YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF TEINITARIAN1SM AND ITS OUTCOME IN THE NEW CHKISTOLOGY BY LEVI LEONAED PAINE WALDO FKOFESSOB OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IS BANGOU THEOLOGICAL 8EMINABY " Love . . . rejoiceth with the truth." Paul. " In the degree that we become true Christians, We shall discover more brethren." Auguste Sabatieb. BOSTON AND NEW TOKK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY fflhc fiiuec£ibe $u$$, Cambritige 1900 PEEFACE This book is the outcome of an invitation ex tended to me in 1893 by the editors of "The New World " to write an article on Athanasianism. It was also suggested that I should touch on its historical relation to present New England trin- itarian and christological thought. The special original study which the preparation of this article involved, and the new light thus gained, led to the preparation of a second article on the Pseudo-Atha- nasian Augustinianism. This was followed by a third article on New England Trinitarianism, in which it was shown that the earlier Greek Athana- sian.form of Trinitarianism had given place, in the Latin church, to the Pseudo-Athanasian Augus tinianism, and that New England Trinitarianism in all its various developments was Augustinian rather than Athanasian. Thus the question raised by the editors of "The New World" was fully answered. I have to thank the editors for per mission to publish these articles in this volume, of which they form the first three chapters. These chapters have suffered no essential change, except that the account in the first chapter of the initial vi PREFACE stages of the evolution of the trinitarian dogma in the New Testament period has been considerably extended. The remaining chapters of the book, forming by far the larger part of it, follow out, as far as possible, the lines of trinitarian evolution already traced, and indicate what must be their logical and historical outcome and conclusion. So that the volume as a whole will be found to have a completely organic unity. It is scarcely necessary to say that my object has been throughout to give the results of an un biased historical and critical study of the subject. My aim has been first to ascertain the exact histor ical truth concerning this most important chapter of Christian theological thought, and next to state all the facts thus gained with the utmost can dor, sincerity, and freedom. I know how difficult it is, even for a professed historical scholar, to divest himself of all theological prepossessions; but I can truly say that I am not aware of having been governed in my historical researches by any other motive than the simple and earnest desire to reach historical truth, and also, so far as it lies within the limits of a historian's task, such reli gious conceptions and grounds of theological be lief as history may properly suggest and sustain. But such conclusions contain no a priori dogmatic element ; they are wholly drawn inductively from history itself. PREFACE vii Of course no historian is called to divest himself of his Christian faith, or of the expression of it at times in his historical studies and writings. But, as this book itself will show, religious faith is a very different thing' from theological dogma, and I can frankly declare that, while my studies in the history of Christian doctrine have led me more and more strongly away from a priori dogmatic positions, my religious faith has been able to rest itself more and more securely on the great fun damental verities of religion. There has been a disposition on the part of dogmatic theologians to excite a prejudice against historical studies, as if they tended to a spirit of skepticism. Such per sons have a very false conception of the effect of such studies. It is true that they tend to destroy a blind faith in unhistorical traditions and in theo logical dogmas that are found to lack the histori cal basis which has been claimed for them, but such destructive results are far from being evil. On the contrary, they free the mind from skeptical tendencies by making clear the historical paths that lead towards religious truth. It has been custom ary to distinguish history from faith and dogma, in religious matters, as if history were not reli gious, and had no religious function. The Christ of history, for example, has been compared with the Christ of faith and of dogma, as if the true Christ of the Christian religion was something wholly dif- viii PREFACE ferent from the Christ of history, and was of a higher supernatural order. But such a view wholly mistakes what history is, and what its place is in the divine order of the world. Surely the longer one studies history, and the more deeply one enters into an understanding of its hidden laws and forces and movements, the more clearly does one appre hend its truly divine function as a revealer of God's providential plans and purposes concerning this world, and also as a continuous panorama of hu man events, unveiling, as the years go by, the pro gressive revelations of his truth and love and grace. This book will fail of its great object if it does not succeed in bringing out this fact that history is God's great providential teacher of men. The Christ of history is indeed, it must be understood, the very Christ of God. In this view, Christ is not reduced below his true measure, but history is raised to its rightful place in the divine administration. Such a conception of history tends directly toward a truer conception of God in his relation to this world and to man, — the noblest creature that dwells on it. It brings all things into the closest connection with God's fatherly providential gov ernance, love, and care. Especially does it raise man himself into true fellowship with God, and into that " full assurance of hope " which rests on the continually increasing evidence which history affords that God is good, and that "all things PREFACE ix work together for good to them that love Him." It is under the inspiration of such a conviction, which my historical studies have only strengthened and illumined, that this book has been written, and my hope and prayer is that it may lead others into it, and, further, into the moral strength and courage and trust that it so richly yields. LEVI L. PAINE. Bangor, Me., January, 1900. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. Athanasianibm 1 II. The Pseudo-Athanasian Aogtjstinianism . 58 III. New England Trtnttarianism 97 IV. The Trinitarian Outlook .... 139 V. The Trinitarian Result 162 VI. The New Historical Evolution . . . 175 VTI. The Demand of the Historical Spirit . . 186 Vlli. The Demand of the Religious Spirit . . 195 IX. The Demand of the Intellectual Spirit . 221 X. The New Theological Method . . . 247 XL The Materials of the New Theology . . 263 XII. The Construction of the New Theology . 271 XI1L The New Christology 279 XIV. The New Christian Atonement . . . 288 XV. The Leading Features and Benefits of the New Theology 308 XVL Conclusion 314 APPENDIX A. The Johanntne Problem 319 B. A Criticism of Professor A. V. G. Allen's " Con tinuity of Christian Thought" . . 368 C. Professor Pfleiderer's Article in the "New World" 377 Index 383 " Whatever appears to me to be true, or moat probable, after candid and earnest inquiry, ¦with all reverence for the sacredness of the subject, I utter, -without looking at consequences. Who ever has a good work to do must, as Luther says, let the devil's tongue run as it pleases. There are two opposite parties whom I cannot hope to please, viz., those who will forcibly make all things new, and fancy, in their folly, that they can shake the rock' which ages could not undermine; and those who would retain and forcibly reintroduce, even at tbe expense of all genuine love of truth, everything that is old ; nay, even the worn-out and the obsolete. I shall not please those hypercritics who subject the sacred writings to an arbitrary subtilty, at once superrational and sophistical ; nor those, on the other hand, who believe that here all criticism — or at least all criticism on internal grounds — cometh of evil. Both these tendencies are alike at variance with a healthful sense for truth and conscientious devotion to it ; both are alike inimical to genuine culture. There is need of criticism where anything is communicated to us in the form of a historical tradition in written records ; and I am sure that an im partial criticism, applied to the Scriptures, is not only consistent with that childlike faith without which there can be no Chris tianity or Christian theology, but is necessary to a just acuteness and profoundness of thought, as well as to that true consecration of mind which is so essential to theology." — Neander, Preface to Life of Jesus Christ. EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM CHAPTER I ATHANA8IANI8M The New England doctrine of the Trinity is plainly passing through a critical phase in its his tory. That a rapprochement of some sort is quietly going on between so-called Trinitarians and so- called Unitarians is clear to any careful observer. Trinitarians are ready to declare themselves Uni tarians in some good sense, and Unitarians are equally ready to declare themselves Trinitarians in some other good sense. Mr. Joseph Cook con cludes an impassioned defense of what he calls the old trinitarian faith with a description of " God's Unitarianism," which of course is his own ; while Dr. Bartol, when asked if God is in three persons, answers : " Yes, and in all persons." It is a sign of the times that the Nicene creed is enjoying a sort of revival. Trinitarians are rallying to it as the true centre of their position. Prof. A. V. G. Allen, in " The Continuity of Christian Thought," declares that " the question is not whether we 2 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM shall return or ought to return to what is called Nicene theology ; the fact is that the return has already begun." JBbmoousios is once more the trinitarian watchword. The latest Congregational creed begins with it. Unitarians are equally in favor of it. "We are all Athanasians," ex claims Dr. Bartol. . The old Charming Arianism, it seems, is out of date. Dr. Hedge asserts that the Nicene Council by its homoousian doctrine began " a new era in human thought," and claims that it contains the essential truth. Dr. J. H. Allen thinks the triumph of Nicene orthodoxy was providential, and " saved Christianity as a great social and reconstructive force." Where are we, and what next ? 1 Meanwhile it is in order to inquire what Atha- nasianism really is, and whether Athanasius himself would recognize many of his modern disciples. This is the object of the present chapter. It pro poses a historico-critical survey of the Nicene Athanasian Trinitarianism, and its relation to ear lier and later forms of trinitarian dogma. For it must be distinctly recognized at the outset that this doctrine is no exception to the universal law of historical evolution. The Nicene theology was the product of three centuries of controversy and growth. But this evolution, in its further history, suffered one great break. A radically new epoch 1 Joseph Cook, Boston Monday Lectures, Orthodoxy, p. 68. Prof. A. V. O. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 19. Dr. F. H. Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, p. 351. Dr. J. H. Allen, Fragments of Christian History, p. 119. ATHANASIANISM 3 in the development of the trinitarian dogma was begun by the North African Augustine. This celebrated man had a singular influence upon the whole course of Western theology. He fixed the Canon of Scripture for Latin Christendom; he introduced the doctrine of purgatory, and strength ened the materialistic ideas which ruled mediaeval eschatology ; he laid the foundations of that rigid view of human depravity and of divine grace and predestination which issued in Calvinism. But more far reaching still was the new turn he gave to the doctrine of the Trinity, by which the way was opened for the Sabellianizing tendencies which have infected Western theology to this day. To class Augustine with Athanasius and the Greek Fathers, as has so often been done, is to entirely misunderstand him, as well as the general relation of the Greek and Latin churches in the fifth cen tury. In Augustine's day the Western Empire was breaking in pieces and yielding to barbarism. The Greek language and culture were dying out. Augustine himself was not a Greek scholar. There is no evidence that he ever read Athanasius or any of the later Greek Fathers. He never quotes them. His philosophical ideas were drawn from Western Neo-Platonic and Stoic sources rather than from the pure Eastern fountains of Plato and Aristotle. It is no wonder, then, that the Greek Trinitarianism assumed a new shape in his hands. He did not understand its metaphysics or its ter minology. Besides, he had little respect in general 4 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM for Greek theology. He refers to Athanasius in terms of admiration as a hero of the faith, but he treats Origen, the greatest and most influential thinker of the ancient Greek church, as a heretic. Thus the history of Trinitarianism divides itself into two distinct chapters, — the Greek Athana- sian, and the Latin Augustinian. This chapter will deal with the former. Athanasianism has its roots in the New Testa ment, and behind the New Testament is the Old. Here, then, our survey must begin. The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic. God is a single personal being. The idea that a trinity is to be found there, or even is in any way shadowed forth, is an assumption that has long had sway in theology, but is utterly without foundation. The Jews, as a people, under its teachings became stern opponents of all polytheistic tendencies, and they have remained unflinching monotheists to this day. On this point there is no break between the Old Testament and the New. The monotheistic tradi tion is continued. Jesus was a Jew, trained by Jewish parents in the Old Testament scriptures. His teacning was Jewish to the core ; a new gos pel indeed, but not a new theology. He declared that he came " not to destroy the law and the pro phets, but to fulfill " them, and he accepted as his own belief the great text of Jewish monotheism : " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God." His proclamation concerning himself was in the line of Old Testament prophecy. He was the ATHANASIANISM 6 " Messiah " of the promised kingdom, the " Son of Man " of Jewish hope. In all Christ's declarations concerning himself, as given in those Synoptic gospels, which contain the earliest traditional ac counts of his teaching, there is a marked reticence as to his person. If he sometimes asked : " Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ? " he gave no answer himself beyond the implied assertion of his Messiahship. There is no hint anywhere of a pre-incarnate life, or of a supernatural birth, or of a divine incarnation. He calls God his Father, but he also teaches that God is the Father of alL and gives his disciples the Pater Noster. Cer tainly Christ had a clear consciousness of his own intimate moral relationship with God, but there is no evidence that the idea of a peculiar meta physical union with God ever entered his mind. At least it did not appear in his synoptic teaching. The period of nearly a generation between Christ and Paul is one in which we are dependent on the oral traditions that circulated among the ori ginal disciples. These traditions were subsequently gathered together in various gospels, of which the three Synoptic gospels have survived. These gos pels in their present shape are much later than Paul, but they contain traditions that plainly go back to the time of Christ himself, and thus ante date the period in which Paul wrote his epistles. There are also in these gospels additions that as clearly belong to a later time, and it has been the important task of historical criticism to distinguish 6 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM the original traditions from the later additions. Of the writings of our New Testament the epistles of Paul are the earliest in date. The First Epistle of Peter, if genuine, as it seems to be, comes next. The authorship of all the remaining portions is wholly uncertain, and the dates are plainly con siderably later. Latest of all are the gospel and epistles which were attributed in subsequent times to the Apostle John. Of the much disputed question as to their Johannine authorship I shall speak later.1 Enough to say now that the whole course and result of historical criticism has been to show that the traditional view is without any suffi cient historical foundation. The fourth Gospel is undoubtedly a writing of about the middle of the second century, and the author is entirely unknown. It should also be noted that the earliest manu script texts of the New Testament, as we have it, are as late at least as the fourth or fifth century, and that it is therefore impossible to know exactly what interpolations or additions had already crept into the original texts, though certain criteria, such as other versions and the writings of the early Fathers, afford some grounds of critical judgment. With this critical explanation, we take the New Testament writings as we find them, and ask what evidence they give us on the question of the evolu tion of the dogma of the Trinity. The earliest stratum of this evolution is contained in the Book 1 See, for a full discussion of this question in its historical aspects, Appendix A : — " The Johannine Problem." ATHANASIANISM 7 of Acts, and in the Synoptic gospels, with the exception of the opening chapters of Matthew and of Luke, which are later additions, as we shall see further on. The doctrine of Christ in this first stratum is distinctly that of Messiahship. Jesus is a man of God, sent of God to declare his gospel and exhort men to prepare for the kingdom of heaven which is at hand. There is no assertion of Christ's divinity, or of his preexistence and incar nation, or even of his miraculous birth. Jesus is everywhere described as the son of Joseph and Mary. The Book of Acts is here of primary im portance. Although it evidently contains quite a large element of legend, it is equally evident that many of its accounts belong to the earliest apostolic traditions. Even when compared with the Synoptic gospels it breathes an air of historical freshness and naturalness, as if a genuine growth of the original soil. The whole picture of the Acts is that of a human Messiah, glorified by a divine mission. I have already referred to Christ's own account of himself as recorded in the Synoptic gospels. It is essentially that of the Acts. There is one feature, however, of the narrative which is common both to Gospels and Acts, that should be noticed. I refer to the miracles. It is a mistake to suppose that the miracles were a proof or h> tended to be a proof of Christ's divinity. The Bible contains many miracles supposed to be wrought by men. Christ's disciples also wrought miracles. The Acts contain explicit accounts of miracles per- 8 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM formed by Peter and Paul. Such miracles were regarded as proofs of the power given by God to his servants, not as proof that any worker of them was himself divine. Belief in such miraculous power was universal in the ancient world. The second stratum of evolution in the New Testament is found in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. These chapters bear on their very face the plain marks of forming a later ad dition. In the first place, they are historically in consistent with the rest of the gospels. They represent Jesus as born in Bethlehem, while all the other portions, not only of Matthew and Luke, but also of the entire New Testament,, make no allusion to Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, and speak of him everywhere as of Nazareth, implying that he was born there. In the second place, the genealogies in these opening chapters are inconsistent with the rest of the chapters them selves. They were written to show that Jesus was the true Messiah of Jewish prophecy, who was ex pected to come in the Davidic line ; and this line ran through Joseph, who was thus made the natu ral as well as putative father of Jesus. The con cluding parts of these genealogies, in which Joseph is referred to, bear marks of interpolation and change, and the altered readings nullify the very object for which the genealogies were prepared. The grossly uncritical character of that age is here conspicuous. With the purpose of harmonizing a new legendary tradition that has grown up around ATHANASIANISM 9 Christ's birth and infancy with the older genealogy, this rude alteration of the text is resorted to. The ancient Syriac manuscript of the gospels, recently discovered by Mrs. Lewis at Mt. Sinai,1 sheds a 1 The most recent investigations tend to prove the very early date of the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, and its critical value and authority in establishing the original text of the gospels. Since this book was completed the first installment of an article of great critical importance has been published in The American Journal of Theology, January, 1900, on The History of the New Testament Canon in the Syriac Church, by J. A. Brewer. In the absence of external evidence the writer shows on internal grounds, by a thorough analysis and comparison of the several known Syriac versions, that the Sinaitic version is the earliest of all, which fixes its date as early as " the middle of the second century." He also concludes that this version is based on a Greek original, and that this original text is distinct from the Greek texts underlying the other Syriac versions ; which gives the remarkable result that behind the Sinaitic Syriac version is to be found the earliest known Greek text of the gospels. I quote the critic's general conclusion on this point. " Unless other finds show the contrary, Ss in its original form was the first translation to which we can point with historic certainty. The extraordinary value of Ss for text-critical purposes has at once been recognized. It seems to stand on the same level of authority as S and B. Merx places it even higher. Whether that, however, can .be maintained, time will show. But the fact that Ss was written before T (Tatian's Diatessaron) puts it into the middle of the second century, to which the entire text bears witness ; and that places it in the front rank of the witnesses for the original Greek text of tbe gospels." In the course of the investigation special attention is given to Matt. i. 16, 19-25, and the writer shows by a close comparison of the different versions that the Sinaitic Syriac version, which, as we have stated above, declares the real paternity of Joseph, represents the original form of the Greek text, and that the pro cess of textual change was from the paternity of Joseph, which was necessary to prove the genealogical descent of Christ from David, to an interpolation which avoided such paternity in the interest of a miraculous virgin birth. Thus the most advanced scholarship sustains what the natural law of historical evolution 10 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM remarkable light on this point. In that manu script, Matthew i. 16, the verse that concludes the genealogy reads thus : " Joseph, to whom was be trothed the Virgin Mary, begat Jesus who is called Christ." Here is a plain trace of the original text, though later tradition has already begun to alter it by inserting the virginity of Mary, so that the two parts of the verse when compared in the light of the context involve a palpable contradiction. The Greek text, as we have it, seems to have suffered another alteration along the same line : " Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ." Here the paternity of Jesus is left implicitly undecided, though what follows shows what was intended to be inferred. The gene alogy given in Luke has a similar curious addition to what must have been the original text, "And Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about and the facts of history itself, so far as they are known, unite in declaring. The earliest Greek texts that have survived are the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts (B, S) which cannot be earlier than the fourth century. It is a fact worthy of note that Justin Martyr, while holding to the miraculous virgin birth, quoting Luke i. 32, and Matt. i. 21, makes no allusion to Matt. i. 16, as he surely would have done, had it been in the form which ignores Joseph's paternity. The same is true of Origen. The only ante- Nicene Father, so far as I am aware, who quotes the passage as we now read it, is Tertullian (He Carne Christi, c. xx.). When we realize how fiuxive and unsettled the text of the gospels still was, it can be readily seen that the text of Tertullian in North Africa might be quite different from that of Justin Martyr in Syria or of Origen in Alexandria. But the point especially to be noted is that the Greek text which lies behind the Sinaitic Syriac version seems to be more than a half century earlier than Ter tullian. ATHANASIANISM 11 thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph." How the phrase "as was supposed" got in is easily explained. The original object of the genealogy was to carry the line of descent directly back through Joseph to David. When the theory of a miraculous birth from a virgin had gained currency, "as was supposed" was apparently in serted to cover the difficulty. In any case, the real inconsistency between the plain object of the genealogies and the later theory of the virgin birth remains conspicuous, and shows that the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, in their present shape, are later additions to the original gospels. Scholars are to-day generally agreed in making Mark the earliest gospel. That Gospel has no account of Christ's birth or infancy, but begins with his public ministry. Such, no doubt, was the original point of departure of Matthew and Luke. But when tradition and legend had begun to grow around Christ's earlier years, the opening chapters were prefixed to these gospels. The new theory advanced in these chapters con cerning Christ is that of his true human nature on his mother's side, coupled with a superhuman miraculous birth through the agency of the Holy Ghost, thus making Christ a sort of demi-god. This theory of the miraculous conception and birth does not appear in any other portion of the New Testament, and plainly belongs chronologically to a later date. Outside of the New Testament it first certainly appears about the middle of the 12 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM second century in the writings of Justin Martyr,3 and is made to rest by him solely on the Emmanue] passage in the seventh chapter of Isaiah, of which it is supposed to be a distinct fulfillment, — a point borrowed from Matthew i. 22, 23. The passage in Isaiah has plain reference to events occurring in the prophet's own day, but was bj the early Christians regarded as a direct messianic prediction. The prophet declared that a mar riageable young woman would shortly bear a sou who, as a sign of the fulfillment of the prophecy, would be called Emmanuel. In the Septuaginl Greek version, which was universally used by the Greek-speaking Jews of Christ's day and after, the Hebrew word for " marriageable young wo man " was translated " a virgin," and this mis taken translation was made the basis of the theory of the miraculous birth. It is a fact which bears directly on the question of the comparative late ness of this tradition, that Justin Martyr is the first of the post-apostolic Fathers to quote the accounts of the miraculous birth from Matthew and Luke, and he plainly follows the account in Matthew, in making that event a fulfillment of an 1 It may be asked what I do with the references in the Ig-na- tian epistles to the virginity of Mary. I answer that most of these references are in the longer recension which is allowed by Lightf oot and scholars generally to be largely interpolated and to belong to a later age. As to the one or two allusions to the subject in the shorter recension, I am convinced that the shorter epistles are not free from interpolations, and on the whole I ac cept the judgment of Neander that no use can be made of them on any doubtful question of early church history. ATHANASIANISM 13 Old Testament prediction. Justin Martyr's whole argument against the Jew Trypho for Christ's miraculous birth indicates that it was a question under discussion among Christians as well as among their Jewish opponents, and he allows that " there are some who admit that he is Christ, while hold ing him to be man of men, with whom I do not agree." This was the position of Trypho himself, who was made by Justin to represent the Jews of his day : " We all expect that the Messiah will be a man born of men." When we consider that this is the first time that the question is raised and discussed in the historical remains of the post- apostolic Fathers, and that the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke are in this discussion first introduced in defense of the miraculous birth, the conclusion is well-nigh irresistible that these chapters were a late addition to the gospels. At all events, the whole story of the virginity of Mary and of her conception by the Holy Ghost is purely legendary, as is shown by the fact that it is closely connected with other legendary traditions, and can not be separated from them. The account of the angels announcing by songs to shepherds the birth of Jesus, that of the Magi and the star in the east, the massacre of the little children by Herod, the flight into Egypt, are without any historical basis. They belong to a later time when legend had be gun its work around the facts of Christ's early life, the results of which are seen in the so-called apocryphal gospels and acts of apostles and disci- 14 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM pies. There is a whole volume extant of th< legendary writings in which Jesus and Mary s the principal actors. The childhood of Christ filled with marvels. But the legendary history Mary has the most remarkable growth. Her bir like that of her son, becomes miraculous and i maculate, and she herself is elevated into a & of divinity, and the way is thus prepared for i cultus of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Chun The opening chapters of Matthew and Luke s simply extracts from such apocryphal narrativ The legendary accounts of these chapters are qu independent of each other and wholly irreconi able with each other, as is evident at once wl they are compared. It is true that there are si biblical scholars who attempt to defend the 1 toricity and harmony of these accounts. But su attempts are worse than vain, and I need not dw on them. Legend has always played a promine part in history and biography, especially in unci ical times. Ancient literature is full of simi] legends, having their background in the mytho gies of primeval ages. Gods and goddesses w< fathers and mothers of many a legendary he: and a halo of supernatural birth and ancestry so surrounded historical men of renown. Budd was a real historical personage, but later lege: made his birth miraculous from a virgin mothi The same legendary element appears in the life Zoroaster, the ancient Persian sage. Even Pla did not escape a partial divinization. Later Gre ATHANASIANISM 15 tradition made his father the god Apollo. Nor did this superstition of miraculous human births, through a divine parentage, cease with the ad vent of Christianity. The famous "Secret His tory" attributed to Procopius informs us that the mother of Justinian declared that his father was a demon. I have introduced this stage of trinitarian evolu tion, in which Christ's miraculous, superhuman birth is set forth, as the second stratum of devel opment, because it logically belongs here. It is a direct evolution of the Palestinian synoptic tradi tion, and is based on the Messiahship of Jesus as set forth in the Acts and in the Synoptic gospels. It was natural, therefore, that the chapters which contain this new dogma should be prefixed to Matthew and Luke. They are distinguishable from the remaining portions of these gospels in this, that they illustrate the growing disposition to find proofs of Jesus' Messiahship in the Old Tes tament; and it was thus from certain supposed messianic predictions in the later prophets that the unhistorical tradition of Christ's miraculous birth in Bethlehem was derived. The opening chapters of Matthew make this event to be the direct fulfill ment of Isaiah vii. 14 and of Micah v. 2 ; and it is important to note that Justin Martyr gives no other ground for his acceptance of the dogma of the miraculous birth than the one given in Mat thew, and that Origen, the most learned of the early Christian Fathers, defends it against the 16 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM objections of Celsus on the same ground. Origen was scholar enough to know that the Hebrew word translated " virgin " in the Septuagint ver sion did not necessarily mean virgin, but he in sisted that such was the meaning in the passage, assuming the divine inspiration of the prophet to predict the exact circumstances of the birth of the Messiah whose advent was to be several centuries later, and also assuming that the miraculous birth of Jesus from a virgin in Bethlehem was a his torical fact. Thus it plainly appears that the idea of the miraculous birth did not come from Alex andrian Greek sources, but is of Jewish Palestinian origin, though not necessarily from Jewish Chris tians. This helps to explain the entire absence of the tradition from the fourth Gospel. A divine incarnation and a miraculous birth have no neces sary connection, though later Christian theology brought them together. It is a notable fact that they are kept wholly apart in the New Testament. There is no incarnation in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, and there is no miraculous birth from a virgin in any other part of the New Testament. But while this dogma holds its place logically as closely following the messianic doctrine of the Synoptic gospels, it must not be inferred that it chronologically follows these gospels in the histor ical evolution of Christian literature and thought. The exact date of the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke cannot be given, but there is little doubt ATHANASIANISM 17 that they belong to a period subsequent to that of all the other New Testament writings. The only question would be as to the fourth Gospel. But that gospel knows nothing of the miraculous birth in Bethlehem or of the virginity of Mary. Joseph is the reputed father of Jesus, and Nazareth is supposed to be the place where he was born, as is shown in the argument of the Jews against the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. " But some said: What! doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said that the Christ com eth of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was ? " (John vii. 41, 42.) In this argument the implied minor premise is that Jesus was in fact born in Nazareth. How then could he be the true Messiah ! It is to be noted that not the slightest doubt is expressed on that point, showing again how late must have been the introduction into the Christian tradition of the legend of the miraculous birth in Bethlehem. This does not make the priority of the fourth Gos pel to the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke certain, but, so far as the evidence goes, it points directly that way. The third stratum of trinitarian evolution is marked by the intrusion of Greek philosophical thought into the Jewish Palestinian. The first two strata belong to Palestinian Aramaic soil, but the third stratum, which is introduced by the Epis tles of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, is of Alexandrian Greek origin and character. Paul 18 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM was a Jew, and trained in Jewish schools ; but he also had a Greek education, and his epistles bear plain marks of his acquaintance with Greek philo sophic literature. It is an interesting question whether he had actually read the writings of the Alexandrian Jewish Philo. This cannot be con clusively proved, but there are some remarkable coincidences of thought and expression between the two writers. At all events, it must be conceded that Paul was at home in the atmosphere of Phi lonic thought, and we may be quite sure that he owed the real starting-point of his new theological departure indirectly if not directly to Philo himself ; for his doctrine of Christ as a /ico-injs (mediator) between God and men, with all its metaphysical results, is an integral feature of the Philonic Logos doctrine. The very term /aeo-injs, which first ap pears in Paul among Christian writers, was used by Philo again and again. The Epistle to the Hebrews gives equally clear evidence of Alexan drian and Philonic relationship. It is a most re markable and significant fact that /ico-iV^s, in the special sense of a metaphysical go-between or medi ator between God and mankind, is found only in Philo, Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The reason why it was not employed in later Christian writers was that Aoyos took its place. The media tion theory of Paul was retained, but it assumed the form of the Logos doctrine. The /ico-tnjs doc trine of Paul and the Ao'yos doctrine of Justin Martyr, as we shall see, have one essentially com- ATHANASIANISM 19 mon source, viz., the Greek Platonic philosophy. How providential Paul's Greek training was to him and to the development of Christian thought is easily seen. The1 original language of the Gospel was Aramaic, a development of the Hebrew, and there is no good evidence that Christ or any of his immediate disciples spoke any other tongue. Paul, on the contrary, both preached and wrote in Greek, and henee it was that he was so preeminently fitted to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and to interpret the Palestinian Jewish gospel of Christ to the Graeeo-Roman world. The Gentile churches which Paul organized, and to which he preached and wrote; were unacquainted with the Hebrew lan guage and literature and were trained in Greek religious and philosophical ideas. This is the his torical explanation of the entirely new stage of christological thought. It is marked by the transi tion from Palestinian to Greek soil. Through Paul the gospel passed from the world of Judaism into the world of Greek philosophy. No other apostle had such a wide influence or fame as he, as is shown by the preservation of so many of his letters, and by the frequent quotations from them in the ear liest post-apostolio writings. The prominence of Peter forms a later chapter, and was ecclesiastical rather than theological, growing out of the fiction of his relation to the Boman Church. The silence of the early Fathers concerning John is remark able, as is also the absence of all allusion to the Gospel that is named from him. In Clement, in 20 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Polycarp, and in the shorter epistles of Ignatius, there are quite a number of references to Paul, but not one to John. It is certainly significant that Polycarp, who was said by Irenaeus to have been a hearer of John, should refer to Paul four times, and quote from all his epistles, with a single ex ception, repeatedly, while a complete silence is preserved concerning John and the fourth Gospel. We are thus prepared to understand the signifi cance of Paul in this survey of the historical evo lution of the trinitarian dogma. This dogma, as it was finally developed by the theologians of the third and fourth centuries, is essentially Greek, not Jewish ; Alexandrian, not Palestinian ; and to Paul we must look for its real beginnings. He laid the foundations of the metaphysical bridge by which Judaism in its Christianized form passed over to Greek philosophical thought, to be meta morphosed by it into a Graeco-Christian theology. Before Paul there had been no suggestion of trin ity; God was "one God." Christ was "a man approved of God unto men by mighty works which God did by him." He was God's "holy servant," " a prophet," " anointed one," " exalted by God to be a prince and a Saviour." The Acts, from which these quotations are taken, are full of such expres sions, and they clearly represent the christology of Paul's day. The Synoptic gospels are here in close * harmony with the Acts. The Jewish Christian Messianism is the fundamental doctrine through out. Christ is Messiah, Son of man, Master, mes- ATHANASIANISM 21 senger of God ; but he is nowhere metaphysically distinguished from other men, as if his nature was superhuman or divine. It was Paul who with his Greek Philonic theory of a metaphysical superhu man mediator gave an entirely new shaping to the messianic doctrine, and he may be truly called the real originator of the trinitarian conception which finally issued in the Nicene creed. What, then, was the doctrine of Paul concern ing God and Christ ? He nowhere gives us a full metaphysical statement. It is not clear that he had developed any precise theological doctrine of the Trinity. Certainly his view of the third per son is indefinite; and it is doubtful whether he regarded the Holy Spirit as a personal being. In the two passages which contain his most discrimi nating utterances on the subject of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned : " To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him" (1 Cor. viii. 6). " There is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. ii. 5). These passages have a credal ring, and, together with the baptismal formula, seem to be the basis of the early confessions. Two points bearing upon the question of the Trinity stand out clearly. First, Paul remained a firm adherent of the Jewish monotheism. To him, as to Moses and to Christ, God was a single personal being — "the Father," "tn% blessed and only potentate," "whom 22 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM no man hath seen, nor can see." Secondly, Paul distinguished Christ from God, as a personal being, and regarded him, moreover, as essentially inferior and subordinate to the supreme Deity. I do not press the point here that Paul, in the second pas sage quoted, expressly calls Christ a man, in direct antithesis with God. Other passages make it plain that the apostle conceived of Christ as superhuman and preexistent and as having a certain metaphy sical relation to God. But that Paul ever con founded Christ with God himself, or regarded him as in any way the supreme Divinity, is a position invalidated not only by direct statements, but also by the whole drift of his epistles. The central feature of Paul's christology is its doctrine of mediatorship : " One God, the Father, and one mediator between God and men." This is a theo logical advance on the messianic doctrine of the Synoptic gospels. Messiahship is the doctrine of a " Son of Man ; " mediatorship is the doctrine, of a " Son of God." Paul gives no evidence of ac quaintance with the Logos doctrine, but he antici pates it. He exalts Christ above all human beings. If he does not clothe him with the supreme attri butes of Deity, he places him next to God in nature, honor, and power ; so that, while remaining a monotheist, he takes a long step toward a mono theistic trinitarianism, giving us the one only trini tarian benediction of the New Testament (2 Cor. xiii. 14). Passing to the post-apostolic age, we find that ATHANASIANISM 23 these two articles of Paul's doctrine form the basis of the faith of the church. Not only so, they con tinue to be the characteristic and fundamental features of the Greek Trinitarianism through the whole course of its development. From beginning to end, Greek theology is distinctly monotheistic. Clement writes : " As God lives and as the Lord Jesus Christ lives." So Athenagoras: "We ac knowledge a God, and a Son, his Logos, and a Holy Spirit." So Dionysius of Rome : " We must be lieve on God the Father Omnipotent, and on Jesus Christ his Son, and on the Holy Spirit." The Nicene creed, in which Greek orthodoxy culmi nated, continues the strain in language which is a clear echo of Paul himself : " We believe in one God, the Father almighty," " and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten of the Fa ther." To be sure, the Son of God is also called God in the added phrase, " God of God ; " but " God " is here descriptive, in the sense of divine, since the Son of God is begotten of the Father and hence of the same divine nature. The Father is God in the primary or supreme sense. Christ as Son is God only in a derived or secondary sense. As the evolution of church doctrine went on, the trinitarian element grew more explicit and com plete, but the original Pauline monotheism was never given up. In fact, the more pronounced the Greek Trinitarianism became, the more tenaciously its monotheism was declared and vindicated. God, the Father, the eternal cause of all things, was 24 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM never confounded with either of the other perso: or with the Trinity as a whole. The same is true of Paul's doctrine of mediat ship. It also became a vital feature of Grt theology, and remained its moulding princi] through all its history. A difference, however, to be noted. The doctrine of monotheism na rally lay in the background, as a fixed quanti being assumed always as a cardinal truth of Chi tianity which had its birth on Jewish monotheis ground, and carefully avoided all connection w the pagan polytheism. Not so with the doctri of Christ's mediatorship. This was the new tri of Christianity. Theologically, Christianity is christology. Its Trinitarianism started out of doctrine of Christ as the Son of God and 1 mediator between God and man. Around t! point the early controversies arose, and here beg a christological evolution which became the cent: factor of Greek ecclesiastical history through whole course. This evolution must be fully co prehended, if we would understand the Nice Trinitarianism. It may be naturally divided ii four sections or stages, represented by the nan of Paul, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Athanasius The faith of the sub-apostolic age remain essentially Pauline. It is truly represented in t primitive portions of the so-called Apostles' cre( Christ was regarded as a superhuman being, abo all angels and inferior only to God himself, pi existent, appearing among men from the heaver ATHANASIANISM 25 world, the true Son of God, and hence in a sense God, as of divine nature, though not the Supreme One. But no further metaphysics is yet attempted. There is no Logos doctrine. This doctrine which was to so change the whole current of Christian thought, and give such an impulse to the spirit of metaphysical speculation, first appears in Justin Martyr. The question here arises and cannot be ignored : What place should be given in this evolution to the fourth Gospel ? The question of actual date does not now concern us. The point is: When does the fourth Gospel appear in history as a docu ment to which theological appeal is made ? Cer tainly the two questions are closely connected, and I would here declare my conviction that no satis factory conclusion can be reached on the Johan nine problem, until the historical facts as to the relation of the fourth Gospel to the origin of the Logos doctrine are properly weighed. Three facts especially are to be considered. First, setting aside the fourth Gospel itself, no trace of a Logos doctrine appears in the early church until Justin Martyr; that is, more than a century after the death of Christ. Secondly, none of the post- apostolic Fathers before Justin Martyr allude to the fourth Gospel or quote from it.1 Thirdly, 1 I leave out of account the Ignatian Epistles, which, if genu ine, are so greatly interpolated as to be unworthy of confidence, and also the Epistle to Diognetus, which is now properly regarded as of later date. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the Epistles of Clement, of Barnabas, of Polycarp, the Shepherd of 26 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Justin Martyr plainly draws his Logos doctrine from Greek philosophic sources, never quoting the fourth Gospel by name in defense of it, and never even referring to the Gospel at all. so that it is still a disputed question whether he was directly acquainted with it. Whatever be the truth on this point, it does not affect the fact with which we are now concerned, viz., that so far as the light of early church history goes, the Logos doctrine is not shown to be of apostolic origin, or drawn from the fourth Gospel. If this gospel is Johannine, it was, for some reason, not in general circulation before Justin Martyr's time, and was not quoted in connection with the Logos doctrine till quite late in the second century. To assume that the fourth Gospel was written by the Apostle John, and then conclude that the Logos doctrine of the post-apostolic church is Johannine and apostolic, against evidence of the clearest sort to the contrary, is one of the most vicious and fallacious of syllo gisms. I regret to say that this style of reasoning is not yet extinct.1 Hennas, the Fragments of Papias, and the recently discovered Apology of Aristides, make no allusion to a Logos doctrine or to the fourth Gospel. 1 See, for one illustration, Gloag, Introduction to the Johannine Writings, p. 189 : " The doctrine of the Logos frequently occurs in the writings of the Fathers, especially of Justin Martyr. They derived their notions concerning it from the Gospel of John." In his preface the writer allows that " the authenticity of John's Gospel is the great question of modern criticism, and must be regarded as still unsettled." Yet here he assumes this " unset tled question " to be a fact, and then assumes that Justin Martyr was acquainted with the fourth Gospel, and derived his Logos ATHANASIANISM 27 As to the origin of the Logos doctrine in gen eral there can be no question. It has no Jewish ancestry. The Logos doctrine is essentially a mediation doctrine. It is based on the idea of the divine transcendence and of a cosmological void needing to be filled between the absolute God and the world. Jewish theology held indeed to the divine transcendence ; but by its doctrine of crea tion, involving a direct creative act, and of man as formed in the divine image, it brought God into the closest relations with all his creatures, and especially with man himself. God walking in the garden and conversing with Adam is a pic ture of the whole Old Testament conception of God's immediate connection with the human race. In fact, there lurks in Jewish thought a strong doctrine from it. A similar piece of false reasoning occurs in regard to a quotation in the Epistle of Polycarp from the first Epistle of John (p. 101). Polycarp does not allude to John any where in his Epistle, nor does he give the authorship of the quotation ; yet Dr. Gloag, assuming that the author of the fourth Gospel and the first Epistle of John is the same, concludes : " We have then the testimony of Polycarp in proof of the genuineness of John's Gospel, and this testimony is of great importance, as Polycarp was the disciple of John." Observe how the testimony of Irenssus, a. generation later, as to Polycarp's relation to John, is here used to prop up a conclusion that is wholly without foun dation. The question is not whether Polycarp was acquainted with John, but whether he gives any evidence of acquaintance with the reputed Gospel of John. There is not a hint of it in his Epistle, or even that he knew John at all. To assume that John wrote both Gospel and Epistle, and then that Polycarp, as a disciple of John, must have been acquainted with both Gospel and Epistle, and then to argue from an anonymous quotation from the Epistle that the Gospel is Johannine, is a flagrant petitio principii. 