation was con- 
 joined from the first with an ethical discipline. 
 If it had stood for nothing more than the apoca- 
 lyptic hope, the church might have lasted through 
 a brief period of feverish life and then have 
 broken to pieces as the fulfilment of its dreams 
 became ever more remote and shadowy. It had' 
 come into being, however, not only as a society of 
 enthusiasts, waiting for a great crisis, but as an 
 ethical brotherhood intent on obeying the will of 
 God according to the way marked out by Jesus. ' 
 Amidst all that was visionary and extravagant in 
 its hopes, it thus secured its hold on realities. 
 The ardour which would otherwise have spent 
 itself in a vain enthusiasm was transformed into 
 the motive power for moral endeavour and vic- 
 tory. And through its fidelity to the ethical de- 
 mands of Jesus the church advanced to a truer 
 and larger comprehension of his message of the 
 kingdom. Under the apocalyptic forms which he 
 took over from the thought of his time, he had set 
 forth his ideal of a higher righteousness and a 
 life of perfect fellowship with God. By doing his 
 will his disciples learned to know of his doctrine. 
 They were disappointed in their earlier hopes 
 only to grow conscious of the true revelation 
 which had been given in Jesus Christ. 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
 BAPTISM 
 
 From its earliest days the church possessed 
 the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper, and if we could ascertain their original 
 import we should have the key to the whole 
 problem of primitive Christianity. But here, 
 perhaps more than anywhere else, we need to dis- 
 tinguish carefully between earlier and later con- 
 ceptions. On its doctrinal side a religion holds 
 fast to its essential principles, although the forms 
 in which they express themselves are constantly 
 changed. But on its ritual side the process is 
 almost always reversed. The forms of primitive 
 rites are maintained with the most jealous te- 
 nacity, but they are invested with new meanings. 
 As symbolical actions they lend themselves to a 
 wide variety of interpretation and afford an en- 
 trance to ideas which are quite alien to the orig- 
 inal worship. This, as all scholars would now be 
 willing to admit, has been the history of the two 
 Christian sacraments. Even within the first 
 generation they began to acquire new values, 
 although to all appearance they remained the 
 162 
 
BAPTISM 163 
 
 same. To the gentile mind religion was asso- 
 ciated with "mysteries," with ritual acts which 
 were supposed to effect certain inward changes; 
 and as Christianity passed into the gentile world 
 its rites assumed this character. Their meaning 
 henceforth was overlaid with mystical ideas by 
 which it was obscured or entirely cancelled. 
 
 The task of understanding these ordinances as 
 they were observed in the primitive church is 
 thus a peculiarly difficult one, for the after-de- 
 velopments which elsewhere help to elucidate 
 the initial beliefs are here a source of confusion. 
 Paul himself has little assistance to offer us in 
 the attempt to retrace the earlier tradition. With 
 his doctrine of the sacraments we enter precisely 
 that domain of his thought in which he is least 
 careful to preserve a continuity with the previous 
 teaching of the church. Sometimes he appears 
 to explain them after the analogy of pagan rites 
 in order to make certain aspects of truth more in- 
 telligible to his gentile readers. Sometimes he 
 avails himself of their imagery and suggestion for 
 the purpose of enforcing the characteristic ideas 
 of his own Iheology. In no case can we be alto- 
 gether sure that the view represented by Paul 
 has a real affinity with that of the older Apostles. 
 
 Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as the two 
 ritual observances in Christian worship, came at 
 an early time to be linked together and to be 
 
164 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 construed in the light of common ideas. Paul, in 
 a well-known passage of I Corinthians,* seems to 
 assume a necessary connection between them, and 
 makes out by means of a fanciful exegesis that 
 they both had their counterparts in God's dealings 
 with his people in the wilderness. In the Johan- 
 nine writings they appear as complementary to 
 each other — typifying, in some mysterious fash- 
 ion, the two aspects of the revelation in Christ, t 
 It was inevitable that the two ordinances should 
 thus in course of time be conjoined, and that 
 Christian thought should seek to assign to each 
 of them its distinctive function and meaning. 
 But historically they were separate rites, which 
 ■; found their way independently into the life of 
 ■ the church and were regarded differently. To 
 understand their place in the primitive commu- 
 nity it is necessary to forget their subsequent 
 correlation and to consider each of them by itself. 
 
 It may be accepted as certain that the rite of 
 baptism was not instituted by Jesus. In view of 
 the importance that was attached to it at a later 
 time, some account of its origin would undoubt- 
 edly have been included in the Gospel history if 
 there had been anything in the work of Jesus 
 which might be so interpreted. As it is, the com- 
 mand to baptise only finds a place in a closing 
 verse of Matthew's Gospel, which bears all the 
 
 * I Cor. 10 : 1 #. t John 19 : 35; I John 5 : 6-8. 
 
BAPTISM 165 
 
 marks of a later ecclesiastical addition. The 
 fourth evangelist, with all his predilection for 
 sacramental doctrine, expressly admits that Jesus 
 himself did not baptise, although he adds, in a 
 somewhat confused and inconsequent fashion, 
 that the rite was performed by his disciples.* 
 But, while Jesus thus refrained from any cere- 
 monial expression of his message, he had himself 
 undergone baptism at the hands of John. It is 
 more than probable that several of his disciples 
 had similarly been baptised by John before they 
 threw in their lot with the new teacher. The way 
 had thus been prepared in Jesus' own lifetime 
 for the adoption of the rite within the Christian 
 church. 
 
 It was so adopted, if we may trust our records, 
 at the very commencement. On the day of Pente- 
 cost, according to the story in Acts, three thou- 
 sand converts were admitted by baptism, and al- 
 though we may regard this particular incident as 
 legendary, we have no reason to doubt the implied 
 assertion that there had never been a time when 
 the church did not administer baptism to its 
 converts. The evidence of Acts is fully supported 
 by the allusions to primitive custom which are 
 scattered through Paul's Epistles. In two differ- 
 ent passages the Apostle indicates that he him- 
 self had been baptised as a matter of course after 
 his conversion.t He takes for granted that the 
 
 * John 4 : 1, 2. 1 1 Cor. 12 : 13; Romans 6 : 3. 
 
166 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 rite was in universal use among the Christian 
 communities, and his fullest references to it are 
 in the Epistle to the Romans, addressed to a 
 church which he had not personally visited and 
 which probably represented, more than any other, 
 the normal practices and traditions. Everywhere 
 in the New Testament baptism is accepted without 
 question as an ordinance that has always been 
 valid — an ordinance that belongs to "the first 
 principles of the doctrine of Christ."* 
 
 How are we to explain this early adoption of 
 an observance for which there was no sanction in 
 the commandment of Jesus himself? The ques- 
 tion can be partly answered from what we know 
 of the religious customs of the time. In all the 
 contemporary religions the ritual element was of 
 primary importance, and rites of purification, 
 based on the natural symbolism of cleansing by 
 water, were more widely practised than any 
 others. Judaism itself was largely concerned with 
 lustrations of various kinds, and in at least one 
 Jewish sect, that of the Essenes, baptism played 
 a cons icuous part. The closest analogy in 
 Judaism to the Christian rite was the baptism of 
 proselytes; and this has been singled out by many 
 scholars as the immediate model adopted by the 
 church. As aliens were admitted into the com- 
 monwealth of Israel by means of a baptism, so a 
 like ceremony was employed in receiving converts 
 * Heb. 6 : 1. 
 
BAPTISM 167 
 
 into the new Israel. One objection, however, 
 seems fatal to this derivation of the Christian 
 from the Jewish rite. The baptism of proselytes 
 was intended ior gentiles, and from this point of 
 view its whole significance must be explained. 
 Their connection with false gods and forbidden 
 customs was supposed to have left on the prose- 
 lytes a stain of defilement which could only be 
 washed away by a solemn act of purification. 
 But in the days when baptism was first adopted 
 by the church it was administered solely to Jewish 
 converts. We cannot for a moment conceive that 
 Jews would have submitted to a rite which as- 
 similated them to the heathen, and it would have 
 been contrary to the central interest of the church 
 to have imposed on them such a rite. As the 
 Ecclesia in which the hopes of Israel had now 
 come to fulfilment it was not at liberty to treat 
 its Jewish converts as if they were proselytes 
 from an alien faith. 
 
 The adoption of the rite may be accounted for 
 most naturally by the example and influence of 
 John the Baptist. Before Jesus had yet appeared 
 John had proclaimed the coming of the kingdom, 
 and had offered a "baptism for the remission of 
 sins" in view of the imminent crisis. This bap- 
 tism of John was closely related to his message 
 and has doubtless to be explained in the light of 
 the apocalyptic tradition. It had been assumed 
 from the time of the prophets onward that the 
 
168 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 kingdom was reserved for the righteous and that 
 a cleansing from sin was the necessary condition 
 of entering it. John offered his baptism to those 
 who sought to undergo this cleansing. It was 
 administered after a profession of repentance, 
 and to this extent was a purely symbolic rite be- 
 tokening an inward moral change. But it is 
 hardly possible to doubt that John attributed a 
 real validity to his baptism. It conveyed a 
 guarantee to the baptised that God had accepted 
 them and had forgiven their sins. They could 
 look forward with confidence to the coming judg- 
 ment, since they had been washed in that " foun- 
 tain for sin and for uncleanness"* which God had 
 promised to open for his people in the latter days. 
 Why Jesus began his ministry by submitting 
 to the baptism of John is a problem which has 
 baffled all conjecture from the time of the evan- 
 gelists until now. Perhaps the knowledge of his 
 own vocation had not yet awakened in him, and 
 he came to the baptism simply as one of the faith- 
 ful in Israel who sought to fit themselves, by this 
 cleansing rite, for participation in the kingdom. 
 Or perhaps his true motive was that suggested in 
 the record of Matthew : " Thus it becometh us to 
 fulfil all righteousness." In a solemn and em- 
 phatic manner he identified himself with the 
 hopes of his countrymen and acknowledged the 
 divine commission of John. But, although he 
 * Zech. 13 : 1. 
 
BAPTISM 169 
 
 was himself baptised, it is clear that he regarded 
 the rite as of secondary importance and did not 
 require it of those who desired to join his fellow- 
 ship. Some of his disciples may have come over 
 to him from John, but the greater number were 
 of his own choosing and were accepted on the 
 ground of faith alone. This dispensing with a 
 rite which had now become so closely associated 
 with the hope of the kingdom can only be ex- 
 plained as deliberate. With a profound instinct 
 he avoided all confusion of his moral and spiritual 
 demands with mere ceremonial practice. But 
 while he discarded the rite he sanctioned the idea 
 embodied in it — that the kingdom was for the 
 righteous and could only be entered by way of 
 repentance and the forgiveness of sin. Some- 
 times he speaks as if a "change of mind" itself 
 carries with it the assurance of divine forgive- 
 ness. The prodigal has only to arise and turn to 
 his father, and can feel in that very act that he 
 will be pardoned and accepted. Elsewhere he 
 seems to regard forgiveness as a special gift which 
 he himself has the right to bestow in the name of 
 God. "Thy sins be forgiven thee" is his con- 
 stant formula when he wishes to impart the bless- 
 ing which he values most. Jesus insisted, like 
 John, that sin must be forgiven before a man 
 could enter the kingdom; but as John had con- 
 veyed this forgiveness by an impressive rite, so 
 Jesus communicated it by his word. 
 
170 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Here, most probably, we are to look for the 
 ultimate reason for the adoption of baptism by 
 the church. Jesus had not enjoined it — indeed, 
 had purposely refrained from it— yet it connected 
 itself with a well-marked element in his own 
 teaching. He had declared that no man could 
 enter the kingdom unless he repented and became 
 like a little child, and had pronounced his word of 
 forgiveness over those whom he received. After 
 his death, when new converts sought admission 
 into the brotherhood, the disciples were anxious 
 to maintain the conditions which had been re- 
 quired by Jesus himself. But how was it now 
 possible to meet these conditions? Jesus had be- 
 stowed the gift of forgiveness in virtue of a special/ 
 authority, exercised by him as the divinely ap-l 
 pointed Messiah. The disciples could claim no' 
 such authority. They shrank from arrogating 
 to themselves a power which was recognised by 
 Jewish piety as belonging to God only. In their 
 perplexity they fell back on the rite instituted by 
 John. He had introduced it as a standing ordi- 
 nance, available henceforth for all who offered 
 themselves for the kingdom. After his own 
 death, as we know from several references in the 
 book of Acts, it was continued as a matter of 
 course within the sect that called itself by his 
 name. The disciples of Jesus, likewise, took over 
 the baptism of John as an ordinance given by 
 God for the remission of sins. 
 
BAPTISM 171 
 
 To our minds the adoption of baptism is apt 
 to appear as a startling innovation in Christian 
 practice. Jesus had scarcely departed when his 
 gospel was allied with an external rite, analogous 
 to those which obtained in many forms of heathen 
 worship. From this alone it has been inferred 
 that alien influences must have been at work from 
 the first, profoundly modifying the character of 
 the new religion. But in view of the precedent of 
 John a theory of this kind is untenable. So far 
 from regarding baptism as an innovation, de- 
 liberately adopted, we can understand how it 
 established itself of its own accord as soon as the 
 necessity arose of receiving new converts into 
 the brotherhood. It needs to be remembered 
 that the Christian movement was related to that 
 of John in a far closer manner than we commonly 
 suppose. Jesus himself had recognised John to 
 be the Elijah who was to inaugurate the series of 
 events that would culminate in the fulfilment of 
 the kingdom by the Messiah; and our Gospels 
 assume throughout that the mission of John was 
 an integral part of the history that followed.* 
 John was not merely a forerunner, whose work 
 was absorbed in that of Jesus, but had his own 
 significance for the kingdom, and his words and 
 acts continued to be authoritative. Thus, it is 
 not diflScult to explain how his peculiar rite passed 
 over, almost as a matter of course, into the Chris- 
 * Cf. also Acts 1 : 5; 10 : 37. 
 
172 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tian church. Although it had not been practised 
 by Jesus, it was yet one of the institutions of that 
 new movement of which Jesus had been the cen- 
 tral figure, and the reversion to it was easy and 
 natural. At the same time, a distinction seems 
 to have been preserved, in the primitive age, be- 
 tween the essential message of Jesus and this 
 concomitant rite which he had not directly sanc- 
 tioned. Paul undoubtedly placed a high estimate 
 on baptism and, by associating it with several of 
 his central doctrines, contributed not a little to- 
 ward the heightening of its significance in the 
 later church. Yet he declares in a remarkable 
 passage that he had purposely refrained from ad- 
 ministering the rite, "for Christ sent me not to 
 baptise, but to preach the gospel."* He recog- 
 nised, apparently, that baptism in itself was a 
 liturgical act, depending for its worth on the in- 
 ward spiritual change which it represented. His 
 work as an Apostle was to effect the inward 
 change, and to this work he confined himself, lest 
 he might create a dangerous confusion in the 
 minds of his converts. In the custom thus fol- 
 lowed by Paul we have indications of a feeling 
 which he probably shared with the other Apos- 
 tles. While they adopted baptism as an indis- 
 pensable rite, they were conscious that Jesus 
 himself had not required it. In spite of all the 
 sacredness with which it was gradually invested, 
 * I Cor. 1 : 17. 
 
 / 
 
BAPTISM 173 
 
 the sense remained that it had come in from the 
 outside and was alien to the essential gospel. 
 
 If the Christian ordinance of baptism was de- 
 rived from that of John we can hardly be wrong 
 in assigning to it the same fundamental import. 
 In its later as in its earlier phase it was "the 
 baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." 
 The kingdom of God was destined for the right- 
 eous, and before men could hope to participate in 
 it they needed to be cleansed from the defilement 
 of the old life. An opportunity was provided in 
 baptism whereby they might thus break with the 
 past and obtain the assurance of forgiveness. 
 That this was the original purpose of the rite is 
 clearly implied in various references to it in the 
 book of Acts. " Repent and be baptised everyone 
 of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remis- 
 sion of sins." * "Arise and be baptised, and wash 
 away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." f 
 At the time when Acts was written the mystical 
 ideas of baptism had become generally current, 
 and notices like these can only be explained as 
 reminiscences of an earlier and simpler concep- 
 tion. Traces of it may be discovered in those 
 very passages of Paul's writings which prepare 
 the way for a more advanced doctrine. Baptism, 
 as Paul conceives it, is, in the first instance, a 
 "washing," a "rising into newness of life." J 
 
 * Acts 2 : 38; c/. 3 : 19. t Acts 22 : 16. 
 
 J I Cor. 6 : 11; Romans 6 : 4. 
 
174 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 His further speculations as to its meaning are all 
 influenced and in some degree suggested by this, 
 its primary significance. 
 
 Christian baptism, however, was recognised to 
 be something more than the baptism of John. 
 Although outwardly the same and interpreted in 
 the same general fashion, the rite had become a 
 new one and had received a larger import now 
 that it had been adopted into the life of the church. 
 This is brought out emphatically in the curious 
 passage in Acts which tells how the disciples of 
 John whom Paul found at Ephesus were required 
 to undergo a second baptism. The rite as they 
 had previously known it was incomplete and had 
 to be repeated in another form before they could 
 be admitted into the Christian community. We 
 learn from the same passage how the new ordi- 
 nance was differentiated from the older one. It 
 was administered "in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus," and its higher validity was bound up, ap- 
 parently, with the use of this formula. At a 
 period subsequent to the apostolic age the three- 
 fold name was substituted in baptism for the 
 name of Jesus. The beginnings of this later 
 usage can be traced in certain passages of the 
 New Testament itself, and it is formally adopted 
 in the concluding verses of Matthew's Gospel. 
 But from the book of Acts and the Pauline Epis- 
 tles it is abundantly clear that the primitive 
 church knew only the simpler formula, and even 
 
BAPTISM 175 
 
 so late as the "Didache" it is assumed that this 
 alone is necessary. What, then, was the meaning 
 of this administration of baptism "in the name of 
 Jesus"? 
 
 The importance of this question was not fully 
 appreciated till recent years, and no general agree- 
 ment has yet been reached as to the answer that 
 should be given to it. Hitherto the inquiry has 
 taken its direction, for the most part, from the 
 various analogies which have been discovered in 
 Hellenistic usage. The suggestions thrown out by 
 Deissmann and other philologists have given rise 
 to an entirely new theory of primitive baptism, of 
 which Heitmiiller, in his various works, has made 
 himself the chief exponent.* According to this 
 theory, the formula "in the name" or "into the 
 name" of Jesus (the two expressions seem to be 
 practically synonymous f) must be regarded as 
 pointing back to magical ideas inherited from the 
 beliefs of prehistoric times. A name stood for 
 the person who bore it, and he was supposed to 
 be himself, in some manner, present when his 
 name was pronounced. In the case of divine 
 beings, more especially, a mysterious virtue was 
 
 * Heitmuller, "Im Namen Jesu"; "Taufe und Abendmahl 
 im Urchristentum." 
 
 t The most usual and probably the oldest formula is 
 Pawrfl^siv eie xb 8vo[ia. This gradually falls into disuse, and 
 gives place to Iv T(p 6v6[j.octc, or iiA xij) 6v6\i.azi. Too much 
 weight must not be given to the preposition. In all three 
 cases it seems to indicate little more than a mention of the 
 name accompanying the act. 
 
