\Ats(C.V

"I give ihe/e Boah
for Hut founding of a. College in iHtr ColotLy*''

A HISTORIC VIEW
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

A HISTORIC VIEW

OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT
THE JOWETT LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE
PASSMORE EDWARDS SETTLEMENT
IN LONDON, 1 90 1

BY
PERCY GARDNER, Litt.D.

¦ ' It has to be considered whether the intellectual forms under which
Christianity has been described may not be in a state of transition and
resolution, in this respect contrasting with the never-changing truth of the
Christian life."
' ' Before we can make the Old and New Testaments a real part of
education, we must read them, not by the help of custom and tradition, in
the spirit of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary
laws of human knowledge. " Benjamin Jowett.

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1901

PREFACE
Four years ago the Council of the Passmore Ed
wards Settlement in London founded a lectureship
in memory of the late master of Balliol College,
Benjamin Jowett, for the promotion of " the study
of the Bible and the history of religion, in the light
of the best available results of criticism and research."
The present set of lectures is the third delivered
on the Jowett Foundation ; the previous lecturers
being Professor Charles of Dublin and Professor
Adam Smith of Glasgow.
The quotations on the title-page are sufficient
proof that the method and the objects of the lectures
here published would have commended themselves
to Mr. Jowett.
These lectures are printed as they were delivered,
with a few slight alterations and expansions. Since
I wrote them I have read Professor Harnack's
Wesen des Christenthums ( What is Christianity ?)
It is to me a great satisfaction to find that my
historical views in most cases closely agree with
those of so eminent a historian — notably my views
as to the miraculous element in the life of Jesus,

vi PREFACE
the origin of the Fourth Gospel, and the relation of
Greek to Hebrew elements in the early Church.
Where I most completely differ from Professor
Harnack is in the view of inspiration.
It is obvious that in eight lectures it is possible
only to give a slight outline of so vast a subject as
the origin of the New Testament. Most of the
positions here taken are supported at greater length
in my Exploratio Evangelica (1899), to which work
I must needs refer readers who find the exposition
now placed before them too slight.
PERCY GARDNER.
Oxford, August 1901.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I

Historic Methods and Christian Documents
Some preliminary discussion of method is necessary : that which we shall
adopt is the method of historic science, I. — Science is ordered knowledge,
4. — Scientific method as applied to history consists mainly in three
things: (i) rigorous criticism of ancient authorities, S ; (2) the compari
son with existing fact whenever possible, whence arises the comparative
method in historic investigations, 7 ; (3) the acceptance of evolution.
But in history the theory of evolution cannot be so strictly applied as in
biology, nor is law so rigid because of the disturbing force of human
personality, and the Divine power which works through it, 12. —
Historic science destructive of many existing beliefs, such as those of a
physically miraculous origin of Christianity and the infallibility of the
Bible, 16. — It tells in different ways, but with equal stress, against the
doctrines of the Roman and the Reformed Churches ; but the latter are
more flexible, ig. — The Reformed Churches will be obliged to trust to
their citadel of Christian experience, and reconsider their views of
Christian origins, 21. — The task of these lectures is not merely destruc
tive but constructive, 28. — The first step is to lay down a psychologic
view as to the rise and intellectual embodiments of religion, after which
we will proceed to consider the facts of the Christian origin in a broad
historic fashion, not in the way of special or textual criticism, 29.-^
We shall find in sum that the writings of the New Testament are based
upon Christian experience, but often debased by an admixture of false
theory. Recent work on historic lines in Germany, France, and Eng
land, 32.

viii CONTENTS
LECTURE II
Revelation and its Embodiments
Preliminary necessity of sketching the psychology of religion, 35. — Modern
observation shows the predominance in human nature of will and the
active powers over thought. Quotation from W. James, 37. — The
world also is the manifestation of an active Power, revealed in nature
on one side, and personality on the other. The respective functions
of ethics and of religion, 40. — The history of religion is the history of the
gradual revelation to man of the Divine will, which appears in history
as a series of Inner impulses working through individuals or societies,
and taking outward embodiment in ritual, organisation, and thought, 44.
— It is with intellectual embodiments that these lectures deal. Of these
embodiments the most primitive is the myth, which later gives way to
parable, 51. — In relation to time past, Divine impulses take shape in
the writing of history, not actual but ideal, 53. — In relation to time
future, they appear in prophecy, which is no mere soothsaying, but
which sees the future in the existent, 57. — In relation to time present,
they appear either in parable, or in doctrine, which latter being adapted
to a given intellectual atmosphere, soon becomes unsuited to its sur
roundings, 61. — To every age its own embodiment of the Divine ideas
seems final ; but in fact the outward form passes away, and the spirit
only survives, 65.
LECTURE III
The Historic Founder of Christianity
Christianity cannot be divorced from history ; but all religious history is full
of subjectivity, 70. — Nor does the inspiration of writers guarantee the
accuracy of their knowledge either of nature or of events, 72. — ^The
materials for an objective life of Jesus do not exist. Rhys Davids on
Buddhist, and Goldziher on Mohammedan origins, 75. — Since the
teaching of Jesus as given in the Gospels is far more authentic than the
events they record, we begin not with Mark, but with Matthew and
Luke, 78. — The most authentic of our documents is the Lord's Prayer,
and this gives the key to the teaching of Jesus, dwelling specially on
the doing of God's will in the individual life and in the world, 80. —
The idea of individual devotion arises out of the Pharisaic religiosity ;

CONTENTS ix
that of the righteous society out of the Jewish expectation of a kingdom
of God. In like manner the Jewish expectation of a Messiah was trans
formed, 84. — God's will as revealed in the laws of nature and to the
conscience, 86. — Here is indeed the essence of all religion : in Christianity
it is combined vrith the principle of inwardness, and set in an atmosphere
of emotion, 88. — Love to one's neighbour is by Jesus subordinated to
love to God, gi. — This last is the principle of His religion, and all
positive teaching subordinate to it : such teaching is throughout in the
relative key, often expressed in parables, sometimes in direct rules of
conduct, 94. — In the setting of it, the temporary and material scarcely
exists ; doctrine, ritual, and organisation are wanting, g^. — As to the
person of Jesus, apart from His teaching, we have no sufficient evidence
for objective views : the views of sacred writers and of the Church were
formed on a basis of experience, and are not historically valid, 99.

LECTURE IV
The Messiah of the Synoptists
Reasons for writing the Gospels may be gathered from Acts, 103. — There
were in the early Church two schools, the narrower or more Judaic, and
the broader, the extremes being James and Paul, 106. — The ideas of
the Founder were expressed by both schools, by the narrower in history
and prophecy, by the broader mainly in doctrine : from the Jewish
school come the three Gospels and the Apocalypse, from the broader
school the Fourth Gospel, Pauline Epistles, etc., 107. — The two great
thoughts of the Apostles in relation to their master : ( i ) His place in the
historic plan of God, and (2) His ascendancy over men, were worked out
in controversy with the Jews, and limited by local and temporal condi
tions, log. — The first of these conditions was Messianic prophecy, to
which the Founder's life had to conform, 112. — Examples of various
ways of proceeding, adapting prophecy to suit facts of the life, and
adapting facts of the life to suit prophecy, 119. — The feeling which
underlies this process, the belief in an evolution of religion, and con
tinuity between Jewish and Christian revelation is true, and valid
always, 124. — The belief in the second coming : Did it arise out of
statements of the Founder or from the adoption of Jewish Eschatology ?
So far as we can discern, it seems to come from the latter source, 127.
— Jesus seems to have held the view that prophecy consists in deeper
observation of fact, and not the apocalyptic views of the early Christians,
129. — The Apocalypse. In the main a Jewish work, with a thin veneer
of Christianity, 137.

X CONTENTS
LECTURE V
The Synoptists and Miracle
A second tendency of the Synoptists was to place their Master's life in a
setting of wonders : this in part a survival of animistic views of the
world, 139. — We must distinguish mere wonders of healing from miracle
proper, 141. — It appears (i) that Jesus wrought cures by faith-healing,
(2) that he attributed disease to diabolic agency, 142. — But as regards
miracles proper, we observe (i) All nations, Greeks, Persians, Indians,
Arabs, have attributed such to great leaders, dead or living ; the same
tendency is conspicuous in the mediaeval Church, 145. — (2) In the case
of Jesus, the number of miracles attributed to Him is very small, and
He seems to have repudiated miraculous powers, 155. — The evidence
produced for miracles proper is insufficient, 158. — Examples in which
we see clearly the origin of such stories. Slight importance attached to
miracles by Clement and others, 159. — More important in the history
of Christianity than miracles wrought by Jesus is the miraculous setting
of His birth and death, 161. — The supernatural birth narrated in a not-
consistent fashion in the Gospels, and an earlier view seems to be that
of adoption at Baptism, 163. — The resurrection of the body not sup
ported by adequate testimony, 165. — Attitude of some modern writers,
168. We must note that under the imperfect setting of the Gospels
lie two great Christian ideas : under the use of prophecy the idea that
Christ was born from the beginning of the world ; under the belief in
miracle, the predominance of the spiritual over the material, 171.

LECTURE VI
The Logos Doctrine of the Fourth Evangelist
We have next to speak of the rendering of the Christian ideas in the broader
school, first by the Fourth Evangelist, then by Paul, though in point of
time Paul comes first, 173 — Evangelist and Apostle are alike in that
they interpret the Founder in the light of some of the fundamental
religious ideas preserved in the mystic religions of the Hellenistic world,
174. — Authorship of the Fourth Gospel belongs to the second generation
of Christians, to whom Christ was an experience rather than a memory.

CONTENTS xi
It shows (i) correct traditions as to some events of the life of Jesus ; (2)
dominated by an intense feeling of His exalted nature, 181. — The writer,
as is proved by his style, clearly composes speeches for his Master, 185.
— Examples, 186. — He is not free from some of the limitations of the
Synoptists, 194. — There are also weaknesses in his philosophic views,
which are essentially Platonic, and tend to place knowledge above a
virtuous will, but this perversion is superficial, 196. — He also naturally
regards Jesus Christ as agent in the creation : a view for which in
modem times we substitute a teleological one, 201. — In spite of these
defects, the writer is an admirable theologian, and baptized into Christ
some of the profoundest beliefs of universal religion, 204. — To blame
the Evangelists for conforming to the literary habits of their age is
absurd.

LECTURE VII
The Christianity of St. Paul

Paul, the chief source of Christian doctrine, 208. — His vividness and human
nature, 210. — We must judge of him from his Epistles rather than from
Acts, 211. — His knowledge of the life of Jesus very imperfect: his
own experience far more interesting to him, 212. — What then was his
relation to the Founder ? It was a continuity of life, and the spirit of
Jesus Christ dominated him, 215 — Paul's doctrine not a thought-out
system, but an expression in intellectual terms of an experience lighted
up by flashes of inspiration, 216. — His weakness lay in his Rabbinical
use of the Old Testament, and in the imperfection of his scientific out
look, which tells greatly in the formation of doctrine, 220. — Examples :
the spiritual body, the origin of evil, the second coming, 222. — Paul's
Christology set forth in his own words, 227. — He was a born missionary
and organiser ; and all his doctrines, such as those of Baptism and the
Lord's Supper, of the Church, of justification, had to do with the actual
Ufe of the Christian society. They were worked out in conflict, first in
the heart of Paul himself, then in the Church, 230.— Their close con
nexion with fact has made them long-lived ; they are no speculative
construction, 233. — The £:pistle to the Hebrews, 234. — The unknown
writer has lighted on a vein of gold in the very ancient custom of pro
pitiatory sacrifice, which he baptises into Christianity, 235 — To him
also is due the formulation of the doctrine of Jesus Christ as mediator,
236.

xii CONTENTS
LECTURE VIII
Summary and Inferences
Summary of the preceding lectures, 241. — Their great lesson is the distinction
between underlying reality and temporary expression, 242. But every age
must clothe the lasting truth in some forms, and we must see if our
argument has given us any suggestions as to the kind of expression
suited to the present age, 250. — Outline of the recent history of religious
thought in Germany, 251. — It starts from the Kantian philosophy.
Schleiermacher ; the school of Ritschl ; Lipsius, 253. In England there
have been great religious writers and movements, but they have been
poor on the side of systematic thought, 259. — Three points are suggested
as to religious thought in our days : ( I ) the history of the Church must
be treated as a development, and an inspired development, but we must
take the whole history of the whole Church, 262 ; (2) the physiological
view of the will, and the relativity of knowledge, must have far-reaching
effects on the formulation of doctrine, especially doctrine as to the person
of the Founder, 265 ; (3) the doctrine of the Kingdom of God appeals
with special force to an age which begins to regard society as an
organism, 270.

LECTURE I
HISTORIC METHOD AND CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS
To every one who has passed through a serious
schooling in the study of ancient history, it must
needs come home that in that province of history
which belongs to early Christianity all the methods
of historic research are commonly set at naught
and its principles daily violated. There is a
general consensus among the mass of theologians
that when Christian history and doctrine are con
cerned the ordinary canons of evidence lose their
applicability, — that the eyes must be accustomed to
a non-natural light, and look at the literature and
the history of the early Church as if it were some
thing that stood quite by itself, and out of relation
to all else going on in the world.
It is the purpose of the present lectures to
oppose this tendency, — to try to show the events
of early Christian history as phenomena among
phenomena — important, venerable, inspired, yet not
standing outside the range of historic method. In
taking this view, though I am opposing the ordinary

2 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
tendencies of English theology, I am not of course
in any way taking a new departure. Many religious
historians and teachers, in England and in other
countries, have travelled on the road which we are
to pursue, — some with rapid and confident steps,
some hesitating, fearing, constantly looking back
ward. In England we have been somewhat late
in taking this road. One of the earliest to try it
was the man in whose honour these lectures were
founded, Benjamin Jowett. " Interpret the Scrip
ture," he wrote, " like any other book. There
are many respects in which Scripture is unlike
any other book ; these will appear in the results
of such an interpretation." This principle he
fully recognised, if in acting on it he was in
great measure hampered by a certain distrust of
historic research, which made him timid. He
handed on the task to a man of greater courage
and greater literary skill, Matthew Arnold, whose
admirable gift of style has perhaps done more than
anything else to make the general results of historic
criticism of the New Testament familiar to the edu
cated readers of England and America. Arnold
was indeed deficient, as he often playfully con
fessed, in the matter of system and philosophic
basis. Yet he is the wise guide who, more than
any great English writer, has seen in true per
spective the way to the celestial country. He
has shown the path which we must follow if we
would win back our Bible, if we would remove the
mists of convention and unreality which hide from

lect. L CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 3
us the pure forms of the living Church, and the
essential character of undying religion.
Since I claim to represent a method, there lies
before me a duty which cannot be avoided. We
must not at once approach the subject of these
lectures, but must spend some time in surveying
the ground, in making clear our purpose, in cal
culating our resources. I am obliged to utter a
preliminary discourse on method. A discourse on
method ! — the phrase has a tedious sound. But
we must remember how the history of modern
philosophy opens with a discourse on method by
Descartes, and that a dissertation on method is one
of the most suggestive of the works of Coleridge.
However it has come about, it seems that in our
day none of the great nations of the world is so
wanting in exact method as our own. It was by
superiority in practical methods that not very long
ago we dominated the commerce of the world. But
other nations have moved faster than we have, and
now it is by superior method that Germans and
Americans are making inroads on our foreign trade.
It is by scientific method that the universities of the
Continent surpass those of England in the produc
tion of learned work. Let me then try to bring
method into the part of knowledge with which I am
to deal in these lectures.
The method which I intend to pursue is that of
historic science. But I must not move too fast :
explanation is needed. To an English ear the
very phrase " historic science " is unfamiliar, per-

4 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
haps paradoxical. Among us, unfortunately, the
word science has drifted away from its reasonable
and wider sense. Almost always when we speak
of science we mean the knowledge of the material
world — chemistry, physics, biology. But science is
but the Latin word for knowledge ; it can mean
only knowledge ranged and ordered and made
methodic, whether it be knowledge of things
material, or of man, of documents, or of society.
All knowledge gained by observation and experi
ment, when we have properly digested and ordered
it, becomes part of science. Archaeology, philology,
psychology, economics, sociology, are all branches
of science, quite as much as are chemistry and
physiology. This is, indeed, fully recognised in
the universities and academies of the Continent.
Foreign academies of science are usually divided
into two branches, of which one deals with the
physical and biologic sciences, the other with the
sciences of which man is the subject, the historic
and psychologic sciences.
The question is not merely one of the use of
words, but of logic and method. Science is
ordered knowledge. Knowledge which is not
ranged and ordered, however extensive it may
be, is not science. A man may hold in his
head the contents of a whole library, and yet
know nothing scientifically. And however care
fully ranged and ordered a man's views may be,
they do not make science unless they are really
known ; that is to say, not taken from authority

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 5
or tradition, but based on observation or evidence.
The great schoolmen, though most methodic in
their metaphysical systems, were not scientific,
because they did not distinguish what is known
from what is not in fact known. Theologians who
build systems on texts of the Bible reach no scien
tific result, however methodic be their procedure, for
their basis is not knowledge but authority.
This is perhaps scarcely the place or the time
for a logical and detailed inquiry into the change
which has come over historic studies during the
century which has just passed away. It is a change
as great and as momentous as has taken place in
the sciences which deal with nature. And there
can be no question that it is the rapid and startling
progress taking place in the physical sciences which
has reacted upon and stimulated those which deal
with man. I must content myself with trying to
make clear three ways of thought which have
passed from physical into historic studies. These
are : first, criticism of authorities ; second, reverence
for observed fact ; and third, acceptance of evolu
tion. In regard to the third of these changes in
our historic outlook, I must add a word of caution ;
for it is undoubtedly possible to follow evolutionary
methods too crudely in the human domain, and
such rashness leads to results which may be de
plorable. On the first point, the criticism and consequent
shrinking of literary authorities, it is needless to

6 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
say much ; for no one can doubt that, whether for
good or for evil, it is one of the most notable signs
in the intellectual world. An age which has learned
the inadequacy of the opinions of great men of past
times in regard to the facts of the visible world,
is quite ready — often too ready — to distrust the
wisdom of bygone ages in all things. As the wise
author oi Natural Religion has observed, in our day
the commentator has quite lost the rank which he
used to hold, because we are apt to doubt whether
ancient books are worthy of careful comment.
But here at once becomes clear a great differ
ence, in regard to their use of writers of past times,
between the sciences of nature and experiment
and those which deal with history. When we can
observe and test for ourselves, we have the less
need to rely upon statements contained in books.
But in history the testimony of ancient writers
is absolutely necessary : we cannot usually bring
past events to the test of sense — we can only dis
cover what is told us about them. Does not the
shrinking of authority, then, tend rather to depress
historic studies in comparison with those which deal
with things which can be seen and felt, than to alter
historic methods ?
This is undoubtedly one aspect of the matter.
Some scholars who have divided their attention
between the study of nature on one side and that
of history on the other, have declared that in nature
they have found only God's truth, and in history
only man's lies. Charles Kingsley even gave up,

LECT. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS ^
for some such reason, his professorship of history at
Cambridge. But it is by no means necessary to
follow so far a natural feeling. If historic results
are more vague and less trustworthy than those
attained in chemistry or physics, yet man is a more
interesting object of study than are gases and elec
tricity, and he cannot be content to stand as a par
venu without a known past in the great world of
which he is master. It is quite clear that history
cannot be given over as a prey to mere scepticism.