28 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM tincture of divine immanence in its whole theory of theophanies, and most of all in its conception of " the Spirit of the Lord " moving directly upon human souls. Thus no basis was laid in Jewish theology for the growth of a Logos doctrine. The " Wisdom " of the Proverbs is simply a poet ical personification of the divine attribute. Christ has much to say of his close relation to God, and of his mission to men ; but it was a mission based on spiritual needs, soteriological, not cosmological. The term Logos he never uses, and the conception was quite foreign to him. Had the Logos media tion doctrine been a product of Jewish thought, it would certainly have appeared in Paul ; but he gives no hint of it. We have indeed his doctrine of Christ's mediatorship in a new form, and the beginnings of a cosmological view of Christ's nature, as being " the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation ; " but this is Greek, not Jewish, and gives evidence of his acquaintance with Greek philosophy. For it is in Greek phi losophy that the sources of the Logos doctrine are to be found. It first appeared in the cosmological Asia Minor school, in the sixth century B. C, to explain the order of the world, as a principle of reason and law. As such it was employed by Heraclitus and Anaxagoras. When the dualistic school of Plato arose, it became the mediating principle between the transcendent spiritual sphere and the world of phenomena. It also appeared in Stoicism, to sustain its doctrine of a divine imma- ATHANASIANISM 29 nence in nature. Thus the Logos as a divine principle with mediating functions had a long his tory in Greek philosophy before it became chris- tologized in the early church. Justin Martyr directly refers to Platonic and Stoic authorities for his Logos ideas. He was himself a Platonist before he became a Christian, and he never laid aside his philosopher's cloak. He believed that Greek philosophy was a partial revelation of divine truth, and he drew from it weapons to be used in the service of Christian dogma. Justin belonged to the school of Paul, and in his hands the Pauline form of doctrine was not essentially modified. The new Logos ideas fitted quite closely to Paul's own. But three points are noticeable in the Logos doctrine, which became fountain heads of tenden cies that were finally to change the whole current of theological thought, and to substitute for the Pauline christology something radically different. First, the Logos doctrine emphasized the super human or divine element in Christ's nature. • Paul again and again called Christ a man. But he also gave him a preexistence and " form of God " which distinguished him from merely human beings, and thus laid a cosmological basis for his mediator- ship. It is here that the Logos doctrine comes in. The philosophical Logos was essentially cos mological and metaphysical. It was a necessary bond of communication between the world of spir itual intelligences and this lower world of time and sense. In itself, whether as an impersonal princi- 30 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM pie or as a personal being, it was utterly aloof f ram earth ; but its great function was mediatorial, and thus in its relationships it touched both spheres. When Jesus Christ was identified with the Logos, his whole being was transcendentalized. His hu man and earthly features were transfigured, and lost in the higher glory. He was no longer the Son of man, but the Son of God, and even a quasi divinity. The whole point of view was changed. Paul starts with the human and proceeds to the divine. The Logos doctrine reverses the process. As a consequence, while Paul never lost sight of Christ's real humanity, the Logos theology was in danger at once of regarding Christ as essentially a transcendent being descending from the higher sphere, and entering human relations in a sort of disguise. This danger brought forth its natural fruit in the later monophysite heresies. Secondly, the Logos doctrine in its assertion of Christ's mediatorship emphasized the subordina tion element which characterizes Paul's christology, and tended to magnify it. It is the essence of the Logos doctrine that the Logos mediates between what is higher than itself and what is lower. He is a middle being both in nature and function. Such is the mediating principle of Plato, the demon of Plutarch, the Logos of Philo. This cosmologi cal view, treating the Logos principle as necessary and immanent in the universe, and not as intro duced providentially into the moral order in con sequence of sin, now came into Christian theology. ATHANASIANISM 31 Paul started it, but the Logos doctrine completed it;. In this view the subordination element is vital, and it became the governing note of the whole Logos school. Justin Martyr's doctrine of Christ was that of a Son of God, wholly removed in his preincarnate existence from the human sphere, and yet as completely distinguished from the Supreme Being. He regards the Logos of God as originally immanent in God, as the divine reason, and then at a point in time evolved into a personal existence of sonship and mediating activity. This develop ment of the Logos into personality is by the divine will. Thus the Son of God is subordinate to the Father in all things, though having his origin in the Father's essence. Justin was philosophically a Platonic transcendentalist. The Supreme Being was in his view invisible and unapproachable. Hence his idea that the Jehovah of the Old Testa ment in his various theophanies was not the Father but the Son or Logos. He found traces of the Logos even in pagan philosophy and faith, and in the lives of such men as Socrates. A third feature of the Logos doctrine was to be still more influential in radically remoulding Greek Christian thought. I refer to its purely metaphy sical and speculative character. The Logos doc trine may be true, but if so, its truth is metaphy sical, not historical. The Christ of history is not a speculation of Greek philosophy. The introduc tion of the Logos doctrine into Christian theology, giving a new shape as it did to the entire content 32 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM of faith, wrought an immense change in its whole spirit and direction. Instead of resting on histori cal facts, it now built itself on certain speculative assumptions. This is the secret of the remark able change from the confessional character of the Apostles' creed to the transcendental metaphysics of Nice and Chalcedon. It is a fact which theo logians have been slow to learn, that the metaphy sical words so freely used by the Greek Fathers in theological controversy were all borrowed from the philosophical nomenclature of Plato and Aristotle. This becomes especially apparent in what may be called the scholastic period of Greek theology, and is well illustrated by John of Damascus, who pre faces his great work, " On the Orthodox Faith," with an explanatory dictionary of Aristotelean terms. Before proceeding to Origen, it is proper to say a few words as to the relation of the fourth Gospel to the further history, and also concerning the general character of its christology. Although Justin Martyr himself makes no use of this gospel in connection with his Logos doctrine, it begins to be quoted by his immediate successors, and soon becomes the great repository of proof texts for the whole Logos school. It is pertinent, therefore, to note that its christology is essentially Pauline, with the addition of the Logos terminology. Its monotheism is decided. God is always the Father. Christ is the mediator sent of God, subordinate and dependent. Its doctrine is summed up in the ATHANASIANISM 33 words of Christ's prayer, " This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." In a single point, how ever, the Johannine christology advances beyond the Pauline. Paul has a transcendental view of Christ as the "form" and "image" of God. But the fourth Gospel develops a metaphysical unity between the Father and the Son to which Paul is a stranger. Just how much is involved in the famous passage, " I and my Father are one," is somewhat doubtful. It is clear, however, that the unity asserted is not one of substance or being, since Christ compares it to the unity of believers : " that they all may be one even as we are one." There is a general resemblance between the Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel and that of Justin Martyr. Yet there are striking divergences which indicate an independent origin. The fourth Gospel is mystical, with a spice of Neo-Platonism, reminding one of Philo. Justin is speculative, with an emanation element which has a Stoic strain. His distinction between the immanent and the personalized Logos is wanting in the fourth Gospel. Behind both is the shadow of Gnosticism. But the fourth Gospel gives the clearest signs of Gnostic influence. Its peculiar vocabulary is from Gnostic sources. The Gnostic dualism is also suggested in the shaping given to the doctrine of Satan, and in the two classes of men, children of light, who are sons of God, and children of dark ness, who are of their "father the devil." The 34 EVOLUTION QF TRINITARIANISM real authorship of the fourth Gospel is obscure. It may be that there is behind it a true Johannine tradition; but philosophically it plainly belongs to the Philonic school. It is no valid objection that Philo has no incarnation. The object of the gospel, in part at least, was, in a Gnostic way, to identify the Jesus of history with the mediation Logos of Greek philosophy. This required that the Logos should be made flesh. It seems prob able that the Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel and that of Justin Martyr represent two separate streams of philosophical Christian thought, which afterwards became united in a common evolution. We come to Origen, the boldest speculator and the most fertile thinker of the ancient church. The school which he founded included all the lights of later Greek orthodoxy. Even Athana sius, who called no man master, sought the aid of his great name, and quoted him to show that he was a true homoousian. Origen stamped on Greek theology the essential features that it has borne ever since. In his hands the Logos doctrine suf fered two amendments. The first is his view of the eternal generation of the Son. The distinc tion of the Justin Martyr school between immanent and personalized Logos Origen discarded. He taught that the Son was eternally a distinct per sonal being. Holding to his real generation from the Father, he insisted that it was without begin ning, since the Father's activity was unchangeable and eternal. This view placed the Logos doctrine ATHANASIANISM 36 on a firmer metaphysical basis, since it removed the Son of God more completely from the category of created beings, and also opposed all theories of a temporal evolution such as were proposed by the Sabellians. The Origenistic doctrine of eternal generation has recently been treated with consider able contempt, but it took a firm hold on the Greek mind and became the fundamental note of the Greek Trinitarianism. It has been said that the Nicene creed does not teach it. This cannot be sustained. It is certainly implied there. In fact, the whole homoousian doctrine is built upon it, and Athanasius, the great expounder of the doc trine, clearly holds it. The second amendment of Origen was in the line of the strict subordination of the Son to the Father. He not only emphasized this point as essential to the defense of the trinitarian doctrine against the charge of tritheism, but he also gave it an entirely new theological aspect by insisting on the difference of essence. Justin Martyr made the Son to be an emanation or product of the Father's essence. Origen opposed all emanation theories, substituting the' doctrine of eternal gen eration. Hence he denied that the Son was of the same essence with the Father, although he at the same time denied that he was of any created essence. The Son was truly begotten of the Father, but his nature was different, since he lacked the attributes of absoluteness and self- existence, and derived his being from the Father's 36 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM will. Thus Origen reduced the Son to a sort of middle being between the uncreated and the created, and paved the way for Arius. Arius has become the arch-heretic of church history ; but in the interest of historical truth I wish to say that great injustice has been done him. He was a sincere and thorough Trinitarian after the type of his age, and sought to defend the trinitarian doctrine against all taint of Sabellian- ism. But his polemic led him to take a step further in the direction toward which Origen had pointed, and which had already been anticipated by such Origenists as Dionysius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, — that the Son of God, if truly derived from the Father and by his will, must be a creature, though the highest creature in the universe, and the creator himself, as the Logos or mediation principle, of all other creatures. We are thus brought to the great crisis in the development of the Greek theology, and to its fourth stage, — the epoch of Athanasius and the Nicene creed. Historically and critically, Athana- sianism is simply a revolt from the subordination tendency, when carried too far, and a counter- reaction along the Origenistic lines of eternal generation and of an essential difference between the Son of God and all created beings. But, as is usual in such reactions, it went to the opposite extreme. Arius had stretched subordination to its farthest point. Athanasius reduced it to a mini mum. Origen had described the Son as " a mid- ATHANASIANISM 37 die being between the uncreated and the created." The Nicene creed declared him to be of the same essence with the Father, since he is true Son of God, and as a Son must be of the Father's nature, — " God of God, very God of very God." Thus the term homoousios becomes the turning-point of the Nicene epoch. Yet curiously this famous word made much less noise in the Athanasian age than it has since, and, besides, a new meaning has been foisted upon it which has no ground in the word itself or in the use made of it by the Nicene theologians. It was put into the Nicene creed by a sort of accident, as Athanasius explains, in order to drive the Arians from their cover ; and although it became in this way a watchword of orthodoxy, it was not insisted on as essential even by Athanasius himself. What it meant to the Nicene pariy is clear from Athanasius' own expla nations. He declares distinctly that it was used simply to signify that the Son was truly Son, not putatively or adoptively, and that, as true Son, he was of the same generic nature with the Father, and so equal to the Father in all divine attributes. Athanasius was ready even to accept the term. homoiousios (like in essence) as a synonym for homoousios (completely like in essence), if it was explained to mean a likeness of essence in kind which would allow that the Son was a true Son and derived from the Father his essential qualities. . This, in fact, became the basis of the union which followed between the AthaCnasian and Semi-Arian 38 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM parties, resulting in the acceptance of the Nicen creed by all except the extreme Arians. It is fact which seems not to be generally recognizee that Athanasius uses the word homoousios ver rarely, while he employs the word homoios (like very frequently, as expressing his own positio concerning the relation of the Son to the Fathe] It is significant that in the " Statement of Faith which was written not long after the formation < the Nicene creed, he uses simply the word homoio, " being like the Father, as the Lord says : * H that hath seen me hath seen the Father.' " Whj Athanasius contended for so stoutly against tib Arians was the real divine sonship of Christ, an his essential equality with the Father. Whe this was allowed, he cared little for words. We are now prepared to estimate more clearl and comprehensively the trinitarianism of Athani sius. Radically it is Origenism. The Logos do< trine, in its Origenistic form of eternal generatio and derived subordination, forms the backbone c the Nicene christology. Too much theologies significance has been given by historical writers t the Nicene epoch, as if it created an essential] new theology. This is very far from the trutl It was a time of widespread ecclesiastical fermen and men of action, rather than of speculativ thought, came to the front. A conflict arose bi tween two factions of the same theological schoo Origenism became divided against itself. Athans sius was not a speculative, systematic thinker ; h ATHANASIANISM 39 was a born leader of men, a knight of Christian chivalry, ready to point his lance at every denier of " the faith once delivered." He seized the word homoousios and threw it as a gauntlet into the arena, but it was a word of battle to be dropped at leisure, not a note of new theology. It was in the Latin West that a makeshift catch word of the Nicene nomenclature was taken up, its true meaning misunderstood, and a new scheme of trinitarian theology drawn from it. The differ ence between Athanasius and Origen is largely a matter of words. Origen disliked the term homo ousios because it seemed to break down subordina tion and introduce tritheism. Athanasius adopted it because it seemed to save subordination from the annihilating heterousianism (unlikeness of essence) of Arius. Both were defending the same position, but from different standpoints. Yet Athanasius took one long step forward. He held to a certain subordination of the Son to the Father, as he was compelled to, in consistency with the essential character of the Logos mediating doc trine, to which he unflinchingly adhered. But he reduced it, as we have already said, to its lowest possible terms. He was ready to call Christ God, not merely in the larger sense of what is superhu man or divine, but in the strict meaning, " very God of very God," as having the same essential nature with the Father. He even declared the Son to be " equal " to the Father, applied to him the terms which characterize the highest deity, and 40 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM gave him the supreme attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and sovereignty. This is new theo logical language, and seems to indicate an entirely new departure. But a close study of Athanasius makes it clear that he has not departed from the Origenistic principles of generation and subordina tion. In fact, he could not do so without surren dering the whole Logos doctrine in its original form, and exposing himself to the charge of hold ing to three independent Gods. If he had felt a leaning toward the entire elimination of the subor dination element, of which there is no evidence, the danger of such a charge would have deterred him. The one object of dread ever present to the Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers was the spectre of Trithe ism. To be squarely Trinitarian and yet not be Tritheistic was the great effort of Greek theology. How was it accomplished? The answer to this question gives us the " open sesame " of the Atha- nasian Trinitarianism. Three distinct points are to be noted, — the view taken of the Father ; of the Son ; and of their metaphysical relation to each other. First, the Father, with Athanasius, is the one God, the Absolute and Supreme Being. He never confounds the one God with the Trinity. The three Persons are not one Being. This, to him, is Sabellianism. His monotheism is clearly set forth in his " Statement of Faith : " " We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, that hath his ATHANASIANISM 41 being from himself, and in one only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally." Unbegottenness and self-existence are here made the essential attributes of the Father alone. He is the eternal cause and fountain of all being, including even the being of the Son and Holy Spirit. This point is funda mental in the Athanasian system ; it is the philo sophical Platonic assumption with which he starts, and on which he builds his Logos doctrine. It is the stronghold of his theism against all pantheism on the one hand, and of his monotheism against all polytheism or tritheism on the other. No Greek theologian held mere firmly to the divine transcendence than Athanasius. He had no con troversy with Arius here. He held equally with him that God was utterly unlike his creation, and was separated from it, in his essence, by infinite measures. Hence the prominence given by him to the Logos doctrine, which is central and dominant in his whole christology. With Athanasius the Logos in his mediation role is essential to the existence of the universe as well as to the redemp tion of mankind. In him the cosmological idea triumphs over the soteriological. Christ is much more than the Saviour of men ; he is the eternal and necessary principle of mediation and com munion between the transcendent God and all created things. Thus the incarnation rather than the crucifixion is made the prominent fact in the relation of Christ to men. It is not sin merely, 42 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM but nature as created, that separates man from God. Athanasius here departs from the Scripture, which teaches man's essential likeness to God, and also from Plato, who declares that "likeness to God" (6/uuWis t<3 Oeaf) is manjjs great prerogative and moral duty. Plato's doctrine of transcendence was modified by his view of man's moral relation ship. Athanasius tended rather to emphasize the divine transcendence and to separate man from God more completely. Hence, according to him, the absolute necessity of the incarnation. "The Word was made man that we might be divinized " (O^moirfimfiev). And here appears the great rea son why Athanasius insisted so earnestly upon the homoousian doctrine. In his view, unless the Logos mediator was essentially divine, " very God of very God," the chasm between God and man, between the infinite and the finite, could not be spanned. But let. it be noted that this whole view involves the strictest monotheism. The Logos mediating principle is as sharply distinguished from the Absolute God as he is from the creation in whose behalf he mediates. Secondly, Athanasius' doctrine of the Son is the logical resultant of his doctrine of the Absolute God as Father and of the mediating Logos. How does the Logos become endowed with his mediat ing function? It is by virtue of his Sonship. The Logos of God is the Son of God, and hence able to reveal him. Here Athanasius is a true Origenist. Sonship is not a superficial and tern- ATHANASIANISM 43 poral movement of the divine activity; it is an eternal relationship. . Athanasius, moreover, holds equally with Origen to the reality and genuine ness of the sonship. He does not explain it away as mere metaphor. The real sonship is what he means by homoousios. This sonship is what separates Christ from the category of creatures and makes him truly divine. But real sonship involves a real generation. This, too, Athanasius accepts in all its literalness, though he guards against a materialistic view of it. In one point only does he vary from Origen, — in making the generation an eternal fact or condition of the divine nature, rather than a voluntary movement of the divine will. Thus the ground is laid for the subordination of the Son to the Father. The Son is a generated, that is, a derived being. Con sequently he is not self-existent or independent. This is distinctly declared in one remarkable pas sage (fourth Oration, 3), where Athanasius argues that if the Logos were self-existent (a lavrov inrt- s) is not in necessary disa greement with the homoousian doctrine, since it Nallows that the Son is the true offspring of the Father. But it is impossible to interpret " like ness in essence " as implying numerical unily. It would seem unnecessary to pursue this point further; but so ingrained in modern theology is the view that the Nicene Athanasian doctrine of 1 Be Synodis, 42. 60 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM the Trinity involves a numerical unity of essence, that I propose a few additional considerations. First, if Athanasius had meant by homoousios " numerically one in essence," he would not have distinguished it, as he did, from /xokoouo-ios and Tavroouo-ios, for this is the very point of the differ ence in these terms, as Athanasius himself shows, defining homoousios as meaning " sameness in like ness," in contrast with a simple unity. Further, the fact that Athanasius made such common use of the term o/zoios (like) as expressing his own faith, and that he was ready to accept 6/iotovo-ios as a synonym for 6/toouo-ios, if properly explained, seems wholly conclusive. But, still further, such a use of the word would have been altogether new in its histqry. Everywhere in Greek literature homoousios means generic likeness or sameness. Aristotle calls the stars o/ioo¬. Plotinus uses the same term for souls, when arguing that they are divine and immortal. There is no evidence that any Greek Father ever gave the word any different meaning. Gregory of Nyssa calls not only " human souls," but also " corruptible bodies," homoousia (ofioovaia to. tfaOapra. o-oi/Aara). ChrysOS- tom describes Eve as homoousios with Adam.1 There is one more consideration that goes to the root of the whole matter. The assumption of numerical unity of essence involves another assumption, viz., that, in the case of the Trinity, 1 Gregory, Contra JEunomium, vii. 5; Chrysostom, Homil. in Genes, xvi. ATHANASIANISM 51 singleness of essence exists with a plurality of per sons. But this breaks down a fundamental law of logic and psychology. Essence is the sum of the qualities of a being. Person is a being with certain qualities which constitute its essence. Essence and person then must be coincident. They cannot be separated. The distinction between them is purely logical and subjective. To assume a sepa ration in fact, or that one may be singular and the other plural, is to confound the subjective with the objective, and create a metaphysical contradiction.1 The Greek Fathers were never guilty of such a confusion. They were too well versed in the Aristotelian logic. The question was never even raised until the fifth century, in the compromise of Chalcedon. All through the earlier trinitarian and christological controversies the coincidence of nature and person was accepted on all sides as axiomatic. On this ground Origen and his school called the three persons three essences, meaning that each person has his own individual qualities. So Theodore of Mopsuestia, a devoted adherent of the Nicene creed, was led to his theory of two per sons in Christ, or of two real Christs, by assuming that if there were two complete natures, divine 1 While I must dissent entirely from the interpretation of Principal Robertson and Cardinal Newman in vol. iv. of the Nicene Fathers, I wish to express my admiration of the candor of both these critics in allowing that their view involves what is self-contradictory to the human understanding. But does not such an admission stamp the interpretation itself as false ? Cer tainly Athanasius was not conscious of holding a self -contradic tory doctrine, and he was a keen logician. 52 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM and human, two persons must result. The same assumption led the Monophysites to their theory of "one nature," since Christ was one person. There is not the slightest evidence that any Greek Father before Theodoret held any other opinion. The Cappadocian Athanasian school stood firmly on it. That Athanasius himself should have de veloped a new metaphysics on this point, so as to change the whole character of trinitarian doctrine, without leaving a ripple on the surface of ecclesi astical history, is inconceivable. But the fact may be brought up that, while Origen called three persons three essences, Atha nasius and his followers refused to do so. The explanation is simple. It was the result of a lin guistic evolution, such as is common to all language. The theological terminology of the Greek Fathers was Aristotelian. Aristotle distinguished two kinds of essence. By " first essence " he meant a concrete being or thing. By " second essence " he meant the "form" or idea, or, in Platonic language, the universal, the genus or species, which is the basis of all " first essences " or indi vidual things. These distinctions underlie the whole Greek theology. But they are brought out explicitly and in Aristotelian form by the later scholastic Athanasians, Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus. When Origen called the Son an " essence " he meant " first essence," that is, a concrete being or real person. But when discus sion arose in the Nicene period over the question ATHANASIANISM 53 of the relation of nature to person, and especially concerning the use of wdo-rao-is for person, as dis tinguished from ouo-ia, the term oio-ta became re stricted in meaning to the " second " sense of Aristotle, — the universal, generic, or abstract sense ; and such was the common meaning of it in the later Greek Fathers. Gregory of Nyssa and also John of Damascus define ova-la as kou/6v, that is, what is common or generic in contrast with the individual (woo-rao-is). Such is the use of it by Athanasius. Hence he again and again employs the Platonic and Aristotelian names for the generic or universal («8os, fuop^-q), as synonyms for oio-ia. No evidence could be clearer. According to Atha nasius the divine/essenee or form or idea is individ ualized and personalized in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are thus united in a metaphysi cal and transcendental unity, and separated from all created beings. This is distinctly set forth by John of Damascus : " Essence does net exist by Itself, but is seen in persons." It is true that Athanasius sometimes uses the term flcos as a synonym for ovo-ta, but he often adds the abstract, Oeiorrp, in explanation, and the context always shows this to be his meaning. This usage is ex plained by Gregory of Nyssa in the treatise 'E« tu>v kouw kwoiSsv, when he says that If the name tfeo's signified a person, three persons would signify three gods, but since it denotes ovo-io, there is one Divinity. It cannot be too distinctly declared that the Greek theologians from Athanasius on 54 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM are philosophically Platonico-Aristotelians. With them all, the idea or universal has concrete exist ence only in individual beings. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are such individuals (foroo-Tao-ew). The unity of the three is not concrete or numer ical but metaphysical or generic. It is easy now to see why Athanasius declined to say "three essences," and yet did not hesitate to say " three hypostases " or beings. The failure to recognize this linguistic change in the use of "essence," after the time of Origen, has perhaps contributed more than anything else to the opinion that Atha nasius departed radically from Origen's view. But it was in fact a mere change of terminology, not one of theological position.1 1 The translator of the new volume of the Nicene Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa) represents Athanasius as " using the older terminology," not distinguishing vir6araats from ovala (p. 24). In support of his assertion he refers to a passage in Ad Afros, 4. But in translating it he makes a curious blunder, leaving out of account or misinterpreting the last clause, and thus changing the whole meaning. A reference to 4he correct transTation~~in— the\. fourth volume of the Nicene Fathers would have set him -right. In fact Athanasius did not, in this passage or in the context, raise the question at all whether \m6ara(ns may be used in a dif ferent sense from ovala. It was wholly out of his thought. That Athanasius did elsewhere use rpeis viroarrdtrtts in contradis tinction to iiia ovala is allowed by the translator in a note. I must make another criticism on the whole translation of Gregory's Contra Eunomium. Ovala is translated everywhere by the term "being" or "Being," as if it were concrete, while vir 6araais is translated always by the term "person," as if per son was to be distinguished from concrete being. This is unjust both to Eunomius and to Gregory. Eunomius, as an extreme Arian, held that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three ovalat, and that each oiata is an individual or personal being ATHANASIANISM 55 The Athanasian Trinitarianism is seen in its completest form in the Cappaaocian theologians, Basil and the two Gregories. The idea has re cently been broached that these men formed a Neo-Nicene school, falling iaway from the homoou- sianism of Athanasius to the older homoiousianism of Origen.1 This theory rests on the assump tion that Athanasius himself was not an Origenist. But, as we have seen, Athanasius had no quarrel with the genuine homoiousianism of Origen. Hbmoios was the word oftenest on his own lips.2 His great conflict was with the Arian Heterou- (diriaTaaa), following the "older terminology" of Origen. Gregory, on the contrary, adopted the new nomenclature, denning ovala as an abstract or universal (the " second essence " of Aristotle), while im6araais was limited to individual or concrete being. The failure to recognize this difference in the use of terms creates complete confusion in the translation. Gregory explicitly holds that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three indi viduals or Beings, and that ovala is a generic or universal term and therefore must be singular. The influence of Newman is clearly visible in these new trans lations of the Greek Fathers, and it is baneful. He failed to dis cern the thoroughly Aristotelian oharacter of the Nicene meta physics, and assumed that in the Nicene Trinity " essence " in its concrete sense and " person " are not coincident, and consequently that God is one Being at the same time that He is three Persons. See his Theological Tracts, pp. 259, 265. 1 Harnack's Outlines of the History of Dogma, p. 260. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. v. p. 24. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p. 242, with a reference to Zahn, Marcellus, 87. 2 In the three Orations against the Arians, ip.ooiams is used hut once, while ipotos and its derivatives Sfioluais and biu>iuri\s are used at least thirty-four times. The so-called Fourth Ora tion is directed rather against the Sabellianism of Marcellus. Athanasius here uses dfioovaios three times, and seems to have no fear of its being charged with a Sabellian meaning. 66 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM sians. He held out the olive branch of peace to the Semi- Arians ; and the Oappadocians were his devoted helpers in the reunion that was finally accomplished. Basil was his personal friend. Gregory of Nyssa, Basil's younger brother and dis ciple, became the acknowledged head of the Nicene party. Strange would it be if these men misun derstood the theological position of their great leader. But there is no evidence of it in their voluminous writings. Their doctrinal watchwords are the same. They contend against Arianism and Sabellianism alike, defending the old Trinitarian ism with the old metaphysics of generation, deri vation, and subordination. It is true they were ardent Origenists, but Athanasius himself had for Origen only words of praise. In one respect only can we detect a change. The Cappadocians were the schoolmen of the Greek Fathers. They intro duced a more precise metaphysical treatment of theological themes; but the substance and even form of their doctrine is thoroughly Athanasian. To conclude: The words of Harnack on this closing chapter of the Greek Trinitarianism can be truthfully applied to its whole history : " In real ity under the cover of the 6>oou'o-tos men indeed continued in the Orient in a kind of homoiousian ism, which is to this day orthodox in all their churches." Carlyle once voiced the traditional conception of the Nicene theology when he de clared that the whole controversy was about a diphthong. In fact, it was not a question of a ATHANASIANISM ' 67 diphthong, but of an alpha privative. "O/ioios versus avofiotos was the real issue. It was Augus tine and the Latin Church that changed the focus of debate, and made the diphthong a heresy, by giving homoousios a new meaning, and adding filioque to the creed. It is no wonder that a schism followed between the two churches which has continued to this day. The idea is prevalent that this schism rests on slight theological grounds. The very contrary is the truth. The addition of filioque to the Nicene creed was a radical over turning of the whole structure. It broke down its monotheism ; it reduced generation and sonship to a metaphor ; it turned three personal beings into one being revealing himself in tri-personal form ; it changed the mediating Logos into abso lute Deity. Such changes are revolutionary. No compromise was possible, or ever will be. The schism is complete and final. Our survey of Athanasianism here naturally closes. But the question that was raised at the outset, Would Athanasius recognize his New Eng land disciples ? remains unanswered. This re quires a further survey of the pseudo-Athanasian Augustinianism, and its outcome in the New Eng land Trinitarianism. CHAPTER II THE PSEUDO-ATHANASIAN AUGUSTINIANISM The previous chapter contained a survey of the development of the Greek Trinitarianism until its definite expression in the Nicene creed, and in the writings of Athanasius and his theological succes sors, Basil and the two Gregories. From this time Greek theology ceased to be creative, and has re mained to this day traditional and fixed. The Nicene creed with the Constantinopolitan amend ments is still the orthodox definition of the Trinity in the Greek Church. The later christological controversies issuing in the decision of Chalcedon all assumed the truth of the Nicene doctrine. Thus the term Athanasianism best expresses in a summary way the Greek orthodox Trinitarianism. But while Athanasius himself was still living and in the very crisis of his conflict with Arianism, a man was born in Tagaste in North Africa who was to begin an entirely new evolution of trinita rian dogma. Athanasius died in 373 a. d. ; Augus tine was born in 354. When he died in Hippo in 430 the Vandals were besieging the city and com pleting the conquest of North Africa, — an event which significantly marked the political change AUGUSTINIANISM 59 that was rapidly passing over the Latin-Roman world. This change must be thoroughly under stood in order to a full appreciation of the theo logical differences that now arose. To the historical student who takes a wide chronological survey the fifth century will stand out at once conspicuously as one of the most criti cal epochs in the world's annals. Civilization it self hung in the balance against a resistless tide of barbarism that poured in successive waves over Europe. The names of Alaric, Genseric, Attila, Clovis, Hengist, and Horsa are simply the most famous of a long line of invading warriors with their multitudinous followers, whose inroads broke in pieces the West Roman empire. Horde after horde, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Huns, Ostrogoths, Franks, and Lombards followed each other, ravaging and pillaging, and then retreating to their forest homes, laden with spoils and cap tives, or settling down in the districts they had devastated. Rome herself did not escape. Sacked once and again, for years the camp alternately of contending armies, she gradually lost her old pres tige and importance, ceased to be the capital of the West, and at last, as the Dark Ages came on, became the prey of warring ecclesiastical and po litical factions and dwindled to a city of ruins, her great Coliseum being used as a quarry, and her Forum, so full of historic memories, as a cattle pen. Thus was extinguished in Latin Christen dom that splendid Graeco-Roman civilization which, 60 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM with all its faults and crimes, had given to the world its highest form of intellectual culture and religious faith. The effects of these vast political and social changes were radical and momentous. Theodosius the Great, who died in 395, was the last ruler of the united empire. From this time the separation of the East from the West grew more and more sharply defined. Greek letters, art, and philoso phy recrossed the Adriatic to their original home. With the surrender of the purple by the last West Roman emperor in 476, political relations between the two parts of the empire rapidly declined. The old Graeco-Roman world shrank into the Byzantine, with its centre at Constantinople. Church became divided as well as state. This period marks the true birth of the Papacy, which is a Latin institu tion. From this time Latin creeds began to mul tiply. Thus the foundations were laid for the marked differences that began to appear between Greek and Latin forms of theological statement. This was especially true of the dogma of the Trin ity, which received its new shaping most completely at the hands of Augustine. In order properly to apprehend the new point of view and tendency of the Augustinian Trinita rianism, something must be said concerning the sundering of relations which had occurred between this age and the ages preceding in language, litera ture and philosophy. The culture of the Roman Empire was largely derived from the Greeks whom AUGUSTINIANISM 61 the Romans had conquered in the second century B. c /The Greek language became par excellence the learned language of the Graeco-Roman world. The young men of the Roman nobility were sent to Athens to complete their education. Greek rhetoricians and philosophers like Plutarch, Ploti- nus and Porphyry came to Rome to lecture and teach, not learning Latin, but using their native tongue. Thus there came to be an essential unity in the civilization and literature of the empire. The early Latin Christian Fathers read the writ ings of their Greek brethren. Tertullian shows his thorough acquaintance with Greek literature, pagan and Christian. He quotes Homer, Herodo tus, and the Greek philosophers, and even wrote some of his works in Greek. There was also a constant intercourse between the Greek and the Latin churches. Many Greeks, like Irenaeus, set* tied in the West and became identified with Latin Christendom. In the second and third centuries every form of culture was cosmopolitan. Greek teachers traveled everywhere, and Greek letters and schools of philosophy were spread into every corner of the Empire. This is illustrated in the ante-Nicene theology. With minor divergences there was a general harmony of doctrine between the East and the West. Especially is this true of the trinitarian dogma. Tertullian, Irenaeus, Hip- polytus, Novatian, Lactantius, and Hilary are in essential agreement with Justin Martyr, Origen, and Athanasius. It is one of the mistakes of the 62 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM traditional view of the early history of Christian doctrine that Augustine simply developed the the ology of the earlier Latin Fathers, especially Ter tullian and Hilary. Nothing can be further from the truth. This mistake has arisen in part from another mistake, which I fully explained in the previous chapter, concerning the meaning of the term 6/xoouo-tos as used by the Greek theologians. It has been taken for granted that ojuoow-ios meant numerical unity of essence, and that it was so understood by Latin as well as Greek Fathers. Hence the " una substantia " of Tertullian has been generally interpreted in the "numerical" sense, and Augustine's doctrine of numerical unity has been supposed to be derived from it. This view fails to appreciate the wide breach created by the commotions and upheavals of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Latin Fathers before Augus tine universally held to a trinity of three personal beings united in a generic unity by community of essence. They held to the real subordination of the Son to the Father, distinguishing the Father, as self -existent and the first cause, from the "Son as derived and dependent. Tertullian, whose general view is very similar to that of Justin Martyr, even held that the Son had a beginning and was a sort of emanation from the Father's essence. Hilary of Gaul, who lived in the Nicene age and traveled in the East, and thus became thoroughly acquainted with the Arian and Semi-Arian controversies, ex pressly declared that to him homoousion and ho- AUGUSTINIANISM 63 moiousion meant the same thing, and on this ground urged the homoiousian Semi-Arians to accept the Nicene creed, thus following precisely the lead of Athanasius.1 The idea that there was 1 In the previous chapter I showed that Athanasius was quite ready to adopt homoiousios as a synonym for homoousios if its meaning was clearly expressed as implying community of essence, and distinguishing the Son from created beings. Further, I called attention to the fact that he usually employed the term homoios rather than homoousios to set forth his own doctrine of the Son's relation to the Father, proving conclusively that he held to gen eric unity of essence in agreement with the Origenistic school. If he had broken with Origen and his followers in the use of the new term homoousios, he surely would not have continued to use the term homoios which was the watchword of Origenism, and which cannot be twisted to mean numerical unity. A writer in the Biblical World (April, 1895) takes issue with me on this point, and quotes a passage from De Decretis which he thinks involves the theory of numerical unity of essence of the Trinity. I wonder if the writer took care to read the original Greek, for he seems to fail to understand that the whole passage turns on the word homoios, and is written to explain how the Nicene bishops came to substitute for it the term homoousios. Athanasius says they first employed the term homoios to set forth their doctrine, — this Origenistic term being antithetic to the Arian term heteros, — but when they saw the Arians " whispering to each other " and ex plaining homoios in a sense of their own, they then insisted on the term homoousios, as a word that expressed more explicitly essential likeness. The point of contention between the Nicene Fathers and the Arians was whether the Son was uncreated or created, in other words, like or unlike to the Father in his essential being. Athanasius explicitly asserts in this passage that the bishops would have been satisfied with homoios if the Ai-iana had not sought to wrest the word from its true meaning, and a clear light is thus shed on the real meaning of homoousios, as used by the Nicene bishops and by Athanasius himself. Let me further sug gest to this critic that if he had quoted the whole of the first passage given, in its connection, instead of joining together a string of detached clauses that are wholly disconnected, he would have rendered a real service to his readers, instead of wholly 64 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM a theological difference between the East and the West on the question of the Trinity in the third century has no foundation in fact. The breach was later, post-Nicene not ante-Nicene ; and it was a breach not merely between the East and the West, but also equally between the old Latin world of the West Roman Empire and the new barbarian world that settled on its ruins. Augus tine sums up in himself this breach and its charac ter. He was not a Greek scholar. In his age the tradition of Greek culture was largely lost. There is no evidence that he read any of the pagan or Christian Greek writings in the original. He had of course a general traditional knowledge of the Greek philosophers and of the Greek Christian Fathers. But his knowledge is vague and gained mostly at second hand. Even Plato whom he so reverenced was known to him chiefly through the New Platonism of Plotinus and his school in its Latinized form. The culture of Augustine was essentially Latin, and even here it was mostly con fined to pagan and New Platonic sources. He confusing them. I will only add that no one can get the keys to the understanding of Athanasianism from any English translation of his writings extant. I have shown how defective in this respect is the edition of the Nicene Fathers recently published. The volumes on Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa are translated in accordance with the theory of numerical unity of essence, and hence are wholly unreliable in many test passages. A scholarly translation free from all theological bias is still a desideratum. The critic's idea that my object in writing was " to aid in estab lishing a harmony between Trinitarians and Unitarians " is as wide of the mark as the rest of his criticism. He took my irony altogether too seriously. AUGUSTINIANISM 65 shows a narrow acquaintance with the Latin Fa thers before him, and quotes little from them. In short, the Trinitarianism of Augustine 'has little his torical background- It was mostly a new creation from a new standpoint, which was drawn, not from either Greek or Latin Christian sources, but from the ideas which he had imbibed from his philoso phical studies and which he applied in his own original way to the defense of what he wrongly un derstood to be trinitarian orthodoxy. This makes it necessary to dwell briefly on the sources and character of Augustine's philosophical views. The various currents of Graeco-Roman philoso phy had gradually become concentrated, in the sec ond and third centuries, into two great streams, the Platonico- Aristotelian with its New Platonic modifications, and the* Stoic The Greek world adhered more closely to Platonism, while Stoicism, which seems to have been especially congenial to the Romans, — witness the writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, — became the reigning philosophy of the Latin West. Plato nism itself, as it moved westward; became mingled with" the Stoic stream and lost much of its original theistic and dualistic character. Men called them selves Platonists, who were such only in name. New Platonism is essentially monistic and panthe istic, and on this side comes into close affiliation with Stoicism, though remaining spiritualistic, and in this respect, holding to its Platonic source and thus opposing the Stoic materialism. The great 66 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM question of philosophy in this period was that of dualism versus monism: in other words, whether there are two substances and separate realms of existence in the universe, — spiritual and material, — or whether the two are not essentially one. Platonism held firmly to the ultimate difference between spirit and matter, and built on this princi ple its dualistic and spiritualistic philosophy, mak ing God the Supreme Spirit and the creator of the material world. Stoicism, on the other side, insisted on the ultimate unity of all existence, and thus identified God essentially with the world. On this point New Platonism fell into the monistic current of the age, and substituted a doctrine of evolution from the Supreme One to the lowest forms of matter, in place of the Platonic theory of creation, thus reducing the dualism of Plato to unity, in harmony with Stoic ideas. The radical difference between* the two philosophies is seen in the view taken of God's relation to the material universe. Plato was a transcendentalist. He held that God is essentially separate from all created things, though explicitly accepting the doctrine of God's providence and efficiency as active in the upholding and governing of the world He has made. Stoicism made God immanent in the world, redu cing Him philosophically to the central principle or force that gives life and activity to all things, thus confounding Him with all the forms of finite ex istence. As a result Platonism is theistic, regard ing God as a personal Being whose substance is AUGUSTINIANISM 67 separated by an infinite chasm from all created or material substance. " God," says Plato in the " Symposium," "cannot mix with man." Stoicism, on the other hand, is pantheistic, treating the uni verse as essentially of one essence evolved out of a spermatic principle which is its only Deity. So Platonism holds to the supernatural, a world above nature, spiritual and eternal, while Stoicism is a pure doctrine of nature and natural development and knows nothing of a distinct spiritual kingdom. Its highest form of life which it called God by a figure is only a refined matter. The Greek Fa thers were essentially Platonists. As I explained in the previous chapter, the whole Logos doctrine was founded on the Platonic transcendental theory. Athanasius drew the line as clearly and sharply as Plato himself between the uncreated and the cre ated, — between the absolute and the conditioned. Hence his strenuous insistence on the necessity of a Divine mediatorship, which is the cardinal doc trine of his whole theology. A New-Platonic pan theistic strain became mingled in later Greek thought, but no traces of it are to be found in Athanasius. His doctrine of God and the world is theistic and transcendental, with no tinge of monism or pantheism. Augustine drew his philosophical views from the opposite quarter. The Stoicism and kindred New Platonism that permeated Latin thought and literature, even from the time of Cicero and Varro and Plutarch, and became the popular philosophy 68 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM of the following centuries, entered into his very bone and marrow. The philosophical tendency which was first awakened into life by the " Hor- tensius" of Cicero was afterwards fed and ma tured by the writings of such New Platonists as Plotinus, — whom he may have read in transla tions, — Porphyry and Iamblichus, and especially the Latin Apuleius who was his fellow-country man. Augustine in his " Confessions " gives a clear account of the influence of these writings upon him, and declares that they were the provi dential means of freeing him from the Manichean dualism, and of preparing him for the acceptance of Christianity. It is to be noted that in Augus tine's day there was no distinct Stoic sect as op posed to the so-called Platonists. The eclectic tendency which began in Cicero and Plutarch had reached its full development in the later New Platonism 'of Julian, Iamblichus, Apuleius, and Proclus. Platonism had become a name to cover every form of philosophy that held to objective truth as compared with the Epicurean skepticism. But while Stoicism as a distinct philosophy had merged itself in New Platonism, by means of the pantheism which characterized them both, the in herent materialism of the Stoic philosophy still leavened the thought of the age. This is well seen in Tertullian, whose whole theology is shaped by a materialistic cast of thought, and who shows in his writings a thorough acquaintance with the AUGUSTINIANISM 69 Stoics, Zeno and Cleanthes. It is not clear how much Augustine was influenced by his North African predecessor; but the same materialistic tendency is visible in his writings, particularly in his doctrines of original sin, irresistible grace, the sacraments, and the physical punishments and suf ferings of lost souls. Still more, however, was he influenced by the monism which was the eclectic and harmonizing principle that fused Stoicism and New Platonism together. Augustine's whole philosophy starts with a monistic doctrine of unity. The world is but the expression of God. Augustine seems scarcely to admit what we call second causes or laws of nature. This comes out clearly in his controversy with the Pelagians. He reduces the system of natural causation and law to a direct Divine operation. In this way he explains mira cles as simply unusual modes of Divine efficiency in producing events. No law of nature is sub verted, for there is no such law to be subverted. God's own immediate will is the sole cause of all things. This monistic theory appears also in his view of the freedom of the human will as consist ing simply in voluntariness, which itself is the re sult of a gracious Divine efficiency. He carries his doctrine of human dependence almost to the point of the Stoic fatalism, declaring that "the will has power indeed for evil, but not for good, except as helped by the infinite Good." Thus the Stoic, New Platonic immanence, with Augustine, 70 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM supplants the Platonico -Aristotelian and Atha nasian transcendence.1 This radical change of the philosophical basis of truth differentiates Augus- tinianism from Athanasianism along the whole line of Christian theology, and meets us at once as we pass to consider more directly Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity. < In this consideration it is needful first of all to get a clear view of the starting-point of Augus tine's inquiries. His principal work on the sub ject is entitled " On the Trinity," and he every where holds himself to be a strict Trinitarian, opposing all Sabellian as well as Arian views. In the opening pages of his treatise he states the trinitarian problem as " an inquiry into the unity of the Trinity," or " how the Trinity is not three Gods but one God." That is, he seems to start from the three and to proceed to the one. This was the method of the earlier Greek and Latin Fathers. The trinitarian doctrine in its develop ment began with the acceptance of the three scrip tural beings, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then arose the question whether these three divine be ings were three Gods. This was the core of the controversies that began to divide the early Chris tians into sects. Orthodoxy, as set forth by such leaders as Justin Martyr, Origen, and Athanasius, attempted to explain how the Trinity could be accepted without a denial of monotheism. The 1 For a criticism of the totally opposite view of Dr. A. V. G. Allen, in his Continuity of Christian Thought, see Appendix B. AUGUSTINIANISM 71 previous chapter treats this explanation at some length. Enough now to say that the keys to it are the doctrines of generic unity of essence, and eternal generation of the Son, and procession of the Holy Spirit. Athanasius placed the Gordian knot of the problem not in the fact of the three persons, but in their metaphysical or ideal union. He held that the Father is the alone eternal, self- existent God, and that He eternally generated the Son and sent forth the Holy Spirit, so that while there are three divine beings in the Godhead, there are not three eternal self -existent Gods, since the Father is the source of being to the others who are thus dependent and