176 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 attributed to the name. He who invoked it or 
 carried it engraved on an amulet was brought 
 into a personal relation to the god and could rely 
 on his protection. This, then, it is argued, was 
 the primary meaning of the invocation of the 
 name of Jesus in the ceremony of baptism. The 
 person over whom the name was pronounced 
 entered into a fellowship with Jesus, who shielded 
 him henceforth from the assaults of evil powers. 
 In like manner, too, he passed over into the pos- 
 session of Jesus. The mention of the name de- 
 noted a solemn act of transference whereby he 
 surrendered himself wholly to the new Master. 
 In confirmation of this view of the baptismal for- 
 mula, appeal is made to many striking parallels 
 in contemporary language, as we have learned 
 to know it from recently discovered documents 
 of common life. Property conveyed by title- 
 deeds was made over "into the name" of him 
 who had purchased it. The legionary was bound 
 to obedience by taking his oath "into the name" 
 of the emperor. Apart from such collateral 
 evidences, the view is supported to some extent 
 by the thought and language of the New Testa- 
 ment itself. It is uniformly assumed that by 
 baptism "in the name of Jesus" the believer has 
 made a surrender of his own will and henceforth 
 belongs to Jesus as his "bondsman" or posses- 
 sion. With this primitive conception of the mean- 
 ing of baptism the Pauline doctrine of the mys- 
 
BAPTISM 177 
 
 tical union with Christ is closely connected. The 
 relation of ownership implied in the rite is con- 
 strued by Paul as one of personal communion in 
 which the believer identifies himself with Christ. 
 
 The theory has called attention to aspects of 
 primitive baptism which have been unduly neg- 
 lected or misunderstood, but there are several 
 considerations that seem to render it untenable. 
 (1) It rests on the assumption that the one im- 
 portant matter in baptism was the pronouncing 
 over the convert of the name of Jesus. The rite 
 itself is forgotten or becomes a mere accessory, 
 almost superfluous, to the invocation of the name. 
 Now, it may be granted that this invocation was 
 the peculiar mark of Christian baptism, but all 
 our evidence proves that the actual rite was the 
 essential thing. The mention of the name, how- 
 ever we may explain it, was intended to complete 
 the rite and define more closely its scope and 
 character. No theory can be satisfactory unless 
 it deals with the conception of baptism as a whole. 
 The solemn act and the accompanying words 
 were blended together, and the meaning of both 
 of them was vitally affected by this combination. 
 
 (2) It imputes to early Christianity a mode of 
 thinking which was alien to its true character. 
 Passages can, no doubt, be adduced from the New 
 Testament in which a magical value seems to be 
 attributed to the name of Jesus — as when it is 
 used in the Gospels for the purposes of exorcism 
 
178 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 or by Peter in the book of Acts for the healing of 
 the lame man. Even in these cases it may be 
 questioned whether a magical effect is contem- 
 plated, but, however this may be, it is only fair 
 to recognise that healings and exorcisms were in a 
 class by themselves. According to the belief of 
 the time, diseases, especially those of a nervous 
 order, were due to demonic agency and had to be 
 combated by magical means. If the Christians 
 shared the popular belief and substituted the 
 name of Jesus for the divine or angelic names 
 that were commonly employed in exorcism, we 
 have no right to leap to the conclusion that magic 
 was of the essence of their religion. Against the 
 few ambiguous passages we must set the whole 
 evidence of the New Testament. Primitive Chris- 
 tianity was not a matter of incantations and ca- 
 balistic signs, but of faith in a new and living 
 power. In the rite of baptism this faith came to 
 expression, and any attempt to explain the bap- 
 tismal formula by purely magical ideas is inade- 
 quate on the face of it. The convert, dedicating 
 himself to Jesus in a moment of spiritual exalta- 
 tion, must have been thinking of something else 
 than the efficacy of a mysterious name. 
 
 (3) It binds down to one narrow and excep- 
 tional meaning a phrase that had a much wider 
 significance. By diligent search among the re- 
 covered papyri it may, indeed, be shown that " in 
 the name" was occasionally used as a formula de- 
 
BAPTISM 179 
 
 noting a peculiar kind of magical transaction. 
 A few stray passages in the New Testament it- 
 self may be held to betray a similar usage. But 
 in numerous other instances, which have like- 
 wise to be taken into account, no trace of it can 
 be discovered. When Jesus describes the false 
 disciples who say " have we not prophesied in thy 
 name"; when Paul counsels his readers whatso- 
 ever they do "to do all in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus," it is evident that some larger import must 
 be attached to the phrase. We owe much to 
 modern scholars who have taught us to reinter- 
 pret New Testament terms in the light of the 
 current language of the first century, but one 
 cannot but feel that in some instances they have 
 set us on a false track. The religious vocabulary 
 of the early church was mainly borrowed from the 
 Old Testament, and scriptural turns of expres- 
 sion may often have been used, as we use them 
 ourselves, without much thought of their exact 
 meaning. It may have been so with this partic- 
 ular phrase. A hundred familiar verses in Psalms 
 and Prophets made reference to the name of God 
 and bade men trust and rejoice and hope "in 
 his name." We can understand how the phrase 
 may have been transferred to Jesus with little 
 more intention than that of enhancing his power 
 and dignity. It is significant that Paul, in sev- 
 eral passages, omits the qualifying phrase al- 
 together and speaks of being baptised "into 
 
180 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 Christ." * As the Israelites were "baptised unto 
 Moses" t — were subjected to Moses as the peo- 
 ple of his Law — so the believers had come under 
 a certain relation to Christ. It is evident that 
 for Paul the simpler phrase contains in it what is 
 essential in the longer and more formal one. To 
 be baptised "in the name of Jesus" is to "put on 
 Christ/' to submit oneself to him in unreserved 
 allegiance. 
 
 It may be suggested as not improbable that 
 the phrase has reference to the confession which 
 seems always to have formed an element in Chris- 
 tian baptism. As early as the beginning of the 
 second century this confession had assumed a 
 more extended form and was finally elaborated 
 into the so-called Apostles' Creed. But we can 
 gather from indications in the New Testament 
 that it was originally comprised in the two 
 words Kvpioi 'Irjcyoik, "Jesus is Lord." On three 
 separate occasionsi Paul repeats these words in 
 such a manner as to leave little doubt that he is 
 quoting a formula which his readers will at once 
 recognise as the standard expression of their faith. 
 Of these three passages the most instructive is 
 that in Romans. The Apostle there alludes to a 
 confession with the mouth which gives utterance 
 to the faith awakened by the word of preaching, 
 and which is summed up in the words "Jesus is 
 
 * Gal. 3 : 27; Romans 6:3. f I Cor. 10 : 2. 
 
 t Romans 10 : 9; I Cor. 12 : 3; Phil. 2 : 11. 
 
BAPTISM 181 
 
 Lord." It may be regarded as practically cer- 
 tain, in view of the whole sequence of ideas, that 
 Paul is here thinking of a declaration of faith 
 that accompanied the saving act of baptism. 
 But if the confession "Jesus is Lord" was thus 
 inseparable from the ordinance we have a clew to 
 the meaning of the vexed phrase "baptised in 
 the name of Jesus." The "name" was not the 
 personal name, employed by way of incanta- 
 tion, but the sovereign title of KvpuK. Itsis this 
 which Paul has in his mind when he speaks of 
 Jesus as bearing "the name that is above every 
 name," and we may well suppose that in ordinary 
 Christian language Jesus' "name" had the ac- 
 cepted meaning of the suprei&e title which was 
 now his. Of such a usage we seem to discern not 
 a few indications in different books of the New 
 Testament.* Baptism "in the name of Jesus" 
 consisted, therefore, in the acknowledgment of 
 Jesus as the Lord. By so confessing him the 
 convert not only declared his faith in the Messiah- 
 ship of Jesus but brought himself under a per- 
 sonal allegiance to him. From this time onward 
 he ceased to be his own, he abjured all other 
 authority by which he had formerly been bound 
 and subjected himself to Jesus in the relation of 
 servant to Lord. 
 
 This explanation of the phrase " in the name of 
 Jesus" may be suggested as simpler and more in 
 * Cf. Eph. 1 : 21; Heb. 1 : 4; Rev. 19 : 16. 
 
182 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 accordance with primitive Christian thought than 
 that which would resolve it into a magical for- 
 mula. Whether it is correct or not, it serves to 
 bring out the significance which seems always to 
 be conveyed by the phrase. To be baptised in 
 the name of Jesus is to make open confession of 
 him and to surrender oneself to his keeping and 
 authority. It was this confession of Jesus which 
 formed the characteristic mark of Christian bap- 
 tism. The disciples took over the ordinance of 
 John, regarding it, like him, as the divinely ap- 
 pointed means for the remission of sins; but they 
 associated it with the faith in Jesus. In this 
 manner they transformed it into a new rite ex- 
 pressive of the new Christian ideas. 
 
 In two ways the import of the rite was changed 
 when the confession of Jesus was made an essen- 
 tial part of it. (1) The ideas involved in the con- 
 fession were inevitably blended with those con- 
 veyed by the original rite, so that it acquired a 
 richer and more definite meaning. Baptism was 
 still an act of cleansing for the remission of sins, 
 but this cleansing was now related to the faith in 
 Jesus. He had been the mediator of the divine 
 forgiveness, and it was vouchsafed to those who, 
 by confession of his "name," had become his 
 people. A peculiar feature in Paul's doctrine of 
 baptism is his correlation, of the ordinance with 
 the death of Christ. It assumes for him the char- 
 
BAPTISM 183 
 
 acter of a dramatic act whereby the believer re- 
 peats in his own person the Lord's death, with the 
 ensuing burial and resurrection. This interpre- 
 tation has been singled out by modern writers 
 as distinctively Pauline; indeed, they have here 
 discovered the outstanding difference between 
 Paul's conception of baptism and that which pre- 
 vailed in the earlier church. But it may reason- 
 ably be conjectured that Paul is merely elaborat- 
 ing, in his own fashion, ideas which had already 
 found root in the common belief. We know from 
 Paul's own testimony (I Cor. 15 : 3) that he had 
 received as part of the existing tradition "how 
 that Christ died for our sins according to the 
 scripture"; and it is not improbable that this for- 
 giveness through the death of Christ had con- 
 nected itself in men's minds with the forgiveness 
 obtained in baptism. The words of Paul appear 
 to indicate that such a connection had already 
 been surmised. "Know ye not," he asks, "that 
 as many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ 
 were baptised into his death?"* Addressing 
 the Roman church, which he had not himself 
 evangelised, he appeals to this significance of 
 baptism as to something known; moreover, he 
 suggests that he had been conscious in his own 
 baptism of a participation in the death of Christ. 
 It has always to be remembered that Jesus him- 
 self, if we may trust our Gospel records — and on 
 * Romans 6 : 3. 
 
184 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 this point there is no valid reason to doubt their 
 evidence — attached a paramount value to his 
 death. He conceived of it as "a ransom for 
 many " — a means ordained by God for the removal 
 of all hindrances that delayed the coming of the 
 kingdom. In this conviction, impressed by Jesus 
 on his disciples, we probably have the true key 
 to much that seems otherwise inexplicable in 
 the genesis of Christian thought. If this be 
 granted, it is not difficult to understand how the 
 idea of baptism may have linked itself, almost 
 from the outset, with that of the death of Christ. 
 For the Christian, who believed that Christ had 
 offered the ransom for many, baptism did not pro- 
 cure the forgiveness of sins by some efficacy of 
 its own. It availed only for those who by con- 
 fession of Jesus were "baptised into his death." 
 
 (2) The accompanying confession not only 
 modified the original meaning of the rite but 
 added to it a new significance. By means of it 
 the convert was received into the Christian 
 brotherhood and became a participant in its ob- 
 ligations and privileges. There is no evidence 
 that the baptism of John possessed a value of 
 this kind. John gathered around him his own 
 sect of followers, which continued after his death; 
 but the submission to his baptism did not in- 
 volve membership in the sect. We gather from 
 the Gospel narrative that the majority of those 
 whom John baptised were no further associated 
 
BAPTISM 185 
 
 with him or with one another. They resumed 
 their life as ordinary Jews, except that they had 
 now undergone a special purification in view of 
 the approaching kingdom. But Christian bap- 
 tism implied the joining of a community. This, 
 indeed, was one of the essential elements in its 
 meaning — that the man who had once submitted 
 to it was incorporated henceforth in the Ecclesia. 
 In the light of the conclusions we have already 
 reached, it is not difficult to see how baptism ac- 
 quired this peculiar value. The work of Jesus, as 
 conceived by his disciples, had been that of form- 
 ing a community, a new Israel, in which the 
 promises of God would receive their fulfilment. 
 This idea of the redeemed community was pri- 
 mary in early Christian thought. The heirs of the 
 kingdom were not a multitude of separate in- 
 dividuals who had declared their faith in Christ, 
 but were bound together as a single organism 
 possessed of a common life. In order to partici- 
 pate in the life, it was necessary to be a member 
 of the body. In the new Israel, as in the old, the 
 individual was nothing apart from the whole 
 community, which was the object of God's choice. 
 We can understand, therefore, how a special 
 significance connected itself with baptism. It 
 was an act of preparation for the kingdom, and 
 was accompanied by a confession of Jesus, through 
 whom the kingdom was to come; but in this same 
 act the convert was assimilated to the church. 
 
186 THE BEGINNINOS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 In virtue of the faith he had professed he was held 
 to have secured his place in that new community 
 to which the kingdom had been promised. Here, 
 probably, we are to discover the true reason why 
 the confession required at baptism took the par- 
 ticular form of Kupto? 'Iijo-ous. The title "Lord," 
 as we have seen already, was used within the 
 church to express that attitude in which his own 
 people stood to Jesus. As distinguished from the 
 abstract title of Messiah, it carried with it the 
 acknowledgment of his sovereign right, and could 
 only be assigned to him by that community in 
 which he reigned. To confess him as "Lord," 
 therefore, implied that you took your place in his 
 community. You joined in the allegiance which 
 was rendered him by his people and claimed your 
 right in those blessings which he bestowed upon 
 them. We have no ground for supposing that 
 in the primitive age a mystical value was at- 
 tributed to baptism. It was the token of incor- 
 poration into the church because it stood for re- 
 pentance and for the open confession of a living 
 faith in Jesus. We are not even to think of it 
 as a Christian counterpart to the seal of circum- 
 cision, although at least one reference in Paul 
 would seem to indicate that thought soon began 
 to tend in this direction.* But the primitive 
 custom of admitting to the church by baptism 
 easily lent itself to a further development. The 
 *Col. 2: 11/. 
 
BAPTISM 187 
 
 rite whereby a man entered the new community 
 was construed, under the influence of heathen 
 ideas, as a rite of initiation into the mysteries of a 
 new life. 
 
 In the later New Testament period baptism is 
 connected above all with the work of the Spirit. 
 It is assumed that in the moment of baptism the 
 higher power takes possession of a man's nature, 
 effecting in him a change so radical that it may 
 be described as a new birth. To the fourth evan- 
 gelist "water and the Spirit" are two elements 
 that work together — the Spirit communicating it- 
 self, in a manner that cannot be traced or defined, 
 through the material act of baptism. Not a few 
 modern writers have attributed a similar doctrine 
 to Paul and have even given it a cardinal place 
 in his theology. The evidence they adduce is far 
 from convincing, but it may at least be admitted 
 that in more than one striking passage Paul 
 brings the work of the Spirit into close relation to 
 baptism.* How far did it belong to the primitive 
 conception of the rite that, by means of it or 
 simultaneously with it, the gift of the Spirit was 
 imparted? 
 
 The question is dIflBcult to answer; for when our 
 
 records were composed the connection of the 
 
 Spirit with baptism had become a settled belief 
 
 in the church. Luke assumes that the difference 
 
 * I Cor. 6 : 11; 12 : 13. 
 
188 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 between the earlier and the later baptism con- 
 sists in this : that John baptised with water only, 
 while the Christian baptism was accompanied 
 with the Spirit.* To Peter's summons at Pente- 
 cost, " Repent and be baptised every one of you," 
 he adds, as a matter of course, "and ye shall re- 
 ceive the Holy Spirit." f Luke's own position is 
 so clear that the more significance must be at- 
 tached to certain passages in which baptism and 
 the gift of the Spirit appear as two separate ex- 
 periences. In the story of Cornelius we are told 
 how the Spirit descended on the believing gen- 
 tiles, and Peter accepts this as a sign from God 
 that baptism may now be administered. J Else- 
 where the Spirit is bestowed after baptism, either 
 as a direct gift from heaven or by the symbolic 
 action of the laying on of hands. § Even in pas- 
 sages where he assumes the coincidence of baptism 
 with the gift of the Spirit, Luke cannot wholly 
 conceal the traces of a prior tradition. The dis- 
 ciples of John at Ephesus are baptised by Paul 
 for the express reason that they may receive the 
 heavenly gift of which they have hitherto been 
 completely ignorant. But they only receive it 
 after the rite has been performed, when Paul has 
 laid his hands upon them. II Their baptism, ap- 
 parently, had conferred on them not the gift it- 
 
 * Acts 1 : 5; 11 : 15-18; 19 : 1-7. f Acts. 2 : 38\ 
 
 t Acts 10 : 44 #. § Acts 8 : 16, 17. 
 
 II Acts 19 : 1-7. 
 
BAPTISM 189 
 
 self but some new capability whereby they could 
 respond to it. 
 
 It would appear, therefore, that in the earlier 
 belief, of which we have reminiscences in the book 
 of Acts, there was no intrinsic connection between 
 baptism and the imparting of the Spirit. Even 
 if no such direct evidence had been preserved to 
 us, we might have inferred that the two experi- 
 ences were originally separate. Baptism, in spite 
 of the important place which it always occupied, 
 was by its nature a ritual act, formal and deliber- 
 ate. The gift of the Spirit was something that 
 came spontaneously, and no mode or time could 
 be prescribed for its manifestation. In the first 
 age, when the mood of enthusiasm was still fresh 
 and real, the distinction between the formal rite 
 and the sudden inrush of the Spirit must have 
 been so evident that no one could think of identi- 
 fying them. The doctrine that they took place 
 together is obviously the product of a later time, 
 when the Spirit had partly lost its former char- 
 acter and was conceived of as a silent power 
 operating constantly in the Christian life. 
 