II
We can rescue history from any such risk by
insisting on a distinction. In history, as in physi
cal science, we must try to supplement the waning
power of authority by an appeal to fact. And
fact, real fact, in history is not only the events
of the past, as to which we can seldom reach
complete certainty. Nor are the accounts which
historians give us of the events of their own
times by any means always fact, if by fact we
mean what really took place in this world of ours.
But there is a sense in which every document is
a fact. There it stands, visible and readable :
it is a reality which we cannot get rid of, but
which we have to explain. And the accounts
which it contains of past events are also all fact,
in the sense that they were by the historian
accepted, and that they became part of his mental
furniture. The simplest way of accounting for

8 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
them is that they are transcripts from realities ;
but that is by no means the only way of accounting
for them. There are many other possibilities ;
and in judging of other possibilities we have to
consider the author's means of knowledge, his
character, the mental atmosphere by which he was
surrounded, the literary habits of the time, and
many more such circumstances.
As an example we may take the account in
Thucydides of the siege of Platsea. Grave doubts
have been expressed by scholars whether that
account is an accurate transcript of facts. Here
the geography of Platsea, which can be studied on
the spot, is an invaluable touchstone for the discern
ment between accuracy and inaccuracy in the writer.
But, whatever be the end of this controversy, at
any rate we have the fact that Thucydides, being
a writer of such and such character and tendencies,
and with such and such means for discovering the
truth, thought that the siege of Platsea ran this
course. In place of external fact of history, we
have in the last resort psychological fact as to what
was believed to have taken place. To pass from
the psychologic to the external fact is precisely the
task which modern historians find set before them,
and which with very various degrees of success they
attempt. Thus the psychologic element in history
is rapidly growing in importance.
Perhaps this may be made clearer by a com
parison drawn from astronomy, which is a science
in some respects not unlike history, inasmuch as it

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 9
has to rely upon observation only, without experi
ment. By the help of reflector and telescope and
photographic lens the astronomer gains direct
knowledge of the position, the movements, and
the aspect of the planets, and sometimes from
considering those data is able to infer the existence
and the locality of other planets which are as yet un
observed. Similarly the historian's knowledge of
the mind of his author is direct ; his inferences as to
the events of which that author has written are
indirect, and must be submitted to the severest
critical tests before they can be accepted. Perhaps
a new archseologic fact, like the renewed observa
tion of the astronomer, may confirm the conjectured
fact. The untrained mind will judge of the truth of a
tale by its plausibility, or by the moral it conveys ;
will accept it at once if it fits in with a prejudice,
or reject it if it seems to be inconsistent with pre
conceived views of the world. It is just here that
science comes in, teaching us that for judging of
truth method and training are necessary ; that we
must cultivate the white light, the open mind ; that
self-suppression and self-control are the road to
reasonable knowledge. We have to learn to accept
on the evidence of monument or of document views
which are distasteful to us, and to reject from the
realm of fact many tales which we would gladly
accept if our trained conscience would allow us to
do so. And we further observe that this temper,
so common in the modern world, was scarcely

lo HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
to be found anywhere among the nations of
antiquity. When we turn for a basis of history to reality,
to fact, there is one kind of fact which is at once
conspicuous. The physical features of the lands
where the events of past history took place still
remain. Many of the monuments which were the
record or the result of those events — walls, palaces,
temples — remain. In our museums are abundant
spoils — sculpture, inscriptions, coins — which bear
direct and undeniable witness to the past. Archae
ology furnishes an admirable and an uncorrupt test
for the verifying of past history. Unfortunately it
does not go so far as we could wish, and the events
which one can bring to this test are usually rather
outward and visible circumstances than mental and
moral changes. But the spirit produced by the
study of archaeology goes far beyond the detached
fact. It teaches one to look in the present for the
clue to the past — to seek earnestly for a ground of
certainty among uncertainties. It trains the mind
to judge of degrees of evidence, and to be content
with indecision when decisive evidence is not to be
found. In a word it carries further and applies the
lesson taught by the physical sciences.
I am speaking here primarily of ancient history,
with which alone in these lectures I am concerned.
In the case of modern history, geography still
retains its importance, but archaeology takes a
subordinate place. Documents, such as treaties,
charters, and the like, take the place which inscrip-

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS ii
tions and monuments take in respect to ancient
history, and are even more effectual. But modern
history is of course outside our subject.
When archaeology reaches the limit imposed on
it by necessity, it passes on the torch to other
branches of human science, anthropology, mythog-
raphy, the study of institutions, of literature, of
economics, and trade. These branches of science
have in our days undergone a vast development.
Their methods have been continually improved,
their principles made clearer and clearer. Of course
the precise facts of history in the past can seldom
be recovered with finality. But we are agreed as
to the kinds of evidence to be sought, and the value
which attaches to each. We learn to set aside, as
far as may be, personal and racial prejudices in
estimating evidence. We try to judge the past in
the light of present experience, watching in their
actual working the forces of human nature which
have determined the history of nations.
Thus arises the comparative method. When we
come to a gap in past history, or to a part of it
which has been blurred by too vivid emotion, and
obscured by practical purpose, we look about us to
find in the present world or in the better recorded
phases of the past some similar and parallel group
of phenomena. We recover the key to the hiero
glyphics of Egypt in modern Coptic ; we compare
the mythology of Greece with that of New Zealand ;
the ancestor-worship of the early Aryans becomes
more intelligible to us when we observe the process

12 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. l
of deification of mortals going on in India; many
phases of the origin of religions are explained by
the striking phenomena of the worship of the B4b,
which first arose in Persia in 1844, and has wonder
fully developed since the execution of its founder.
The comparative method assumes that events in the
human world do not happen at random, but are
subject to law, though historic law is far less hard
and rigid than that observable in the realm of
nature. HI
The third way of thinking, which has spread
from physical into historic studies, is the acceptance
of evolution, the belief in continuity. In history,
as in biology, every new development arises out of
something existing, and runs a more or less definite
course. There are not in history, as there are
not in the physical progress of the world, verit
able cataclysms, when the regular laws of the
world are suspended, and the wheels of change
turned backward. Belief in evolution runs as a
red thread through almost all modern works on
history. Yet in adopting the comparative method in
history and in transferring the theory of evolution
from the biological to the historic sciences, we must
proceed with caution, since we move with danger.
Nothing has been more adverse to the progress of
true science than the too hasty transfer of methods
and views from lower and simpler to higher and

lect. 1. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 13
more complicated fields of investigation. The too
hasty assumption that in history there is evolution
and unvaried law has led many of the most philo
sophic and thorough workers in the historic field
into error. The truth is that in some parts of
history, in some of the forms of activity of collective
man, we may trace continuity far more readily than
in others. In political institutions, in the succession
of styles in a living art, and particularly in the
development of intellectual conditions, we may trace
gradual evolution from age to age, sometimes
indeed thwarted, interrupted, and distorted, yet on
the whole as a process. Thus great thinkers like
Hegel and Comte have thrown much light on
history by regarding it as a development of thought.
But they have also, as I think, largely failed because
they have looked on man only as an intelligent
being rather than as will and force. Here we find
an aspect of man which does not give much opening
to theories of evolution. There is in fact a great
force in history which is not, so far as we can judge,
evolutional, and the law of which is very hard to
trace, — the force of personality and character. We
move in a settled medium — human surroundings
change but slowly and follow ascertainable law ; but
we ourselves, who move amid these surroundings, —
we, in the ultimate recesses of our personalities, are
not originated by them. Every human soul is in
some degree a new creation, an incalculable force,
coming we know not whence, but acting with vigour
on its surroundings, — a centre about which all things

14 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
revolve. The historians who are too deeply im
pressed by the truth of evolution in history have a
way of making little of personality, will, character.
History to them loses its light and shade, and takes
a dull grey hue. They see the wood but not the
trees. And their one-sidedness calls forth a protest
in the writings of those historians whom one may
call the personal or picturesque school, to whom the
course of history seems in the main a record of the
doings and sayings of great men, of heroes who
stride forth among the gazing crowds of pygmies,
and control the future by the innate force that is in
them. In such guise did history present itself to
the mind of Thomas Carlyle.
It is as easy to exaggerate the influence of
personality in history as it is to minimise it. The
truth as usual lies between the extremes. And the
matter can scarcely be said to be wrapped in
mystery, since we, every one of us, all our lives
have been watching the working of character in the
world. Every tragedy has for its scope the struggle
of man against circumstance. Every novel which
is a study of character shows that character develop
ing and striving, pressing against the barriers of
circumstance and the limits of destiny. Man is
neither the slave of his surroundings nor their
absolute master. And therefore history, which is
the sum of human lives, does not move like the
forces of nature by fixed law, and yet its course is
mapped out within certain limits. It is no phantas
magoria, but an ordered growth, which can be the

LEcr. L CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 15
subject, not of an exact science, but yet of a reason
able and methodic investigation.
But further, the effect of personalities in history
is not merely the sum of their conscious workings.
The roots of personality stretch far beneath con
sciousness into the deep common life of the universe,
— the power not ourselves which surrounds us on
all sides.
Those who study the history of the past, or who
watch the course of events in the present, are likely
less and less to believe in the power of foresight in
statesmen and rulers. The wisest sees but a little
way into the future, and the strongest is seldom able
to dominate for long the drift of affairs by any
conscious purpose. But there is a wisdom which
does not come of conscious thought, and there are
impulses of which a man only imperfectly sees the
drift, which work through personalities into the
course of history, and turn its stream hither and
thither. Thus the personal element, whether
working in conscious or in unconscious ways, can
never be neglected when we deal with the past or
look into the world around us. Man moulds
circumstance, and in turn is moulded by it ; and
the constant clash between the inward and the
outward, man and the environment, and the higher
powers which work through each, determines the
path which each generation has to tread towards a
distant and unseen goal.

1 6 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.

IV
I have now sufficiently taxed your patience with
the discussion of method. We have next to see
how the changes which have come over our con
ception of history bear upon the religious beliefs
which we have inherited from our fathers. Upon
the actual facts of the religious life they have no
direct bearing. Religion is at bottom a condition
of heart and will — a constantly maintained relation
towards a higher spiritual Power. And this religion
— the religion of experience and of conduct — is not
immediately dependent upon our historic outlook.
It is a matter, not of inference, not of learned
research, but of daily life and habit of soul. We
need have but little fear that any views as to
historic methods can invalidate our religious, our
Christian experience. They have no power to
destroy facts ; they can only make invalid certain
inferences from experience. The great main truths
of personal religion seem to me to stand before us
like white mountain ranges, which we may measure
and geologically examine, but which we cannot
dream of moving.
But yet, since man is a reasoning and reasonable
creature, it is nevertheless of importance, of very
high importance, that our views as to religion, as to
the origin and grounds of our faith, should be at one
together — should be capable of being put in logical
and defensible form, and set on terms with the rest

lect. L CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 17
of our daily thought. Here we begin to reach our
difficulties and our problems.
In the last generation the great difficulty lay in
finding a way of reconciling religious tradition and
theory with the rapidly advancing knowledge of the
physical world. We have heard much of the battles
waged by theologians against men of science on
such questions as whether the world came into
being in six days, or whether the sun really stood
still at the bidding of Joshua. Such questions as
these greatly moved our fathers, but us they no
longer move. For the educated theologians of our
day no longer suppose that they will be allowed a
hearing when the great questions of astronomy, of
geology, or of biology, are discussed. And the
most pious scientific men of our day would not
dream of warping the views which they gather from
observation and experiment in order to suit the
exigencies of a religious creed.
Physical science having made its way, and
established its right to govern its own affairs,
historic science next comes forward with a like
claim. Let us then turn to what is the real
subject of the present lecture, and the necessary
introduction to those which are to follow; let us
consider in what ways the changed intellectual
atmosphere affects the basis of the Christian
religion, so far as that basis is historical. It can
scarcely be doubted that the effects produced by
a complete reorganisation of the historic sciences
on the existing fabric of Christian belief must be

1 8 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
immense. At the present moment the beliefs of
the great majority of professed Christians grew up
in, and are adapted to, a different intellectual atmo
sphere from that which is beginning to blow upon
us. For the last three hundred years the Christian
world has been divided into two great camps, the
Catholic and the Reformed. Among Catholics the
received and authoritative belief has been that
Christianity had its birth in a series of miraculous
events which made an absolute breach between
what went before and what came after, a veritable
cataclysm, and that from the very beginning down
to our own days the course of Christianity has
been sui generis, a series of miracles, not merely
moral miracles, but miracles actually physical.
And for three hundred years the Reformed
Churches, though among them there has been
no such uniformity of belief as authority has im
posed on the Catholics, have yet been in the main
pervaded by beliefs no less cataclysmic. They too
have held very generally that miracles lie at the
threshold of Christian history. And to a book
they have almost universally accorded an origin
absolutely different from that of all other books :
they have accepted the direct inspiration, and
something like the infallibihty, of the Bible as
a necessary tenet.
Thus it is certain that many of the views com
monly held by Christians are wholly inconsistent
with a comparative and continuous view of history.
The inspiration of the Bible is supposed to be of

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 19
such a kind that we must not apply to its narratives
and epistles the ordinary canons of literary criti
cism. Most Christians think that the coming into
the world of the Founder of Christianity was an
event so unique as to account for any number of
breaches of the observed laws of nature. They
believe the history of the Christian Church to have
been so directly controlled from above, that it
cannot be set parallel to the history of any merely
human institution. Many of them believe that
miracles — not moral merely, but physical — are
occurring every day among the faithful ; and that
there exists a power of performing such miracles
which is strictly limited to those who have par
taken of a certain consecration. Opinions and
beliefs such as these must either be kept in a
different chamber of the mind from modern edu
cated thought, or else they will be perpetually
colliding with it and stultifying it.
It is a view which has been held by many, that
the spread of evolutionary ideas into the study
of history tends greatly to the strengthening of
the Roman Catholic position in comparison with
that of the Reformed Churches. The Roman
Church can show a continued history and a con
tinued development of organisation of liturgy and
of doctrine. She maintains that the miraculous
gifts and the infallibility which belonged to the
church of the Apostles belong still to her com
munion, — that Rome has maintained almost from
the first one line of policy and one line of belief.

2 0 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
The Reformed Churches, on the other hand, attri
bute to the days of the Apostles miraculous powers
in deed and thought which did not come down
lower. They have broken away from the line of
gradual development, on the ground that it was
tending in the direction of degradation and decay,
and have tried to revert to an ancient type known
to us only from historical works. Some of the
ablest of recent English Catholics, such as Wise
man and Newman, have been strongly impressed
by such facts, and their recognition probably lies at
the root of the changed attitude towards the Church
of Rome usually held by men of high talent and
education, Mr. Mallock, in an acute work recently
published, developed this view.
Undoubtedly it has some grounds ; and it is very
probable that if the Roman system had shown more
intellectual flexibility, more power of adapting itself
to the ways of modern thought, it might have so
strongly used this advantage of historic attitude
as to reconquer much of the ground it had lost in
the last three centuries in Germany and England.
But the opportunity has been missed. The rulers
of the Roman Church have obstinately held their
traditional ground, and without hesitation opposed
almost every tendency of modern thought, with the
result that they now seem only to have the ad
vantage of being thoroughly consistent in maintain
ing an impossible position. Their evolution, in
stead of mounting from stage to stage, has pursued
a vicious circle within fixed limits which they dare

lect. L CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 21
not pass. They cannot bend ; and the result will
almost certainly be that sooner or later they will
fall with a crash.
The Reformed Churches, in spite of the
enormous disadvantages under which they suffer,
have been saved by their superior flexibility.
They have never replied with a non possumus to
the demands of science and history. They have
tried to find working compromises, and usually
they have succeeded. For example, they have
condoned the inroads of science on the biblical
account of creation ; but historic science is com
monly warned off the ground occupied by the New
Testament. Yet to all the Reformed theology
compromise has now become a great source of
weakness. It is natural to hold that Christianity
had a miraculous origin, if one also maintains that
miracles still mark its course. It is reasonable to
think that the words attributed to Jesus Christ and
His Apostles are infallible, if infallibility still resides
in the Church which He founded. But the more
rigid the line drawn between the life of the Founder
— or shall we say of the Founder and His Apostles ?
— and the subsequent ages of the Church, the harder
becomes the maintenance of a strong intellectual
position. In my opinion the only hope of building again
the shaken framework of the Reformed theology
lies in accepting a different view of history.
Protestantism possesses an inexpugnable central
fortress in its conviction, founded upon experience.

2 2 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
that the communion between man and his Maker
is open to every human soul, apart from all question
of organisation and tradition. And having this
unfailing refuge, the Reformed Churches can dare
to treat history with freer hand, and to follow where-
ever evidence and science may lead. Romanist
advocates are fond of insisting on the saying of
St. Alphonso, that in matters vital to salvation one
cannot act on an opinion which is uncertain. But
every one used to the consideration of historic ques
tions knows how uncertain is the structure of fact,
supposed to be historic, which the Roman Church
considers the indispensable basis of her creed. On
the other hand, there can be no basis of opinion so
certain as experience, enlarged by an examination
of the testimony of others, and supported by a broad
study of history.
St. Alphonso after all is right. To the modern
spirit, as I think, and certainly to me personally,
no maxim could appeal with greater force than this,
that religious beliefs are too important, too serious
in their consequences in life and death, to be
accepted on merely probable evidence. When
doctrine is based on historic record, and when for
proof of it we are referred to writings of doubtful
authorship, coming down to us out of the mist of
ages, and bearing obvious signs of human weakness
and ignorance, we cannot help shrinking in doubt
and in terror. Is it on such evidence as this that
we are to risk the well-being of our souls ? Can
we implicitly trust to such guides amid the dangers

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 23
and the storms of practical life.? It seems im
possible. When troubles, and the doubts which
troubles bring, press us hard, we must have some
safer anchorage for our souls, — we must be able to
feel that the grounds of our faith are firmly set,
beyond the reach of historic doubt. We must be
able to say that we know our belief to be true, if
not with white intellectual conviction, then with a
moral certainty which goes to the bottom of our
whole active nature, and without which life would
for us utterly lose its meaning.
For this reason there seem to me grave objec
tions to the view of the historic origins of Chris
tianity often taken by English Churchmen. Many
such will say, " We accept the long-received views
as to the birth of the Founder, His miracles and the
like, as the basis of our Christian belief : if you can
disprove these views we are ready to listen, but
we will not surrender them on merely probable
evidence." Now in ancient history scarcely any
thing can be rigorously proved ; everything rests
on a comparison of probabilities. These Church
men set us an impossible task. But we may fairly
reply. Is it thus that you hold your creed ? Are
you willing to surrender its whole basis, if at any
time historic evidence of a convincing kind is
brought against it ? A creed so held, as it were
on sufferance, is surely a poor foundation for the
religious life. Not in this tentative fashion did
Christians of past days believe, when they gave up
their worldy possessions or went cheerfully to the

24 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
stake rather than deny their faith. They knew in
whom they had believed : the basis of their con
fidence was not historic probability, but the ex
perience of a life in which they had acted on
certain beliefs and found them worthy of trust.
However this be, we can only carry out our task
under the possible conditions. To demand of any
historian that he shall prove or disprove the events
of ancient history is to require more than he can
possibly perform. He can only hope to make one
view seem more probable than another. Thus it is
useless to require us to take in regard to the history
of Christian origins quite a different course from
that which is universally allowed to be right in the
whole remaining field of ancient history. No
reasonable man would profess historically to dis
prove the Christian miracles. But if we can show
that they rest on no sufficient evidence, and further,
that there was every probability that whether actual
or not they would be reported, then we do according
to the canons of history dismiss them from objective
existence. A parallel position to that which I have discussed
used to be taken half a century ago by those who
thought their faith imperilled by the acceptance of
geologic views which conflicted with the first chapter
of Genesis. They also called on the geologists for
unanswerable proofs, and for a time at least such
were not readily forthcoming. Thus great labour
and learning were wasted on the hopeless task of
" reconciling " Scripture and geology. The reason-

LECT. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 25
ing powers will not be put aside : they must have
food, and if they cannot have the bread of science,
of " ordered knowledge," they must put up with the
sawdust of " reconciHng " views. If once the path
of intellectual wholeness and sincerity is abandoned,
the eyes become darkened at mid-day.
No one could be more keenly alive than I am
to the close limitations of man's faculties of know
ledge, to the vastness of the unknown which bounds
us on every side. And no one could be more ready
than I am to allow that the will has its affirmations
as well as the intellect. Much that is to the
intellect indifferent or unmeaning may be to will
and conscience a matter of life and death. The
affirmations of the reason are cold and poor, until
force and colour are imparted to them by the practi
cal faculties ; and these faculties often even venture
into realms inaccessible to the slow and plodding
feet of the understanding, and impose upon the man
who would live as well as inquire an attitude and a
course. But between that which goes beyond intellect
and that which conflicts with intellect we should
draw the clearest and strongest of lines. To say,
" I believe because I cannot know, " is quite another
thing from saying, " I believe although it is contrary
to evidence and reason." And it is this latter
attitude of mind, accepted by many out of motives
of a truly religious kind, which is fatal to intellectual
candour and honesty. Unless faith and intelligence
have come to terms, their perpetual clashings will

2 6 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
make the life miserable, and weaken all its purposes.
But if each, beside the realm which they possess in
common, has a separate province, this produces no
clashing, but tends to harmony.
If the field of history is given over to science, to
the spirit of " ordered knowledge," it must be given
wholly and without reserve. We cannot keep back
a part of it, or say to the genius of inquiry, " Thus
far shalt thou come but no farther.'' One of the
greatest of recent historians, who was also a decided
Churchman, has written,^ " No spirit can be more
directly opposed to any method of sound historical
study than one which puts any writer, however
illustrious, beyond the reach of that process of
comparison and criticism which is the very life of all
historical research."
Inconsistency and trouble commonly arise in the
religious life from the same cause which in the
world of biology and in the social world lies at the
root of an immense deal of weakness and of suffer
ing, — the survival of that which was adapted to the
surroundings of the past, but is no longer suited to
the conditions of the present. This is a truth which
will very frequently come before us in the course
of these lectures ; and few religious laws seem to
be of so wide and universal bearing. The main
tenets or doctrines of Christianity, as it even now
exists, were formulated at a time when the intel
lectual atmosphere and the social conditions were
entirely different from what they are now. By
1 Freeman, Methods of Historical Study, p. 2 1 6.

LECT. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 27
ecclesiastical authority they were fixed and imposed
upon believers. The surrounding conditions having
changed, these tenets appear to us in a perfectly
different light from that in which they appeared to
all men at their first appearing. Then they seemed
perfectly natural and reasonable, in accordance with
the facts of the world and with religious experience.
They often made their way by their inherent
reasonableness. But now they seem to us un
reasonable, in contradiction to natural laws and to
human nature. Yet we fear to reject them, because
the odour of authority clings about them, and we
dread the consequences of revolt. So we accept
them, or fancy we accept them, as mysteries or
paradoxes, — as views which we have to believe,
although they shock our consciences and conflict
with our experience. We do not see that they are
merely husks out of which the grains have dropped,
outworn garments unsuited to the activities or even
the decencies of modern life.
And yet these comparisons, though from the
strictly critical point of view they may be justifiable,
do not altogether fit the facts. For belief is like
an organism which grows slowly from age to age.
And when a part of an organism becomes useless
and a mere survival, even though its presence
be an encumbrance and a danger, yet its removal
must always be a painful and difficult operation.
Nature in such cases proceeds slowly. When some
part of a living body becomes useless and has lost
its function, it is only by a slow process, continued

2 8 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. l
through many generations, that it becomes atrophied
and diminishes, until its presence is hardly to be
noted. That which nature does by slow and
laborious process, the reason of man often enables
him to do far more quickly. But reason cannot
wholly do away with the pain and loss involved in
the process. The decay of beliefs, even when they
are to be superseded by better beliefs, must needs
be a sad and dreary thing. Happy indeed are those
in whose case the decaying foliage is pushed off by
young growing buds of new belief, and not merely
lopped off by the knife of criticism.
V
The task laid before me in these lectures would
indeed be a sad one if I had nothing to offer but
destructive criticism, — if my purpose were only to
show that the historic views which commonly pre
vail among Christians as to the origin of their faith
and the life of their Founder are such as cannot
endure historic examination. Happily, my discourse
will be of quite another cast, constructive as well as
destructive — even, as I hope, more constructive than
destructive. The first results of applying historic
method to the documents of the Christian faith may
seem chilling and sad ; but if we follow up the
method with courage and pertinacity, — perhaps I
should rather say with the faith which believes that
the laws of intelligence and the methods of science
have a sanction as divine as piety itself, — then we

lect. I. CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 29
may perhaps reach more satisfactory results. In
the long run science, like the spear of Achilles, will
heal the wound which it has made. Seeing on all
sides around us the wrecks of attempts to construct
a safe basis for reasonable belief, we dare not be
too sanguine ; but at least the attempt is one well
worthy of serious effort.
The remedy is not retrogression, which is im
possible, nor mere conservatism, which is hopeless.
The only safe path is that which leads onwards.
The true method is to begin with the religious
psychology of the individual, thence to proceed to
the psychology of nations and of societies, and after
wards to consider religious history in the light thus
acquired. To this order we must necessarily adhere ;
but in these lectures history is our main concern.
Psychology, whether individual or social, can only
be here treated in outline, as an introduction to
what follows.
After our psychologic sketch, we shall proceed to
consider certain historic problems in relation to the
earliest accounts of Christianity which have come
down to us. And I may perhaps here anticipate by
saying that the views which I shall try to establish
are two — (i) that alike the historic and doctrinal
statements of the New Testament are based mainly
on Christian experience, and (2) that in the formula
tion of this experience there is always an element
of false theory. What we have to do is to discern
between the true underlying fact and its defective
outward expression.