subordinate, though receiving from the Father all divine attri butes. Augustine seems to start from the same point of view, but as he proceeds we find that the problem really discussed is just the reverse. It is not how the three are one, but how the one is three. The explanation of this change of front, of which Augustine himself seems not to be aware, is to be found in the fact that he began by treat ing the Trinity as a problem of faith ; but it soon developed into a problem of reason. His whole argument starts on the basis of Scripture and revelation, but gradually passes into the remotest regions of philosophy. In fact, the book is a most remarkable patchwork of appeal to authority and to reason, and contains some of the wildest speci mens of theological metaphysics that can be found anywhere in the whole range of historical the- 72 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM ology. This is one of the fundamental differences between Athanasius and Augustine. With Atha nasius Scripture is always primary and reason secondary. The reverse is true of Augustine. The result was that Augustine in his whole doc trine of the Trinity paid little respect to previous theological systems or speculations. He supposed himself, it is true, to be following in the footsteps of his orthodox predecessors. No doubt he be lieved himself to be in full accord with Athanasius and the Nicene Greek Fathers. But he had little scholarship or critical sagacity. The whole turn of his mind and training was toward philosophy ; and he thus at once left the beaten track of tradi tional Trinitarianism and moved out along the line of his own philosophical ideas. Those ideas, as we have seen, were wholly monistic. The New Pla tonic leaven in him was pervasive, though it did not carry him to the point of absolute pantheism. From this he was saved by the clear monotheism of the Bible. But he took the first step toward pantheism, as we shall see more clearly in our fur ther consideration of his views. Augustine starts from the assumption that there is but one eternal substance in the universe. This one substance is God. God then, as a being, is essentially one. He is " una res," " summa sim plex essentia." Augustine's language and whole line of argiunent show that he held to the idea of a numerical rather than a generic unity of essence. This was his interpretation of bpoovcnos. With AUGUSTINIANISM 73 him, essence, in the case of God, is not abstract but concrete. The terms genus and species he declares cannot be applied to God as they are to men. God's essence is his actual being. If God is personal, his essence is personal, that is con crete. " To God," he says, " it is not one thing to be, another to be a person, but it is absolutely the same thing." Hence he continually passes from "unum" as descriptive of the one essence, to "unus" and describes the Trinity as "unus Deus." For Augustine, then, the trinitarian pro blem is how this one God, " unus Deus," can be three or a " trinitas." He assumes it to be a fact. He continually puts unus Deus and trinitas into juxtaposition as essentially coincident. He de clares repeatedly that one God and trinity are the same thing. Thus Augustine confounds monothe ism with trinitarianism, and changes trinity into tri-unity. His trinity is one divine Being, not three beings. What then is the peculiarity of Augustinian Trinitarianism? He allows that Fa ther, Son, and Holy Ghost are three. But three what ? three beings ? No. Three persons ? Here we touch the critical point. Augustine explains how the term " person " came to be used by the Latins, but declares that it is not employed in the proper sense of a personal being. The sum of his answer is that the term " person " is used nega tively rather than positively in default of any more exact term, and in order to be able to give some sort of answer to those who ask what three : " that we 74 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM might not be altogether silent when asked, what three, while we confessed that they are three." He enters into a curious discussion of the ques tion whether, since God is one essence, He is not also properly called one person, and on the other hand whether, if there are three persons, it is not proper to call them three essences or three Gods. He allows the logical truth of these conclusions, but refuses to accept them in the explanation of the Trinity, and frankly acknowledges that the problem is insoluble. " It is feared to say three essences," nor " can it be said that there are not three somewhats." It is plain that all through this discussion Augustine is playing with words. In fact he confesses it. " Such words are em ployed," he says, " that there may be something to say ; " and again, " from the necessity of speak ing, when copious reasoning is required against the devices or errors of the heretics." What then did Augustine mean by "three per sons " or " somewhats," if not three personal be ings? Was he a Sabellian without knowing it, and even while striving to distinguish his doctrine from that of Sabellius ? This cannot be affirmed without some explanation. Augustine did not start from the Sabellian premise of an evolution in God from unity to trinity ; nor did he develop a Sabellian doctrine of Christ. But while he did not adopt the Sabellian premise, his own monistic New Platonic premise led him to the Sabellian conclusion, viz., that the " three somewhats " or AUGUSTINIANISM 75 " persons " so-called of the Trinity are only triple modes or relations of the one essence or being of God. The critical test of Sabellianism versus the Nicene doctrine is whether the Trinity is essen tially one Being or three Beings. Sabellianism says one Being; Athanasianism says three Beings. Hence Sabellianism is monistic, while Athanasian ism is trinitarian. Here Augustine plainly sides with Sabellius. A remarkable passage in his "Tractate on the Fourth Gospel " brings out his position clearly : " The Trinity is one God ; three, but not three Gods. Three what, then ? I reply : The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." But can the three be numbered, as three men can be ? Here Augustine wavers. " If you ask : ' three what ? ' number ceases. When you have numbered, you cannot tell what you have numbered. Only in their relations to each other do they suggest number, not in their essential existence. I have no name to give the three, save the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, one Almighty, and so one beginning." Here the monism of Augustine fully appears. The only numbering, he declares, that can apply to God is that of his essence, which is one. When the Trinity is spoken of, " number fails." This must mean that Augus tine did not regard the " three " as real and dis tinct existences or individuals which, of course, can be numbered, but only as modes or relations, in triple form, of one existence or individual. Hence his hesitation and play of words concern- 76 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM ing the term " person." It is to him a makeshift for what is not a person. God, for Augustine, is one Being and so one Person, not three Persons. These three are unus Deus, that is, one Personal Being. The three persons so-called are merely three relative forms under which the one God is manifested in the revelation of himself to men. It is not to be inferred, however, that Augustine regarded these forms or relations as superficial or transitory. Here again he separated himself from the Sabellians. The Trinity, according to Augus tine, is the essential mode of the Divine existence. On this point he is thoroughly Athanasian. The one God is eternally a Trinity. Augustine does not go so far as his later followers, in insisting that God could not exist except in trinity, but he regards trinity as an ultimate fact in God ; so es sential is it that he looks upon the whole universe as, in some sense, trinitarian, and seeks to find images and traces of trinity not only in man, but in nature in all its forms, and even in the triple character of ancient philosophy. But these very analogies show the essentially Sabellian character of Augustine's view. These images of trinity are modal and relational, as, for example, the illustra tion of the triple nature of the human mind, or of the body, or of the departments of philosophy. Such illustrations fairly image forth the Sabellian doctrine, but not the Athanasian. Athanasius fre quently illustrates his doctrine by the case of a human father and son, and of human persons gen- AUGUSTINIANISM 77 erally, but Augustine expressly sets such illustra tions aside as illegitimate. The reason is plain. Athanasius describes the relations which exist be tween three divine Beings. Augustine describes the relations or modes of existence of one Being, , manifesting himself under different forms and names. The personal forms are three, but the personal centre, the personality itself, is one. This, however, is just what Athanasius flouted as Sabellianism. " For they are one (ev) not as of one twice named, so that the same being is in one way Father and in another way (dAWc) his Son ; for Sabellius holding this view was judged a her etic; but they are two (Svo fikv eio-iv), since the Father is Father and is not at the same time Son, and the Son is Son and is not at the same time Father ; but the nature is one Qua Se rj <£uo-«), and all things that belong to the Father belong also to the Son." » We note here the sharp difference between Augustine and Athanasius. Augustine declares that " when the Trinity is spoken of number fails." " Three " is but a metaphor. Number only ap plies strictly to God as one. Athanasius reverses this. His position is that number applies properly rather to the Trinity. He insists on the number ing of the persons as essential to the truth against Sabellius. "Two," he declares, "is not a mere name for one, but is a reality." It is rather, he says elsewhere, in regard to the divine essence 1 Third Oration against the Arians, 4. 78 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM that '^-number fails : " since essence is abstract and niversal, and so does not submit to number, that is, cannot be individualized. Only individuals can be numbered, not universals. This was the teach ing of all the Greek Fathers. They held to three real subsistences or individuals in the Trinity (jpels vjroo-rao-€is = tres res'), and hence put the numerical term rpias into the forefront of their doctrine and called themselves Trinitarians. Gregory Nazianzen, for example, says the Trinity is " divided in number " (dpifyua Suupopif). So John of Damascus says that persons are distinguished by number but not by nature. For " a person exists by itself, but essence does not exist by itself but as seen in persons." Nothing could more clearly set forth the trinitarianism of the Greeks as distinguished from that of Augustine ; and the secret of that difference is that the Greek Fathers built their doctrine on the philosophical distinc tions of Plato and Aristotle, while Augustine based his on the essential monism of New Platonism. This appears in his whole treatment and interpre tation of the Bible. Everywhere he finds trinity as well as unity. The Jehovah of the Old Testa ment is at the same time the one God and the Trinity. He interprets the Divine appearances to Adam, to Abraham, to Moses, as sometimes of the Father, sometimes of the Son, and sometimes of the whole Trinity, and holds, moreover, that when ever God appears as a single person (Father, Son, or Holy Spirit), or when any act is performed in AUGUSTINIANISM 79 the person of either, the whole Trinity is concerned. Thus though the Son only was incarnate, the whole Trinity wrought the incarnation, so that the Son is made to bear a part in his own incarnation. In the same way it was the Son as Christ that died, but the Father also was actively concerned in it, — a view that is perilously close to the old Patri- passianism. Everything that Christ did in the flesh, the Father did also. Augustine even repre sents the Father as walking on the sea. Such utter confusion of the agency of the three persons was wholly foreign to Athanasius. It is true that he sometimes represents the action of the Father as involved in that of the Son in language that reminds us of Augustine. But a study of such passages in their context will show that Athana sius' point of view is entirely different. He never confounds the Father or the Son with the Trinity. . To him the Trinity is always plural, never singular. He distinguishes the agency of the Son in creation from that of the Father. The Father wills, the Son executes. So in regard to the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Athanasius avoids all Patripassian tendencies. "It was not the Father that was made man. For it follows, when the Lord is called the vine, that there must be a husbandman, and, when he prayed, that there was one to hear, and, when he asked, that there was one to give. Now such things show far more readily the madness of the Sabellians, because he that prayed was one, he that heard another, one 80 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM the vine, another the husbandman." Athanasius holds, indeed, to the unity of agency of Father and Son, but this unity is conceived not pantheistically, but as growing out of their metaphysical relation, the Father being the fons et origo of the Son's agency, though as agents they are two and their acts are personally distinct. John of Damascus represents the whole Greek theology when he says : " The Father and the Holy Spirit have no com munion with the Incarnation of the Word, except by approbation and assent." The prayer with which Augustine concludes his work on the Trinity well summarizes the monistic and modalistic char acter of his Trinitarianism. It is addressed to the Trinity. But the Trinity is described as "one Lord God," and the whole prayer is in the singu lar number. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are confounded as one Person. "O Lord, the one God, God the Trinity, whatever is said in these books that is of thine may they acknowledge who are thine." No wonder that Calvin, stout Augus- tinian as he was, should have protested against such a form of prayer, which seems to have been com mon in his day. " It is a common prayer : ' Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us.' It dis pleases me and savors throughout of barbarism." We are now at a point where we can understand how Augustine was led to eliminate all subordina tion from his trinitarian doctrine. The traditional view which regards Augustine as a true disciple of Athanasianism has never been able to explain AUGUSTINIANISM 81 satisfactorily this feature of Augustine's doctrine. The common explanation has been that the Atha nasian homoousian doctrine makes the Son equal to the Father, and that the ground was thus prepared for the step taken by Augustine. But this cannot be allowed. Athanasius held that the Son was a derived being : he insisted strongly on the distinc tion between oItios and amo/ros. The Son was not self-existent, but dependent eternally on the Fa ther. Subordination was thus an essential element in the Athanasian doctrine. To be sure, Athana sius borrows from Paul the term " equal ; " but he explains it, in harmony with his subordination doctrine, to set forth his view that the Son is of divine origin and nature and possesses by deriva tion all divine attributes. The step that Augustine took could never have been taken from the stand point of Athanasius. Subordination has always remained the central feature of all Greek theology. It is the new philosophic starting-point of Augus tine that explains the elimination of all subordina tion from his system. God, in his view, is essen tially one ; yet He is a trinity, but not a trinity of real personal beings ; the personal centre is one. The three persons, so-called, are not subsistences or individuals ; they are modes of the one divine exist ence. How Augustine explained the terms " gen eration" and "procession," as applied to the Son and Holy Spirit, it is difficult to say. He cannot have accepted them literally. They belong with the term " person " to Augustine's negative nomen- 82 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM clature. For Augustine generation did not in volve any real derivation or dependence. The Son is as truly and absolutely God as the Father. God is as self-existent and eternal in the Son and Holy Spirit as in the Father. Each form or mode of the Divine Being involves the whole Divine Being. Subordination, therefore, is impossible. "Rela tions," as Augustine termed them, in the Trinity can have no essential significance. They are not beings or essences, but only qualities of beings* The only Superiority of the Father is that he is first in order. Here is the germ of the official subordination that has played such a part in later trinitarian history. In Augustine's doctrine Jesus Christ is absolute Deity, the whole of God. He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, nay, he is in fact the whole Trinity, for God is trinity ; one is three and three is one, and so absolutely that the Trinity is properly addressed as a singular being, and Augustine's prayer to the Trinity was equally a prayer to Christ, to the Father, to the Holy Spirit, to all three together and to the singular whole, which is all three. Such is the amazing antinomy of the Augustinian Trinitarianism. How so logical a thinker could have thus lost himself • in the mazes of monism and played jumping-jack with his own logic would be a profound mystery to any one who had not studied the history of human speculation. Curiously enough, Augustine seems to have still supposed himself to be a be liever in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three AUGUSTINIANISM 83 personal agents ; but there is no evidence that he ever attempted to harmonize his trinitarian faith with his unitarian theology. Before passing to consider the outcome of Augus- tinianism in later history, it may be well to note several of the more radical changes in theological thought that resulted from the new Augustinian views. In the first place, Augustine's doctrine of the Trinity tended to break down the Christian Athanasian doctrine of mediatorship. This doc trine is central not only in the New Testament, but also in Greek theology. The Logos doctrine is the speculative expression of it. The redemption of man by a mediating being who partakes of divine as well as human nature is the great theme of the Athanasian argument against Arius. In Augustine's day the Atonement was not discussed. The doctrine of a Divine Redeemer was thrown into the background by the Pelagian controversy concerning man and the origin of evil. Christ's work as a Saviour was not lost sight of, but Augus tine's view of him as essentially the absolute God led inevitably to a confusion of his mediatorial function with the other functions of the Godhead. The one God in Trinity was made the agent in the atonement as in all other divine activities. How far Augustine himself was affected in his views of Christ's mediatorial work by his monistic Trini tarianism his writings do not disclose. But the seed sown soon brought forth its natural fruit. Mediaeval theology, which is essentially Augus- 84 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM tinian, so confounded Christ with God the Father that instead of making him the expression "and representation of Divine mercy and intercession, as the earlier theology had always done, it made him rather the representative of Divine justice and punishment. Mediaeval art is on this point a true and telling witness. The face of Christ, which in early art was benignant and compassionate, be comes hard and severe, and in the frequent judg ment scenes he is pictured as on the throne wrath ful and vengeful, and in the act of punishing the guilty. No wonder that the cult of the Virgin Mary became so popular. Its growth, with all the superstitions involved, was the protest of heavy- laden souls, longing for some way of access to the mercy of God, when the old and living way through Christ had been closed. Anselm's "Cur Deus Homo " — a work which was epoch-making in its influence upon the mediaeval views of the atone ment — illustrates forcibly the effect of the Augus- tinian type of doctrine. The treatise is pervaded with a thinly-disguised Patripassianism and Mono- physitism. The very title is suggestive. It is not "Why the Christ," but "Why the God-man?" Anselm's Redeemer is God himself, not another mediating being, such as the Logos of Greek the ology. The question raised at the outset is, " By what necessity and for what reason God, since He is omnipotent, took on himself the humiliation and weakness of human nature for the sake of its restoration?" Here the mediating element is AUGUSTINIANISM 85 wholly absent. A mediator implies two parties. Anselm confounds one party and the mediator together. He represents God as "descending to the Virgin's womb " and " enduring weariness, hunger, thirst, strokes, crucifixion, and death." God " the Creator," who " made Adam," " re deemed " us " by his own blood " " from sin and from his own wrath." Such language runs through the whole book. Sometimes it becomes grossly Patripassian or monistic. Speaking of the death of Christ, he says : " No one would knowingly kill God." The point of all this mode of speech is explained by Anselm himself. Christ, he says, is " the whole Trinity." " In one person the whole Godhead is meant." " Since he himself is God, the Son of God, he offered himself for his own honor to himself, as he did to the Father and the Holy Spirit." Thus the whole gospel idea of a daysman between God and men, a Messiah and mediator whom, "in the fullness of time," God sent, " because He so loved the world," is dissolved into the crude materialism of the early heretics. God is made to send himself, to be born, to suffer and die, and this to save men from the effects of his own wrath. Is it any wonder that modern discussions on the atonement could never reach a satisfactory' result on the Anselmic basis ? An selm's God-man is both the Being to be propitiated and the Being that propitiates, a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, now the omnipotent and eternal God and anon the " man of sorrows." 86 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM This may be truth, as some still believe, but it is not the old gospel of a Messiah. Christ's voice is no longer heard saying, " If ye shall ask anything in my name that will I do, and I will pray the Father." On the Augustinian-Anselmic theory Christ prays to himself, and this is no prayer at all. The real intercessory element is gone. One of the chief results of recent Biblical investigation has been the restoration of the historical Christ, with those features of his earthly life that reveal him as our true elder brother, and thus our fit representative before God. A second effect of Augustine's new Trinitarian ism was to break down the monotheistic view of God. As I showed in the previous chapter, mono theism lies at the basis of Athanasianism. The Nicene creed gave the keynote of all Greek the ology in its opening words, — " We believe in one God, the Father Almighty." Monotheism, or theism, in the philosophical sense, holds that God is a single personal being. It emphasizes person ality as the true centre and test of all spiritual substance. The spiritual world is composed of persons. If God is spirit, He is a Person. Moral life involves a moral self-consciousness with its capacity of distinguishing the Ego from the non- Ego, and this is what is meant by personality. The limit of a spiritual substance is its range of self-consciousness. There are as many spiritual beings as there are centres of self-consciousness. Theism holds that God, in whose moral image we AUGUSTINIANISM 87 are, is such a self-conscious Being. Pantheism, on the contrary, makes self-consciousness, or person ality, only a quality or accident of substance, so that there may be only one spiritual substance and yet many persons. It was the great virtue of the original Platonism, especially in its Aristotelian form, that it was firmly theistic. Zeller, in his notable " History of Greek Philosophy," declares that Plato never raised the question squarely of God's personality. This may be so ; but, for all that, Plato was theistic to the core. His pro nounced dualism, with its clear line between spirit and matter, rests upon a theistic basis. Call his " Timaeus " a poem if you please, it speaks a true voice and tells us plainly of his faith in a personal God, the supreme maker of the universe. The theism of Plato is the monotheism of Paul and Athanasius. They never thought of calling the one God the Trinity, as if the Trinity was a single being. " To us there is one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ." But Augustine had drunk from a different philosophical stream. New Platonism is thoroughly pantheistic, and Augus tine's whole theology is saturated with New Platonic influences. It cannot be known exactly how much indebted Augustine was to the " renowned " Plotinus, as he calls him, but plainly, in some way, he had deeply imbibed the spirit of his teachings, for Plotinus was the most famous philosopher of the New Pla- tonist school which Augustine rates so highly, — 88 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM " they approach nearest to us," he says, — as he was the most original thinker since Aristotle. Nowhere in literature can a clearer or profounder analysis of the pantheistic doctrine be found than in the " Enneads " of Plotinus, nor a more re markable description of the New Platonic Trinity than in the first Book of the fifth " Ennead," en titled : Tiepl tu>v rpidv apxiKmv vTrocrTaxTimv. Here are three hypostases, to ov, voSs, and ^«x^> placed at the head of the New Platonic pantheon, and united by a pantheistic evolution in one eternal substance. Here, too, are found those theological terms that became the watchwords of Christian doctrine: Xdyos, y£wr)o'K, cIki&v, s, airavyaarfia, 6/xoouo~ios. These terms are used to set forth a trinity with relations of generation, subordination, and homo ousian unity that make it seem a transcript of the doctrine of Origen and Athanasius, only that it is cast in pantheistic form. The question naturally arises whether there was any historical connection between the two doctrines, so similar in their nomenclature. But there is no evidence of it. On the contrary, they were both plainly drawn, through independent channels, from the common sources of earlier philosophy. Plato himself gives the basis of the Plotinian Trinity in his triad of 6 3>v, the Supreme God, voCs or Xoyos, the mediating principle, and ifroxq, the world-soul. The idea that Plotinus borrowed his doctrine from Christianity is utterly without foundation. It is a more pertinent question whether Augustine was directly acquainted with the " Enneads " of Plotinus. Had he read AUGUSTINIANISM 89 them in a Latin translation ? It cannot be as serted decisively. The several personal references and citations in " De Civitate Dei " are not con clusive.1 But this is certain, that his doctrine of 1 Dr. Harnack seems to assert it. He says (History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 358) : " We know that the rhetorician Marius Victo- rinus translated the writings of Plotinus. This translation ex erted a decisive influence on the mental history of Augustine, who borrowed from New Platonism the best it had, its psychology, introduced it into the dogmatic of the church, and developed it still further." There is no doubt of the profound influence of the Plotinian school upon Augustine. But whether he ever read the writings of Plotinus himself, either in the original Greek or in a Latin translation is not so clear. The only authority for Har- nack's assertion, that I am aware of, is what Augustine tells us in his Confessions (viii. 2), viz. : that he " had read certain books of the Platonists which Victorious had translated into Latin." Whether the writings of Plotinus were included among " certain books of the Platonists " is perhaps probable, but it is not by any means certain. There is no direct evidence of it in Augus tine's own writings, beyond the passage given above. Dr. Schaff says (History of the Christian Church, vol. iii. p. 1001) : " It is probable that he read Plotinus in Greek ; " but he gives no good grounds for his opinion, and when one considers how ignorant Augustine was, by his own confession, of Greek, and also how difficult it is to read the Greek of Plotinus, one is compelled to reject it as wholly improbable. Dr. Schaff seems to rely on a quotation which Augustine makes from the Oracles of Porphyry. But the quotation is in Latin, and Augustine does not tell us whose translation it is. Was it his own ? I do not think so. If Augustine could read Greek as easily as that, why did he ask Jerome to translate the writings of Origen for him ? The truth is that Augustine made scarcely any use of the Greek writings, even the Greek Testament, for the simple reason that he was too ignorant of Greek to do so. His acquaintance with Greek philosophy and theology was gained at second hand. Here can be clearly traced the influence of Cicero. In the City of God Cicero is quoted more than twenty times, and referred to fre quently. It was from this source that Augustine acquired much of his knowledge of Plato. Cicero was an admirer of Plato, call ing him quemdam Deum Philosqphorum (De Natura Deorum, ii. 90 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM God and of Trinity breathes the same pantheistic strain. Plotinus declares that the Deity, though one essence, exists by a process of evolution in three hypostases, which have indeed a shadowy sort of personality, and yet plainly are not regarded by him as distinct personal beings. Personality, with him, comes at a lower stage of evolution, as, for example, in human souls, which being unsepa- rated portions of the " one " or " all " in the pre natal state of existence, become personalized in this present life when united with bodies. The thorough pantheism of Plotinus made it easy for him to adopt the theory of " three hypostases," as a stage of evolution between unity and multi plicity, without assuming that they are really per sonal. He had no doctrine of a personal God, in the strict theistic sense. Personality for him is only a temporary phase of pluralized being out of the absolute unity. Augustine was held back from such a position by his theistic Christian faith, and so refused to say that the one God exists in three real hypostases, which, in Christian trinita rian language, meant three individual persons. 12), and it was his aim, as he said, " to array Plato in Latin dress." In a very scholarly article in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Biography, written by Canon Charles Gore, the thor oughly New Platonic character of the Christian writings of Vic- torinus is clearly brought out, and also the probable influence of them on Augustine. This is shown by the close affinities to be seen in the leading doctrines held by both writers. We may well believe, therefore, that, if Augustine did not read Plotinus him self, he at all events drank deeply of his philosophy through the New Platonic translations and writings of Victorinus. AUGUSTINIANISM 91 Thus while Plotinus had no hesitation in saying " three hypostases," as forms of the evolution of unity into plurality, since for him hypostasis, as being, did not necessarily involve individual per sonality, Augustine cannot refuse to allow that being and personality are coincident and involve each other, so that, if God is one as a being, he must also be one as a person, and vice versa, that if there are three individual persons in Deity, there must also be three essences or personal beings. Such was the dilemma in which Augustine found himself between his Christian belief and his phi losophical system. The result was that he took refuge in the plea of ignorance and mystery. But his real metaphysical doctrine is plainly Plotinian. He refuses to say three hypostases or real persons, but contents himself with " three somewhats," and then, when asked " What three," answers : " Three persons, lest we should seem to be silent." But are the " three somewhats " distinct hypostases or individual beings ? Augustine never says Yes, for he could not and remain Plotinian as he was. The result is that his Trinitarianism is monistic like that of Plotinus himself. His Trinity is not tripersonal, and hence must be, in spite of himself, unipersonal, unless he drops into the open pit of extreme pantheism and makes God a mere to 5v, unconscious of himself or of the world that is evolved from Him. It is on such a foundation of pantheistic philosophy, from which, however, he shrinks back, that Augustine builds his new Trini- 92 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM tarianism and is able to say that the one only true God and the Trinity are absolutely the same. This is not monotheism ; it is a pantheistic monism. The great difficulty with Augustine was that he did not know what to do with the problem of per sonality. He plays fast and loose with it, and vibrates between theism and pantheism, and thus paves the way for the amazing assumption of some of his followers in later times, that in God essence and person are not coincident, so that God may be and is one Being and yet three real persons, — an assumption that breaks down at once when submitted to the test of reason. A third effect of the new mode of conceiving the Trinity remains to be mentioned, — the chan ging of the Athanasian homoousianism from generic to numerical unity of essence. It is Only needful here to mark the fact that this change resulted from Augustine's entire misconception of the Platonico-Aristotelian nomenclature of Atha nasius and the other Greek theologians. He read the Nicene creed through New-Platonic glasses, turning its' three personal beings metaphysically united in a Platonic universal into one being mani fested under three modes of personal existence. The result was a complete overturn of the Nicene doctrine. Its apex became its base. Trinity became unity. Trinitarianism became tri-unita- rianism. The foundation was thus laid for the new metaphysics of the Divine Being to which I have just referred, viz., that God is one Being, while AUGUSTINIANISM 93 three persons. Augustine himself was not ready to make the jump. He simply raised the problem and left it unsolved. But his followers were bolder than he. God is numerically one in essence, yet is three in personal agency ; therefore essence and person in God are not coincident. Already this step was taken when the Pseudo-Athanasian creed was framed. This creed, which is clearly a product of the Augustinian school, declares that " We worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons, nor divid ing the substance." This language assumes that the substance or Being is one, while the persons are three. But does the creed hold to three real persons? Plainly not. It plays with the term " person," as Augustine did. Its doctrine, under all its verbal antinomies, is that of the essential Di vine unity. God, it declares, is unus Deus, that is, one personal Being. This creed has recently been charged with tritheism. In fact its position is at the opposite pole. "There are not three Gods, but one God." True, its Sabellianism is veiled under the assumption that God may be one Being and yet be three persons, but its real position is that God is one Being, whatever explanation be given of the three persons. Thus its Trinitarianism is only a disguise. Its hands indeed are those of Esau, but its voice is the voice of Jacob. The doctrine of numerical unity of essence is monistic, not tritheistic, and the subsequent history will show that the New Platonic leaven of the Augustinian 94 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Trinitarianism has given a monistic and pantheistic direction to trinitarian dogma down to the present day. To pass from Augustine to the later history of Trinitarianism is like leaving the intricate mazes of some difficult strait for the open sea. The story to be told is simple and plain. As the Dark Ages come on apace, theology becomes subject to tradi tion and ecclesiastical authority. Greek literature is buried ; the Greek Fathers are no longer known or read, and Augustine's name is in the ascendant without a rival for a thousand years. The mediae val Catholic theology, which was slowly developed by Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and the other great Schoolmen, is simply Augustinianism reduced to scholastic form. There were a few dissenting voices, such as Roscelin and Joachim. But they were quickly reduced to silence by papal synods. All the rest sing the same Augustinian song. Anselm may speak for them. " Although necessity compels that there be two, still it cannot in any way be expressed what two they are " (quid duo sini) ; and again, " one essence, yet a trinity, on account of three I know not what " (tres nescio quid). It is noticeable that in these passages Anselm refuses to use the term " person," though it is still employed by Augustinians generally, with the express understanding, however, that it is in a negative or relative sense. The great question with the Schoolmen was whether the Trinity is one being (una res) or three beings (tres res). AUGUSTINIANISM 95 Roscelin held that three real persons involved three real beings (tres res). This was allowed by Anselm, who accepted, with Augustine, the princi ple that nature and person are coincident; and hence he denied that there are three real persons in the Trinity. " As God is one in substance, He cannot be several persons (ita nee plures per sonal)." Hence his frank confession, " tres nescio quid." It is a remarkable fact that the Protestant Re formation only increased the prestige of Augustine, the great Catholic Father, as he had now become. Catholics and Protestants alike appealed to him. The question of the Trinity was not a subject of controversy, and the Augustinian form of trinita rian doctrine became a fixed tradition. The Nicene creed, as interpreted by the Pseudo-Athanasian creed, was accepted on all sides and passed into all the Protestant confessions. It is to be noted that Calvin insisted on the use of the term " person " as the only word that would unmask Sabellianism. He also held to numerical unity of essence. This would seem to indicate that Calvin believed that God was one Being in three real persons, and if so, he must have allowed that in God nature and person are not coincident. Yet he nowhere raises the question, and I am inclined to think that he was not conscious of any departure from the views of Augustine. But it was inevitable, under the increased light and freedom of Protestantism, that questioning should arise. The creeds, whether 96 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Lutheran, Calvinistic or Anglican, described the Trinity as three persons. What did they mean ? Are the three persons three Beings or only three modes of existence of one Being ? It was the old question between trinitarian and monarchian in the second century, and it would not down. We have thus reached the historical close of the undisturbed reign of the Pseudo-Athanasian Au- gustinianism. A further survey of the discussions that now arose, and their outcome in the New England Trinitarianism, will be given in the next chapter. CHAPTER HI NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM The history of the evolution of the Christian trinitarian dogma naturally falls into three divi sions. The first includes the development of the Greek Athanasian doctrine, viz., that the Trinity is composed of three distinct personal beings, of whom the First Person, or the Father, is alone self-existent and absolute God, the second and third persons being derived and subordinate, the one by eternal generation, the other by eternal procession. The second division gives the history of the later Latin Trinitarianism as moulded by Augustine, which inverted the Greek doctrine, and held that each person is Absolute God, and that the whole Trinity is involved in each person, thus eliminating all subordination, making the Trinity essentially one Being, and reducing the three per sons to relations or modes of existence of that Being. But while the Augustinian form of doctrine became fixed in the faith of the Western Church through the Middle Ages, the Greek Nicene creed continued to be accepted, with the filioque addition, without any suspicion that the Athanasian and 98 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Augustinian statements were in diametrical opposi tion to each other and based on antagonistic philo sophies. The Quicunque vult, a Latin creed that originated in the school of Augustine, was even attributed to Athanasius, and its spuriousness was not suspected until the revival of learning was in full sweep in the fifteenth century. Even then the true meaning of the discovery was not clearly dis cerned. The yoke of church authority still weighed heavily on the intellects of men and forbade a full use of the light gained. The Protestant Reformers were too busily engaged in breaking the bonds of papal despotism in church and state to pay much attention to speculative questions, and the old creeds were left untouched. But as the movement proceeded, and its real significance became more fully understood, especially when the rights of in dividual intellectual freedom came to be asserted, a new theological movement was precipitated. Then the old creeds were subjected to criticism, and the era of Protestant symbolics began. We are thus brought to the third division of the subject, viz., the period of questioning and controversy as to the real meaning of the creeds, and as to the truth of the historical and speculative assumptions in volved in them. I propose in the present chapter to consider the discussions that arose in England, and their outcome in the New England Trinitari anism. These discussions began with the publication of Firmin's " Tracts " in the latter part of the seven- NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 99 teenth century. The position of the " Tracts " was that " the unity of God is a unity of person as well as of nature," and that God being unipersonal " cannot be three persons any more than a man can be three persons." Sherlock in reply accepted the premises of Firmin, as to unity of person and nature, but drew the opposite conclusion ; that the three persons are three distinct minds or beings. But this position was wholly opposed to the Au gustinian monism that had so long ruled theology ; it smacked of tritheism, a charge to which Trinita rians had always been sensitive. Had the English theologians been thoroughly acquainted with Greek theology, they would have had the key to the Atha nasian answer, but this key was wanting to them. Augustinian agnosticism was their only refuge. Wallis, Jane, South, Howe, Burnet, all, in one chorus, proclaim that the three are not real persons in the ordinary sense of persons. Wallis says there are three " somewhats," borrowing the word from Augustine himself. Bishop Burnet prefers to speak of the Trinity as " the Blessed Three," though he would not object to the word " person " if he could be sure it would be understood as he intended it. This closed the discussion for the time, but it broke out again in what is called the Arian controversy, in the early part of the eighteenth century. The Arians, Samuel Clarke and others, took the same essential ground with Firmin, that God is uniper sonal, and hence that the Son is a distinct personal being, distinguishing God the Father as the abso- 100 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM lute Deity from the Son whom they regarded as God in a relative or secondary sense, being derived from the Father and having his beginning from Him. The most notable reply was that of Waterland. His trinitarian writings have usually been regarded by his school of theologians as the most consum mate and unanswerable defense of orthodoxy that has ever been made. But there is nothing really new in it, except that it loyally accepts the term " person " in the creeds as having a real signifi cance, and hence squarely faces and accepts under stress the metaphysical paradox involved : that in God nature and person are not coincident. On this point Waterland started a new current of trin itarian dogma. He held, against the Arians, that Christ is the Supreme God, a distinct person indeed from the Father, but not a distinct Being. To support this he allows that being is not neces sarily " synonymous with person." Yet he refuses to take a decided stand on this point, declaring it to be a " question about a name or a phrase, and a scholastic question invented in later times," which shows to how little purpose he had read church history. The allied question of numerical unity of essence which, as we have seen, hies at the basis of this one and necessitates it, if three real persons in one numerical essence are insisted on, he also declines to discuss, declaring that the subject is beyond us. " You can never fix any certain principle of individuation; in short, you NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 101 know not precisely what it is that makes one being or essence." If so, what becomes of the whole metaphysics of the Nicene Orthodox Trinity, and why this excited controversy? After all, Waterland falls back on the trinitarian tradition. His " three real persons " are not individuals. It is the old modalistic monism disguised. His view of the Trinity is Augustinian. " The Lord our God is one God," does not mean, he says, "unity of person." It may mean God the Father, but " not exclusive of the other two persons." " In strictness the one God is the whole Trinity." " The word God may sometimes signify all the divine persons, sometimes any person of the three indefinitely without determining which, and some times one particular person, Father, Son, or Holy Ghost." This is pure Augustinianism, and shows that Waterland had not advanced a single step in the way of theological progress. His whole spirit and method are traditional. In truth Protestantism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had become reactionary and dogmatic. Its own cardinal principle of individ ual freedom of belief had been lost sight of, or rather it had never yet been clearly understood. Waterland gives little evidence of acquaintance with Greek philosophy or theology. His studies were confined to the Latin Fathers. He quoted Augustine to interpret or defend what he supposed to be the Nicene doctrine. The revival of Greek studies was indeed beginning to bear fruit. Such 102 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM men as Hooker, the pride of English Churchmen, Petavius, the learned and candid Jesuit, and Cud- worth, the Cambridge Platonist, were reopening the long-closed fountains of Greek theology, in works that are to-day rich and fruitful for all scholars. But such cloistered voices were unheard in this age of noisy logomachies. The ponderous works of Waterland bore away the honors of vic tory, and the discussion again for the time was closed. Henceforth the " stream of tendency " is all one way. The Augustinian Sabellianism sweeps on resistiessly, carrying in its wake Church man and Dissenter, Calvinist and Arminian alike, and crosses the Atlantic to find a new home in New England. A good illustration of this period is seen in Isaac Watts, whose hymns had such influence in moulding English as well as American religious thought and devotion. The Trinitarianism of Watts was a curious amalgam of Sabellianism and Arianism. " Person," in his view, " as applied to the Trinity is not to be taken in the full common and literal sense of it." " The Father, the Word and the Spirit are so far distinct as to lay a foun dation for the Scripture to speak of them in a personal manner, as I, Thou, and He, and upon this account they are called three persons, but they are not so distinct as to have three distinct consciousnesses." Watts well illustrates the gen eral demoralization into which Calvinistic ortho doxy was now falling. He doubted whether the NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 103 Holy Spirit was anything more than the repre sentative of the Divine principle " in a personal manner," " as the spirit of a man does not imply another being." Watts was an Arian in his view of Christ, holding to " the preexistence of Christ's human soul," and to its union with the immanent Eternal Logos " before the world was." He also speculated concerning the condition of infants, suggesting that they were annihilated, in case they died before the development of moral agency. But none of Watts's peculiar views appear in his hymns, which breathe the hallowed air of tradi tional Calvinism. The earliest theological divisions in New Eng land grew out of questions connected with the prevalence of Arminianism. The subject of the Trinity was in the background. The Westmin ster catechism, with its bald trinitarian statement, was universally accepted and made the text-book of Christian doctrine. But the theologizing ten dencies that so profoundly stirred our New Eng land forefathers could not long permit the trini tarian dogma to remain untouched. Edwards seems to have given it little special attention ; but incidental statements show that, while he was will ing to use the term " person," he was not quite clear as to its real meaning when applied to God. Hopkins deals with the subject more at length. His views are a curious mixture of Latin and Greek elements. He held to the real eternal gen eration of the Son, thus far agreeing with Athana- 104 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM sius ; but his doctrine as a whole is Augustinian. God is " the infinite three-one." Jehovah in the Old Testament is the whole Trinity. Christ is identified with Jehovah. The centre of his per sonality is divine, not human. Person in the Trinity " cannot be defined so as to give a clear adequate idea." Thus the Trinitarianism of Hop kins hangs on the horns of a dilemma. He held the absolute Deity of Christ, and denied all sub ordination, and yet insisted on his real generation from the Father. The contradiction here involved is apparent at once. Real generation supposes de rivation, and consequent subordination. Hence Athanasius was a consistent subordinationist to the last. Augustinianism and Athanasianism can not be harmonized. Hopkins does not seem to have been conscious of the difficulty. But Em mons, his greater disciple, saw and avoided it. He cut the Gordian knot in true Alexandrian fashion, declaring that "eternal generation is eternal nonsense." Emmons was a keen logician ; he also had the gift of a terse and lucid theologi cal style. No theologian since Edwards can be compared with him in these respects. Accept his assumptions and one is driven on irresistibly to the most radical conclusions. But his theology is essentially metaphysical.1 With the rest of his 1 The metaphysical system of Emmons is one of the marvels of historical theology. The links of minor premise and conclu sion are forged with a consummate syllogistical skill, while the most amazing major premises, on which the whole theological edifice stands, are assumed with an ease and assurance that is NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 105 age he was wholly lacking in the historical and critical spirit. What Athanasius and the Greek Fathers taught had no interest for him. He dealt with the Trinity from the standpoint of the logi cal reason. "Eternal generation " is, he thought, rationally inconceivable, a mere cobweb of the speculative imagination, and he brushed it away as impatiently as did Arius himself. Thus was extinguished the last trace of genuine Athanasian ism in New England theology. A new era now began, and Emmons was its prophet. He was the real founder of the New England trinitarian school. Three points form the basis of the Trinitarianism of Emmons. (1.) He holds tenaciously to three real persons. " It is as easy," he declares, " to conceive of God existing in three persons as in one person." This language shows that Emmons employed the term " person " in the strict literal sense. (2.) He holds that the three persons are absolutely equal, and further are numerically one Being. This involves the metaphysical assumption that in the Trinity being and person are not coin cident. Emmons takes this position without any evasions ; and he is the first theologian that I am simply incomprehensible in these later days when the inductive and critical process has made individual facts rather than general ideas the basis of knowledge. Professor Talcott has informed me that Emmons once said to him : " There are no chasms in my theology any more than in this floor," pointing downward. I am not disposed to question the assertion. The real chasm is not in the system but behind it. It is built on a metaphysical vacuum. 