ililll I 11 'It! til II II' I Hi ill ¦' II H : : .¦ ¦ iLniBiKjajsEr Bought with the income ofthe Henry W. Scott, Jr. Fund ECCE DEUS STUDIES OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY ECCE DEUS STUDIES OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH o ye whoe'er have understandings sober Ponder the doctrine deep that lieth hidden Under the veil of verses enigmatic. — dante [ issued for the rationalist press association, limited ] THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 623-633 S. WABASH AVE., CHICAGO CONTENTS PAGE Preface ix PART I. THE PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA Orientation i The Dilemma- 4 Argument from Personality 9 Method of the Fourth Gospel 25 The Primitive Misunderstanding- - 31 "Esoterism" in the Gospel 34 Content of the Gospel 45 The Secret of Primitive Christianity 60 The Active Principle of Christianity - 67 PART II. TESTIMONY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT Preliminary - - 77 Witness of Acts - 84 Witness of Revelation and Hebrews - 89 Witness of the Gospels - - - - 95 Jew and Gentile - - 101 Symbolic Interpretation Necessary - - 108 vi CONTENTS PAGE Examples of Symbolism i10 The Didactic Element i25 The Pauline Quadrilateral l32 Addenda : I. Jesus the Lord - r35 II. Diffused Light of Symbolism - 140 III. The So-called Pauline Testimony 146 IV. The Ekiroma - '57 V. The Gospel Portrait 160 PART III. THE PILLARS OF SCHMIEDEL The Bulwarks of Historicism - 177 Eminus 182 Cominus - 189 Conclusion 205 Addenda : I. - 208 II. Casting out Demons - 210 IIL- - 226 PART IV. THE SILENCE OF JOSEPHUS AND TACITUS The Silence of Josephus - - 230 The Silence of Tacitus Addenda : I. 238 Other Pagans : Final Remarks - 2gT 257 IL- - 260 CONTENTS vii PAGE PART V. THE KINGDOM AND THE CALL TO REPENTANCE Statistics - 267 Nature of the Kingdom - 270 Preaching of the Kingdom - 275 Repentance in the Old Testament - 277 Repentance in the New Testament - 281 Conclusion 288 PART VI. " A CITY CALLED NAZARET " Preliminary - - 291 New Testament Use of " Called " 292 Conclusion - - 299 PART VII. (I)SCARIOT(H) = SURRENDERER Form and Meaning of the Word 3°3 Judas = Jud^.us - - 3°9 Addenda: I.- - - - 3*7 II. - - 321 Postscript - - - 327 Index of Passages - - - 345 Index of Names - 35° CORRIGENDA P. I, line 3, for "deuvicinia" read " de vicinia " P. 4, line 7, for " interdependent " read " independent " P. 17, line 22, for" Jusus" read" Jesus" P. 26, line i6,/or"tuberculosic" read " tuberculotic " P. 49, last line, for " gnechische" read " griechische" P. 60, line \%,for " cult of" raw? "cult, of" P. 63, line 18, >r "learning-, and" razrf " learning and" P. 64, line 3 from below, /by " Soloman " read " Solomon " P. 81, line 20, for " nascitur'' read " nascetur " P. 86, line 18, for "wind " read "wing'' P. 94, line 28, for " ixaprlpoixai" read " p.o.pTvpop.0.1" P. ,, line 36, for " Vanens " read " Vannens " P. 103, line 25, for " reasons " read " reason " P. 105, footnote, for "ania," "ani" read 'ania', 'ani' P. 107, last line, for "2 x 2=4" read" 2 x 2=4ii" P. m, line 2, footnote, for "certain man " read " certain young man'' P. ,, line 3, ,, omit"Ae»z" P. 117, line 2C),for "doubly " read " double " P. 127, last Xme, for "mud " read " mid" P. 142, line 15, for "£" read"£ " P. 145, line 2j,for " Maschal " read " Mashal " P. „ last line, for" 115" read" 116" P. 150, line 12, for " capable" read '" capables" P. 159, line 1 , for " ideas " read " idea " P. 171, line 2, for " there the " read " there were the " P. 172, line 6 from below, for " eschatologie " read " eschatologic " P. 191, line 19, for "i^o-ra raiAvrois'' read "e^o-rarai airois " P. 225, line 9, for " web " read " deck " P. 236, line 20, for " human " read" divine" P. 237, line 16, for "Hence" read "For" P. 242, line 25, for " ot " read " to " P. 252, line 4 from below, for " Archd," read" Arche"' P. 304, line 12, for " ^, and " read " ^ and " P. 319, line 2 from below, for " montaine " read " montane." PREFACE The reader of these inquiries into the source and sense of primitive Christianity will not fail to remark that certain matters come up repeatedly for discussion. The lines of thought pursued are numerous and in general mutually quite independent — wherein lies, in fact, in great measure the logical worth of the book, if any such it have — and it is not strange that here and there they should touch or indeed intersect each other. Naturally such points of coincidence are often highly important, and fully deserve the emphasis of repetition. Inasmuch as the path of approach has much significance in argumentation, and as it seemed well to .direct the reader's attention again and again to such nodal and cardinal points, no attempt has been made, in the interest of artistic unity, to reduce these different treatments to a single presentation. It would be unwise to secure an esthetic gain by a logical loss. The author has been at no pains to produce the impression of originality ; on the contrary, he has made open acknowledgment when conscious of any important indebtedness to others. But he feels quite sure that the life of the soul is by no means exhausted in consciousness, and that he may owe unwittingly to others, especially to Volkmar, more than might at first appear. The Marcus of this intrepid truthseeker came to the author's hand nearly a generation ago, some twenty years before he began to approach his present point of view, when he was sunk in Pauline and apocryphal studies, while the ground assumptions of liberal criticism were still accepted by him as entirely unassailable. It was not strange, then, that Volkmar's discourse about Lehr- and Sinnbilder passed by without making much impression, without exciting secret doubts or questionings. Nearly a quarter-century afterwards, when the author's present standpoint had long since been x PREFACE fully attained, and in fact along the paths laid out in Der vorchrist- liche Jesus, as he was busied with renewed study of the Gospels, he was surprised to recognise suddenly that his new interpretations were breathing as it were the breath of Volkmar, though he has never consulted Marcus to ascertain how close in detail the resemblance may be. While, then, what he consciously owes to the indefatigable Zuricher is very small, he takes this opportunity to avow that his unconscious indebtedness may be much larger. But a greater than Volkmar, the noblest and most illustrious of the Church Fathers, following not servilely in the footsteps of spirits and thinkers perhaps still greater, nearly 1,700 years ago affirmed emphatically and repeatedly the imperative necessity of a thoroughgoing symbolic exposition of the Gospels. Herewith is by no means meant that he rejected their recitals as unhistoric — far from it ! — but that a thoroughgoing symbolism cannot be denied, that the sources do not contain pure history, that acceptance of the accounts at face-value is impossible — on all of this it is that Origen insists so earnestly and convincedly. Now, however, if the symbolic sense is the main thing, as this Father so clearly perceived, then the immediate and manifest corollary must deprive the narratives of their seemingly historical content. To depict the progress of the Jesus-cult, to represent in narrative form the revelation to men of the knowledge of God, as a series of highly coloured and dramatically grouped historical incidents — that would be picturesque, beautiful, impressive, yea, vividly instructive and wholly unexceptionable ; under certain (actual) conditions such a procedure was to be recommended uncon ditionally, as alone proper and effective. But to suppose that such events, thus full of spiritual significance, did prosaically happen would be worse than puerile and ludicrous. For reflection can fix itself and dwell on the spiritual content only when the historical investiture is recognised as feigned and unreal ; so lon^ as this latter is accepted as real and thinkable, so long must it reign o'er sense and thought, especially when it is marvellous, and so long must the deeper sense be neglected. As a pure symbolism the miracle of the loaves and fishes might enforce a profound and beautiful doctrine ; as a literal occurrence it could not teach any such truth at all, for it would divert and fasten the attention of PREFACE xi all upon the astounding material prodigy. Hence it is clear that Jesus could not have portrayed his teaching in such pictures, that in every single case the recognition of a symbolic aim entails the surrender of the historical content. It is very hard to believe that Origen did not himself admit this obvious consequence, though he did not openly proclaim it. But while calling attention to this Father's broad recognition of symbolism in the Gospels, we need by no means approve of his allegorical method as applied to the Old Testament, nor adopt his over-refined interpretations of evangelic narratives. Indeed, it seems strange at first that he saw in general so distinctly and in particular so dimly — a puzzling chiaroscuro. But we must remember that he was sundered by at least two centuries from the origin of the Gospel stories, and by a far wider chasm from the spirit that shaped them. His was an Hellenic intelligence, prone to abstractions, set to interpret the product of a mind at least half-Semitic, that busied itself almost exclusively with the concrete. Somewhat wanting in historic sense, he could hardly envisage the conditions of a distant past, and fell an easy victim to the super- subtlety of his age and his race. But it would be a grievous error to attribute his perception of the symbolic element itself to any such lack of historic feeling. For this element is too patent and prominent to escape even the half-opened eye, and is acknowledged in some measure even in the materialising patristic and in conservative modern theology. Among liberals, Schmiedel and Loisy have perceived and empha sised