30 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.
The modern authorities for the early Christian
history are very abundant and often excellent. In
history no man can work by himself: he will find
on all sides helpers and colleagues. In these
days historical work is carried on as by a vast
communistic society. No man can hope to study
at first hand more than a small part of the vast
field of history. However original his views, they
must be founded mainly on the researches of
others. The broad historic task which lies before us is
quite different from the minute and learned criticism
of the text of the New Testament to which many
theologians devote themselves, with very valuable
results for the progress of biblical knowledge. Of
their labours no one could hold a higher opinion
than I. Cuique in arte sua credendum. Yet it is
necessary here to insist upon the truth that studies
of detail do not necessarily involve the power of
looking at a whole in true perspective. We may
allow that specialists are the best authorities as to
the particular questions which they study, without
allowing their authority in regard to questions which
they do not make their business, to the solution of
which they may be constitutionally little fitted. The
fact that they are skilled in the uses of Trpo? and
eVi, and know the tendencies of all the manuscripts
from A to Z, makes them excellent judges in textual
matters, but does not in itself carry them beyond
the text to the circumstances which gave rise to the
Gospels. And an intimate knowledge of geographic

LECT. L CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 31
and Other facts concerning Palestine and Asia Minor
does not in itself enable men to judge of the strange,
yet by no means unparalleled, phenomena of the rise
of a new religion.
As the minds of practical theologians tend to be
warped by necessities of edification, so the out
look of specialists is frequently narrowed by a too
rigid limitation to smaller questions in regard to the
New Testament — questions of reading of version and
of grammatical construction. Clearly these minuter
studies have their value, are indeed necessary to
the wholesome progress of biblical criticism. But it
is seldom that they have any serious bearing on the
broader historic questions. Discoveries of new
documents, or of extant documents at an earlier
stage, such discoveries as may well be made amid
the papyri of Egypt, — these may indeed hereafter
give us new and startling historic light. But a
minute examination of our documents as they exist,
when long and exclusively pursued, is apt to warp
the mind into an exaggerated view of the importance
of mere words. " Learning," wrote Jowett,^ " ob
scures as well as illustrates ; it heaps up chaff when
there is no more wheat." " He who, in the present
state of knowledge, will confine himself to the plain
meanings of words and the study of their context,
may know more of the original spirit and inten
tion of the authors of the New Testament than
all the controversial writers of former ages put
together."
1 Essays and Dissertations, pp. 10, 11.

32 HISTORIC METHOD AND lect. i.

VI.
For the most valuable authorities as to the early
history of Christianity, as indeed in regard to every
part of the domain of ancient history, we must turn
to Germany and Holland. For learning, for philo
sophic breadth, for accurate and scientific method
as applied to ancient history, the great writers of
Germany stand first. Confining ourselves to recent
writers on early Christian history, we may cite the
works of Harnack, Schiirer, and Weizsacker, to which
the literature of other countries scarcely offers a
parallel. There is, however, a notable historic
school in France, comprising the two Revilles, the
two Sabatiers, and others, which in logical method
and in clearness of exposition goes even beyond the
German mark. In England also admirable work
has been done, rather by detached scholars than by
a school. Two writers of the last generation. Bishop
Lightfoot and Edwin Hatch, stand prominent, — the
first for the accuracy of his great learning, the second
for his vigorous grasp of true historic method. Even
if we have to trust continental writers for guidance,
there is no need to follow any of them slavishly.
Every country has an intellectual character of its
own, has different mental needs, and a different
ideal. Hence the translations of the great books of
Germany can have but a limited appreciation in
England. They belong to the few, not to the
many ; and before they can reach the mind and

lect. l CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS 33
heart of Englishmen they must be not merely
translated but transformed. We cannot use these
palaces of thought as our own : we can but imitate
them in native material, building houses less spacious
and lofty, but adapted to our climate and our customs.
The greatest of English critics, Matthew Arnold,
has declared that the notable force and virility of
English literature is the fruit of a long and stirring
national history. The converse with affairs has
made us practical, — may indeed have made us too
intolerant of logic and of theory. Yet the habit of
measuring forces, of avoiding extremes, of judging
schools in politics and in life by their practical
efficacy, is in itself a fine quality. An Englishman
always desires to melt down a theory, to discern
what basis it has, and what it will lead to if accepted.
He regards inconsistency as a smaller fault than
pedantry. Above all he loves directness, sim
plicity, candour ; loves these qualities more dearly
than any people has ever loved them. Nothing
estranges him more completely than even a sus
picion of insincerity. And besides this strongly
marked desire to see things as they are, we English
have an immense advantage in the treatment of all
religious history, in the high and continued develop
ment of the life of religion among us. We cannot,
like some French writers, confuse religion with
politics or sociology ; nor, like some German writers,
confuse religion with philosophy. It is the country
of Wesley and of Newman and of Robertson, where
in every town and village there are many who, how-
3

34 METHOD AND DOCUMENTS lect. i.
ever ill-educated or humble, have a wisdom and grasp
in the things of the spirit which raises them above
the level of ordinary sensuous existence.
I have tried to include in this opening lecture all
that was necessary to clear our path. I have in
flicted on you a discourse on method ; I have
lamented the unstable state among us of historic
views of early Christianity ; I have tried to meet
some of the objections to our course which will
most readily occur to the dissatisfied. The result,
I hope, will be that we shall be left free for the
regular accomplishment of our task. Henceforth
I shall deal but little with controversy — controversy
which is like the ploughing of the sea-shore, but
will seek more fertile fields wherein the seeds of
thought may have room to grow.

LECTURE II
REVELATION AND ITS EMBODIMENTS
In the last lecture I dwelt upon the fundamental
contrast between the evolutional and the creational
or cataclysmic view of the history of Christianity.
We took, on the whole, the side of the evolutionists ;
and in so doing defined our attitude towards the
documents of early Christianity. But before we
approach these documents and the events which
they bring before us, one more preliminary state
ment must be made. As we have marked our
attitude towards religious history, so we must needs
mark it in relation to religious psychology and phi
losophy. My subject is historic, not philosophic ;
and I would gladly, were it possible, avoid entering
a realm full of shadows and of pitfalls, of the wrecks
of decayed systems and the ghosts of the mighty
dead. But through this land our path must needs
for a short time lie. History which is not based on
a preliminary psychology is unphilosophic history.
It is absolutely necessary that I should set forth
the main principles of religious psychology as I

36 REVELATION AND ITS lect. il
understand them : but I will try to do so with all
possible simplicity and brevity, and will studiously
avoid being led into the paths of philosophic
controversy. Our first task then must be to consider the
phenomena of religion working in individuals and
societies. The views here set forth I have worked
out by slow degrees during thirty years, in which
my time for reading treatises on philosophy
and psychology was closed within narrow limits ;
and during the whole of that thirty years I have
gone on in one direction without backward steps.
But the position thus reached is by no means a
solitary one ; on the contrary, it can claim close
kinship with the results of various schools of
thought. In France views of religious psychology
closely resembling those here maintained have been
set forth by Mr. A. Sabatier, the recently departed
master who stood at the head of a great school of
Protestant thought in that country. In Germany
views nearly parallel have been maintained by the
most recent of great philosophic theologians. Pro
fessor Lipsius of Jena. And in the University of
Harvard, in America, Professor WilHam James, one
of the most distinguished of living psychologists,
agrees with these theologians at least in the main
principles of religious psychology. All the writers
whom I have mentioned alike work on a Kantian
basis, and all have developed the Kantian psy
chology in the same direction. To me the dis
covery that the land to which I had voyaged was

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 37
not solitary, but inhabited by some of the ablest
thinkers of the time, has been a source of un
measured satisfaction and encouragement.
I
All views as to the being of God and the
character of divine revelation must ultimately be
based on the views which we hold of the nature
of man and his faculties of acquiring knowledge.
That which God imparts He imparts not to beings
in general, but to men, and to men of a particular
age and nation. The higher parts of the divine
revelation belong to man as man ; the lower parts
may but serve a temporary necessity, or contribute
to the development of a particular nation or clan.
In the nature of man the supreme element is
will, which dominates alike feeling and thought.
Man exists in virtue of the power which he puts
forth amid his surroundings : he is a centre of force
first, and only in the second place sentient and
intelligent. This is a view which has been fre
quently set forth in modern days. I have myself
tried to enforce it in published works. But lately
it has been stated with such force and clearness
by Professor William James, that it seems best to
quote his words. If we can confide the protection of
our rear to Professor James, we may venture to push
on with confidence even into the enemy's country.
" The willing department of our nature," he
writes, "dominates both the conceiving department

38 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
and the feeling department." " I am sure I am not
wrong in stating this result as one of the funda
mental conclusions to which the entire drift of
modern physiological investigation sweeps us. If
asked what great contribution physiology has made
to psychology of late years, I am sure every
competent authority will reply that her influence
has in no way been so weighty as in the copious
illustration, verification, and consolidation of this
broad general point of view." ^
It is will, purpose, and volition which are the
ultimate cause why each of us is able to form out
of the mere chaos of outward sensations an orderly
universe. " The mind," says Mr. James, " is a
transformer of the world of our impressions into a
totally different world— the world of our conception ;
and the transformation is effected in the interests of
our volitional nature, and for no other purpose
whatever. Destroy the volitional nature, the
definite subjective purposes, preferences, fondnesses
for certain effects, forms, orders, and not the slightest
motive would remain for the brute order of our ex
perience to be remodelled at all. But as we have
the elaborate volitional constitution we do have, the
remodelling must be effected ; there is no escape.
The world's contents are given to each of us in an
order so foreign to our subjective interests that we
can hardly by an effort of the imagination picture to
ourselves what it is like. We have to break that
order altogether, and by picking out from it the
1 The Will to Believe, p. 114.

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 39
items which concern us, and connecting them with
others far away, which we say ' belong ' with them,
we are able to make out definite threads of sequence
and tendency, to foresee particular liabilities and
get ready for them, and to enjoy simplicity and
harmony in the place of what was chaos." ^
The change in our view of the Universe when
will is thus made its centre, — a change forced upon
psychology, according to Mr. James, by physiologic
fact, — puts out of court, it would appear, two vener
able and widely spread ways of regarding ourselves
and our surroundings. It puts out of court the
Materialism which regards man as a mere resultant
of the physical forces of the visible universe. And
it puts out of court the Rationalism of those who
suppose that thought is the secret and the essence
of man and of the divine nature.
In the opinion of some of his critics, Mr. James
carries his physiological and volitional view of human
life to the verge of paradox. But of the fundamental
rightness of his view I am wholly convinced, and
even the vigour of its excess may be considered
a wholesome corrective, as balancing the deeply
rooted tendency to overvalue thought and to under
value energy and character which has been formed
in our minds by the influence of many generations
of metaphysicians. As it is in the microcosm of the individual, so it
is in the macrocosm of society. Society also is
swayed rather by force and will than by thought.
1 The Will to Believe, ^. 117.

40 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii
The will of each individual is hemmed in on the
one side by the conditions of the physical universe,
on the other by a countless multitude of other wills,
the wills of our fellow-men, with which we have con
tinually to make terms, and which are ever thwart
ing our purposes and disregarding our wishes. And
beyond all these wills of myself and others there is
a greater Power than ours, a force which in magni
tude, in wisdom, and in force passes our utmost
thought and imagination, which lies behind the facts
of external nature, which lies behind the activities
and purposes of our fellow-creatures, which lies at
the roots of our own being.
To realise this Power in thought is the great end
of religious philosophy and of theological system.
To attain to some communion with this Power in
exalted feeling and passionate adoration is the
highest object of religious passion and enthusiasm.
To become a fellow-worker with this Power in the
visible world is the practical purpose of religious
organisation and ethics. This Power is the white
mountain top towards which all the upward paths of
religion lead, though they can never actually reach
it. And according to the manner of their approach
to it various religions take varied forms, living by
that which they are able to apprehend. If will be
recognised as the ultimate essence of man, it is as
will that we must, whether in thought or in practice,
regard the Power which lies behind all things. The
Platonic schools have tried to bring God before us
as thought, and the Mystics have regarded God as

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 41
love ; but by science God can best be spoken of as
will : that is to say, the conception of will is that by
which we can approach nearest to the infinite and
sublime reality.
And this phrase at once suggests a distinction,
deep and fundamental, perhaps even from the point
of view of speculative philosophy, but certainly from
the point of view of practice and ethical life. The
divine will comes before us in two very different
aspects. First as law or condition, in the inanimate
world, and in a great part of the animate world.
Here experience reveals to us, more and more, fixed
and changeless ways, a course which has no relation
to human will. Even our bodies, including nerve
and brain, belong on one side to the outer world,
and are closely hemmed in by conditions which we
can but in slight degree modify. But secondly, in
the inner world, the world of spirit and of conscious
ness, the will of God appears in quite another guise,
as ideal. Here it not merely determines what
must be, but shows what might be and ought to be.
In place of a scheme of invariable law, we find an
infinite realm of thought and purpose, of good and
evil, of that which is but has no right to be, and of
that which is not, but ought to be, and perhaps in
the future will become. It may be that in the
evolution of the living world from lower forms we
may also trace divine will and purpose. This has
been and is maintained by many men of science
and distinction. In this view I heartily concur, but
I feel that I have not the right to insist on views in

42 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
biology. And all notions as to teleology, as to divine
will and purpose, must have their real starting-
place in the inner world, the world of moral action
and of character.
I know not whether this statement may not in
the eyes of some philosophers prove me guilty of
that dualism in philosophy which is in some quarters
regarded as a root of heresy. My answer is simple.
Whether the universe in its ultimate essence be a
unity or a dualism or a plurality, I know not. To
my purposes the question is indifferent. All that I
know is that the universe, as it appears in conscious
ness, and as it is presented to will, is a system of
contrasts, mind and matter, will and resistance, good
and evil. To the physiological view, which starts
with the active powers, the world is in many
aspects dual. If thought can reduce it to unity,
by all means let thought do so. But that would no
more affect the phenomena of the world, than our
theory as to the nature of light will help or hinder
us in choosing a pair of spectacles.
The part allotted to intelligence in the conduct
of life is of great importance ; and the higher
men rise in the scale of civilisation the more im
portant it becomes. For the divine will, so far as
it is revealed in our fixed surroundings, can be by
observation ascertained. We can partly learn by
the help of reason what courses of action tend to
the furthering of human life and the preservation of
society. And we may be sure that that which raises
and furthers life is in accord with the divine purposes,

lect. II. EMBODIMENTS 43
while that which hinders life is not in accord with
them. The more we know of nature and of history,
the better able are we to choose the better and
decline the worse. Hence the value of an ordered
science of ethics. But at the best our knowledge
of the world and of human nature must be very im
perfect. We only see the shows of things, and
such superficial aspects of man's nature as are re
vealed in consciousness. Beneath the surface there
are profound depths. Thus, however far knowledge
may progress, the deep workings of the human spirit,
in which lies the contact with the divine, must have
great moment in the conduct of life. And knowledge,
with the scheme of ethics based upon it, can at most
but map out a course for us ; it can never give the
impetus which will move us to follow that course.
To the most highly educated moral philosopher
religion is still necessary in the region of intelli
gence ; while in the region of the will it is as
necessary to him as to the savage.
Religion, as in these lectures it is regarded, on
the intellectual side consists in recognition that the
divine will is good and wars with evil. On the
emotional side, it consists in the love of this good
will, in joy in it wherever it is traced, and in hatred
of whatever opposes it. On the volitional side, it
consists in a determined effort to range one's own
efforts on the same lines on which the divine will
works, in trust and voluntary subordination. If the
divine will be real, be actually existent, religion is
also real : if the divine will be an imagination,

44 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
religion also is a thing vainly devised by man,
without permanent vitality. One hears people say
that if the basis of religion is but an inner witness,
there can be no check upon the license of individual
belief: men will hold any view which they wish to
hold. This objection is based on complete scepti
cism. It assumes that the divine will is a phrase, a
theory. For if that will be a living and working
power, it is evident that to him who opposes it, it
will be infinitely destructive, while to those who
are ranged on its side it will be a continual tower
of defence, a refuge in all time of difficulty.
The history of religion is the history of the
gradual revelation to man of the divine will. This
revelation I have elsewhere called the gradual
penetration of societies by the divine ideas. And
though the phrase divine ideas is in some degree
misleading, as every such phrase must be, it is very
useful. Only we must steadily bear in mind that
these ideas are not intellectual concepts. They are
manifestations of force, acting primarily on will and
emotion, and only by degrees taking intellectual
form, and embodying themselves in custom and art
and organisation. They are to history what a
settled purpose is to the life of a strong man. And
as a strong man may fail of his purpose, so in
history the divine ideas are but very imperfectly
revealed. Why this should be, — why the divine
will should not have freer course, breaking all that
opposes it, and scattering the powers of evil, — we
cannot tell. This is part of that wider problem

lect. II. EMBODIMENTS 45
why evil exists, why virtue is imperfectly rewarded,
and vice frequently triumphant, which has perplexed
man since he came into being, and will doubtless
continue to perplex him as long as he dwells on the
earth. To practical ethics and working religion,
these vast speculative problems are unimportant.
In the Spring the trees of the wood feel an inner
impulse of life. The sap travels upwards through
their stems, with varying destiny according to the
local conditions. It passes into bark, into leaves,
into flowers, into fruit, by processes which can be
partially traced, but which could never take place if
there were not present in each case the transforming
power of life. As the sap builds up the stately
structure of the tree, so does the flow of the divine
ideas build up the fabric of religion. Everywhere
it is conditioned, by existing social habits, by exist
ing ways of thought, by existing organisation. The
form of the fabric is determined by the inner force
acting in a given environment. No revelation
however divine can reach man unadapted to human
conditions. We might as well suppose that food
could build up a man's body before passing through
the chemistry of digestion. Every revelation, to
begin with, must use words : and words are each of
them the result of a vast intellectual process, nor
unless they be the names of concrete objects can
they to persons differently constituted convey the
same meaning. Every revelation is necessarily
relative to its surroundings. An absolute revelation
is utterly inconceivable.

46 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
II
The manner in which a divine impulse or revela
tion takes form amid visible surroundings, physical
and social, has perhaps never been set forth in
accurate or final form. The comparative study of
religions is yet in its infancy ; and it has as yet
scarcely been applied save to the lowest forms of
religion — those in vogue among mere barbarians.
There is a very general reluctance to apply the
same methods of investigation which have done so
much to throw light on animism and on heathen
mythologies to higher religions such as those of
Israel and Islam, not to speak of Christianity.
Hitherto inquiries of a psychologic or social kind
which have been carried into the field of religion
have run great risk of being turned aside or
dominated by the strong feelings which cannot
endure that the springs of the religious life should
be exposed to the light of common day. With
this reluctance none can fail to feel some sympathy ;
but I fear the time has come when we must learn
to put aside our natural hesitations in such matters.
In our days what is not subject of discourse and
investigation is likely to be entirely lost sight of.
It lies in our way summarily to sketch the lines
of manifestation of a religious impulse, primarily
thinking, as is natural, of the Christian revelation,
yet being careful to check, by constant comparison
of other religions, the views suggested by Christian
history.