106 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM aware of in the history of the doctrine who does so. As I have already noted, the Pseudo-Athana sian creed assumes it implicitly, but not explicitly. Waterland asserts that it may be so, but refuses to make an issue of it, and falls back on the posi tion that person has an unknown meaning. The language of Hopkins also implies it, but it was reserved for so bold and speculative a thinker as Emmons to assert that though we cannot conceive that three persons should be one person, we may conceive that three persons should be one Being, " if we only suppose that being may signify some thing different from person in respect to Deity." This wholly improbable supposition Emmons forth with characteristically assumes as fact. (3.) Em mons gave prominence to the theory of " official subordination." " The name Father is taken from the peculiar office which he sustains in the economy of redemption. The second person assumes the name of Son and Word by virtue of his incarna tion." In this very statement lurks the Sabellian- izing leaven which one day will leaven the whole lump. Father and Son are " names " " assumed " to set forth certain activities of the one Absolute God. This is essential Sabellianism at the start. But Emmons goes farther. He had cast aside the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, but now he suggests that the names Son and Word had no existence before the incarnation. " They were probably unknown in heaven until the pur poses of grace were there revealed." But if the NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 107 names Word and Son were unknown before the incarnation, how about the real personality of the second person of the Trinity ? Did the Son exist personally before the incarnation without a name, or does the want of a name imply the non-existence of the reality ? Emmons halts at this point, but his followers, Stuart and others, will take up the pregnant suggestion that he had dropped so care lessly, with what result we shall see. . Such assumptions as Emmons had employed on which to build his trinitarian system could not long pass without question. We come to the so- called Unitarian Controversy, which has left its mark on the whole further history of New Eng land theological thought. It broke out in conse quence of a sermon by Channing in 1819, in which he impugned the orthodox trinitarian doctrine as illogical and unscriptural. His position was that three persons imply " three intelligent agents pos sessed of different consciousnesses, different wills, and different perceptions," and that these distinct attributes constitute "three minds or beings," — the old admission of Sherlock. Moreover, he declared that the New Testament statements concerning the Father and Son involve distinct and separate personality. Channing himself was substantially an Arian, holding that Christ was a preexistent and divine being, but dependent and subordinate to the Father who is the only Su preme Deity. Moses Stuart, in his defense of the traditional Trinitarianism, refuses to accept the 108 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM term " person " as a proper one to define the distinc tions in the Trinity. He wishes the word " had never come into the symbols of the churches." " I believe in a threefold distinction in the Godhead, and do not venture to make any attempt at expla nation." It is to be noted that Stuart makes no use of the metaphysics of Emmons, who squarely insisted that God is one being in three real per sons, and that in God essence and person are not coincident. Stuart rather goes back to the agnos ticism of Augustine, who said " three somewhats," and of Anselm, who said " three I know not what." He had been anticipated in this by President Dwight, who declared that person is "strictly proper," but did " not know its exact meaning." The term " distinction " which Stuart substituted for person is of Sabellian origin. Calvin saw its real character and pierced it with one of the keen est shafts of his wit. It came into use in New England apparently through Watts; but Stuart made it current coin, and from his day to the pre sent it has largely usurped the place of person in trinitarian language. " A threefold distinction in the Godhead," which is all that Stuart dares to say, is a fit legend to be placed at the head of the latest chapter in the history of New England Trini tarianism. It is a suggestive fact that the Burial Hill declaration, and the so-called Congregational creed of 1883, both omit the word " person " from their trinitarian statements, and that out of thirty- seven church creeds that I have been able to ex- NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 109 amine only five employ it. This fact by itself illuminates our further survey. The Sabellian leaven of Emmons and Stuart did its work thor oughly, and New England Trinitarianism through all its veins became inoculated with its virus. Per haps the most notable fact of all is that neither Emmons nor Stuart was conscious of any Sabel- lianizing tendency, and that their trinitarian suc cessors to-day seem equally unconscious of it. The self-complacent assertion so frequently made that New England Trinitarianism is a lineal descendant of Athanasius and the Nicene creed vividly illus trates the power of a theological tradition even upon critical and scholarly minds.1 While the general course of the subsequent his- 1 No historical writer has more clearly discerned the true char acter of the later New England Trinitarianism than Dr. George P. Fisher. I cannot forbear to quote an extract from his Dis cussions in History and Theology, p. 273. " Hopkins was the last to hold to the Nicene doctrine of the primacy of the Father and the eternal sonship of Christ. The whole philosophy of the Trinity, as that doctrine was conceived by its great defenders in the age of Athanasius, when the doctrine was formulated, had been set aside. It was even derided ; and this chiefly for the reason that it was not studied. Professor Stuart had no sympathy with, or just appreciation of, the Nicene doctrine of the generation of the Son. His conscious need of a philosophy on the subject was shown in the warm though cautious and qualified welcome which he gave to the Sabellianism of Schleiermacher. What he de fended against Channing, though with vigor and learning, was the notion of three distinctions to which personal pronouns can be applied, — a mode of defining the Trinity which the Nicene Fathers who framed the orthodox creed would have regarded with some astonishment. The eternal fatherhood of God, the precedence of the Father, is as much a part of the orthodox doc trine of the Trinity as is the divinity of the Son." 110 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM tory is clear, there are yet theological windings and cross-currents which make our further survey complicated and difficult. The trinitarian sect be came divided into various tendencies which even tually took shape in distinct schools of thought. My present purpose is simply to give some intel ligible idea of the chief phases of the general Sabellian movement. Four such phases may be distinguished. First, the modified Sabellianism of Stuart and Bushnell. Stuart, as we have seen, followed in the path struck out by Emmons. In his discus sion with Channing he had taken simply a defen sive attitude, meeting Channing's metaphysics in regard to three persons as synonymous with three separate beings by declaring that person was used by Trinitarians " not affirmatively but negatively," that is, as involving distinctions without affirming what these distinctions are. At this point the dis cussion closed ; but, some years after, Stuart trans lated with extensive notes an essay of Schleier- macher in which Schleiermacher had defended Sabellius from the charge of Patripassianism and interpreted the Sabellian view as essentially trini tarian, though distinguishing a trinity developed in time from a trinity eternally immanent in the Divine Being. Schleiermacher opposed the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation, holding that the Son is self -existent and independent, that is, Ab solute God, and that the Trinity is a manifesta tion of the one God in different modes of creating NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 111 and redeeming activity. No two names are more historically incongruous than those of Schleier macher and Emmons. But their views run easily into each other ; and, in fact, Schleiermacher's essay only fructified in Stuart's mind the seed that Emmons had already sown. Stuart's voluminous notes in connection with his translation are of great value to any one who would completely un derstand the further history of New England Trinitarianism. Bushnell confessed his obligation to them. The excitement caused by Bushnell's " God in Christ" is a bygone tale. But nothing is more curious to-day than the history of the effort to con vict Bushnell of Sabellian and Unitarian heresy. The only peculiarity of his famous book is its Bushnellian rhetoric and genius. Its christology is borrowed from Schleiermacher and Stuart. Yet Stuart sat secure in his chair at Andover, in all the odor of orthodoxy, while the theological air was hot with accusations against his eloquent dis ciple. In fact the doctrine of both was thoroughly Sabellian, though a modification was introduced which, it was claimed, changed its whole character. Sabellianism holds to the eternal immanent uni- personality of God, but introduces a trinity of de velopments of God in time for purposes of Divine manifestation in creation and redemption. These developments are in personal modes, but not such as constitute three personal beings. This is the doctrine also of Stuart and Bushnell. But Stuart 112 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM laid hold of the idea of Watts and Emmons that there is " laid a foundation in the Divine nature " for these distinctions. Bushnell was at first ag nostic on this point, though later he tentatively accepts it. But this qualification did not affect the essential Sabellianism of the whole doctrine. Stuart and Bushnell both, following Schleier macher, declare that God is not eternally triper- sonal, but unipersonal. The Trinity is not fully developed until the incarnation. Here Stuart takes up the suggestion of Emmons that the names Word and Son were not known in heaven before the birth of Christ, which implies that the Trinity came into real existence with this event. Stuart seems at times to hold a developed trinity of real persons, and seeks to hide his Sabellianism under this cover. But, in fact, his persons are not real any more than the Sabellian persons are ; they are modes of personal existence of the One Divine Being. He talks about the Son's personality, but he frankly confesses that he uses person " to desig nate a distinction which cannot be comprehended or defined, and would not employ it if it had never been used." Personality as related to God is for Stuart the great enigma, as it was for Augustine. Accepting " a numerical unity of substance " in the Godhead, he declares that " this excludes such personality as exists among men." He even sug gests that personality cannot be essential to divin ity, — a pantheistic idea which shows whither New England Trinitarianism was pointing. Stuart's NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 113 doctrine was modalistic and he frankly allows it, quoting and appropriating Turretin's phrase " mo dal distinctions." One great merit, however, must be accorded to Stuart. He was a Greek scholar, and compre hended the true character of the Nicene Trinita rianism, allowing that homoousios in the Nicene creed did not mean numerical unity, and that its doctrine was essential subordinationism, and on this ground rejecting it. Thus Stuart, in his in terpretation of the Greek theology, placed himself in line with Petavius and Cudworth and antici pated the results of later scholarship. I have styled the doctrine of the Stuart-Bushnell school a modified Sabellianism. It ought to be said, however, that in one respect they differed widely from the Sabellians of the early church. These regarded Christ as a semi-divine and semi-human being whose personal existence would end at the close of the Christian dispensation, when God would be all in all. Stuart on the other hand made Christ the incarnation of the Absolute God. " The Son," he said, " is avro0«>s." Hence his denial of eternal generation and of subordination. It was the great objection of Stuart to the Nicene creed that it made the Son a derived and depend ent being, and so broke down, as he declared, his true Deity. But Stuart was equally afraid of tritheism. There cannot be three avroOeoi. One refuge only remained for him, — a Sabellian denial of three real persons. 114 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM The second phase of trinitarian thought to be described is the transcendental modalism of H. B. Smith, Shedd, and Dorner. I mention Dorner because he represents a German element of influ ence which profoundly affected this whole school, and also because his writings have been widely read in New England. The renaissance of Ger man literature first made itself felt philosophically and theologically on this side the ocean through Unitarian scholars like Hedge and Norton, and it leavened the transcendental movement, which found its great prophet in Emerson. But the influence of Goethe, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel could not be limited to a sect. It entered the ranks of the so-called Evangelicals. H. B. Smith, who may be selected as the best exponent of this second phase of New England Trinitarianism, spent several years in a German university and drank deeply at the springs of German transcendental thought. The subjective transcendental character of the school must be clearly understood in order to appreciate the peculiar turn given by them to the trinitarian dogma. It explains the remarkable fact that though they laid claim to historical and exegetical learning, they paid scant respect to the historical and Biblical aspects of Christian doc trine. They belonged to the slowly ebbing tide of an intensely metaphysical age, and represent a curious mixture of New England Edwardsianism and German Hegelianism. Hence the subjective deductive method rules and shapes their thinking, NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 115 and history and exegesis are twisted, if necessity arises, into harmony with their metaphysical as sumptions. I need only refer for illustration to Dorner's interpretation of the Nicene theology in his " History of Christian Doctrine," and to Shedd's interpretation of the Augustinian anthropology in his " History of Christian Doctrine," unreliable as they are for historical or critical purposes, and only valuable as representing their own theological opinions. This school was thus peculiarly fitted to give a new impulse to the waning Augustinian meta physical method of treating the dogma of the Trinity. They started, as Augustine himself did, with a purely metaphysical assumption, viz., the absoluteness of the divine unity. " God," says H. B. Smith, "is the one supreme personality." Dorner calls Him "the Absolute Personality." God then is personal, which seems to avoid pan theism. But is He unipersonal ? No, his person ality is tripersonal. Is He then one Being ? Yes ; but " not an individual like a man." God cannot in his essence be individualized. But can He be individualized in his personal form of being ? Is He three individual Persons ? No ; for this would be tritheism. Can God then be denned ? Not clearly. Smith says, " God is not one of a class." Yet this school ventures into the hidden depths of the divine nature with a bold and firm step. Smith says, " God is triune." Shedd says, He is "a plural unit." But what do these terms 116 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM mean ? Smith answers, — and Dorner agrees with him, — " The one Supreme Personality ex ists in three personal modes of being, but is not three distinct persons." This is the old modalism which constitutes the real warp and woof of the whole theory. Note the remarkable metaphysi cal assumption involved, viz., that personality and person in God are different. God is one person ality, but not one person. But how can this be ? Is personality here used in an abstract sense? Then God is not one concrete Being, and panthe ism again confronts us. Or is He one concrete Being and also personal, then He must be uniper- sonal. Such is the metaphysical puzzle involved in the view of Smith and Dorner. Shedd explains his " plural unit " somewhat differently, but comes to a similar paradoxical result. God, he says, is both unipersonal and tripersonal, that is, of course, both one Person and three Persons, or, mathemat ically stated, 1 = 3. But what is the real doctrine -that lurks under this strange guise ? It is a mo- dalistic pantheistic Sabellianism. Let Dorner state it in his own German way. " The absolute Per sonality is present in each of the divine distinc tions in such a way that though they are not of themselves and singly personal, they have a share in the One Divine Personality, in their own man ner." " The eternal result of the trinitarian pro cess is the eternal presence of the divine Per sonality in different modes of being." Here is modalism and Sabellianism and pantheism in one conglomerate. NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 117 Lest I may seem to be unjust in my statement, which is largely in the very language of these writers, I quote a passage from H. B. Smith. He derides the doctrine of God " as an individual be ing " as " Unitarian," " Deistic " and " anthropo morphic," and adds : " God is the supreme intelli gence, the one supreme Personality and Causality, but not one as an individual in the sense in which one man is an individual." But the doctrine of God " as an individual being " is not Deism, it is Theism, the doctrine of Plato and Athanasius; while the doctrine of the Smith-Dorner school is the first step to a complete pantheism. The ques tion between the theist and the pantheist is con cerning the nature of personality as related to substance. The theist holds that a person is a single self-conscious being with its own substance. The pantheist holds that there is but one substance in the universe, and that personality is an accident or quality or mode of existence of substance, so that there may be and in fact are many persons included in the one. universal substance of things. The first step toward such a pantheistic result is to regard the three persons of the Trinity as per sonal self-conscious modes of existence of the one absolute self-consciousness. This is the doctrine of Smith and Dorner. The second step is to resolve every individual and personal self-conscious ness, that is, every personal being, into a mode of the absolute self-consciousness. The final step is to resolve all personality, whether individual or 118 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM absolute, into a specialized and accidental mode of existence of the one eternal absolute, the to 6V of the New Platonists, which is above all limitations, even self -consciousness itself, — the doctrine com monly attributed to Spinoza. Pantheism can go no further ; and the road to it is straight. When Augustine declared that he did not know what he meant by " three persons " in the Trinity, he left firm theistic ground, and his followers have ever since been moving forward toward a pantheistic end. In this evolution the Smith-Dorner school took one decisive step. It brought out clearly the metaphysical pantheistic premise involved in the Augustinian position, though it struggled hard to preserve the appearance of a theistic Trinitarianism. But the air of this transcendental school was too rare and ethereal for common minds. The genius of its leaders gave it celebrity, but its fol lowers formed only a coterie. Its refined meta physical distinctions and paradoxical antitheses could not take the place of the popular theology. Trinitarian faith wavered between a crude trithe- ism and a veiled unitarianism. Meanwhile the new age of historical inquiry had fairly dawned. The Bible became a subject of critical study. Tra ditional orthodoxy was in a state of flux, and its ancient theological foundations were in danger of upheaval and ruin. The man for the hour was needed, and he appeared, as was supposed, in the person of Mr. Joseph Cook. This brings us to the third phase of the later NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 119 New England Trinitarianism, marked by a revival of a type of doctrine which comes nearer to that of Sabellius himself than any other of recent times, and of which Mr. Joseph Cook, Dr. Lyman Abbott, and Dr. A. H. Bradford may be selected as repre sentatives. These names can hardly be said to form a school. They are widely apart from each other in many respects. I link them together be cause of their essential agreement in their theories of the Trinity. When Mr. Cook delivered his three lectures on the Trinity in 1887 there had been a long lull in public discussion, and the supporters of orthodoxy were quietly waiting for the r.ext " moving of the waters." For Mr. Cook himself the time was opportune. He was at the zenith of his peculiar reputation. Boston had installed him " in Moses' seat." The orthodox elite of Massa chusetts sat at his feet and hung upon his lips. When he announced his theme there was a univer sal hush of expectation and sympathy. Truly the opportunity was great. But unfortunately Mr. Cook was not properly equipped for the work he took in hand. His genius is rhetorical, not metaphysical. Especially was he lacking in the scholarship which such a discussion required. He was seemingly innocent of all knowledge of the Greek Fathers. The Latin Pseudo-Athanasian creed was for him the most perfect statement of orthodoxy. The character of his acquaintance with ecclesiastical Greek is shown in his remarka ble use of the term wrdoraov, which he prefers to 120 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM person, because, as he supposes, it means less than person; whereas Dr. Shedd rejected it for the very good reason that it cannot mean less and may mean more. Mr. Cook might have learned some thing from Jerome, who was afraid to use the term virocrrao-K for persona, as the Greeks desired, because it seemed to involve tritheism, — the very thing that Mr. Cook so feared. But no man can be omniscient, and I should not here refer to Mr. Cook's shortcomings in church history if he had not boldly entered historical ground and made statements which his cultured audience accepted apparently as true on his authority. Mr. Cook's aim in his addresses was to defend trinitarian orthodoxy as he understood it. He especially proposed to exorcise the " paganism," as he called it, of " three Gods." To this end he appealed to the " scientific method." But it must be frankly said that there is little science in Mr. Cook's discussion, and little that is original, saving always his remarkable rhetoric. After giving a definition of the Trinity, which Sabellius would have found no fault with, he introduces an old illustration which had been used by both Trinitari ans and Unitarians in the early church, but with opposite application, — that of the sun and its rays. There is nothing new in the illustration, but the use made of it by Mr. Cook is certainly original, and I challenge any one to find anything to compare with it in the history of trinitarian dogma. To be appreciated, it must be read in NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 121 full ; but I will endeavor to give a clear outline of it. " Sunlight, rainbow, heat, one solar radiance ; Father, Son, Holy Ghost, one God. As the rain bow shows what light is when unfolded, so Christ reveals the nature of God." " As at the same in stant the sunlight is itself and also the rainbow and heat, so at the same moment Christ is both himself and the Father, and both the Father and Holy Ghost." " As the solar rainbow fades from sight, and its light continues to exist, so Christ ceases to be manifest and yet is present." " As the rainbow is unraveled light, so Christ is un raveled God." "When the rainbow faded from the East, I did not think it had ceased to be. It had not been annihilated ; it had been revealed for a while, and, disappearing, it was received back into the bosom of the general radiance, and yet continued to fall upon the earth. In every beam of white light there is potentially all the color which we find unraveled in the rainbow ; and so in all the pulsations in the will of God the Father in his works exist the pulsations of the heart of Him who wept over Jerusalem," " for there is but one God." So the Holy Ghost, fig ured by heat, is " Christ's continued life." Such is Mr. Cook's doctrine of the Trinity as set forth by himself, and he immediately proceeds to declare it both scientific and scriptural. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this illustration is the unstinted applause with which it was received by his audience, made up largely of 122 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Massachusetts ministers. Surely there could be no clearer evidence of the chaos that had befallen theological thought in New England than that such a bald Sabellianism was enthusiastically indorsed by such an assembly, and that from that day to this no note of criticism or dissent has been heard, that I am aware of, in trinitarian circles. It may be said that Mr. Cook should not be judged by a metaphor. But the metaphor was employed on purpose to set forth his doctrine, — a doctrine that is essential modalism, going beyond Sabellius him self, and coming close to the Patripassianism out of which Sabellianism sprang. It is true Mr. Cook struggles to save himself from the charge of holding a modalistic view, but he struggles in vain. His defense is that " the peculiarities of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are incommunicable," and he illustrates this from the properties of light, color, and heat, which he assumes to be likewise incommunicable. But are the peculiar properties of light, color, and heat incommunicable ? Is not light always colored and always warm? Are not the seven colors of the rainbow always forms of light ? And when the prism by a single movement of the hand changes a beam of white light to blue and yellow and violet, has there been no intercom munication of light and color? And are we to be soberly assured that the rainbow which appears and disappears with all the changef ulness of April skies is a true illustration of the second person of the Trinity, and that his peculiar properties are NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 123 yet " incommunicable " ? Truly science has at last assumed a strange garb. Wisdom, as in the " Encomium Moriae " of Erasmus, puts on cap and bells and plays the part of Folly. But suppose for the moment that the properties of light and color and heat are incommunicable, and fitly re present the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, even then Mr. Cook is not saved from modalism, for the properties of light, color, and heat are not personal : neither, in his view, are Father, Son, and Holy Ghost persons. What is this but modalism stark and clear ! But lest, peradventure, we have misunderstood Mr. Cook's rhetoric, we pass to his second lecture. Here we have, not metaphor, but philosophy. The premise is that " a personal God is immanent in all matter and mind." Hence all nature and spirit, the world, the soul, Christ himself, are but manifestations of God as a person. There are three special revelations of God, — in nature, in moral law, and in Christ. "But there are not three persons ; He is one person in the strict sense, for natural law is a unit in the universe, and reveals but one will. These revelations of God are all one person, although in each revelation He is a person." (The italics are Mr. Cook's.) This surely is English unadorned, and what is its doctrine if not modalistic unitarianism ! God, the lecturer elsewhere declares, is "one will, one heart, one conscience," " the Infinite Personality." He talks about " the Trinity of the Divine Nature," 124 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM "the three spheres of God's self-manifestation," " in each of which the Ineffable Immanent Person says something new." This trinity of divine mani festations Mr. Cook holds to be " scientifically demonstrable," and he winds up a whole page of italics with this conclusion : " A Personal Trinity, of which Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier are but other names, is scientifically known to exist," and then he adds directly : " This is the Trinity which Christianity calls Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Had Mr. Cook given this remarkable exposition of a modal trinity simply as his own theological opinion, I should take no exception to it, so far ; but when he declares that it represents historical Christianity, I must, in the interest of historical truth, emphatically demur. Mr. Cook's three lectures are a travesty of history. His so- called trinitarianism is neither Athanasian, nor even Augustinian, no, nor even that of the Pseudo- Athanasian creed. It is not early New England unitarianism. Channing would have denounced it as a hybrid unitarianism, and such it is. No wonder Mr. Cook closes his third lecture with a grand cosmic description of the dome of the sky, and uses it to illustrate what he calls " God's uni tarianism." History must call it Mr. Cook's. I have spoken of Mr. Cook as a leader in a new phase of trinitarian evolution. It is noticeable that he no longer wavers on the question of God's single personality. Traditional orthodoxy had said, " one God in three Persons." H. B. Smith NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 125 and Dorner said, " one absolute Personality in three personal modes of being," denying, however, that the Divine Personality is unipersonal. Dr. Shedd said that God is both unipersonal and tri- personal. But Mr. Cook is innocent of such tran scendental ambidexterities. He declares boldly, " There are not three persons. God is one person in the strict sense." This is what Smith called "Deism," but it is theism, as we have already shown, and Mr. Cook is to be heartily commended for helping to rescue theological thought from that German "Serbonian bog;" though it may be a question whether he has mended matters by accept ing the other horn of the dilemma. The Smith- Dorner school seemed to emphasize the trinitarian side of the Divine personality, but Mr. Cook throws the emphasis completely on the side of unity. He has thus saved Monotheism, but utterly broken down Trinitarianism. It is at this point that Dr. Lyman Abbott and Dr. A. H. Bradford join hands with Mr. Cook. According to both of them God as a Trinity is unipersonal. They declare themselves Trinitarians, but their trinitarianism is merely nominal. Dr. Abbott, in a published sermon, criticises the for mula "three persons in one God," which, he says, " is a good phrase not to use." He assumes that three persons are three Gods, as Mr. Cook also did, and asserts with emphasis : " There is one God, only one God." But is Christ this " one God " ? Dr. Abbott seems to give a clear affirmative answer. 126 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM He declares that " Jesus Christ is God living a human life," " the incarnate God." In his " Evo lution of Christianity " he makes Christ " the cause rather than a product of evolution," and describes him as " the Infinite entering into human life and taking on the finite." More explicitly still he says: "In Jesus Christ in propria persona God has entered human life in order that He might show us who He is." " Incarnation," he says, " is the indwelling of God in a unique man." This is plainly a doctrine of Christ's essential Deity. But is the Son a distinct person from the Father? And is the Spirit a distinct person from the Son ? Let Dr. Abbott's exegesis of John xiv. concerning the Comforter give the answer. " Another Com forter," he says, is simply an assumed name for Christ himself. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are simply different names for one person. " Now it is ' another Comforter,' now it is himself (' I will come unto you '), now it is the Father, now it is all three; there is no difference." It is "One God revealing himself" in these varied forms. Dr. Abbott is somewhat wary, and makes other statements which look toward a more humanitarian view of Christ, but it is difficult to distinguish his trinitarianism from Mr. Cook's modalistic patripas- sian unitarianism. Dr. Bradford is more out spoken. " The problem of the Trinity is simply this : Are Father, Son, and Holy Ghost three names for one being, or do they denote three distinct per sons ? " And the answer is squarely given. " The NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 127 Trinity does not mean three distinct persons, but three distinctions in one person." Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are names of three impersonal dis tinctions. " Whenever the Father is represented as coming into relations with men, the name is Son or Logos." It is then the Father under the name of Son or Logos that became incarnate and died on the cross ; but this is unadulterated Patripas- sianism. Thus curiously has the evolution of so- called trinitarianism from the time of Augustine swung around the circle and reached its final logi cal result in the oldest known form of unitarianism in the early church, — the doctrine that the one God, the Father Almighty, became man and suf fered and died. Our survey has brought us to a position where it can be clearly seen that we have come to a crit ical turning-point in the history of trinitarian thought. The old cycle has run itself out, and a new cycle must inevitably begin. This fact will be illustrated in the fourth and last phase to which I shall call attention, — the doctrine of the essen tial divineness of humanity and preeminently of Christ, the unique representative of mankind, who was, in this sense, a true incarnation of Deity. This type of dogma is so new and unformed that it is somewhat difficult to fix it ; but Dr. Phillips Brooks, Dr. J. M. Whiton, and Dr. George A. Gordon may be mentioned as representatives of its essential elements and tendencies. The underly ing idea of this school, viz., that man was created 128 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM in the divine image and is thus a real "partaker of the divine nature," is of course not new. It is not only Biblical, it vitalized the noblest philosophies and religions of the ancient world. The filial relation of man to God, and the capacity and duty of man to become like God, was a fundamental note in the faith of Socrates and Plato centuries before Christ uttered his parable of the Prodigal Son. But the new dogma of " the essential divine- ness of humanity" is something more than this. There lurks in it a metaphysical monistic strain that reminds us of Plotinus and the Stoics. Plo tinus (" Enneads," iv. 7, 10) expressly argues for the divineness and immortality of the soul, on the ground that it is homoousios with Deity. So this school proclaims the consubstantiality of man with God, borrowing the Nicene watchword, and apply ing it to all mankind, as being equally constituted Sons of God. We have seen why Athanasius restricted the term homoousios to the second per son of the Trinity. He drew the line sharply between the uncreated and the created. The un created divine Three are homoousioi, but all cre ated beings are heterousioi. This was the point of his controversy with Arius. If Christ is a cre ated being, as Arius held, then he is not homoou sios with the Father, and so ceases to be truly divine. Such was the reasoning of Athanasius, grounded on his dualistic Platonic ideas. We have also seen how Augustine's doctrine of Divine immanence drawn from New Platonic sources gave NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 129 a new monistic direction to western thought, and we have traced its onward movement, growing more and more pantheistic in its spirit down to the present day. Recent developments in physical science have done much to strengthen this monistic current. Monism is no doubt the last word in all the sciences. There is one ultimate force, one law, one evolution, one universe. But science properly stops with matter ; it raises no question concerning the transcendental background of material existence. The dualistic theism of Plato and Athanasius has no controversy with the mo nism of science. It is a monistic philosophy, not a monistic science keeping within its own bounds, that crosses the border line between the transcen dental and the material sphere, and proclaims a homoousianism that covers both. But can this step be taken ? Is it necessitated by the discov eries of science ? And if so, what then ? What is the relation of spirit and matter, of the eternal to the temporal? Are all things essentially spirit? Or are they essentially matter? And, whether spiritual or material, are they homo- ousioif Is there something of divinity, as Plo tinus thought, in the lowest forms of existence ? Such are the questions that lie in the background of present theological thought. It is to be said at once that the new school does not leave the monis tic track of its predecessors. The leaven of Ger man metaphysical idealism which we saw working in the school of Smith and Shedd reappears in a 130 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM still more pronounced form in this latest phase of Trinitarianism. Especially is the influence of R. W. Emerson and F. H. Hedge discernible. Phillips. Brooks's sermon on " Identity and Variety, ' and Dr. Gordon's use of " the principle of identity and difference " in setting forth his view of the Trinity and of Christ's deity, seem to have their common source in Emerson's definition of philosophy, as based on " two cardinal facts, the one and the two ; unity or identity and variety, oneness and other ness." So the new language concerning the In carnation reminds one strangely of Emerson's description of Christ : " One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world," and in that sublime consciousness " he declared ' I am divine.' " But perhaps the influence of Hedge has been quite as •potent. He more than any other man has set the current toward the new doctrine of the consiibstan- tiality of man with God. . He accepts the Athana sian homoousianism as true. " God in man and man in God," he declares, " is its underlying idea." Only " Athanasius did riot perceive that what was true of Christ is true of other men." " The fault of the trinitarian doctrine is what it omits to4;each." This is the very line of the new trinitarian depar ture. Its fundamental premise is " the essential kinship of the divine and the human." The ser mons of Phillips Brooks are pervaded with this idea. The underlying assumption everywhere is NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 131 the dignity and worth of man in virtue of his essential and eternal relation to God. In one re markable sermon especially, entitled " The Eternal Humanity," Brooks has given a clear metaphysics of his theology. The text is, " I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last." ?' Here Christ asserts his own eternity." " Before man was made, the man-type existed in God." " This man-type is part and parcel of the everlasting Godhead." The God-man was eternal, and the incarnation was only the " exhibition " of his " eternal manhood in the Godhead." " Human nature" therefore "did not begin with Adam," who was only the copy of an eternal original ; hence man is in the divine image or homoousios. This is certainly a new theological metaphysics. Dr. Brooks does not break with the orthodox creeds ; but what precisely is his doctrine of the Trinity ? Is it Sabellian? It looks that way. And what of the Incarnation? If the Word was eternally human, how could he " become flesh," in the sense of becoming man ? There was then no true incar nation in the historic sense. The eternal God-man, when Jesus was born, only appeared to assume human nature. But this is the old Gnostic Doce- tism. Dr. G. A. Gordon's book, " The Christ of To- Day," may be regarded as a metaphysical inter pretation of Phillips Brooks's sermons. Its aim is avowedly speculative. Dr. Gordon insists that Christ's gospel cannot be adequately preached 132 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM without an " intellectual appreciation " of his per son and nature. " Ethics are the outcome of meta physics." Moreover, Dr. Gordon thinks that the time has come for " a new conception of Christ," that is, a new christology. But he frankly ac knowledges the " difficulty " and " embarrassment " of the "problem," which is, — "whether Jesus is the supreme and unique representative of the hu manity of God, the proper incarnation of the Filial in the being of the Infinite." This assumes " that in God there is the Eternal Prototype of human ity." Hence " man is constituted in the Eternal Humanity." This " consubstantiality of man with God " is revealed through the incarnation " which is the assertion of the divine meaning of history." But the speculative question is not yet answered, how Christ is so uniquely related to God and man. What is Christ's metaphysical being ? and what is the metaphysical character of the incarna tion? Dr. Gordon faces these questions, and a large part of his book is occupied with their con sideration. But I must confess that I do not find a clear answer. " This Eternal Frototype of hu manity in the Godhead," who is he, or what is it ? Is he the " Son of God " of the Nicene creed, or an impersonal form of existence of the one God ? I find but one intelligible answer, — the old familiar Sabellianism. Dr. Gordon holds to " one absolute Person" in the Godhead, and his trinitarianism, which he unfolds with such elaborate ingenuity by means of " identity and difference," is wholly NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 133 modalistic and monistic, not to say pantheistic. His Eternal Humanity is "ideal," as he himself confesses, and so is his " Eternal Christ." Who then is the "historic Christ"? Is he the same with the " Eternal Christ " ? By no means. Dr. Gordon is continually putting them into sharp con trast. Jesus is " the supreme person in time " over against " the supreme person beyond time." As a person, then, he belongs to the temporal and not to the eternal. But did Christ's earthly personality begin with his human birth, or was he personally preexistent? Athanasianism says he was eternally the Son of God. Patripassianism says he was the Father himself. What is the answer of the new school ? Dr. Gordon seems to beg the question ; but I do not understand him to be Athanasian or Patripassian. His " Absolute Personality " is not three Persons certainly, in any ordinary sense of person. If " God is a self-conscious being," as Dr. Gordon affirms, he must be a personal being, and if the Infinite consciousness is one, as Dr. Gordon also affirms, then God must be unipersonal. But since God's consciousness is infinite, it must, ac cording to Dr. Gordon, include all things. " All creatures, all persons are, in a true sense, modes of the one Infinite consciousness." Then " why not three Eternal Distinctions behind these multitudi nous temporal distinctions?" Surely, why not! And this is the argument from "Identity and Difference " for the Christian Trinity. Is it any wonder that Dr. Gordon declares that " historical 134 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM pantheism is in error only through its exclusive- ness"? But if Christ is not an eternal Divine Person in the old trinitarian sense, what metaphy sical basis is left for his moral supremacy ? May not Ritschlianism, Dr. Gordon's bete noir, which rests Christ's claims on moral grounds, rather than metaphysical, be a safer position after all ? The essential metaphysical weakness of this school which starts from the idea of the essential divineness of human nature is its inability to con struct any clear doctrine of the incarnation. If God is eternally human and humanity is eternally divine, why is an incarnation necessary? In this view the very ground of an incarnation, that is, the incoming of divinity into humanity, is taken away. Athanasius made an incarnation the central doctrine of his theology, because " God must be made man so that man may be made divine." But monism finds no such necessity. Further, suppose incarnation a reality, why is not every human birth also a divine incarnation? And if so, what was there " unique" in Christ's incarnation 1 The logi cal result of this view is to deny any metaphysical or "physiological" incarnation at all, and to reduce it to an ethical movement of the Divine spirit realized in others besides Christ ; and such is the actual position taken by Dr. Whiton, who boldly carries this position to its final conclusions. In an article on " A Way out of the Trinitarian Contro versy," 2 Dr. Whiton declares the old doctrine of 1 The New World, September, 1893. NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 135 Divine incarnation "a paganish notion." "The physiological notion of incarnation must give place to the ethical one." Dr. Whiton squarely classes himself with Christian monists. Dualism is " now discredited." " There is but one spiritual nature, and that may be indifferently spoken of as divine or human." " This one nature belongs equally to God, to Christ, and to mankind." The universal God is " individualized in each personal conscience." " The centre of the trinitarian conception is that God is ever immanent and ever incarnating him self." 1 " The incarnation of God is not a mere event, but an age-long process." Christ is not the only Son of God. There are many sons, and many incarnations. Surely ; why not ? as I above sug gested. And who is Christ? A man, with a "full and natural humanity." His " uniqueness " con sists in his moral perfection, which " entitles him to be called divine, in distinction from those who by nature are partakers of one life with him and sons of God, as he is." Yet, strangely, Dr. Whiton calls himself a Trinitarian, and takes special pains to deny all affinity with Sabellianism or pantheism. The thing to be noted is that, under all this Sabel- lianizing, pantheistic trinitarianism, Dr. Whiton holds Christ to be a man essentially like other men; and this view is plainly gaining ground among professed Trinitarians. Such is the view of Dr. A. J. F. Behrends, as given in a sermon re cently published, and also of W. Beyschlag. Both 1 Gloria Patri, pp. 152, 129. 136 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM hold to a modalistic Trinity, and yet to Christ's essential humanity. How two such contrasted conceptions can be speculatively harmonized is an unsettled question. But plainly behind all this style of thinking is Hegelianism.1 Two impressions are made on me by this review of recent theological thinking. First, its thoroughly dogmatic character. The historical spirit which has so deeply penetrated our age has plainly made little impression as yet on orthodox theologians. They still deal in the ideal and the abstract, and seek to build theology on metaphysical foundations. Dr. Fairbairn's volume, " The Place of Christ in Modern Theology," well illustrates this. In that book the historical spirit wrestles with the dog- 1 Fichte, who anticipated Hegel, in his later thinking made much of the proem of the fourth Gospel, because it seemed t] him to sustain the idea of a timeless revelation of God in t".ie world. The incarnation he explained in a transcendental way as occurring in the case of all spiritual men, in the same manner as in Jesus Christ. Such an incarnation of the Logos in ro .m, in his view, merges him in God and he becomes " all in all," — a panthe ism that outreaches Plotinus himself (see Schwegler's Handbook of the History of Philosophy, p. 276, translated b; Stirling). Dr. A. H. Strong, in a recent series of articles on Ethical Mo nism, says : " It is not too much to say that the monistic philosophy, in its various forms, holds at present almost undisputed sway in our American universities." He gives it welcome and sums up his own doctrine : " There is but one substance, God. The Eternal Word, whom we call Christ, is the only complete expression of God." " Matter, humanity, and the incarnation " are " self -limita tions of Christ." Wherein Dr. Strong's view differs from Spinoza is not easy to say. Spinoza's "extension and thought," which are " empirically derived determinations " of " one absolute sub stance " which Spinoza calls God, correspond quite closely to Dr. Strong's " matter and humanity." Yet Dr. Strong is a stanch Calvinistic Trinitarian. NEW ENGLAND TRINITARIANISM 137 matic, but unsuccessfully. The watchword, " Back to Christ," with which the book begins, dies into an echo, and we have " the lame and impotent conclusion " that the consciousness of Jesus gives us an Augustinian fifth-century christology. Dr. Gordon well says that " philosophy must always be tried at the bar of history." It is the truest word in his brilliant but inconclusive book. To that Caesar must final appeal be made. But the his torical method that sits in judgment to-day on all human knowledge demands facts, not fancies. Metaphysics has its function, but it is useless for practical ethics and religion, unless based on a solid scientific induction. Again, it is impressed upon me that theological thought is still largely cast in the old theological moulds. Trinity, generation, consubstantiaL in carnation, God-man, — terms invented and made current coin by Greek philosophers and theolo gians, are still the familiar watchwords of ortho doxy. The bottles are old, but the wine is new and the old flavor has gone. The law of evolution that runs through all history has done its work here as elsewhere. The notable thing is that men are so unconscious of the change. A Catholic writer has charitably declared that good Protest ants are " unconscious Catholics." It would not be surprising if it should be found that there are some Trinitarians who are " unconscious " Unita rians. As I close this survey of the evolution of the trinitarian dogma, I recur to the question with 138 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM which I began : Is Trinitarianism in New England to-day Athanasian ? Certainly I have failed to accomplish what has been the chief aim of these chapters, if the answer to this question is not now clear. With Hopkins the last trace of genuine Athanasianism disappears ; and from Emmons down to the present day Augustinianism has been completely in the ascendant. The idea so widely prevalent that we are having an Origenistic or Athanasian renaissance is one of the " curiosities of literature." Origen's " eternal generation," in its Origenistic meaning, is as dead as Pan. His Platonism, with its idealistic dualism and Logos doctrine, shows no sign of revival. Plato is still enthroned in the hearts of men, by reason of his splendid genius, but the real interpreter of Plato to this age is the disciple whose writings are still mostly buried in their original Greek, but whose subtle thought has been reincarnated in a lang succession of illustrious thinkers, — Augustine's " renowned Plotinus." CHAPTER IV THE TEIN1TAEIAN OUTLOOK In the previous chapters the history of the evolu tion of the Christian dogma of the Trinity has been sketched down to the present day. Here our task as a historian would seem to end. History, strictly speaking, deals only with what is past. But the historical spirit easily and naturally passes into the prophetic spirit. The truly critical and philosophic historian is also a prophet. The great prophets of Israel were simply religious interpret ers of history to their own age. Their prophecies so called were the true reading of passing events in the i'ght of the spiritual laws that govern all historical movements. For history is no exception to that principle or law of orderly sequence in all living things which we call evolution. Even free will, which might be regarded as an uncertain factor in human affairs, because free and contin gent, and so under no law of necessity, yet acts under motive and a law of rationality which re moves its volitions from the sphere of chance to the sphere of moral causation. Cause and effect have their place just as surely in human events as in the events of nature. In all organic life, 140 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM whether lower or higher, there is " first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." In everything human " the child is father of the man." There was a large element of historical truth in Lessing's comparison of the world to " a colossal man," for it too has its childhood and youth and manhood ; and its laws of growth, maturity, and decline may be clearly discovered. It required only a clear historical insight to pre dict the sure downfall of the Roman Empire in the days of Tiberius and Nero and Domitian, as Israel's prophets had already done in the times of its national backslidings and degeneracy. So there is a law of intellectual evolution that works out its results in the history of human beliefs and speculations. From the standpoint already reached in the survey of trinitarian history we may extend our outlook into the coming years and read with measured confidence the broad outlines of its now hidden issues. Such is the purpose of this chap ter concerning the future prospects of New Eng land Trinitarianism. But it must not be forgotten that all true prophecy rests on true history, and cannot for a moment be dissociated from it. First of all, then, let us sum up and get clearly in view the result of our previous studies. New England Trinitarianism to-day is in a disorganized, inchoate condition. It is passing through a radi cal turning-point in its evolution, sloughing off its old shell and developing a new one. At such a time it is always difficult to give an exact diagnosis THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 141 of theological opinions. But, bearing in mind the most recent trinitarian tendencies, as we have sketched them in a previous chapter, and watching the direction of the theological winds from the straws of local and individual as well as more ecumenical dogmatic declarations, it may be said, speaking broadly, that present New England Trin itarianism is characterized by three principal fea tures : First, its Sabellian Patripassianism. I unite these two terms which really represent two quite distinct forms of trinitarian doctrine, because the whole tendency of New England trinitarian belief along the line of the Sabellian type of theo logical thought has been more and more strongly toward the Patripassian type. The preceding chapter fully illustrates this fact. Sabellianism allows a trinity of distinctions in God, or of divine modes of existence, using the word " person " in a secondary sense to describe those distinctions or modes, but not accepting a real tri-personality. In this view the Son or second person is distinguished from the Father or first person in some real man ner, though it B^ay be difficult to gather precisely in what manner. But Patripassianism loses sight of all real distinctions of any kind and wholly con founds the Son witk the Father, making the Son so called to be actually the Father, but in a sort of disguise. We have seen that the earlier New England trinitarian leaders such as Emmons, Stu art, Bushnell, H. B. Smith, Shedd, remained on Sabellian ground. But Mr. Joseph Cook moved 142 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM on to the Patripassian position, and Drs. Lyman Abbott and A. H. Bradford and others followed in the same general path. According to these thinkers, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but different names and manifestations of one and the same personal Being. This Being has his com- pletest manifestation in Jesus Christ. Thus the Deity of Christ is made the central and most vital doctrine in their theology. He is manifested God or "God manifest in the flesh." This phrase "God manifest in the flesh" is now being con stantly employed by defenders of the dogma of Christ's true Deity and has become a sort of watchword and shibboleth of orthodoxy. But it contains a gross interpolation, as all scholars ar& aware. The original language of Paul was " He who was manifest in the flesh ; " and he was de scribing Christ in his incarnate life, with no hint of any allusion in the whole passage to God, whom Paul never confounded with Jesus of Nazareth. Several interpolations of a like sort are to be found in the New Testament, made in a similar theologi cal interest in times that were wholly wanting in historical criticism, and when such interpolations and changes in the text were difficult of discovery, since new transcriptions of manuscripts were con tinually being made. The history of this interpo lation and of its discovery, showing how 6's was changed into Bio's, is one of the most curious and remarkable chapters in textual criticism. The new version of the New Testament has restored the THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 143 true text, and removed " God " from the passage. Why scholarly men should continue to use a phrase that has been so clearly proved to be spurious is somewhat difficult of comprehension. The persis tency with which they employ it shows how easily it suits their Sabellianizing and Patripassianizing type of thinking. Certainly the phrase is a good one to juggle with. It has a breadth and elas ticity that makes a wide interpretation possible. There is a monistic pantheistic flavor about it that commends it to our age. But even assuming that Paul wrote the clause as interpolated, it can not be interpreted to mean that Christ is Abso lute Deity. Paul held firmly to the Jewish mono theism. "There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Paul never confounds Christ with God. God for him is always the one only eternal and invisible. Jesus Christ was a manifestation of God in the flesh. But what kind of a manifestation ? There are many, manifestations of God. Nature is a manifestation of God. Paul declares that God's power and divnity are known by the things that are made. So 13 man a manifestation of God, having been created in his true image. But nature and man are not identical with God. The thing formed is not the same with him who formed it. Such identity is pantheism. There is no such doc trine in Genesis or in PauL If Christ was a mani festation of God in that natural scriptural sense, what ground is there in this passage for claiming 144 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Christ's supreme Deity ? Yet this is just the in terpretation given by the trinitarian theologians who are so frequently quoting it. In illustration I wish to call attention to the addresses made at the recent semi-centennial anniversary of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. I do this the more readily because this series of meetings was made the occasion of setting forth " the new Puritanism," in other words, the new New England theology, on two special points, the Calvinistic anthropology and the Nicene Trinita rianism. With its new statement of Calvinism I am not now concerned, but the " new Trinitarian ism " was here proclaimed in what seemed no un certain language. In all the addresses the real personal Deity of Christ was made the central theme. Mr. Beecher's doctrine was given in the following extract : " Could Theodore Parker wor ship my God? Jesus Christ is his name. All that there is of God to me is bound up in that name. A dim and shadowy effluence rises from Christ, and that I am taught to call the Father. A yet more tenuous and invisible film of thought arises, and that is the Holy Spirit. But neither is to me aught tangible, restful, accessible." Dr. Abbott also quoted from Mr. Beecher's address to the London ministers : « Do I believe in the divinity of Christ? I do not believe in anything else." " There is nothing else to me when I am thinking of God." Mr. Beecher was a man of extraordi nary emotional genius, and his language in the THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 145 heat of extemporaneous speech should not be too critically interpreted. But Dr. Abbott himself declared that " the heart of Mr. Beecher's teach ing was this : that Jesus Christ was God ' mani fest in the flesh,' " and significantly added, " And what Mr. Beecher held and this church holds on this subject, I hold no less earnestly." Now cer tainly nothing can be plainer than Mr. Beecher's meaning, whatever latitude we may allow to his language. He held that Christ was very God, and that the whole Godhead was incarnate in him. " My God ? Jesus Christ is his name." And this was plainly Dr. Berry's interpretation of Mr. Beecher's views. In his address on the same oc casion he said that Mr. Beecher drew his "doc trine of the Deity of Jesus Christ from his own Christian experience," on which basis he rested hi.