its frequent presence. In his compendious work, Les ftvangiles Synoptiques, epitomising and supplanting whole libraries, the latter displays an unmistakable partiality for the adjective "symbolique"; and in countless places we read, " le miracle figure" or "presage," not only in Luke (the great allegorist, according to Loisy), but even in the (reputedly) clumsy, awkward, and simple-minded Mark. That from the earliest times and in the most uncorrupt Gospel narratives, not merely in the miraculous but also in other portions, there has always been an extensive and important symbolic element cannot, indeed, be doubted. So much at least seems certain. Hence arises the unavoidable question : Where shall we draw the boundary- xii PREFACE line ? How and according to what principles shall we delimit the symbolic from the non-symbolic and authentic ? To answer this query seems to be the inevitable obligation of the liberal critic. Schmiedel has, indeed, met it openly and bravely— with what success the reader may judge after reading this volume. But, in general, the critics appear to have edged cautiously round— at least, not to have given any clear, unambiguous answer. Loisy assures us repeatedly that this or that is undoubtedly authentic, Harnack also likewise, and Wellhausen less often. But one seeks, in vain for the grounds of their confident pronouncements. Never does their judgment appear determined by objective facts, but uniformly by subjective caprice. The critic seems to have thought out or formed some "Jesus-shape" for himself — how, no man can say — but in every case under the guidance of his own temperament and predisposition. His "Jesus-shape" is merely what it seems to him under all the circumstances a Jesus should have been. With this "Jesus-shape" every single feature of the Gospel-Jesus is then carefully compared : if it seems consistent with the imagined "shape," it is accepted as probable; if it seems essential, it is declared certain ; if inconsistent, it is rejected as improbable, or even impossible. But when we ask for the justification of the Shape itself, then, alas ! none is given, none has been, none will be, even unto years of many generations. Without further ado the critic announces Jesus was this, and not that ! But the same can never be proved, can never be made probable. The domain of possible individuality cannot be defined so narrowly, nor so sharply. No one can say whether a mystical dreamer or a strenuous reformer, whether a far-seeing theorist or a stout-hearted man of action, was the more probable. The most various traits of character may be ascribed with equal right to Jesus, compatible and incompatible, — yea, even though directly contradictory ; nor can we ever prove that some were antecedently probable, others improbable, or in truth impossible. Even if any one particular type should seem to be more likely than any one other, it would still be unlikely in comparison with all others possible. It is, in fact, a problem in the theory of combinations : In how many ways can you select n things out of r things ? The number of possible solutions is so PREFACE xiu great that the probability of any one, even the most probable, is only vanishingly small ; that is, we must give up the problem as practically insoluble, unless the solution be sought along a path widely divergent from that hitherto trod. To show such a path, and to follow it some distance, is precisely the goal and aim of this volume. However, it is only the general idea, the method of exegesis, upon which the writer would lay stress. It may well be that in many particulars he has gone astray, while none the less some such exposition is imperatively required. This latter fact shines even through the valiant strivings of Schmiedel and Loisy to prove at least some, however quite insignificant, traits of the evangelic paintings to be purely historic. The important question is not where and in how many details the present writer has erred, but where and in what measure he is right, and what are the legitimate deductions therefrom. Almost every one of his contentions draws with it a long train of results, so that unless they be all repelled the consequences may be very serious. Furthermore, how is it possible to blink this other notable fact, that the historical picture which Harnack, Wellhausen, Loisy, Burkitt, would retain or restore is extremely dim and colourless. With such vague and dull outlines they fail utterly to arouse our admiration, to charm our fancy, to win our love, much more to explain the great religious movement in whose focus it is placed solely for the sake of the long-desiderated explanation — nay, rather it is a Personality scarcely in any respect attractive or impressive, but almost repellent, that these critics in their need have conjured up as the Founder of Christianity. Harnack cannot point to a single incident in the life of Jesus that marks him as an especially eminent or lovable man. See chapter iv of his Mission and Expansion of Christianity. After a brilliant prologue he comes to "Jesus Christ and the World-Mission." But what has he to say of the share of Jesus in this world-mission ? In fact, nothing at all. We read some high-sounding sentences about the preaching of Jesus, how he directed his Gospel exclusively to the Jews — which Harnack is at great pains to prove. But all remains hope lessly dark and nebulous. Harnack mentions no new or weighty definite conception that Jesus introduced, no new principle of xiv PREFACE conduct that he proposed or proved, no new motive, no new inspiration that he breathed into human life— for it had all been there already ; nay, more, what is still more significant, no expressions of human affection, no words of cheer, of comfort, of encouragement in the battle of life, not one single deed of human kindness, tenderness, magnanimity, or self-sacrifice. Even though there be something in the words or deeds of Jesus that might have the appearance at first of modifying these statements, yet, on closer scrutiny, it will be found to demand altogether another interpretation, to have a bearing dogmatic and not biographic, or to be the fiction of a later dramatising fancy. As an example, take the genuinely human and supremely noble prayer on the cross (Luke xxiii, 34) : " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." Here is really a sentiment whereof not only Christen dom but humanity may boast, the like of which we find rarely even in the New Testament, before which even the rebel soul of Rousseau might tremble and bow. Nevertheless, it is a "Western interpolation," as admitted by Westcott and Hort — "we cannot doubt that it comes from an extraneous source "; bracketed in fc$, wanting in B, D, in the Sinaitic-Syriac, and in some old Latin witnesses; "beyond all doubt," says Wellhausen, "it is inter polated." Now, if this, the very best of all in the New Testament, be an insertion, at once the conclusion leaps into our sight : the authors of the Holy Scriptures were well able to invent a Per sonality still greater than that ascribed to Jesus ; and the only reason why the figure of Jesus does not tower up more glorious still must be one of two — either the historic Jesus was not cast in the noblest of moulds, or else the evangelists were not concerned particularly to sketch a model human character, but rather to depict the progress of a "new doctrine," to represent symbolically the triumphant march of the cult of the Jesus. Alas! Harnack and the critical school do not seem to hesitate before this alternative, but nerve themselves to accept a Jesus that does not measure up to the stature of Socrates, nor even of Aristotle. For there is no human action of the Harnackian Jesus that seems to be so beautiful or so noble as that related of the Stagirite. (See p. 127.) In fact, the Saviour of the Berlin professor never lifts himself up to the notion of man as man. From beginning to end he PREFACE xv remains a stiff-necked Jew, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was not even a liberal Jew of that day. Essentially he was a severe critic of the Pharisees, and only after the apparent failure of his message had embittered him did he begin to predict the impend ing judgment on the children of the Kingdom, the rejection of his people, the destruction of the temple, and the admission of strangers to the table of the Father. Nowadays we should call such a preacher an ill-natured, disgruntled dyspeptic. Harnack will not hear of it, that Jesus cherished any idea of a world- mission. This magnanimous thought, he maintains, never arose in the heart of the genuine Jewish prophet, never dwelt in his bosom, never formed any part of the primitive tradition. Still, it was in the world before Christ and after Christ, only not in the cramped horizon of the Saviour ! Naturally, then, Harnack finds it quite impossible to insert either the influence or the personality of Jesus in his own historical picture. In fact, so far from explaining the course of events, the purely human, narrow-hearted Jewish preacher makes everything inexplicable and unintelligible. He is only a disturbing parenthesis, an isolated eddy in the stream of history. Splendidly may Harnack sketch the preconditions of the world-preaching (chapters i-iii), masterfully delineate its progress through the Roman Empire ; but what has the purely human Jesus to do therewithal ? We still wait for an answer. Yea, indeed, Jesus was certainly the content of that preaching — by no means, however, as a man, but solely as a God. Not only does the human Personality play no rdle in this proclamation, but according to Harnack it could merely hinder or annul the world-mission, since such preaching was neither commanded nor intended by the Saviour. Indeed, Harnack bears witness of the Jew-Christians, who remained true to the precepts and the example of Jesus, that "crushed by the letter of Jesus they died a