 But, although the later view of the significance 
 of baptism must be regarded as foreign to primi- 
 tive Christian thought, we can see how it devel- 
 oped itself out of conditions that were present 
 from the first. Something must be allowed, on 
 the one hand, to psychological causes. Baptism 
 was a ritual act and had no necessary connection 
 
190 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 with the manifestations of the Spirit. Yet it 
 marked for the convert the most sacred moment 
 of his life, when he definitely broke with the past 
 and surrendered himself to Jesus as his Lord. 
 On this occasion of all others he would be over- 
 powered by religious emotion. In many cases it 
 would find utterance in those strange outcries 
 which were supposed to witness to the Spirit. 
 Even if phenomena of this kind were absent, the 
 moment would be remembered as one of vision 
 and exaltation. A Christian who reflected on his 
 experience and tried to determine when he had 
 first been conscious of the Spirit might naturally 
 conclude that it had come upon him in his bap- 
 tism. This belief would suggest itself the more 
 readily if the story of the baptism of Jesus, as 
 recorded in our Gospels, formed part of the primi- 
 tive tradition. If the details of the story were 
 added later, we may explain them from a reading 
 back into the life of Jesus of an experience which 
 was familiar to his disciples. The moment of 
 baptism was one of consecration when they could 
 feel as if the heavens had opened and the Spirit 
 were descending on them. But, apart from these 
 psychological reasons, we can account for the new 
 significance which gradually attached itself to 
 baptism and displaced the earlier conceptions. 
 By the confession of Jesus in baptism the convert 
 passed over into the church. He was a member 
 henceforth of that new community on which the 
 
BAPTISM 191 
 
 Spirit had been bestowed, and as such he partici- 
 pated in the common life. His baptism in itself 
 might be a formal rite, unaccompanied by any 
 working of the higher power; but, in so far as he 
 was now incorporated within the church, he was 
 endowed with the Spirit. At any time it might 
 openly declare its presence; but even if these mani- 
 festations were lacking he could feel that he pos- 
 sessed it, since he was one with the spiritual com- 
 munity. Thus the later doctrine of baptism, alien 
 as it was to the original meaning of the ordinance, 
 may be said to have brought to a focus those 
 primitive ideas which have met us constantly in 
 the course of our inquiry. The church, as the 
 community of the kingdom, was endued with the 
 Spirit, which was to be poured out in the new age. 
 This power was bestowed not on the individuals 
 in whom it might specially reveal itself but on 
 the church as an organic whole; all members of 
 the body had their share in the life of the body. 
 It followed that the gift of the Spirit was im- 
 parted to each believer from the moment of his 
 entrance into the church. The baptism with 
 water was at the same time a baptism with the 
 Spirit. There was no thought of this identifica- 
 tion in the minds of the earlier Apostles, but it 
 was logically involved in their conception of the 
 church. 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 
 THE lord's supper 
 
 The rite of baptism, although it expressed ideas 
 which could find their sanction in the teaching 
 of Jesus, was not directly instituted by him. It 
 marked a reversion from his own practice to that 
 of his predecessor; and, in spite of the cardinal 
 place which it soon occupied, it was recognised, / 
 even by Paul, as something accessory to the 
 gospel. But in the Lord's Supper the church 
 claimed to possess an ordinance which Jesus him- 
 self had bequeathed to it at the supreme moment 
 of his life. From the beginning this ordinance 
 was the chief bond of union in the Christian 
 brotherhood and the central act of its worship. 
 What was the significance originally attached to 
 the Lord's Supper? This question, more, per- 
 haps, than any other, is crucial for our whole 
 inquiry into the character and beliefs of the early 
 church. 
 
 Here, however, to an even greater extent than 
 
 in the case of baptism, we have to reckon with a 
 
 confusion due to the intermingling of earlier and 
 
 later ideas. The Supper was in itself a richer 
 
 192 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 193 
 
 and more suggestive rite than baptism, and the 
 circumstances of its origin had lent it a pecu- 
 liar consecration. As time went on it gathered 
 around it new meanings, derived from the deep- 
 ening thought and experience of the church, and 
 these interpretations cannot be separated with 
 any certainty from the original conceptions to 
 which, in many cases, they may have been nearly 
 allied. Moreover, the doctrine of the Supper 
 yielded itself in an almost unique fashion to 
 modification by alien influences. The sacred 
 meal was a well-marked feature in all the con- 
 temporary religions — so much so that Paul, in 
 the very effort to differentiate the Supper from 
 the kindred observances of heathenism, is led un- 
 consciously to think of them in similar terms (I 
 Cor. 10 : 21). There can be little doubt that in 
 the process of the gentile mission the conception 
 of the Supper was influenced in several directions 
 by mystical ideas native to the heathen cults, 
 and these ideas entered so deeply into its sub- 
 stance that we find it almost impossible to detach 
 them. At the same time there is a danger, to 
 which modern criticism has too readily succumbed, 
 of unduly narrowing the original import of the 
 Supper by an exclusive emphasis on the later in- 
 fluences. The possibility has always to be borne 
 in mind that their action, for the most part, 
 was subsidiary. Instead of creating a new sig- 
 nificance for the rite they may only have accen- 
 
194 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tuated and fostered the ideas which were vaguely 
 connected with it from the first. 
 
 It is apparent, from the evidence of the New 
 Testament itself, that the doctrine of the Supper 
 underwent profound changes in the course of the 
 first century. The fourth evangelist conceives of 
 the ordinance in a different manner from Paul, 
 and the interpretation of Paul can hardly have 
 corresponded, in all points, with that of the 
 primitive community. Some ground is thus af- 
 forded for the radical doubt which has been raised 
 more than once in modern criticism. It has 
 been maintained that the whole tradition of the 
 founding of the ordinance by Jesus is open to 
 question, and may best be explained as a myth 
 that grew up around a given practice. Chris- 
 tianity, under the influence of contemporary re- 
 ligious custom, adopted the rite of the sacred 
 meal; and this was gradually invested, as in 
 other cults, with an explanatory legend. The 
 common meal was brought into relation with the 
 history of Jesus. Its observance was traced to 
 an injunction given by him that his saving death 
 should in this manner be commemorated by all 
 succeeding time. The theory breaks down, how- 
 ever, when we examine the actual character of 
 the supposed myth. If it had been freely invented 
 to account for a perplexing religious custom, it 
 would surely have embodied some attempt to 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 195 
 
 throw light upon its meaning. As it is, the nar- 
 ratives of the Supper that have come down to us 
 are all fragmentary and obscure. So far from ex- 
 plaining the rite as it was practised in the church, 
 they cannot be reconciled with it except in a par- 
 tial and general way. The conclusion is forced 
 on us that we have not to do with a symbolic 
 legend, framed to account for an observance, but 
 with a historical fact to which the observance 
 has difficulty in adjusting itself. Apart from 
 these larger considerations, the evidence for the 
 historical character of the Last Supper is such as 
 can hardly admit of serious question, (a) The 
 facts are recorded by Paul after an interval of 
 little more than twenty years, and he claims to be 
 merely transmitting an accepted tradition, (b) 
 The narrative of Paul is one of several which 
 have been preserved to us, all of them repeating 
 the same general features although with differ- 
 ences that prove them to be independent. From 
 their divergences we can infer that they reflect 
 the practice of Christian communities widely re- 
 moved from each other j while it is manifest, in 
 view of the substantial agreement, that these 
 communities were all at one as to the origin of the 
 rite. If the incident is legendary, the legend must 
 have been invented in the very earliest days of 
 the church — at a time, that is, when the facts 
 were so vividly remembered that invention was 
 impossible, (c) When we consider the admitted 
 
196 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 circumstances of Jesus' death, his institution of 
 the Supper has an a priori possibility. He died in 
 the Passover week, when the thought of the sacred 
 meal was uppermost in the minds of all men. 
 Leaving aside for the present the difficult question 
 as to the precise date of the Last Supper, the 
 season was one in which it was natural that Jesus 
 should think of the Passover meal and avail him- 
 self of its symbolism in his farewell meeting with 
 his disciples. It may be granted that the ritual 
 feasts of the contemporary cults left their mark 
 on the later development of the doctrine of the 
 Supper; but a sober criticism cannot venture to 
 explain the Christian ordinance entirely from these, 
 in face of the obvious parallel afforded by the 
 Jewish rite of the Passover. 
 
 We may assume, then, without misgiving, that 
 the observance of the Supper was directly re- 
 lated to the example of Jesus himself. His dis- 
 ciples remembered that on the last occasion when 
 they supped with him he had made use of the 
 bread and wine which lay before bim in order to 
 express some thought that was in his mind. When 
 the Christian brotherhood was formed at Jeru- 
 salem the custom established itself, apparently 
 from the beginning, of re-enacting this farewell 
 Supper of Jesus. Unfortunately, we are told 
 nothing in detail as to the nature of the primitive 
 observance or the ideas connected with it. The 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 197 
 
 information given us in the book of Acts is all 
 comprised in two incidental references, both of 
 them occurring in the passage which describes the 
 growth of the church after the day of Pentecost, 
 (a) "And they continued stedfastly in the teach- 
 ing of the Apostles and the fellowship — in the 
 breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2 : 42). 
 (6) "And day by day, continuing stedfastly in 
 the Temple, and breaking bread at home, they 
 took their food with gladness and singleness of 
 heart" (Acts 2 : 46). Another translation of the 
 former passage is grammatically possible: "they 
 persisted in the teaching of the Apostles, and in 
 the fellowship by means of the breaking of bread, 
 and in the prayers." This rendering has been 
 adopted by some scholars, who find in it at least 
 a foothold for a special theory of the primitive 
 conception of the Supper. But there is no valid 
 reason for substituting this awkward construc- 
 tion for the plain and natural one. The author 
 contemplates not three but four characteristic 
 elements in the life of the infant church, and he 
 arranges them in two pairs: on the one hand, ac- 
 ceptance of the Christian teaching and associa- 
 tion in a common life; on the other hand, obser- 
 vance of the supper and meeting together for 
 prayer. 
 
 From these two notices in Acts, brief and 
 meagre as they are, we can draw several impor- 
 tant inferences. (1) The observance which in the 
 
198 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 later Pauline communities bore the name of " the 
 Lord's Supper" was originally known as "the 
 breaking of bread." That this phrase applies 
 not to an ordinary meal but to the specific rite 
 of the Supper is rendered certain by Luke's usage 
 elsewhere; for example, in the story of the walk to 
 Emmaus, where the Lord reveals himself to the 
 two disciples by his " breaking of bread." * It 
 is a forcing of language to conclude, as some have 
 done, that the distribution of the cup had no 
 place in the primitive ritual; for the complete 
 ordinance may well have been connoted by a 
 name that applied strictly to one part of it. Yet 
 we may fairly assume that the breaking of bread 
 was recognised as the chief part of the ordinance, 
 and this assumption is borne out by other evi- 
 dences in the New Testament. In the Emmaus 
 story already mentioned it is by the definite act 
 of breaking the bread that Jesus makes himself 
 known. The miracle of the feeding of the five 
 thousand is meant, we can hardly doubt, to bear 
 that reference to the Supper which is explicitly 
 found in it by the fourth evangelist; and it con- 
 sists in the giving of bread. This symbolic mir- 
 acle points us, likewise, to the true significance 
 of the breaking of the bread. Paul, in his desire 
 to correlate the Supper with his own theological 
 ideas, seems to regard the breaking as in some 
 way typical of the destruction of Christ's body. 
 * Cf. also Acts 20 : 7-12. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 199 
 
 But this interpretation is arbitrary and is only 
 hinted at by Paul himself. The true emphasis 
 falls on the distribution of the bread, which is 
 broken into portions that all alike may partake 
 of it. 
 
 (2) The supper was observed daily, and in 
 private houses; for this is apparently the mean- 
 ing of the somewhat ambiguous phrase kkt oIkov 
 (Acts 2 : 46). Even in the earliest days the num- 
 ber of the believers was too large to admit of a 
 meal in which all could participate together; and 
 Luke tells us, therefore, that, while a general 
 gathering took place each day in the precincts of 
 the temple, the brethren separated into groups 
 and adjourned to different houses for the purpose 
 of the Supper. From the double statement that 
 it was held daily and in a semi-private fashion, we 
 can infer that it was a social meal as well as a 
 religious ordinance. At a later period we hear 
 of two distinct meals — the agape, or feast of 
 Christian fellowship, and the eucharist. These 
 two meals seem at first to have been linked to- 
 gether and afterward to have been disjoined. 
 Their changing relation to each other forms a 
 difficult problem in early church history which 
 does not here concern us. For the apostolic age 
 seems to have recognised only one meal, which 
 underwent division at a subsequent time when it 
 was felt desirable to mark the solemn character 
 of the ritual observance by separating it from the 
 
200 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 meal as a whole. In the classic passage of the 
 eleventh chapter of I Corinthians Paul describes 
 a Lord's Supper which is at the same time a meal 
 for social fellowship. His language would seem 
 to suggest that the distribution of the bread took 
 place at the beginning of the meal and the drink- 
 ing of the cup at a later stage, "after they had 
 supped." In any case, he thinks of the obser- 
 vance proper as consecrating the whole meal, of 
 which it forms an integral part. The notices in 
 Acts reflect a similar usage, for they make no dis- 
 tinction between the daily meal and the " breaking 
 of bread" which accompanied it. How long the 
 custom continued of celebrating the Lord's Supper 
 as part of the ordinary meal we have no means 
 of determining. In the Pauline communities, al- 
 though the meal still retained its social character, 
 the daily observance had already given place to 
 a weekly one. But we have to remember that 
 the mood of the church in the initial days was one 
 of glowing enthusiasm inspired by the momentary 
 expectation of the return of Christ. Every meal 
 at which the believers held fellowship with one 
 another seemed to mark the eve of the great ful- 
 filment, and no need was felt to separate the or- 
 dinary eating and drinking from the sanctities of 
 the Lord's Supper. 
 
 (3) A further aspect of the observance, as con- 
 templated in these passages of Acts, has rightly 
 been emphasised by modern scholars. " Breaking 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 201 
 
 bread in the house-gatherings, they ate," we are 
 told, "with gladness" (Acts 2 : 46). The meal, 
 apparently, was the occasion of joyous intercourse, 
 not of such mournful reminiscence as might have 
 seemed more fitting in a commemoration of the 
 Lord's death. That the Supper continued to bear 
 this character of gladness may be gathered from 
 Paul's rebuke of the manner of its observance at 
 Corinth. It had there degenerated into a mere 
 festive banquet in which its sacred import was 
 almost entirely forgotten. The influence of the 
 pagan feasts may, no doubt, have contributed to 
 this perversion of the meal in the Greek city, but 
 in the main we may see in it the exaggeration of a 
 primitive custom. A spirit of joyful fellowship 
 had been associated with the Supper from the 
 earliest days. Conclusions of a far-reaching na- 
 ture have been deduced from this feature of 
 the observance. It has been maintained that the 
 Supper had originally no specific reference to the 
 death of Christ and that this significance was 
 imported into it at a later time by Paul.* But, 
 while it is legitimate to argue that a feast of 
 gladness cannot have been a mere commemora- 
 tion of the great tragedy, we cannot infer that it 
 was dissociated from it altogether. Jesus himself, 
 according to the Gospel record, foresaw in his 
 death the necessary transition to the victory of his 
 cause, and by means of the Supper pointed his dis- 
 * This is the view taken by Heitmuller, Spitta, R6ville, etc. 
 
202 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 ciples beyond the apparent ruin to the triumph. 
 < As they recalled the circumstances in which it had 
 : been instituted they may well have connected it 
 with the hope that sustained Jesus in the face of 
 death rather than with the death itself. This 
 was the more natural as the death had now issued 
 in the victorious resurrection which had given a 
 new meaning to the hope. Any other mood than 
 that of rejoicing must have appeared false to the 
 spirit of the ordinance as it had been conceived 
 by Jesus himself. 
 
 These, then, are the chief aspects of the Supper 
 which are brought to our knowledge by the frag- 
 mentary statements in Acts, but it is evident 
 that they have little light to throw on the cen- 
 tral question as to the meaning attached to the 
 rite by the first disciples. In order to find some 
 answer to this question it will be necessary to 
 bring the scanty data of Acts into relation with 
 the narratives of the institution of the Supper 
 and with the knowledge we have gained concern- 
 ing the character and aims of the new community. 
 
 The institution of the Supper is described by 
 all three Synoptic writers as well as by Paul in 
 the familiar passage of I Corinthians, and the 
 several accounts all vary in important respects 
 from one another. These differences seem to have 
 arisen not so much from any dissension regarding 
 the facts as from the interpretations placed upon 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 203 
 
 them in various circles. Since the ordinance con- 
 sisted of symbolic actions, the meaning of which 
 was far from self-evident, it was customary to add 
 words of elucidation, and these in the course of 
 time became interwoven with the traditional for- 
 mulae. A comparison of our extant accounts 
 sufficiently illustrates this process. Where Mark 
 simply states the fact "they all drank of it," 
 Matthew attributes to Jesus himself the command: 
 "Drink ye all of it." To the formula concerning 
 the blood of the covenant he adds the explanatory 
 clause "for the remission of sins." The words in 
 Paul's account, " Do this in remembrance of me," 
 are unknown to Mark and Matthew, and are, no 
 doubt, introduced by Paul himself to enforce the 
 intention of Jesus that the rite should be repeated. 
 How easily such additions might slip in we can 
 see from the close of Paul's narrative, where it is 
 uncertain whether Paul is appending a comment of 
 his own or continuing the words of Jesus. The 
 accretions which have thus overlaid the funda- 
 mental ritual of the Supper would probably be 
 recognised at first in their true character, but the 
 task of disengaging them is now one of extreme 
 difficulty. It would be rash to assume, with some 
 modern critics, that the rite as enacted by Jesus 
 was practically unaccompanied by any words de- 
 scriptive of its purpose, but the formulae he em- 
 ployed must have been of the simplest and briefest. 
 There could have been no room for divergent ex- 
 
204 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 planations if the authentic words had themselves 
 been fully adequate. 
 
 Our accounts differ, moreover, not only as to 
 the details of the institution but as to its whole 
 setting and occasion. Did it coincide with the 
 Passover meal or was it a new rite founded inde- 
 pendently of the Passover? It is well known that 
 in the Fourth Gospel the death of Christ is as- 
 signed to the day preceding the feast of Passover, 
 so that his last Supper with his disciples was 
 separated by a day from the Passover meal. By 
 itself the evidence of the Fourth Gospel is pre- 
 carious, and is especially so on a point like this 
 where the evangelist was tempted to indulge in 
 his favourite symbolism by making the death of 
 Jesus contemporaneous with the slaying of the 
 paschal lamb. But the Johannine date is sup- 
 ported by the inherent probabilities of the case. 
 The desire of the authorities, as Mark himself tes- 
 tifies, was to secure the removal of Jesus on a day 
 that would not clash with the solemnities of the 
 Passover feast, and there is no evidence that they 
 were hindered in the execution of their plan. In- 
 deed, a close examination of Mark's own narra- 
 tive seems to reveal a certain awkwardness and 
 inconsistency, as if some earlier tradition of a 
 supper previous to the Passover had been dis- 
 placed by the later one. It has to be recognised 
 that if John was tempted to bring the death of 
 Jesus into relation with the slaying of the lamb 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 205 
 
 the Synoptic writers may likewise have been in- 
 fluenced by a theological motive. Luke, more 
 particularly, does not conceal his anxiety that 
 the Supper should be regarded as the meal in 
 which the Passover found its true fulfilment. 
 The Jewish feast, with all that it recalled and sig- 
 nified, is now to be superseded by the real Pass- 
 over. 
 
 The problem does not admit of any definite 
 solution, and perhaps its bearings on the import 
 of the Supper are not so vital as many writers 
 have assumed. It cannot be doubted that if the 
 Supper did not actually coincide with the Pass- 
 over meal it yet took place at the Passover sea- 
 son when men's minds were occupied with the 
 thought of the sacred ordinance. To Jesus, who 
 had eagerly desired to eat this Passover with his 
 disciples before he suffered, the coming feast 
 must have appealed the more solemnly and im- 
 pressively since he knew that he would not share 
 it. The ideas associated with it, the practice and 
 symbolism of the cherished observance, would 
 naturally determine his action as he presided at 
 the Supper. On the other hand, even if we could 
 prove that the new rite sprang directly out of the 
 Passover meal, it would have to be recognised as 
 something new. Jesus did not provide a sub- 
 stitute for the Jewish feast. As a matter of fact, 
 the disciples, until after the days of Paul, con- 
 tinued to hold the Passover along with their 
 
206 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 countrymen — betraying no consciousness that the 
 daily or weekly Supper had taken its place. The 
 Supper must be regarded as an entirely new rite, 
 and any attempt to explain it as a replica or a 
 modification of the older feast can only confuse 
 us as to its purpose. None the less, it originated 
 in close connection with the Passover meal and 
 has so far to be interpreted in the light of Passover 
 ideas. The conflict of evidence concerning the 
 true date of the Last Supper serves to impress 
 on us these two facts, and they need equally to be 
 borne in mind. 
 