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 47
As the divine ideas, the dawn of which on the
world is the birth of religion, are in essence rather
practical impulses than any imparting of know
ledge, their first visible effect is to be traced in an
outburst of spiritual life. In the depths of some
individual consciousness, amid the actions and
counteractions of the human and the divine, a
sacred fire is kindled, a purpose is born. The
manner of that birth has been well described in the
words of the herdman of Tekoa : ^ " I was no prophet,
neither was I a prophet's son ; but I was an herd-
man, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : and the
Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord
said unto me. Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
The force of the impulse is well expressed by
another Jewish prophet : ^ " Then I said, I will not
make mention of him, nor speak any more in his
name. But his word was in mine heart as a burn
ing fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with
forbearing, and I could not stay." These prophets
of Israel, that classical land of prophecy, were not
primarily men who foretold the future, nor the
revealers of hidden truth : they were preachers of
righteousness, moral and religious reformers. The
light which burned in them was not the white light
of knowledge, but the red flame of enthusiasm.
In Israel, and in many other countries, the call
has been directly to a social appeal— ^to what we
should call a mission ; but among the less social
inhabitants of the north, and in more modern days,
1 Amos vii. 14. ^ Jeremiah xx. g

48 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
it has impelled men in the first place to a change
of life, to a reform of self, rather than of others.
But the difference is not of very great importance,
for those who begin with self-renewal go on, if they
have the true prophetic impulse, to an appeal to
others, and become, often sorely against their will,
the sources of religious movement. Thus the first
visible symptom of a rising religious movement is
commonly the formation of a small society of men
who differ in their manner of life from those around
them, endeavouring in some way or other to realise
in the world some divine impulse or idea which has
arisen among them, to make visible to men some
phase of the kingdom of heaven.
When a man has a strong purpose in his life, its
force is exhibited by the energy with which it over
masters circumstance, the absorbing vitality with
which it seizes and turns to its own ends every
person and thing which it meets. It is the same
with a rising religious impulse or idea. If it be
weak morally and intellectually, if it have no crush
ing grasp or pushing vitality, it soon dies away amid
opposing forces. If it be strong, through having
deep roots in man's spiritual environment, in the
divine will, it soon sets out on a career of conquest.
In that case there must needs be in all or in most
men something that will respond to its appeal, as
the corresponding strings of two harps answer to
one another in vibration and musical sound. As a
growing plant will absorb and turn to its own uses
matter and moisture, so the rising religion will

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 49
proceed to dominate and absorb its surroundings.
And in the process, it does not usually invent, but
rather accepts and alters. The line of evolution
is not broken, but bent in a new direction different
from that which it had previously taken.
In the intellectual field, a rising religion is likely
to appear more original than in the field of ritual
and of art. For ceremony and art have a strong
infusion of symbolism. And symbolism is by nature
somewhat vague, lending itself to one meaning
almost as readily as another.
Ceremonies the new ideas of religion may easily
accept, attaching to them a fresh meaning. As
every one knows, early Christianity had no scruple
in accepting many of the ceremonies of the sur
rounding pagan cults : it only taught that the true
bearing of these ceremonies had not been appre
hended, that they had been by superstition perverted
to a wrong meaning. Justin even maintained that
the ceremonies originally belonged to Christianity,
and had been copied by demons.
Art does not usually flourish amid the enthusiasm
of a religious revival, for in all healthy art there is
necessarily a sensuous element, which repels the
asceticism almost always present in ethical upheavals.
Ruskin has with his usual insight observed that the
love of art seldom flourishes among societies and
among nations which are strongly moved by the
desire of righteousness. Yet when the first heat
of a religious movement is passed, it usually leaves
a deposit of emotion crystallised into the forms of
4

50 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
art. But art in its earlier stages is usually content
to accept borrowed forms, so long as it may put
into them its own meaning. Even the religious
art of Greek paganism, perhaps the noblest religious
art which the world has ever seen, was content
at first to borrow motives and schemes from the
more developed arts of Babylon, of Egypt, and of
Phoenicia. Early Christian art made no scruple of
taking over from the heathen such groups as that
of Orpheus playing the lyre among wild beasts, or
Hermes the shepherd-god bearing on his shoulders
a ram ; but to these groups they gave a new
and a Christian meaning, Orpheus and Hermes
giving way to the Founder of the new religion.
History repeats itself: and in our own days, when
Auguste Comte endeavoured to devise a new
religion on what he fancied to be scientific lines, he
determined to retain in places of worship the group
of the Virgin and her Son, in which he discerned
the most natural embodiment of the Humanity
which he proposed to set up as the true object of
worship. Organisation, though it may have a symbolic
side, is adapted to thoroughly practical purposes.
Here, therefore, a new religion is likely to innovate,
with the view to protecting and propagating its
scheme of life. Yet in the world creation is of
exceeding rarity : almost everything which comes
into being is built up of the fragments of that which
it destroys. A church may borrow organisation,
not merely from existing religious societies, but also

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 5 1
from civil life. It will endeavour, or tend, to cover
the whole field of the activity of the faithful ; and
thus becoming by inherent necessity political, it will
wish to preserve what is suitable for its purposes in
existing social arrangements. Thus did Christianity
proceed. At first the separate communities of
believers might appear, and did appear, to observers
exactly like the small coteries of devotees attached
to the worship of the deities of the pagan
mysteries — coteries with which the Roman Empire
was honeycombed. The Christians had to provide
for widows, for the poor, for their own cultus ; they
had to unite for certain purposes with neighbour
ing Churches ; the need for authority was felt more
and more strongly. When a formed organisation
comes before us, in the second century, we observe
that the terms bishop, priest, and deacon are all
taken from the civil organisation, which the Greek
cities in Asia had carried to a high point.
However, the conditions of the present lectures
force upon me two qualities — brevity and simplicity.
I shall therefore confine my exposition in the main
to the successive phases of only the intellectual
development of religion, to the ways in which it is
embodied and reflected in the realm of thought,
rather than in the social or political phenomena of
history. In the primitive nature-religions, such as those
of the Egyptians and the Greeks, the earliest and
chief intellectual exponent is the myth, a very primi
tive product of the human mind, and a product which

52 REVELATION AND ITS lect. n.
does not usually bear moralising. But the higher
religions, which have their origin in the spiritual life
of a founder or of a society, do not rely upon the
myth. If they use it at all, it is in the form of
parable, tale purposely invented, and filled full of
religious meaning. Such didactic tales will be
found in the writings of Plato and other Greek
philosophers. The story of the choice of Hercules
between Pleasure and Virtue is a good example. In
the teaching of the Founder of Christianity the
parable played a great part ; and it seems admirably
adapted to preserve in easily remembered form the
facts of the spiritual life. It is notable that the
Apostles did not attempt in this matter to continue
the methods of their Master. Parable had been
among the modes of teaching most usual in the
schools of the rabbis. But when Christianity came
out from under the cloak of Judaism, it took other
ways of commending the truths which lay at its
root to the intelligence of the world.
The embodiment of these truths took a three
fold course. Time is threefold — past, present, and
future. And in relation to each of the tenses of
time early Christianity produced a literary develop
ment. The manner of this development in successive
periods and amid various surroundings, it is the main
purpose of these lectures to trace. As a preliminary
it may be well to show that in this procedure
Christianity only went in the way of other religions
which preceded or which followed it. It became
from a small seed a great tree, under the branches

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 53
of which all civilised nations take shelter. But
other trees of far smaller size and less noble destiny
have exhibited the same manner of growth.
HI
In relation to time past, then, the genius of a
religion works in imparting an appropriate colouring
to the history of its origins, especially the history of
its founder or founders. In varying degrees the
working of this tendency is kept within bounds by
various forces, according to the character of the age
and the race. Historic record and tradition have
more influence among cultivated peoples, or in ages
when a spirit of objectivity is abroad, and less re
straining power among imaginative and uninstructed
races. But nowhere can they wholly keep in
bounds the transforming power of a rising religious
enthusiasm. In the fourth lecture I shall try to show the
main lines of the earliest development of the
Christian history, under the hands of the rising
community. At present we are dealing rather with
psychological principles than with historic pheno
mena, and it will be sufficient to show that, given
human nature as it is, events could not take a
different course. We have seen that the most
noteworthy result of the progress of physiological
science is to establish the original predominance of
the active over the intellectual faculties in man. In
few fields is this predominance more decided or

54 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
more obvious than in the writing of history, especially
among simple and unsophisticated races. It was
certainly not from any impartial love of truth, or
any insatiable mental curiosity, that men at first
took to writing the annals of the past. History
arose to meet strong practical needs, to increase
the fame of a monarch, to account for the habits of
a people, to add to the awe with which a deity was
regarded. Even when the human mind at an early
stage is engaged in some activity not closely con
nected with feeling and practical ends, it moves
often on a strange course. But when it ventures
into the domain of history, full of all the strongest
feelings and prejudices, it is swayed completely by
purpose and passion, by moral tendencies and hopes
and fears. The past interested men as related to
the present ; therefore they read the present into
the past, and understood the past only so far as it
belonged to the present. Their records were beset
by every possibility of error, and haunted by all
the idols of the cave and the market-place.
It may be said that the testimony of eye-witnesses
is free from these sources of error. But those can
be little in the habit of examining human testimony
who attach to it a high value. The man of science
is in modern days trained to observe with accuracy.
And in our law courts the trained acumen of counsel
commonly reaches some approximation to truth of
fact. But even among ourselves, outside these
narrow limits, few things are harder to ascertain than
what has actually happened. War correspondents

LECT. u. EMBODIMENTS 55
are keen observers, yet Mr. Archibald Forbes has
told us that he searched for years in vain to discover
what really took place in 1870 in the capitulation at
Sedan. And we in England are all used to com
paratively precise statement and accurate observa
tion : while the virtue of truthfulness occupies among
us a place perhaps of higher honour than it has ever
held in any country before. What then can we
expect from people who have never been trained to
observe, and who have not learned to regard truth
in the narration of fact as the highest of virtues or
the most obvious of necessities.
It is not so much that people in general choose
to utter the thing that is not, as that it requires a
particular habit of mind, or special training, to discern
between fact and fancy. The races which are more
richly endowed with passion and imagination are
far less capable of veracity than those of more stolid
and prosaic temper. Among individuals also, the
less richly endowed by nature have commonly the
least difficulty in making their words conform to the
truth of things. In the East, as Renan has observed,
the love of truth for its own sake is a thing almost
unexampled. When a man there narrates what he
has seen, he is under the sway of many motives far
more powerful than the mere intellectual tendency
to be correct to fact. The Greeks were less under
the power of emotion and imagination than Orientals ;
but in their case the love of beauty of form in all
their productions acted to much the same effect. A
high authority has observed that among them the

56 REVELATION AND ITS leCt. n.
love of the actual was not well developed. With
them^ "there was always an overpowering need so
to construct a narrative that it conveyed a character
istic impression, and set forth a picture, the vivid
painting of which produces an illusion of reality, and
yet has but little in common with it." It was
indeed this tendency which enabled the Greeks to
create history as a branch of literary art, in contrast
to the bald and simple, but not always trustworthy,
chronicles of the great empires of the East.
Such were the tendencies of the ancient world.
To understand those tendencies we have only to
look about us in the world. Most of us have had
experience of the extent to which preconceived
beliefs will mould the testimony even of an eye
witness. And the more vital and moving the tale
he has to tell, the more it is steeped in emotion and
related to action, the more will his narration be
tinged by what is within, and the less will it submit
to outward restraint. Thus the simplest principles
of comparative psychology, the most ordinary ex
periences of life, show us how vain it must be to
take the records of ancient history as plain and un
varnished tales. Until we have discerned the point
of view of a writer, examined his facilities for acquir
ing information, and his manner of regarding it when
acquired, we cannot take the first step towards using
his narrative in historic construction. In religious
history still greater caution is necessary. A votary
1 C. Wachsmuth, Rectorial Address to the University of Leipzig,
1897, p. 10.

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 57
will seldom regard the deeds and the words of one
to whom he owes his soul's health in a mere neutral
light. By necessity he idealises, and finds in the
Master that which natural character and inherited
hopes had compelled him to look for. A pious
biography is a document of religion at least as much
as a contribution to history. It must always be
read between the lines.
It is the ideas which inspire a religion which
are its living energy, its formative power. And to
them the statements of witnesses, the traditions
handed down in the society, are but material to be
used for the building of a temple wherein the
Founder's spirit may dwell, and which his followers
shall enter with reverent souls. The historians of
the origins will not of set purpose invent, but they
will see in part only ; and what they see will be
transformed by the subjective conditions of heart
and brain, will be tinged with the hues of imagina
tion, and adapted to the necessities of preaching.
Thus arose the histories of Buddha, of the Bab, of
S. Francis, of all the great religious souls who have
raised the level of human life and set forward in new
directions the intercourse between man and his
Creator. IV
In relation to time future religious ideas find
expression in prophecy. As in speaking of religious
history we are apt to be misled by modern notions
in regard to the sacredness of fact, so in turning to

5 8 REVELATION AND ITS lect. n.
prophecy we may easily be led astray by modern
habits of thought. For to us scientific prophecy is
a familiar thing. We are accustomed to hear that
the hour and the minute of an eclipse can be
ascertained beforehand, that a chemist can tell us
with infallible accuracy what will happen when he
mingles various substances, and the like. This
definite kind of prophecy is possible only in regard
to the operations of nature, and those only have the
right to utter it who have been trained in scientific
methods. But primitive man finds it difficult to
draw a line between nature and humanity. In all
uncivilised countries prophecies equally definite ip
regard to the future of societies and the fates of
individuals have been put forth. But these
prophecies do not belong to the higher religions.
In primitive societies they come from soothsayers
and magicians, a class with whom real religion
is usually at war. In Greece soothsayers were
despised ; statesmen used them to impress the
people, but the philosophers regarded them with
contempt, and the priests of recognised cults would
have nothing to do with them. In the most back
ward districts of Europe the wise woman who can
tell fortunes still has a following ; but these fortune
tellers are some of the least reputable members
of the lowest races. Very different were the
prophecies which belonged to the higher religions.
Delphi sometimes riddled, but on the whole the
Delphic utterances were wise counsels of politics or
religion. The prophet of Israel was no soothsayer.

LECT. IL EMBODIMENTS 59
but a preacher, a man so divinely gifted with insight
that he could look beneath the surface of events and
see their true tendencies, reading the future in the
present in the same way in which birds judge of the
coming seasons, or the husbandman of the future
harvest, feeling the existing tendency but having no
infallible sight of events to come. So the insight of
the prophet is not related to future fact — has indeed
no relation to time or to the destinies of individuals,
" Ye can discern the face of the sky," said Jesus to
the Jews, " but can ye not discern the signs of the
times ? " Is there among you. He implies, nothing
of the spirit of the prophets ? The prophet was he
who rightly discerned the signs of the times, and
uttered with inspired voice his warnings and his
denunciations. This relationship of the prophet to the inward
realities which lie deep beneath mere outward shows
has been well set forth by Thomas Carlyle:^ "A
messenger he, sent from the Infinite Unknown with
tidings to us. We all feel that the words he utters
are no other man's words. Direct from the Inner
Fact of things — he lives, and has to live, in daily
communion with that. Hearsays cannot hide it
from him ; he is blind, homeless, miserable, follow
ing hearsays ; it glares in upon him. Really his
utterances, are they not a kind of revelation ; what
he must call such for want of some other name ? It
is from the heart of the world that he comes ; he is
portion of the primal reality of things."
1 Lectures on Heroes, Lect. 2.

6o REVELATION AND ITS lect. u.
But of course in all things human baser elements
are mingled with what is best. And prophets even
of genuine inspiration have commonly fallen into the
snare of supposing that what has a tendency to
come to pass must necessarily come about within
brief time. Materialism and the tyranny of the
visible have partly dominated them ; so that they
have promised the immediate and obvious triumph
of the good, the swiftly approaching destruction of
their enemies. Seeing clearly the divine control of
events, they have seldom been able to understand
how slowly the mills of God grind, and how often
what seems to be the divine will is hindered in its
outward working. Prophecy was above all things
the gift of the Jewish race ; and it played, as we
shall see, no small part in the early history of the
Christian religion. And some notable Christians of
later time — Savonarola for example — have been led
away by intensity of feeling as to what ought to
be into definite prophecies of what must shortly
come to pass.
I do not venture to assert that the foretelling of
events in future history is an impossibility. To say
that would exceed the bounds of legitimate asser
tion. To any idealist of Kantian school, time is but
a form of human perception, and it is conceivable
that it might be at any moment pierced by the
inbreaking of superhuman intelligence. But in
these days we have to free history from the
influence of metaphysical presuppositions. The
question is not as regards what is conceivable or

LECT. II. EMBODIMENTS 6i
possible, but as regards what appears according to
available evidence to have taken place. Looking
at the matter from the point of view of historic
science, we see two things. Firstly, a careful
critical examination of the circumstances of a past
prophecy which is supposed to have met its fulfil
ment nearly always deprives it of its superhuman
character, and leaves it either without foundation or
easily explicable. And secondly, the whole testi
mony of anthropology is to the effect that if there
be a second sight to which the future is revealed,
it belongs not to the higher races, but to the lower,
not to the great religious teacher, but to the sooth
sayer and the wizard. To soothsaying the higher
religion of Israel was opposed, as was the organised
good sense and intelligence of the Greeks. It
still lingers in corners of civilised countries ; but
Christianity, to its credit, nowhere gives it open
countenance. V
The working of the divine ideas in relation to
time present is more complicated. We have
already seen how the religious teacher often wraps
up truth for his followers in parable or allegory.
It is commonly not the founder of a religion but
his early followers who put the truths which inspire
them on terms with the speculative intellect by
giving them a body of doctrine. Doctrine is
deposited like crystals when the seething flow of
inspiration begins to grow cool. It is an attempt

62 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
to express, in language which will pass with the
educated, the divine ideas, which are as we have
seen at first addressed rather to will than to mind.
It is necessary that doctrine should use the language
and be accommodated to the mental habits which
are current in the schools of thought when it is
formulated. Hence it depends very largely on
intellectual atmosphere.
Of course it is not thus that doctrine has usually
been regarded. It has been looked upon, not
as an attempt to find expression for experience
in the language of the schools, but as a series of
objective statements in regard to spiritual realities.
The plain man thinks that when he says that God
is good or that the soul is immortal he is expressing
an outward fact. In just the same way when he
says that grass is green or a fire hot he imagines
that he is making a simple statement as to the
nature of external realities. In either case a little
psychology will show that the simple - sounding
statement is couched in terms of relativity, and can
only be understood when man's faculties for acquir
ing knowledge have been analysed. And whereas
the great doctrines of essential religion may in spite
of their subjective basis be true for all men and all
time, as greenness and heat exist for all men,
detailed doctrines such as those which make up
Christology or Soteriology are expressed in the
language of particular schools of thought, and when
those schools of thought become obsolete, cease to
have an intelligible meaning.

lect. II. EMBODIMENTS 63
And from this fact at once results a consequence
which is not at all generally recognised among
those who write about religion. Of all the forms in
which the ideas of religion can be expressed, doctrine
is among the least stable. For intellectual atmo
sphere changes far more quickly and readily than
do motive and impulse and the conditions of life.
Human will is at all times the mainspring of the life.
Emotions, lying closely about this spring, vary but
slowly from generation to generation. But in
tellect, though its main processes are the same
always, though logic is logic through all time, yet
changes marvellously from age to age in its
interests, its outlook, its appreciations. Any one
may easily verify this for himself by reading first
some poem where a great religious idea is emotion
ally expressed, say the Fifty-first Psalm, and then
some ancient treatise of a doctrinal character, say
St. Paul's theory of the spiritual body. The psalm
is just as fresh, just as real, as if it had been
written yesterday ; the doctrinal treatise seems
archaic, unintelligible, no longer having any hold
upon our minds, though its associations may
dominate our emotions.
As regards the expression of Christian ideas in
doctrinal form, two tendencies had way in the
early Church — tendencies which have been to us
in modern days the cause of never-ending pain
and confusion. In the first place doctrines had
to be made into a logical system, and this naturally
caused a vast deal of artificial construction and

64 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
fanciful development. We may compare an analo
gous process which took place when the mytho-
graphers of later Greece, such as Apollodorus,
tried to make Greek myths into a system, and so
put in the place of a fresh-growing development
a hard and pedantic scheme out of relation to all
reality. This attempt to explain myth by the
mere application to it of intelligence, of cleverness,
was the work of ancient rationalism. The ration
alist did not begin by a psychologic search into the
origin and the nature of myth, but took it as it
stood, and tried to make it conform to his notions
of the reasonable. In just the same way have
religious rationalists of all time, instead of making
a historic study of doctrine, desired to make it
conform to their notions of reason and logic. The
procedure is just like that adopted in regard to
the phenomena of nature by the early philosophers
of Ionia, one of whom found the origin of all things
in water, another in air, another in fire. But
physical science did not rise until men learned that
facts must be discovered, not by the crude appli
cation of ready - made theories, but by resolute
self- suppression and the subordination of mere
intelligence to method and research. Sooner or
later the same spirit will spread also into religious
investigation. And in the second place, when doctrines had
been fitted into their Procrustean beds with their
iron framework, they were taken up by authority,
and enforced on all the faithful. Thus from doc-

LECT. il EMBODIMENTS 65
trine men passed to dogma — doctrine sealed and
warranted by authority. And being thus secured
against the natural and healthy processes of gradual
dissolution and renewal, dogmas remained through
all the ages of the Church, like undecaying corpses
preserved in sacred vaults, preserving the appear
ance but not the reality of life.
Of course I would not imply that all early
Christian doctrine is thus outworn. There is in
it much of that which is eternal, and which the
world could not afford to lose. It was through the
dread of losing what was best in it that Christian
authority would not allow it to be touched : and for
the sake of the good the residuum has been en
dured so long. But times and seasons happen
to all things. And it may be that a time has now
come when, if what is good in early Christian
doctrine cannot be taken out for preservation,
the whole of it must be cast aside as contaminated.
There can be no question as to the growing
impatience felt for doctrinal discussions among
the English laity. It is a feeling which has
suddenly arisen, and grown with such rapidity
that it were madness longer to neglect it. We
hear on all sides a repudiation of the recognised
formulae, and a desire for a religion free from
doctrine. Religion without doctrine would be un
intelligent religion, which could not hold its own
in the world of thought, but would be transient as
emotions and untrustworthy as sentiment. What
is really wanted is not the expulsion of religious
S

66 REVELATION AND ITS lect. il
doctrine, but the formulation of a body of doctrine
fitted to contain those ideas of religion which are
vital among us, and to present them to the world
in a form which shall be suited to modern ways
of thought. In a word, we want to substitute
psychology for metaphysics, history for rationalism,
and experience for authority.