lingering death." Strong and brave words are these, but not too brave nor strong. In Harnack's view the Apostles were distinctly superior to the purely human Jesus. The disciples were greater than the master, the servants than the lord. Nor is this the whole of the matter. At one point, at least, Loisy, in harmony with Harnack, represents Jesus as beyond measure visionary, as in fact insane. xvi PREFACE He thinks that the Saviour undoubtedly spoke the words, " I will destroy this temple, and in three days build it again " (i, 99)' which, as Loisy fancies, were borrowed from the real trial and (of course) transferred to the purely fictitious trial— by night, before Caiaphas (i, 102 ; ii, 599: " ce proces nocturne, qui sans doute n'a pas eu lieu "). Moreover, agreeing with Wellhausen, he ascribes to the Saviour a caution that savours unpleasantly of cowardice: "As he travelled through Galilee and did not wish any one to know it " (Wellhausen). Loisy explains " this incognito " by "the anxiety not to attract the attention of Herod" (i, 93). In general, in estimating the monumental work of Loisy, one may recall his judgment of the net result of the illuminating labour of his colleague in Gottingen, " which, if it clears up many a detail, certainly does not tend to render more intelligible either the life or the death of Jesus." Yes, we may go still further. Not only do the works of this trio of representative critics contribute naught to our understanding, whether of the life or of the death of Jesus, but their marked effect is to void both the one and the other of all significance for the well-attested Proto- Christian movement, and, what is still worse, to rob the personality of the Saviour of all that might inspire love or reverence or even admiration. We may smile at the romantic and brilliantly coloured painting of Renan, but it is in many ways preferable to the dim and scanty pencil-sketching of the later masters. Wellhausen has, to be sure, clearly perceived that his historical Jesus is only a shadow, and destitute of any religious value, and for that very reason almost instantly blurred by the primitive community. Very weighty are the words on the last page of his " Introduction " : " For what is lost with the Gospel, the historical Jesus, as the basis of religion, is only a very doubtful and unsatis factory compensation. But for his death he would never have been historical at all. The impression left by his career is due to the fact that it was not completed, but was abruptly broken off when it had scarcely begun." Similarly Harnack opens the important fifth chapter (op. cit.) with the words : "Christ's death was mightier than his life it could not shatter the belief in him as a messenger sent from God, and thence arose the convic tion ofhis Resurrection." PREFACE xvii Such is the very best that Liberalism has to offer in explana tion of the origin of the Proto-Christian preaching. Was there ever anywhere an all-important phenomenon so insufficiently explained ? Not only is the explanation manifestly inadequate, but it is even self-contradictory. Hundreds of noble and impres sive persons have suffered sudden, premature, and tragic death, but which of them has been instantly preached abroad over the world as arisen from the grave, ascended to heaven, and clothed with all the might, majesty, and dominion of the Most High ? Which of them has been forthwith enthroned as Lord and God, as Alpha and Omega, as Ruler of the universe and co-equal with deity supreme? Nay, the death explains nothing at all. Never could it have been "mightier than the life," had not the life been unexampled, without any parallel, and beyond all imitation. The assumed wonderful effect of the death presumes a still more wonderful — yea, even miraculous — life ; naught else could have crazed and enchanted the disciples in such astounding and unheard-of fashion. The people believed on John also as sent from God ; apparently the impression of his personality in life was quite as deep as that made by Jesus ; his career also was inter rupted just as abruptly ; neither was the belief in him thereby shattered. Nevertheless, his most faithful followers never dreamed that he was re-risen and ascended to heaven, there to be worshipped, seated at the right hand of God. Next to the instantaneous proclamation of Jesus Divine after his supposed death on the malefactor's cross, the most urgent riddle of early Christianity is the practically immediate mission to the heathen, directly against the supposed precept and precedent of Jesus, and without any intelligible origination — a mission that became at once world-wide in its extension and its success. As is set forth in Der vorchristliche Jesus, the preaching of Paul can throw no light on this mystery, for it cannot explain Ananias of Damascus, nor Apollos of Alexandria, nor the Twelve at Ephesus, nor Aquila and Priscilla at Rome. The fact of the primitive worship of Jesus and the fact of the primitive mission to all the Gentiles are the two cardinal facts of Proto-Christianity, both of which must be explained by any acceptable theory of Christian xviii PREFACE origins, both of which are explained fully by interpreting Proto- Christianity as from the start a more or less concerted movement to enlighten the Gentiles, to introduce everywhere the monotheistic Jesus-cult, and neither of which has ever been explained in any feature by the utmost ingenuity in the manipulation of the liberal notion ofthe purely human Jesus. If any one still doubts this, let him read the recent works of Wrede and J. Weiss, and the eloquent championship of the latter's " eschatological " theory by Schweitzer, whose great work, Von Reimarus su Wrede ("The Quest of the Historical Jesus"), is a cemetery of departed hypotheses, including the " eschatological " itself. This is not the place to controvert this latter in detail, nor is it needed, for Schweitzer has to chide Weiss for shrinking back in his later work from his own doctrine, which, in fact, sees in the Jesus merely a Messianic agitator whose enthusiasm, as in Loisy's representation, verged closely on lunacy. Of all the "Jesus- shapes," this seems the least lovely and the most inadequate. It explains neither of the two cardinal facts ; on the contrary, it makes each tenfold harder to understand than before. The eschatological theory is, indeed, the reductio ad absurdum of the liberal purely human hypothesis ; while its logical successor, the psychopathic theory of Binet-Sangle' and his peers, is the reductio ad nauseam. It would seem, then, that the doctrine of the purely human Jesus is but shifting sand ; that it affords no firm footing for liberal critics, no matter how strongly they may emphasise this or that detail as certain or undoubted or even indispensable. All such averments have only rhetorical meaning. How empty they are logically may be concluded from this circumstance : Their sole foundation is the fact that the detail in question agrees with a preconceived conception concerning Jesus. Meanwhile not one step is taken to justify this conception, to prove it necessary, or to show that the incident in question ever really happened. As an example, consider the following : Harnack discusses the thanks giving (Matthew xi, 25-30)— manifestly a hymn, an outpouring of the Christian consciousness in view of the widespread triumph of the Jesus-cult among the Gentiles ; but he holds it is imaginable that his imagined Jesus could have actually said something of the PREFACE xix kind, and therefore expresses himself thus : " The saying thus contains nothing that can be objected to, and may therefore be used as one of the most important sources of our knowledge of the personality of our Lord " (The Sayings of Jesus, p. 220). Mark well the word " therefore," and the implied major premise : All (relevant) Gospel matter containing naught objectionable may be used as a source of our knowledge of the personality of Jesus ; that is, no Evangelist could and would invent a wholly unobjectionable "saying" of Jesus! Why not? Is that really true? What could be less objectionable than the prayer on the cross ? And yet it " is beyond all doubt interpolated." The incaution of this major is plainly evident, and yet precisely this dark thread of hasty assumption stretches itself through the whole Harnack-Loisy- Wellhausen web of argument. Assuredly such a fallacy cannot always escape the keen eye of Liberalism ; and no wonder that Bousset, in a recent address in Berlin, seemed to be concerned to prepare the temper of his hearers for a complete and final abandon ment, at no distant date, of all forms of historicism. In the admirable and priceless book just quoted Harnack calls attention in a noteworthy footnote to the fact, which some doubt- monger might perchance be tempted to exploit, that this most primi tive source (Q) breaks off before the Passion-week ! It may be some satisfaction to the historian of dogma to learn that exactly at this point his foreboding was true and inspired ; yea, that even before it was uttered it had already gone into fulfilment. During more than twenty years it had always seemed to the present writer that the " Sayings " presented the oldest extant literary form in which the Jesus-cult clothed itself, as it gradually took shape among the less orthodox Jewish sectaries in the inner religious circles of the Dispersion. Even the Marcan symbolism seemed to him to be a somewhat later thought, and much of the apparently historical looked like a transparent invention, to visualise or dramatise " Sayings " already current. To be sure, the counter-proof of Wellhausen looks very strong, and his philologic reasoning is always instructive, and sometimes confounding ; but it can hardly avail to overcome the other total impression permanently. How ever, this interesting question of relative priority seems to entail with its answer no especial consequences; perhaps