 The four New Testament accounts of the in- 
 stitution of the Supper fall, broadly speaking, 
 into two groups — Matthew and Mark as against 
 Paul and Luke. Matthew's divergences from 
 Mark are all of the nature of explanatory additions 
 which have little value in helping us back toward 
 a more original or even an alternative version. 
 In the case of Luke and Paul, however, we are 
 confronted with a problem the full significance of 
 which has only been appreciated in recent years. 
 Half of Luke's account (Luke 22 : 196-20) is an 
 almost exact reproduction of the parallel passage 
 in I Corinthians; the other half is independent 
 alike of the Pauline and the Marcan versions. It 
 is important to observe that this section of Luke's 
 narrative forms by itself a complete account of 
 the Supper. "And he received a cup, and when 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 207 
 
 he had given thanks he said, Take this and divide 
 it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I will not 
 drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the 
 kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, 
 and when he had given thanks he brake it and 
 gave to them saying. This is my body." The 
 verses which follow would require us to suppose 
 that the cup was reduplicated as at the Passover 
 meal. In the view of many critics,* the short text 
 of Luke is the original one, and has been supple- 
 mented from I Corinthians by some scribe who was 
 anxious to bring it into conformity with the now 
 established usage. The fact that the supplemen- 
 tary verses are wanting in manuscripts of the 
 Western type lends a considerable support to this 
 theory. Yet it must not be accepted too hastily, 
 for not only is the manuscript evidence for the 
 longer version exceedingly strong, but the intro- 
 duction of the two cups would be quite in keeping 
 with Luke's obvious desire to assimilate the Sup- 
 per to the Passover meal. It seems difficult to 
 deny, however, that there is a fusion of two sepa- 
 rate accounts, and whether it is due to Luke or to 
 some later editor is a matter of minor importance. 
 In the short text of Luke we have preserved to us 
 a third independent tradition, which has to be 
 considered along with those recorded by Paul and 
 Mark; but we cannot accept without reserve the 
 widely prevalent view that it is the oldest of the 
 * E. g., Heitmuller, Wellhausen, J. Weiss. 
 
208 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 three traditions. In a matter affecting the ritual 
 of the chief act of Christian worship, Luke's 
 preference would be given not necessarily to the 
 oldest and best-authenticated version, but to that 
 which supported the usage of his own church. 
 
 From a comparison of the various narratives 
 three facts appear to stand out concerning which 
 the tradition was unanimous: (1) that Jesus dis- ^ 
 tributed bread and wine to his disciples; (2) that ' 
 in dispensing the bread he spoke the words, "This 
 is my body"; (3) that in connection with the cup 
 he declared that he would next drink it with his 
 disciples at the Messianic banquet in the kingdom 
 of God. As regards this last point, it is true that 
 the words — in themselves so characteristic of the 
 language of Jesus — are wanting in the narrative 
 of Paul, but he adds a clause which suggests them 
 in a sort of paraphrase: "Ye do show the Lord's 
 death till he come." 
 
 The chief difficulties gather around the mysteri- 
 ous words, " This is my body, " — words which in all 
 the accounts are placed at the centre, as indicating 
 the true purpose of the Supper. From the time 
 of the Fourth Gospel onward it has been custom- 
 ary to interpret them in the terms of a mysti- 
 cal theology, and controversialists have read into 
 them all manner of impossible meanings in order 
 to force them into the service of some particular 
 dogma. Modern criticism holds aloof from these 
 prepossessions and tries to understand the words 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 209 
 
 simply in their context and in their relation to the 
 aims and conceptions of Jesus. In recent years 
 the interpretation of the words, as of the Supper 
 generally, has been largely guided by the sugges- 
 tion contained in a passage of Paul: "The cup 
 of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
 of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, 
 is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 
 For we, being many, are one loaf, one body; for 
 we are all partakers of that one loaf" (I Cor. 10 : 
 16, 17). Paul here illustrates the unity of the 
 Christian church from the symbolism of the 
 Supper. As one loaf is broken up and divided 
 among the communicants, so all have part in one 
 common life. In their diversity they yet consti- 
 tute the one body of Christ, by fellowship with 
 whom they are brought into union. A similar 
 idea seems to find expression in the eucharistic 
 prayer of the "Didache," which in all likelihood 
 is a fragment of a traditional liturgy: "As this 
 broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, 
 and being gathered together became one, so may 
 thy church be gathered together from the ends of 
 the earth into thy Kingdom." On the ground of 
 these evidences it is contended that the Supper 
 was originally a feast of brotherhood and that 
 Jesus had himself instituted it for this purpose. 
 At his farewell meeting with his disciples he gave 
 a consecration to that fellowship around a com- 
 mon table which had marked them as brethren. 
 
210 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 \ He impressed upon them that after his death they 
 ' were to remain united, conscious that they were 
 bound together in his cause and that he himself 
 was still, in some manner, present with them. 
 In this sense, it is argued, the enigmatical words 
 of the formula are to be explained. Jesus bade 
 his disciples think of the bread as the pledge and 
 the symbol of his own presence. Partaking of it, 
 they were to feel that they were still his comrades 
 and that their loyalty to the one Master was the 
 bond that united them. 
 
 This explanation of the rite and its accompany- 
 ing words has commended itself to many scholars, 
 but on the face of it appears strained and unnat- 
 ural. No ingenuity can fairly construe the words, 
 " This is my body, " as a command to observe the 
 Supper as a feast of brotherhood. Moreover, the 
 passages which are urged in proof of the theory are 
 found, on closer examination, to have little bear- 
 ing on it. Paul's reference to the "one loaf" as 
 typical of the unity of all Christians is dependent 
 on his peculiar doctrine that the church is the 
 body of Christ. By a turn of fanciful imagery 
 he finds this doctrine implied in the ritual of the 
 Supper, but he does not intend his words to be 
 taken literally. When, in the following chapter, 
 he comes to speak directly of the significance of 
 the bread, he connects it solely with the death of 
 Christ. As for the prayer in the "Didache," it 
 has only a superficial correspondence with Paul's 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 211 
 
 conception of "one loaf, one body." The idea 
 expressed in it is a purely eschatological one — the 
 bread compounded of scattered grains of corn 
 symbolising the reunion of believers in the coming 
 kingdom of God. It is, indeed, certain that the 
 Supper, from the very outset, was a bond of 
 Christian brotherhood; this has ever been one of 
 its most cherished functions in the worship of the 
 church. But this does not imply that Jesus in- 
 stituted it wholly or mainly for such a purpose. 
 We may conjecture, rather, that its meaning as a 
 bond of union was rooted in some deeper meaning 
 which was present in the mind of Jesus and which 
 was fully recognised by his first disciples. 
 
 What, then, was the primary import of the 
 Supper, the import which is somewhere hidden 
 in the central words: "This is my body"? In 
 order to discover some answer to this question 
 there are several considerations that must be 
 borne in mind. (1) Jesus was consciously on the 
 verge of his death, and the thought of it at that 
 moment must have coloured all his other thoughts. 
 His action at the Last Supper must be inter- 
 preted in the closest relation to his death. (2) t 
 The death, as he conceived it, was something more 
 than a sad separation from his companions. He 
 believed that it was divinely ordained and that 
 by means of it, in some way, the kingdom was to 
 be brought nearer. A thought of this kind is 
 plainly involved in his words describing the Supper 
 
212 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 as a prelude to the Messianic banquet. (3) The 
 Supper, whether it coincided with the Passover 
 meal or not, was affected by the thoughts and 
 memories that clustered around the Passover. 
 At this season his countrymen were observing 
 their great national festival. They were being 
 reminded anew not only that they were brethren 
 but that they were united in a high calling as the 
 chosen people of God. 
 
 When these circumstances of the Supper are 
 taken together we seem to be guided at least to 
 a probable explanation of its purpose and mean- 
 ing. Jesus was about to surrender his life in the 
 conviction that thus, according to the divine plan, 
 he would bring in the kingdom. He was to die 
 as "a ransom for many," inaugurating, by his 
 own sacrifice, a new and happier order into which 
 many would enter. And by his action at the 
 Supper he formally bestowed on each one of his 
 disciples a portion in the approaching kingdom. 
 The sacrifice he was about to make was his own 
 personal act, but he identified them with it so 
 that they might claim their share in the fulfil- 
 ment that would ensue. Partaking in this or- 
 dinance, they were adopted as heirs of the king- 
 dom. As the Passover meal was the token of 
 membership in the commonwealth of Israel, so the 
 participation in this Supper was to seal the mem- 
 bers of the new community which would come into 
 being through his death. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 213 
 
 By means of this interpretation we can dis- 
 cover in the words, "This is my body," a real and 
 intelligible meaning — a meaning, too, that fits 
 in with the historical circumstances and with the 
 teaching of Jesus as a whole. He had learned, if 
 we may trust the evidence of our Gospels, to 
 contemplate his death in the light of ideas sug- 
 gested by the prophecy of the suffering servant. 
 His body given up to death was to be accepted as 
 the "ransom" ^hich would avail for many. He 
 sought to declare to his disciples that they would 
 have their part in the "ransom," that they were 
 represented in his individual act; and this he did 
 by a symbolism that suggested itself at the mo- 
 ment. The bread that lay before him on the table 
 was something that could be divided, distributed, 
 assimilated; so was it with his body offered in 
 sacrifice. The act was his own act, but he granted 
 to his disciples that they should participate in it 
 and so obtain their share in his victory. 
 
 The words, "This is my body," have their 
 counterpart, according to our records, in another 
 saying, spoken at the distribution of the cup. 
 Mark and Paul agree, although with minor dif- 
 ferences, in assigning to Jesus the words concern- 
 ing a "new covenant," ratified in his blood, of 
 which the wine was a symbol. Before we con- 
 sider the more radical problem affecting this part 
 of the Supper narratives it may be well to de- 
 
214 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 termine how the words have to be understood. 
 What is the precise meaning of the term hiadriKr}, 
 so important for its bearing not only on the doe- 
 trine of the Supper but on the whole thought of 
 primitive Christianity? 
 
 In the ordinary Greek of the first century 
 hiaOrjKt] had undoubtedly the well-understood 
 meaning of a "will," and in recent years the at- 
 tempt has been made to establish this as the 
 normal New Testament usage.* The Supper 
 would thus become Jesus' bequest to his disciples 
 — the testament he delivers to them immediately 
 before his death. It is evident, however, that the 
 words attributed to him are an echo of those of 
 Moses, "Behold the blood of the covenant which 
 the Lord hath made with you," f and here the 
 supposed meaning is excluded. Moreover, it is 
 incompatible with the idea of a new covenant, 
 which is emphasised by Paul although omitted by 
 Mark. Even less adequate is another interpreta- 
 tion put forward to support the theory that the 
 Supper was in its essence a feast of brotherhood. J 
 The word SiadijKr}, it is argued, must be taken in 
 its sense of an "alliance," and implies nothing 
 more than that Jesus ordained a new bond to 
 unite his followers. On linguistic if on no other 
 
 *Cf. Deissmann, "Paulus," 102; DibeKus, "Das Abend- 
 mahl." 
 
 t Ex. 24 : 8. 
 
 t This view is advocated by R6ville, " Las Origines de 
 I'Eucharistie." 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 215 
 
 grounds this meaning is excluded. The sort of 
 "alliance" which is denoted by the term Siad'^icr) 
 is a formal convention between two parties, not 
 the uniting of a group of men in a bond of com- 
 radeship. In view of the religious tradition, which 
 in this case must have been decisive, we have 
 little choice but to take StadijKt] in its Old Testa- 
 ment sense of a "covenant," and the real diffi- 
 culty consists in the exact definition of the Old 
 Testament term. Originally, no doubt, its re- 
 ligious, like its ordinary, meaning was that of an 
 agreement between two parties as to their recip- 
 rocal obligations, but in the later Old Testament 
 period this idea of contract passes out of sight. 
 God's authority is absolute — he does not treat 
 with men upon conditions but simply imposes 
 his sovereign will. Thus the word comes to sig- 
 nify a declaration on the part of God whereby, in 
 accordance with his gracious purpose, men are 
 placed in a certain relation to himself.* This 
 meaning plainly underlies the classical passage in 
 Jeremiah,t to which the conception of a "new 
 covenant" must ultimately be traced. As he 
 looks forward to the promised consummation, 
 the prophet declares that Israel will at last be- 
 come God's people in very truth. Formerly they 
 had been unfaithful to the vocation he had marked 
 
 * An able discussion leading to this result will be found in 
 Behm, "Diatheke." 
 tJer. 31 :31#. 
 
216 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 out for them, but in the days to come he will 
 write his laws upon their hearts. "They shall be 
 my people, and I will be their God." In our ac- 
 counts of the Supper Jesus reverts to this pro- 
 phetic utterance, which presents in its loftiest 
 form the Old Testament expectation of the king- 
 dom. He affirms that hereafter God will bring 
 men into a new relation to him, choosing for him- 
 self a people that will realise the true destiny 
 of Israel. And as the ancient covenant was 
 ratified with a sacrifice, the blood of which was 
 sprinkled on the people, so Jesus offered the cup 
 to his disciples as "the new covenant in my 
 blood." 
 
 ^ It cannot be denied, however, that this part of 
 the Supper tradition is beset with grave diffi- 
 culties, so much so that we can hardly accept it 
 without some misgiving. (1) The whole refer- 
 ence to the blood of the covenant is omitted in the 
 short text of Luke. (2) In the Marcan version, 
 which is repeated by Matthew, the words "of 
 the covenant" are introduced awkwardly and 
 have all the appearance of a later addition (tovto 
 iariv TO alfid fwv T'^? BiaO'^KTj'i to iK'^vvvofievov vrrep 
 woW&v). (3) If the Mosaic precedent was in 
 Jesus' mind — and this is clearly suggested by the 
 formula — it is difficult to explain the drinking 
 of the cup; we should rather have expected a sym- 
 bolic act of sprinkling. (4) Jesus' reference to 
 his blood is obviously meant to be parallel to the 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPEB 217 
 
 previous reference to his "body." But if this 
 parallel had been intended by him he would not 
 have said, " This is my body, " for trw/ia is a com- 
 prehensive term denoting the whole personality, 
 but: "This is my flesh." (5) It is one of the most 
 certain data of the narrative that in connection 
 with the cup he spoke of the time when he would 
 drink the wine new in the kingdom of God. If 
 we accept the words concerning the blood of the 
 covenant we must suppose that he accompanied 
 the distribution of the cup with two separate say- 
 ings; and not only so, but that he passed over to 
 a wholly different sphere of thought and imagery. 
 When due weight is allowed to all these difficul- 
 ties we are compelled to feel that in the incident 
 of the cup the authentic tradition has been over- 
 laid by subsequent reflection. The church was 
 anxious to equate its solemn ordinance with that 
 which had ushered in the history of Israel. Like- 
 wise a sacrificial doctrine of the death of Christ 
 had gradually developed itself and reacted on 
 the theory of the Supper. It would relieve the 
 narrative of many perplexities if we supposed that 
 Jesus gave the cup simply by way of anticipation 
 of the Messianic feast. The two parts of his action 
 at the Supper would then connect with one an- 
 other in a natural sequence. By the distribution 
 of the bread he adopted his disciples into the new 
 community that would be realised through his 
 death. Then he offered them the cup as a pledge 
 
218* THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of their reunion with him as a redeemed people 
 in the kingdom of God. 
 
 NeverthelesSj it is significant that already in the 
 days of Paul the Supper had become associated 
 with the idea of the New Covenant. The words 
 of the formula may be unhistorical, but they 
 afford us an all-important clew to the meaning 
 attached to the Supper by that primitive church 
 which stood in immediate relation to Jesus. In 
 language borrowed from the Old Testament the 
 church expressed what it believed to be his es- 
 sential purpose in the institution of the rite. He 
 was aware that by his death fulfilment would be 
 given to the promise of the kingdom. God would 
 form for himself a new community, a true Israel, 
 which would know his will and in which his pur- 
 poses would at last be realised. As Moses by 
 the sprinkling of blood had consecrated Israel as 
 God's people, so the disciples were now admitted 
 to their supreme privilege as children of the 
 kingdom. The conception of the New Cove- 
 nant was henceforth normative in Christianity. 
 It was construed, in the process of time, by means 
 of theological categories which were alien to the 
 thought of Jesus, but essentially it was in harmony 
 with his own teaching. The church embodied 
 it in the ritual of the Supper because it expressed 
 more clearly than any other conception the ulti- 
 mate meaning of the rite. 
 
 We find, then, as we examine the Supper narra- 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 219 
 
 tives, that almost at every step we are brought face 
 to face with insoluble problems; yet amidst all the 
 confusion certain broad results seem to emerge. 
 Jesus had partaken, with his disciples, of what he 
 knew to be their last meal together, and the oc- 
 casion was doubly sacred because the season was 
 that of Passover. Possessed with the conviction 
 that through his approaching death the kingdom 
 would break in, he desired to give a pledge to his 
 followers that they would share with him in his 
 victory. By an impressive symbolism, suggested 
 by the meal, he identified them with his act of 
 sacrifice, thereby securing to them their place in 
 the future community of God's people. At a 
 later time this action of Jesus was rightly inter- 
 preted in terms of the covenant idea. Jeremiah 
 had foretold a day when God would make a new 
 covenant with Israel — in other words, would es- 
 tablish a new and higher relation between himself 
 and his people. This promise had now reached 
 fulfilment. The disciples of Jesus, adopted by 
 him as participants in his death, had entered on 
 their higher vocation as the chosen people of God. 
 
 As we now return from this investigation of the 
 origin of the Supper to the place which it occupied 
 in the primitive church, an important question 
 falls to be considered. Did Jesus institute the 
 rite with the deliberate purpose that it should be 
 repeated from time to time? Such an intention 
 
220 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 is made explicit in the Pauline formula, repro- 
 duced in the longer text of Luke: "Do this in re- 
 membrance of me." These words, however, are 
 not found in the other narratives, and the omis- 
 sion cannot be accidental. The observance had 
 so rooted itself in the custom of the church that 
 if Jesus had left an express command for its rep- 
 etition the fact would have been emphatically 
 recorded. We can only regard the formula given 
 by Paul as a later addition, supplying a want 
 which may have caused misgivings. It is, indeed, 
 possible that even if Jesus did not enjoin the 
 repetition he made it clear from his mode of ob- 
 serving the rite that he meant it to remain as a 
 constant ordinance. But here we must bear in 
 mind that he does not seem to have contemplated 
 the formation of a church with stated rites and 
 institutions. In the very act of dispensing the 
 Supper he declared his belief that the consum- 
 mation was near and that he would presently 
 drink the wine new in the kingdom of God. Thus 
 we have no ground for assuming that he meant 
 the ordinance to be repeated. On the contrary, 
 we are left with the impression of an act performed 
 once for all at a culminating moment by way of a 
 farewell pledge. 
 