VI
We have now, as it were, reached the top of an
outlying spur of the mountain which we would
climb, and can see our path before us leading on
to the actual summit. Our business is to trace,
with tentative hand and in mere outline, how the
main ideas of Christianity took form in the earliest
Christian literature. Into the later periods of the
history of the Church we cannot hope to be able to
trace their embodiments. Indeed our subject is
narrower still. It is only the literary and intel
lectual developments of the ideas that we shall
have to trace : it would be far too wide a task
to try to sketch their working in all fields — of
feeling and thought, of art and organisation. What
we have to investigate is the way in which the
Christian ideas found an embodiment — in the past
in the history of the Founder, in the future in
prophecy of the end of the world, in the present
in doctrinal schemes.
And it will not surprise us to find that to each
age its own realisation of the Christian ideas has

lect. n. EMBODIMENTS 67
seemed the final and the only possible realisation.
The intellect does its work usually under the im
pression that it is free, and that it is in contact
with eternal truth. Really it is not free, but
greatly dominated by the active side of the nature,
by emotion and volition. And what it takes for
eternal truth is usually temporary truth — truth
adapted to a particular mental status, and coloured
with the tints of the atmosphere of the age, whether
an atmosphere of sunset or sunrise, of clearness or
of cloud. Only to a few in each age has it been given,
whether by the way of intellect or emotion or
will, to penetrate in some degree beyond the
temporary embodiment to the underlying reality.
One Christian here and there has succeeded in
rising beyond the local and the temporal, and come
in contact with the eternal ideas which make up
the inspiration of Christianity, whose power still
persists in all the ages. Such have attained, at
least in some degree, to unity in the spirit of the
Master, to a full membership of the Church, which
is the eternal body of Christ, They are the great
teachers and lights of the ordinary mass of working
Christians. But to the great majority of mankind in all
ages the limitation, the outward form, has been a
necessity. They see the idea only as embodied
in what is outward, and are unable to distinguish
between the idea and the manifestation. This fact
explains one of the commonest phenomena of

68 REVELATION AND ITS lect. ii.
history ; it has again and again come to pass that
those who have asserted what we now know to
be true, have seemed to their contemporaries not
merely to be in the wrong, but to be culpably and
sinfully in the wrong. For example there were
early Christians, mentioned in the Second Epistle
of Peter, who doubted as to the coming of Christ,
saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? for
from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation." Strictly speaking these doubters were
right, and have been vindicated by the course of
history. Yet the belief in the second coming was
at the time so bound up with the Christian hope,
that those who believed in it were almost neces
sarily far more in the right, on the whole, than
those who denied it. In rejecting the prophetic
body, those sceptics also rejected the great Christian
idea of the dawning of a new order of things, and
the exaltation of the Master.
It is the same in our own days. One here and
there may gain a partial and temporary view of the
ideas in their naked beauty. All who have historic
education may to some extent discern in the past
between the idea and the manifestation. But the
outward forms which ideas take in our own times
must almost necessarily seem to us more than
temporary. They are real to us in just the same
way as the world of sense surrounding us is real,
which, though to every psychologist it is little more
than appearance, yet to all men in their practical life

lect. il embodiments 69
seems absolutely solid and objective. It is our duty,
if we can, to find for the ideas of religion a body suited
to modern conditions ; and when we have found it,
there will be little harm in fancying that it will be
permanent. " Our little systems have their day" ;
but we also have but our day, and the system is
as far more durable and important than the little
lives of those who work it out as a coral reef, though
brittle, is more durable than the insects which by
degrees built it up until it overtopped the surface
of ocean.

LECTURE III
THE HISTORIC FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY
We have now outlined our method of procedure.
We have next to apply to the origin and the early
history of Christianity the principles already set
forth or sketched in regard to the nature of revela
tion and the way in which it is embodied in religious
systems. Our view is that if the Christian origins
are studied at all, they must be approached by the
same faculties and examined by the same methods
as we use in dealing with other religions. That we
are Christians ourselves, beyond question makes this
procedure exceedingly difficult ; yet it is the only
procedure which can lead us to results of objective
historic value.
The history of a religion, we have maintained, is
the history of the gradual translation of divine im
pulses or ideas into human forms. First into ways
of life and behaviour ; then, on the intellectual side,
into history and prophecy and doctrine ; then into
organisation and ceremony and art. It is in every
case an evolution, and it has to be followed by the

LECT. III. FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY 7 1
aid of such resources as the developed study of
history has in these days put within our reach.
In the last resort Christianity, however spiritual
or generalised in form, must needs have important
relations to past history. The luminous saying of
Amiel, " What our age especially needs is a trans
lation of Christianity from the domain of history to
the domain of psychology," is true, but it must not
be taken too narrowly. Like most luminous say
ings, it expresses rather one side of the truth
profoundly than all sides alike. Psychology has
to be employed rather to regulate history than to
supersede it. Yet when we have grasped the true
principles of religious psychology, we realise for the
first time the full difficulty of religious history.
For we perceive, on the one hand, that history
cannot be studied in any merely objective and
mechanical fashion ; that we must needs judge of
the events of the past in the light of present ex
perience ; that apart from a formed moral and
intellectual system history remains a closed coffer
without a key. And we perceive, on the other hand,
that as present experience gives the light in which
history must be seen, it often gives a merely
subjective and misleading light. Inasmuch as the
main features of human nature and the springs of
conduct are the same in all ages, it is fair to judge
the past from the present. Yet inasmuch as in
less essential features man is gradually changing
and developing, the present must in many ways
make us judge the past wrongly.

72 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. iil
As regards the Christian history in particular, it
is to be observed that divine impulse and inspira
tion in those who wrote it by no means lifts them
above error. This indeed is made obvious enough
when we observe that various inspired writers some
times give inconsistent accounts of the same events.
Inspiration acts primarily on the will, but it also has
a wonderfully illuminating power on the intellect.
This illumination, however, does not extend to the
revelation of fact. No inspiration of which any
trace is to be found in history communicates to
the inspired man an infallible knowledge either of
physical law or of historic event. The search for
what is matter of physical science has to be pursued
by our ordinary faculties according to rigid method,
and is not made easy by religious illumination.
The same principle holds in regard to historic fact.
Inspiration does lead men frequently to brilliant
insight into the character and the motives of great
religious teachers of past times, but it can never
furnish us with trustworthy details as to particular
events of their lives. For these we must go to
testimony and document and the canons of historic
probabihty. Thus in regard to the actual facts of the life of
the Founder of Christianity and the doings of His
immediate followers, it is necessary to use with the
utmost caution the inspired documents of the early
Church. Indeed, the more evident is the inspira
tion of those documents, the more full they are of
religious ideas and of Christian passion, the more

LECT. IIL OF CHRISTIANITY 73
suspect do they become from the rigidly historical
standpoint. From the evidential point of view the
worst account one can possibly have of the doings of
a hero is that of a devoted follower, who has not
been intellectually trained, and therefore is not in
the habit of precisely observing, or of accurately
recording his observations. His record may reflect
the spirit of his master far better than an account
by an unimaginative and impartial spectator. But
when it comes to questions of accurate chronology,
of exact locality, of precise detail, then the testi
mony of a mere bystander is far more to be trusted
than that of the devotee.
Of course a great many Christians will strongly
object to the application of any such principles as
these to New Testament history. They will main
tain that the inspiration of the Gospels was such as
to lead the authors not only into an appreciation of
the character and the teaching of the Founder, but
also into an exact knowledge of His career. But in
fact the inconsistencies which exist between the
statements of the various Evangelists sufficiently
prove their fallibility. " But these inconsistencies,"
it will be replied, " may be reconciled." It was in
this fashion that our parents laboured to reconcile
the six days of creation in Genesis with geologic
fact, and Joshua's command to sun and moon with
astronomic fact, until in time they discovered that
the purpose of the Scriptures was to communicate
to us not scientific fact but spiritual truth. In
precisely the same way, the scientific facts of history

74 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
are not matters of revelation but things which we
must search out as best we are able.
The more closely we examine the documents of
early Christianity, the more fully do we acquiesce
in the dictum of Dr. Edersheim, that the materials
for a life of Jesus,^ in any objective sense, do not
exist. It will probably always remain impossible to
set forth even a brief narrative of the Founder's life
which history can accept as demonstrated fact. Even
the chronological skeleton of such a life cannot be
sketched with certainty. And the outlines of events
in the life are so hidden by the colouring of emotion
and purpose, so distorted by the working of the
Christian enthusiasm, that they cannot be made out.
To the historian as such this is doubtless a great
loss. But it may gravely be doubted whether, upon
the whole, it has been a loss to religion. It has set
every Christian theologian free from bondage to
the mere letter of the Christian history, free to
work according to the spirit, and to discern in the
image of the Master an embodiment of such aspects
of divine revelation as appeal to his own mind with
the greatest power. In place of one stereotyped life
of the Master we have a thousand lives, changing
ever with the spirit of the age, yet always having
some contact with reality and fact of history.
1 I endeavour in these lectures to observe a distinction very con
ducive to clearness of thought. In speaking of the earthly life of the
Master, I call Him with the Evangelists Jesus ; in speaking of the
exalted Head of the Christian Society, I use with Paul the term
Christ. In cases where the meaning is between these two, the
phrase Jesus Christ is applicable.

LECT. III. OF CHRISTIANITY 75
An excellent statement of the utmost that criticism
can ever hope to accomplish in the restoration of the
life of Jesus may be found in a work which does
not refer to Christianity at all, Mr. Rhys Davids'
Buddhism} It will be easy to apply the words to
the Christian instead of to the Buddhist origins.
There is a great advantage in thus rising above the
too strong prepossessions from which a Christian
cannot wholly free himself, and in judging of what
we cannot look at without emotion by considering
what has to us no personal interest, " There was
certainly an historical basis for the Buddhist legend ;
and if it be asked whether it is at all possible to
separate the true from the false, I would reply that
the difficulty, though great, is apt to be exaggerated.
The retailers of these legends are not cunning forgers,
but simple-minded men, with whose modes of thought
we can put ourselves more or less en rapport ; we
are getting to know what kind of things to expect
from their hero-worship and religious reverence, and
delight in the physically marvellous ; and we are not
without information as to what was, and what was
not, historically possible in the fifth century b.c. in
the eastern valley of the Ganges. Scholars will
never become unanimously agreed on all points ;
but they will agree in rejecting many things, and
after allowing for all reasonable doubts they will
agree that there still remain small portions of the
narrative whose existence can only be explained on
the hypothesis that they relate to actual events. I
1 P. 16.

76 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
would maintain, therefore, that some parts of the
story, few indeed, but very important, and sufficient
to throw great light on the origin of Buddhism,
may already be regarded as historical ; other parts
may be as certainly rejected ; and many episodes
remain which may be altogether or partly fictitious."
So again in a recent paper on the early documents
of the Mohammedan religion, a great authority.
Professor Goldziher, writes as follows : —
"In regard to this literature we have grown
more cautious and critical. No serious student of
Islam would venture to cull at haphazard sayings
attributed to Mohammed and his first disciples,
thence to make up a picture of the first state of
things and the original doctrines of Islam. Modern
historic criticism warns us against this antediluvian
way of proceeding. It is the disputes of political
and religious parties which give us the key to the
documents, showing us the assertions or the aspira
tions which this or that saying of Mohammed, or
this or that testimony of a disciple, was intended to
confirm or to combat." ^
In exactly the same way the Christian Gospels
and Epistles can never be critically studied until
they are read in the light given by the early history
of circumstances outside the nascent society and
parties within it. I
If, in pursuance of the plan before me, I try to
1 Revue de Vhistoire des Religions, vol. xliii. p. 2.

LECT. in. OF CHRISTIANITY 77
set forth what I believe to be the actual facts of the
Christian origins, to discover the cell from which
the Christian organism took its origin, I do so in
no presumptuous hope of wholly succeeding where
far abler and more learned men have failed. I only
approach a problem, which is at bottom insoluble, in
the hope of forwarding in some measure an intellec
tual movement to which the labours of others have
given birth, and a religious tendency which seems
to belong especially to the conditions of our age.
It is impossible that within my narrow limits I
should attempt any detailed criticism of the writings
of the New Testament. Such criticism is, however,
accessible to every one. In particular, the articles
in the Encyclopcedia Brltannica which deal with the
books of the New Testament are usually admirable
for critical talent and clearness of exposition.
It has been maintained by Professor Pfleiderer
that accounts of the origin of Christianity ought to
begin with the well-known figure of St. Paul, and
work backwards to the Founder. That in history
it is almost always right to begin with the known
and thence to work towards the less known is quite
true. And of course the writings of Paul are the
earliest Christian documents which have come down
to us. Yet in dealing with Christianity it seems to
me a better method to begin with the Gospels, even
though they be later and more compound documents.
And for an obvious reason. If Paul had personally
been a disciple of Jesus and an eye-witness of His
life, certainly his account of his Master would have

78 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
claimed priority. But in fact Paul tells us but very
little about the Founder's life, and that little con
fessedly gathered from hearsay. In the Gospels, on
the other hand, there are certainly incorporated the
accounts of eye-witnesses, even if the authors were
not themselves such, and if they sometimes mingled
what passed in the Church for sayings and doings of
the Founder with what was really authentic. Paul
is valuable to us, not as witness to the Christian
story, but as founder of Christian doctrine.
It might seem natural to seek the greatest certainty
in relation to the life of the Founder of Christianity
in the Gospel of Mark, or the common tradition
which that Gospel seems to embody. But to this
proceeding there are two objections. In the first
place, simple and primitive as is the second Gospel,
we have no means of going behind or testing its
statements. It comes before us as a completed
result, and it is most difficult to resolve it into the
elements of which it is composed. In the second
place, the author of it, though he records many say
ings, no doubt genuine, of the Founder, yet is
clearly more interested in His doings than in His
teaching. Now if one thing be clear as to the life
of Jesus, it is that we can be more confident as to
the character of His teaching than as to the events
of His career. And for an obvious reason. The
first disciples had very strong tendencies (as to
which I shall have more to say in the next lecture)
towards distorting the doings of their Master, and,
generally speaking, nothing was easier than thus to

LECT. III. OF CHRISTIANITY 79
distort them. But the teaching which fell from His
lips was generally of such a character that it could
not be easily imitated nor even altered beyond a
certain point. It has a flavour and character of its
own, which one can learn to recognise. When a
critic of paintings has gained from the minute study
of the undoubted works of a particular artist a precise
knowledge of his technique and style, he can venture
to claim for that artist paintings which are unsigned.
Unfortunately there are no entirely undisputed say
ings of Jesus ; but there are many sayings which
almost certainly come from Him, and these form a
nucleus and a test for other utterances.
The second Gospel does not, when compared with
the first and third, contain so large an array of utter
ances which belong to the noblest teaching of the
Founder. In parables, a favourite kind of teaching
with Jesus, it is poor. The first and third Gospels
are certainly full of what the Germans call Jendenz,
purpose conscious or unconscious ; and an isolated
statement found in either of them must be received
with some caution. But when they both give us
accounts of the same teaching, then the differences
which exist between the authors and the characters
of the two works become a great help to us in the
endeavour to discover what is the real origin of the
two disparate versions. To Matthew and to Luke,
rather than to Mark, an inquirer would turn who
was anxious to penetrate to the true inwardness of
the message of Jesus.
No view of the Founder could be more inade-

8o THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. m.
quate than to regard Him as a mere teacher, and to
put His sayings in the same line as those of the
philosophers, Plato and Seneca and Epictetus. In
the case of these admirable moralists, inspiration
was above all intellectual. In the case of Jesus
it was primarily religious — that is, it came first to
the will, and afterwards was expressed in thought.
It was the life of the Founder which was the light
of the Church, and the turning-point of religious
history ; in His teaching we see at most a reflection
of the inner life. Yet possibly we may most clearly
judge of the life from this reflection, since the mists
of misleading tradition hinder our direct contempla
tion of it.
No passage in the Gospels has a stronger claim
to be regarded as coming direct from the Founder
than the Lord's Prayer, as given in Matthew, and
in a summary and truncated form in Luke. A
comparison with other passages in the Gospels
shows that it contains the essence of the teaching
of Jesus. Let us analyse it. It includes four
petitions. One of these is for daily bread, as that
necessary without which life is impossible. Another
is for delivery from temptation and the power of
evil — that is, for the divine aid which saves from the
power of Satan and the snares of temptation.
Another is for the forgiveness of sins ; and here we
must for a minute pause before going on to speak
of the last and most important petition.
Teaching as to the forgiveness of sins is one of
the most clearly marked and important features of

LECT. III. OF CHRISTIANITY 8i
the revelation of Jesus. In several passages of
the Gospels the psychology of the divine way of
forgiveness is marked out. The teaching is that
man is in great and constant need of the divine
forgiveness ; that without it he is an outcast and
utterly lost ; but that God in spite of His ready and
overflowing love will not grant it except upon two
conditions. The first condition is that man shall
humbly and honestly repent of his sin. The second
is that he shall forgive others who in like manner
sin against himself The divine and the human
forgiveness are in several passages put absolutely
on the same footing. And this might well have
prevented the human duty of forgiveness from
having been misunderstood among us. It is often
supposed that it is our duty as Christians to forgive
on the spot all who injure us, whether they ask
forgiveness or not, whether they allow that they
were wrong, or insist upon it that they were right.
Now it may or may not be our duty in life
to refrain from resisting evil. That is quite a
different matter from forgiveness. But it is quite
certain that it is possible only to forgive those
who confess their fault. To say to one who is
acting toward us as his conscience dictates, " I
forgive you," is grievously to insult him ; he does
not ask for or desire forgiveness. On the other
hand the teaching is very explicit that Christians are
bound to forgive over and over again those who
sincerely repent of having injured them. Jesus,
who ever explains the duties of man to man on

82 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. in.
theological grounds, teaches that this is also the
divine procedure. And this teaching, like the rest
of the doctrine of the Founder, is relative, and is
within the bounds of religious experience. The
forgiveness of sins, which in the Roman Church is
represented as the privilege of consecrated priests
and a miraculous act, appears by Jesus to have
been represented as one of the constant and regular
phenomena of spiritual life.
But in the Lord's Prayer all petitions are domi
nated by that which comes first, and which in the
version of Matthew is expressed in two forms, a
prayer that the Kingdom of God may spread, and His
will may be done on earth. It is quite unnecessary
to maintain the complete originality of this petition.
In one of the Psalms (xl.) we find the phrase, " I
delight to do thy will, O my God," and the idea of
doing the will of God was deeply rooted in the
later and more spiritual religion of Israel. Never
theless these phrases of essential religion are here
put in a new light. It is taught that the source of
all ethical good is the divine will ; that the divine
will meets with constant opposition in the world ;
that the one duty of man is to place himself on the
side of that will, whether by bearing what it im
poses on him, or by actively striving to carry it
out in the world. Here indeed we reach the
essence of Christianity, The most notable books
of Christianity are but comments on this text. And
the most noble Christian lives from the first have
been but attempts to translate it into real life.

LECT. III. 6f CHRISTIANITY 83
The aspiration for the Kingdom of God may
take a more individual or a more social form, ac
cordingly as a Christian feels more impelled to
bring his own conduct into harmony with divine
rule, or to strive for the realisation of the divine
ideas in the society of which he is a member. This
distinction is indeed of profound importance : yet
at the same time we must remember that when
individuals conform to the divine purposes they
move society in their direction, and that only
through the hearts and consciences of individuals
can the divine ideas work on society. And although
the phrase " Kingdom of God " or " Kingdom of
Heaven " is constantly in the mouth of the Founder
of Christianity, His appeal came certainly in the
first instance to the individual.
We must for a moment pause to consider the
historic setting of this doctrine of the divine will. It
is teaching of the most profound originality. And
it took root and grew because it was in conformity
with the spiritual conditions of human life. Yet at
another age of the world, or in other countries, it
could scarcely have been proclaimed, and had it been
proclaimed it might have died away, because the
minds of men were incapable of receiving it. The
divine ideas, as they come to the world, cast their
shadows before ; and by a marvellous process the
human mind becomes gradually fitted to receive
them. The doctrine of the Kingdom of God as
proclaimed by Jesus sprang forth as suddenly as
does a dragon-fly on a summer day break forth from

84 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
the larva. But if the larva had not for months
been living and feeding at the bottom of the pond,
the wings of the dragon-fly could not have been
formed. In every way the developed insect forms
a contrast to the ugly crawling grub : yet the life
of the grub is continued in the fly.
Two Jewish developments were at the basis of
the two sides of the doctrine of the kingdom. Both
in preaching the reality of the spiritual life for the
individual, and in proclaiming the divine destiny
of society, Jesus took His point of departure from
beliefs and hopes deeply engrained in the soul of
contemporary Judaism, which had become thus
engrained by ages of struggle and misfortune. The
new Christian life in God sprang out of the rigid
and intense formalism of the Pharisee, which was
the outer crust formed by the strong sense which
had mastered the best and strongest of the Jewish
race that the service of God and the love of His
word was the only thing which made life in the
world worth having. Jesus threw away the hard
crust, and showed the inner life which it had pro
tected how to develop under new circumstances and
to nobler ends, — how to rise above the local and
temporal and to aspire towards heaven. Bitter as
was the opposition between Jesus and the Pharisees,
it was yet from that body that His most efficient and
energetic disciples came.
And the idea of a divine kingdom, of a spiritual
community, sprang also, under the hand of the
Master, from a dearly -cherished and deep-seated

lect. hi. of CHRISTIANITY 85
conviction of the Jewish race, — their hope of an
earthly reign of the saints and of the emergence
amid the wars between Rome and Parthia of a new
and purified Judaism, powerful in arms, but equally
powerful in righteousness, ruling the nations not by
mere force, but by the power of a higher life. Of
the larva history of this hope I cannot, of course,
speak ; it has been traced with learning and skill by
Professor Charles in an earlier series of Jowett
Lectures. It is my business to trace, however
slightly, the spread of the Christian doctrines of
individual self-devotion and a righteous community ;
but we must never forget that the roots of both these
doctrines reach back through Judaism to the very
beginnings of the life of religion in the world.
With the Jewish expectation of a divine king
dom, Jesus also accepted and also transformed the
Messianic hopes of His countrymen. The earthly
kingdom of which they dreamed required an earthly
ruler, the Messiah. When the kingdom was raised
above the things of sense into the realm of spirit,
the head of it also became not a conqueror and
liberator but a spiritual ruler. His laws would have
sway not in the visible but in the invisible world. The
kingdom was within, and the king had his throne
in the hearts and consciences of men.
That Jesus accepted the appellation of the
Messiah and regarded the Messianic prophecies as
fulfilled in Himself seems clear. The process by
which He arrived at that belief is hidden from us.
But few passages in the Gospels are more vivid, or