it may not even xx PREFACE be categorically answerable. Inasmuch as both the " Sayings and the Proto-Marcan source originated gradually— none can say in how many years— it may well be, as Julicher has conjectured, that they are in some measure contemporary, each the older, each the younger. In any case, it must strike the careful reader that the whole Judeean ministry does not seem to go with the Galilean together as one piece, but rather looks like an afterthought, an appendix. This feeling has often come over the present writer, and years before he had the happiness to read Harnack's book it was greatly strengthened by the observation of the fact to which Harnack calls attention, that the Logoi-source knows naught of the Passion. For a while the importance thereof was not perceived ; but later, even at the risk of being dubbed absurd and impertinent, the writer was forced to regard the fact as highly significant, since it distinctively suggests, even though it may not prove, that the personal historical form in which the Jesus-cult is clothed in the Gospels has undergone a gradual development. In the first rank would seem to have stood the great idea of the Redeemer, the Saviour-God. The redemption, the salvation, referred to ignor ance of God, false worship, idolatry in its myriad forms. It was only the Gnosis, the true knowledge of God, that could work the cure. And the knowledge could be introduced, communicated, spread abroad by a doctrine only. Hence Jesus was at first presented as the healing God (in Mark and the Gospel according to Hebrews), and perhaps still earlier as the Teacher (in the Logoi-source Q). Moreover, the circuit of this healing, teaching activity (two equivalent aspects of the same cult) was strictly Galilean — i.e., Galilee of the Gentiles was fittingly chosen as the symbolic region, where out of the midnight of the shadow of death the glorious light of the all-saving cult arose. In time the stately doctrine, " the teaching concerning the Jesus," spread itself out, budding and putting forth shoots like a noble tree, on which many wild- olive branches were engrafted — many related, many unrelated propositions were incorporated in the growing doctrinal body, and were more or less perfectly assimilated. Among these was the old-world notion of a "Dying God," which was fused together with the Platonic thought of the crucified Just and the Isaianic idea of the vicariously suffering Servant of Jehovah. Meantime PREFACE xxi the growing estrangement of the Jews suggested that Jerusalem, and Jerusalem alone, was the place where the pathetic fifth act of this drama of " stateliest and most regal argument " should be unrolled. Hence arose the Passion-week as the awful though not originally intended climax, and naturally the Resurrection as necessary epilogue. Accordingly, that Q finds no place for this sublime finale need bewilder no one, and accords perfectly with the view herein set forth of Proto-Christianity, though hardly, if at all, reconcilable with the hitherto prevailing conception. In his valuable edition of the Odes of Solomon the unwearied Berliner, although properly complaining that an "unauthorised dilettante " has "disquieted Christendom," yet rejoices in the fact that the Odes were not earlier published, else the disquieter had certainly perverted them to his own unholy uses. Visibly a case of special providence. This is not the place to discuss these Odes, or the question of Christian interpolation ; but it may be allow able to call attention to a syllogism whereby they are forcibly coerced into rank among the witnesses for the liberal "Jesusbild. " Harnack concedes and underscores that these Odes discover for us a possible source both of the thought and temper, and also of the form of expression, met with in the Johannine Scriptures. The great importance of Harris's find is in this respect clear ; in fact, in reading the Odes, one seems to be moving in the atmo sphere of the Fourth Gospel. " Even in details," says Harnack, " the 'Johannine ' seems to be prepared beforehand in these Odes." However, he does not find therein the "Jesus as he presents himself to us in the purified sources of the Scriptures— i.e., the historical Jesus." Granted. And what does Harnack conclude therefrom? "The historicity and the originality of Jesus appear confirmed anew." A remarkable piece of reasoning. Suddenly there comes to light a long-vanished psalm-book, which attests clearly the existence of a form hitherto unsuspected of intense religious individualism in early Christian or pre-Christian times (50 b.c. to a.d. 67) in a remote branch of Judaism. On one (the Johannine) circle of ideas and conceptions of Jesus this unexpected discovery shows an almost blinding light ; on another (the Synoptic) it sheds scarcely a single ray ; hence it is inferred that no new light can be thrown on this latter ! " The historicity and originality of xxii PREFACE Jesus appear confirmed anew." Consider the syllogism that guarantees this conclusion : — What is attested in the newly-published manuscript (as the thought and feeling of the Johannine Scriptures) cannot be accounted as historical or original with the evangelists ; The purified Synoptic "Jesus-shape " is not so attested in the manuscript ; Therefore this shape may be accounted historical and original (its "historicity and originality are confirmed anew "). From two negative premises a positive conclusion is drawn. It is not so written in approved texts on logic. Why, to-morrow another psalm-book of some other sect may be unearthed, which may illumine the Synoptics quite as brilliantly as these Odes have illumined the Johannines. This leads to the consideration of Dr. Schechter's very recent publication, Fragments of a Zadokite Work. In spite of the great learning and ingenuity that he has expended upon this mysterious book, its seals do not yet seem to be fully loosed. The discoverer himself leaves ample room for differences of opinion. However, of one thing we may be sure, that Margoliouth's premature expo sitions, which sought so eagerly to find in the venerable docu ment some confirmation of prevalent prejudices in favour of the historicity of Jesus, have hopelessly miscarried. Indeed, it is not so easy to take them at all seriously. To identify these Zadokites with primitive Christians, even the genuine Jewish, to discover Jesus himself in the "Teacher of righteousness" (i.e., of exact observance ofthe Law), this indeed calls for courageous criticism. Even the Haggadic, much more the Halachic, parts of this fragment rebel on almost every page against such exegesis. This congregation, in fact, far surpasses even the Pharisees in the strictness of its nomism — e.g., it is declared (against the Rabbinic rule) : " If it (a beast) falls into a pit or a ditch, he shall not raise it on the Sabbath And if any person falls "into a gathering of water or into a place of he shall not bring him up by a ladder or a cord or instrument." Truly this is a righteous ness that " exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees " and possibly Matthew v, 20 may squint towards something of the kind ; but that it proceeded from an historical Jesus or made PREFACE xxiii itself felt in Proto-Christianity is entirely unthinkable. Mar goliouth's whole interpretation is so evidently biassed and made to order that one need dwell on it no longer. With Rabbi Margolis we may rest confident that the date of the origin of the document is definitely pre-Christian (fe-wish Comment, xxxiii, 18, i). We may also accept the judgment of Schechter (p. xxix): "Natur ally all this class of pseudepigrapha is of supreme importance for the history of Christianity, which undoubtedly was the consumma tion of all sectarian endeavour preceding it, and must have absorbed all the hostile elements arrayed against official Judaism." This interesting discovery reveals to us a phase of Jewish sectarianism almost the polar opposite of that revealed in the Odes of Solomon. Now, do these two poles form the whole sphere of non-official Judaism ? Or shall we rather believe that a rich and rank growth flourished in the mid-region ? Certainly this inter mediate realm was ample, and it would go against all precedent and all sound human understanding not to assume the presence therein of intermediate forms. Unless the falcon eye and ruthless hand of the old Catholic Church have done their work only too well, we may expect future researches to throw light on the Synoptics. In any case, even the worst, the lack of such testi monies can militate against the existence of such Proto-Christian sects and ideas only in the same sense and degree in which the well-known " missing links " disprove the general doctrine of descent with modification. The author will very gladly learn from any opponent, who will call his attention to any mistakes in statement of fact or process of reasoning in this volume ; for he cannot doubt that such lapses are to be found therein, especially in view of the circumstances attendant upon both the composition and the publication of his critical works. But not even many such could really weaken the general structure of thought, just as a wall may still remain firm and unshaken in spite of the removal of divers crumbling stones. It is the collective judgment that must finally prevail, and it is to the formation and justification of the same that the thoughtful reader will give his special attention. It seems hardly necessary to add that the sharpest polemic against the views of distinguished critics by no means implies any xxiv PREFACE depreciation of their abilities or their achievements. Precisely as the most perfect flower of liberal criticism have they been chosen as special objects of attack, since they allow the a fortiori argument : If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If unexcelled learning and acumen must yet leave unsolved nearly all that