 How, then, are we to account for the undoubted 
 fact that the disciples from the first adopted the 
 Supper as their characteristic rite and daily re- 
 peated it? The explanation must be sought not 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 221 
 
 in some express commandment they had received 
 from Jesus but in the significance which the rite 
 possessed for them. They believed — if our inter- 
 pretation has been correct — that by means of the 
 Supper Jesus had confirmed them in their privi- 
 lege as heirs of the kingdom. He had called them 
 into a new covenant whereby they were acknowl- 
 edged as the true Israel of God. On its claim to 
 be the new community, destined to inherit the 
 coming age, the whole life of the church was 
 founded, and we cannot wonder that care was 
 taken to perpetuate the ordinance which indorsed 
 that claim. Day by day the believers re-enacted 
 the Supper as it had been observed by Jesus. In 
 this manner they recalled the assurance he had 
 given them and kept alive in their hearts the con- 
 sciousness of their great vocation. Each meeting 
 of the church was signalised by the repetition of 
 the Supper, for by this act it recited, as it were, the 
 grand charter which had constituted it the church. 
 In one sense, indeed, there was something more 
 than a mere repetition of the rite that had been 
 celebrated by Jesus. That first observance of the 
 Supper had still involved an element of anticipa- 
 tion. The disciples were admitted to a privilege 
 on which they could not fully enter until the 
 death, whereby it would be secured to them, had 
 been accomplished. But now the condition was 
 fulfilled and Jesus had taken his place as Lord. 
 His people could think of themselves as in very 
 
222 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 truth the elect community in which the powers of 
 the new age were already operative. We can 
 understand, therefore, the peculiar import which 
 attached to the Supper from the beginning and 
 which rendered it the natural focus of mystical 
 feeling and speculation. At this ordinance the 
 believers were withdrawn from the world and 
 realised in their fellowship with one another that 
 they were the children of the kingdom and had 
 part in the new life. They not only anticipated 
 the reunion with Christ at the Messianic banquet, 
 but knew it in some measure as a present reality. 
 When we thus apprehend the meaning of the 
 Supper the indications given us in the book of 
 Acts assume a fresh value and explain themselves 
 more fully. The rite was celebrated with glad- 
 ness, for it brought with it in some sense a fruition 
 of that hope on which the Christian life was con- 
 centrated. Jesus had departed into the unseen 
 that he might be Lord in the promised kingdom, 
 and while they partook of his Supper his people 
 could feel that they were united with him and 
 shared his victory. Again, although it was com- 
 bined with the social meal, the Supper was an act 
 of worship and is mentioned by the writer of 
 Acts along with the prayers. For the disciples it 
 was the pledge of that new relation in which they 
 now stood to God. Through Christ they had be- 
 come his elect people, and their worship hence- 
 forth was all pervaded by this sense of a closer 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER 223 
 
 communion with God. Once more, it was the 
 seal and declaration of Christian brotherhood. 
 By means of the Supper the disciples were not 
 only united in comradeship round the memory of 
 a beloved Master but were reminded, to use the 
 words of Paul, that they formed one body. Jesus 
 had separated them from the world as the com- 
 munity of the kingdom. The bread that was 
 broken among them was symbolical of the one 
 life, the one higher calling, of which they had all 
 alike become partakers. 
 
 In the primitive observance, therefore, the way 
 was already prepared for that estimate of the 
 Supper which found expression in the later doc- 
 trine. It was inevitable that in process of re- 
 flection and under the many alien influences 
 that acted on Christianity the meaning of the 
 rite should be subjected to new interpretations. 
 Apocalyptic ideas were explained in the terms of 
 Hellenistic mysticism. Beliefs that were originally 
 simple and concrete were brought into ever closer 
 relation to a speculative theology. But the point 
 of departure for all the later development was 
 the primitive conception of the " new covenant," 
 whereby the people of Christ received their in- 
 heritance in that kingdom which was to be real- 
 ised through his death. On this conception the 
 church was founded, and it was bequeathed to 
 the first disciples by Jesus himself. 
 
LECTURE IX 
 
 STEPHEN 
 
 The advent of Stephen, followed almost im- 
 mediately by his death, marks the first great 
 turning-point in the history of the church. It 
 hastened the separation of the new religion from 
 Judaism. It led to the dispersion of the primitive 
 community and in this manner prepared the way 
 for an extended mission. Above all, it had for 
 its direct outcome the accession to Christianity 
 of its foremost convert and Apostle. From this 
 time onward the church at Jerusalem falls into 
 the background and the main interest centres on 
 the personality and career of Paul. 
 
 Stephen thus signalises the transition from the 
 earlier to the later development, and we think of 
 him chiefly in his relation to that new and larger 
 phase of Christian history which he inaugurated. 
 His work merges in that of Paul, of whom in 
 more than a superficial sense he was the fore- 
 runner. But in point of historical fact Stephen 
 belonged to the early community, and perhaps 
 he has a greater significance for the time that pre- 
 ceded than for the time that followed him. For 
 one moment the obscurity that overhangs the 
 224 
 
STEPHEN 225 
 
 initial period is illuminated by the passage across 
 it of this memorable figure; and we are able to 
 form some estimate of the new movement as it 
 had now shaped itself, after several years of silent 
 growth. 
 
 The episode of Stephen is the more instructive 
 as it is recorded for us in sources which we can 
 employ with some degree of confidence. Here, if 
 anywhere in the early chapters of the book of 
 Acts, we seem to find evidence that Luke is avail- 
 ing himself of authentic documents which he has 
 not revised so carefully but we may still detach 
 the several strands out of which his narrative is 
 woven. This conviction, forced on us by detailed 
 study of the historical section, makes it highly 
 probable that in his record also of the speech of 
 Stephen Luke has a primitive source Ibefore him. 
 This probability is raised almost to a certainty 
 when we examine the speech itself. (1) The ful- 
 ness with which it is reported is out of all pro- 
 portion to the scale of the book. It is difficult 
 to believe that Luke, with his fine sense of liter- 
 ary fitness, would have encumbered his narrative 
 with this long dissertation unless it had come down 
 to him in some genuine source which he was 
 anxious to preserve. (2) It is not only unduly 
 long but irrelevant, so much so that all writers on 
 the apostolic age have been puzzled to discover 
 its exact purpose. The chaTgesj)n which Stephen 
 is on trial for his life are left unanswered; no care 
 
226 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 is taken to make the speech appropriate to the 
 audience and the circumstances. If Luke had 
 himself composed it he would surely have thrown 
 into it something of that dramatic force of which 
 he was a master. A similar opportunity is of- 
 fered him later in the book, and we have only to 
 contrast this colourless speech of Stephen with 
 the magnificent defence of Paul before Agrippa. 
 There appears, indeed, to be good ground for the 
 conjecture that the speech ought properly to have 
 been connected with Stephen's disputing in the 
 synagogue as described in the previous chapter.* 
 Luke either failed to apprehend its true setting 
 or purposely transposed it to its present place in 
 order to invest the abstract discussion with a 
 more human interest. It may be regarded not 
 as the defence of Stephen before the council but 
 as a summary of Stephen's preaching preserved] 
 in some document which had fallen into the hands 
 of Luke. (3) The argument, irrelevant to its cir- 
 cumstances, is itself obscure. We have the im- 
 pression, as we try to make out its drift, that it 
 represents a mode of Christian apologetic which 
 in Luke's day had already become unintelligible. 
 On a superficial view the argument attributed to 
 Paul, in his speech at Antioch in Pisidia,f follows a 
 somewhat similar line. Paul begins, like Stephen, 
 
 * So Bacon in his valuable monograph, "The Speech of 
 Stephen." 
 
 t Acts 13 : 16 #. 
 
STEPHEN 227 
 
 with a survey of the early history of Israel, trac- 
 ing it down from the bondage in Egypt to the 
 reign of David; and from this coincidence it has 
 been inferred that both speeches are the free com- 
 position of Luke. But a closer comparison seems 
 to make it evident that the later speech is an 
 imitation of the earlier one and betrays a mis- 
 understanding of its real meaning. The histori- 
 cal survey is suddenly broken off, as if the writer 
 could not tell what conclusions he ought to draw 
 from it. It serves merely as a prelude which 
 might well be dispensed with, while for Stephen 
 it obviously had some vital bearing on the whole 
 claim and import of Christianity. 
 
 In view of these various indications we may be 
 reasonably confident that in the speech of Stephen 
 we have an early document incorporated, not 
 altogether skilfully, in the book of Acts. There 
 is no intrinsic evidence that Stephen was the au- 
 thor of the speech, and Luke may have assigned 
 it to him in the same manner as he attributes 
 other anonymous fragments of early preaching 
 to Peter. <But he apparently has some reason 
 to believe that it represents Stephen's mode of 
 teaching; and from the care with which he has 
 preserved it, in spite of its seeming irrelevance, 
 we may conclude that it had actually come down 
 to him under the name of Stephen. It may be 
 hazardous to maintain, as some scholars have 
 ventured to do, that in this chapter of Acts we 
 
228 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 have the earliest extant document of Christian 
 literature; but there is no fair reason to doubt 
 that it bears the impress of primitive ideas. 
 The results to which we have been led along pre- 
 vious lines of inquiry will receive a new confirma- 
 tion if they can be shown to expfein and illustrate 
 the speech of Stephen. 
 
 In the introduction to his account of Stephen, 
 Luke incidentally informs us of two facts, which 
 are of the highest interest and importance. (1) 
 He indicates, in the first place, that the Helle- 
 nistic element had already become prominent in 
 the church — so prominent that special measures 
 had to be taken to meet its needs. Nothing has 
 been told us in the earlier chapters concerning this 
 large a^cession_flf_fpreign-Jbarn_^ Jews. We^ sud- 
 / denly learn for the first time that they had been 
 / peculiarly attracted to the new movement and 
 now formed a considerable section of its adherents. 
 From this fact it has been argued that Christian- 
 ity, even in its initial period, bore something of 
 an alien character and made its strongest appeal 
 to those who were outside of the strict pale of 
 Judaism. But reasoning of this kind is highly 
 precarious. We know from various sources that 
 the Law was no less jealously guarded by the 
 foreign than by the Palestinian Jews. Paul en- 
 dured his chief persecutions at the hands of his 
 countrymen of the Dispersion; and it was the 
 
STEPHEN 229 
 
 Hdlenists, as we learn from this very chapter of 
 Acts, who ins tituted the proceedings against 
 Stephen. Indeed, it may be presumed that the 
 foreign Jews resident in Jerusalem were in a 
 special degree attached to Judaism, since it can 
 hardly have been any other than a religious motive 
 which had led them to settle in the holy city. At 
 the same time we have to remember the distinc- 
 tion, already considered, between the ceremonial 
 and the speculative sides of Jewish piety. Jews 
 who had lived under the influences of the larger 
 gentile world were familiar with ideas which 
 played little part in the ordinary religion of Pales- 
 tine. They had learned to be receptive of new 
 truth even while they held with uncompromising 
 firmness to their observance of the Law. The 
 philosophical movement of Alexandria was only 
 the most notable of many efforts on the part of 
 Jews of the Dispersion to read fresh meanings into 
 the tenets of Judaism. Their very ardour for the 
 Law inspired them with the desire to present it in 
 such a fashion that it might appeal to the world 
 as a universal message. 
 
 It may be conjectured that this liberality of 
 thought among the Hellenists had something to 
 do with their attraction to Christianity. They 
 were not committed, like the majority of Pales- 
 tinian Jews, to one unvarying type of belief. 
 They welcomed the breadth and suggestiveness 
 of the Christian teaching and perceived its larger 
 
230 THE BEGINNINOS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 possibilities when these were still hidden from the 
 original disciples. The grand theological develop- 
 ment of the next generation was entirely due to 
 the Hellenist Paul and his companions, and we 
 may believe that their work had already its com- 
 mencement at Jerusalem. The foreign-born Jews 
 who had found their way into the community 
 took up the new teachings in a bold, speculative 
 spirit. They worked them out along unexpected 
 lines to issues from which the older Apostles were 
 inclined to shrink. 
 
 (2) Here, perhaps, we find the true explanation 
 of the other fact which is recorded in this notice 
 in Acts^The two sections of the church, we 
 ,,^xe"loIa, fell into disagreement over a matter of 
 practical administration. The Hellenists believed 
 that their poor were being neglected in the ar- 
 rangements made for the common meal, and in 
 order to pacify them seven oflGicers were appointed 
 for the special purpose of watching over their in- 
 terests. Luke records the names of these seven, 
 and it may be assumed that he found them in 
 some authentic document, for with two exceptions 
 they are otherwise quite unknown. Now it is 
 probably true that the dissension in the church 
 had its immediate cause in practical difficulties 
 such as Luke describes. The attempt to maintain 
 the principle of all things in common must have 
 given Tise fcT constant friction, as soon as the 
 church had outgrown its small beginnings. Charges 
 
STEPHEN 231 
 
 of favouritis m and i njustice would easily gain 
 credence, and the alien members would be es- 
 pecially sensitive to any fancied slight on the part 
 of the Palestinian majority. But when we read 
 between the lines of Luke's narrative, it becomes 
 almost certain that the dissension must have had 
 other and deeper motives than he would have us 
 believe. It is evident that the Seven were by no ' 
 means appointed for the sole duty of supervising 
 the^istHhulioii of charity. Stephen "at^liceTre- 
 gan an active propaga nda in the Hellenistic syna- 
 gogues, and his missionary activity appears to 
 have been directly connected withj^is^new office. 
 PhUlij, likewiscj^ comes before us from this time 
 onward in his character of an evangelist. More- 
 over, there is no indication that the Apostles gave 
 up their " service of tables," confining themselves 
 henceforward to the preaching of the Word. 
 Their duties, so far as we can judge, continued to 
 be exactly the same as before the Seven were ap- 
 pointed to relieve them. What seems to have been 
 effected was a separation not of duties but of 
 sp heres of activity. The church agreed to divide 
 itself into two sections, the Palestinian majority 
 remaining as it was, under the "supervision of^the 
 Apostles, while the Hellenists formed a group by 
 themselves, with their own leaders. In this man- 
 ner a sofution was sought for what threatened to 
 become a grave difficulty. 
 
 It is hard to believe that this division of the 
 
232 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 community was brought about solely by the 
 trivial cause suggested in Luke's narrative. We 
 may guess, rather, that the practical difference 
 was only the index of a much more serious cleav- 
 age, which for some time had been growing mani- 
 fest. The Hellenists were developing a type of 
 Christianity which was not entirely consistent 
 with that of the Apostles, and while full liberty 
 was granted them it was deemed better that they 
 should remain apart. It may be that the decision 
 adopted at a later time by the council of Jerusalem 
 was influenced by the precedent of this earliest 
 dispute in the church. In both cases an agree- 
 ment was sought by means of a friendly separa- 
 tion^ And as Paul and Barnabas in the later in- 
 stance were left free to evangelise the gentiles, 
 while the older Apostles preached to the Jews, so 
 now the missionary field was divided. The Seven 
 were intrusted not only with the supervision of 
 the foreign-born converts, but with the work of 
 propaganda among the Hellenists; and it was in 
 the prosecution of this work that Stephen was 
 accused and put to death. 
 
 The procedure against Stephen is described in 
 a confused and contradictory manner, owing to 
 the attempt to blend together two different ac- 
 counts. On the one hand, we are told that he 
 was brought to a formal trial before the council, 
 in presence of which he delivered his speech of 
 
STEPHEN 233 
 
 defence. On the other hand, we are left with the 
 impression that he was the victim of an out- 
 break on the part of an angry mob which took 
 the law into its own hands. That there were 
 proceedings of some kind before the council can 
 hardly be doubted, in view of the subsequent 
 events. A persecution arose against the Hellenis- 
 tic wing of the church, and was carried out under 
 official sanction by emissaries duly accredited by 
 the high priest. The council would not thus have 
 indorsed the action of a lawless mob unless it had 
 itself in some fashion taken the initiative. At 
 the same time, when we consider the restricted 
 powers allowed to the council by the Roman ad- 
 ministration, we cannot believe that a sentence of 
 death was passed on Stephen. For that part, the 
 narrative in Acts itself, although it describes a 
 death by stoning according to the regular forms 
 of Mosaic Law, says nothing about a sentence. It 
 gives us to understand that the trial was inter- 
 rupted, and that orderly proceedings were sud- 
 denly forgotten in an outburst of passion. T)he 
 precise facts cannot now be recovered. So far as 
 we can gather, Stephen died in a popular tumult, 
 but with the connivance of the council, which had 
 already set on foot some kind of inquiry into his 
 teaching. A formal charge had been lodged 
 against him, to which his speech is the ostensible 
 reply, and the very Irrelevance of the speech is 
 proof that the charge has not been merely in- 
 vented for the sake of introducing it. 
 
234 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 The charge is recorded in two forms, and here 
 again we may discern the attempt to make room 
 for two narratives, originally distinct. According 
 to one version (Acts 6 : 11) false witnesses were 
 suborned, who testified: "We have heard this 
 man speak blasphemous words against Moses and 
 against God." Later on (6 : 13) the false wit- 
 nesses declare before the council, "This man 
 ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against 
 this holy place and the Law"; the specific ground 
 of the accusation being then added : " For we have 
 heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall 
 destroy this place, and shall change the customs 
 which Moses delivered us." Thus, in one record, 
 the gravamen of the charge is disloyalty to the 
 Law; in the other, hostility to the temple and its 
 ritual. This second version may fairly be con- 
 sidCTied the more accurate one. In the speech that 
 follows, Stephen says nothing that could be con- 
 strued into treason against the Law; he assumes, 
 rather, that reverence for the Law is common 
 ground between himself and his adversaries. 
 Moreover, in its second form the charge has a 
 certain correspondence with what we know to 
 have been the attitude of the primitive church. 
 The belief undoubtedly was held by the disci- 
 ples that Jesus would presently return to inaugu- 
 rate a new order, and this belief may be recognised 
 with sufficient clearness in the prejudiced report 
 of the "false witnesses." 
 
STEPHEN 235 
 
 It is not a little significant that the charge 
 against Stephen bears a close analogy to that 
 which was brought against Jesus himself. He was 
 accused of saying, "I will destroy this temple 
 and build it again in three days"; and, though we 
 are assured, as in the case of Stephen, that the 
 accusation was made by "false witnesses," there 
 can be little doubt that the words were in some 
 form actually spoken. The fourth evangelist re- 
 peats the saying as a genuine utterance of Jesus 
 and adds an explanation of its meaning which is 
 obviously fanciful. Ignorant as we are of the 
 context of the saying and the occasion on which 
 it was spoken, we cannot determine its true im- 
 port — ^this had apparently become a matter of 
 conjecture as early as the Fourth Gospel. But 
 it is reasonable to suppose that Stephen con- 
 sciously took up the words of Jesus, interpreting 
 them in the sense which is suggested in the last 
 part of his speech (7 : 48/.). God is not con- 
 fined in temples made with hands. In the king- ' 
 dom which was presently to set in the relation 
 of men to God would be an immediate and 
 spiritual one and the temple with its ordinances 
 would be necessary no longer. 
 
 We pass, then, to the consideration of the 
 speech itself, which cannot, as we have seen, have 
 been delivered at the trial in answer to the given 
 charge. It consists for the most part of a long 
 
236 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 historical argument and closes with a passage of 
 stern denunciation; from beginning to end there 
 is. nothing to suggest a speech of defence before 
 a judicial court. We may even doubt whether 
 it is a transcript of any definite speech. More 
 probably it is meant to be an example of the type 
 of argument which Stephen was wont to employ 
 in his disputings with the Hellenistic Jews. The 
 record may have been drawn up after his death, 
 partly by way of tribute to a revered teacher and 
 partly to afford guidance to subsequent mission- 
 aries who were engaged in similar work. 
 
 The speech, as we have it, ends abruptly with 
 the declaration that the murder of the "Just 
 (One" was of a piece with that disobedience to 
 God which had marked the whole course of Jew- 
 ish history. "Ye have received the Law by the 
 disposition of angels, and have not kept it." It 
 is diflBcult to believe that the original document 
 stopped short at this point, and the probability 
 is that Luke himself abridged it in order to en- 
 hance the effect of the scene that follows. The 
 denunciation of the unfaithful people has not 
 a few analogies in the Old Testament and the 
 New; and in the light of these we may guess the 
 nature of the lost conclusion. It would set forth 
 the inevitable doom that waited on disobedience, 
 and this threat of doom would merge in a proph- 
 ecy of the imminent Parousia. Jesus, whom the 
 people had rejected and crucified, was about to re- 
 
STEPHEN 237 
 
 turn as Messiah and summon them to his judg- 
 ment. It is possible that in the later words of 
 Stephen, "Behold I see the heavens opened, and 
 the Son of man standing at the right/ hand of 
 God," we have a fragment of the lost ending of 
 the speech itself. The title, "Son of man," which 
 occurs only here outside of the Gospels, is uni- 
 formly connected by Jesus with the thought of 
 his return in power. Stephen may have employed 
 it in the same manner while he set before his 
 hearers an impressive picture of the Parousia that 
 was just at hand. 
 