86 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. ih.
have more completely the air of transcriptions from
life, than that which records the words which passed
between Peter and his Master at Caesarea Philippi,
when Peter for the first time, it would seem, gave
expression to the growing conviction of the Twelve
that their Master was the Messiah, in a special sense
the Son of God. In this confession Jesus saw a
proof of direct divine inspiration ; an inspiration like
that which had led Him to believe Himself in His
Messiahship, and to see in what new and trans
formed sense the Messiahship must be interpreted
to the world. The divine idea must be embodied
for the world by the help of an existing national
hope ; but in its revelation it must kill all that was
merely earthly in that hope. As we shall see in the
next lecture, the process of dying was slow, and was
not by any means complete when the Gospels were
written. According to the teaching of the Founder of
Christianity, the will of God is revealed to men in
two ways — in the external and visible world as law,
in the moral world as ideal. There are in the
summary of teaching called the Sermon on the
Mount a number of cases in which the divine order
in creation is appealed to as a source of knowledge
of the will of God. The happiness of birds, the
glory of the lilies of the field, are cited to show that
even the lower forms of life partake of the purpose
and the care of God. The regular order visible in
the signs of the sky is appealed to as a proof of
underlying law alike in material things and in the

lect. III. OF CHRISTIANITY 87
course of human events. Many of the parables
derive their power and meaning from the assump
tion that the divine ways, which may be traced by
observation in outward things, have close parallels
in the spiritual life of man, which grows like the
mustard seed, suffers like the corn from the tyranny of
unfavourable conditions, works invisibly like leaven,
shines in the life like a candle in a dark room. Yet
though the life of the spirit is, like the lower life of
the world, subject to law, it differs from what is
material in that it belongs at the same time to a
realm above visible law — to the realm of the ideal.
The divine kingdom can be realised upon earth only
partially and by slow degrees. It exists as a present
reality only in heaven, in the divine thought and
purpose. To every life is given a potentiality of
realising on earth some side or part of it ; and
through revealing it every hfe may be transformed,
and become a dweller in the higher realm, a loyal
subject of the Kingdom of God. The dwelling on
God's revelation in nature may help a man to trace
the divine will, but its higher and more immediate
revelation is given within, not through any intellec
tual process, but through loyalty of soul and a sub
ordination of the private desires to a higher purpose —
through a merging of the rivulet of the individual
life in the great river of tendency which streams
through the seen to the unseen, through the temporal
to the eternal.
The religious view of the will is set forth in the
Gospels as it is taught nowhere else. Yet the

88 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
teaching would probably have made but little im
pression on the world at large if it had been teach
ing merely. But the doctrine was but the intellectual
statement of the active and living idea or principle
which inspired the life of the Founder of Christianity,
and which has ever since inspired those who were
worthy among His followers. The divine obedience
of Jesus is the fountain among remote hills whence
has flowed down in a never-interrupted stream that
loyalty of heart to the divine which is the living
principle of the Christian faith. The river has
passed through many lands, and its outward form
has been prescribed by the character of its banks.
Sometimes it has flowed like a slow and stately
flood through great plains, sometimes it has been
narrowed into rapids or has changed its level in a
mighty waterfall, yet its inward nature has been
the same, and its connection with the fountain-head
has never been wholly interrupted. Rains from on
high have filled it full, or droughts have made it
run low, but nothing has ever completely stayed its
progress. But if the reality and the power of divine inspira
tion, which is the central teaching of Christianity, is
also at the root of all other religions, we clearly
need, in order to discriminate between Christianity
and them, some more distinctive principle. The
true differentia of Christian teaching seems to me
to have been rightly set forth by Matthew Arnold
in the word inwardness. The Founder of Christianity
stands above all other religious teachers, because

lect. in. OF CHRISTIANITY 89
alike in life and in words he strongly adhered to
what may be called the physiological view of religion,
— that "the willing department of our nature," in the
words of Professor James, " dominates both the con
ceiving department and the feeling department."
He taught that purity of heart leads a man to the
vision of God ; that evil proceeding out of the heart
defiles and corrupts his whole being ; that sin con
sists not in deed but in intention ; that righteousness
consists not in the keeping of outward rules, but in
a right attitude of spirit ; that obedience to divine
impulse is the true source of spiritual knowledge ;
that a man is not profited if he gains the whole
world through injury to his own soul ; that the self-
sacrifice shown in the offering of the widow's mite
made it a more acceptable gift than all the treasures
of the wealthy.
The religious doctrine of the will and the
doctrine of inwardness are the essential features of
the teaching of Jesus. But they are not set forth
with the dry precision of the scribe, or with the
playful intellectuality of a Plato. Rather they are
surrounded by — almost lost in — a luminous haze of
passionate emotion. Alike in teaching and in deed,
Jesus sets forth the will of the Father in Heaven
as DOC merely to be obeyed but to be loved, Marcus
Aurelius regards it as man's highest honour to do
the divine will ; but with him it is a sad though
loyal and manly acquiescence in the universal stream
of tendency, A psalmist has exclaimed, " O how
love I thy law," " How sweet are thy words unto

88 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
teaching would probably have made but little im
pression on the world at large if it had been teach
ing merely. But the doctrine was but the intellectual
statement of the active and living idea or principle
which inspired the Hfe of the Founder of Christianity,
and which has ever since inspired those who were
worthy among His followers. The divine obedience
of Jesus is the fountain among remote hills whence
has flowed down in a never-interrupted stream that
loyalty of heart to the divine which is the living
principle of the Christian faith. The river has
passed through many lands, and its outward form
has been prescribed by the character of its banks.
Sometimes it has flowed like a slow and stately
flood through great plains, sometimes it has been
narrowed into rapids or has changed its level in a
mighty waterfall, yet its inward nature has been
the same, and its connection with the fountain-head
has never been wholly interrupted. Rains from on
high have filled it full, or droughts have made it
run low, but nothing has ever completely stayed its
progress. But if the reality and the power of divine inspira
tion, which is the central teaching of Christianity, is
also at the root of all other religions, we clearly
need, in order to discriminate between Christianity
and them, some more distinctive principle. The
true differentia of Christian teaching seems to me
to have been rightly set forth by Matthew Arnold
in the word inwardness. The Founder of Christianity
stands above all other religious teachers, because

LECT. IH. OF CHRISTIANITY 89
alike in life and in words he strongly adhered to
what may be called the physiological view of religion,
— that "the willing department of our nature," in the
words of Professor James, " dominates both the con
ceiving department and the feeling department."
He taught that purity of heart leads a man to the
vision of God ; that evil proceeding out of the heart
defiles and corrupts his whole being ; that sin con
sists not in deed but in intention ; that righteousness
consists not in the keeping of outward rules, but in
a right attitude of spirit ; that obedience to divine
impulse is the true source of spiritual knowledge ;
that a man is not profited if he gains the whole
world through injury to his own soul ; that the self-
sacrifice shown in the offering of the widow's mite
made it a more acceptable gift than all the treasures
of the wealthy.
The religious doctrine of the will and the
doctrine of inwardness are the essential features of
the teaching of Jesus. But they are not set forth
with the dry precision of the scribe, or with the
playful intellectuality of a Plato. Rather they are
surrounded by — almost lost in — a luminous haze of
passionate emotion. Alike in teaching and in deed,
Jesus sets forth the will of the Father in Heaven
as not merely to be obeyed but to be loved. Marcus
Aurelius regards it as man's highest honour to do
the divine will ; but with him it is a sad though
loyal and manly acquiescence in the universal stream
of tendency. A psalmist has exclaimed, " O how
love I thy law," " How sweet are thy words unto

90 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
my taste," " I love thy commandments above gold " :
yet in the noblest books of the Jewish Scriptures
one might search in vain for anything like the con
fidence, the passion, the self-abandonment, with
which Jesus welcomes the impulses of the divine
will. God is the Father in Heaven ; but the love
of God to man incomparably exceeds the love of
an earthly father. In an earthly father there are
limitations — there are selfishness and short-sighted
ness — which often check the stream of a child's love.
But the river of love to God may flow on without
fear of impediment or reaction.
The love of God as a holy passion appears
reflected in the life of Jesus as recorded by the
Synoptists. And since love is roused not by
reflection but by instinct and contagion, from this
source the love of God has flowed on into the
history of the Church, But with the mass of
Christians the love of the divine has been concen
trated not on the Father in Heaven, but on the
Founder of the religion. It is the divine as
revealed in Christ, rather than the divine as the
source of life to the world and of grace to men,
that has in all ages most strongly roused a love
which has echoed the love of Jesus for the Heavenly
Father. In the life of Jesus the love of God is set forth
as the safest and most trustworthy basis for the
higher love for man. In some modern schools this
is sometimes overlooked, and tne loving-kindness
shown in the relations of Jesus to those about Him

LECT. III. OF CHRISTIANITY 91
has often been regarded as the fruit of a gentle and
kindly nature, of a heart naturally open to every
appeal from the poor and the suffering. In fact
Jesus has been regarded by many of the pure
humanitarians of recent days as their hero and
prototype, the apostle of boundless unselfishness
and desire for human happiness. There could
scarcely be a more one-sided and incomplete view
of the Founder of Christianity. He did no doubt
show in life and deed an infinite pity for the suffer
ing. But this was not the basis of His life. It
rested on a purely theological foundation. With
Him the second commandment, to love one's
neighbour, was entirely dominated by the first, to
love God. Indeed the second was a sort of
corollary of the first. A man was to love his
neighbour, because he loved God, and so loved
the divine element to be found in every man. Men
are bidden to love their enemies and those who,
behave ill to them, because they are children of the
same Heavenly Father. Indeed it seems very
clear that only by being based upon some such
divine " enthusiasm of humanity " can the love of
enemies become possible. A general benevolence
may make one treat one's enemies with foolish weak
ness and culpable laxity ; but it cannot make one
love them. Love arises naturally at contact with
some people, and aversion at contact with others :
it is only by a divine contagion that love for man
kind as such can arise.
Thus the idea of inwardness was applied by

94 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
secret which is being ever revealed to the world.
His concrete precepts, however admirable, stand
but in the background.
Since, however, I am venturing in these lectures
to set forth something like a canon of the methods
of revelation, it seems but natural that I should
make some endeavour to apply this canon to the
utterances of the Founder of Christianity so far as
they can be identified. Let us briefly consider how
the divine ideas revealed by Him appear in the field
of intellectual expression, of ritual, of organisation.
II
The intellectual expression of the teaching of
Jesus is of extreme directness and simplicity. He
does not reinterpret or reconstruct the history of
the Jewish race in the colours of a new faith, as
Paul and the author of Hebrews attempt to recon
struct it. Whether He by prophecy interpreted the
future in the light of revelation is a very difficult
question, to which I must return in a future lecture.
But generally speaking it is the present tense in
which divine truth is set forth. And of the two
modes of expressing the ideas in the present tense,
the methods of parable and of doctrine. He chooses
the former, by far the simpler, and the best adapted
to survive the shocks of time. The parable was
familiar to the Jewish rabbis of the period, and it
had immense advantages for a religious teacher,
since tales are easier to remember than formulae,

lect. hi. of CHRISTIANITY 95
and they embody truth in a far more generalised
form. Thus we have the magnificent series of Gospel
parables dealing with the life of the spirit, of the
action of God in the soul, of the rise and growth of
the Kingdom of Heaven. They form a rich mine
in which Christian teachers of all ages have dug for
the benefit of their flocks, yet the treasures of which
are still unexhausted. They point out analogies
between the course of nature or the facts of human
relations on the one hand, and the phenomena of
the spiritual life on the other. Hence it naturally
arises that when the progress of science and the
evolution of society throw new light upon the out
ward and visible element of the analogy, a fresh
illumination is also spread over the higher truths
with which it is linked. There is in these parables
a profound suggestiveness and a stimulus urging us
to carry the comparison, where possible, still further.
Doctrine properly speaking, — that is, a systematic
edifice in which a number of truths of the inner life
are set in relation one to the other in language
borrowed from current philosophy, — is not found
in the Synoptic Gospels. The teaching of the
parables is supplemented by a number of brief
and simple statements as to man's relations with
the higher Power, as to the power of faith, the
necessity of prayer, the duty of self-denial. But
these assertions and precepts are put in the most
practical form, in direct relation to human activity,
not to human thought. What may be called the

96 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. in.
relative tone, in contrast to the absolute tone com
monly taken by philosophers, is very marked. The
teaching is very general : it is adapted not merely
to the times or to the Jewish race, but to mankind :
yet it makes not the smallest attempt to pass out
side human conditions.
Of ritual the only fragment which has come
down to us is the Lord's Prayer. And the note
worthy indication that this prayer is given in fuller
form by Matthew, and in briefer or mutilated form
by Luke, points beyond all doubt to the fact that
even this prayer was not repeated on set occasions
or in a fixed form. When we come to the ritual
of the Lord's Supper, as given in the Didache, it
does not seem to have any relation to the history
of that Supper as given by the Synoptic Writers,
The baptismal formula given in the last verses of
Matthew is demonstrably not that in use in the
early Church, and so can scarcely come from the
Founder. Christian ritual then owes next to nothing
to Jesus. Organisation was left by Jesus in an unformed
state, although traces of it are not wholly wanting.
The twelve Apostles were chosen to be the close
companions of their Master ; and with Him they
wandered through the towns of Galilee, and went
up to the Passover at Jerusalem. The little com
munity had one travelling purse, filled by the volun
tary offerings of friends, but beyond that we find in
the tale of the wanderings but little trace of com
munism. Converts did not bestow their goods on

LECT. HI. OF CHRISTIANITY 97
the Master, but left all to follow Him. As guests
the party sat often at the tables of the wealthy.
But when the Master retired to spend a night in
sohtude and prayer, the disciples did not accompany
Him. Besides the Apostles, a mixed and varying
multitude seems to have followed the Master, from
among whom, as we are told, on one occasion
seventy men were chosen for a special service.
It was apparently to the inner circle of disciples
that was directed the remarkable series of ascetic
directions which we find in the Sermon on the
Mount, as to taking no care for the morrow, giving
to those who ask, judging no one, not resisting evil.
It is quite clear that a literal acceptance of them is
not suited to organised society ; would indeed bring
it to an immediate end. But they are suited to the
life of a small community, and indeed have repeatedly
in the course of history been practised, by Christian
monks and friars and by Buddhist mendicants. It
is doubtful whether one or two of these precepts
could be literally carried out by a society such as
was constituted by the Founder and His first group
of disciples. But in general they very nearly con
form to the ways of that society— a group of men
wandering from place to place, carrying with them
a moderate purse kept by one of the number, but
in the main dependent upon charity for housing, for
raiment, and for food. Wherever they journeyed
they entered any house open to them, preached the
tidings of the Kingdom, and then departed, leaving
a benediction behind them. They were marvel-

98 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
lously like the bands of Franciscans who in the
Middle Ages wandered from land to land.
But by far the greater part of the teaching of
Jesus was adapted, and was intended, also for less
immediate followers. Indeed it is quite in opposi
tion to the perfect inwardness and spirituality of
Jesus that He should have made acceptance of the
Kingdom of Heaven to consist in any merely out
ward observances. With Him religion was of the
heart, whether followed in ordinary civil society or
in ascetic retirement, although from a few note
worthy passages it does appear that He considered
a nobler kind of self-sacrifice, such as the giving up
of worldly possessions or the sacrifice of family and
social ties, as the way to a higher spiritual rank.
From what has been said, it will appear that the
message of the Founder of Christianity was so pro
foundly spiritual in character, and adhered so closely
to the facts of the inner life, that there was in the
direct embodiment of it in the world of thought
almost nothing of temporary or perishable character.
I say almost nothing, because there is perhaps after
all a slight residuum in it of the local and the
temporary. Jesus seems to have used in His teach
ing some of the scientific and historic theories of
H is contemporaries. H e adopted the current theory,
of animistic origin, as to the agency in the world of
good and bad spirits, and put in terms of that theory
important facts of the spiritual world, as well as
facts of corporeal disease. He naturally regarded
the Jewish legislation as the work of Moses, and

LECT. HI. OF CHRISTIANITY 99
the Psalms as written by David. Thus occasion
ally in our day well-educated people have slightly
to transpose some of His sayings. But it is a
marvel to how small an extent this is necessary.
His words are indeed spirit and life ; the temporal
and the material stain them only enough to make
them visible to the dull eyes of His contemporaries.
HI
We have spoken briefly of the teaching of Jesus.
But to speak of the teaching of Jesus and not of His
person may well seem to be treating the New
Testament record in an insufficient, in an intoler
able manner. The person of the Master is to His
followers, to the Church, of incomparably greater
interest than His teaching. Christianity is at bottom
not the perpetuation of a school, but the continua
tion of a life. It is what Jesus was, not what He
taught, that has been the salvation of the world.
It is the connection of the teaching with the Founder,
rather than its incomparable beauty and truth, that
the mass of Christians hold of most account.
All this is true : and yet in the present lecture I
can have but little to say of the person of Jesus. At
present I am trying to discern in the objective spirit
of critical and historic inquiry what, in the records of
the Master's life, is most clear and certain. We
can venture thus to approach the summaries of His
teaching. But from this point of view, and by these
methods, we cannot, as I think, approach His person.

100 THE HISTORIC FOUNDER lect. hi.
I am aware that many of the most critical and
the most modern of theologians have maintained
that it is possible to derive from the Gospels the
views of Jesus as to His own person, and the
relation of that person to the Heavenly Father.
And if theologians were agreed among themselves
what those views are, then it might seem to savour
of arrogance, or of excessive scepticism, to refuse to
accept their unanimous opinion. But such agree
ment does not exist. We may therefore be allowed
to hold the view that it is not possible to derive,
at least from the Synoptic Writers, any clear or final
view as to the personal claims which the Master
set forth. That He accepted the title and office of
Messiah is clear. That in His discourse He claimed
an exceptional and unique position in relation to the
divine cannot be denied, save by those who take a
very sceptical view of the accuracy of the Gospels,
For instance. His application to Himself of the title
" Son of Man" has beyond doubt a meaning, though
that meaning is hard to discern. And it is note
worthy that while He uses frequently the expres
sions " My Father " and " Your Father in Heaven,"
he does not use the phrase "Our Father in Heaven"
as including Himself and His disciples. It would not
show a want of the critical spirit to go further than
this, and to maintain with Professor Harnack that
Jesus assigned a special significance to His death in
relation to the forgiveness of sins, claimed an unique
dignity as King and Lord, regarded His death as a
passage to glory, and anticipated a speedy return to

lect. ih. of CHRISTIANITY loi
the earth as Judge.^ Yet I cannot persuade myself
that on strictly historical grounds these statements
could be definitely established.
The truth is that historic methods may fairly be
regarded as adequate for the criticism of the teach
ing of Jesus ; but for the definition of His person
they are inadequate. Consider how it is, even with
our friends. We hear their words and see their
actions, but we cannot by mere reasoning hence
determine their personalities. It is only by an
inner sympathy, an effort of imagination and of
love, that we can pierce beyond the outward seem
ing to the heart within. Thus from the very first
the person of Jesus has been interpreted in the
Church in the light, not of strict historic evidence,
but of spiritual experience. The history of views
as to the person of the Founder is in the main a
history of the evolution of the Christian Church.
We cannot say Lo here ! or Lo there ! for the King
dom of Christ is within, not without. This theme
will in future lectures be largely developed.
I almost fear that this discourse may have seemed
to some to trench upon the province of the preacher.
But some such discourse was a necessity. Before
showing how Christianity had been interpreted, it
was necessary that I should sketch in outline what
I hold it in origin to be. And at least I can
claim that the discourse, whatever it may be worth,
is a lay sermon. I have spoken in the interest of
no Church and no creed ; but only as one who finds
1 History of Dogma, vol. i. p. 66.

102 HISTORIC FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY lect. ui.
that the phenomena of early Christianity can be
explained only on certain suppositions. My pro
cedure has been historically scientific, so far as I
have been able to make it so. But science is only
" ordered knowledge " ; and when one has to speak
of things which are spiritual, to try to explain them
by merely material theories is not scientific, but the
reverse. It is like trying to explain chemical com
binations by the methods of physics, or like treating
life as a kind of chemical process. There are many
indeed who think that the spiritual life of man is a
field which can be known only by ordained persons,
or which must be mapped out by the authoritative
decision of Churches ; but it seems to me impossible
that any such view can be retained by a Christian
who seriously examines those phenomena of early
Christianity which are our subject of investigation.
In succeeding lectures I hope to take up in order
the earliest documents of the Christian Church, and
to set forth what in regard to each of these appear
to be the dominant conditions, intellectual and social,
which at once hemmed in and promoted the mani
festation of the Christian ideas. To attempt this in
detail would obviously take us far beyond the narrow
limits set us in these lectures : it is but two or three
of the conditions that I can mention, and these but
in a summary manner. Yet if my method be sound,
I may hope thus to mark out the skeleton of early
Christian history, on lines suited to our age.

LECTURE IV
THE MESSIAH OF THE SYNOPTISTS
We have seen that the teaching of Jesus is in its
main outlines recoverable. The Synoptic Writers
who report it may often indeed have dimmed its
beauty or failed to sound its depth. But they have
not distorted it through any desire to make it fit
any ready-made scheme of orthodoxy. Where they
have worked in with it the results of the experience
of the Church in the next generation, it is usually
not impossible to discern the later thought and the
changed point of view. But when we turn from
the words to the deeds of the Master, and the
events of His career on earth, the need of historic
criticism becomes far greater, and its application is
much more destructive in its effects. The disciples
had many reasons for being unable to discern in a
perfectly white light the facts of their Master's life.
Necessarily and inevitably they looked at it through
coloured glasses, in a dim mirror, through a per
verting mist. Every one of us, as all who know
the rudiments of psychology are aware, sees in the
world to a great degree what his training has en-

104 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
abled him to discern, and what with purpose he
looks for. And the inspiration of those who wrote
the Synoptic Gospels has not freed them from the
operation of ordinary psychologic law.
Any attempt to discern the subjective elements
in our narratives of the life of Jesus ought to set
out with an inquiry why the Gospels were written
at all. For many years after the Crucifixion there
does not seem to have been any systematic attempt
to reduce to writing the words and deeds of the
Master. When such attempt was made, we cannot
suppose that it was prompted by any far-reaching
purpose of meeting the future needs of the Church,
or that its sole object was to present to the world
an exact and colourless record of events. As Dr.
Westcott has put it, " The Gospels were the result,
not the foundation, of the apostolic teaching."
They were put into their present form in obedience
to the demands, and in accordance with the condi
tions, of the time. It is true that in all the course
of history we may see divine purpose working
through and beneath human intention. None of
us really knows what he does until time shows. It
is not hard to discover reasons for believing the
form in which the Gospels have reached us to be a
divinely ordained form, one eminently suited to the
needs of the future Church. But at the time little
of this was visible. To a contemporary it would
probably have appeared that present needs were
moulding the Gospels into the shape which they
finally took.