demands solution, what is there to hope from any other efforts along the same lines? Surely the fault lies not in the men, but in the methods, in the postulates, with which the problem has been approached. Such is the author's deepest conviction, and it is exactly the perception of this necessity of a new hypothesis that has emboldened him to enter the arena against specialists far more erudite than he. For it grows daily more manifest that no conceivable keenness or scholarship can ever avail to derive the Proto-Christian propaganda from a single personal purely human focus, even as neither patience nor knowledge nor mathematical adroitness can ever suffice to trisect an angle or to square a circle. The present is a case where the battle is not to the strong, where the weak may confound the mighty. A well-disposed reviewer of Der vorchristliche Jesus has expressed the opinion that the book contains the most and the main arguments at the command of the author. This volume should reveal and correct that error. Let no one suppose, however, that the author's quiver is herewith emptied. On the contrary, the evidences not yet produced seem to him to be both abundant and convincing. " Her strongest-winged shaft the muse is nursing still." W. B. S. New Orleans, April ij, igi2. PART I. THE PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA Longe deuvicinia -veritatis erratis qui putatis Deum credi aut meruisse noxiitm aut potuisse terrenum. — Octavius. ORIENTATION i. When in 1906 Der vorchristliche Jesus was laid before the critical public, it was the aim of the author thereby to invite the attention of scholars to a body of obscure pheno mena that seemed thitherto to have been undeservedly over looked, and to bear very weighty witness touching the most important and the most fascinating as well as the most perplexing of all historical problems — the problem of the origin of Primitive Christianity. The material therein published was in fact only a small fraction of the mass already then assembled, and in manuscript, but still not quite ready for tjie press. The difficulty in securing this readiness was rather of an artistic than of a critical or scientific character. The variety of matter was so great, it had been gathered from so many mutually alien and widely separated fields of research, that only by constant and extreme coercion could it be reduced to anything like organic unity. In fact, the author well-nigh despaired of attaining any such unity, and had planned and brought far towards completion five volumes dealing each with some distinct aspect of the matter. Of these the first was " The Pre-Christian Jesus " (a kind of reconnaissance in force) ; the second (about half written) was to bear some such title as " Gnostic Elements in the New Testament"; the third (also about half written) the title "Behind the New Testament"; the fourth (nearly com plete) would deal with the " Pauline Epistles," especially Romans ; the fifth (hardly then begun) was to consummate the investigation by a treatment of the " Witness of the Gospels." 2 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA 2. Transferred by request in 1906 to a chair of philo sophy, the writer found little time, under the pressure of professional duties, to give to the actual further preparation of these incomplete volumes. Appointed as Delegate of the United States to the Pan-American Scientific Congress held at Santiago, Chile, in 1908, he was compelled for many months to lay aside critical studies. These were resumed in 1909, and it is in some measure the results of such later studies that are now submitted to the judgment of specialists. These results form a first part of the fifth volume already mentioned, which it was not the original purpose to print until the other volumes had been published. The change in the order of publication has been induced by a number of circumstances. 3. In the first place, a careful consideration of all the reviews of Der vorchristliche Jesus that came to hand, as well as of many private communications, showed clearly that the prevailing criticism relied for its support mainly on the Gospels, on the "Jesusbild," the personality supposed to be delineated there in such bold, vivid, impressive, and withal original features as to settle once for all the question of its historicity, and to dull the edge of all counter argument that might be drawn from collateral considera tions. It seemed, indeed, that it would almost be love's labour lost to carry, however successfully, all the outposts of the " liberal " position so long as this central citadel remained unattempted. In fact, it might easily be and almost certainly would be construed as a sign of conscious weakness, of felt inability to meet opponents in their full strength, if the writer should any longer delay to join battle on their own chosen ground, where, to be sure, the final test of argument must in any case be made. 4. To this view of the matter the writer was particularly inclined by the remark of a discreet reviewer, Windisch, in the Theologische Rundschau, xii, 4, 149 : " The author might be in the right, if we knew concerning Jesus only the little that he has touched in his sketches." Here the author's reasonings seem to be definitely rejected, not on their own merits, but in view of supposed more extensive and accurate knowledge touching Jesus, and such is to be found, if at ORIENTATION 3 all, only in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospels. On reading this deliverance, the writer determined to abandon the scheme of publication long fixed in his mind, though it still appeared to be scientifically preferable, and to proceed at once with what might be called the Evangelic argument. The book herewith offered to the public is a partial fulfilment of that determination. 5. The plan then adopted consisted in a minute study, verse by verse, of the Gospels, especially the Synoptics, and first of all the Gospel of Mark. This study had been carried through Mark and half through Matthew, when it was inter rupted and partially suspended by the urgency of profes sional duties. Nevertheless, it was still kept up until the echoes of the recent polemic in Germany began to invade the writer's ears. Then it seemed wise once more to reform plans, not to await the final completion of a verse-by- verse exposition of the Gospels, but to gather up some of the more important results already reached, and to submit them to the judgment of the competent. This course seemed the more to be recommended as these results appeared in them selves sufficient to justify very definite and far-reaching con clusions, and unlikely to be seriously modified in general outline by still further inquisition, though, of course, leaving very many details to be filled in and many interesting and important questions to be put and answered. 6. Such, then, is the genesis of the book that now lies before the reader, a book not at all such as lay and still lies in the mind of the author, but such as the circumstances of the case have moulded it in a measure against his will. Herewith is implied no apology for the content of the work, but only an historical explanation of its form, so different from the cherished conception. 7. It has already been remarked that the inherent diversity of the material under consideration has firmly defied reduc tion to perfect organic unity. Indeed, the author's own research in this region has not been like unto a straight- trunked towering pine of the North, nor even to some single- stemmed though wide-branched evergreen oak of the South ; but rather to some banyan tree of India, that sends down shoot after shoot and strikes them into the earth wherever 4 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA the soil permits, and so spreads its many-footed growth over the whole region round about. Such seems to be the literal state of the case, and it is one that critics might do well to observe carefully. For it is absolutely essential to any proper logical evaluation of the considerations presented in this volume and in its predecessor to note that these con siderations are mutually interdependent though mutually confirmatory items of evidence. They must be refuted singly, it is true, but that is by no means enough. They must also be refuted collectively. The rods must be broken one by one, and they must also be broken in the compact bundle of all. It must be shown that the whole system of facts presented, and the whole mode of their conjunction, whereby they acquire coherence and interdependence, whereby they present themselves to our understanding as a thinkable organic unity — that all this internal harmony and mutual illumination is unreal and illusory, and that it is only when viewed from the opposite pole of opinion, from the hypothesis of the mere humanity of Jesus, that this whole complexus of facts acquires consistency and transparency, and satisfies the reason, whose supreme function it is to reduce the facts of the universe to logical order. 8. Now, it is precisely this duty of appreciation as a whole, of striking a collective judgment, that seems so imperative, and at the same time so disagreeable, to the prevalent criticism. Yet it cannot be postponed nor avoided inde finitely. The mind must accept, sooner or later, one or the other of two opposite conceptions ; must accept it as a whole, not in this or that detail, and must reject the other as a whole, and not merely in this or that particular. THE DILEMMA 9. For there is a certain sufficiently well-ascertained body of literary-historical Proto-Christian facts, and these must be reduced to unity. Chief and supreme among them is the fact of the worship, the cult, oj the Jesus. This fact is all- dominant in the New Testament ; it seems impossible to exaggerate its hegemony. The concept of the Jesus, if we estimate it merely statistically, far outweighs any other. Its THE DILEMMA 5 only rival, the Christ, is left much overbalanced, and in the Gospels is not comparable, appearing almost only as a late intruder. The worship of this Being is the very essence of the New Religion. Strike out this essence, and there is left very little — indeed, hardly anything — that is worth fighting about. Eliminate the doctrine of the Jesus, and what would become even of the Epistle to the Romans ? It would be reduced to a more or less disconnected series of moral, philosophical, theological essays, such as two or more Greek-Roman-Judaic Stoics might have composed. The golden thread that holds them together in unity is a Doctrine of the Jesus. It seems needless to enlarge upon what no one, perhaps, would deny — the regulative moment of the Jesus and the worship of the Jesus for the whole of the New Testament and the whole of Proto-Christianity. 