-) faith in the incarnation, since it was " obliga tory for God to come to man and work for him and die for him." The bald Patripassianism of Dr. Berry's words is noticeable ; but it is a just conclusion from Mr. Beecher's own language, and reveals clearly the thorough Patripassian charac ter of the "new Trinitarianism." Christ is no longer the incarnation of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, — that was the old Trinitarianism, — but the very incarnation of God, the Father Almighty, the Absolute One. The dis tinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have faded out. God in his own single person, what ever name or names be given him, Father, Son, or 146 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Holy Ghost, God, the one and only God, " came to man, worked for him, and died for him." Thus Christ is all the Father there is, as well as Son and Holy Ghost. All divinity is centred and summed up in him. It is hardly needful to say to any historical scholar that all this " new Trini tarianism" is no trinitarianism at all. It is sim ply another example of the now common practice of retaining the old bottles and filling them with new wine. The theological declarations of this notable church anniversary are the more significant, be cause they have been published in book form and widely read, and have called forth little dissent from the upholders of Trinitarianism, and it is my impression that this type of belief is now increas ingly prevalent in the New England Congrega tional churches. The doctrine of the Trinity in its ancient Nicene form and meaning is never preached. The very phrase " three persons " is passing out of our creeds and church confessions. In place of the old Trinitarianism, with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three distinct personal beings united by community of nature, yet distin guished by an essential subordination, the Son and Holy Ghost being derived from the Father and possessing all their divine attributes from the Father as the one eternal self-existent fountain of all being, the supreme Deity of Christ is now pushed to the front and made the great test of evangelical faith. In short, Trinitarianism is being THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 147 unitarianized. One person, Christ, has become for all such believers the one only God. He is God incarnate. The Father was incarnate in him. The Holy Ghost, as Joseph Cook says, is only " Christ's continued life." It is one of the most singular facts in the present theological situation, that the theologians who are the stanchest supporters of the trinitarian " faith once delivered," as they believe, are themselves drifting directly to a unitarian form of heresy which the early church condemned and cast out. It is also remarkable that these persons are so un conscious of what this new Trinitarianism involves. They suppose themselves to be building new but tresses of the old trinitarian dogma. They stoutly oppose what they call Unitarianism, whatever that may mean. They are ready to use the strongest tivinitarian language. They recite the Nicene creed, and baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and continually repeat the trini tarian benediction. But what does all this signify, if they read into all these forms and symbols of the ancient faith a meaning that did not originally belong to them. Their dogma of Christ's essential and absolute Deity is wholly foreign to ancient orthodoxy. It is the old heresy revived of Patri- passian Unitarianism. Of course in this view God is one personal being, and if Christ is God incar nate, and as such is the one personal Deity, what be comes of the Father, — the one absolute and unseen God of the Old Testament, — of Christ himself, and 148 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM of Paul ? He is reduced to a metaphor, a shadow, of which Christ the Son is the true substance. In such a doctrine, not only Trinitarianism but even Monotheism itself, the apostolic basis of the Athanasian trinity, suffers collapse. Of course the reply is at hand, — and we are familiar with it, — that there may be three real personal distinc tions, though not three personal beings in the one being of God. But this Sabellian evasion is a pure psychological assumption which carries a fallacy on its very face, and which we owe to the bold ipse dixit of the great Hopkinsian Emmons. He it was who first dared to declare that while " it is evident that no man can conceive three divine persons to be one person, it does not hence follow that no man can conceive that three divine persons should be one divine Being. For if we only suppose that being may signify something different from person in respect to Deity (italics are my own), then we can easily conceive that God should be but one Being and yet exist in three persons." Sure enough, how easy ! " If we only suppose ! " But can we " suppose " ? Is not a moral being, whether he be man or God, neces sarily a person? Is not a person necessarily a being? But Emmons, as we have already seen, jumps the whole logical difficulty and assumes his monstrous supposition to be an actual fact. Per haps the most amazing thing of all is that men who claim to be consistent thinkers can so naively assume such a patent logical fallacy to be axio- THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 149 matic truth in respect to God. The simple truth is that a personal triunity is a Gordian knot that can never be logically untied, and can be cut only by the sharp sword of a logical para dox. It is interesting to recall the fact that Car dinal Newman, whose finely spun discriminations have furnished much of the material of modern trinitarian speculation, frankly allowed the truth of this view of the case, and boldly accepted its consequence, viz., that there are three persons in one personal being, or, to put it as H. B. Smith and Dorner did, that there are three persons in one personality ; and this barefaced logical para dox was for him an article of evangelical faith. His New England followers are only saved from a similar logical dilemma by their pantheistic ten dencies, from which Newman was apparently free. I have dwelt more at length on this point because it represents the primary and cardinal note in the present stage of trinitarian or more truly unitarian evolution. The second notable feature of the Trinitarianism of to-day is the doctrine of the consubstantiality or community of essence of God and man. This feature has a close affinity with the Sabellian- Patripassian one, and the two are usually found together. Such men as Phillips Brooks and George A. Gordon, who have been prominent in setting forth the view of the essential divineness of humanity, and who base on it their doctrine of Christ's divinity, are clearly Sabellian, if not 150 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Patripassian, in their doctrine of the relation of Christ to God ; while it is equally true that such men as Lyman Abbott, who more directly re present the Sabellian-Patripassian position, also accept the closely affiliated idea of man's essential divineness and God's essential humanness. Dr. Abbott squarely asserted this view in an address lately delivered at Bangor. He told us that a theological student on being asked : " Do you think the divinity of Christ differs in kind or in degree from the divinity in man ? " replied : " In degree." Dr. Abbott defended this reply. " There are not two kinds of divinity," he said. " We are in God's image. That means that we are in kind like God. We are children of God." This is, no doubt, a good gospel, on the face of it, and there is nothing new in it. The newness appears in the tacit assumption that lies behind it, viz., that if man is in kind like God, he is therefore truly and essentially divine, in other words, of divine nature. There lurks here a confusion between moral likeness and essential likeness which dis closes the pantheistic mode of thought into which our modern Trinitarianism is passing, as we shall note more directly soon. The Nicene Trinitarian ism held to Christ's essential likeness to God, and so declared him divine, but it distinguished Christ from mankind by holding that man's likeness to God was moral rather than essential. This dis tinction was based on the Platonic dualism which separated the uncreated from the created by the THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 151 broad chasm of an essential difference. This dualistic view made Christ, the Son of God, essen tially different, that is, different in kind, from men. But monism allows no such chasm between the uncreated and the created, between the divine and the human, between God and man. Such is the philosophical background of the new Trinitarian ism. The created is evolved from the uncreated, and is of the same essential nature. Man is as truly divine as God is. " There are not two kinds of divinity." Of course not. The real question is whether the one hind of divinity includes man. Dr. Abbott says Yes just as plainly as Phillips Brooks or Dr. Gordon. It is not surprising that these two apparently distinct schools of trinitarian thought should coalesce. They are in close philo sophical affinity, and their partisans are united moreover in a common aim, viz., to save, in form at least, the old orthodox Trinitarianism. This aim gives the true clue to this new doctrine of man's conrubstantiality with God. Traditional trinitarian oithodoxy had placed the centre of Christ's personality in his divine nature, thus re ducing his human nature to a sort of superficial appendix of the divine, and destroying its real individuality. Christ's humanity thus became a docetie and unmeaning show. How could it be said that Christ was a true man, with real human needs, susceptibilities, desires, and free will, involv ing temptability to evil and sin, so that it could be said of him that "he was tempted in all points 152 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM like as we are," if the central and governing prin ciple of his personality was divine and so raised above all changeableness and temptableness ? Such a construction of Christ's person was no longer possible in these days of historical research and criticism, by means of which the real historical human Jesus, so long lost to view, has been once more unveiled. When the historical facts of Christ's earthly life are disentangled from the legendary traditions that have grown up around it, there is clearly revealed in his human nature a human will central' and regnant over his whole being, — a will moved by human motives, affec tions, interests, appeals, desires, hopes, aspirations, faith, yes by human fears also, sensitiveness to suffering and weaknesses of the flesh. What more touching proof of all this than that scene in Gethsemane ! Now how can this historical picture of Christ be accepted, and the old orthodoxy, with its doctrine of two natures and two wills, divine and human, — the divine ruling the human, — remain secure? This is the very problem that the theory of man's essential divineness seeks to solve. Man, it is said, is consubstantial with God. He is essentially divine, for he is in the divine image. His humanity is a divine humanity. Every man is not only a true son of man, but also a true son of God. But supremely was this true of Jesus, the unique representative of both man and God. He is wholly man and yet wholly God. But how is this amazing assumption, this apparent psycho- THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 153 logical contradiction, to be explained and defended? The answer is : There is in God's own nature an eternal humanity which in Christ became person alized by the incarnation and so was made mani fest to men. And here again the interpolated phrase, " God manifest in the flesh," is made to do duty, and lo ! the knot has been successfully untied. Christ on his earthly side is a mere man, unique indeed, but none the less a true son of humanity, while in his heavenly aspect he is the absolute and eternal God. The Sabellian and pantheistic character of this solution has been already pointed out. But as a metaphysical expla nation of Christ's relation to the Trinity it is an utter failure, for it leaves clearly exposed to view a vast unbridged chasm between the human Jesus ' and the eternal humanity of the absolute God which even the befogging speculations of old or new Hegelianism are unable to conceal. It is somewhat difficult to decide how far this idea of man's divinity has penetrated into the pop ular mind and faith. But it belongs to a class of ideas that is more and more permeating the very air of the age. Our literature is steeped with it. Emerson and his transcendental school, the most potent literary factor in recent thought, have done much to give it currency. Still further, it has close affinity with the reigning scientific monism which is rapidly passing from science to philoso phy, and which as a philosophic principle consti tutes the third marked feature of the new Trinita rianism of to-day. 154 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Philosophical monism must be carefully distin guished from scientific monism. The latter is limited to the material and phenomenal world, the former covers the whole universe, spiritual as well as phenomenal. Certainly scientific monism, or the doctrine " that the whole cognizable world is constituted and has been developed in accordance with one common fundamental law," to adopt a definition of Haeckel, is the greatest discovery of modern natural science, and any religious or phi losophical dogma that is to hold its ground must not only reckon with it, but also accept its con clusions. But while this is true, it is quite another thing to extend this monistic law of natural evolu tion over the spiritual and moral as well as natural world. It is easy to see at once that the conse- , quences of such a step are radical and momentous. ' If the whole material and spiritual universe may be reduced to one ultimate principle, which is it : matter or mind? Hence two classes of monists are to be distinguished, which are in direct antag onism, viz., materialistic monists and idealistic or spiritual monists. Materialistic monism, as a philosophical and not merely a scientific doctrine, holds that matter is the first principle of all things out of which are evolved even the highest forms of organic life, including man's intellectual and reli gious nature. Thus the " soul " is only a form of matter, " a function of the brain," which is its material base and organ. The difference between the human soul and that of lower animals is one / / THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 155 of degree and not of kind. This view of course involves the denial of the soul's separate individual existence after the death of the body, together with all the other spiritual dogmas which rest upon it. Haeckel's " Confession of Faith of a Man of Sci ence" is a conspicuous example of materialistic philosophical monism. Of course most students of natural science adhere closely to their own field of labor and do not allow themselves to cross the line which separates science from philosophy and reli gion. But it is difficult if not impossible to pre vent the mind from philosophizing on the facts that are brought before it. Haeckel declares his firm conviction that his monistic " Confession of Faith " " is shared by at least nine tenths of the men of science now living," " although few have the courage (or the need) to declare it openly." Whatever the truth may be as to exact numbers, the trend of thought and belief among "men of science " is plainly towards philosophical as well as scientific monism, — such men as Tyndall and Huxley and Haeckel being the more outspoken representatives. It ought to be noted here that materialistic monism, though modern in its present shape and lineage, is not new in the history of philosophic thought. Greek philosophy began on a materialistic monistic basis and remained such until the Socratic-Platonic dualism arose, and after wards had its representatives in the widespread and popular Stoic and Epicurean schools. In fact, materialism in one or other of these forms was the 156 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM prevailing religious belief during the golden age of the Roman empire, — the period from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius. The idealistic monism starts from the opposite pole. It reduces all things, even the lowest forms of matter, to a spiritual substratum. Matter itself is but an evolution of spirit. Idea, to adopt He gelian language, is the essence of the universe. There is a wonderful charm in the idealistic phi losophy, and it is no wonder that it has drawn to itself the loftiest and noblest spirits. Man loves to disengage himself from the dull round of earthly temporal things and put on wings with Plato and soar upward to the transcendental and eternal. Poetry which speaks man's highest moods and aspirations is idealistic in its very nature. Words worth, who struck the keynote of the most splendid poetry of the century, theist though he was in faith, is ever rising into that heaven of idealistic vision where God is both one and all, as in the " Excursion," in a passage full of mystical panthe ism, from which I quote but a single clause : — " Thou, Thor. alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits, Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves." But idealism has its weak side. There are, it may be said, two kinds of mind. There are minds that naturally seek facts, the facts of nature, of history, and of experience. There are also minds that as naturally live in the region of thought, of the abstract, and who seek to project out of the THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 157 world of their own abstract thinking a world of concrete realities. Here lies the great danger to which idealistic monism is exposed. The bridge from the abstract to the concrete, from the genus to the individual, is wholly a subjective creation, and can never be made the objective basis of a natural evolution from idea or spirit to matter and the organic material world. This is the rock on which idealism in its extreme form has ever split, from Plato and Plotinus to Spinoza and Hegel. But still another danger lurks in a monistic ideal ism. The " idea " of Plato was not individual or personal, it was a universal, and his highest idea of the good was the summum genus. So the abso lute " one " of Plotinus was simply the highest point of abstraction which thought could reach. Plato himself was a religious thinker, but his idealistic philosophy had no personal God, while Plotinus was a consistent and avowed pantheist. ¦ A religious idealist may attempt to hold to a per sonal God, but the whole tendency of this philoso phy will be quite away from such a God toward a Platonic PlotiniaE abstraction. Emerson's criti cism on Christianity well sets forth the natural attitude of monistic idealism toward personality as an element of being, and especially of the high est form of being, God. " Christianity," he says, " is an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons." What now of the new 158 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM trinitarian monism of our day? Of course it is idealistic to the core. Against the materialism of Tyndall and Haeckel and others it holds to the doctrine of the eternal priority of spirit to matter and to the radical generic difference between them. Spirit is the fons et origo of all material things, and yet never to be confounded with them. This view might take a dualistic form. Matter might be treated as a creation of mind, having a begin ning in time, and belonging to an entirely distinct realm of being. Mind, too, might be regarded as eternally personal, and as existing only in persons as personal substances or individuals. Such is the Biblical theistic dualism. But certainly the fore most representatives of the new Trinitarianism are not dualists. They hold to one eternal spiritual substance in whatever form it may appear, and it is on this ground that they assert the true divinity of man and the true humanity of God. Dr. Whiton did not speak for himself alone when he said : " There is but one spiritual nature, and that may be indifferently spoken of as divine or human. The universal God is individualized in each per sonal conscience." That is, personality is but an accident, or quality of substance, so that impersonal substance rises higher than personal substance in the scale of being. The eternal evolution is from the impersonal to the personal. This surely is nothing less than a monistic pantheism so far as the spiritual world is concerned. Whether now a spiritual monistic philosophy will or can stop here THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 159 is the question. At this point dualism might still attempt to assert itself. There are two separate worlds, it might be said, and two separate evolu tions, a spiritual evolution and a material one. But can this be true ? Are there two evolutionary forces in the so-called universe ? Is the universe after all not a universe, but a duality, with dual forces and laws ? We know what science says to this, so far as it can speak. What shall philosophy say? Between the brain and the mind what is there ? The end of one form of evolution and the beginning of another ? Does a new force here enter that before had no activity or agency, and begin a new order of life ? A negative answer of course brings us to the verge of absolute pantheism. And there can be no doubt that this is the logical result of either form of monism, whether material istic or idealistic. Both reach at last the same pantheistic goal, though by opposite roads, and with opposite views of that original force which by cour tesy on both sides is called God. Plainly orthodox theologians are not wholly unaware of the end toward which monism leads and are chary about going too far in that direction. They wish to pre serve the form of the old dualism though its sub stance is taken away. We hear about the " new theism," as if there could be two kinds of theism any more than there can be two kinds of persons, or two kinds of divinity, and as if baptizing any thing with the Christian name could alter its pagan nature. For the monism of Augustine and of his 160 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM theological descendants down to the present day is radically different from the theism of Paul and Athanasius, and is not of Christian, but of pagan New Platonic, ancestry, as the previous chapters have shown. The same fear of an avowed pantheism is seen in the fine distinctions that are so frequently made between the divine transcendence and the divine immanence. Theologians are trying to hold both and thus play fast and loose with both. For these two terms, in their true philosophical significance, are as opposed to each other as dualism and monism, and can no more be harmonized. Dualism is based on the divine transcendence as monism is based on the divine immanence, and these two principles of explanation of the universe remain in everlasting antithesis, like the two great schools of Greek thought that represent them, the Pla tonic and the Stoic. Yet men ring the changes on transcendence and immanence, as Col3ridge did on " subject and object," as if they coi'id save them selves by such subjective distinctions from the open pit of pantheism, on the precipitous verge of which they stand and into which they are ready any moment to fall. I am well aware how strong is the recoil of man's religious nature from such a result, and there are clear indications of it in our most recent theological literature. But the stream must be as the fountain, and monism, if accepted and followed as a philosophical principle, has but one sure terminus, — the undisguised and complete pantheism of Spinoza and Hegel. THE TRINITARIAN OUTLOOK 161 I have protracted this preliminary resume to what may seem an unnecessary length. But it is absolutely essential to have the foundations of an historical outlook into the future firmly laid. Let it be noted, as we leave this part of our subject, that these three principal tendencies, viz., 1. Sa- bellian-Patripassianism, 2, man's consubstantiality with God, 3, a monistic philosophy, are organi cally related and supported, and it is only by a careful analysis that they can be distinguished. They stand or fall together, and really unite what may seem to be different trinitarian positions on essentially common ground. CHAPTER V THE TRINITARIAN RESULT We are now ready to look around us and ask ourselves the meaning and portent of those phases and changeful attitudes of trinitarian thought which, like a panorama, are passing before our eyes. The survey makes several clear impres sions. One observes at once the vague, fiuxive, uncer tain, and restless character of present trinitarian speculation. There seems to be no firm footing; for theological positions. Trinitarianism, as a theological basis of faith, is like a ship at sea, tempest-tossed, and seeking some new haven of rest. Ask men what Trinitarianism to-day is and they cannot tell you, or if they do, they will dis agree at once. Orthodoxy once presented a solid front, known and read of all men. Not so to-day. The definitions of orthodoxy, even by orthodox men, are " as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." Orthodoxy has at last come to be each man's doxy. The natural result has followed. The ranks of orthodoxy are becoming demoralized. There is no one banner under which all can rally, no real leadership, no common bond of union. The old THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 163 lines of demarcation between orthodoxy and hete rodoxy are fading out in the minds of men, and when the old shibboleths and war-cries are sounded there is no general united response. Moreover the effort to find a new basis of union has hitherto failed. New creeds are being made, but there is no universal acceptance of them. New forms of trinitarian statement are continually being pro mulgated, but men criticise them or give them no heed. The outcome of it all is that orthodoxy has grown timid and wary, and hides itself. The old bottles of traditional creeds and dogmas are still used and the old labels are suffered to remain, while the new wine of a new Trinitarianism, which is not the old at all, is poured into them. Creeds are now signed for " substance of doctrine," when the substance is the very question at issue. On so grave a matter I wish to speak within bounds. It is more and more true, as I am ready to affirm, of our younger ministers especially, that they preach honestly and boldly the gospel as they believe it. They are learning to prize their Pro testant and Puritan birthright. But it must still be said that the pulpit, and the religious press, largely edited by ministers, have so long borne the yoke of dogmatic bondage that they have to a con siderable degree lost the true sense of what bond age and liberty mean. There are exceptions to all rules. No doubt there are not a few splendid ex ceptions to this one. I have a confident hope that the exceptions will erelong become the rule, and 164 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM that this sad phase of theological timidity will van ish in the new era of intellectual and moral free dom. But it cannot pass away completely so long as the causes of it continue to work. These causes are connected with the supremacy of the dogmatic spirit ; and though this spirit is rapidly yielding to the scientific temper and methods of our day, it is still to be reckoned with, as recent ecclesiastical events show. This spirit lives in the dogmatic theological standards set up as condi tions of entrance into the Christian ministry, in dependently of intellectual and religious fitness, also in the dogmatic creeds imposed on theological instructors in some, if not all, of our seminaries, and still more in the inquisitorial character of councils sometimes called to investigate charges of theological error. The effects of this dogmatism fall with especial weight upon ministers, and it is no wonder that not a few of them, whose daily bread for themselves and their families may de pend on a reputation for orthodoxy, are more or less unconsciously governed by a wholesome fear that serves to cramp their intellectual freedom and to breed a timid and craven spirit. This is the explanation in part of the fact that the laity are so much in advance of the clergy in their readiness to accept whatever new light and truth may come from the new science and history, and to lay aside traditional dogmas that are found to be without historical foundation. Of course there are excep tions among the laity, as among the clergy. Some THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 165 laymen are still bound in dogmatic fetters, as there are some clergymen who have broken them utterly. Let me not here be misunderstood. I am not dealing with individuals, but with laws of tendency and their natural results. Some of our most con servative ministers are filled with the spirit of Christian freedom and tolerance, and so there are men of the most pronounced radicalism who are as dogmatic as Calvin himself. But history shows that, as a rule, the dogmatic spirit develops intol erance and spiritual despotism. Conservatism and dogmatism are not necessarily connected, as exam ples prove, though they have too often been found together. The fact remains that causes always work out their natural effects, and that, while the reign of dogma is suffered to continue, its baneful results will inevitably follow. The situation thus sketched gives a clue to one of the most remarkable features of it, viz., the general and combined effort on the part of the ex ponents of the new Trinitarianism to make as clear and wide as possible the difference between Trini tarianism and Unitarianism. It is a curious phe nomenon, and well worth a careful study by the historical observer, for it sheds a bright light on the anomalous condition into which trinitarian orthodoxy has fallen. What is the great task now assumed by trinitarian apologies and polemics? Not plainly to set forth in all its grand oatiines the ancient dogma of the Trinity, but rather a "new Trinitarianism," and in doirjo- this +^ show 166 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM that it has no affinity with Unitarianism. But why the need of showing this? Simply because the line of difference is becoming so dim that it re quires a keen microscopic eye to discern it. In theological controversy, as in war always, the storm centre is where the lines of battle run most closely together. Our previous resume has shown how all recent trinitarian tendencies run straight toward a unitarian result. Monism is unitarianism in es sence though it may take on all the colors of the chameleon. When all the old bottles with their disguises have been broken and all the mystical idealistic pantheism has been stripped off, there remains essential unitarianism. The case is a strange one. Trinitarians and Unitarians to-day hold the same philosophical position. Both parties are monists. In truth, as we have seen, it was from the Unitarian Emerson that such Trinitarisins as Phillips Brooks and others drew the weapons of their new philosophic trinitarian gospel. Our pre liminary survey also showed how organically con nected are all the three fundamental elements of the trinitarian position. The unity of God, of man, and of the universe is at its very root. This is essential unitarianism, to be sure ; and wherein is the Unitarian position different ? Let some skilled logician arise to show. " But," says the trinitarian apologist, "the Unitarianism against which we wage Christian war is not the doctrine of the per sonal unity of God, in which of course we all now agree, but the Unitarian denial of the Godhood of THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 167 Christ." Here indeed is one of the old bottles of the ancient theology. Let us examine the new wine it contains. It may not be so different from the Unitarian wine after all. The doctrine of the Nicene creed concerning the Godhood of Christ was this : There is one only absolute eternal God, the Father Almighty ; and besides there is the Son of God, a second hypostasis or personal being, who is of common nature with the Father, but derived and subordinate, " very God of very God " indeed, but not absolute or self-existent, though timeless by eternal generation ; and further there is a third hypostasis, the Holy Ghost. But what is the new wine that is now being dispensed out of -the old flask with its old trinitarian label? This: that God is one only both in person and in essence, but is manifested in different forms, and especially in triune form, and that this triune form has become incarnate in Jesus Christ, who is thus God mani fest in the flesh, so that the whole Godhood is in Christ, and there is none other beside him. What, no Father? No, except as in him. No Holy Ghost ? No, not. outside of Christ. Christ is the whole God; Fatherhood, Sonhood, and Spirithood are simply forms of Christ's one Godhood. " But we are Trinitarians," they say. " We recite the Nicene creed." Yes, but you do not mean by it what the Nicene Fathers meant. Your Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but shadows of one real Deity, and that one. Deity is summed up and mani fested in Jesug Christ. The theism and trinitari- 168 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM anism of the creed has departed and in its place we have the Patripassian monism of to-day. I hear indeed one voice as if in protest. Dr. Abbott, with his usual wariness, in the address already referred to, said : " I never say that Christ is God, because God is more than the sum of all his manifestations. Jesus Christ is one of the mani festations of God. Therefore God is more than Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh." This is shrewd, but is it sound ? H Christ is God manifest in the flesh, not in a figure but in reality, does the manifestation take away from his full Godhood ? Was the incarnation a lessening of divinity, or not rather an adding of humanity? The latter, said the orthodox letter of Leo. But Dr. Abbott makes the incarnation, in which he de clared distinctly that he believed, a limiting of God. God pre-incarnate is so much greater than God incarnate that the latter should not be called God at all. Further, if Christ is only one of many manifestations of God, such as those in man and in nature and in history, how, but by an utter subversion of language, can Christ be called God at all? How is he " God manifest in the flesh " any more than he is God alone, or than a man or a mountain is God? Let Dr. Abbott answer for himself. But what I have to say to all this is that I commend Dr. Abbott to a re-reading of his Plymouth Church anniversary address, and to a harmonizing of the two addresses. And if they cannot be harmonized, as I suspect is the case, which of the addresses speaks true ? THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 169 But to return to the real point at issue, what is the difference between the " new Trinitarianism " and Unitarianism ? Here we must note the fact that there are two kinds also of historical Unitari anism, an old and a new. The old Unitarianism was simply monotheism, like the faith of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself. It reappeared in New England in protest against trinitarian ortho doxy in the persons of Channing and Theodore Parker. Much of it, I suppose, exists to-day be hind the unitarian christological humanitarianism. The new Unitarianism is monistic with all its Em ersonian, idealistic, pantheistic features. It makes much of man's divineness and of God's humanness. It is thus ready to exalt Christ to a unique divinity. It goes back to the Nicene creed, and declares its only defect to be one of limitation. The Nicene doctrine of the consubstantiality of Christ with God should have been enlarged to that of the divine consubstantiality of all men. I hold no brief for any of these dogmas, but I venture to affirm that the new Unitarian leaders are quite ready to accept much of the language of their Trin itarian opponents, and even to assert the true God hood of Jesus of Nazareth in the monistic sense of the term ; and if so, what point of philosophical difference is left between the new Trinitarianism and the new Unitarianism ? Surely Trinitarianism has been unitarianized or Unitarianism has been trinitarianized. Which? A common monistic phi losophy gives the only possible answer. Both sec- 170 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM tions of Christian monism agree in these points : that the supreme Deity is absolute essence, whether personal or impersonal it is not easy to say ; that Christ's divinity is not different in kind from all divinity; and that as an incarnate person he is purely human, with a human birth and a historical beginning in time. With such radical agreements, to talk about differences is to beat the air. Is it insisted that there remains a real difference on the question of Christ's Deity? Pray show us just what it is. Deity, divinity, godhood, are words of elastic meaning in theology, especially in monistic theology. The real question at issue, a question, however, which orthodoxy is continually brushing aside as irrelevant, is not whether Jesus Christ is divine, but whether he is human. The old Nicene orthodoxy begged this question and finally vir tually denied it. The new orthodoxy squarely affirms it, but arrays Christ's manhood in the vesture of godhood. But what is the metaphysical or historical background of this human-divine person? Is it an eternal personal being, or a human child of Joseph and Mary? In other words, was the personal consciousness of Jesus an eternal divine consciousness of the absolute God, involving omniscience and other divine attri butes, or was it a human consciousness involving limitation and defect and weakness? There can be no doubt as to the answer of the " new Trini tarianism." It is the same with that of the new Unitarianism. The real personal centre of Jesus THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 171 is his human consciousness and will, not the eternal omniscient consciousness and will of a per sonal God. Godhood thus becomes but a figure of speech, or a transcendental universal of Plo- tinian-Hegelian metaphysics, and one may choose between them. The doctrine of divine humanity and human divinity makes the choice both easy and non-essential. The term God has always had a large and springing meaning in the history of language. Even the Bible, with all its stiff mo notheism, describes men as gods, and sons of gods, as in one of the Psalms, " I have said ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High," and Christ is made in the fourth Gospel to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy in calling himself the Son of God, by quoting this very passage. Only add now to a figure of speech a monistic philosophy, and it is equally easy for a Trinitarian or a Unitarian to assert Christ's Deity. And yet this is the curious historical fact, that these two positions, inexorably united by common philosophical and theological principles, are arrayed against each other in solemn internecine conflict, and the worst heretical charge that can be brought against any one in the com munion of Trinitarian saints to-day is that he is somehow, one hardly knows how, a Unitarian. To such a barren, nay, absurd result has the present phase of Trinitarianism come ! One cannot refrain from "calling attention at this point in our survey to the illustration here 172 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM afforded of a striking fact in the history of theo logical dogmas, viz., that the shibboleths of ortho doxy are constantly changing with the changing circumstances of the times. The heresy of one age is the orthodoxy of another, and vice versa. Only a few years ago the burning question of theological disputation in New England was the theory of a new or second probation of certain classes of men. To assert it became for a while the very storm centre of heresy. Licensure of young ministers was made to hang largely on the answers given to questions concerning this obscure point of eschatology. Another similar eschatolo- gical question was also pushed to the front : that of the everlastmgness of future punishment. On such points the American Board came near dis ruption. It is interesting to observe how rapidly the whole problem of eschatology, so far as the final state of men is concerned, is passing out of sight. If such matters are brought forward in ministerial examinations, the interest is specula tive rather than dogmatic. Licensure is no longer made to hang on it. In the last generation Cal vinism was regnant, and any taint of Arminianism in the form of asserting free will or contingency was quickly caught up and vigorously dealt with. Dr. Emmons, the Corypheus of Hopkmsian Cal vinism, came very near being refused licensure in bis youth, because he used rather stronger language on "natural ability" than the examin ing ministers were willing to allow, though they THE TRINITARIAN RESULT 173 adopted the very same phrase. But at that time " natural ability " was the one great watchword of orthodoxy. To-day such a question would only excite amusement. We are far beyond Calvinism or eschatology. The historical cycle has run out, and we are back once more at the point where Christian history began, — the first stage in the evolution of Christian theology, viz., the question of the man of Nazareth. Who is he ? And that question has been evolved to its final answer, that Jesus is God, the only highest God. It is no longer the historical question of his birth, life, character, teaching, and moral power over the men of his own generation, but rather the subtlest phi losophical question that human thought can raise, that of the metaphysical relation of the human Jesus to the absolute Deity, and the answer to this question is made the test of evangelical faith. The young minister may be at his ease as to his theological -system besides, if he can only give as his own the 'Hew trinitarian " version of Christ's true Godhood. TJius history has its revenges. But what next ? Ve are now ready to ask our selves ; for the historical evolution of dogmas, as of all things else, ever moves on. And here the historical observer finds himself at a point of view where what has seemed confused and perplexing begins to shape itself into order and unity. For one thing grows clear, that the phase of trinitarian evolution which we have been surveying is fast reaching its climax, and cannot move much fur- 174 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM ther on its present line of progress. The old order is ending and a new order must begin. The trinitarian dogma has swung round the whole circle and returned to its initial starting-point, and, further, its philosophical as well as historical evolution has already attained its logical terminus. When Sabellianism has become Patripassianism, and Patripassianism has been metamorphosed into philosophical monism, there remains but one more step to take, juggle with it as one may, and that step is ultimate pantheism. Evolution on this line is forever stopped. The cycle has run out. Let us consider. What step further can the dogma of Christ's Deity take? Already Christ has become the whole Godhead. His very hu manity has been completely divinized. For is not man himself consubstantial with God? Another stage of evolution in this direction is impossible. All that can be done is to carry out with logical consistency the monistic principle already accepted, and boldly say that the incarnation is but a meta phor, or applies equally to all men ; that miracu lous birth is no miracle at all except as all birth is a marvel, as in truth it is ; that resurrection and ascension and second coming are but parts of apo calyptic imagery, except so far as it is true that for all men there is to be revival and resurrection to immortal life, and final gathering together to an endless assize and retribution. And all this is being said already. But the evolution must move on, if not in this channel, then in some other. CHAPTER VI THE NEW HISTORICAL EVOLUTION We have reached a turning-point in our survey of great significance. Little as we may realize it, this age in which we happen to be living is the theatre in which is being enacted the most radical and the greatest epochal movement that history has yet recorded. To read its meaning aright and so be able to forecast in some measure its issues, it is necessary to understand the different ways in which the principle of historical evolution works. It has three distinct, though cooperative, laws of action : 1. The law of development. 2. The law of cycles and of cyclic changes. 