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 105
These needs were those of the infant society,
which are well shown in the book of Acts. The
first message of the Apostles to the Jews around
them was mainly this : " Jesus of Nazareth whom
ye crucified is the Messiah, the Christ. This is
proved by the Scriptures, by the signs which
marked His life, by His rising from the dead.
Believe in Him and be baptized, and you will
receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy
Spirit, and be counted among the elect when Jesus
comes again in glory to judge mankind." This
message they sped partly by the force of preaching,
partly through their healing of diseases and casting
out of demons in the name of their Master. The
Jews, who opposed them, both made light of the
signs and exorcisms as being really due to a com
pact with Satan himself, and denied that the life of
Jesus was truly Messianic and corresponding to
prophecy. Now so long as the manner of Jesus'
life and death was fresh in the memory of His
disciples and generally known, each missionary
cited deeds and words of His as occasion might
rise. But it is evident that in this way a chaotic
tradition would arise, and it before long became
necessary to prune the too luxuriant growth of
anecdote, to have a received and authentic body of
sayings and of deeds of the Master. According to
tradition the formation of such an authorised nucleus
was mainly the work of Peter, But even while a
body of tradition was being formed and set in order,
the Christian Church, mainly in consequence of the

io6 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
activity of Paul, was growing and changing its
character, so that in the extant books of the New
Testament, written almost all in the first century,
we may discern various purposes and conflicting
ideals. I
Let us consider the character of the two main
divisions of the little Christian society, the narrower
and the broader. To the school of more deter-
minately Jewish Christians which had its centre at
Jerusalem, Jesus remained, even after the death on
the cross, essentially the Jewish Messiah, the De
liverer. The day of His triumph was but postponed ;
very soon, in the lifetime of the existing generation
of Christians, He was to come again in glory on the
clouds of heaven, amid which He had departed, and
was to establish on the earth a glorified kingdom,
in which the saints were to reign with Him, and
the Apostles to sit upon thrones judging Israel, and
ruling all nations. Not the continual teaching of
Jesus Himself, not even the ignominy of His death,
had been able wholly to remove from the minds of
many of His followers the belief that His kingdom
was of this world. According to this school, those
who believed in the Messiahship of Jesus, and joined
the Christian circle, must conform to the law of
Moses, without which they could have neither part
nor lot in a hope which belonged exclusively to the
chosen people. The Christians were to remain free
as far as possible of all wordly ties, they were to

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 107
count nothing that they possessed as their own, they
were to live in daily expectation of the trumpet-
blast which should call dead and living before the
judgment seat of Christ,
The other school was at once wider and more
spiritual. It was ready to admit Gentiles to the
fold under less rigorous conditions. It recognised
a call to labour, not for Israel only, but for the
whole world. It did not abandon the hope of a
speedy coming of the Son of Man ; but it also
maintained that its Master had not really forsaken it,
so that spiritual communion with Him was possible
at all times. It interpreted in a less literal and a
more spiritual sense the prophecies and the types
of Christ to be found in the Old Testament, It
even before long began to use the philosophy of
Alexandria and Asia Minor to explain to itself the
nature and the operation of the exalted Christ,
These were the two poles between which the
Christian life of the first century revolved : the
two centres about which in the fashion of an ellipse
the early Church was formed. The leader on the
one side was James, the brother of Jesus, who
exercised a marked supremacy at Jerusalem ; at the
other extremity stood Paul and his school ; while
between the extremes were ranged Peter, the
Hellenists Philip and Stephen, Barnabas, and in
deed probably the majority of the better-educated
Christians, The ideas, the Word embodied in the Founder
had to take intellectual expression in the circles

io8 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
belonging to both these schools. In the narrower
school the most important by far of its workings
was that of which the result was the Synoptic
Gospels, though in Luke something of the broader
or Pauline spirit may be traced. To the Judaizing
section of the society belong also the Epistles of
James and of Jude, and the Apocalypse. The
broader school has produced, as is natural, a far
more varied literature — the Fourth Gospel, the
Pauline Epistles, the Epistles of Peter, and that to
the Hebrews. Roughly speaking, we may say that
it was in the narrower Christian school that the
great spiritual impulse took form in idealised history
and in prophecy ; while in the broader Christian
school it crystaUised into doctrine. If this, however,
be the case, it is astonishing to what a degree the
spiritual Christ, the Saviour who belongs not to the
Jews but to all mankind, shines out in our Synoptic
Gospels. The narrow horizons of the writers have
not excluded the higher and deeper sides of the
teaching and character of the Master. They are
carried out of and above themselves by the rush of
inspiration which had suddenly flooded the world.
They are but earthen vessels ; but so exquisite is
the ambrosia with which they are filled that down
to modern days the Christian Church scarcely gave
a thought to the vessels — thought only of the
draught of life which they held.
I propose to treat in these lectures first of the
books of the New Testament which belong to the
narrower, and then of those which belong to the

lect. iv. of THE SYNOPTISTS 109
broader school. To both schools the Christian
Church owes am unmeasured debt of gratitude.
Both indeed were inspired with a permanent
message to the Church. Both were dominated by
the spirit of the Founder, and sought to express
to the world the ideas embodied in Him. In the
last resort it was the great moving idea of the
Founder, the idea of a Kingdom of God on earth,
which inspired both schools. And the relation of
this kingdom to the person of the Master is what
they try to set forth. But in setting forth this
relation the narrower school look backwards to the
earthly life of their Master and forwards to His
return in glory, while the broader school look
upward, and see Christ as the head of the Church,
continuing in heaven and on earth the life which
He had begun amid human surroundings,
II
The two thoughts in relation to the person of
the Founder, as apart from His teaching, which
especially possess the Synoptic Writers, are His
place in the' great historic plan of God, and His
great spiritual ascendency over men. These two
ideas shine out in every page of their writings.
But in giving a body to these convictions, the
Synoptists show certain tendencies, suffer from
certain limitations, the understanding of which is
necessary to a genuinely historic study of their
writings. These tendencies arise from their in-

no THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
tellectual attitude towards the world and history ;
and it is the heat of controversy and the fire of
missionary zeal which brings them into prominence.
The most spiritual Christians of all ages have been
willing to regard the teaching and the character of
the Founder of Christianity as a sufficient and
undeniable proof of His divine mission and power.
But again in all ages there are multitudes whose
organs of spiritual perception are less strong, and
who long for a certainty which rests on external
proof and intellectual demonstration. The earliest
Christians had to encounter from their Jewish
brethren a continual and determined opposition.
Their life was militant. It was the opposition
which in a large measure determined the form and
manner of the Gospels. The spreading force of
the Christian ideas pushed against Jewish anticipa
tions of a Messiah, Jewish notions of the spiritual
world, Jewish beliefs as to the future life. And,
as is always the case, it was the opposition offered
to the ideas by surrounding conditions which
determined the manner of their manifestation.
Necessarily they must be adapted to their environ
ment ; and by their swift adaptation to it they
proved their vital force and power of growth.
The first of these formative limitations, if they
may be so called, was the remarkable dominance in
the Jewish mind of the sacred books of the Old
Testament. The second was the popular belief or
conviction as to the relations of the spiritual to
the material, of will and thought to the visible

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 1 1 1
world. Of the influence of Scripture I propose
to speak in the present lecture, of the influence
of the current popular science in that which
succeeds it. We shall find in dealing with both
of these formative Hmitations that the attitude of
the Jewish mind was based upon truth, upon
reality, but upon reality imperfectly understood,
and mingled with much that was fanciful, which
the progress of thought compels us to set aside.
The tendency to find in the deeds of national
heroes correspondence with current prophecy is
one familiar to those who study ancient history.
Many instances may be found in Herodotus,
Pausanias, Plutarch, and other writers. When at
the time of the Peloponnesian war a plague in
vaded Athens, old men remembered a prophecy
current in their youth that a Dorian war should
come and plague with it. There was a question
whether in the original oracle the word was Xoifioi,
plague, or Xifim, famine ; but Thucydides observes
that as mankind regulate their memories by their
experiences the first reading was generally adopted.
" If," he adds, " there should hereafter come a
Dorian war, and famine along with it, the oracle
will probably be reproduced with famine as part
of it." When Alexander the Great was at
Gordium, in Phrygia, the chariot of the founder
was shewn him, and he was told that a prophecy
promised the rule of Asia to any one who could
untie the knot of bark which bound the yoke to
the chariot. Arrian says that there were two

112 THE MESSIAH lect. iv
Stories as to what Alexander did. Some writers
declared that he cut the knot with his sword ;
some, as Aristobulus, said that he drew out the
iron pin of the pole, and so loosened the knot.
What really happened we cannot tell ; we only
know the fact that the belief that Alexander had
fulfilled the prophecy made the people of Asia
Minor more ready to submit to him.
However, I must not dwell on these old-world
tales. It is certain that the Jews looked on the
fulfilment of prophecy in a more serious way than
other peoples, as a result of the special sanctity
which they attached to the Scriptures.
It would not be easy to exaggerate the love, the
veneration, and the respect felt by the Jews at the
beginning of our era for their sacred Scriptures.
This was not merely the result of the admirable
beauty and inspiration of those writings, on which
point the whole modern world is at one with them,
but it arose also from political circumstance. The
Jews were no longer a small people, dwelling to
gether in the close neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
celebrating together the sacred national festivals,
which, as they supposed, recorded and perpetuated
all the events of their history, and having ever
among them the ark of the divine presence. They
were scattered among the nations from Rome
to Babylon and Alexandria, in small communities,
determined to retain among heathen nations their
privileges and their laws. And everywhere the
sacred bond which united them was the divine

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 113
book given by degrees to their ancestors, and con
taining alike their history in the past, ritual for
present use, and prophecies of a noble national
future. And since the Scriptures were full of prophecies
which described, or were supposed to describe, the
future reign and glories of the Messiah, it was quite
impossible that genuine Jews should recognise as
the Messiah any man who did not in a great degree
exhibit in his life the fulfilment of those prophecies.
Whenever a very prominent figure appeared in the
Jewish community, one of the first occupations of
the pious heads of families would be to consider
whether this might be the Messiah, and the test
would lie in the comparison of what was told of him
with the inspired words of Isaiah and Jeremiah
and Ezekiel.
Historically it is exceedingly difficult to deter
mine how far the claims of Jesus to be regarded as
the Messiah were openly advocated or discussed
during His lifetime. It is remarkable that Jesus
appears, from whatever reason, to have desired that
His claim to the Messiahship should not be openly
spoken of. When Peter addressed his Master as
Christ, the answer shows that this way of speaking
was unfamiliar and a proof of exceptional faith. But
no sooner had the Master suffered on the cross
than the disciples came boldly forward to claim for
their martyred leader the title of the Messiah, and
to enforce the claim by an appeal to the Scriptures.
This was He, they said, of whom the prophets wrote.

114 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
the Saviour long promised, and now at last come
into the world.
The earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles
are in many ways defective as historic documents.
The author of the book certainly uses without much
critical insight, though with a great share of literary
skill, a variety of documents and a mass of tradi
tions. Naturally, he is not possessed by the rever
ence for fact as fact which marks the well-trained
historic student of to-day. But though we must be
cautious in taking his word for historic events, yet
he succeeds exceedingly well in bringing up before
our minds and imaginations the conditions of the
age when the Gospel of Christ was first preached.
He paints with skilful hand the background against
which the drama of early Church history was played.
And he proves beyond any doubt how large a part
in that history was taken by the discussion, whether
in the traditional life of Jesus there could be dis
cerned the genuine signs of Messianic calling ; in
particular, whether the life and the works of the
Teacher conformed to the prophecies in regard to
the Messiah which stood prominent in the national
literature. In the preaching and the speeches attributed
by the author of Acts to the early missionaries of
Christianity, we may find abundant proofs of this
statement. In Peter's speech on the day of Pente
cost, David's prophecy that the spirit of the Holy
One should not remain in Hades is compared with
the recent rising of the Founder from the grave.

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS iiS
In Peter's second discourse, after he had healed
the lame man, he claims that Moses and Samuel
had uttered predictions in regard to a notable suc
cessor, which predictions were fulfilled in Jesus.
Philip, meeting the Ethiopian steward, convinces
him out of the text of Isaiah that the life and death
of Jesus, then fresh in the memory of men, closely
conformed to the prophecies in which that greatest
of seers had set forth the future redemption of
Israel, Stephen, in his defence before the Council,
exclaims, " Which of the prophets did not your
fathers persecute ? and they killed them which
showed before of the coming of the Righteous
One, of whom ye have now become betrayers and
murderers." Paul, himself, is over and over again
in Acts represented as constantly appealing, in his
discussions with the Jews, to Scripture and pro
phecy. At Thessalonica he is said to have reasoned
for three successive Sabbath days in the synagogue,
proving from the Scriptures that the sufferings and
resurrection of Christ corresponded to the words of
the prophets. He persuaded the Jews of Bercea
to spend their days in the study of Scripture, com
paring what they read with what he told them of
Christ, Apollos, as we read, publicly and with
power confuted the Jews of Achaia, showing by the
Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ,
If we turn from the history, largely legendary,
of the Acts, and from the speeches which Luke
puts into the mouths of the great advocates of
Christianity to documents of undeniable authen-

1x6 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
ticity, such as some of the Epistles of Paul, we
shall see reason to think that in this matter, at all
events, Luke does not mislead us. Paul's mind
was mainly bent upon other matters than the his
toric events of his Master's life, yet he begins the
greatest of his Epistles by speaking of the mission
of Jesus Christ as promised before by the Prophets
in the Holy Scriptures. And in his account of the
resurrection he emphasises the fact that it took
place on the third day in accordance with the pre
diction of Scripture.^ And the writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, far more conservative than Paul in
his view of Jewish institutions, throughout his book
cites the Messianic prophecies in connection with
the life and the exaltation of his Master. Among
the less spiritual and the more strictly Jewish of the
Christian teachers we may be sure that the argu
ment from prophecy went even for more than it
does with Paul. A great part of their lives would
be spent in controversy with the conservative Jews
as to the meaning of the utterances which made
up the mass of prophecy generally regarded as
Messianic, and in proving its correspondence in
drift and in detail with the life of their Founder,
It is quite impossible that in such controversy
either Christian or Jew should escape the intellect
ual vices and defects of the time. To begin with,
they could not fail to deal with the text of Scripture
in an uncritical fashion. They misinterpreted the
1 Referring apparently to Hosea vi. 2, " In the third day He will
raise us up, and we shall hve in His sight."

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 117
words of the prophets and put into them a meaning
quite foreign to their original purpose. When Paul
writes, " He saith not, and to seeds as of many ;
but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ," he
obviously misinterprets the text of Scripture, as he
obviously puts legend and parable in the place of
history when he writes, " They drank of a spiritual
rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."
But Paul was an educated Rabbi, and it is natural
that we should find in the less cultivated Synoptic
Writers many examples, not of the learned perversion
of Scripture, but of its unlearned misunderstanding.
When Matthew tells us that there was a prophecy
that the Messiah should be called a Nazarene, he
is apparently referring, to the word of Isaiah (xi. i),
where a deliverer is spoken of as a branch (nazar)
coming from the root of Jesse. And when the
same Evangelist wishes to prove from the prophets
that the Messiah must in childhood visit Egypt, he
cites words of Hosea, " Out of Egypt did I call my
son," which in their context are meant, as must be
clear to every reader, to convey history and not
prophecy. What is, however, still more to our present
purpose, is the misunderstanding by the Synoptic
Writers of the true nature of prophecy, I n speaking
of prophecy, in the second lecture, I pointed out
how frequently in antiquity the scientific foretelling
of future fact, which can only take place in regard
to the operations of nature, was confused with the
prophecy or preaching, which is based on insight,

II 8 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
and sees not future events but the tendency of
existing forces, which looks beneath the surface of
the present and sees its true inwardness.
It is the glory of Jewish prophecy, and the mark
which distinguishes it from that of other peoples,
that in Israel the prophet dealt far less with the
future than with the present. He was first and
foremost a teacher of righteousness — one who ex
plained the purposes of God and made His ways
bare to men. He was in fact a preacher. But in
such early days, and among a people so little given
to logic and criticism as the Jewish race, the future
tense was not clearly distinguished from the tense
of the ideal. The prophet who had seen and
denounced the sins of his countrymen, went on to
threaten them with divine retribution, unless they
repented and ceased to do what was evil. And the
voice which embodied the conscience of the nation
was often inspired to foretell divine judgments as
about to fall on those who had oppressed and
troubled Israel, to behold in the future the decay of
Egypt and the destruction of Babylon. This was
a natural result of the prophet's perception of tend
encies and his confidence in the working of divine
law. Evil, he felt, could not in the end prevail, nor
good be utterly cast down. But of definite sooth
saying, of foretelling the future of individuals and
of cities, there is remarkably little in the Jewish
prophetic writings.
At the beginning of the Christian era the race
of prophets had died out. And the sacred books

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 119
which they had given to the Jewish nation were
regarded with an undiscriminating veneration, and
interpreted in the light rather of the letter than the
spirit. We must also remember that these books
were written in a classical Hebrew, which the people
did not easily understand. The prophetic promises
of a coming national deliverer, uttered in times of
stress and of hope, and the visions of an exalted
and purified nation, were degraded until they were
looked on as actual foretellings of events to take
place in the future, as a kind of enigma given by
God to man, to enable him to discern the marks
and signs whereby the Messiah might be known.
As the Lamas of Thibet identify the new incarna
tion of Buddha by some signs of which they have
private knowledge, or as the Egyptian priests
sought among the cattle for a bull which had the
marks of Apis, so the Christ was to be known by
the village which gave Him birth, by the events of
His life, by His doing all that the prophets were
supposed to have said that He should do.
Thus, when the first missionaries went to preach
in the towns of Judaea, the commonest objection
which they would meet to the proclamation of Jesus
as the Messiah, would be that the life of the Master,
His birth and His death, did not conform to the
prophetic writings. How could the Messiah be
born in Galilee ? How could He fail to be of the
family of David? He must, like the prophet of
Isaiah, be silent in the presence of His accusers.
He must, like the king in Zechariah, come riding

I20 THE MESSIAH lect. iv,
upon an ass. His garments must have been seized
and divided among His enemies, according to the
words of the Twenty-second Psalm. He must have
made His grave with the rich, and so forth. Now,
by far the easiest way of meeting these objections
would be to say, " Exactly thus it was with our
Master." And thus many tales, however arising,
which possessed the great merit of bringing the life
of Jesus into conformity with prophecy, would have
a natural advantage which would ensure their sur
vival in the competition for existence, and which
would secure them a place in the biographies
accepted in the society.
It might no doubt often happen otherwise. Some
actual deed or saying of the Master might cause a
passage in one of the Prophets to be read in a new
light as bearing upon that deed or saying. It is
very difficult for us ever to say of any event of the
Founder's biography that it has no root in fact,
but was born only from conformance to supposed
Messianic prophecy. Yet we cannot doubt that
the leaven was working. And in some cases we can
trace its action with considerable probability.
For example, when Matthew tells us that Jesus
went riding into Jerusalem upon an ass and on an
ass's colt, the obvious difficulty of taking the state
ment quite literally makes us welcome the proba
bility that the duplication of the ass arises merely
out of a misunderstanding of Zechariah, where the
phrase the ass and the colt is only a Hebrew
manner of expressing an ass born of an ass. So

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 121
when the fourth Evangelist tells us that the soldiers
at the cross divided the garments of Jesus into four
parts and then cast lots for His tunic, it is very
hard to suppose that this is a narrative of fact. For
ancient dress was very simple, and leaving • aside
the tunic, one cannot see how enough clothes
would remain for division among four. But every
thing becomes easy if we trace the origin of the
tale to the verse of the Twenty-second Psalm, "They
parted my garments among them, and upon my
vesture did they cast lots," where again we have
only a duplicating Hebrew phrase expressing one
single division of spoil, by means of casting lots.
The close interweaving of prophecy with recorded
incident in the life of Jesus, — an amalgamation so
close that it is almost impossible to disengage the
two elements, — is perhaps best exemplified in the
beginning of Matthew's Gospel. The account of
the birth there given us is so closely connected with
the words of the prophets that it might be set forth
in those words without any connecting narrative.
Let us allow the prophets to speak in turn, as their
words were received by the early Christian society.
From Isaiah we have, " A virgin shall be with
child " ; from Micah, " Out of Bethlehem shall come
a ruler " ; from Hosea, " Out of Egypt have I called
my son " ; from Jeremiah, " In Ramah was a voice
heard, weeping and great mourning " ; out of other
prophecies, " He shaU be called a Nazarene," Thus
the circumstances and the place of the birth, the
journey into Egypt, the massacre of the innocents,

122 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
the dwelling at Nazareth, were all conditions to
which the Hfe of the supposed Messiah must con
form. It is, however, not difficult to see that in
some of these cases the historic fact gives rise to
the application of prophecy, in others the prophecy
may probably be the basis of the narrative. Jesus
certainly dwelt at Nazareth, and certainly in none
of the prophets is it asserted that the Messiah
should come out of that village. Modern com
mentators exercise their ingenuity in trying to
discover what passages in the prophets Matthew
can have had in his mind, whether he is thinking
of the words in which Isaiah speaks of a deliverer
as a branch of Jesse, or of the passage in
Judges where it is said that Samson shall be a
Nazarite — that is, specially dedicated to the service
of Jehovah, or of some other misunderstood saying.
Here, then, the fact is the origin at Nazareth, and
the fanciful quotation from prophecy is an attempt
to find in the prophets something corresponding to
the fact. On the other hand, the journey into
Egypt is historically most improbable, and seems
an early example of the childhood wonders which
sprang up so exuberantly soon after, clustering
about the cradle of the Messiah. In this case it is
by far most likely that a notion that the Messiah,
like the Jewish race itself, must have for a time
sojourned in Egypt, coloured the mind of the
historian, and predisposed him to accept without
evidence some tale of a flight of Joseph into Egypt.
In some similar fashion, in all likelihood, rose

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 123
the tale of the massacre of the innocents, which is
not only improbable, but of which, if a fact, we
should probably have heard from other sources.
As regards the tale of the birth at Bethlehem
and its circumstances, we can venture to speak
more positively. It is almost certainly legendary,
having its basis in the generally spread belief that
the Messiah as son of David must come from
David's town of Bethlehem. A passage in the
Fourth Gospel ^ strongly confirms this view :
" Some said. What, doth the Christ come out of
Galilee ? Hath not the Scripture said that the
Christ Cometh of the seed of David, and from
Bethlehem, the village where David was ? So
there arose a division in the multitude." These
words take us into the heart of the controversies
of the first century. When the disciples of the
Prophet of Galilee began to assert their Master's
claims, the first and most ready objection of the
Jews would be that the Messiah could not come
from Galilee, but must come from Bethlehem.
There were various ways of meeting this objection.
One was to cite in favour of Nazareth another
supposed prophecy, " He shall be called a Nazarene."
But any one acquainted with Hebrew would point
out that this was not a fair interpretation of any
text of the Old Testament. Thus there would
arise something like a necessity for the production
of a story that although Jesus notoriously belonged
to Nazareth, yet He was born at Bethlehem. We
1 John vii. 41.