10. That this Being, this Jesus, is presented in the New Testament, and accepted in all following Christian history, as a God is evident beyond argument. It is made clear on almost every page of the New Testament with all the clearness that can belong to human speech. There is no debating with anyone that denies it. But it is equally clear that He is also presented as a man, as conceived, born, reared, hungering, thirsting, speaking, acting, suffering, dying, and buried — and then raised again. How, then, are we to conceive this Being? The answer ofthe present Church, of Orthodoxy, is unequivocal. We must conceive him precisely as he is represented, both as God and also as Man. But suppose this be impossible, in spite of all learned subtleties about the essential divinity of Humanity (which, of course, in a certain sense, may and must be accepted) ? Again the answer of Orthodoxy is unequivocal : though we cannot think it, nor understand it, yet we must believe it none the less ; and this, it is said, is the victory of faith. With this position, so highly respectable and venerable, and in a certain measure so logical and self-consistent, we have at present nothing to do. Right or wrong, for good or for ill, the human spirit has gone definitely and finally beyond it, and it is hopeless to suppose it will ever retrace its steps. Indeed, it could not if it would. The reason of this and the next centuries can no more believe in the God-man (in the orthodox sense) than 6 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA it can believe in the geocentric theory of Ptolemy or the special creations of Linnasus. For reason, constituted as it now is, the God-man is a contradiction in terms, an incon gruity with which it can have no peace, with which it can never be reconciled. The ultramontane is right — to accept this fundamental notion is to abjure reason. Some minds seem able to do this — minds in which there is a rift running all through, a fundamental duality, minds built like ocean liners, on the compartmental plan, with no intercommunica tion between compartments. Such minds obey the laws of universal reason in all matters but the most important. When they unlock their oratory they lock up their laboratory.1 With intellects so constituted we have no controversy in these pages. n. It is only with normally acting intelligence that we are here concerned. Such intelligence must resolve the antinomy God-man into its constituents ; it must affirm the one and therewith deny the other. In view, then, of all the undisputed and indisputable facts, it must affirm one of two opposite theses : Jesus was a deified man, or The Jesus was a humanised God. There is no tertium quid. One of these alternatives is necessary, the other impossible ; one is true, the other is false. Hitherto criticism has with practical unanimity assumed the first alternative, and has lavished its splendid resources of learning and acumen in the century-old attempt to understand the New Testament and primitive Christianity from the standpoint of this assumption. It is not the writer's intention to review, or to refute, or in any way to criticise in detail, any of these elaborate and ingenious essays. The notable fact is that, in spite of all the knowledge and the constructive talent called into play, none of these endeavours has been crowned with success, not one has 1 A letter from one ofthe brightest ornaments of present British philosophy would indicate that the foregoing is stated too strongly. This scholar regards the destruction ofthe liberal Jesusbild as complete, saying : " On the negative side I am entirely at one with you But I feel through all your polemic the presence of a ' neglected alternative.'" This latter is the formula of Chalcedon — " very man and very God." Against such a view we shall neither strive nor cry, nor let any voice be heard in this book. In another volume it may be otherwise. According to B. Russell, learning " to believe that the law of contradiction is false " is " a feat which is by no means as difficult as it is often supposed to be.'' THE DILEMMA 7 commanded any general assent, not one has established itself for longer than a short time or in more than a narrow circle. In this connection the writer may be allowed to quote from his own article on New Testament criticism, written in 1904, and published in The Americana (Encyclopaedia), 1905 : — When so many winged hounds of Zeus thus find that their quarry forever eludes them, the suggestion is inevitable that there is something radically wrong in their method of pursuit, that in some way their finest sense has betrayed them. We hold that the nature of their error is now at length an open secret. They have sought to explain Christianity as an emanation from a single individual human focus, as the reaction upon history and environment of a single human personality ; they have sought " to understand Jesus as the originating source of Christianity. " They have failed, and they must forever fail ; for no such explanation is possible, because no such origination was real. Over against all such attempts we oppose the fact that every day comes to clearer and clearer light, that now flashes continually into evidence around the whole horizon of investi gation ; the fact that was perceived nearly a decade ago, but whose effective proclamation called for the publication of a series of prepara tory investigations ; the fact that the genesis of Christianity must be sought in the collective consciousness of the first Christian and immediately pre-Christian centuries ; that in the Syncretism of that epoch of the amalgamation of faiths, when all the currents of philosophic and theosophic thought dashed together their waters in the vast basin of the Roman circum-Mediterranean empire, was to be sought and found the possibility and the actuality of a new faith of Universal Humanity that should contain something appealing to the head and the heart of all men, from slave to emperor, a faith in which there should be no longer male and female, Jew and Greek, bond and free, but all should be one by virtue of a common Humanity, of the ageless, timeless, spaceless Son of Man. It is as the outcome of this Syncretism, as the final efflorescence of the Judaeo-Grseco-Roman spirit, of the Asiatic - European soul, that Christianity is wholly intelligible and infinitely significant ; the notion that it is an individual Palestinian product is the Carthago delenda of New Testament criticism. 12. Under such conditions, in view of the notorious failure of the thoroughly tested hypothesis of a merely human Jesus, of a deified man, it becomes the unavoidable duty of criticism to test with equal care and thoroughness the single and exclusive alternative, the counter hypothesis of a divine Jesus, of a humanised God. Nor should there be brought to this trial any religious feeling or dogmatic prejudice ; neither, above all, should it be tainted by any odium theologicum. 8 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA The inquiry should be pursued calmly, dispassionately, with scientific caution and accuracy, with no appeal to passion, with no resort to rhetoric, according to the rules of the syllogism and the formula? for Inverse Probability, with firm resolution to accept whatever conclusions may eventually be recommended, and with absolute confidence not only that the truth will ultimately prevail, but that it is also for the highest and holiest interests of humanity that it should prevail, whatever it may be. We must, in fact, remember the noble words of Milton : — And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus, with his two controversial faces, might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple ; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter ? It is, of course, superfluous to argue such self-evident pro positions ; and it would, indeed, seem almost equally super fluous even to state them, had not the recent example of the attacks on Professor Drews, and in less measure upon the present writer, made clear that there is really great need to stress such sentiments with peculiar emphasis. On this point one need not dwell. The animus of the polemic pamphlets in question is plain enough to such as have read them, and to others it were, perhaps, better not revealed. 