3. The law of reaction and revolution. Let me explain, and illustrate, from the history of Christian dogma, " Development " is a term that is often used sy nonymously with " evolution," but the latter has a wider significance. Development is the primary and ordinary law by which all evolution works. But at certain crises this law is suspended, and a cyclic change occurs, and a new form of evolution beginst This is seen in nature. Its history began with inorganic materials. Then came a change to organic life. The cycle of the azoic ends, and a 176 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM new cycle of the protozoic begins. The evolution ary movement continues, but under a new form. A new force has entered into nature, producing a new and higher result. So in the passage from the lower to the higher forms of organized life, from vegetable to fish, from fish to reptile, and from reptile to mammal. But in the evolution from mammal to man the cycle of brute life is succeeded by the new cycle of human beings with reason and conscience and free will, and capacity of speech and of religion. All this we may read, as in a book, in the science of geology, where in the different strata of the rocks we may see the new cycles of change that divide one stage of development from another. The same is true of history. The law of development began to work at once in the history of the dogma of Christ. A_ new cycle began with the introduction of the Greek philosophy with its Logos mediation doc trine. This new cycle continued under the law of development to the Nicene- Athanasian period, and in the Greek Church down through the Middle Ages, and even to the present day. But in the West a new cycle began with Augustine. Augus tinian christology was not radically revolutionary. It continued the old Greek trinitarian evolution, but it changed its point of departure, and inverted its whole meaning. A new force entered chris- - tology, viz. , the New Platonic monism. The history of Christian dogma is as full as the earth's geolo gical surface of such cyclic changes. The last THE NEW HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 17^ one in trinitarian evolution is that connected with the theory of man's consubstantiality with God, which reminds us of the Augustinian inversion of Greek christology, being similarly a change of base rather than the discarding of older views, and equally the result of a changed philosophy. But both in nature and in history crises have occurred, usually after long intervals of quiet development, when the old line of evolution is not merely de flected or changed by cyclic law, but completely broken by natural or historical convulsions and revolutions. A new force of tremendous power has come into play, breaking up utterly all previous orderly movement, and compelling a completely new evolutionary beginning. Such were the mighty catastrophes of the geologic world whose traces are seen in the vast upheavals and depres sions of mountain and valley, and in the rents that have formed such ravines as the canons of Colo rado. Just such cataclysms have occurred in the history, not only of political governments, but of religious and tneological dogmas. It is only need ful to mention the religious revolution wrought by the life and teaching of Jesus and the preaching of his great apostle Paul, and also the Protestant Reformation in the time of Luther and his com peers. In both these cases a complete rent was made in the old order of faith and thought. Chris tianity, after centuries of conflict, gave its death blow to ancient paganism as a religious system in the Roman empire, though its hidden leaven still 13 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM continued to live and work. The same was true of the Lutheran movement. First, violent reac tion led to radical revolt, and then out of revolu tion came a new Protestant system of faith, founded in part indeed on the old Catholic traditions, but also leavened by the new inductive science with its cardinal principle of individual freedom. The Lutheran age thus heralded the dawn of our modern world. But such radical revolutionary movements are always the result of deep underly ing causes, involving a long historical preparation. Christianity did not drop into history out of the clouds of heaven. It was prefaced by a religious reaction that became widespread throughout the Graeco-Roman world. The old polytheistic and mythological paganism had lost utterly its hold on the educated classes. Men had not grown irre ligious, — history proves the contrary, — bu« a profound skepticism had arisen concerning the traditional faiths. A new ground of religious be lief was sought in philosophy, but here too all was confusion and doubt, so that even Cicero, after pleading like a Christian for the immortality of the soul, was forced to say that he doubted of all. It was into such a religious vacuum that Christianity with its " enthusiasm " of faith and " humanity " came as a new power of spiritual life. A similar series of causes brought on the Protest ant revolt. Roman Catholicism had run its race of a thousand years, until its cup of supersti tions and tyrannies over the souls and bodies of THE NEW HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 179 men was full. The cycle of faith on authority had run out, and skepticism under every sort of cover and concealment was honeycombing modern Christendom. Philosophical skepticism, that is, the doctrine that a dogma of faith might be true in theology and yet be false in philosophy, was in vogue everywhere and showed that the end of Catholic church authority was at hand. Scholastic theology had dug its own grave. When Luther appeared, according to the explicit testimony of Erasmus, a man who knew the temper of his age, everything was ready for a complete overturning of religious faith. The hour had struck and the man for the hour had come. And now how about the situation to-day ? The logic of history gives us but one solution. As we have seen, we are at the end of the old fines of development. Even the old bottles with the false labels have become useless. The eyes of men are opened, and no new cycle along some new line of philosophical thought is possible. Metaphysics has tried its hand and miserably failed. Some even who have been active in destroying what " is ready to vanish away " are growing faint-hearted. There are always those who are ready to be caught by the wiles of philosophy, but history has of late been busy with its critical tasks, and its revela tions of what philosophy has attempted and failed to do have made even the credulous wary. Mean while skepticism is silently doing its work. This is not " an age of doubt " in the true religious 180 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM meaning of that word. It is not an irreligious age, nor a scoffing age. It is a serious, earnest, believ ing age in its whole spirit. It seeks religious light, and it glows with the fire of religious love and freedom. But as to the old dogmatic traditional ism, that has come down from early Christian days with all its gathered inheritance of pagan, monk ish, mediaeval, and popish superstitions and be liefs, this age is intensely skeptical. Among the masses of the people it has been thrown aside as a cast-off garment. The skeptical spirit, in the sense of refusal to accept the dogmas of the old ortho doxy, was no more widespread or complete in the first years of the Christian era, or at the outbreak of the Lutheran reformation, than it is to-day. Ask men and women why they have ceased to at tend church, and they will tell you that they have ceased to believe much that is preached, and that their religious needs are not ministered to. I wonder whether those who assume to sit in Moses' seat realize with any degree of adequacy the large ness and power of this skeptical revolt. It makes no noise in the streets, but it permeates the very atmosphere of social and religious life, like an un seen odor of flowers. All this simply means that we are nearing the end of the present theological era, and are on the verge of radical change. This is dimly seen by not a few. Men who stand on the watch-towers of our Zion have taken note of coming events. We hear much now of " recon struction." We are having " new theologies " THE NEW HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 181 and " new Puritanisms { " but men still fail to realize that the time for superficial cyclic changes is past, and that all " the signs of the times " point to the vastest moral, religious, theological revolution that has yet transpired in history. It is not an old building rebuttressed and recon structed in its upper stories that this age demands, but a new building from the very foundations. Yet men are calling for some theological architect and artificer, to lead in reconstruction, as if the time had come for any such action. Why has no signal theological leader appeared in these latter days ? The reason is simple. There can be no leadership without a lead. To-day there is no clear lead. Theological leadership, like eloquence, requires not only the man, but also, and first of all, the subject and the occasion. The man does not yet appear, because the work is not yet cut out foriiim. The times are not yet ripe. Times of reaction and revolution are first of all destruc tive. The oloi house must be torn down before the new house car be built. Men are beginning to see some of the steps of this destructive process and are attempting to call a halt. " The work of destruction has gone far enough," says President Hyde in the " Congregationalist," and that journal takes up and repeats the cry, at the same time, however, making some unusual concessions, and allowing that "our churches, in common with other Christian denominations, have for a quarter of a century been experiencing a disintegration of 182 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARi ANISM doctrine," and urging that the time has come for " clear, strong discussions and affirmations of great doctrines in the language which men use to-day and in the light of the discoveries they have made and the knowledge they have acquired." All of which sounds well ; but one cannot help asking whether the " great doctrines " referred to are not the dogmas of the old creeds, and whether " the lan guage which men use to-day" means anything more than a new label for the old bottles, in which case I submit, as a historical observer, that such "discussions and affirmations" will be utterly vain. But it is time to interrogate our age more di rectly. We have hitherto studied the course of historical evolution and seen what must be its logi cal outcome, viz., an intellectual and religious revolution. Now let our age speak for itself, and help us to answer the question, what next ? To describe at any length the wonderful chapter of history that the last fifty years have added to human annals is impossible in our present survey. Most people of intelligence have some general impression of it, and have become accustomed to the idea that we are living in an entirely different world from that of our fathers. But it is only the his torical student who has clearly grasped the law of historical evolution, and has followed its course from the earliest historical records down to the present era, that can fully comprehend its extraor dinary character. It has often been said that THE NEW HISTOBICAL EVOLUTION 183 the history oi an age cannot be intelligently written until a generation or more has elapsed, so that the true perspective may be pbtained. No doubt there is much of truth in this* There is danger of over estimation, by reason of closeness of vision, and also equally of under estimation for the very same reason. But it surely is a wrong inference that, when great and striking events occur in the politi cal, intellectual, or religious world, they cannot be seen or estimated at their real value by the men who witness them. First-hand witnesses are after all the best and most reliable in the court of his torical appeal. And whatever may be said of other times, certainly the age in which we live is one that he who runs may read. Never was such a deep and radical break and cleavage made be tween successive evolutionary movements and re sults in the history of man, as this age of ours is witnessing. Even to enumerate fully the marvel ous discoveries in science, in history, in language, in archaeology and geography, would be impossible. Take for example the two sciences of astronomy and electricity, and note what a boundless uni verse previously unimagined, and what tremendous forces previously hid in nature, have been revealed. Human invention has added its quota to human discovery and research until man and nature have seemed almost to be rivals for the tribute of our admiration and astonishment. These achievements of the human mind in scientific and historical fields have stirred the intellectual blood of the age, so 184 EVOLUTION OF ' TRINITARIANISM that literature and philosophy have felt the im pulse and added a new chapter to the history of human thought and feeling, of wonderful power and beauty. Never has the intellect of man had such wide scope of vision and suck immeasurable fields of research opened to its activities as now. And such epochs of intellectual stimulus are always accompanied with new movements and agitations in the domains of ethics and religion. It was the golden age of Graeco-Roman civilization that intro duced a new religion to the world, which has sur passed all others in its ethical and religious purity and loftiness and universality of range. It was the revival of learning with its crowning renais sance of the fifteenth century that paved the way for Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin, and the religious reformation of which they were such distinguished representatives. It is always so. This age of ours is alive beyond all previous times tc the ap peals, the " categorical imperatives " of man's re ligious nature. Thus on all sides we find ourselves in the face of an epoch of unparalleled significance, and the impression made by it upon the critical observer, as he scans the evolution of history thus far from start to finish, is indeed profound. Our age surely needs no herald to trumpet its deeds. They are engraved on every re-written and re- edited, as well as newly added page of human annals in every field of man's activity. And now what answer does it give to our ques tion, What next ? Is not the logical answer drawn THE NEW HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 185 from the law of evolution that rules in history also the answer of the present historical situation ? Can such an epoch pass by and leave no deep trace of itself in philosophy, in theology, in ethics and religion? Surely not. The revolution that im pends must be as radical and far-reaching as the movements and changes that will bring it to pass. What then will be its character and lines of direc tion ? The new revolution will certainly be along the lines of the deepest and most vital demands of the times. These demands may be gathered under three heads : 1, the demand of the historical spirit ; 2, the demand of the religious spirit ; 3, the demand of the intellectual spirit. CHAPTER VII THE DEMAND OF THE HISTORICAL SPIRIT It will be seen as we proceed that these three demands are organically related and that the order above given is the logical one, and consequently the one that the historical evolution will naturally take. Every epoch has its own peculiar Zeit geist, or time spirit. Some periods are creative and constructive, others are traditional and con servative, others still are reactionary, critical, revo lutionary. The different ages of the world have their varied types and characteristics by which they are known to historians. That which char acterizes our own age above everything else is historical criticism. The historical is the time spirit of the nineteenth century, and every other spirit must yield obedience to it. It had its birth in the scientific inductive method. When that method of research was applied to historical events as well as scientific investigation, a revolution was at once precipitated in the whole range of histor ical studies. History itself had to be re-written. Myth, legend, miracle, all the marvels of a super natural realm of beings supposed to hold close re lations with mankind were step by step eliminated DEMAND OF THE HISTORICAL SPIRIT 187 from the annals of human events. Mythology and the miraculous may have place in a cosmogony or a philosophy of God and the universe, but they are not mtegral elements! of human action, or of history, which is simply a record of such action. The literary revolution caused by this critical movement is already a matter of history. But it is the work of a single century. Distinguished among its pioneers are Gibbon and Niebuhr. Niebuhr's critical reconstruction of Livy's " Ro man History" by which the miraculous legends that had grown up around the origins of Rome were separated from the authentic narrative, made an epoch in historical studies. Romulus and Re mus and Numa at once ceased to be historical char acters, and were transferred to their proper place in the calendar of mythical founders of cities and states. Slowly out of the legendary and semi-his torical traditions of a barbarous age the materials of real history began tc be gathered, and the foun dations were thus laid of a new historical science. It is not strange that the critical spirit soon began to deal with the Bible itself. That wonder ful collection of Hebrew-Jewish literature had been converted into a single sacred volume, and all its mythology, legend, poetry, prophecy, and apoca lypse, as well as so-called historical books, had been treated as one historical record from begin ning to end. The conversations related in Genesis as occurring between God, Adam, Eve, and the serpent, were held to be as veracious as that 188 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARI &.NISM between David and Nathan, or between Christ and the woman of Samaria. ! The residts of the higher criticism in its investigation of the Old Testament cannot here be told. Enough to say that its main conclusions are clearly established, and many a scriptural story to which we listened in our child hood with a faith that knew no doubting has lost forever its historical credibility, if not its religious moral. To pass from the Old Testament to the New was a logical necessity. But the forces of dogmatic conservatism have here striven to bar the way, and a conflict is being waged which can have but one issue. For the same evolutionary processes have worked in the development of all historical literature. True history has ever and everywhere been a slow growth out of myth and legend and prehistoric tradition. Biblical history is no exception. Nor can any line be drawn between the Old Testament and the New. Legend just as plainly plays its part in Matthew, Luke, and Acts as in Genesis and Kings, though not perhaps as fully. It is a mistake to suppose that legend is confined to prehistoric periods. It is ever active, a sort of parasitic growth on every historical tree. The life of Washington has its legends. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, in his excel lent biography, has made us acquainted with the curious manner in which the cherry-tree and hatchet story was evolved out of the fertile brain of Weems, an earlier biographer. Pity that such a good moral should be spoiled by the critical DEMAND OF THE HISTORICAL SPIRIT 189 historian. But is not the moral just as good even if the story behind it is legendary ? Do the les sons of Christ's parables lose any of their moral power because these parables are not historically true ? I am sure the tale of George Washington's boyish truthfulness will still be repeated to admir ing children for many a day. And if the life of Washington, passed under the noonday fight of this modern world, has legendary elements, why should not such legendary tales find their way into the life of Jesus of Nazareth, even more easily, in those uncritical times ? But the work of historical criticism could not stop here. The ancient literature as it was handed down accumulated on its way a mass of interpolations and additions, and of entire writings whose author ship was falsely ascribed to men of renown in earlier periods. The object of this deception, as it would be regarded to-day, was to increase the authority of such writings by the veneration for a great name. The fine moral sense which is felt by us in regard to such deception was evidently foreign to the ancient world. The number of these writings of falsely assumed authorship was legion. Thus the critical examination of texts and dates and authors became an important part of critical work. The Bible, it was found, was especially full of such textual corruptions and of titles of authors that were entirely wanting in critical authority. The traditional dates and authors of by far the largest part of the Biblical 190 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM writings are of no historical value. The Jews in fact seem to have been sinners above others in this kind of " royal lie." The number of Jewish writ ings in the centuries immediately preceding and following Christ's birth, whose true authorship was thus hidden under the cover of some great name, is amazing. Enoch, Moses, Solomon, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, are but specimen names among the many that were employed. Is it any wonder, then, that the Bible is found open to the same kind of criticism ? It is difficult to realize, or even conceive, how utterly wanting in the critical spirit the early Christian centuries were. The old the ory of inspiration by which such literary sins of ignorance were not merely condoned but even denied can no longer be held. Its very founda tions have been destroyed by the dissolving force of the new criticism. Who will claim to-dcy for the writers of the books of the Bible a gift of critical insight which is wholly the result of the modern scientific inductive method ? To hide the whole question of authorship, dates, and corrupt texts behind such a preposterous claim is surely vain. To assume, for example, such an inspiration for the author of the Epistle of Jude as to make it possible to believe that the quotation there given from a writing of Enoch, who was supposed to have lived before the flood, is really genuine, is surely beyond the credulity of the average man ; for it involves the astonishing corollary that such a "Book of Enoch" as was extant in the first DEMAND OF THE HISTORICAL SPIRIT 191 century of the Christian era had actually survived the deluge itself. Such are the shifts to which the old doctrine of scripture was driven. Similar is the effort to prove the historicity of the Jonah story from Christ's quoting it, assuming in him a critical insight of which his fife gives no evidence, and making that the ground for the historicity of a narrative which bears on its very face the clear signs of being merely a parabolic sermon. The work of historical criticism in connection with the Bible is not yet complete. This is espe cially true of the New Testament. Here the battle of the critics is still being waged. The storm centre of late has been the question of the Johan nine authorship of the fourth Gospel. It is no wonder that this position is so obstinately con tested by the defenders of the old theology, for with ii goes the last refuge of traditional trinita rian dogma. This is fully recognized on all sides. Mr. R. H. Hutton in his recent " Spectator " es says allows that " if the fourth Gospel could be relegated to the middle of the second century, it would have no authority at all, as expounding the theology of the incarnation." He also quotes Dr. Liddon as affirming that such a critical result would " go to the root of the Christian revelation, at all events as it has been understood by nine tenths of all existing Christians."1 That such men have grounds for their judgment is seen in the fact that the whole Nicene Trinitarianism was 1 Aspects of Religious and Scientific Tliought, p. 225. 192 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM made to rest by Athanasias on proof-texts from the fourth Gospel. But this suggests to us that still another duty lay before the Christian histor ical critic. On these uncritical and unhistorical assumptions as to the character of the Bible there had been built in the course of centuries a system of Christian dogmas which became the religious faith of Christendom. That system of doctrine was compelled in its turn to submit to critical examination. The law of historical evolution has become the master key to unlock and reveal the secret of its origin. Our previous survey contains the history of the manner in which that key has been used, and of the results that have been reached. " Christian origins " have been the field of the most intense interest and of the most mar velous historical discoveries during the last few years. But " Christian origins " are only a step ping stone to the " origins " of other ethnic reli gions. Here a new field of research and criticism was opened, which has thrown a flood of light on the study of Christian " origins," and given a new aspect to the whole subject of the origin of reli gion itself. Our object in thus summarily sketching the critical movement is to bring out the fact that it cannot stop until its work is really finished. It is this work that gives our age its true signifi cance. The "Time Spirit" must "finish the work that is given it to do," and until that work is done, no other work of any real and lasting worth can DEMAND OF THE HISTORICAL SPIRIT 193 be made, by any effort of man, to take its place. And that work needs no apology. It is amazing how misunderstood, in some quarters, the mission of historical criticism is. It is charged with being a negative and destructive spirit, as if this were a mark of reproach. It is even more amazing to find historical critics themselves defending and ex cusing their work as if the reproach was merited. The true answer to all such accusations is that the first work of the historical critic must be de structive in the very nature of things, and that, until that work has been thoroughly done, no other work is in order. The cry now being heard that it is time for the destructive process to cease is simply an anachronism. It implies that the work of destruction is complete, when in fact it is but half done. How can new foundations be gin to be laid while men are still contesting inch by inch the removal of stones and timbers from the old mediaeval edifice that have nothing but unhistorical tradition and superstition on which to rest? Is it the part of wisdom to attempt to rebuild in such circumstances ? It is not only un wise, it is impossible. All such reconstruction is simply wasted labor, a temporary patchwork soon to be cast aside. Much work of this sort is being done. I fully realize how important it is, at a time like this, " to strengthen the things that re main," and I as fully appreciate all such efforts. But the fact nevertheless holds true, that if ever there was a period of theological literature evan- 194 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM escent as the passing breeze, it is that which marks this present time, when the critical spirit is still earnestly employed in its divinely commis sioned destructive labors. But let it not be for gotten that the real final aim of historical criticism is not destructive but constructive. When the old false dogmas shall have been radically removed and the true historical rock-bed shall have been found, the same spirit cf history that has worked destructively will change its whole manner of op eration, and the same law of scientific evolution that has been engaged in throwing off the worn- out garments of its childhood will be found as earnestly at work to weave the new garments of its manhood, yea, the true wedding garments of the new Christianity. CHAPTER VIH i THE DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT I We are now prepared) to consider the second demand of our age, — the demand of faith, in other words, of man's religious nature. This age has often been described as one of religious doubt and skepticism, as if it were immersed in worldli- ness and wholly averse to matters of religion. But nothing could be further from the truth. The his torical and critical spirit that rules the age has indeed opened the eyes of men to the real charac ter of many of the old traditional dogmas, and they have cast them aside. Such skepticism is necessary and healthful. It is an essential ele ment in all true critical study. Lord Acton has well said that the^ first attitude of the historical critic towards all supposed facts is "suspicion." Diderot declared that " doubt " was the beginning of philosophy. These expressions simply set forth the fundamental principle of the scientific induc tive method, viz., that everything claiming to be true must be critically examined and questioned before it is accepted. It was the application of this principle that gave us the new science and the new history ; and its further application to-day is 196 EVOLUTION 6F TRINITARIANISM giving us a new Christian faith. Viewed in its true historical aspect, what is called the doubting spirit of this age is its( highest title to moral emi nence. Skepticism is ivery different from irre- ligiousness, and yet is too often confounded with it. This age is in many ways intensely skeptical, but at the same time is as intensely religious. No age since Christ was ever more ready to listen to a gospel that comes with moral authority to the soul. But every gospel must show its credentials; and until these credentials are subjected to scru tiny and are found valid in the highest court of moral appeal faith holds itself in reserve. In these days of theological jarring and unrest, when the old supposed foundations of faith are being shaken to their centre, such reserve of religious belief and trust is becoming a common charac teristic of thoughtful and self-balanced men and women, and is really a noble quality, showing a nature that respects its own moral freedom. Mr. R. H. Hutton has remarked in ona of his " Spec tator " essays : " I am not ashamed to feel far more sympathy with the nobler aspects of unbelief than with the ignobler and shiftier aspects of so-called faith ; " — a statement that reveals in Mr. Hutton himself a rare insight into the religious character of our age, and also the instinct of a noble and enlarged Christian temper of mind. The spirit of faith in any age may be strong and active, and yet the objects of faith may be vague and uncertain. Such is the case among us to-day. DEMAND 4>F THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 197 Men everywhere are open-eyed to religious things. With the wonderful renaissance of the human intellect brought about by the stimulus of scien tific and historical researches, a similar renaissance and awakening of moral consciousness has fol lowed which demands a new revelation of religious truth. And here we are at a point where we can see how essential it was that historical criticism should first complete its mission, — a mission that was to work toward enlightenment and freedom, having Christ's assurance for its watchword : " If the truth shall make you free, ye shall be free in deed." For the faith of men had been bound hand and foot. A usurped authority had shackled human consciences with creeds and dogmas and •l commandments of men." Ignorance is always the mother of superstition. That ignorance had to be dispelled before faith could release itself from its fetters and regain its lost freedom. Such has been the truly divine mission of the new his tory. Not only the intellects but also the con sciences of men have been thereby awakened to a new intelligence and freedom. And it is on these twin pillars that the new faith of men will be built. Such a faith will never go back to the old discarded dogmas of the ages of ignorance and superstition. It will build itself from foundation stone on the new-found truth of the historic Christ and Christian gospel. Here history again becomes its helper. Faith will still have its " ventures," as 198 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Bushnell has suggestively called them, and freely spread its wings to the upper air where the mys tical spirit so loves to' dwell, but its feet will yet be fixed on solid historical ground. Myth, legend, and speculative philosophy will be taken at their real value. Who Christ actually was, what his teachings were, in fact, what the spirit and char acter of his life and death were, in the light of veritable history, not in the romantic traditions of a later age, — the answers to these questions will be the firm basis on which Christian faith will securely rest, yes, " the faith once delivered " in deed, not as misread and misinterpreted by after times, but as originally experienced in Christ's own disciples ; as, for example, in " the woman that was a sinner," whose faith found voice not in creed indeed, but in loving kisses and penitent tears, and was accepted by the Master as true and worthy, when he said to her, " Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace." / Christ will still be the historical foundation of the new Christianity, " Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," not the old Christ of Greek philosophical dogma or of mediaeval superstition, nor the new Christ of a legendary theory that re duces him to a mere historical shadow, but the real Christ of true flesh and blood, " Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph " and Mary, with a true human biography whose grand lineaments are as clearly defined as those of Cicero or Washington, and shedding forth from that human life an ineffable DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 199 moral sweetness and charm which draws men to him like a magnet, — yet withal true son of God because so truly son of man, "the image of the in visible God, the first born of all creatures," as Paul wrote of him, — the very image in which man was made, by which God and man are united in the most intimate spiritual union, so that, in a very true and real sense, man may be said to be consub- stantial with God and "partaker of the divine nature." And it is because of Christ's organic relationship with man that he was able to reach a moral headship among his fellows, and wield by voice and speech and life a moral authority that is still supreme. For history finds in Christ a moral consciousness that has surpassed that of all other men, in its sense of God's true moral fatherhood and of man's true moral sonship, and in its inti macy of union and communion with his Father and our Father; and so long as men shall find in Christ's own l^oral consciousness of God and reli gious truth a moral revelation that shall lead them upward toward Him, so long will Christ remain, as no other among the sons of men, a divinely sent Messiah ; and from this Christ of history, become the Christ of faith, the fines of Christian faith will proceed. The true root of the Christian religious consciousness, of Christian faith in all its forms of religious experience and fife, is Christ's own reli gious consciousness, in other words Christ's own religion. That religion was based upon two funda mental principles: a faith in God as the loving 200 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Father of mankind, and a faith in all men as the common children of God and heirs of his grace and mercy. Hence his prpclamation of a divine for giveness for all sinners, and his call to them all to repent and accept the forgiveness so freely offered. This was his gospel message, the great burden of his preaching. Its essence is contained in the famous parable of the prodigal son. Thus the key note of Christ's gospel is love, God's love kindling man's love, appealing to his free moral agency as a child of God, and drawing him not by force but winningly and graciously back to God's love. So that the note of love involves the note of freedom. It is the loftiest attribute of man as a moral being, made in the image of God, that he has a free will which is the ultimate basis and source of all his moral action. Man as a religious being is a free man, free in his faith and in his whole moral con sciousness, and in the direction that consciousness shall take in his whole moral life. Along these two central lines of Christ's religion the new faith of the age is working. The early Christianity had obscured them both. In their di visions and controversies over questions of dogma men forgot the two essential keynotes of the gos pel they were so pertinaciously defending. They ceased to love as brethren, and to respect each other's individual birthright of liberty. The sad consequences of bigotry, hatred, and bitterness, cruelty and outrage, are the staple of church his tory for a thousand years. Enough to say that DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 201 historical criticism has broken the yoke of man's moral bondage, and to-day he is free in his faith and refigion. .And with freedom is fast returning a new recognition of love as the cardinal principle of the gospel of Christ and of all Christian faith. For " He that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." And out of love in freedom what " fruits of the spirit " may not grow ! Thus faith as we have treated it is essentially a free movement of man's moral consciousness, and, as it develops itself in trust and love and kindred moral feelings, is the very heart of refigion. The religious life can go no higher. Love to God and to man is the whole moral law. Paul touched the very centre of Christian experience when he said " Love never faileth, the greatest of all things is love." Faith then as such is wholly independent of dogma and may exist without dogma. For dogma is an intellectual credo and is based on in tellectual processes. The two may be combined, but the one does not necessarily include the other. The sinning woman's grateful love and trust which Christ called faith had no dogmatic background at all, so far as we know, but was a simple free moral movement of her heart. It was a terrible mistake that Christian theologians made, in changing the meaning of faith from a free exercise of the heart and will to a forced submission of the intellect to dogmatic authority. " Fides precedit intellectum " was their motto, by which they meant that an intel lectual forced acceptance of dogmas, based on the 202 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM decisions of some ecclesiastical authority, should go before the use of the individual reason in discover ing the truth of such dogmas by free investigation. Such a dictum, of course, when enforced by power, enslaved the soul, and put every man's religious convictions at the mercy of any haphazard spiritual tribunal. Still worse, it poisoned the very sources of the religious life by making the essence of faith, as the ground of acceptance with God and of the hope of salvation, consist, not in a right state of the affections and will, that is, in loving obedience, but in orthodoxy, or the professed acceptance of certain dogmas. Of course such a mockery of religion, such a seed plot of hypocrisy, has no foundation in Christ's teachings or in man's reli gious nature. Christ was not a dogmatist. He gave no theological creed to his disciples. A " puve heart," not orthodox belief, was the test of entrance into his kingdom. It is true that he drew from his wonderful religious consciousness rich and ori ginal lessons of faith and love toward God and man, but as to a theological system, as we call it, he never attempted to construct one and failed to indicate that he had any sense of its importance. His own theology, so far as he had any, was dis tinctively Jewish. The reform he instituted was not along theological lines but wholly moral and practical. His eschatology was that of his day and already strongly intrenched in the minds of his contemporaries. The only new dogma that can be imputed to him, that of a sacrificial substitutional DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 203 , i i atonement, is surely a misunderstanding of his real teaching, a false constructiori put on his doctrine of love for mankind, which he declared had its highest illustration in the .self-sacrifice and sur render that might be carried to the giving up of fife itself. Nor does the history of man as a reli gious being give any ground for such a false defini tion of faith. The purest and sweetest and holiest souls that earth has seen have often lived and died without any dogmatic bias so far as can be known. One can be Christlike without holding any definite creed as to Christ's metaphysical nature, or being able to answer the question whether or not he was miraculously born. It is a remarkable fact that the golden age of theology in the ancient church — the Nicene and post-Nicene — was one of marked decline in the religious life of the period, as is viv idly illustrated in the records of those oecumenical councils that formulated the orthodox creeds. And the same was Jrue of the age which produced the Protestant dogmatic theology, — the age of Calvin and Turretin, — a period that has been well de scribed by Charles Beard in the " Hibbert Lec tures " of 1883 : " I know no epoch of Christianity to which I could more confidently point, in illustra tion of the fact, that where there is most theology there is often least religion." The spirit of dog matism and bigotry that has vitiated Christianity all through its history was born of this confusion of faith as a principle of refigion with intellectual belief as a principle of dogmatic theology, and if 204 EVOLUTION! OF TRINITARIANISM historical criticism had done nothing else than ex pose its unhistorical and vicious character, it would have amply vindicated its providential mission. Is it, then, of no consequence in the religious life what a man believes ? Is dogma to be cast out as of no religious value ? Such a result by no means follows, as will soon be seen. But we are now dealing with the demand of the age for the satisfaction of its religious needs, and it is essential that the radical difference between faith, as the central element of the religious life, and dogma, as an intellectual belief, should be sharply discrim inated, since it is only by such a discrimination that the demand of faith can be understood and met. Even to-day men are insisting that dog matic beliefs are of the essence of refigion and religious experience, and many are halting between two opinions, skeptical as to the dogmas of tradi tional Christianity, and yet earnest tc find the true basis of Christian faith. Before the religious hunger of the age can be satisfied, the dilemma as to the relation of faith and dogma must cease to be a stumbling stone and rock of offense. The truth, then, must be squarely told, viz., that intel lectual belief is not, in any sense, of the essence of religion or of the religious life. The vital question of religion is not what a man believes, how much or how little, but what the disposition of his heart and will is toward those objects of faith that lie within the range of his own moral consciousness. The question of the content of that moral conscious- DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 205 ness and of the unfolding of it in dogmatic belief is a wholly distinct and secondary matter. A man may give very vague and indistinct answers to such questions as, Who is God ? Does He exist in unity or in trinity ? Was Christ human or divine or was he both human and divine ? Was the atonement sacrificial or moral ? and yet be a hum bler, more self-sacrificing Christian than another man who can answer all these questions in the most orthodox fashion. Yet it goes without say ing that intellectual belief has a very close relation to religious faith, and that clear apprehensions of truth are of great religious value. But it has its own distinct place and function in religious expe rience and comes into it in its own time and way. As a rule it is a slow development under a pro cess of spiritual illumination and growing insight into the life and teaching of Christ, together with other forms of divine revelation in nature and his tory. But such increase of knowledge and convic tion should never be confounded with those Chris tian graces of faith, hope, and love which are the essence of religion. Life and the science or phi losophy of life are two very different things. Just as different are religion and its dogmatic or theo logical expressions in a creed. The one is the living experience of a human soul, the other is an abstract, lifeless formula, except so far as it is made alive by the soul's use of it. It is a common impression that somehow a the ology or philosophy, in other words, a more or less 206 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM systematized conception of truth, is necessary for every preacher of th<3 gospel, not to say for every Christian believer. Dr. Lyman Abbott once told a body of seminary students that every minister should have a philosophy, but that he should not preach it ; which seems to assume that a set of dogmas is a vital element of refigion, if not of the preaching of it. I must take issue with Dr. Ab bott if I understand him. Not only is it true that ministers should not preach philosophy, but, fur ther, it is not essential that they should have any definite philosophy at all. The gospel of Christ and any human philosophy are as wide apart as the poles. Woe would be to many a preacher if it were not so. Truly philosophical minds are rare. A metaphysical system is one of the most difficult accomplishments of human thought, and at the best it must be incomplete and even fragmentary; for a true philosophy of nature, man, and God must rest on the fullest evidence drawn from all these sources ; and, as yet in fact, the evidence is not all in. The chances are that a young minister's phi losophy would be a very poor one, and a poor one is worse than none at all. In truth a man's philoso phy is a matter of slow evolution and should be left to grow of itself. A manufactured one becomes a cage for the soul as it advances in refigious expe rience and knowledge. This is not a merely spec ulative question. If it were I should not dwell on it. It is one that affects the practical faith of men. Many of the articles of the Christian creeds DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 207 are metaphysical propositions of the extremest sort, and yet they have been preached in the past as though they were the veryessence of the gospel. These metaphysical propositions about God and man may all be true, but, if irue, they belong to a philosophy of religion, not to Christ's gospel, which is religion itself. Here again historical criticism is doing its necessary destructive work and thus preparing the way for a new type of preaching as well as of faith. But this work of the historical critic is not yet complete. So deeply fixed in our refigious tradi tions is the idea that somehow theological belief is an essential and vital point of true religion that even our most liberal leaders are still misleading themselves and others with it, even while pronoun cing against it. The employment of the term " faith " in two different senses, as came to be the case with" the original Greek term mo-ris, has done much to perpetuate this confusion in the minds of men. There is pot a word in refigious and the ological nomenclature, that has been so abused in preaching and in Christian literature as this word "faith." The classic Greek word mo-ris always meant a purely intellectual act. In Plato, for ex ample, it is used for a lower form of knowledge. Such is sometimes its meaning in the Bible. But Christ and his apostles put the word to a new use. It came to mean a moral and religious act of the heart and will ; as when Christ said to the woman, "Thy faith hath saved thee." This is its true 208 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM Christian meaning. But when the classical Greek intellectualism began to exercise its moulding power in Christian faith and thought, as it did even from the time of Paul, the meaning of faith returned largely to its classic pagan sense, and in Christian theology came to be an act of the intellect in the acceptance of dogmas. This is illustrated in the ancient creeds, which are declarations of belief in certain intellectual propositions as to the meta physical nature of God and of his mediational work through Christ. This intellectualizing of the term " faith " would have done no harm, if its theological character had been clearly kept in mind and not been confounded with faith in its Chris tian evangelical meaning. But this was prevented by the intensely dogmatic tendencies of the early church. Orthodoxy became the watchword, and intellectual assent to creeds became the great test, and from that time down to the present day the Greek pagan meaning of faith has supplanted the Christian meaning, or the two meanings have been inextricably mixed together. Take for illustration the phrase " articles of faith " in such common use. Faith of course here means a set of intellectual propositions which are to be subscribed to. Such faith is essentially belief, and is very far from ex pressing the " faith " of the penitent woman, who affirmed nothing concerning her beliefs, but simply showed the state of her heart by her conduct. If the term " belief " could be substituted for faith where the intellectual act is referred to, and the DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 209 term " faith " be left to represent the moral act as Christ used it, much confusion and misunderstand ing might be avoided. But there are many who will defend this double use of the term "faith," insisting that Christian faith involves essentially the exercise of the reason as well as of the heart and will, or, in other words, that refigion in its very essence is not merely the spirit of obedience and love and sacrifice, but also and equally the assent of the mind to a creed that contains, or is supposed to contain, the essentials of Christian truth. Here at last we come to the issue that is still squarely made by the whole body of traditionalists, even by some who would scarcely wish to be counted in that section of Christian thinkers. Dogma is of the essence of faith, they all say, though in varying language, and with more or less modification. Hence it is claimed that faith may properly be used in a double sense, and mean indiscriminately the acceptance of a body of doctrine, or the body of doctrine itself, as well as a Christian experience and life. Let me once more remind my readers that I speak as a historical observer, not as a theologian ; but from the his torical standpoint I am moved to say that this assumption lies at the very root of the refigious skepticism of the age, and that the demand of the age for a new basis of faith and refigious life will not be met until its falsity has been thoroughly exposed and the assumption itself cast aside com pletely from religious language. 210 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM In illustration of what has been said, I wish to call attention to a distinguished writer who in many ways represents a quite radical phase of reli gious thought, but who on this point seems to me to hold an inconsistent and unsatisfactory position. I refer to Auguste Sabatier, professor of theology in the University of Paris. " Esquisse d'une Phi losophic de la Religion " is a work that is per meated with the historical spirit and is really written in the interest of a thoroughly scientific view of religion, in its origin and development. As a whole the sketch is admirable. Professor Sabatier's description of Biblical or religious faith and of its distortion into a synonym for orthodoxy is well put. " Faith which in the Bible was an act of confidence in God and of consecration to Him, has become an intellectual adhesion to a historical testimony or to a doctrinal formula. A mortal dualism thus arises in religion. It is admitted that orthodoxy can exist independently of piety, and that one can obtain and possess the object of faith without regard to the conditions which faith pre supposes, and even do real' service to divine truth while being at heart a wicked man." Sabatier also states clearly the radical difference between faith and dogma. "The affirmation of piety is essentially different from the scientific explanation of it." He declares that there can be no conflict between faith and knowledge, since they belong to two different orders or planes, viz., the moral and the intellectual. His definition of dogma is wholly DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 211 in accord with this declaration. " Dogma is defined in its strict sense as one oit several doctrinal pro positions which have been made, by means of deci sions of competent authority, an object of faith and rule of belief and life." But now comes a remarkable change of state ment. Sabatier has previously insisted on the essential difference between faith and dogma, and discriminated the two orders to which they belong, but now he undertakes a defense of dogma against those who " wish to suppress the whole doctrinal definition of the Christian faith." A new note is here struck, and it is revealed in the changed use of the term " faith." " The Christian faith " is no longer faith in its subjective sense of piety, but faith objectively considered, in other words, the objects or dogmas of faith. Faith, then, is dogma. There is, he asserts, an organic and necessary connection . between faith, or piety, and dogma. "Dogma has -three elements, a refigious element which proceeds from piety, an intellectual or phi losophical element, and an element of authority which comes from the Christ." " Dogma has its first root in religion. In all positive religion there is an internal element and an external element, a soul and a body." Thus Sabatier places himself on the traditional ground that faith and dogma are essentially united, and that the double meaning given to the term " faith " is proper and warranted by history. We are now prepared to hear him say : " Say then no more : Christianity is a life, 212 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM therefore it is not a doctrine. This is to reason very badly. One must rather say, Christianity is a life, therefore it ought to engender doctrine, since man cannot live his life without a doctrine of it." Hence his conclusion : " Dogma, therefore, is abso lutely necessary to the propagation and upbuilding of the refigious life." The real explanation of this curious contretemps is that Sabatier is a dogmatic theologian, and intent on proving that dogmatic theology is an essential element in the life of Christianity. His general premise that dogma is subject to the universal law of evolution, and so is continually changing, is of course historical and scientific. His further contention that an intellectual acquaintance with religious truth is of great moral value cannot be gainsaid. But when, in the ardor of his advocacy, he pushes the relation of faith and dogma to the point of declaring them organically and essentially united like root and branch, soul and body, so that each involves the other and is a part of the other, he is guilty of an inconsistency with his own fun damental historical premise upon which his whole volume rests. Faith and dogma, the free volitions of the heart and the ratiocinative conclusions of the head, fife and the philosophy of life, the con crete and the abstract, cannot be juggled with in this way. To be sure soul and body are closely united. Body is itself dependent on food and drink, and so it may be said that the soul is inti mately related through the body to these outside DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 213 material elements. But soul is not body nor is body the food on which it lives, and it is equally true that " the kingdom of God," which is made up of pious souls, is not meat and drink or dogma or philosophy, but " love, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The truth is' there is a psychologi cal fallacy underlying this whole way of viewing the relations of faith and dogma. The soul, though organically one and having but a single self-con sciousness, is yet composed of several completely distinct faculties, and the action of these faculties is always clearly distinguishable. Consciousness never confounds these different orders of activity. It never mixes acts of reason or memory or imagi nation or desire or will heterogeneously together. An illogical piece of reasoning or a lapse of the memory is never charged to the account of the free *rill and made a burden on the conscience. These actions belong to different " orders " of the souL to use Sabatier' s own term. Faith is a moral act and condition, it is a movement of the free will, it belongs to the moral order. Dogma is an intellectual process, it belongs wholly to the intel lectual order. To confound them, to say that there is a dogmatic element in faith, or a faith element in dogma, is like saying that a mathematical blunder or a logical fallacy is the same thing as hatred or disobedience. Such a psychology is wholly self-destructive. To say that these differ ent acts of the soul are all forms of consciousness, and so essentially one, is to play with words. Even 214 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM bodily actions or injuries all come within the sur vey of consciousness, i Is a hurt to a limb, or a movement of a finger, (therefore, the same in nature or order with an act) of memory or will? The most radical line of cleavage in the soul is that between the free will Iwith its categorical impera tives of conscience and the intellectual powers, — in other words, between the volitional consenting faculties and the faculties of knowledge and as sent. They work in harmony, in all sorts of clos est relationship and mutual influence; but they are radically differentiated by the fact that the acts of the moral order are under a law of free dom and responsibility and moral judgment, while the acts of the intellectual faculties, as such, have no moral character and come under no law of moral responsibility, being under laws of a wholly different order. The law under which the mind reaches conclusions through its faculties of abstrac tion and generalization, or forms iis convictions based on evidence, is one of necessity. Given a certain amount of evidence, the mind becomes con vinced inevitably. There is no freedom or respon sibility attached to it. It is true that the will may interfere with the normal action of the intellect, and, by means of moral presuppositions and pre judices and determinations, may force the mind to a contrary result. So that there is a degree of truth in the adage : " A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." But in such a case a violence is done to nature. The laws of DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 215 evidence, or of logical premise and conclusion, or of mathematical axioms, may be tampered with and nullified for the time, under the stress of moral passion or determination, but the laws themselves are fundamental to man's intellectual nature, and when left to themselves work necessarily to fixed results. The will may compel the soul to accept a historical legend as fact, but when the mind is left free to act according to its own laws, and the historical evidence is allowed to come before it, the result is a necessary one that the legend should be seen to be a legend. The moral responsibility for either result lies not with the purely intellec tual powers, but with the free will. There is great confusion in many minds on this point. The acts of the intellect under its own laws in the pursuit of knowledge are often treated as morally accountable and sinful. Men have been put to death for a conviction to which they were brought by necessary laws of reasoning or evi dence, as if such intellectual convictions were free and accountable. Most of the heresies of history have been of this sort. The mistake has been in confounding two distinct orders of the soul's facul ties, — the order that works under a law of neces sity, and the order that is morally free and there fore accountable. A historical mistake or an illogical philosophical tenet is not a sin, since, by itself, it has no moral quality. Sin comes in when the soul in the exercise of its moral freedom abuses the faculties of knowledge that are under its sway 216 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM and turns them to wrong uses, as, for example, when a man in the interest of a false dogma inten tionally distorts history. A clear understanding of the psychological laws and facts of human na ture is above all things needed in this matter. It is certainly strange that such a profound thinker as Professor Sabatier should be guilty of incon sistency and inaccuracy here. For he has struck the keynote of psychological truth, in his doctrine of the two " orders " of soul activity. Acts of the heart and will and those of the intellect are in his view heterogeneous. Then of course piety and knowledge, faith and dogma, are heterogeneous, and to confound them is to do violence to the psychological laws of the soul itself. M. Sabatier sees this plainly, and he well describes the result of turning faith, which is an act of the will, into an intellectual act, that is, a dogma, as " a mortal dualism in religion." It is just that. It intro duces a moral schism into the soul which is fatal to all healthy spiritual life. This is the vital part of Sabatier's book, and for it I thank him. As to the contretemps by which he attempts to build a foundation for dogma in faith itself, it is an anti nomy which must be left to the fate that inevita bly overtakes all false reasoning. I wonder whether Dr. Sabatier comprehends the full force of his own cardinal positions. He allows that there may be a barren and morally worthless orthodoxy without piety or faith, but does he also see that it is equally true that there DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 217 may be a genuine and living faith and piety with out orthodoxy ? I am not sure. But of course it is so. Two heterogeneous acts and conditions can have no moral relation with each other that shall make the existence of one depend on the existence of