 The body of the speech, then, consists of a 
 historical retrospect. Many scholars have tried 
 to see in it a complete survey of the history of 
 Israel as falling into three main periods: (a) from 
 Abraham to Moses; (6) from Moses to David; 
 (c) the culminating age of ' David and Solomon. 
 But a regular plan of this character cannot be 
 made out. We have not so much a consecutive 
 survey as a selection of certain typical and out- 
 standing episodes in the history of the ancient 
 people; Abraham and his call, the life of Moses, 
 the building of the temple. 
 
 What is the purpose underlying this appar- 
 ently aimless retrospect of Old Testament history? 
 Here we arrive at the central problem of the 
 speech, and a solution has been sought for it 
 along a great number of diverging lines. Most 
 of the explanations have proceeded on the as- 
 
238 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 sumption that the speech is Stephen's answer 
 to the charges brought against him. He is bent 
 on proving that his doctrine does not involve a 
 menace to the Law, that he does not disparage 
 Moses but reveres him, that it is not he but the 
 Jews themselves who have opposed the ordi- 
 nances of God. But the attempt to explain the 
 speech in its bearing on the charges only serves 
 to make evident its hopeless irrelevance. It is 
 inconceivable that any man, defending himself 
 against definite accusations, should have gone to 
 work in this roundabout fashion. The charges 
 may have been founded on such a speech as that 
 before us, but it cannot be construed as an answer 
 to them. When we neglect the artificial setting 
 of the speech and take it by itself as a Christian 
 manifesto, the point of its teaching is still far from 
 clear. Some writers have found the cardinal 
 verse in 7 : 37: "This is that Moses who said to 
 the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord 
 your God raise unto you of your brethren, like 
 unto me; him shall ye hear." The speech thus 
 resolves itself into a proof of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus, addressed to those who hold fast to the 
 authority of Moses.* Others regard the argu- 
 ment as turning on 7: 51 or 7: 53, where Stephen 
 accuses the Jews of having always resisted the 
 Holy Ghost. The whole survey of their history 
 has had for its purpose this exposure of their 
 * So Gfrorer and Spitta. 
 
STEPHEN 239 
 
 radical alienation from God, whose chosen people 
 they professed to be. More often the key to the 
 speech has been sought in 7 : 48: "Howbeit the 
 most high dwelleth not in temples made with 
 hands." Here, it is maintained, the purpose of 
 the long review of Israelitish history comes at last 
 to light. Stephen has been bent on proving that 
 the age-long quest of Israel has been for a spiritual 
 religion such as has now been given in Christian- 
 ity. Every new hope of a resting-place had been 
 in vain, for God will not take up his abode in any 
 earthly temple. The more recent criticism has 
 abandoned the method of seeking for any central 
 verse in the speech and would explain it rather 
 as dealing with a complex of ideas. Thus Bacon 
 sees in it a discussion of the three institutions 
 the right to which is disputed between Jews and 
 Christians: (o) the Abrahamic inheritance; (6) 
 the Mosaic revelation; (c) the Davidic presence 
 of God in Zion.* The aim of the speech is to 
 show, in Alexandrian fashion, how the Old Testa- 
 ment institutions were not final but typical, and 
 have now been realised in Christianity. 
 
 None of these theories can be regarded as fully 
 adequate. They either lay stress on some one 
 aspect of the argument to the exclusion of others 
 which are equally important or they resort to 
 
 * Schumacher, "Der Diakon Stephanus," also makes the 
 speech turn on the three ideas of the temple, the Law, the 
 Messiah. 
 
240 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 subtleties of interpretation which are not in 
 keeping with the character of the speech. It 
 may help us toward a clearer apprehension of the 
 speaker's purpose if we set before us in brief sum- 
 mary the ideas to which he gives prominence: 
 / (1) Israel is the chosen people of God.* (2) As 
 such it has received from God the promise of an 
 inheritance, and through all its changing experi- 
 ences has been seeking the fulfilment of this 
 promise, t (3) God sent to his people a succession 
 of leaders to guide them in their search, but 
 these messengers of God were invariably rejected. 
 Moses himself was disowned in his lifetime by 
 those whom he had been sent to deliver, f (4) 
 The search for the promised rest has been always 
 frustrated, not only by disobedience but by the il- 
 lusory conditions of earthly life. Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob were sojourners; in Egypt, where the 
 people expected to find a home, they became 
 bondsmen; under Moses they wandered in the 
 wilderness; when they reached the land of prom- 
 ise they worshipped in a moving tabernacle; the 
 temple itself was only the shadow of the true 
 house of God. It is evidently by no mere ac- 
 cident that the historical survey is brought to a 
 close with the building of the temple. Although 
 the history was still to run on for a thousand 
 years it was completed in its inward meaning by 
 
 * 7 : 7, 32, 38. 1 5 : 7, 46-47. 
 
 t9 : 23, 25/., 35, 39/. 
 
STEPHEN 241 
 
 that event. God's promise to Abraham had to 
 all appearance reached fulfilment. Israel had se- 
 cured its earthly inheritance and had entered into 
 permanent relation to God by means of a fixed 
 temple. 
 
 When the main ideas of the speech are thus 
 brought together we can scarcely fail to perceive 
 the general drift of the speaker's meaning. He 
 would have us see that Israel, through the whole 
 course of its history, has been striving in vain to 
 fulfil its vocation as the people of God. Time 
 after time, when it seemed won at last, the goal 
 had receded farther into the distance. But the 
 argument has little purpose unless we set it 
 against the background of a thought which is 
 throughout in the speaker's mind. The history 
 of Israel has had its outcome in the birth of the 
 Christian church. That ideal of which the old 
 Israel fell short by its own unfaithfulness and by 
 the restrictions laid upon it has been realised in 
 the new Israel. This is the aim of Stephen — to 
 demonstrate, in the light of Old Testament his- 
 tory, that the Ecclesia represents the true people 
 of God. 
 
 He shows, on the one hand, that the church is 
 identical with the ancient Israel. Ages ago God 
 chose for himself a people, and its history has been 
 nothing but one long endeavour, constantly frus- 
 trated, to obtain that inheritance to which it was 
 destined. Under one leader and another it had 
 
242 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 seemed to come within reach of it, but after each 
 apparent attainment the quest had to be resumed. 
 The Jews are not to think, therefore, that the 
 Christian movement is a breaking away from the 
 past; it takes up the effort of the past and brings 
 it to a consummation. The church is Israel, 
 entering at last on the inheritance. It is sig- 
 nificant that in one place Stephen describes the 
 ancient people under the specific name of "the 
 Ecclesia in the wilderness" (7 : 38). Here, it 
 may be said, the thought which pervades the 
 whole speech comes for a moment to definite ex- 
 pression. But, on the other hand, a contrast is 
 drawn between the nation Israel and the church. 
 It is shown that the people as a whole have been 
 consistently disobedient, and have so thwarted 
 God's will with them. Again and again, when he 
 would have given them rest, they threw them- 
 selves back into the life of aimless wandering. 
 He had sent them leader after leader, whom they 
 had failed to recognise. Although he had chosen 
 them to be his people, they had resisted his pur- 
 pose and had proved themselves to be unworthy. 
 Israel as a nation had forfeited its right, and the 
 promises were to find their fulfilment in a new 
 Israel. 
 
 Stephen not only holds that the past history of 
 Israel was all a preparation for the future church, 
 but suggests that at each new stage it in some 
 manner foreshadowed it. The successive de- 
 
STEPHEN 243 
 
 liverers whom God had sent were types of the 
 coming deliverer. The various resting-places to 
 which the people attained under their leadership 
 pointed forward to the ultimate rest. The out- 
 ward communion with God which Israel had en- 
 joyed by means of tabernacle and temple was 
 prophetic of a higher, spiritual relation. This 
 strain of typology that runs through the speech is 
 one of its most curious and perplexing features, 
 but we must be careful not to make too much of 
 it. At the most it is only incidental to the main 
 conception — ^that Israel, throughout its history, 
 was growing toward its realisation in the Chris- 
 tian church. Its past experience was full of an- 
 ticipations and presentiments of the Ecclesia in 
 which it would find its goal. 
 
 Stephen was brought to trial on the express 
 charge that he had blasphemed the temple. 
 The charge, according to Acts, was based on the 
 testimony of "false witnesses," but we have in- 
 dications in the extant speech that criticism of 
 the temple and its ritual formed an important 
 element in his teaching. His survey of the his- 
 tory of Israel leads up to the declaration that the 
 temple built by Solomon was only temporary 
 and provisional, for "the Most High dwelleth not 
 in temples made with hands." It is in this fea- 
 ture of Stephen's thought that we are probably to 
 detect that new influence which was introduced 
 
244 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 into Christianity by the Hellenists. In the per- 
 secution that broke out after Stephen's death, 
 they alone seem to have been involved, and their 
 offence was no doubt the same as that which was 
 imputed to their leader. They had ventured to 
 call in question the cherished institutions of 
 Judaism. As yet they had no thought of attack- 
 ing the Law, but they had disputed the permanent 
 validity of the temple worship. 
 
 Among Hellenistic Jews the temple never oc- 
 cupied the same place as it did in the religious life 
 of Palestine. The pious Hellenist indeed regarded 
 it as the traditional shrine of his people, and con- 
 tributed his yearly offerings for the maintenance 
 of its ordinances. But his devotion was bound up 
 with the Law much more than with the temple. 
 As a citizen of the world he had learned to throw 
 off the narrow conception of his religion as a 
 local cult and secretly resented the claims of the 
 Jerusalem priesthood. After the destruction of 
 the temple it became the object of passionate re- 
 gret and longing, and the later literature of Judaism 
 is filled with lamentations over the house of God, 
 now violated by the heathen. But of this devo- 
 tion there is little trace iii the century preceding. 
 Outside of Palestine, Judaism regarded the temple 
 with a certain jealousy and emphasised its right 
 to stand apart from it. Among the Hellenistic 
 converts there were no doubt some who were 
 already impatient of the temple, and their in- 
 
STEPHEN 245 
 
 stinct of revolt would be strengthened by the 
 Christian teaching. Jesus had revived the old 
 prophetic conception of religion. He had made 
 it clear that the service of God did not consist 
 in sacrifices but in obedience to his will. He had 
 done away with that old covenant, bound up with 
 external ordinances and prerogatives of race, of 
 which the temple was the visible symbol. The 
 original disciples do not appear to have per- 
 ceived that the new beliefs could not be reconciled 
 with the temple worship, but the Hellenists were 
 alive, to the inconsistency. They held that the 
 new community had entered into a higher re- 
 lation to God, for which the ancient localised 
 ritual had no significance. Apparently it was 
 Stephen who first gave clear expression to this 
 belief and enforced it by his martyrdom. But 
 we can gather from the persecution which im- 
 mediately overtook the Hellenistic Christians 
 that he had spoken as their representative. 
 Through these half -alien converts who had brought 
 to Jerusalem the influences of a larger culture 
 Christianity had begun to feel its way toward its 
 universal mission. 
 
 As yet the criticism of Jewish institutions was 
 directed solely against the temple. Concerning 
 the Law, which was the true substance of Judaism, 
 Stephen speaks with unabated reverence. It is 
 noticeable, however, that he departs altogether 
 from the attitude of Peter, whose speeches are 
 
246 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 carefully framed so as to conciliate Jewish senti- 
 ment. He breaks out into an open attack on the 
 Jews. Their rejection of Jesus is no longer at- 
 tributed to "ignorance," but to a spirit of unbe- 
 lief which could be traced through all their past 
 history and had now reached its culmination. 
 This arraignment of the Jews brings us within 
 sight of the final rupture; but there is no ground 
 for asserting, with some historians, that Stephen 
 anticipated that breach with Judaism which was 
 effected by Paul. The invective at the close of 
 the speech is not a declaration of war any more 
 than the similar passages in the preaching of 
 the prophets and of John the Baptist. We should 
 probably find, if the lost conclusion could be re- 
 covered, that its purpose was to rouse the people 
 to a true repentance in view of the approaching 
 judgment. It was indeed Stephen who hastened 
 the conflict with Judaism and made the gentile 
 mission inevitable, but he stood himself within 
 the primitive community. This singular position 
 which he occupies gives him his chief significance 
 in early Christian history. 
 
 An interesting and difficult problem, of which 
 New Testament criticism has taken too little ac- 
 count, is suggested by the affinity of the speech of 
 Stephen to the so-called Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Different as the two writings are in character and 
 style and purpose, they have at least the following 
 
STEPHEN 247 
 
 well-marked features in common: (1) A typo- 
 logical value is discerned in the facts of the Old 
 Testament narrative. (2) The life of Israel is 
 described as one of wandering — in search of some- 
 thing real and permanent. (3) The failure to 
 enter into the promised "rest" is explained from 
 the unbelief of the people. (4) The contrast of 
 Christianity with the ancient religion turns on 
 ideas which are connected with the temple. 
 (5) Besides these main points of agreement, there 
 are similarities in detail; e. g., Moses appears as 
 a type of Christ; * emphasis is laid on the con- 
 struction of the tabernacle after a heavenly pat- 
 tern.f The explanation of this affinity between 
 Hebrews and the speech of Stephen (which could 
 easily be demonstrated in greater detail) has been 
 sought in a common Alexandrian influence. If 
 this could be established we should have to regard 
 the speech as a comparatively late product, and 
 the question would then arise how this Alexan- 
 drian fragment, so little adapted to his purpose, 
 came to be introduced by Luke into his account 
 of the primitive history. But, apart from such 
 critical difficulties, it may fairly be argued that 
 the speech is distinguished from the epistle by 
 the pronounced absence of the Alexandrian turn 
 of thought. Old Testament sayings and inci- 
 
 * Acts 7 : 37 #.; Heb. 3:2^. This comparison is drawn 
 nowhere in the New Testament except in these two writings, 
 t Acts 7: 44; Heb. 8 : 5. 
 
248 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 dents are not interpreted allegorically. The 
 temple is not contrasted with the higher ideal 
 sanctuary but with the universality of God's 
 presence. Jesus is not invested with the attri- 
 butes of the Logos, but is simply the Messianic 
 Deliverer. 
 
 It is not too bold to conjecture that the true 
 solution of the problem may be found along an- 
 other line. Instead of assuming that the speech 
 of Stephen is tinged with later philosophical 
 speculation, we may suppose that the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, in spite of its Alexandrian colour- 
 ing, perpetuates a mode of thought which had 
 come down from the primitive church. The 
 enigmatical epistle is usually classed as Deutero- 
 Pauline, but there is hardly another New Testa- 
 ment writing which diverges so widely from the 
 cardinal Pauline ideas. What it possesses in 
 common with Paul may well have been derived 
 not from him but from that normal Christian 
 tradition on which he himself was dependent. 
 It needs to be more clearly recognised that, al- 
 though Paul with his mighty genius determined 
 the main current of Christian thinking, there were 
 other streams that maintained their course along- 
 side of Paulinism. One of these may have taken 
 its rise from the teaching of Stephen. As time 
 went on it would broaden and deepen and assimi- 
 late to itself elements from the prevailing phi- 
 losophy, while still preserving its continuity with 
 
STEPHEN 249 
 
 Stephen and through him with the primitive 
 church. 
 
 The speech of Stephen, then, may reasonably 
 be considered as an authentic document of pri- 
 mary importance, which enables us in some mea- 
 sure to ascertain the bearings of Christian thought 
 at the close of the initial period. Traces of the 
 coming development are already discernible. The 
 church has been invaded by new forces which are 
 breaking down its alliance with Judaism and 
 moulding it for the task that lay before it in the 
 gentile world. But, in the main, the speech is 
 concerned with those ideas which we have seen, in 
 the course of our investigation, to have been char- 
 acteristic of the earliest days. To the mind of 
 Stephen everything depends on the claim of the 
 church to be the true Israel. God had made a 
 promise to his people, but the whole course of 
 Jewish history had proved that it was not in- 
 tended for Israel as a nation. The fulfilment was 
 reserved for a new community, springing out of 
 Israel but distinct from it; and the condition of 
 membership in the new community was faith in 
 that Jesus whom the nation had rejected. It is 
 not a little remarkable that Stephen hardly 
 touches on what we might consider the specific 
 elements of Christian belief. Nothing is directly 
 said of the purpose of Jesus' death, of his resur- 
 rection, of his Messianic office. He is described 
 
250 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 simply as the "Just One"— the ideally righteous 
 man of whom the Old Testament leaders had been 
 the types and heralds. This apparent neglect of 
 the fundamental Christian ideas may be partly 
 set down to the controversial intention of the 
 speech. Stephen was not making a strictly mis- 
 sionary appeal, but was "disputing in the syna- 
 gogue," and his object was to defend the Christian 
 position against orthodox Jews who would urge the 
 validity of God's promises to Israel. But the pe- 
 culiar line of argument which is followed in the 
 speech cannot be wholly accounted for by the 
 exigencies of controversy. We have to admit that 
 Stephen insists on the claim of the church to 
 be the true Israel because he regards this as the 
 central fact in the Christian message. God had 
 promised to the fathers that he would lead his 
 people to their inheritance, and the time was at 
 hand when this promise should be fulfilled. But 
 the people which he had contemplated was not 
 the nation. Within the historical Israel there 
 had ever been a hidden Israel of God; and it had 
 now realised its hope in that new community which 
 acknowledged Jesus as Lord. 
 
LECTURE X 
 
 THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 
 
 With the persecution that ensued on the death 
 of Stephen the initial period of Christian history 
 came to an end. In itself the persecution was not 
 a severe one, for the council was limited in its 
 powers by the Roman administration and could 
 only enforce such minor penalties as scourging 
 and imprisonment. In the exercise even of this 
 modified right of discipline it seems to have pro- 
 ceeded cautiously. The fact was recognised that 
 Stephen had been the leader of the Hellenistic 
 Christians, and the action of the council affected 
 only this foreign section of the church. The 
 Apostles, who would have Tjeen the first victims 
 in any real attempt to suppress the new movement, 
 were left unmolested, and under their direction 
 the native Christian community continued to 
 hold its own at Jerusalem. None the less, the 
 persecution was followed by far-reaching conse- 
 quences. In the first place, the Hellenists, ex- 
 pelled from Palestine, took up their abode in 
 Damascus, Antioch, and other gentile cities, and 
 from this time onward these became the true cen- 
 tres of the propaganda. Again, the more advanced 
 251 
 
252 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 type of Christianity for which the Hellenists had 
 stood was nowsetjree from the checks that had 
 been imposed on it at Jerusalem. In the distant 
 gentile cities it was able to develop along its own 
 lines and was affected still further by influences 
 from without. Once more, the community that 
 remained at Jerusalem began to change its char- 
 acter, now that it was left wholly to itself. It is 
 probable that if the Hellenists had remained they 
 would gradually have leavened the Jewish section 
 of the church with their more liberal ideas, and 
 the long conflict which embittered the life of 
 Paul might have been unnecessary. As it was, 
 the church was powerless to resist the encroach- 
 ments of Judaism. Not only the removal of the 
 Hellenists, but the events that had caused it, 
 must have strengthened the tendency to reaction; 
 for it was now evident that Jewish sentiment was 
 alarmed. Any further advance might precipitate 
 j that breach with the national religion which the 
 church, as a whole, was anxious to avert. 
 