13. With the substance of these booklets the present writer is in no great measure immediately concerned. The main bulk of the refutation goes against the theories of such as Robertson, Kalthoff, and Jensen, with whom the writer has never united forces, from whom he has persistently held his own thought independent and distinct. Not that he might not learn much from such scholars and thinkers, but that he has preferred not to poach on their preserves ; rather to follow his own paths at his own gait and in his own manner. Spartam tuam exorna has been his motto. Why the critics in question have so preferred to deal with other works rather than with Der vo /'christliche Jesus is a question not without interest, but which he presumes not to answer. There is, however, a certain amount of common ground which ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY 9 nearly every participant in this controversy must traverse. It is hard to avoid speaking of the Personality revealed in the Gospels, of the supposed witness of the Pauline Epistles, and of the testimonies of profane writers. To these should be added the acute argument of Schmiedel touching the Nine Pillars, which many years ago, on its first appearance in the Encyclopcedia Biblica, appeared to the writer, as it still appears, to be incomparably the most plausible plea ever made for the liberal contention. It seems to have figured far too little in the present controversy, and accordingly no small part of this volume is surrendered to its consideration. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY 14. Overshadowing significance attaches in the minds of most to the argument from the Evangelical Personality. It is this that Von Soden has accented so forcefully. It is this to which Harnack makes his appeal. Closely allied there with is the thought that great events of history presuppose and imply great historical personalities ; hence it seems to be inferred that the origin of Christianity as the greatest of historical events implies the greatest of personalities. A strange paralogism ! Even if we granted the conclusion, the question would still remain, But who was that personality? Was it Paul, or Peter, or John, or Mark, or some Great Unknown, like the Fourth Evangelist? Or was it, perhaps, all of these notable personalities working in more or less perfect accord, and producing a total result of which no one, nor two, nor three might have been capable? There seems to be not the slightest reason for doubting that the Proto- Christian period was rich in personality, and in personalities of a very marked variety. But there has not yet been pre sented one iota of proof that the Jesus was one of these persons. In fact, he does not stand at all in line with any of them. Between Jesus and Paul or Peter or John even the most distant parallel is absolutely unwarranted. One might just as well align Jupiter Stator with Fabius Cunctator. Whoever dreamed of worshipping James or John, of praying to Peter as Lord, of casting out demons in the name of Luke the beloved physician, of preaching that Paul had died for io PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA men, or that Stephen had risen from the dead, or that Apollos had ascended into glory ? It seems superfluously manifest that all of these distinguished personalities, the brightness of whose distinction we at this distance may only dimly perceive, stand entirely out of line with Jesus, with whom to compare them would be like comparing a planet with the Newtonian law of gravitation. 15. Such men, be it repeated, were in all probability very able and exceptional characters. If we judge them by the work they accomplished, we must surely admit they were most remarkable. This notability is generally conceded willingly enough to Paul, but rather grudgingly to Peter and James and John1 and the rest — yet without any good reason. The notion that these latter were only ignorant Galilean fishermen, who merely misunderstood the teachings of Jesus and very inadequately reproduced them — this notion is itself the gravest misunderstanding, for which there is not the faintest shadow of justification. The epistle that goes under the name of James is a well-written — indeed, almost learned — disquisition. It contains allusions to matters astronomical and others (as in i. 17, iii. 6 — wheel of birth — and elsewhere) that reveal clearly a cultured intelligence. The letter to the Hebrews is plainly the work of a highly-trained intellect not guiltless of the graces of literary expression. The Johannines proceed manifestly from a circle accustomed to deep musings on philosophic and theosophic themes. The Petrines are not ignorant of Stoical doctrine. Of the Evangelists, Luke has received even exaggerated recognition at the hands of eminent critics ; but as a fervid and impassioned declaimer and rhetorician he is still notably inferior to Matthew, while Mark surpasses all in the rugged strength of his thought and the still depth of his symbolism. The fact is that the New Testament is a wonderful body of literature, and attests unequivocally a high level of mental power and artistic sense in its authors. That the Greek is far from classic signifies nothing, save that the milieu of its composition was half-Jew, 1 Of course, we attach no weight to these or to any other mere names. It is enough that among the Proto-Christians there were many men who thought great thoughts, wrote great writings, and did great deeds — call them what you will. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY n half-Greek ; that much of it was at least thought, if not originally written, in Aramaic ; and that the forms of speech were often loaded with ideas beyond what they were able to bear. 16. When, now, we pass beyond the apostolic circle, we still find men that must have possessed impressive person alities. Consider Simon Magus. It is a stupendous blunder to regard him as a mere charlatan. Harnack speaks (D. G., I. 233, n. 1) .appreciatively of his "attempt to create a universal religion ofthe Most High God." That he belonged to the primal Christian influences seems certain. It is characteristic of the desperation of the ablest liberal criticism that Harnack feels compelled to recognise an influence of Jesus (and Paul) on Simon Magus : " He is really a counter part to Jesus, whose activity can no more have been unknown to him than was that of Paul." " We know that out-and-out new religious organisations were attempted in the apostolic age in Samaria, in the production of which, in all likelihood, the tradition and proclamation of Jesus had already exerted influence " (p. 233). A strange example of prolepsis. According to Acts viii. 5-13, Simon was one of the very first converts outside of Jerusalem, in the first year after the resurrection, and had already, for a " long time " previous, held sway in Samaria. He was also reputed to be the father of heresy ; and, since it was the habit and the interest of the Christians never to antedate, but rather to postdate, all heresies, we may be sure that the date given in Acts is at least not too early, and that Simon's teaching was con siderably pre-Christian. Notice now that he is represented as converted at the first preaching of Philip in Samaria, and as attaching himself devotedly to Philip. The story of his simony is, on its face, a mere invention, like other stories of the heresiographers. The fragments preserved from the Apophasis that went under his name indicate a deep thinker, a kind of pre-Hegelian Hegel, and lead us to believe that we behold in them the ruins of a daring and high-aiming religious cosmogony. Likewise the sentiments attributed to the most ancient Naassenes testify indubitably to bold and compre hensive theosophic speculation. If the systems of these primitive Gnostics had reached us in their entirety, and not 12 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA merely in detached bits transmitted and perhaps often dis figured by hostile hands, it seems in the last degree probable that we should be compelled to yield them a large tribute of respect as earnest religionists and no mean thinkers. 17. When, now, we descend to the first half of the second century, we are confronted by three names of veritable heroes of philosophic-religious speculation — Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion. It signifies nothing that they were all heretics. Such, too, were Bruno and Huss and Luther and Melanchthon and Zwingli and Calvin and Knox, and who knows how many others? Such, too, at least in a measure, was the oceanic Origen. Of the pre-eminence of these three, not to mention many others of whom we know, there can be no question. With regard to the second, it is enough to read the testimony of the Fathers and the judicious appreciation by Harnack. The overshadowing pre-eminence of Marcion is even more incontestable. On the whole, he seems to have been the greatest religious figure of that era. Apparently, however, both he and Valentinus were excelled in profundity of thought by Basilides, of whom we hear hardly so much, most likely because the depths of his thinking were less accessible to the search of the heresy-hunters, and because he made less appeal to the general intelligence. But it seems impossible to read carefully the few fragments that remain of his numerous works without feeling oneself in the presence of something very like philosophic-religious genius. It is a well-known merit of Harnack's Dogmengeschichte that it recognises unequivocally the intellectual superiority of the Gnostics and their decisive significance for scientific theology : " It is beyond doubt that theologie literature had its origin among the Gnostics " (p.c. p. 230, n. 1). The general result, then, is that, in spite of the deplorably fragmentary state of the surviving evidence, and in spite of the painful misrepre sentation that meets us at every turn, it is impossible not to recognise the two centuries 50 A.C.-150P.C. as extraordinarily prolific in commanding religious personalities. There seems, indeed, to have been almost a plethora of theosophic genius. Nor is there any compelling reason why we should set the year 50 a.c. as an upper limit. We might very well throw this limit back one hundred years or more, into Maccabean ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY 13 times. Information is, indeed, wanting ; but there is no improbability in such dating. Moreover, there is no reason for supposing that those early thinkers — the Proto-Naassenes, for example — were in any way inferior to their successors and expounders, such as Paul, Peter and John, Simon, Menander, Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, and the rest. In fact, the analogies of history might lead us to believe they surpassed all their followers, if not in elaboration of detail, yet at least in elemental strength and in boldness of outline. There may very well have been some such succession as that of .^schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. To the writer's mind, the Old-Christian literature, in particular the New Testament, suggests irresistibly vast sunken continents of thought, over which the waves of two thousand years of oblivion are rolling, with here and there grey or green island peaks emerging, a wondrous archi pelago. Herewith, then, the contention of Haupt and Harnack and their peers, that the new school neglects the great historical factor of personality, seems to be completely refuted. We do not overlook nor omit this factor ; on the contrary, we insert it in far higher potency than do our opponents. 18. But someone will say that we employ many person alities, whereas there is need of a single all-controlling personality. This latter proposition we deny in toto and with all emphasis ; and for various reasons, each in itself sufficient. It is not true that the great critical events and movements of history have been always or even generally determined by single personalities ; it has often happened that there has been no one all-dominating individuality, but that several or even many have conspired in the expression of some one over-mastering ideal. Take the case of the French Revolution. How many leading spirits, all measur ing up nearly to the same line, not one shooting up into any very great elevation either absolutely or relatively ! Not until the Revolution was accomplished and had ceased wholly to move forward did the wonderful Corsican appear and begin to roll it backward. 19. Here in the New World we celebrate two events as of world-historical importance: the Revolution of 1776 and the 14 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA Civil War of 1861-64. In neither of these does any single personality tower up in overshadowing proportions. Wash ington and Lincoln were officially most conspicuous, and by some are regarded as pre-eminent; but at most they were only slightly taller than numbers of their peers. Consider the Renaissance. What a long line of giants march in the first rank ! Possibly Leonardo is the most perfect in his proportions ; but no one can claim for him that he was the ruling spirit. Consider even the case of the great Reforma tion. Luther towers herein conspicuous ; but he was by no means without precursors, by no means without peers. Indeed, his personality would seem to have been in many ways over-estimated. This thought need not be pursued further. 20. Of course, it is not for an instant denied that great single personalities may lie behind and initiate great world- historical movements, though they can never do this except where the springs are already set, the train laid, and all the necessary pre-conditions already arranged in the antecedent actually existing historical circumstances of the case ; but where such pre-arrangement is already complete, then it is not true that a single determinate personality is either always necessary or even generally actually present. The initiative may and often does actually proceed not from one but from many nearly co-equal individualities. 21. This is not nearly all, however. In the case actually under consideration there is a high antecedent probability that it must have proceeded not from one, but from many. For if it had proceeded from one single personality even half so dominant as the prevailing theory supposes Jesus to have been, then the movement would have had some very distinct and unmistakable unity, some entirely unambiguous imprint of this one individuality. Of course, it is true that great teachers have been misunderstood in many minor details. There are even now several theories as to the central aim of the Critique of Pure Reason. Men may perhaps wrangle for ever over the interpretation of Plato or of Spinoza. But such cases are not nearly parallel to the one in hand. These strifes concern matters of detail or else of extreme subtleties of thought, where either language was inadequate to exact expression, or else the thinker had not himself come clearly ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY 15 into the light, or perhaps in the course of his own intellectual development had fallen into some inconsistencies such as naturally attend upon growth. None of these explanations will fit the case in hand. In a ministry that must have lasted at most only two or three years there could not have been any notable incongruences due to gradual evolution. The matters were not metaphysical subtleties hard to think, harder to express, easy to misstate and misapprehend. Nevertheless, the great patent obtrusive fact is that by supposition at least 150 years of unintermittent strife followed upon the preaching of this single personality. From the very start he would seem to have been understood or mis understood in an endless variety of ways. Nor is it possible to detect in his supposed teaching any bond of individuality, any stamp of a single incomparable personality. The impressive fact, admitted even by the liberal critics them selves, is that Christianity is pre-eminently not single- natured, but is above all else syncretic. There is, indeed, a clear and unmistakable thread of unity running through the whole doctrine, the whole propaganda, which has in fact held Christendom together in a kind of unity from that day to this — namely, the worship of Jesus as God, the doctrine that Jesus was Lord, in some way one with Deity. Cut this cord of union, and the whole body of doctrine unravels and falls to pieces, the whole distinctive structure of our religion fades away and vanishes. If Jesus be mere man, then he is only one of many ; he takes his position side by side with Socrates, Mohammed, and others, and it may be that the only reason he seems so grand and so beautiful is because he looms upon us from the horizon of history : his form may be enlarged and his features softened by the mist and the distance. That a system of world-religion should have as its permanent distinguishing mark the pre-eminence accorded to any mere man seems to be infinitely preposterous. 22. This, however, is not the main point in mind, which is that this dogma, which alone imparts essential and age- lasting unity to the Christian teaching, is precisely the dogma that the critics themselves cannot attribute to this unique teacher. If Jesus were a mere man, we cannot think of him as himself believing that he was God or Lord, nor of 16 PROTO-CHRISTIAN PROPAGANDA his teaching the same to his disciples. This dogma, then, must have been a later accretion to his original doctrine. But this doctrine, this worship of the Jesus as divine, is the one infrangible bond of unity in the countless variety of creeds of Christendom. And this, we repeat, is precisely what could not have proceeded from this one Personality ! 23. Here, then, we are met by a double question : How shall we account for this golden thread of union that has held together for so many centuries the complex web of Christendom ? How shall we account for the infinite and immediate lack of unity (this thread excepted) if the teaching indeed proceeded from a single incomparable teacher? 24. Hereto the answers given by the new theory are exceedingly simple and entirely satisfactory, while no answer ever has been given, and apparently none ever can be given, by the older theory, which we here reject. We affirm, namely, that the worship of the One God under the name, aspect, or person of the Jesus, the Saviour, was the primitive and indefectible essence of the primitive preaching and propa ganda. Infinitely though they may have varied from place to place and from time to time in various particulars, the original secret societies were united in one point — namely, the worship of the One God under this name or some nearly equivalent name and aspect. In fact, the terms "The Nasaree" and "The Saviour"1 seem to have vied at first with "The Jesus"; and there may very well have been — and admittedly were — other terms, such as " Barnasha," "Baradam," "Son of Man," "Mighty Man," "Man from Heaven," "Second Adam," and the like, that were preferred here and there. This early multiplicity of designations testifies eloquently to the primitive wide-rootedness of the cult, and is scarcely at all explicable in terms of the prevailing hypothesis. But there were abundant reasons why the name Jesus should be the Aaron's rod to swallow up all other designations. Its meaning, which was felt to be Saviour, was grand, comforting, uplifting. The notion of the World -Saviour thrust its roots into the loam of the remotest antiquity ; it made powerful appeal to the universal 1 6 Nafapcuos, 6 2wri}p. ARGUMENT FROM PERSONALITY 17 consciousness. A Saviour was then and there, all around the Mediterranean, The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire. On this point one need not dwell, for the reader may be supposed to be familiar with the relative writings of Soltau and others, and especially with the compendious treatment of Lietzmann in his Der Weltheiland and of Hoyer in his Heilslehre. 25. The word Jesus itself also made special appeal to the Jewish consciousness ; for it was practically identical with their own Jeshua', now understood by most to mean strictly Jah-help, but easily confounded with a similar form J'shu'ah, meaning Deliverance, Saviour. Witness, Matthew i, 21. Moreover, the initial letter J, so often representing Jah in Hebrew words, must have powerfully suggested Jehovah to the Jewish consciousness. Hardly less direct was the appeal to the Greek consciousness. The word 'laofiai means I heal; the future forms (Ionic and Epic) are 'I^rr-o/Kit, lr)