the other. There may be faith without ortho doxy, just as easily as there may be orthodoxy without faith ; and it is this simple truth based on a sound psychology that our age is feeling after and beginning to realize and insist upon as the starting-point of its new religious faith and fife. The power of that word " orthodox " which has been such a spell on the minds of men, is already broken, and it only remains for them, in the exer cise of their new freedom, to learn from history and experience and from Christ's own lips and life the fullness of meaning there is in the divine gospel of God's free love to man and of man's free love to God. I am anticipating a little, but I cannot forbear here to say that it will be a great boon to theologi cal and philosophical speculation, when all ques tions of dogma shall be wholly separated in the minds of men, as they ought to be, from all ques tions of practical religion and faith. Theology is a science. It is a work of the mind. Why then should it not be treated as all other sciences are treated, and be allowed the same liberty of inves tigation. Why should charges of moral heresy and sin and wickedness be brought agamst a worker in theological science any more than against other 218 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM scientists. All science is under the same intellec tual laws, and these laws, as we have seen, work on the same lines of logical, mathematical, eviden tial necessity. Why should a moral and religious significance be attached to the labors of one class of scientists rather than to those of another class. There is but one reason to be given for an affirma tive answer, viz., that faith and dogma, religion and theology, are radically one, so that a man can not be pious without being orthodox, even though a man may be orthodox without being pious, as facts prove beyond dispute. But with this false assumption taken out of the way, what remains but that theology as a science should be allowed its full scientific freedom? This is what is cer tainly coming, and what benefits will accrue to theological investigation I need not say. Freedom of scientific teaching is to be the educational watch word of the future, and out of it will come a new evolution of knowledge and thought that will tran scend immensely all previous attainments. I cannot leave this point without alluding to the peculiar position of history as a science. Un fortunately for the full freedom of historical study and teaching, there is in the traditional creeds and theology of the Christian church a complete heterogeneous mixture of theological speculative propositions and of supposed historical facts. This brings theology within the purview of historical investigation. The miraculous virgin birth of Christ, and the other miraculous or supernatural DEMAND OF THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT 219 events that are recorded in connection with it, Christ's own miracles and his miraculous resurrec tion and ascension, come strictly within the sphere of history and so are subjects of historical and critical scrutiny, and yet they are held as dogmas of Christian belief, and supposed to fie at the very foundation of the Christian religion. Thus the path of the historical student and teacher has been surrounded with great difficulties and even hazards. It is a curious fact that to-day history is more exposed to the attacks of theological dog matism than theology itself, inasmuch as the last defenses of traditionalism are of a historical and critical rather than philosophical character. The theological teacher may theologize with full free dom, if he keeps safely off historical ground, but the historical teacher has no such option. He cannot retreat behind the clouds of metaphysics, but must come out into the historical open and meet squarely the historical theological problems that arise inevitably in his path, or dodge them utterly and commit hari-kari with his historical conscience. But, happily for historians as well as theologians, the basis for the new faith that his tory itself has already laid will be their refuge and salvation. The time is at hand when the real heretics will be seen to be, not historical and the ological investigators, but men of uncharitable and bitter spirit and of bad fives. It is no wonder that men of the world look with amazement on the theological controversies that still afflict some parts 220 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM of Christendom. A writer in the "Evangelist" recently stated that Mr. Joseph H. Choate, the noted lawyer and present ambassador to England, declared, in reference to the Briggs case in the Presbyterian church, that " he could not make head or tail out of it, and could not understand how rational beings should get into such a tempest over a matter of purely speculative opinions, with but the slightest bearing upon life and character." Thus already our age, in the persons of its most intelligent laymen, is reaching a correct diagnosis of dogmatic questions and of the bitter controver sies that grow out of them, and sits in moral judg ment upon them. CHAPTER IX THE DEMAND OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT We are now prepared to consider the third de mand of our age, that of the reason in its more restricted sense of representing all our faculties of gathering and coordinating knowledge. For there is a double meaning of the term " reason " as it is usually employed in theological and philosophical literature. It often stands for the whole moral consciousness, including not only the ratiocinative and logical powers, but also those moral intuitions and principles of determination by means of which the soul is able to sit in judgment on all questions of refigious truth and duty. In this larger sense the reason covers the two spheres of religion proper, or faith, and of dogma in the various forms of theology and philosophy. Such was its meaning in the great controversy between Romanist and Protestant as to the question whether faith was before reason or reason before faith. The Romish doctrine was that orthodox refigious belief was determined by an ecclesiastical authority set over the individual reason, and not by the reason itself, which must be subjected to such authority and obe diently interpret and defend its ex cathedra decla- 222 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM rations. The Protestant position was that man's private reason or moral consciousness was the pri mary tribunal before which all questions of reli gious belief and duty must come for settlement, and that its verdicts must be ultimate and final for the individual soul. It was a sad day for Protestant ism when the intensely dogmatic spirit of the sev enteenth century led to a retreat from the original ground of protest of the Lutheran reformers back to the very principle of authority which had caused the breach. The only difference then was that, while Catholicism made the church in the person of its ecclesiastical head the ultimate basis of au thority, Protestantism put the Bible in place of the pope. But both parties agreed in deposing man's reason or moral consciousness from its throne of final appeal and decision. In such a view reason stands for conscience with all its powers of moral insight and judgment and categorical imperative, to use the very suggestive definition of Kant. But there is another meaning of reason that is equally common, where it is restricted to the purely intellectual side or order of the soul, and stands for the reflective and reasoning powers of the mind, in other words, the faculty of abstract thought. In this view reason stands over against the conscience and will and moral region of man's consciousness, and should never be confounded with it. I am here compelled, however, to observe that theological lit erature is permeated with this confusion, and that the term "reason," almost as much as the term DEMAND OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT 223 " faith," has been sadly abused in the interest of dogmatism and dogmatic authority. It is on this account that I have made the above discrimination. A critical historical dictionary of theological and philosophical terms brought down to date would prove most valuable for present uses. For what is needed now above all things is a clear intelli gence of the questions in issue, based on historical and critical knowledge. The time has gone by when either form of the claim of authority can be asserted or listened to ; but the murky fogs of the ological traditionalism are still dense, and men are left in doubt where the real guideboards of truth are, or what the signals mean. Read almost any one of the recent publications in the theological or religious field, and if the fog grows thicker as you proceed, as will very likely be the case, if I may judge from my own experience, be sure the reason is that such terms as faith, reason, incarnation, di vine, trinity, are being juggled with and metamor phosed to such a degree that the very countersigns which ought to lead the reader on into the light only serve to leave him helpless, "in wandering mazes lost." With the ground thus cleared I proceed to con sider the demand of the intellectual or rational time spirit. It is to be noted at once that the intellectual curiosity and inquisitiveness of our age has been largely drawn into the channels of scien tific and historical research. The result has been that the tide has turned strongly away from meta- 224 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM physical and philosophical studies, and there is little evidence yet of any reaction. It is true we hear frequent prophecies of a speedy change. There are those who are calling loudly for a reju venation of philosophical theology. But they are only voices in the wilderness. So far is this age from being metaphysical or theological, or even willing to lend an ear to such discussions, that the very reverse is true. The prejudice against the whole metaphysical method of surveying truth is the one of all most deeply and firmly fixed in the minds of the masses of intelligent men and women ; and this prejudice is natural and well grounded. The spirit of the age, as we have seen, is critical and destructive in all matters of theological tradi tion, and while the work of destruction is still going on there can be little interest in any recon structive process. Men will not build a bridge over a stream while they are still in doubt whether it should be crossed at all. Further, historical criticism has brought to fight the fact that the very foundations of traditional philosophy and theology are built largely on unhistorical assump tions. Is it any wonder, then, that the age, so possessed with the critical spirit, should refuse to accept the results that are derived from such assumptions ? The demand must plainly be for new foundations built out of new historical material, and according to a new historical method. The conservative theologians, who are so averse to have a single stone or timber removed from the old rH DEMAND OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT 225 structure and are crying continually for a halt, plainly have made a very bad diagnosis of the case. They are striving to save as much of the building as they can, and would begin at once to patch it up for its new uses. But the work of de struction must go on until the last unhistorical tradition has been unearthed and the last a priori metaphysical assumption has been pulled out of its hiding-place. How much of the old edifice will be left is no present concern of the historical critic. " Take no thought for the morrow " is as true in historical studies as in everything else. Truth surely is in no danger. God's spiritual kingdom cannot be hurt by the axes laid at the roots of historical trees that have grown out of pagan and mediaeval Christian ignorance and superstition and have for too many centuries only cumbered the ground. Thus it grows more and more clear to us why theological reconstruction is so long delayed. Any attempt this way must fail until the ground is ready for it. It is for this reason that the demand of the intellectual spirit of the age is so slow in voicing itself. Each in its own order. The historical demand is as yet only half satisfied; the refigious demand still waits on the fulfillment of the historical ; the intellectual demand is latest in logical order, and must be equally so in time. But if the time is not yet, it is surely not far off. For man is, in his fundamental nature, an inquisitive, speculating, metaphysical, mystical be- 226 EVOLUTION OF TRINITARIANISM ing. His feet must always be plauted on the solid earth, but his form rises upward toward the skies, and his eyes are ever stretehing their gaze away from the seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal. The soul is like the body in the evolu tion of its needs and demands. The purely ani mal wants of the body are first felt and listened to. It must be fed and clothed. The myth of Adam teaches a true historical lesson. But when these lower wants are supplied, a higher order of needs begins, to find a voice. A less crude diet and more artistic clothing are demanded. And so the order of bodily demand rises until human civilization culminates in the culinary and sartorial arts of to-day. It is so with the soul. Its earliest and most imperative wants are those that spring from the lowest order of its faculties. The child first uses its five senses, then its imagination, then its memory, and then its reflective powers. Later still, self-consciousness emerges into active fife. The will grows moral, and the religious nature develops apace. Last of all, the eyes of the soul begin to open toward the wider realms of being that fie about it. It becomes a questioner. Whence? Where? Whither? Those old eternal questions, that have ever stirred the curiosity and troubled the refigious consciousness of men, stimu late thought and raise new inquiries. Even at twelve years of age Christ had entered upon that path of moral consciousness and inquiry from which there is no return, and was found by his DEMAND OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT 227 anxious parents, oblivious of all things else, among the Jewish rabbis asking questions. As with indi viduals so is it in the evolution of the human race. First, the stage of imaginative mythologies, then a period of gnomic and ethical poetry, and at last the age of philosophy. Thus, in the Greek world, Homer and Hesiod are followed by Solon and -. 185. Polycarp had died a generation earlier, and it must have been nearly if not quite a generation earlier still when Irenaeus as a youth saw and heard him. There is no evidence that Irenaeus had met Polycarp afterwards. The question at once arises as to the accu racy and credibility of one's memory of events so early in life, in the case of a man, quite old, recalling the scenes of his youth. The treachery of memory in such cases is proverbial. The broad lines of events in one's youth are usually quite indelible, but the particular in cidental facts that are connected with the general cur rent of events are, as a rule, quite beyond the power of recovery. Mr. Leslie Stephen, the editor of the new " Dictionary of Biography," in a recent article in the " National Review," draws out of his personal experience as an editor some vivid illustrations of the fallacious character of memory concerning the events of one's past life, and concludes that letters written when the events were fresh in the memory, " in the main, are the one essential to a thoroughly satisfactory life." He refers to an experience in his own life concerning an old letter which he had burnt, and the contents of which in later life he had entirely forgotten, the result being that " I now only know that my own account of my life is some how altogether wrong." He multiplies such cases and concludes: "Such incidents represent the ease with which the common legend of a life grows up, and the sole correction for good or for bad is the contemporary document." Now this is just- the trouble with the ac count given by Irenaeus in his old age of a transaction 338 ^ "'ENDIX of his youth. There is no " contemporary document " to sustain its accuracy. I dwell on this feature of the case, because it will be found to be at the very root of our whole judgment concerning the credibility of IrenaBus' testimony. The whole question at last is resolved into this : Can the memory of Irenaeus be relied upon for the exact particular facts related a half century or so after, concerning what transpired in his youth ? For not only is there no " contemporary document " to validate Irenaeus' accuracy of information or memory, but what testimony we have is of a directly contrary character. I refer to that of Papias, a contemporary of Polycarp. Irenaeus declares that Papias was also a "hearer of John." But Papias himself in the fragments preserved in Eusebius gives evidence that Irenaeus was mistaken. For Papias distinguishes two Johns, " John the disciple of the Lord" and "John the Elder," putting the first John in the number of Christ's immediate disciples, and the second among " the followers " of the Apostles. Papias does not pretend to have heard John the Apostle or any other of the first generation of Christ's disciples. But he declares that he gathered what he could orally from the followers of John and his fellow Apostles, and among them he mentions "John the Elder." Papias thus distinguishes three generations of disciples, — the original Apostles, the followers of those Apostles, and those who, like himself, learned from these followers at second hand what the disciples of the first generation said. Eusebius draws special attention to this mistake of Irenaeus and corrects it, saying that " Papias by no means asserts that he was a hearer and eyewitness of the holy Apostles, but informs us that he received the doctrine of faith from their intimate friends." He also . adds that Papias elsewhere says expressly that he was " a hearer of John the Elder," and quotes a tradition THE JOHANN/ a PROBLEM 339 concerning Mark which he heard from him. Thus the testimony of Papias himself proves that he had never seen John the Apostle and that Irenaeus was mistaken in his assertion that Papias was a " hearer of John." Plainly Irenaeus had somehow confounded the two Johns, as Eusebius suggests. The query naturally arises, whether Irenaeus was not guilty of the same confusion in the case of Polycarp. For Polycarp was contemporary with Papias, as Irenaeus himself declared. The truth seems to be that Irenaeus had confounded two generations of disciples or elders, and so placed Polycarp and Papias together in the second generation, instead of distinguishing them from the " followers " of the Apostles and so putting them in the third generation of disciples where they really belonged, on the testimony of Papias himself. This view of the matter is also in harmony with all we know concerning Polycarp. In his Epistle to the Philip- pians, which seems to be genuine, there is no reference to any personal relation with John the Apostle. John's name is not even mentioned. This is the more remark able since Polycarp refers to Paul again and again, and frequently quotes from his epistles. Especially on one occasion he speaks of " Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles." If he had held such "familiar inter course with John " the Apostle as Irenaeus represents, how natural would it have been to make some personal reference to him in this connection. There was a spe cial reason, to be sure, for his frequent reference to Paul, since Paul had visited Philippi and had after wards written an epistle to the church there. But is it not strange that in Polycarp's own Epistle, which is full of quotations from some Synoptic form of the gospel, either oral or written, and from Paul's epis tles, there should not be a single quotation from that 340 A_. "1NDIX Gospel which he must have so greatly prized, or even a hint of its existence ! It is also a fact of no little sig nificance that Polycarp should have repeatedly set forth his doctrine of God the Father and of Christ the Son, and yet made no allusion at all to the Holy Spirit, if the fourth Gospel was in his hands. For that Gospel has a clear trinitarian character and really completes the evolution of the dogma of the Trinity by its doctrine of the Paraclete. But the term Paraclete does not appear in the Epistle, nor does Polycarp give any evi dence in it that he held the full trinitarian dogma. How could that have been, if Polycarp was acquainted with the fourth Gospel ? Further, the chief peculiarity of the fourth Gospel is its Logos doctrine. Defenders of the Johannine authorship hold that John's Gospel introduced the Logos doctrine into christology. If this be true, and if Polycarp was a hearer of John, and ac quainted with his Gospel, how can it be explained that Polycarp's christology knows nothing of the Logos ? Polycarp's death occurred in a. d. 155 or later, and even allowing the truth of the tradition of his great age, he cannot be made contemporary with John except by assuming the truth of the unhistorical tradition that John also lived to an equally great age. Such is the slender thread of historical assumption on which the Johannine problem really hangs. But even the tradi tion of Polycarp's extreme longevity cannot be regarded as authentic history. It depends wholly on the " Mar tyrdom of Polycarp," which bears such clear traces of interpolation and is so filled with miraculous and legen dary elements that it is impossible to sift out of it the grains, if there be any, of historical fact. Thus we are thrown back on the single testimony of Irenaeus, which is unconfirmed by Polycarp himself, and is opposed to the indirect counter testimony of Papias. So that the THE JOHANNl/ PROBLEM 341 case stands thus : Irenaeus hi his old age gives a remi niscence of his youth in regard to which clear evidence shows that he must have confounded two generations of disciples together and in this way confounded a John of the first generation with a John of the second. Thus only can all the known facts be harmonized. So that the conclusion is forced upon us that Irenaeus, either by failure of memory or want of sufficient information, was mistaken. It is my firm conviction that no other conclusion is possible, and my only wonder is that any scholars are still found to take exception to it, or to defend the credibility of Irenaeus' testimony. WTien one considers how treacherous the memory becomes in the course of a long life, how utterly uncritical Irenaeus was concerning all historical events, and how easy it was for him to confound two persons of the same name as he wandered back in memory among the uncertain and darkening shadows of his youthful days, it is certainly much easier to believe that he was mistaken as to Poly carp's true relation to John the Apostle than to believe that he was right, when corroborating evidence is wholly wanting, and especially when we remember that in making a similar assertion concerning Papias he was certainly wrong. I have dwelt thus fully on this first division of the subject, because I regard the result at which we have arrived concerning the real facts of the fife of John as practically settling the whole question as to the Johan nine authorship of the fourth Gospel. Remove the legendary traditions concerning John's sojourn in Ephesus, and his extreme longevity reaching to the reign of Trajan, and acknowledge, as we must, it seems to me, the complete unreliability of the testimony of Irenaeus, and little ground is left on which to base the Johannine authorship. Whether any such ground is to 342 a ;ndix be found in the two following divisions of the subject, we now proceed to consider. II. We next have to deal with the character of the fourth Gospel as compared with the Synoptic gospels, and the earliest known date of its appearance in his tory. No one can read the fourth Gospel, even in the most cursory way, without realizing at once that its whole intellectual and religious atmosphere and tone of thought is in complete contrast with that of the Synop tics. Its very introduction, with its sharply defined Logos doctrine, removes us entirely from Jewish Pales tinian ideas, and transfers us to Greek Alexandrian philosophic thought. The whole christology of the fourth Gospel is radically different from that of the Synoptics, and indicates a long process of evolution. As we have seen, the Synoptic gospels hold the view of Christ's Messianic character. He is the promised anointed one of David's royal line. There is no hint of a superhuman preBxistence, or of a Logos doctrine. But the fourth Gospel at once goes back of Christ's human birth into the eternity of the divine existence, and out of God himself by a divine incarnation makes Christ proceed ; and this divine nature of Christ, as the eternal Logos of God, is the keynote of the whole Gospel. Christ is no longer a human Messiah with a divine commission, but is a divine being, metaphysically united to God himself, and thus able to mediate in a cosmological rather than a soteriological way between God and man. We have explained the relation of the Pauline christology to that of the Synoptics. Paul advanced from the Jewish Messianism to the Greek Philonic mediatorship dogma borrowed from paganism. But the fourth Gospel proceeded a step further, raising Christ above the Pauline position of a /tto-iTi;s or middle being between God and man, to that of the Adyos of THE JOHANNES^ HOBLEM 343 God, God of God, derived incited, but essentially divine. There are close resemblances, with some sharp differ ences, as we have noted, between the Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel and that of Justin Martyr, indicating a common chronological stage of evolution. But to at tempt to coordinate the christology of the fourth Gospel with that of the primitive Synoptics involves an ana chronism of nearly a century. In the second place, the fourth Gospel differs radi cally from the Synoptic gospels in its doctrine of the essential ground and character of the Christian life. In the Synoptics Christ is represented as making the essence of his religion to consist in a life of Christian trust and love and obedience. There is no marked dogmatic element in his teaching. No creed concerning his own metaphysical relation to God is made the basis of discipleship. Repent, accept my gospel of the new kingdom, and " follow me " as your anointed leader, is his constant message. But how different is the teaching of the fourth Gospel ! It begins with setting forth in theological form the dogma of Christ's com plete divinity, and to accept that dogma as an article of faith is made all through the Gospel the sole condition of Christian discipleship. "Believe in me" takes the place of " Follow me." To enforce the acceptance of this dogma is declared by the author of the Gospel to be his purpose in writing it. "But these things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name." In the Synoptics Christ's teaching is practical and experimental, inculcating a change of life by a new law of love to God and to one's fellow men. In the fourth Gospel the whole point of view is changed. Love still remains the central element of manifestation of the Christian spirit ; but how may love spring up in 344 X ^NDIX the heart ? Dogmatic b&ief is now made the root of all true religious experience. In Christ's long discussions with the Jews, his position is continually reiterated : " Except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins," and the special dogma on which he insists is that he is the divine Son of God, — a point emphasized so strongly that the Jews charged him with blasphemy in " making himself God." Not only is the very nature of faith changed from the hearty acceptance of Christ as the promised Messiah, involving the following of him in loving discipleship, to the intellectual acceptance of a metaphysical dogma, but the character of the object of faith is radically changed from God the common Father of Jesus and of all men to Christ himself, who, as the Son of God, the divine Logos, is the true mediatorial object of faith and of worship. How different is the whole theory of the root of personal refigion in the Synoptics, as compared with the fourth Gospel, is shown in the different way in which Christ treats those who come to him. Compare his treatment of the sin ning woman in Luke with that of the man blind from his birth in John. The woman's love and devotion shown in her actions brings to her Christ's words : " Thy faith hath saved thee." But when Christ finds the blind man now restored to sight, he asks him, " Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? " and the reply is, "Lord, I believe," and the record adds, "and he worshiped him." True rehgion in the case of the woman of Luke consisted in works of grateful love ; in the case of the restored blind man of John, it consisted in reciting after Christ an article of metaphysical be lief. Thus the whole focus of the Christian life is changed from " the way," as it came to be termed in the primitive tradition, involving the following of the Master in a discipleship of loving sacrifice, to a form of THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 345 belief, involving assent to a christological dogma. Here, again, an evolution of doctrine, requiring considerable time, is plainly discernible. There is no evidence of any such change in the Synoptic gospels or in the Acts. For the Credo recited by the eunuch to Philip in the eighth chapter of the Acts is a later interpolation, indicating the growing evolution. Paul gives us the first step towards it. But with him dogma is still secondary, and faith and love are primary. Paul, how ever, introduces us to the Greek metaphysical conception of religion as a kind of philosophy, and by his dogma of a /teo-ii-tys prepares us for the later Logos doctrine. It was after the rise of the Gnostic systems and contro versies that the speculative metaphysical spirit fully entered Christian thought and led to the development of philosophical theology. The Logos doctrine marks this great change. So that the history of the christolo gical evolution points directly to a time as late at least as the middle of the second century for the date of the fourth Gospel. In fact, as we have seen, it was just about this time that the Logos doctrine first appears in christology, in the writings of Justin Martyr. So that all attempts to bring the Synoptic gospels into doctrinal harmony with the Fourth, we again perceive, involves/ a flagrant anachronism. Thirdly, it is merely an enlargement of the two points of difference already noted, to say that the whole philo sophical character of the fourth Gospel is radically dif ferent from that of the Synoptic gospels. This is so patent that it needs no further illustration, especially as I have already in the first chapter remarked on the evi dences in the fourth Gospel of Philonic and Gnostic influence. There is no evidence that the Greek writings of Philo had spread from Alexandria to Aramaic Pal estine in Christ's day, or that their influence was felt. 346 itfPENDIX Paul shows some traces of such influence. So too does the Epistle to the Hebrews. But the fourth Gospel gives clear evidence of it, not only in its Logos doctrine, but in its metaphysical conceptions and modes of thought. The influence of Gnosticism is equally apparent in its vocabulary, and especially in its dualistic ideas. But Gnosticism did not appear till the second quarter of the second century, and the influence of Philo is not clearly marked among the early Fathers till the third century, except so far as it represented Greek philosophy in gen eral. So that the fundamental metaphysical conceptions of the fourth Gospel point directly to a period consid erably later than the Apostolic age. There is another characteristic of the fourth Gospel which quite distinguishes it from the Synoptics. I refer to its mysticism and transcendentalism. The more deeply one studies this Gospel the more strongly is one impressed by these features of it. All religion has its side of other-worldliness and of mystical thought and feeling, — its tendency to rise above the seen and known into the transcendent mysteries of Absolute Being. In the Synoptics occasional glimpses of such mystical flights of Christ's moral consciousness are revealed to us. Still, as a whole these gospels are ethical and practical and experimental, dealing with questions related to this pre sent life. The kingdom of heaven which the synoptic Christ proclaimed as at hand was essentially of this world, though it shaded off into the retributions and re wards of a world to come. But how different is the whole point of view of the fourth GospeL It is the transcendent eternal world that comes into full view from the outset. The reader is carried at once into the invisible and transcendent state of being. Christ is essentially a heavenly personage. Even while on earth he is still " in heaven." The whole atmosphere of the THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 347 Gospel is unearthly and supernatural. Christ every where walks among men as if separated from them by some supernal relationship. "He that cometh from above is above all." His miracles partake of this highly unnatural, mystical character. He turns water into wine ; he raises Lazarus from a four days' death and de cay. His conversations are all keyed to the same super- earthly and heavenly strain. No man hath seen the Father, but Christ himself has. " Ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world, I am not of this world." Even " before Abraham was I am." " I and the Father are one." For " the Father is in me and I am in the Father." And Christ seeks. to draw his own disciples into the same mystical union with one another, with himself, and with God. For them the true religious life is " the eternal life," and that eternal life consists in "knowing the only true God." This " eternal life " thus realized already in the present state is the true resurrection life. " I am the resurrection and the fife. Whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." Thus time and eternity are mystically united together, and that great eschatological event called the resurrection, which in the Synoptics is only referred to as occurring at the end of the world, is represented as a present experience. Such is the lofty mysticism of the fourth Gospel. How different is the picture of Christ here given from that of the Synoptic gospels. How different its picture of the world, of man, and of the heavenly kingdom ! The human, anointed master of the Synoptics preaching the sermon on the mount, and speaking parables full of practical wisdom, and thanking God that the mysteries of his kingdom were revealed unto babes, has become in the fourth Gospel a heavenly descended Logos, never forgetful of his divine origin, distinguishing himself from those 348 ' APPENDIX among whom for the while he dwelt, and seeking to gather his own out of the world into the celestial society from which he came and to which he was soon to return. Could such a transcendent mystical gospel have been written by one of those Galilean fishermen who, as his tory tells, were Christ's closest disciples and from whom came to us the primitive synoptic tradition ? There is still another point of contrast between the first three gospels and the fourth : the remarkable want of harmony, and, in some instances, the irrecon cilability of the historical narratives. I do not propose to enter into a minute examination of this point, for it is unnecessary. So radical is the difference that it forces itself at once on the reader. The old explanation has been that John, the assumed author, wrote his Gospel as a mere supplement to the Synoptics. But such an explanation wholly fails to explain. It bristles with historical difficulties. The two accounts are completely inconsistent with each other, for example, as to the length of Christ's public ministry, his labors in Jerusa lem, the substance of his discourses, the' date of his death, the circumstances of his crucifixion and resur rection. Surely if this Gospel is a veracious history of Christ's life, though supplemental to other gospels, the broad outlines of it would harmonize with them. But, in the fourth Gospel, not only are events unrecorded which are made prominent in the Synoptics, such as Christ's baptism, his temptation, the institution of his Supper, the scene in Gethsemane, but events are related which we should expect would have been also recorded in the other gospels, if they had actually happened. Take, for instance, the raising of Lazarus, — the most extraordinary and conspicuous miracle of which we have an account in any of the gospels. When we consider the peculiar circumstances under which it took place, its THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 349 nearness to Jerusalem, its publicity, the sensation made among the crowds that were attending the Passover, the eager curiosity of the " common people " to see Jesus and " Lazarus also whom he had raised from the dead," the fear felt by the Jewish leaders that such a miracle would increase Christ's popularity, and their consequent efforts to secure his arrest, which led to his betrayal by Judas ; and when we also consider that the other im mediate events with which the raising of Lazarus was closely connected are fully related by the Synoptics without the slightest hint that such a remarkable mir acle was ever wrought, it is exceedingly difficult to ac cept its historicity. How could so startling an event, which directly caused Christ's death and which must have been known to all the disciples, have failed to be recorded in all the Synoptic gospels, and have disap peared utterly from the earliest Apostolic traditions? Surely a miracle which helped to precipitate the tragedy of Calvary would not have been left by the disciples who saw it to be picked up and written down a genera tion after by one of their number in his old age. A strange bit of supplementary matter surely ! The truth is that such an explanation of the origin and character of the fourth Gospel would never have been thought of except for the assumption that John was the author of it. But when that assumption is dismissed and the Gospel itself is consulted, we find the writer clearly explaining the object he had in view: "These things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." The motive, then, is dogmatic, not bio graphical or historical. The events described are only the setting of the dogma, which is the real theme. When the Gospel is read in the fight of this squarely avowed aim in writing it, much becomes plain that before was obscure and inexplicable. It is not the earthly career 350 APPENDIX of Jesus that is set forth so much as the incarnate life of the heavenly Logos, and the historical events that are introduced are wholly subordinate to and illustrative of his divine character and mission. Thus the earthly events of Christ's life are idealized and their real his toricity becomes doubtful. There is a transcendent ele ment everywhere transfiguring and divinizing the human and historical. Such is the verdict which the historical critic must pass on the historicity of the fourth Gospel when it is compared with the Synoptics. It is plain that in some way we are no longer on the same histor ical ground. The author is not writing a human life, but is expounding his thesis of a divine incarnation in mortal form, and from this point of view every event assumes a supernatural and quasi-unhistorical character. It is remarkable how little history there is in the Gospel. A few events are referred to simply to give opportunity for transcendental and mystical discourses whose whole strain and character is utterly unlike the familiar, prac tical, parabolic utterances of the Synoptic gospels. The very miracles have a dogmatic purpose and prepare the way for mystical utterances. In fact, the Gospel as a whole is not so much a biography of Christ, or even a collection of Christ's sayings, as a series of long conver sations and discourses connected together and reduced to a spiritual unity by certain sporadic events whose sole aim seems to be to afford the opportunity to teach the spiritual truth desired. How much of a historical character can be allowed to such a gospel it is difficult to say. But certainly when marvelous events are in troduced, like the miracle of Cana or that of Lazarus, where the dogmatic motive is so plainly visible, it can hardly be expected that they should be accepted as hav ing any historical basis, unless they are supported by other testimony. The difficulty with several of these THE JOHANNINE IROBLEM 351 accounts is that they stand alone, and have no historical vouchers. But my object in this critical comparison is not to break down the general historicity of the fourth Gos pel, but to show how impossible it is to harmonize its historical accounts with those of the Synoptics, and thus to make clear the inference which must be drawn, that the author of the fourth Gospel cannot have been one of the original Galilean circle of disciples. It is true that the writer must have been well acquainted with the Jews and their country. But if a Jew him self, he is no longer in sympathy with his countrymen. He writes as a foreigner, as belonging to a different world. If he was personally acquainted with Jesus and his sojourn of thirty-three years on earth, he takes little interest in it. He gives us no glimpses of his birth or early home in Nazareth. His mind is wholly intent on portraying those manifestations of divinity which should prove him to be the incarnate Son of God. Hence he dwells so fully on the circumstances of Christ's last night in the flesh, his arrest, his trial, his death and resurrection. These events are the precursors of the end of the earthly life, under which the eternal Logos had for a brief period veiled himself, and of the return to that heavenly condition from which he came. The de viations here from the Synoptic gospels are peculiar and suggestive. The Synoptics represent Christ as refusing to enter into a defense of himself before Pilate. " He answered nothing, so that the governor marveled." But in the fourth Gospel we have a full account of a remarkable conversation between them, in which Christ is made to utter some of his most idealistic and mystical sayings. "My kingdom is not of this world." "To this end am I come into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth 352 APPENDIX heareth my voice." There is an equally notable differ ence between the dying words of Jesus as given in the Synoptics and as given in the fourth Gospel. Matthew and Mark make him cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Luke puts into his lips the prayer, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." But our fourth Gospel author makes him close his work on earth with the words so full of mystic meaning, " It is finished." In fact, the more closely the four gospels are studied in their relation to each other, the more radical and complete grows the difference between the fourth and the others. The fourth Gospel bears all the marks of belonging to a later age and to a wholly different philosophical environment. The Synoptic gospels repre sent early oral traditions which gradually were reduced to writing by many different hands, and which, after various recensions and supplementary additions, became fixed in the form in which they have come down to us. The fourth Gospel, on the contrary, was plainly the work, in the main, of a single writer, whose aim was not to gather together the oral traditions that passed current in his day concerning Christ and his teachings, but to set forth his own philosophic views of Christ's metaphysical nature, and to enforce them by means of the literary use of certain historical events. The thor oughly philosophical and mystical character of the Gos pel must always throw a cloud of doubt over the evidence of its complete historical veraciousness. The author of this Gospel was not alone in making history the vehicle of philosophical ideas. It was quite the fashion of his day. Certainly, whatever view be taken of the authorship of the fourth Gospel, one cannot finish the comparison between it and the Synoptics without doing full justice to its unique religious idealism. Whoever the author THE JOHANNINE OBLEM 363 was, he had drunk deeply of that spring of spiritual truth which he believed had been opened to man by a being no less exalted than the divine Son of God, — the metaphysical mediating Logos between the unseen supreme Being and this visible world. No wonder his Gospel has been sanctified and made holy, beyond all other gospels, in the eyes of the Christian church, or that the Apostle whom tradition made its author became the centre of the most hallowed legends. But the historical and critical spirit cannot suspend its work in deference to any religious sentimentalism. Were the external evidence for the Johannine authorship much less weak than it is, the character of the internal testi mony furnished by the study of the fourth Gospel itself is so overwhelmingly strong against it, that it would seem impossible to resist the conclusion that is forced upon the mind. Much has been made in past times of the deep spiritual character of the fourth Gospel as evi dence of its having been written by an inspired Apostle who had drunk in the living truth from the lips of Christ himself. How, it has been argued, could the au thor of such a gospel have remained unknown ? Such an argument may prove too much. Is not the author ship of some of the noblest creations of human genius unknown : for example, the books of Job and Ecclesi- astes, the second Isaiah, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Synoptic gospels, the Iliad and the Odyssey ? No his torical valid proof of authorship can be built on such a priori assumptions. The result to which the study of the fourth Gospel thus leads us is supported by its external history. It first clearly appears as a distinct gospel in the latter part of the second century. Theophilus, who was bishop of Antioch from 168 to 188, is the first post-apostolic writer to refer to it as a " holy writing " by an " in- 354 PPENDIX spired" man, and quote from it. Tatian, a contem porary of Theophilus, gives apparent quotations from it, but does not state whence the quotations are derived. If the " Diatessaron," ascribed by tradition to Tatian, be genuine, a point, however, not wholly free from doubt, it would furnish additional proof of Tatian's use of the fourth Gospel. But this fact would not be so signifi cant as some have argued, for it does not push back at all the date already furnished by Theophilus. A strong effort has been made to prove that Justin Martyr, whose writings belong to the third quarter of the second cen tury, antedating a few years those of Tatian and Theo philus, was acquainted with this Gospel. This effort has been the more persistent, since Justin has been regarded as the real key to the whole conservative posi tion. But too much importance, in my view, has been given to Justin and his relation to the Johannine pro blem. It has been supposed that if the date of the fourth Gospel could be put as early as Justin, "his proximity to the Apostles " would give good ground for the claim of Johannine authorship. But the real point at issue is not whether the date of the fourth Gospel can be carried back a few years more or less earlier, but whether the traditions concerning John's later so journ in Ephesus and his death as late as the reign of Trajan are history or legend. If they are unhistorical and legendary, the whole effort to push back the date of the fourth Gospel is surely of little account. Allow that not only Justin Martyr, but even the Gnostics, Valentinus and Basilides, were acquainted with it, there still remains a space of half a century or more to be spanned in order to connect the Gospel with John as its author. Much learned ingenuity has been spent in this effort, and, as I think, wholly in vain. Dr. Ezra Abbot's essay is a conspicuous illustration. He em- THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 355 ployed all the resources of his critical acumen to prove that the date of the fourth Gospel could be carried back through Justin Martyr and the earliest Gnostics to A. D. 125. But what avails all this, if John had been dead fifty years ! The vital weakness of Dr. Abbot's essay is that it assumes the historical credibility of a mass of legends. He accepts " the uniform tradition supported by great weight of testimony, that the evan gelist John lived to a very advanced age, spending the latter portion of his life in Asia Minor, and dying there in the reign of Trajan not far from A. d. 110." But what is "this great weight of testimony" which Dr. Abbot quietly assumes to be veracious? Simply the " uniform tradition " of legends that had grown up in the course of centuries, and, as has been shown, have no historical foundation and are utterly discredited by critical scholarship. Looked at from one side, Dr. Abbot's historical arch seems firm. I myself regarded it as such twenty years ago. He starts from historical ground, namely, the historical existence of the fourth Gospel in the latter part of the second century. On this pillar he attempts to carry his arch across half a century through Justin and Basilides to some historical support on the further side. But in fact his arch stops in the air. It cannot reach firm historical ground. There remains, after all his efforts, a gap which cannot be crossed. It is no wonder that he laid hold of legen dary materials which fifty years ago were supposed to be trustworthy, and tried to build on them. But the " uniform tradition " of the third and fourth centuries on which such men as Alf ord and Abbot relied has crum bled to dust, and the arch so carefully constructed be tween Irenaeus and the Johannine legend of a long old age at Ephesus lies to-day in ruins. Dr. Ezra Abbot was one of the most learned and skillful exegetes of the last 356 APPENDIX generation, but the historical and critical spirit had not fully mastered him, and it is plain that he accepted the legends connected with John and the other disciples without due examination. For myself, were the ex ternal argument stronger than it is, and if all and more than all of Dr. Abbot's claims were allowed, it would not change the conviction to which I am brought on internal grounds. For it is my belief that the study of the Gospel itself and of its place in the historical evolu tion of christological thought is decisive in regard to the question of Johannine authorship. But I cannot leave the claims of Dr. Abbot and others concerning the evi dence of the acquaintance of Justin Martyr and Basilides and Valentinus with the fourth Gospel without entering a strong demurrer. The effort to convince myself that Justin Martyr used the fourth Gospel has utterly failed, and the longer I have studied the question, the clearer becomes my conviction that he never saw it. Great reliance has been placed on the passage concerning the new birth. But if this was a quotation from the fourth Gospel, why did Justin not declare it such, as he did in the case of quotations from other gospels used by him ? Justin clearly had in his hands certain gos pels. His quotations from them are numerous, and he always refers to " the Memoirs of the Apostles " as the sources from which he drew. These quotations are apparently from Matthew and Luke and besides some unknown gospel, perhaps the Gospel of the Hebrews, fragments of which have been preserved. But no ex tract from the fourth Gospel appears among them. When he recited the passage concerning the new birth, why did he not also refer it to " The Memoirs of the Apostles,'' if the fourth Gospel was one of those in his hands? Why should he have referred it directly to Christ? "For Christ also said." When we bear in THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 357 mind that many oral traditions of Christ's sayings were floating in the air in Justin's day, as is shown by say ings drawn from such sources by Justin himself, and still later by Irenaeus and others, and that oral tradition was still regarded by Papias, a contemporary of Justin, as more trustworthy than written gospels, and when we further note how inaccurate, as a quotation from the fourth Gospel, is the passage put by Justin into Christ's own lips, it is much more easy to believe that Justin drew it from oral sources than from a written gospel to which he never once alludes and of which he shows no knowledge. But there are much stronger positive grounds against Justin's acquaintance with this Gospel. Surely if he had possessed it he would have made ample use of it in setting forth and justifying his Logos doc trine which forms so original and marked a feature of his writings. On the contrary, he shows no knowledge of the remarkable proem of the Gospel, and never alludes to its existence, or in any way connects his own Logos doctrine with it. Nay, further, he makes it plain that his Logos ideas are drawn directly from the Platonic and Stoic philosophies. In fact, the Stoic spermatic Logos doctrine is the very foundation of Justin's pecul iar view, that all the ancient sages, such as Heraclitus and Socrates and others, had a part of the Logos which was in the world before Christ, and of which Christ alone had complete possession. It was on this ground that Justin declared such ancient sages to be Christians before Christ's coming. Besides, the differences between the Logos doctrine of the fourth Gospel and that of Justin, instead of being merely superficial, as has been urged, are profoundly radical, and in view of them it is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Justin could have had the proem of the fourth Gospel before him when he elaborated his own Logos christology. Still 358 APPENDIX more difficult is it to believe that, if he had it in his hands and supposed it to be Johannine, he could have failed to quote it frequently, so highly must he have regarded its apostolic authority. The result of histor ical investigation then must be, it seems to me, that Justin did not borrow his Logos doctrine from the fourth Gospel, and that the doctrine of that Gospel had its source in common with that of Justin in Greek philosophy. So, in regard to the claim made that the earliest Gnostics, Basilides and Valentinus, quoted from the fourth Gospel, the failure to sustain it is in my view still more complete. To realize this one only needs to read carefully, and without any dogmatic prepossessions, the accounts given by Irenaeus and Hippolytus of the different Gnostic doctrines. In doing this it must be borne in mind that Irenaeus wrote half a century after Basilides and Valentinus, and that Hippolytus was nearly half a century later still. The first thing that strikes one is the fact that the two writers are dealing, not so much with individuals as with schools of thinkers, and that the names of the chief leaders are often used as synonyms for the schools of Gnostic speculation that took their origin from them. So far is this confusion of individual names and of the schools that afterwards assumed them carried, that singulars and plurals, " he " and " they," are made to follow each other not only in contiguous sentences, but even in the same sentence, showing that there was no idea or purpose of distin guishing the original Gnostics from their later followers, and that the sole intent all along was to state the gen eral doctrines of the various Gnostic sects as a whole. Such being the patent fact, which one that runs may read, it is simply preposterous to fix on a quotation from the fourth Gospel which had been put into the THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 359 mouth of Basilides by Hippolytus, who wrote nearly a century after him, and to infer from it that Basilides himself had the Gospel in his hands, when it is plain that Hippolytus is never distinguishing Basilides him self from the school that assumed his name, and when it is allowed on all sides that the fourth Gospel had been in the hands of that school for a generation or more. It is difficult to characterize such a method of argument, and I can only explain it as illustrating the power of a fixed theological presupposition over even scholarly minds. Perhaps a worse case still is that of Resch in his attempt by a minute analysis of the earliest Christian writings to glean out phrases and words which seem to indicate a knowledge and use of the fourth Gos pel. Such a method, when carried far enough, might prove not only that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays, but that Shakespeare wrote Bacon's " Advancement of Learning." The conclusion, then, to which one seems forced to come is that the date of the fourth Gospel cannot be proved to be earlier than the middle of the second cen tury, and it still remains doubtful whether one is justi fied in assigning a date even as early as that. It is quite likely that the fourth Gospel may have been written several years before its appearance in what is now known as history ; but if evidence of it is lacking, such a likelihood cannot be made the basis of an as sumption that it was actually so written, and of the con clusion that John was the author, and then of the still further conclusion that its christology is apostolic and an authentic part of Christ's teaching. It was one of the most vicious elements of the old method of reasoning on this question, to take the ground that the traditional view of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel should be accepted until its spuriousness was proved. 