 Thus after the death of Stephen the two sec- 
 tions of the church were separated, and, while the 
 Hellenists achieved a larger freedom, the original 
 community stood still or even went backward. 
 Hitherto, in spite of all external bonds with Juda- 
 ism, it had been absorbed in its own mission and 
 had worn its fetters lightly. Now it was bur- 
 dened with the feeling that at all costs it must 
 preserve its loyalty to the parent religion. This 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 253 
 
 relapse into a Jewish Christianity became far 
 more pronounced after the second persecution 
 under Herod Agrippa a few years later. This 
 second persecution was more serious than the 
 first, for it was supported by the power of the 
 state, now restored to a brief independence. It 
 was directed, too, not against a party but against 
 the new religion, which had at last been recognised 
 as dangerous. At least one of the Apostles was 
 put to death; the others were threatened with a 
 like fate, and only saved themselves by flight 
 from the city. Although the immediate peril was 
 soon brought to an end with the return to the old 
 political conditions, its effects on the Jerusalem 
 church appear to have been lasting. How it hap- 
 pened we can only conjecture, but there are clear 
 indications that during the enforced absence of 
 Peter and his colleagues a new party rose to 
 ascendancy. Under the leadership of James the 
 community at Jerusalem became more and more 
 Jewish in its sympathies, and took up an attitude 
 of ill-concealed antagonism to the progressive 
 church of the gentiles. 
 
 It by no means follows that the mother church 
 ■was now excluded from all share in the larger 
 work of Christianity. There is abundant evidence 
 that, in spite of all reactionary influences, it 
 maintained a vigorous life. Jerusalem became the 
 centre of an active and successful mission to the 
 outlying regions of Palestine, and in all likelihood 
 
254 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 charged itself with a propaganda among various 
 communities of the Dispersion. In virtue of its 
 traditions, it exercised a powerful if undefined 
 authority over the Christian cause throughout 
 the world. The church at Jerusalem was the 
 ultimate court of appeal in all disputes concerning 
 worship and doctrine. Its practice was normative 
 in matters of ecclesiastical custom. The adver- 
 saries of Paul were chiefly formidable because they 
 professed to speak to the gentile converts with 
 the voice of Jerusalem. Paul himself, amidst 
 all differences, continued to cherish a genuine 
 reverence for the mother church. His last years 
 of freedom were largely devoted to his scheme of 
 a collection on behalf of its poorer members; and 
 behind the other motives which prompted him 
 to this work there may have been the idea of 
 confederating the scattered churches around their 
 natural centre. But although Jerusalem thus re- 
 mained the foremost Christian community and 
 only lost this position after the siege and destruc- 
 tion of the city, its real importance was confined 
 to the initial years. It was then that it made its 
 vital contribution, and the essential history of 
 the church was henceforth enacted on a different 
 stage. 
 
 That early contribution, however, was of in- 
 calculable value. In those first years the church 
 was brought into existence and grew to the 
 strength which enabled it to undertake Its world- 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 255 
 
 wide task. In those years, too, the main beliefs 
 of Christianity were determined, its fundamental 
 institutions were created. The Ecclesia, as it took 
 shape at Jerusalem, became the model of all those 
 communities which in the course of the next cen- 
 tury were planted far and wide among the cities 
 of the Roman world. An endeavour has been 
 made in the preceding chapters to understand the 
 aims and teachings of that primitive church so 
 far as they can be ascertained in the dim light of 
 the later record. It only remains to gather up 
 the broad results of the investigation and to form 
 some estimate of their significance. 
 
 As we pass from the Gospels to the book of 
 Acts, we find it difficult to realise that we are fol- 
 lowing a continued story — resumed at the point 
 where it had been interrupted. It is not merely 
 that the supreme figure of Jesus is now removed. 
 We feel as if his life had become distant and 
 unreal, and the cause to which he had devoted 
 himself had given place to another. It has been 
 generally assumed in modern criticism that the con- 
 tinuity of the movement was indeed broken by the 
 death of the Founder. In consequence of the great 
 disaster, his work had fallen into ruin and had 
 all to be reconstructed, slowly and tentatively, 
 on a fresh basis. What was now put forward as 
 the Christian gospel was derived, not from the 
 teaching of Jesus, but from a given interpretation 
 
256 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of his person and of the crowning facts of his 
 death and resurrection. His own gospel had been 
 direct and simple and had aimed at a renewal of 
 the moral life on the ground of a truer conception 
 of man's relation to God. This simple message 
 was now invested with mystery and was buried 
 under ever new layers of dogma and institution 
 until the religion of Jesus gave place to the 
 Cajtholic system of the centuries following. 
 /Now, it may be granted that Jesus was con- 
 cerned, in the last resort, with a few great prin- 
 ciples, which were purely religious in their nature. 
 He revealed God as the Father, and taught that 
 the right attitude to him is one of trust and love. 
 He set forth in words and exemplified in his life 
 the true righteousness, which consists in inward, 
 spontaneous obedience to the will of God. These 
 were the vital elements in his message, and all 
 the rest was framework, existing for the sake of 
 them. Nevertheless, the message was given in 
 that framework. Those conceptions which we 
 can now recognise as permanent were mingled 
 with others which were borrowed from the thought 
 of the time and which appealed even more di- 
 rectly to the minds of the first disciples. In order 
 to determine the relation between the primitive 
 church and Jesus, we must take account not only 
 of the substance of his teaching but of those tra- 
 ditional forms under which it was presented.^ 
 We are here confronted with a problem which 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 257 
 
 is involved in manifold difficulties and is perhaps 
 incapable of any final solution. The difficulties, 
 however, are chiefly connected with details of 
 interpretation, and these ought not to be empha- 
 sised in such a manner as to obscure certain broad 
 facts which stand out with sufficient clearness 
 when we weigh the plain evidence of the Gospels. 
 'Jesus attached his message to those apocalyptic 
 beliefs to which the preaching of John the Bap- 
 tist had now given a mighty impulse. The king- 
 dom of God — the new age in which the will of 
 God would absolutely prevail — was close at hand. 
 As heirs of this new age, God would acknowledge 
 not the children of Israel as a people but those 
 only who were morally worthy. Jesus, like John, 
 proclaimed the kingdom and called on men to 
 prepare themselves for its coming. He conceived 
 of it, we can scarcely doubt, as in the future — an 
 entirely new order which would be ushered in 
 suddenly and miraculously by the immediate act 
 of God. Yet the future and the present were 
 blended together in his mind. The kingdom was 
 so near that the approach of it could be felt al- 
 ready. Men could avail themselves of its powers; 
 they could so apprehend its higher law and con- 
 form their lives to it that they might become even 
 now the children of the new age. In the assur- 
 ance that the kingdom was all but come, Jesus 
 gathered around him a company of followers in 
 whom by word and example he sought to effect a 
 
258 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 radical change of will. His purpose was that they 
 should form the nucleus of that new people, that 
 redeemed community, which God would set apart 
 for himself after his judgment of the world. It 
 is impossible to doubt that, at least in the later 
 part of his ministry, Jesus connected the coming 
 of the kingdom with his own personality. He 
 claimed to be himself the Messiah, or rather an- 
 ticipated that he would be raised to the Messiah- 
 ship when the kingdom was on the point of open- 
 ing. As he perceived his death at the hands of 
 his enemies to be inevitable, he saw in it the di- 
 vinely appointed means whereby he would accom- 
 plish his vocation. Offering himself for death, he 
 would become "a ransom for many" and thus 
 overcome all those hindrances on the part of men 
 which delayed the fulfilment of God's purpose. 
 In his death, too, he would break through the 
 limitations of his earthly life and rise to that Mes- 
 sianic glory in which he would presently return 
 to bring in the kingdom of God^ 
 
 Such, in broad outline, were those conceptions 
 which Jesus took over from the thought of his 
 time and which formed the background of his 
 purely religious teaching. For us they have be- 
 come largely unintelligible. We construe them 
 in a vague spiritual sense or forget them alto- 
 gether in our concentration on the essential mes- 
 sage of which they were the setting. But to the 
 first disciples they were of paramount importance. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 259 
 
 As pious Jews they had grown up amidst dreams 
 of the kingdom, and Jesus had now declared that 
 it was near; he had died to hasten its advent, he 
 had risen in power to transform it into a glorious 
 reality. For the earliest believers the message of 
 Jesus was inseparable from the apocalyptic hope, 
 and in this fact we have the key to the subsequent 
 history. 
 
 The church was created, if we look only to its 
 immediate origin, by the belief that Christ had 
 risen. How the disciples arrived at this belief 
 and in what form they held it we cannot tell, 
 but we know that they accepted it as the very 
 corner-stone of their faith. From this it has been 
 inferred that primitive Christianity was divorced, 
 at the outset, from the facts of the Gospel history. 
 A new and tremendous event had broken in and 
 had half obliterated the memory of past days, 
 even in the minds of Jesus' personal followers. 
 He was no longer the Friend and Master whom 
 they had known, but the exalted Messiah. His 
 actual deeds and purposes were forgotten in the 
 thought of his present glory and the work he 
 would now accomplish. But may it not be sug- 
 gested that precisely here we can discover the 
 root error of the usual modern interpretations of 
 the early history? They assume that the death 
 and resurrection were new and disturbing factors 
 which compelled his followers to reconstruct all 
 
260 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 their previous ideas of Jesus. His teaching was 
 now of quite secondary value, for it had no light 
 to throw on those mysterious events in which 
 his life had culminated. But if we accept the 
 Gospel evidence — and on this point there is no 
 valid reason to doubt it — he had himself contem- 
 plated these events and had related them to his 
 message. In his later ministry he had foretold 
 them to his disciples, and had taught that they 
 were integral with his mission as a whole. It was 
 this, indeed, that gave significance to the resur- 
 rection, which would otherwise have been nothing 
 but a marvellous and inexplicable fact. It brought 
 to a focus the whole work of Jesus. Instead of 
 obscuring that message of the kingdom which had 
 occupied him in his lifetime, it confirmed and il- 
 luminated it and filled it with new meaning. 
 
 From this point of view we can understand how 
 the church was the outcome of the belief in the 
 resurrection. Jesus had taught that the kingdom 
 was at hand, that he himself was the destined 
 Messiah who would bring it in, that through death 
 he would be exalted to his Messianic office. The 
 resurrection was evidence to the disciples that all 
 had happened as he had foretold. He had now 
 attained to the Messiahship; yet a little time and 
 he would return in power to inaugurate the king- 
 dom. But for the followers of Jesus this coming 
 of the kingdom was fraught with a special sig- 
 nificance. He had promised them a part in the 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 261 
 
 great future, -and the knowledge that he had 
 risen, confirming as it did his message of the king- 
 dom, filled them with an absorbing consciousness 
 of their own vocation. The new age was at hand, 
 and they had been chosen to possess it. By this 
 very fact they were withdrawn from the old 
 order and were consecrated as a people by them- 
 selves — the new community of the kingdom. The 
 belief in the resurrection thus issued of its own 
 accord in the formation of the church. 
 
 One point has here been touched on which it 
 may be necessary to emphasise a little further. 
 The assumption is generally made, by writers on 
 the apostolic age, that the church came into 
 existence by a gradual process. First of all, the 
 belief that Jesus had risen impressed itself on a 
 number of his followers, and they were thus won 
 to the conviction that he was, indeed, the Messiah. 
 To support one another in their common faith 
 they formed themselves into a society which by 
 degrees became more highly organised and adopted 
 certain customs and institutions. In the course 
 of time the interests of Christian men were more 
 and more involved in the society until at last it 
 acquired a religious significance of its own. But 
 this account of the origin of the church is not 
 borne out by the historical facts. From the very 
 beginning, so far as we can gather from our 
 records, the believers were all united in a 
 
262 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 brotherhood. Their union with one another did 
 not come about gradually through the faith they 
 held in common, but was essentially bound up 
 with it. Faith in Christ, by its very nature, im- 
 plied a connection with the brotherhood. This 
 intimate relation of personal faith and fellowship 
 with the brethren was pointedly expressed in the 
 rite of baptism, wherein the convert made solemn 
 confession of his belief in Jesus and by so doing 
 was constituted a member of the community. The 
 Christian mission itself bears witness to this 
 interrelation of faith and the idea of the church. 
 The missionaries were not independent teachers 
 intent solely on awakening conviction in many 
 individual minds. They were emissaries of the 
 church working in its name and for its interest. 
 Wherever they went they sought to create a 
 living portion of the Ecclesia. Their converts 
 might be only a handful, gathering for worship in 
 the room of a private house, but they were taught 
 to regard themselves as the church in that house 
 — the Ecclesia in miniature. To the early Chris- 
 tian mind a purely individual faith seems to have 
 /4)een unthinkable. So far from developing grad- 
 I ually by a historical process, the church was a 
 [ primary fact in Christianity. All that was per- 
 sonal in the faith and lives of the believers was 
 rooted in a communal consciousness. 
 
 This mood will become more intelligible if two 
 considerations are borne in mind. On the one 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 263 
 
 hand, our religion grew up under the conditions 
 of ancient thought, in which the individual had 
 not yet come to his own. It is true that Chris- 
 tianity secured a new value for the individual. 
 Jesus had declared, in many a memorable saying, 
 that all men stand in a personal relation to God 
 and that his providence takes account of them 
 one by one. None the less, it was impossible all 
 at once to liberate this new conception from the 
 collectivism which was instinctive to the ancient 
 mind. For the Jews, more especially, the tribal 
 idea had won its way into the very substance of 
 religion. The object of God's choice had been 
 Israel as a people, and individual Israelites had 
 access to him as members of the chosen nation. 
 On the other hand — and this was the decisive 
 factor in early Christian thought — Jesus himself, 
 with all his insistence on the worth of the individ- 
 ual, had kept before him the idea of a redeemed 
 community. He had proclaimed the new age in 
 which God would be served by a people wrought 
 into harmony with his will. He had formed his 
 disciples into a brotherhood, thinking and work- 
 ing together, that they might be the nucleus of 
 that community of the future. When they were 
 assured, therefore, by their visions of the risen 
 Jesus that he had now entered on his Messiah- 
 ship their faith in him was inseparable from the 
 sense of their common vocation. He had called 
 them to be the new people of God. They were 
 
264 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 members of one body and were conscious, in- 
 dividually, of a higher life through their union 
 with one another. 
 
 The church of the first days must not, indeed, be 
 confounded with that of later Christian history. 
 It was not an organisation equipped for a def- 
 inite task in this world, but the brotherhood of 
 those who had identified themselves with the age 
 to come. Jesus had himself declared that the old 
 social order, with its outward rules and author- 
 ities, would presently disappear and would give 
 place to another in which the will of God would be 
 all in all. His disciples sought to anticipate this 
 future order. They acknowledged no forms of 
 government or stated oflBcers; they held all things 
 in common; they were bound together by no 
 visible and artificial ties. The idea of building 
 up a great institution, such as the church became 
 in a subsequent age, was utterly foreign to their 
 minds. They were simply the new community 
 maintaining itself for a little while under earthly 
 conditions until the kingdom should break in. 
 
 The nature of the Christian society is defined 
 in its name "the Ecclesia," a name which has a 
 twofold significance, (a) It denoted the true 
 Israel to which had descended the calling and 
 the privileges of .God's chosen people. A dis- 
 tinction had long ago been drawn by the prophets 
 between the nation as a whole and the " remnant " 
 — the true servants of God who, in his sight, were 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 265 
 
 the nation. The church conceived itself to be the 
 "remnant" and laid claim on this ground to a 
 continuity with the ancient Israel. In one sense 
 it was no new creation but had existed ever since 
 God had first chosen for himself a people. When 
 the kingdom arrived the faithful of the past would 
 be raised to life again and would form one com- 
 munity with the believers in Christ. This con- 
 ception of an Israel of God with which the church 
 was continuous was of cardinal importance in the 
 earliest Christian thought; for only by means of 
 it could the church establish its right in the Old 
 Testament promises. The disciples had broken 
 with Jewish nationalism and the religion of the 
 Law had become meaningless to them; yet they 
 shrank from the inevitable separation. A feeling 
 persisted that the new Israel derived its prerog- 
 ative through the actual Israel and might forfeit 
 its title if it freed itself entirely from the Law. 
 
 (b) But while it was the true Israel the church 
 was also the community of the kingdom. It was 
 continuous with the Ecclesia of the past; but now 
 that Jesus had risen to his Messiahship all things 
 had become different. The inheritance which was 
 formerly the object of hope and longing had drawn 
 near, and the church was entering into it. Iden- 
 tified as it was with' the new order, there was 
 something supernatural in its character. It was 
 endowed with higher attributes and was con- 
 scious of a divine power inspiring and controlling 
 
266 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 it. This consciousness found expression in the 
 doctrine of the Spirit which coloured all the 
 thought and life of primitive Christianity. A 
 belief had been current, ever since the time of the 
 prophets, that when the new age arrived a power 
 from on high, corresponding with their new 
 status, would be poured out on God's people. In 
 former times it had been imparted at rare inter- 
 vals to chosen individuals, but in the latter days 
 it would be shared by the whole community. By 
 means of it men would be brought to a closer re- 
 lation to God, to a fuller knowledge of him, to 
 the exercise of higher gifts and activities. The 
 church was assured that it had now received this 
 Spirit. Its operation was discerned in the strange 
 phenomena that manifested themselves in Chris- 
 tian worship; but these were regarded as only the 
 index of a new energy pervading the Christian life. 
 The Spirit, present in the believer, transformed 
 his entire nature and impressed a new~^iaracter 
 on all Eis action. And though its gifts were mani- 
 fold and were bestowed in varying measure, all 
 had received their part in them. In the last resort 
 the Spirit was the possession not of individual 
 men but of the whole church. It was like the 
 vital principle diffused through the body, and 
 quickening the different members because of their 
 union with the body. Underlying the doctrine of 
 the Spirit we can discover that communal con- 
 sciousness in which all primitive Christian think- 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 267 
 
 ing was involved. The individual believers were 
 bound up with the church. They claimed to 
 possess the Spirit in so far as they belonged to 
 the spiritual community which God had chosen 
 for his kingdom. 
 