360 APPENDIX This assumption underlies the fixed presupposition that runs all through the efforts to prove that Justin Martyr and the earliest Gnostics were acquainted with the fourth Gospel, namely, that John really was the author of it, and that it must have been in their hands. Thus the method of the defenders of tradition has been largely to confine themselves to " refuting the arguments which were brought forward by the skeptical critics." But the burden of proof is always on the side of the affirmative in historical as truly as in all other matters. To insist that all the traditional claims concerning the fourth Gospel should be religiously accepted till they have been clearly proved false is against the fundamental laws of scientific and historical methods of investigation. It is a part of the old a priori deductive method which has suffered collapse. But it may be said that such a scien tific method rigidly carried out would involve the rejec tion of almost all the so-called history that has come down to us from the ancient times. Certainly it has led to the rejection of a mass of legendary traditions which an uncritical age had allowed to be mingled with his torical facts. But such a sifting of legend from history does not destroy history itself ; rather it plants all real historical events on clearer and firmer ground. It is true that the scientific method when applied to history cannot give us absolute certainty in regard to any sup posed historical events. All historical evidence is only probable ; it can never reach demonstrative or necessary truth, like a geometrical or algebraic formula. But it cannot be inferred from this that therefore a mere historical likelihood can be accepted as a historical cer tainty. The true meaning of " probable " as applied to historical evidence is " having more evidence for than against." Everything depends upon the degree or weight of probability. There are high degrees of probability THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 361 that are practically conclusive, and low degrees that have no weight at all. A person accused of crime is not convicted except on evidence that is, in legal phrase, beyond all reasonable doubt. Yet even such evidence has led to the conviction of innocent persons, because it is only probable, and thus may fail of arriving at truth, — the more reason, therefore, for the most rigid scientific method of investigation, that the highest possible degree of probability may be reached. It is not enough, then, that there is some degree of probability in favor of any supposed historical event. The science of history de mands that the probabilities in favor of such an event should overbalance, even beyond all reasonable doubt, the probabilities against such an event. This is the prime difficulty with the evidence for the early date assigned by some to the fourth GospeL There may be a low degree of the likelihood of such a date, but the probabilities against such a date are enormously greater, so that the historical critic is forced to decide for the later date rather than the earlier. It was another vice of the old method of defending tradition that it insisted on the acceptance of all tradi tion as true until some other historical explanation could be found that would supplant it. So ripe and liberal a scholar as Dr. C. R. Gregory, of the University of Leip zig, in a recent review of Harnach's " History of Early Christian Literature " 1 surprises me by declaring that "It is unscientific to give up a tradition that is not positive nonsense, before we have a theory that has at least as good a support in history and that offers fewer difficulties." The reviewer applies this dictum to Har nach's criticism on the genuineness of the first Epistle of Peter. It would be equally applicable to the Johan nine question. According to Dr. Gregory, the tradition 1 American Journal of Theology, July, 1898. 362 APPENDIX that the Apostle John wrote the fourth Gospel should be accepted until some other theory or explanation of the authorship of that Gospel can be offered that is more acceptable and presents fewer difficulties. But such a principle, when applied to historical investigation, would utterly overthrow the whole scientific method. It makes it the duty of the historical critic to provide a good his torical substitute for every myth and legend and unhis torical tradition that he finds. A heavy task surely! It seems, then, that the historical student should accept the historicity of Constantine's vision of the cross in the sky at midday, with the Latin words, hoc vince, blazing beside it, until he can satisfactorily explain the origin of the legend, and decide whether it was a legendary growth, having its source in some natural phenomenon, or a pure legend from the beginning, and not only de cide between the two explanations, but also give satis factory reasons therefor. How much room would there be for the exercise of historical criticism under such conditions ? If a rational historical explanation of all the mythological and legendary growths that have fast ened themselves on historical events must be given be fore such growths can be cut away by the critic's knife, then his work is at an end. The growth of legend is as spontaneous and as lawless as the growth of weeds in spring. The only fact that is historically clear concern ing the story of Constantine's vision of a supernatural cross, with its attendant hoc vince, is that it is a legend lacking any historical foundation. Beyond this histori cal critics are utterly at sea. Neander, for example, suggests four different explanations or theories of the story, but does not decide between them any further than to throw out the view that accepts its historicity. This is as far as the critic need go. He cannot be expected to explain how a legend began to grow. So THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 363 in the case of the question concerning the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel, the problem is whether the Apostle John wrote it. Who actually wrote it, sup posing John did not, is an entirely different question, and does not directly concern the historical critic. Dr. Gregory requires him to accept the tradition of Johan nine authorship until he can show who did write it, if John did not, or at least satisfactorily explain how it came into being. But this is an eversion of the scien tific inductive process. The only vital question induc tively is whether there is convincing evidence that the Gospel was written by John. When the inductive method has found an answer affirmatively or negatively, the critical work is done. Dr. Gregory, here following the old method of dealing with the problem, has confounded two distinct questions together, as if the historical settle ment of the one involved also the settlement of the other. Before we pass to our final division of the subject, it may be well to compare more directly the two divisions already considered, and note their relations to each other. Such a comparison may leave the result to which we have arrived more clear in the mind. The historical facts concerning the Apostle John left him still in Palestine, a rather inconspicuous member of the twelve Apostles, with a purely Galilean background and environment, and without any evidence of rabbinic or Greek culture ; and all the historical light accessible makes it highly probable that his death occurred soon after a. d.' 70, if not some years before. Turning to the fourth Gospel, we find a writing that is dominated by a distinct dogmatic motive, plainly the work of a Greek scholar versed in the deepest speculations of Greek phi losophy, and representing an evolution of christological thought that marks it as a product of about the middle 364 APPENDIX of the second century. This result of internal evidence corresponds to the date of its first appearance in his tory ; for even the conservative critics do not carry it back of A. D. 125, and the whole tendency of criticism is to place it considerably later. Let us now bring these two classes of facts together and see how they fit each- other. An illustration will help us. Several years ago a young man was tried in New Haven for murder, and was convicted on this single bit of evidence. A knife with the blade broken was found in his pocket. The broken end was found in the body of the victim. The two pieces of the blade were produced in court, and under a microscope there was shown an exact fitting of them together. Suppose it had been revealed by the microscope that though there was a considerable closeness of correspondence, it was not complete, the prisoner would have been ac quitted at once. It was the exactness of correspond ence that fixed his guilt. Any want of exactness would have so far testified to his innocence. Now how is it with the relation of the character and history of the Apostle John, and the character and history of the fourth Gospel? What does our historical microscope say ? Does it not emphatically declare that the two supposed parts of a single blade cannot be fitted to gether ? There can be but one answer. How can the Aramaic " unlearned " character of John be made to fit into the highly learned Greek philosophical character of the fourth Gospel ? How can the historical limit, of John's life be made to cover a period of fifty or seventy- five years and fit into the date of the Gospel ? It may be comparatively easy, by means of reliance on tradi tion to establish a loose connection between them, but the microscope reveals historical gaps that no sophistry can hide. Our illustration also helps us to see the THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 365 sophistical character of Dr. Gregory's dictum. Sup pose, in the case referred to, the broken piece had failed to fit that found in the prisoner's pocket, and that the attorney for the state had urged that before the accused could be cleared the defense should show to what knife the broken piece belonged. WTiat would have been the quick judgment of the court ? A man tried for murder is not compelled to show who committed the murder in order to prove that he did not commit it himself. No more is the historical critic compelled to show who wrote the fourth Gospel in order to decide on the evidence that John did not write it. 1 1 1. The third division of our subject, namely : when and how the tradition of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel arose, may be dispatched with com parative brevity. Theophilus, who was the first to quote from the fourth Gospel as such, was also the first to name John as its author. Irenaeus, perhaps a little later, was the first to describe our four gospels as written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This was in the last part of the second century. It would seem that the name of John was attached to the Gospel not long- after its appearance, if not at once. Assuming, as we now do, that sufficient historical evidence is wanting for the Johannine tradition, the question arises, how it came to be attributed to the Apostle. Of course no conclusive answer can be given. But there are two views that may be taken of it. Either the writer, whoever he was, assumed the name of John the Apostle in order to gain for his work the authority of an apostolic name, or the Gospel may have been written by another John, namely, John the Elder, to whom Papias refers as one of his contemporaries, who became confounded with the Apostle. This last view has in its favor the fact that these two Johns whom Papias so clearly distinguished 366 APPENDIX were actually confounded by Irenaeus, and it is quite supposable that the confusion started by 1dm may have been extended to others. It is on this ground that Harnack rules out Irenaeus as a credible witness on the Johannine question, and concludes that the fourth Gos pel was written by " John the Elder." But when it is considered how common was the custom in that period, especially among the Alexandrian Jews, to write anony mously and to seek the authority of some illustrious name, it is quite as easy to look in this direction for the true explanation. Let it be remembered that the Syn optic gospels are anonymous, though ascribed by tradi tion to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The same is true of the Epistle to the Hebrews, attributed to Paul, and of the Apocalypse directly ascribed to John in the intro ductory verses, though what John is not clear. It should not, then, cause surprise that a gospel should ap pear anonymously and yet under the assumed name of the Apostle John. Authorship, editorship, authenticity, genuineness, anonymity, and pseudonymity were much more elastic words in those days than now, and the law Of ethics in relation to them was much less strict. The great object of the Alexandrian Jewish writers, and equally so of the Christian writers, was to secure as high authority as possible for their works. This was especially true among the Christians in the second cen tury and after. The question that decided whether a gospel or epistle or other writing should go into the growing canon of sacred scripture was whether or not it was written by one of the Apostolic circle. If the new gospel was to win such a place it must have some apostolic sponsor. The traditions that had been grow ing around the Apostle John might have recommended him as a suitable person to represent the peculiar mys ticism of this Gospel. Legend had distinguished him THE JOHANNINE PROBLEM 367 as the Apostle of Love. This view explains, perhaps better than any other, the curious absence of John's name from the Gospel. The other apostles are men tioned by name again and again, but John is conspic uous by his absence until the very end. Then he mys teriously appears, not by name, but as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," or "another disciple," or "that other disciple," or " the other disciple." Why, we can not help asking, all this unwillingness to call this disci ple by his name ? Was it modesty on the part of John himself, supposing he was the author ? A strange mod esty, indeed, that which could not allow him to appear under his name, and yet could allow him to describe himself as " the disciple whom Jesus loved," and intro duce scenes in which he was highly distinguished above all the other disciples. The delicacy which some have discovered here I cannot see. But if some unknown writer wished to assume John's name, by way of indirect suggestion, the singular method adopted is at least not wholly unnatural, and at present I lean to this view. Still, when one realizes how easily in these times legends grew, of authorship as of other events, one is ready to conclude that after all the probabilities are not so slight that the connection of John's name with the fourth Gospel was the mere result of chance legendary tradi tion, which, once started, no matter how, speedily grew widespread and unanimous. Such a legend is no more surprising than the other legends that finally gathered around his name. 368 APPENDIX B. A CKITICISM OF PROFESSOR A. V. G. ALLEN'S "CONTINUITY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT." In my account of Augustine's theological position, on page 69, I say : " Thus the Stoic, New Platonic imma nence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristo- telian and Athanasian transcendence." Professor Allen, in his " Continuity of Christian Thought," assumes the very opposite of this statement as the keynote of his whole book. In his Introduction he says : " The Augus tinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith." What this earlier interpretation is, he sets forth in the chapter on the Greek theology. Athanasius, he declares, "labors to retain the Stoic principle of immanent Deity without confounding God with the world. Like his predecessors, Clement and Origen, he builds his thought on the divine immanence, not on the transcendence of God." Elsewhere he speaks of Athanasius as " reproducing the teaching of Greek philosophy, and more especially that of the Stoic school." The only evidence that Professor Allen gives for this assumption is Eusebius's statement that Pan- taenus, whose pupil Clement was, " had been first dis ciplined in the philosophical principles of those called Stoics." Pantaenus himself is scarcely more than a tra dition, and nothing further is known of Clement's rela tion to him. There is not a single explicit allusion to Pantaenus in Clement's voluminous writings. The whole theory that Clement, Origen, and Athanasius drew their philosophical ideas especially from the Stoics, and thus developed a doctrine of divine immanence in the world in place of the Platonic doctrine of the divine tran scendence, is utterly without historical or philosophical CRITICISM OF PROF. A. V. G. ALLEN 369 foundation. How Professor Allen could have been brought to it is to me a puzzle. He seems to have been carried away with the idea that modern thought is re turning along the lines of the new science to the ancient conception of God. This is the note that he continually strikes. Modern theology, he thinks, is reacting from the transcendental dualism of Augustine to the imma nence of the Greek Fathers, Origen and Athanasius. It is a pleasant dream, but has no counterpart in fact. Origen is indeed once more in the ascendant; this is not, however, on account of his trinitarian doctrine, but because of the nobleness of his character, his grand spirit of tolerance, and his scholarly and spiritualizing method of dealing with truth. As to Professor Allen's assumption that Augustine held to a dualistic doctrine of transcendence, it is as fallacious as the counter assumption concerning Origen and Athanasius. Origen was a philosophical Platonist, and so was Clement before him and Athanasius after him. Their whole Logos doctrine, which Professor Allen seems to misunderstand entirely, was based, as we have seen, on the Platonic dualism. Augustine, on the other hand, drew his ideas from New Platonic or Stoic sources. A double confusion runs through Professor Allen's book. First, he confounds two kinds of divine immanence, a theistic, and a pantheistic Plato and the Greek Fathers held to a theistic immanence of God in the world, that is, a doctrine of divine providence and agency. But their dualism and doctrine of God's tran scendence kept them from pantheistic tendencies. The doctrine of Augustine also fell short of strict pantheistic immanence. He did not wholly confound God with nature. But his view of God's efficient operation in nature was thoroughly Stoic in its tendency, as we have seen, leading to an elimination of strict second causes 370 APPENDIX and of miracles as supernatural infringements of natural law. Nothing could be further from the truth than Professor Allen's statement that Augustine's theology is " built upon the ruling principle that God is outside the world and not within," and that " His being would be complete without the creation or humanity or the eternal Son." Neander in his "History of Christian Dogmas " puts it rightly. " Augustine's conceptions of the relation between the creative and upholding agency of God were determined by his idea of creation. Cre ation was not to be thought of as a temporal act, begin ning and ending, but as ever continuous ; hence God's upholding agency came to be regarded as a continued creation. His religious consciousness led him to the same view, by giving him the idea of the perpetual, absolute dependence of the creature on God in opposi tion to the deistical notion of the relation of God to the world." This view of the creation as without a tem poral beginning is distinctly New Platonic and monistic, and is closely related to the Stoic pantheistic doctrine of the divine immanence. The only thing that saves Augustine from complete pantheism is his view, drawn from the Scriptures, that the world is a free creation of God, though not in time, while the New Platonic and Stoic pantheism makes the world a necessary evolution from deity. That Augustine's theology was " built upon the ruling principle that God is outside the world, and not within" as Professor Allen declares, is wholly foreign to Augustine's point of view, which started from his New Platonic Monism rather than from the Platonic Dualism. So far from holding such a deistic view, Augustine rather made the world and mankind to be the essential expression of God's eternal nature and the theatre of his unending working. Such was his inter pretation of " My Father worketh hitherto." Augustine CRITICISM OF PROF. A. V. G. ALLEN 371 even found, as we shall see, in creation itself and in man, illustrations and reflections of the divine Trinity, showing his conception of the intimate connection of God and his universe. What Professor Allen attributes to Augustine quite accurately expresses the dualistic tran scendence of Athanasius. How Professor Allen could find in Athanasius's treatises, " Contra Gentes " and " De Incarnatione Verbi," to which he refers, " the Stoic doc trine of the divine immanence," is to me simply inex plicable. How can the Stoic pantheistic immanence be drawn from such a passage as this (" De Incarnatione Verbi," 17) : " He is at once distinct in being (octos kot' ova-lav) from the universe, and present in all things by his own power, — giving order to all things, and over all and in all revealing his own providence, and giving fife to each thing and all things, including the whole without being included, but being in his own Father alone wholly and in every respect," — where the differ ence between a theistic Platonic immanence, which is in complete harmony with the Platonic dualism, and the Stoic pantheistic immanence, is accurately drawn. Or take a passage in " Contra Gentes," 40, where there is a distinct allusion apparently to the Stoic view : " But by Word I mean, not that which is involved and inherent in all things created, which some are wont to call the seminal principle, — but I mean the living and powerful Word of the good God, the God of the Universe, the very Word which is God, who while different from things that are made, and from all Creation, is the one own word of the good Father who by his own provi dence ordered and illumines this universe." By the "seminal principle" Athanasius means the Stoic doc trine of the oTrcpjuaTiKos Xdyos, which is eternally imma nent as a vital force in the world, and in no possible sense separable from it. Athanasius in his writings 372 APPENDIX twice refers to the Stoics and their immanent doctrine, in one case (Second Oration against the Arians, 11) charging his Arian opponents with a Stoic leaning, and in the other case (Fourth Oration against the Arians, 13) charging his Sabellian opponents with a similar leaning. The stout dualism of Athanasius led him to a strict acceptance of a creation in time, involving the view that " God's being would be complete without the creation," the very thing which Professor Allen applies to Augustine, misrepresenting him entirely, as Neander shows. Professor Allen does injustice to Arius as well as to Augustine, treating the dualistic view of God and creation, which he attributes to both, as " Jewish Deism." Arius and Augustine were as far apart as the two poles, as I have already shown. Arius was a philosophical dualist, agreeing with Athanasias perfectly in his Pla tonic transcendence. The real issue between Arius and Athanasias was not whether there are two worlds, sep arated by an essential chasm, but to which of the two worlds Christ belonged. I am not quite sure that I understand Professor Allen's view of New Platonism. He must be aware of the fact that Augustine's whole theology is steeped in New Platonic thought. But he seems to regard New Platonism as a refined form of transcendent dualism, instead of being what it actually is, a complete system of pantheistic thought combined with an evolutionary mediating principle which con nects it with Platonism, while losing sight entirely of the dualism of Plato himself. Augustine, as I have said, is only saved from pantheism by his insistence on God's personality, and on the eternally active efficiency of God in the'^world. But his thought runs as far toward pantheism as it is possible for it to do without deserting his theistic starting-point. This misunderstanding of Augustine's general posi- CRITICISM OF PROF. A. V. G. ALLEN 373 tion leads Professor Allen into further confusion as to Augustine's doctrine of sin and moral evil. Augustine was no Manichean, as Professor Allen charges. His con version from the Manichean dualism to the monistic New Platonism was complete. His " Confessions " gives the whole story. To be sure, Augustine draws the line sharply between actual sin and holiness, and carries the division into the eternal state. But he did not treat evil as a positive principle. On this point he was thor oughly New Platonic and Stoic. " Sin," he declares, " is not a substance, but only a defect of substance." It has only a negative existence. So afraid was he of a Manichean. dualistic conception of sin that he would not allow that the hereditary sinfulness and corruption of nature which passed from parent to child was itself a substantial element of nature, but he declared that it was merely a quality or accident of nature, as if such a quality or property of nature were not necessarily a substantial and inherent part of it. When all the qual ities or attributes of a nature or substance are taken away, what is left ? New Platonism and Stoicism also holds that there is but one eternal substance in the uni verse. Matter, sin, and all evil are but modifications of this one substance, having no positive, independent existence. Augustine held the same philosophical view. So for him sin could have no substantive existence. Good only was substantial. Sin was only a falling away from good. This, however, is on the straight road to a monistic pantheism, and utterly away from dualism, which allows a positive material world and an equally positive moral evil. Professor Allen also gives a wrong view of Augus tine's doctrine of grace. He treats it as dualistic, involving the necessity of external means, such as sacraments, as if God could not act directly on the soul. 374 APPENDIX He also declares that the Greek theology rested more in its doctrine of grace on the divine immanence, making the mediatorial mission of Christ the great source of gracious influence. I must dissent entirely from this view. The Greek church held to sacramental means of grace quite as strongly as the Latin. In fact, the whole later Latin system of sacraments was borrowed from the Greeks. It is true that Augustine accepted this traditional system ; but his doctrine of grace was wholly monistic. He viewed grace as a direct exercise of God's efficiency upon the individual soul. The means of grace were secondary and might be dispensed with. Augustine's doctrine of grace was in close relation with his doctrine of nature and miracle. God is the direct efficient cause of all things in the realm of spirit as well as in that of nature. Regeneration is as much the result of such divine efficiency as creation or miracle. In a remarkable passage (" De Gen. ad Lit." ix. 18) he states this directly. Unfolding at length his theory of miracle as simply a special operation of divine causation " by which He manages as He wills the natures that He constituted as He chose," he adds, " and there is the grace by which sinners are saved." The whole passage shows that Augustine regarded the action of grace on the soul as the miraculous result of direct divine agency. This is very far from sacramental dualism. Some color of truth is given to Professor Allen's theory in the de velopment of the external church system of the Middle Ages. But this was the effect of the universal igno rance and superstition that reigned ; and, moreover, it had its birth, not in the West, but in the East, the ori ginal home of Christianity. I should not feel called to make these strictures on a book that has many excellent qualities, were it not that its fundamental assumptions, which I regard as wholly false CRITICISM OF PROF. A. V. G. ALLEN 375 and misleading, are being accepted in certain quarters as true, apparently on Professor Allen's authority. The influence of this book has been singularly perva sive, and its theory of Greek Athanasian immanence and of Latin Augustinian dualistic transcendence is still employed by writers, as if it were historically true. Dr. John Fiske in his book on " The Idea of God " made it the historical key of his whole line of thought, and plainly drew it from Professor Allen, quoting from him in extenso. It seems strange, to one acquainted with the writings of Athanasius and Augustine, to have Athana sius described as holding that God was " immanent in the universe and eternally appearing through natural laws," when the truth is that Athanasius held that the universe and its laws were created in time, whereas God himself existed from eternity in the transcendent ideal world ; and, if possible, still more strange to have Augustine described as so completely in the power of " Gnostic thought " as to " depict God as a crudely an thropomorphic being far removed from the universe and accessible only through the mediating offices of an organized church." Even Dr. Fiske's new book, " Through Nature to God," contains the same false read ing of history ; nor is he without good company. Profes sor Allen evidently has a large English following. Rev. J. B. Heard, in the preface to his Hulsean Lectures for 1892 on " Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted," relates the " joyful discovery " he made, by reading Professor Allen's book, " that the so-called new theology of modern thinkers was nothing more than a fresh draught of the oldest of all theologies." The lectures are amazing reading. Augustine is described as " steeped in dualism long after he had shaken off his early Manicheanism." " God was external to his works, the transcendent Lord of the universe, who could only 376 APPENDIX act on the finite through some medium or channel which He chose to personify as ' grace.' " It would be difficult to misstate Augustine's real doctrine more completely. " Grace " with Augustine was no instrumental, sacra mental " medium or channel " of God's efficiency, but that efficiency itself, acting directly and immanently on the soul. Nor has the leaven of Professor Allen's book yet ceased to work. The Hulsean Lectures for 1899, by Rev. J. M. Wilson, on " The Gospel of the Atonement," just issued from the press, adopts the same theory. " Two types of theology " are described, " that of the Greek and that of the Latin Fathers." " The funda mental and dominant note of the one is the divine in dwelling, that of the other is the divine transcendence." It is pleasant to hear one true note struck from Oxford itself. Rev. Aubrey Moore, in " Lux Mundi," page 83, called attention to the mistake made by Dr. Fiske, tracing it to Dr. Allen's book. He truly says : " It is almost incredible to any one who has read any of Augustine's writings, that, according to this view, he has to play the role of the unintelligent and unphilo- sophical deist who thinks of God as ' a crudely anthro pomorphic being far removed from the universe and accessible only through the mediating office of an or ganized church,' " quoting Dr. Fiske's language already given. I will only add that I am compelled to believe that the irpuyrov xj/tvSoi of Professor Allen and his associates is a failure to apprehend the real character of the Greek Logos doctrine, which is based on the Platonic dual ism and transcendence. The Logos or Son of God was regarded by Athanasius as a transcendent Being who entered this lower world through the medium of a human nature in order to bridge the chasm between the transcendent world from which he came and the created PROFESSOR PFLEIDERER'S VIEW 377 world of time. The incarnation, however, did not change the Logos from a transcendent being to an im manent being. His immanence was only in his human life, not in any change of his divine nature. If I under stand Professor Allen, he supposes the Logos must be an immanent being by virtue of his incarnation ; which is not the doctrine of the Greek theology at all. See Erdmann's " History of Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 274-276, for an account of Augustine's immanent pantheistic tendency, and of his theory of direct efficient grace. Also, see Schwegler's " Handbook of the History of Phi losophy," p. 143, for an explanation of the monistic character of Christian Scholasticism, with the result " that Monism has remained the character and the fun damental tendency of the whole of modern philosophy." C. PROFESSOR PFLEIDERER'S ARTICLE IN THE "NEW WORLD." I have assumed the genuineness of the words here attributed to Christ (see p. 290) ; but I am in sympathy with the view taken of the passage by Professor Pflei derer in an article on " Jesus' foreknowledge of his suffer ings and death," in the " New World," September, 1899. Professor Pfleiderer gives quite convincing reasons for doubting whether Christ actually said the words " give his fife a ransom for many," as well as the words in the Synoptic account of the last supper in which Christ con nects the supper with his death. He holds that these passages are essentially Pauline, and are the result of " later dogmatic reflection on the death of Jesus as a means of redemption," and he shows that the Pauline doctrine of a " substitutional atoning sacrifice " is " quite remote from the circle of thought of Jesus himself." 378 APPENDIX "Jesus everywhere made the forgiveness of sins de pendent on the penitent and humble disposition of men, together with their own willingness to forgive, without anywhere intimating that it presupposed, as a condition, a preceding propitiation of God by a substitutional atonement. The parable of the prodigal son is, in this respect, very instructive." The reader will perceive how closely in accord Pfleiderer is with my own views. His article appeared after the twelfth chapter of this book was written. In general I would further say that when we consider how many plain interpolations, not only of single words or clauses, but of whole passages, have been brought to light and properly excluded from the New Testament in consequence of recent critical investigations, it ought not to be regarded as anything strange, should further interpolations be found even of a radical character. Suppose a fresh Greek manuscript of the gospels were to be discovered, dating a century or two earlier than the Sinaitic or Vatican manuscripts, is it not more than probable that not a few important corrections would be made in our present revised text ? When we bear in mind the many remarkable changes that have been made in the Textus receptus, on which the King James's English version was based, necessitating the recent re vised version, we need not be surprised at the results of any new archaeological find. It is also to be noted that the further back we go in our textual investigations, the more numerous the interpolations and changes may be expected to be, — an expectation amply sustained by the history of textual criticism. So that it may be readily seen that the genuineness of no portion of New Testament literature can be absolutely relied on. It has been assumed by certain theologians that the most accurate text now attainable should be piously guarded PROFESSOR PFLEIDERER'S VIEW 379 as containing the real words of Christ. But it is im possible to sustain such an assumption. Even if we were absolutely certain that our present gospels have come down to us in their exact original form, which of course is far from true, we should not then be sure that we had Christ's words as they were uttered. Our gos pels were not reduced to writing until more than a gen eration after Christ's death, even according to the most conservative estimate, and historical evidence wholly fails to justify this conclusion, and postpones the date at least a generation later. The first generation of Christ's disciples were dependent on oral tradition for their knowledge of his teachings. Paul, whose death occurred more than thirty years after that of Christ, gives no hint that any gospel had been written in his day, which probably explains the fact that he makes so little allusion to the fife and teachings of Christ. Fur ther, the Synoptic gospels themselves give clear internal evidence of being gradually developed compendiums and recensions of different oral traditions and written gospels, and of being in this way so intimately related to each other as to indicate some common origin. The later tradition that they were written by apostles or their attendants lacks historical proof. The tradition itself does not appear until near the middle of the sec ond century, and not in its fully developed form till near the end of that century. Irenaeus, who wrote about 180, that is 150 years after the death of Christ, is the first Christian Father to name Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors of our four gospels. How such a tradition arose is an obscure question. But it evidently grew out of the tendency to seek apostolic authority for certain written gospels, and it is not un likely that there was some foundation of fact behind it, though the present form of the tradition is without his- 380 APPENDIX torical proof. When we leave tradition and seek for historical light from the post-apostolic writings them selves concerning the date of our four gospels, no clear trace can be found earlier than the middle of the second century, though detached passages are given which bear a likeness to corresponding passages in our gospels ; but such passages are not quoted from any of our gos pels, and it is probable that they represent oral tradition rather than any written gospel. A remarkable proof of this is found in a statement of Papias, who wrote about A. D. 140-150, his death occurring about A. d. 155 or later. In the fragments of a work on the " Sayings of Christ," Papias tells us how he attained his knowledge of the gospel, declaring that he was careful to question every one who had learned anything from those who had been themselves hearers of Christ's own disciples, that he might thus learn from their very lips "what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples." " For I im agined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice." How clearly this fragment shows that more than a hundred years after Christ's death, oral tradition was still holding its ground against certain written gospels that were beginning to be circulated, such as are referred to in the proem of Luke's Gospel. There is no evidence that Papias had any of our present gospels in his hands. Much has been made of a frag ment from him in which an account is given of Mat thew's writing the sayings of Christ in the Hebrew lan guage, but this cannot be our Greek Gospel of Matthew, as all admit, and Papias does not quote from it. Then his account of a gospel written by Mark cannot be made to square with the character of our present Mark. PROFESSOR PFLEIDERER'S VIEW 381 These allusions to gospels by Matthew and Mark are the first references to any names of gospel writers that appear in the postapostolic Fathers. The gospels thus referred to by Papias probably belong to the list of earlier gospels which were being written and used in his day, and later gave way to our present gospels. Clear evidence of such lost gospels appears in the early Christian literature. But Papias does not seem to have used them, being prejudiced against them in favor of oral tradition. With these facts in mind, how can it be claimed that the teachings of Christ, that have come down through such a long period of oral tradition and slowly developed reduction to writing, are the exact words that fell from his lips ? It is also to be remem bered that Christ spoke Aramaic and not Greek, so that our earliest and most authentic Greek manuscripts are only a translation, and cannot therefore always precisely represent the original, — the Semitic Hebrew and the Aryan Greek differing so radically in roots, structure, and idiom. Surely, under such circumstances, critical scholars, like Pfleiderer, may be permitted to doubt whether Christ actually uttered certain words or phrases, where internal exegetical evidence is against it, and where such statements are out of harmony with his general teachings. INDEX Abbot, Ezra, essay on "Authorship of Fourth Gospel," 354 ; seeks to carry back the date to 125 a. d., 355; argument rests on ** uniform tradition," 355 ; examination of claims as to acquaintance of Justin Martyr, Basilides, and Valentinus with fourth Gospel, 356-359 ; not fully mastered by the critical and historical spirit, 356. Abbott, Lyman, 125, 126, 144, 150, 168, 206, 284, 286. Acton, Lord, 195. Acta, the Book of, 7. Alford, Dean, 331. Allen, A. V. G., 1; theory of Athana sian immanence and Augustinian transcendence, 368 ; criticism of, 369-377; view of New Platonism, 372 ; charges Augustine with Man- icheanism, 373 ; view of Augus tine's doctrine of grace, 373. Allen, J. H., 2. " American Journal of Theology," 9, 361. Anselm's " Cur DeuB Homo," 84, 94, 95 ; foundation of mediaeval doc trine of atonement, 297. " Apocalypse, The," 330. Apollonius, 324. Apostle's creed, 24, 32. Aramaic, original language of Gospel, 19. Arius, 36, 372. Athanasius, 24, 36 ; trinitarianism of, 38-45 ; not a tri theist, 47; not Stoic but Platonist, 371 ; quotation against the Stoics, 371, 372. Athenagoras, 23. Atonement, three stages of doctrine in New Testament, 288; as a sub stitutional sacrifice, of Ethnic and Jewish origin, 292; doctrine of Epistle to Hebrews, 296, 297; doc trine of Irenaeus, Antrim, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, 297; governmental and moral theories, 298 ; debasing effect of material sacrifices, 302 ; Christian, is spiritual at-one-ment, 307. Augustine, 3, 58 ; culture of, 64 ; philosophical views, 67-70 ; trinita rianism, 65, 70, 77; contrasted with Athanasius, 71, 77, 79, 81; results of Sabellianizing tendency, 83-93; credulity of, 324, 325, 330; what saved him from pantheism, 372 ; not a Manichean dualist, 373 ; monistic definition of sin, 373. Baetol, C. A., 1, 2. Basil, 55. Beard, Charles, 203. Beecher, H. W., 144. Berry, G. A., 145. Bethlehem, 8. Bible, as a medium of divine revela tion, 269. Bradford, A. H., 126, 127. Brooks, Phillips, 127, 130, 131, 283. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," 234. Burnet, Bishop, 99, Bushnell, Horace, 111, 112. Calvin, John, 80, 95 ; want of appre ciation of nature, 264* Carlyle, Thomas, 56. Channing, W. E., 107. Choate, J. H., 219. Christology, 19; Chalcedon definition of, 279 ; contradiction involved, 280 ; why it has been a doctrine of theology rather than of anthro pology, 280 ; effect of inductive method, 281. Christopher, St., legend of, 326. 384 INDEX Church, the, in what sense a medium of revelation, 270. Cicero, 89, 178. Clarke, Samuel, 99. Clementine Homilies, a legendary ro mance, 327. " Congregationalism" the, 181. Cook, Joseph, 1, 118-125. Creeds, historical, 311. Critical spirit, distinctive mission of, 224,225. Criticism, historical, 186, 187; of the Bible, 187-189 ; final aim of, 174 ; providential work of, 207. Dante, 253. Deductive method compared with in ductive, 237. Diderot, 195. Dionysius of Rome, 23. Dogma, not of the essence of religious faith, 204, 205 ; its function in reli gious experience, 205. Dorner, I. A., 114, 116. Edwards, Jonathan, 103, 235. Emerson, R. W., 130, 153, 157. Emmons, Nathaniel, 104, 148 ; trini tarianism of, 105-106. Erasmus, 179. Erdmann, " History of Philosophy," 377. J Eusebius, correction of Irenaeus, 338. Evolution, historical laws of, 175. Faxbbaibh, A. M., 136 ; address in Boston, 302 ; defence of sacrificial view of atonement, 303, 305. Faith, a free movement of moral con sciousness, 201 ; independent of dogma, 201 ; evil effects of con founding it with dogma, 201, 203 ; word used in two different senses, 207, 311 ; confining it to its evan gelical meaning a boon to theology, 217, 218 ; signs of speedy revival of, 248. Fichte, 136. Filioque, 57, 97. Firmin's Tracts, 98. Fisher, G. P., 109, note ; argument for Johannine authorship of fourth Gos pel, 331. Fiske, John, 375. Fourth Gospel, 6, 25, 26, 32, 33; latest battle-ground of the critics, 191 ; contrast with Synoptics, 342; sub stitutes Logos for Messiah, 342 ; comparison of its Logos doctrine with that of Justin Martyr, 343; doctrine of the essence of the Chris tian life compared with that of Synoptics, 343; evidence of Philonic and Gnostic influence, 346 ; mysti cism of, 346 ; historical difficulties, 348 ; question of historicity, 350 ; writer's object, 350, 352 ; religious idealism of, 352, 353 ; first histor ical appearance in latter part of second century, 353 ; date not proved to be earlier than middle of second century, 359 ; Theophilus the first to name John as author, 365 (see Johannine problem); how Gos pel came to be attributed to John, 365; Harnack's view, 366. Gibbon, Edward, 187. Gloag, "Introduction to Johannine Writings," 26, note. Gnosticism, 33, 346. God, old definitions of, 271 ; inductive view of, 272. Gordon, G. A., 131-134. Gore, C, 90. Gospels, the four, first alluded to by name by Irenreus, 365 ; question of authorship, 379 ; not in the lan guage of Christ's original teach ings, 381. Gregory, Nazianzen, 78. Gregory of Nyssa, 54. Haeckel, Ernst, 154, 155. Harnack, Adolf, 56, 89, 366. Harris, George, 236. Harris, Samuel, 236-246 ; definition of God, 238 ; doctrine of Christ, 245 ; of Trinity, 245, 246. Hartranft, C. D., indictment of sci ence, 258-260. Heard, J. B., "Hulsean Lectures" (1892), 375. Hebrews, epistle to, 18 ; view of atone ment, 296. Hedge, F. H., 2, 130. Hegelianism, 136. Hell, the old dogma of, 253, 255; INDEX 385 in pictures of mediaeval churches. 303. Hilary, 61, 62. History, peculiar position of, as a science, 218 ; a medium of revela tion, 265, 314 ; theistic, 309 ; essen tial optimism and idealism of. 315, 316. Ionatiak Epistles, 12, note. Induction, the law of, 228. Interpolation, in New Testament, 378. Irenaras, view of atonement, 297; im perfect character of text of work " Against Heresies," 332 ; lack of critical spirit illustrated, 234 ; rem iniscences of Polycarp, 337 ; con founded two generations of disci ples, 339 ;- conclusion concerning historical credibility of, 341 ; first to describe the four Gospels as written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 365. Jerome, 120; credulity of, 329. Jesus Christ, birthplace, 8 ; tradition of miraculous birth, 11, 12 ; histor ical foundation of the new Chris tianity, 198, 201 ; not a dogmatist, 202; characteristics of moral con sciousness, 265-269 ; protest against Jewish sacrificial atonement, 289 ; his own teaching of moral at-one- ment, 291 ; spoke Aramaic, not Greek, 381. Johannine problem, 6, 25, 319. John, the apostle, 19 ; historically accredited facts concerning, 319- 322 ; plays a small part in New Testament narratives, 320; defects of disposition and character, 321; disappears early in the Acts, 321 ; not mentioned by Paul in later epistles, 321 ; testimony of Papias concerning manner of death, 322; in Post- Apostolic age becomes centre of legendary growth, 322 ; no his torical basis for tradition of great age, 330 ; not identified with seer of Patmos, 330 ; not author of fourth Gospel, 356, 365. John of Damascus, 78, 80. John the Elder, 338, 365, 366. John, Gospel of, see " fourth Gospel." Justin Martyr, 10; argument for Christ's miraculous birth, 13 ; logos doctrine derived from Greek phi losophy, 29 ; character of doctrine, 29-32; account of Simon Magus, 327, 328 ; no clear historical proof of acquaintance with fourth Gospel, 354-358. KaraAAayi) (reconciliation), use in New Testament, 288. Kenosis, 281. Kepler, 232. Legends concerning the Apostles, 322 ; causes of growth, 322, 323; unhis torical character, 324, 325. Leasing, 140. Logos, 18 ; doctrine of, 25 ; origin of doctrine, 27; character of, 29. Lucretius, "DeNaturaDeorum,"233. Luke, Gospel of, 8, 10. Luther, ix. Man, consubstantiality with God, as a scientific doctrine, 286. Marcellus, 44. Mark, Gospel of, 11, 380. Mary, mother of Jesus, 10, 13 ; im maculate conception of, 13. Materialism, one phase of monistic pantheism, 309 ; protest of moral consciousness against, 309. Matthew, Gospel of, 8 ; genealogy of first chapter, 8, 10 ; testimony of Papias concerning a Hebrew gospel of, 380. Media, the, of divine revelation, 264- 270. Meo-tnjs, 18. Messiah, 5, 8 ; in Old Testament, 7, 15. Methodology, 250. Milton, John, 254. Monism, 129 ; philosophical, distin guished from scientific, 154; ideal istic, distinguished from materialis tic, 155-159 ; versus dualism, 159 ; essentially unitarian, 166. Moore, Aubrey, 376. Mysticism, 274. Nature, a medium of revelation, 264. Neander, A., ix. 12, note, 249, 370. Newman, J. H., 149. 386 INDEX New Platonism, 65. "New "World," v. Nicene creed, 23, 58, 167. Niebuhr, 187. 'OfiouK (like), 38, 63. 'OftoutvvuK (like in essence), 37, 63. 'O/uovtrtof (completely like in es sence), 37, 63 ; meaning theologi cally, 45-51. Origen, 24, 34 ; doctrine of eternal generation of the Son, 34, 35. Orthodoxy, presuppositions of, 249, 250. Oww. (essence), 52-54. PANT.KNUB, 368. Pantheism, 87 ; result of philosophi cal monism, 308. Papias, distinguishes two Johns, and three generations of early disciples, 337 ; preference of oral tradition to written gospels, 380 : no evidence of use of present gospels, 381. Patmos, 330. Paul, 5, 17; doctrine of God and of Christ, 21 ; new element introduced Into doctrine of atonement, 293; mixture of Jewish and Greek ideas, 295. Peter, 19; historical knowledge of, ends with New Testament, 326 ; the legend of, 326-329 ; no historical proof that he ever visited Borne, 328 ; story of visit rests on fiction of Simon Magus, 328 ; supposed tomb under St. Peter's church, 328 ; tra dition of martyrdom a pure legend, 329. Pfleiderer, Otto, article in " New World," 377-381 ; view of Christ's doctrine of atonement, 378. Plato, quotation from "Republic," 301. Platonism, contrasted with Stoicism and New Platonism, 66. Plotinus, 87; " Enneads " of, 88 ; pan theism of, 90, 91 ; present influence on New England thought, 133. Plumptre, J. H., article on John in Smith's "Bible Dictionary," 324. Polycarp, 20, 336 ; no allusion in " epis tle " to John or fourth Gospel, 338 ; no allusion to Holy Spirit or Com forter, or Logos, 339 ; " Martyrdom of," filled with miraculous and le gendary elements, 339. Protestant Reformation, 177-179. " Quicungue Vult " (Pseudo- A than a- nasian creed), 98. Raphael, 227. Reason, the, double meaning of the term, and consequent confusion In theology, 221-223. Sabatier, Attgcbte, 210 ; view of dif ference between faith and dogma, 210 ; view of dogma as essential to religious life, 211 ; criticism of view, 212-216. Sabellianism, 75. Salmasius, 246. Schaff, Philip, 89 note, 329 note. Schleiermacher, 110. Schwegler, Albert, "Handbook of History of Philosophy," 136, 377. Science, not in conflict with religion, 230. Semo Sanctis, a Sabine divinity, 327 ; confounded by Justin with Simon Magus, 328 ; discovery of pedestal with inscription to Semo Sancus, 229. Septuagint version, 12. Shedd, W. G. T., 114 ; description of hell, 255. Sherlock, 99. Simon Magus, 328. Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, 9, note. Smith, H. B., 114, 115, 117. Stephen, Leslie, testimony to falla cious character of memory, 339. Strong, A. H., 136, note. Stuart, Moses, 107-113. Tatian's " Diatessaron," 9. Tertullian, 10, note, 61, 62 ; account of John's miraculous escape from death, 324. Theism, an intuition of moral con sciousness, 308. Theology, a science, 217, 257 ; should be allowed full scientific freedom, 218 ; the old, materialistic, 310 ; the new, theistic, 308; the new, spiritualistic, 309 ; the new, distin- INDEX 387 guishes faith as a religious act from belief as an intellectual act, 311 ; the noblest department of philoso phy, 312 ; its golden age in the fu ture, 313. Tradition, unanimity of, not a suffi cient ground of historicity, 322 ; oral, held ground for a hundred years af ter. Christ's death, 380. Trinitarian, versus Unitarian, no longer a live issue, 277, 278. Trinitarianism, the Nicene, four stages of evolution, 24 ; three divisions of history of, 97 ; the " new," 165, 169 ; versus the new Unitarianism, 169-171 ; two opposite forms of, 276 ; traditional dogmatic, how viewed by the new inductive theol ogy, 277. Trinity, the, in the Ethnic religions, 275 ; the Christian, historical, and philosophical origin, 275. 'YirtfoTatrn (concrete being), distin guished from overt a, 54. Yiotorinus, M., 89. Waterland, 100-102. Watts, Isaac, 102. Whiton, J. M., 134, 135. Whittier, hymn quoted, 283. Wilson, "Hulsean Lectures" (1899), 376. Wordsworth, quoted, 264. Zelleb, E., 87. PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON & CO. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. U.S.A. This preservation photocopy was made by the Preservation Department. Yale University Library and complies with the copyright laws . The paper is Xerox Image Elite Paper 25% Cotton- Watermarked. It is alkaline and has a life expectancy of at least 300 years . 1992 YALE UNIVERSITY I a39002 002277268b