 There is no ground, then, for the hypothesis, 
 often assumed as self-evident, that after the death 
 of Jesus his message was practically forgotten and 
 he himself became the one interest of faith. It 
 may be gathered, rather, that personal devotion 
 to Jesus was a later development. At the outset 
 the disciples were absorbed in the hope of the 
 kingdom which he had foretold, and out of that 
 hope the church was born. But while the message 
 of Jesus was thus primary, it was connected in- 
 separably with Jesus himself. The more it was 
 cherished, the more clearly he stood out in his own 
 person as the centre and foundation of the Chris- 
 tian life. (1) A new value revealed itself even in 
 his earthly ministry. He had proclaimed the 
 kingdom and had set forth its nature and the re- 
 quirements of its moral order. For the disciples 
 his teaching was now authoritative. Their expec- 
 tation of the kingdom, instead of making them for- 
 getful of the life of Jesus, served only to enhance 
 its significance. He was the prophet of the way — 
 the teacher of the new righteousness. A duty was 
 laid on all who sought the kingdom to keep his 
 words and example ever before them, for thus 
 
268 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 alone could they conform their lives to that 
 higher law which would obtain hereafter. We 
 mistake the whole character of early Christian- 
 ity if we forget that the mood of enthusiasm was 
 accompanied by a conscious imitation of Jesus. 
 This practical obedience to him was nothing, in- 
 deed, but the other side of the apocalyptic hope. 
 (2) In the knowledge that he was now clothed with 
 power his followers had the assurance that the 
 kingdom was at hand and that they were des- 
 tined to have part in it. The belief in Jesus' 
 Messiahship was thus the keystone of the entire 
 structure of Christianity. Faith directed itself 
 to him, for apart from him there could be no hope 
 of the kingdom, no Ecclesia, no participation in 
 the Spirit. (3) His Parousia was to give the'sig- 
 nal for the final consummation. Although the 
 inheritance was certain, it was still in the future 
 and could not be fully realised until Jesus re- 
 turned to fulfil his work. Thus the hope of the 
 kingdom resolved itself into a waiting for the ap- 
 pearance of Christ. This was the habitual mood 
 of the believer, and out of it grew the feeling that 
 the Christian life was incorporated with Christ 
 and could only attain its fruition through him. 
 "Ye are dead," says Paul, "and your life is hid 
 with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life 
 shall appear, then we also shall appear with him 
 in glory." * 
 
 * Col. 3 : 3, 4. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 269 
 
 This central position assigned to Jesus was 
 marked by the title icvpim, which seems even in 
 the earliest days to have displaced that of Mes- 
 siah. It has to be understood primarily as con- 
 noting the relation of Jesus to the church. The 
 world at large had no portion in him and could 
 never know him except as judge, but the church 
 was his own community within which he reigned. 
 To invoke him by the name of Lord was evidence 
 that you belonged to his people and partook in 
 their privileges and obligations. The initiatory 
 rite of baptism was sealed by the confession, 
 " Jesus is Lord." By the act of making that con- 
 fession a man severed himself from the old order 
 and became one with the new community of the 
 kingdom. But this entrance into the community 
 involved a personal relation to Jesus. Acknowl- 
 edging him as Lord, you subjected yourself to his 
 will and gave your life into his keeping and were 
 conscious of his abiding fellowship. Faith in 
 Jesus was much more than the bare recognition 
 of his claim to be the Messiah. To the primitive 
 church, as to Paul, it was the decisive factor in 
 Christianity; for it signified a changed attitude 
 of the will — a new direction given to the whole 
 life. The belief in Jesus was inseparable from that 
 entire surrender to him which was implied in the 
 confession, "Jesus is Lord." 
 
 More than once in the New Testament the mem- 
 bers of the church are described by the peculiar 
 
270 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 name, "those who call upon the name of the 
 Lord" (ot eTrwakov/xevoL to ovo/m tou Kvpiov).* The 
 Greek word here employed seems to suggest the 
 practice of actual prayer to Jesus, and some have 
 inferred that even in the earliest period he was 
 regarded as a divine being. If this were so, it 
 would be necessary to suppose that Christianity 
 was affected from the outset by some alien influ- 
 ence, for within the pale of Jewish monotheism 
 such an encroachment on the prerogative of God 
 is hardly conceivable. It may be questioned, 
 however, whether the evidence for prayer to 
 Jesus has not been overpressed by modern 
 writers anxious to discover a foreign element in 
 even the earliest Christian worship. That the 
 regular custom was to address prayer directly to 
 God is attested by numberless passages in the 
 Acts and Epistles. The only clear exceptions 
 are the dying words of Stephen, " Lord Jesus, re- 
 ceive my spirit," f and the pathetic allusion of 
 Paul to his thorn in the flesh : " For this thing I 
 besought the Lord thrice that it might depart 
 from me." t In neither case do we seem to have 
 reference to actual prayer. His disciples address 
 themselves to Jesus, not because they think of him 
 as another God, but because they realise so in- 
 tensely his living presence. They know him as 
 the Friend and Protector with whom they can 
 
 * Romans 10 : 12; 10 : 13; I Cor. 1 : 2. 
 
 t Acts 7 : 59. t II Cor. 12 : 8. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 271 
 
 hold converse, and to whom they instinctively 
 appeal in the hour of need. It is surely beside 
 the mark to detect theological motives and anal- 
 ogies with heathen custom in those colloquies 
 with the risen Jesus which were natural to the en- 
 thusiastic piety of the early days. What, then, 
 was the nature of that "calling on the name of 
 Jesus" which was the characteristic mark of be- 
 lievers? Perhaps the true explanation is to be 
 sought in one or two passages which connect it 
 more definitely with the rite of baptism.* The 
 rite was accompanied with the confession, " Jesus 
 is Lord," and by so confessing him the convert 
 surrendered himself to Jesus and was brought 
 under his power and guardianship. He was 
 henceforth one of the elect community with the 
 right to address Jesus as "Lord." His confession 
 of that "name" was itself an invocation, insuring 
 that in all prayer which he might offer he would 
 have an advocate with the Father. 
 
 If the results of our inquiry have been sub- 
 stantially correct the ordinary estimate of the be- 
 ginnings of Christianity stands in need of con- 
 siderable revision. It may be well to indicate 
 briefly the more important points in which a 
 modification of this kind seems to be necessary. 
 (1) There is no sharp line of division, such as is 
 usually drawn, between the teaching of Jesus 
 * Romans 10 : 12, 13. 
 
272 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 and that of the primitive church. The movement 
 initiated by Jesus was continued by his disciples. 
 His own death, so far from arresting it or turning 
 it in a new direction, served only to give it a fresh 
 impetus along the path which he had himself 
 marked out for it. (2) A fuller account must be 
 taken of that apocalyptic atmosphere which was 
 vital to early Christianity. All writers are now 
 agreed that the disciples lived in the daily expec- 
 tation of the Parousia, but they hardly attempt 
 to realise the significance of that fact. They 
 think of the church, in the first ardour of its tre- 
 mendous hope, as nothing but an obscure religious 
 society painfully struggling for a foothold. But 
 we have to look not so much at the mere outward 
 conditions of the church as at the consciousness 
 that inspired it. Those followers of Jesus, in their 
 unnoticed gatherings, were filled with the confi- 
 dence of a great destiny. They believed that they 
 would presently inherit the new age and that a 
 supernatural power was already working in them. 
 We cannot understand the primitive history un- 
 less we thus read it from within in the light of the 
 apocalyptic hope. (3) The church began not as a 
 collection of individuals united in the same faith 
 but as a community. As in the former age God 
 had chosen for himself a people, so in his kingdom 
 he would ordain a people to serve him. It had 
 been the aim of Jesus to gather around him this 
 brotherhood of the future, and after his death his 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 273 
 
 disciples held fast to the communal idea. They 
 constituted the true Israel, which would possess 
 the new age at the Lord's coming. The powers 
 and privileges to which they laid claim belonged 
 to them as a body and were bestowed on the in- 
 dividual believer in so far as he was a member of 
 the body. In the process of time the church 
 hardened into an institution framed and admin- 
 istered like any earthly society, and the doctrine 
 that outside of it there could be no salvation 
 tended to warp and pervert the original Chris- 
 tian teaching. But the doctrine in itself was no 
 perversion. From the beginning the Christian 
 faith was identified with a community into which 
 men required to be adopted before they could 
 participate in the kingdom of God. (4) Not- 
 withstanding its intimate relation with the parent 
 religion, there never was a time when the church 
 was a mere sect of Judaism. Assured of its great 
 calling, it felt itself to transcend the nation. It 
 claimed to be the true Israel in which the age- 
 long travail of the nation had reached fulfilment. 
 Outwardly, it is true, the disciples remained faith- 
 ful to the Law, but they regarded it as secondary 
 and non-essential. They were conscious, long 
 before the days of Paul, that they stood for a new 
 conception of religion which had little in common 
 with the reigning Judaism. It is significant that 
 of the recorded sayings of Jesus so many are di- 
 rected against the scribes and Pharisees, the 
 
274 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 acknowledged representatives of the Law. The 
 church that treasured these sayings had already 
 grown critical of the Law, and the final break 
 with it was only a matter of time. (5) From the 
 primitive community at Jerusalem the new re- 
 ligion derived its essential beliefs and went forth 
 with them on its gentile mission. There has been 
 a tendency in recent years to lay increasing em- 
 phasis on the gentile contribution. According to 
 not a few modern writers, historical Christianity 
 was almost wholly the product of alien forces 
 working on a bare nucleus which was afforded by 
 the faith in Jesus. Now, it cannot be denied that 
 our religion underwent profound modifications 
 when it was brought into contact with gentile 
 thought. It was translated out of the language 
 of Jewish apocalyptic into that of Hellenistic 
 speculation, and the change of form in large mea- 
 sure affected its substance. But the main function 
 of the new influences was to interpret and eluci- 
 date what was already given. Behind all the 
 later developments we can discern with sufficient 
 clearness those cardinal beliefs which had come 
 down from the primitive Apostles and ultimately 
 from Jesus himself. (6) It would be misleading 
 to speak of a primitive theology, yet the earliest 
 Christian teaching was far richer in its content 
 than is generally assumed. The belief that Jesus 
 was the Messiah, which is sometimes described 
 as the one distinctive belief of the first disciples, 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 275 
 
 itself involved a complete recasting of traditional 
 Judaism. It was bound up with a whole com- 
 plex of new ideas which found their place along 
 with it in Christian faith. In the earliest think- 
 ing of the church, although it is known to us in 
 such meagre outline, we can discover the roots 
 of almost all the conceptions which grew to 
 maturity in the century following. There is no 
 evidence that Peter and his companions were 
 men of exceptional religious genius, and in many 
 respects their horizon was a very limited one. 
 But they came in the opening years when the 
 new life of the Spirit was at its flood. They 
 were able to realise their gospel in something of 
 its breadth and fulness and to anticipate, at least 
 in glimpses, the results of the time to come. 
 
 The chief share In the creating of a theology 
 out of the intuitions of primitive Christian faith 
 was reserved for the Apostle Paul. His relation 
 to the earlier teaching Is a vast and Intricate 
 subject which could not be adequately discussed 
 without a detailed analysis of his thought In all 
 its manifold aspects and affinities. For such an 
 analysis, even if It lay within the scope of the 
 present Investigation, the data are not yet avail- 
 able. We need a fuller and more accurate knowl- 
 edge of Paul's debt to Rabbinism, to Greek 
 philosophy, to Oriental religion before we can 
 sift out those elements in his teaching which he 
 drew from the native Christian tradition. But 
 
276 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 our inquiry has tended to confirm the conviction, 
 which seems to be growing among New Testa- 
 ment scholars, that Paul is not to be regarded as 
 an innovator,. much less as "the second founder of 
 Christianity." It has to be remembered that he 
 began his work in close alliance with the Jerusa- 
 lem church and that Barnabas, one of the lead- 
 ers of that church, was his fellow labourer. For 
 at least fourteen years no serious exception was 
 taken to his teaching. Again and again in his 
 Epistles he manifests his anxiety to keep in line 
 with the accepted tradition, and indignantly 
 spurns the possibility that there may be "an- 
 other gospel." He claims that what had come to 
 him "by revelation" in no way contradicts the 
 message that had been preached by the elder 
 Apostles. In one sense it is true that Paul was 
 a creator. He had been drawn to Christianity 
 through a unique experience, and brought to its 
 service the endowment of a supreme religious 
 thinker. On everything that he touched he left 
 his individual impress and unconsciously turned 
 the whole stream of Christian thought into new 
 channels. But his work, as it appeared to his 
 own mind, was that of expounding and interpret- 
 ing, and we have no fair reason to doubt that he 
 judged of himself truly. At not a few points his 
 dependence on the tradition is certain, and we 
 should probably find, if our knowledge extended 
 far enough, that he is building almost everywhere 
 
TEE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 277 
 
 on something that had been given him. It is, in- 
 deed, futile to maintain, as some have done, that 
 Paul was nothing but a docile missionary who 
 faithfully reproduced what he had received. The 
 teaching of the church, transmitting itself through 
 his great personality, could not but undergo a 
 change and enrichment. But it is equally false 
 to conceive of Paul as displacing or subverting 
 the earlier Christianity. We ought rather to 
 think of him as its armed soldier through whom 
 it came to its own. He furnished it with new 
 categories whereby it could ally itself with the 
 larger intellectual movement of the age. He 
 broke the bond with Judaism which had pre- 
 vented it from fully asserting its inherent prin- 
 ciples. He construed as reasoned doctrine the 
 beliefs which had rested hitherto on the surmise 
 of faith. Without Paul Christianity could hardly 
 have achieved its victory; but the gospel which 
 he transformed into a world-conquering power had 
 in substance been given to him by the obscure 
 church of the early days. 
 
 Paul was the heir of the primitive tradition, 
 and this, in turn, was the immediate outcome of 
 the work of Jesus. It has too often been assumed 
 — and the modern reading of Christian history 
 has been largely controlled by this assumption^ 
 that our religion was separated at the very outset 
 from its Founder. In the disaster that overtook 
 
278 THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH 
 
 him his message Also perished, and his name was 
 employed henceforth to cover a new movement 
 which he himself had never contemplated. But 
 historical Christianity, as we have tried to show, 
 cannot thus be sundered from the work of Jesus. 
 His disciples took up his message of the kingdom 
 and gave it embodiment in the beliefs and in- 
 stitutions of the church. They apprehended it 
 in the apocalyptic forms under which he had pro- 
 claimed it, but within this framework they pre- 
 served its essential meaning. They associated 
 the coming of the kingdom with a closer relation 
 to God, a higher righteousness, a divine Spirit 
 renewing the lives of men. And as the teaching 
 of the church grew out of the work of Jesus, so 
 did the church itself. He had conceived of the 
 people of the kingdom as forming a new commu- 
 nity bound together in mutual love and service, 
 and had called his disciples as the first-fruits of 
 this future brotherhood. After his death they 
 maintained their fellowship. Their individual 
 faith was grounded in the sense of a common in- 
 heritance in that kingdom which he was pres- 
 ently to inaugurate. The church of a later time, 
 with its discipline and hierarchies, bore little re- 
 semblance to this brotherhood of the first days, 
 yet it rose out of it by a natural development 
 and has never entirely forgotten its origin. At 
 the heart of it there has ever persisted the idea 
 that it is the communion of God's people, sepa- 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY 279 
 
 rated from the world and waiting for the fulfil- 
 ment of the higher order. It would be mournful 
 to think that the purpose of Jesus was frustrated 
 at the beginning and that the whole labour of the 
 Christian ages has rested on a misconception. 
 From our study of the initial period we may con- 
 clude that such a theory is historically false. 
 There was no gulf between Jesus and the church 
 that followed him. His work was continued by 
 those who had understood his niessage and who 
 built on the foundation which he himself had laid. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acts, plan op, 6 
 Acts, sources of, 23 
 Adonis, 95 
 Agape, 199 
 Ananias, 138, 140 
 Antioch, dispute at, 120 
 Apostles, 147 /. 
 Apostles' creed, 180 
 Appearances of Jesus, 9 J^., 159 
 Aramaic, 98 
 
 Bacon, 226, 239 
 Baptism, 162 #. 
 Barnabas, 131, 138, 140 
 Batiffol, 35 
 Beatitudes, 155 
 Behm, 215 
 Believers, 106 
 Breaking of bread, 198 
 Brotherhood, 133/., 184 
 Brotherly love, 135 
 Bruckner, 91 
 
 CiEBAR-WOBSHIP, 96 
 
 Camisards, 73 
 Circumcision, 186 
 Community, the new, 42^., 
 
 77, 105 and -passim 
 Community of goods, 137/. 
 Confession, baptismal, 98, 
 
 105, 180/., 269 
 Cornelius, 188 
 Council, Jewish, 117, 233 
 
 Daniel, book of, 47 
 Deissmonn, 214 
 Diatheke, 214/. 
 DibeUus, 214 
 Didache, 155, 175, 209 
 Disciples, 29 
 Dispersion, 119 
 
 EccLBSLA, 29#., 113, 241, 264 
 
 and passim 
 Ephesians, epistle to, 45 
 EquaUty, gospel of, 139 
 Essenes, 118, 136, 166 
 Exorcism, 178 
 
 Faith, 106, 122, 130 
 
 Gamaliel, 117 
 Gfrorer, 238 
 Glossolalia, 60 /, 71 
 Government of the church, 
 144/. 
 
 Hatch, 32 
 
 Hebrews, epistle to, 39, 248 
 Heitmuller, 175, 201, 207 
 Hellenists, 228, 244 
 Herod Agrippa, 120, 253 
 
 Instrtjction, 156/. 
 Interim ethic, 153 
 Irvingite movement, 73 
 Isaiah, 66 
 Israel, 36 #., 114,263 
 
 James, 104, 149, 253 
 James, epistle of, 5, 39 
 Jerusalem, council of, 124 J'. 
 Jerusalem, settlement at, 20, 
 
 136 
 Joel, 65 
 
 Johannine writings, 164, 232 
 John the Baptist, 94, 129, 167 
 Judaists, 122 
 
 Kingdom op God, 42/., 69, 88 
 
 Law, 40, 115 #. 
 Life of Jesus, 92 
 
 281 
 
282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Logos, 88 
 Lombard, 73 
 Lord, Jesus as, 84 ff., 185 
 Lord B Prayer, 153 
 Lord's Supper, 88, 104, 159, 
 192 #. 
 
 Magic, 178 
 Maranatha, 98 
 Matthew, gospel of, 31, 51 
 Matthias, 22 
 Maurenbrecher, 99 
 Messianic banquet, 208 
 Messianic doctrine, 14/., 18, 
 
 88/., 257/. 
 Millennium, 103 
 Miracles, 68 
 Mithra, 95 
 Morality, 92 
 Mosiman, 73 
 Mysteries, 163 
 Mysticism, 13 
 
 Name op Jesus, 174/. 
 New birth, 187 
 New commandment, 135 
 New law, 48, 159 
 
 Oriental cums, 14, 67, 96, 
 101 
 
 Palestinian church, 139 
 Papyri, 95, 176 
 Parousia, 159, 268 
 Passover meal, 196, 204/. 
 Paul, 2, 3, 7, 12, 86, 90, and 
 
 passim 
 Pentecost, 58 /., 165 
 Peter, 120, 145, 148/. 
 Peter, epistles of, 6 
 Peter, promise to, 51 
 Peter, speeches of, 16, 38, 87, 
 
 97, 110, 113 
 PhiUp, 231 
 Philo, 61, 118 
 Prayer to Jesus, 270 
 
 Prophecy, 64 
 
 Proselytes, baptism of, 166 
 
 Qahal, 32 
 
 Reign of Messiah, 102 
 Remnant, 37, 47, 103, 129, 
 
 265 
 Renunciation, 144 
 Repentance, 173 
 Resurrection, 9 ff. 
 Revelation, book of, 103 
 R6ville, 201, 214 
 
 Sacbed meal, 193 
 
 Saints, 36 
 
 Sajfings of Jesus, 157/. 
 
 Schumacher, 239 
 
 Schiirer, 34 
 
 Seeberg, 154 
 
 Serapis, 95 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, 159 
 
 Sohm, 32 
 
 Son of man, 237 
 
 Spirit, doctrine of, 62#., 130, 
 
 146, 266 
 Spirit, gift of, 57 ff., 187 
 Spiritual phenomena, 58 /. 
 Spitta, 20, 201, 238 
 Stephen, 27, 117, 224 #. 
 Stoning, 233 
 Synagogue, 32 
 
 Teaching op Jesus, 152 
 Temple, 21, 240/. 
 Tradition, primitive, 97 
 Twelve, the, 145/. 
 
 Universality op gospel, 52 
 
 VoLZ, 62 
 
 Way, the, 151 
 Wealth and poverty, 139 
 Weiss, 207 
 Wellhausen, 207 
 Wrede, 91