124 THE MESSIAH lect. i v.
have two perfectly independent, and indeed irre
concilable, accounts of such birth in the First and
Third Gospels. According to Matthew the parents
of Jesus dwelt at Bethlehem, and after His birth
went to live at Nazareth. According to Luke
they dwelt at Nazareth, and went to Bethlehem at
the time of the birth, to be registered in some
(apparently imaginary) census.^ And again Jesus
had to be, according to various prophecies accepted
as Messianic, a descendant of David, Here a
difficulty arose, because the Jews reckoned descent
only in the male line. It might not be difficult to
maintain that Joseph was a descendant of David,
and we know that genealogies to prove this were
forthcoming. But when it began to be whispered
that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, these
genealogies became useless, though they still hold
a place in our Gospels, In fact in the beginnings
of Matthew and Luke the controversies, the
hesitations, the theories of the early Church are
preserved like flies in amber, and we see in its
working the process of adaptation to prophecy.
The other two Evangelists, with St. Paul, probably
took, as we shall see later, a quite different view
of the genesis of Jesus. HI
It was doubtless a motive of piety which induced
the Evangelists thus to search, like Christians in
Exploratio Evangelica, p. 252.

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 125
later ages, for "reconciling views." And the
" reconciling views " at the time doubtless took
the line of least resistance to the progress of
Christianity. Nor can the Evangelists, judged
by the standard of the times, be blamed. But
any departure from truth of fact is almost sure in
time to bring its revenges. It is we, after eighteen
centuries, who pay the penalty, and earnestly wish
that the first Christians had had the courage to
reply to their opponents that Jesus was not born
at Bethlehem, but at Nazareth : but that His words
and deeds nevertheless proved His Messiahship.
Thus the Synoptists, by mistaking the nature of
prophecy, and by taking it according to the letter
and not according to the spirit, drew a veil of
materialism over the life of their Master. They
did not imitate His spirituality, and so they formed
unsatisfactory views of the purposes of the great
prophets of Israel. Not like soothsayers or astrolo
gers would these tell the day when the Messiah
was to appear. Not like men possessed of a
second sight would they see in a vision His daily
life or His final sufferings. But as these great
preachers of righteousness, these embodiments of
the religious consciousness of the people, plunged
ever deeper and deeper into the great stream of
tendency which bore Israel along, and more and
more fully realised what it meant, they began to
see more and more clearly of what kind the great
deliverer of Israel must be. Leaving behind the
nationalist materialism which demanded a leader in

126 THE MESSIAH lect. iv,
war, a scourge to the foes of Israel, and a founder
of a mighty realm, they began to see in glimpses
that the people was to be saved not by arms but
by righteousness, not by the domination of sur
rounding peoples, but by self-control and suffering
willingly borne for others.
In a sense the whole history of the Jewish race
was a prophecy of the Founder of Christianity,
showing as it did that out of the national adversity
rather than out of the national prosperity grew the
true greatness of the nation, that Israel must die
to live, and suffer in order to do the will of God.
This history in idealised forms meets us con
tinually in the pages of the prophets. But in the
words of the later Isaiah, and in some of the nobler
Psalms, the clearness of vision and the prophetic
passion of the writers seem in a measure to break
the bounds of time, and to reflect almost as clearly
as the Gospels themselves the main traits of the
life of the future deliverer. The correspondence
is of spirit, not of fact or event. And in seeing
in the words of Isaiah and the Psalmists a literal
prophecy of fact no doubt the Evangelists made a
mistake — a mistake quite natural, and probably under
the circumstances inevitable. We may see and
avoid their error ; but we shall be far blinder than
they if we allow the mote of human error to blind
our eyes to the vast outlook of spiritual truth
which prophecy brings before us.
Indeed, while we admit that the Evangelists
erred in method, it is fair to say that their success

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 127
is due not to error, but to a perception of under
lying truth. They felt at heart that Jesus was
not, in the language of some modern theologians,
a " new moral creation," but that He stood at the
end of a long evolution — that He embodied the
result of a continued inspiration growing clearer
and more definite as time went on. When this
feeling had to find expression in words, the words
were often ill chosen. But the fact remains that
it was by retaining the root-connection with Judaism
that Christianity inherited all the glorious results
of the long and passionate struggles of the Jews
after the higher life, and the Scriptures which
formed the record of those struggles. As a matter
of fact Christ was born neither at Bethlehem, like
the mythical Jesus, nor at Nazareth, like the historic
Jesus, but in the hearts of the pious through all
the ages of struggle and of suffering, which had
made Israel the great witness on earth to the
reality of a Spiritual Power ruling in the supernal
world which lies behind the world of sense.

IV
It is not possible that I should trace through the
woof of the evangelic narrative the scarlet thread
of prophecy going and coming and mingling with
the substance of the tale. But there is one im
portant section of the Synoptic history in which it
is of unusual importance, and on this I must briefly
touch. When Jesus had departed from His dis-

128 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
ciples, leaving them in many ways uncertain and
overwhelmed with surprise and with doubt, dis
appointed in their hope that it was He who should
have redeemed Israel, in those dark days the light
of prophecy came to cheer their hearts, and to
encourage them to exertion. Their Master must
ere long come again in the clouds of heaven to set
up a lasting throne, to establish in the world a
dominion of peace and of righteousness, and He
must come soon, before the living generation had
passed away.
It may perhaps seem that in speaking thus I
am confusing the pre-Christian prophecies of Israel
with the prophetic utterances of the Master Him
self, which, in His later days. He committed to the
disciples as a parting gift. Here, no doubt, we
come to a great difficulty, which will probably never
be entirely removed. The writer of The Book of
Daniel has recorded a glorified vision of the night,^
" Behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one
Hke unto a son of man." " And there was given
him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all
the peoples, nations, and languages should serve
him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that
which shall not be destroyed." We cannot wonder
that this vision, born of the bitter sufferings and
fierce enthusiasms of the Maccabaean wars, greatly
dominated the minds of pious Jews during the
second and first centuries before our era, and was
1 Daniel vii. 13.

LECT. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 129
copied and amplified by the writers of the Apocrypha.
It seems to -be historic fact that Jesus was accus
tomed to speak of Himself as the Son of Man.
The disciples, after the death on the cross, could
not but observe that the great prophecy of Daniel
as to the Son of Man had not yet received its
accomplishment. Its fulfilment must lie in the
future, in the near future, and expectation of the
coming reign of the triumphant Deliverer played a
part — a very great part — in all the feelings and
hopes of the first generation of Christians.
But had not the Master Himself, while alive,
foretold His return in glory? This is a very diffi
cult question. Such prophecy forms a large and
important part of the Synoptic biography. Most
of the great critics of our age think that Jesus did
foretell His own return. And yet there are very
strong objections to this view. It appears on the
face of all the Synoptic narratives and of the Fourth
Gospel, too, that the death of Jesus came upon His
followers as an overwhelming surprise and a com
plete disillusion. How could this have been the
case if the Master had been accustomed to speak,
as He speaks in the eschatologic discourses, of a
brief absence and a glorious return ? And it is
remarkable that those discourses are not given to
the very last days of the Master on earth, or to
visits made after death to the disciples. They con
stitute a section of the common tradition which can
be easily detached. Mark says that the discourse
was made privately to Peter, James, John, and
9

130 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
Andrew. Jesus is represented as saying that He
knows not the time when these things shall come
to pass, but that it shall be before the existing
generation has passed away.
It is difficult to say, in regard to any explanation
of a passage of Scripture, that it is final and con
clusive. But, for my own part, I find entire satis
faction in the view advocated, among others, by
Professor Charles,^ that the greater part of the
eschatological discourse in Mark is adopted direct
from some Jewish apocryphal prophecy. The vague
hints of coming wars and earthquakes, the threaten-
ings that the sun shall be darkened and the stars
fall from heaven, — all these terrors belong to the
stock imagery of the Jewish prophecy, and do not
in any way remind us of the manner of Jesus. But
intertwined with these conventional horrors are
some phrases as to the coming of false Christs, as
to persecutions likely to afflict the infant society,
and to divide the parents from the children, which
have a decidedly Christian air, and may well go
back to sayings of the Master when He was
oppressed by a darker mood, and more clearly
recognised that the kingdom of God must be
approached through great tribulation. Mr. Charles
thinks it quite possible to draw a clear line of
demarcation between what is Jewish and what is
Christian. This is a matter which a reader of Mark can test
for himself Let him read the thirteenth chapter,
1 In his lectures on the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 324.

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 131
omitting the following verses, 7, 8, 14-20, 24-27,
29-32, and he will find that all which implies a
cataclysmic coming to judgment is gone, and that
what remains is quite in harmony with the ordinary
teaching of Jesus.
The accounts of the second coming in the other
Evangelists go back to the same document as
appears in Mark : we have only to suppose that
document to combine Jewish with Christian ele
ments, and we shall be free from any necessity for
supposing that Jesus prophesied His own speedy
return to judge mankind.
Surely to every Christian it must be a relief to
discover so easy a retreat from an untenable position,
and to find that the way of retreat is also the way
pointed out, if not by the general consent of critics,
yet by the agreement of some of the ablest among
them. The Christian feeling, which is unwilling to
think that Jesus elaborately prophesied what cer
tainly never came to pass, and the intellect which
discerns the great probability of an apocryphal origin
for most of the eschatological section of the three
Gospels, will be at one. It does not express any
really Christian idea, but is essentially Jewish. The
existence in Mark's Gospel of this discourse is a very
striking proof how completely received views of the
time dominated the early Jewish Christians, giving
rise aHke to narratives of the life of the Founder,
and to anticipations of the future course of events.
At the same time it must be allowed that nothing
was more likely than that Jesus should have com-

132 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
municated to His disciples His conviction that the
course He was taking could lead only to death, and
we can scarcely suppose that He would refrain from
words which justified hope even in spite of that
approaching death — words which they would be sure
to misunderstand. It cannot be proved that He
encouraged any belief in a visible return in the
clouds of heaven. But if those critics are right
who hold that Jesus believed in His own speedy
and glorious return to earth, even then a want of
accurate perception of the future in the Master
would not affect the main point of the relation of
His will to the Divine. It would only emphasise
what is quoted as His own saying, "Of that day
and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of
heaven, nor the Son, but the Father."
For my own part, I prefer to think that Jesus
accepted His own teaching as to care for the morrow,
that His confidence in God was such that He did
not seek anxiously to look into the future, but was
content to trust alike His own soul and the future
of the infant Church implicitly to the care of the
Heavenly Father, determined on one thing only — to
speak the words and do the deeds prompted by a
divine inspiration, and leaving the results to God.
To plan for the future belongs to the statesman,
not to the prophet. And in the story of the
Temptation Jesus is represented as setting aside
the temptations of visible dominion, in order to
follow implicitly the leading of the inward voice.
In one of the strangely-blended elements which

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 133
go to make up the eschatological discourses and
parables, it is almost certain that we reach the teach
ing of Jesus Himself The notion of a great judg
ment of the souls of men, whereby they are divided
for punishment and reward, underlies so many of
the reported sayings and parables of the Master
that it must have a root in His own words. The
final and rigid separation of those who have done
evil, and those that have done well, recurs con
tinually in the Synoptic pages. But the setting of
the judgment varies greatly from passage to pass
age. Sometimes it is purely Jewish : the nations
are gathered about the throne of the Messiah, who
has returned in glory and power, to await their
doom of happiness or misery. This is the Jewish
apocalyptic setting ; and, if my previous contentions
are justified, it is impossible with any certainty to
be sure that it is authentic. But in many of the
parables — indeed all but one or two — the setting is
far more vague. It is impossible to attempt on
this occasion to examine it closely, as I have endea
voured to do in a larger work. It seems that, in the
case of the parables which are most authentic and
most clear in their interpretation, the meed of re
ward for doing good and punishment for evil-doing
is spoken of as a phenomenon of the life of the
spirit — one of the profound and regularly working
laws of the moral world. This fact does not, of
course, prove that moral punishment and reward is
regarded as belonging only to the present life. But
it does appear that, by Jesus, the existing life and

134 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
that which is to come were regarded as but two
provinces of the same great spiritual kingdom. It
does appear that the great abyss and cataclysm
which, to the ordinary Jewish mind, separated the
present evil world from the millennial reign of the
saints on earth did not for Him exist. Thus
the judgment of souls in His view lay loose from the
national Jewish setting, and was explained in the
simplest and most spiritual of manners. His pro
phecy of the future world is a statement of laws
rather than a foretelling of facts.
Though the first disciples were under the
dominion of unsatisfactory and materialist ways of
regarding prophecy, there is no indication that their
Master was thus limited. On the contrary, in some
of the many passages of the Synoptic Gospels which
seem like breaks in the clouds, showing the pure
and limpid depth of the heavens beyond, we may
discern glimpses of a far truer and nobler under
standing of the nature of prophecy, which can
scarcely come from any but the Founder. Even in
the midst of the eschatological discourses themselves
there come a few phrases of another and a higher
tendency. For example, Jesus says, " From the
fig tree learn her parable : when her branch is
now become tender, and putteth forth its leaves, ye
know that the summer is nigh." This passage as
it stands is quite spoiled by the sequel, which pro
ceeds, "So ye also, when ye see these things
coming to pass, know ye that he is nigh, even at
the doors." That is to say, when ye see the sun

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 135
darkened and the stars falling from heaven, then
expect the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds
of heaven. But this is entirely to change the
meaning of the beautiful natural parable of Jesus,
which speaks of natural processes, not of cataclysmic
intervention from heaven in human affairs. On
another occasion,^ when the Pharisees were de
manding of Him a sign from heaven. He replied that
they were in the habit of foretelling the weather of
the morrow by watching the character of the sunset,
and that it was from such orderly and natural
monitions rather than by any supernatural know
ledge that they must judge of the coming changes
in the spiritual world. Just so, when He speaks of
the fig-tree as showing by her buds the approach of
summer, Jesus reproves those who like magicians
search the skies for portents heralding political
convulsions, and bids them instead watch the slow
and regular succession of the phenomena of the
human world and the realm of spirit. Law may be
traced in the higher world, as well as in the lower
world of material things ; and he who would read
the future must study with the insight of wisdom
the things before his eyes. It thus seems that,
whatever was the case with the disciples, the Master
clearly understood the nature of true prophetic
prediction, and knew it to be based upon observa
tion and founded on a conviction of the orderliness
of the ways of God in all parts of His dominions.
And He appears also to have recognised the other
1 Matthew xvi. 3.

136 THE MESSIAH lect. iv.
half of the truth about prophecy — that the great
Jewish preachers of righteousness were thinking
rather of ideas and principles than of the events of
the visible future. A passage which strikingly
confirms this view is that remarkable account in
Luke of the first discourse of Jesus in His native
town of Nazareth. He is said to have taken as a
text the immortal words of Isaiah, " The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach good tidings to the poor : he hath
sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord," and to have claimed that these
words were in Him fulfilled. I do not feel justified
in assuming that the historic setting of this discourse
is accurately reported ; but it can scarcely I think
be denied that it strikes the keynote of Jesus' in
terpretation of His own mission and of His manner
of regarding prophecy. The disciples, taking the
words of Isaiah as a Messianic prophecy, to be
literally fulfilled in the life of the coming deliverer,
would regard the healing of the blind by Jesus
as an external test of His Messiahship. He Himself
looks at the correspondence in a spiritual manner,
not in this literal and materialist fashion. He did
not literally release prisoners, but saved them from
sin ; and in the same way the opening of blind
eyes was not literal but spiritual. Freedom from
bondage and vision of truth were alike the results
of preaching to the poor.

lect. IV. OF THE SYNOPTISTS 137
Thus it appears that Jesus regarded His coming
as a fulfilment of the Isaian prophecy, because He
was in spirit one with the prophet, embodying in
life the idea which had found expression in his
writings. The true nature of prophecy did not
escape His unerring insight. But what He dis
tinguished the disciples naturally confused. And
hence the stains of supernaturalism and of material
ism, which deface the image of their Master as
drawn by their hands. Hence an unhistoric element
which has never ceased to disturb the history of the
Founder as set forth by them.

V
The other book of Christian prophecy, the
Apocalypse, lies somewhat apart from the subject of
these lectures. It is a document with which criticism
has dealt with considerable success. Certainly it
was not written by the author of the Fourth Gospel,
whoever he may have been, for alike in style and
in thought there is the strongest contrast between
the Apocalypse and the Gospel. Leaving aside the
addresses to the Churches of Asia, which form the
introduction, the rest of the book is evidently a
work of Jewish eschatology, covered only with a
thin veneer of Christianity, and in fact in many
parts undisguised. Many passages in the book
have as literature a high rank. It is impossible to
read without profound emotion such passages as
that beginning, " After this I beheld, and lo ! a

138 THE MESSIAH OF THE SYNOPTISTS lect. iv.
great multitude." Yet it must be confessed that
throughout the dreams and visions of that which
must shortly come to pass, we find hardly anything
of the spirit of the Founder of Christianity. To
the author, the kingdom of God is to come indeed
with observation, and to spread, not in the hearts
of men, but amid the thrones of the earth. It is
to make its way not by suffering but by conquest.
It is most creditable to the judgment of the early
Church that a work which must have had so great
attractions for the narrow Jewish section of the
community, should only by degrees and after much
opposition have won a place in the canon. The
utterances of Jesus, so far as we can recover them,
are not in the narrower sense prophetic ; the Apo
calypse, so far as it is prophetic, is not Christian.
The author clearly knows not what spirit he is of,
and is of those who would call down fire from
heaven upon his foes, instead of, like his Master,
enduring all things, and so fulfilling the law of
righteousness.

LECTURE V
THE SYNOPTISTS AND MIRACLE
The second of the strongly marked tendencies in
the minds of the Evangelists, which gave form to,
and in a measure deformed, the image of their
Master, arose from the current notions of the time
as to the relations between the material and the
spiritual. We can trace all known theories of the
nature of the visible world and its laws backward
to that very simple and primitive kind of view
known to anthropologists as animism, which we
find still prevalent in all savage lands, and which
appears to be a stage through which all human
societies pass in the course of their growth. At
the animistic stage men see in the forces of nature
the working of will like that of man ; they think
that the objects around us in the world, animate
and inanimate, have in them a life somewhat re
sembling human life, and act with purpose like
human purpose. At the beginning of the Christian
era the cruder forms of animism had in the cities
been long superseded. But yet considerable traces
of the animistic theory of the world survived. In

140 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
two respects especiaHy the relations between man
and his surroundings, both spiritual and material,
were understood on an animistic basis. Spiritual
beings, powers of darkness and of light, were sup
posed to be constantly interfering in the human
world, occupying human bodies, causing diseases
and healing them, possessing animals, and having
power over the forces of nature. And man, being
in essence a similar spirit, inhabiting a mortal
body, had with these surrounding spirits continual
relations of amity and hostility, and like them
could in exceptional cases impose his will directly
on the bodies of other men, or even on inanimate
things. There is, as Dr. Tylor has well pointed
out, no original or necessary connection between
animism and morality ; and most primitive races
in fact attribute a very low ethical condition to the
spiritual forces which they suppose to surround
them. But the Jews possessed beyond all other
ancient nations the power of ethical vision. They
saw in all things conflicting powers of good and
evil ; no spiritual powers were to their view in
different or unmoral. Thus to them even the
visible material world, to us a realm of supreme
law and order, was a perpetual struggling ground
of spiritual powers of good and evil. And power
over this material world was regarded as belonging
to men of exceptional divine authority — power
sometimes so exalted that it could wrest the control
of human bodies or other things from the spirits of
evil, and dominate them in their place.

LECT. V. AND MIRACLE 141
It was natural and indeed inevitable that when
the minds of the Jewish community were set in
this key, one of the first demands they would
make of any man who appeared to come on a
divine mission, gifted with exceptional powers,
would be that he should show his credentials by
exhibiting power in the visible world and in the
realm of spirits. They would look for marvels,
and not be very critical as to the kind of marvels.
With us the line between nature and the super
natural is drawn far more clearly than it is among
less instructed peoples. Sir A. C. Lyall, speaking
of the miracles wrought in India by eminent saints,
writes, " The word miracle must not be understood
in our sense of an interposition to alter unvarying
laws, for in India no such laws have been definitely
ascertained ; it means only something that passes
an ordinary man's understanding, authenticated
and enlarged by vague and vulgar report." ^
But the distinction which the people of India,
with other races at the same level of civilisation,
do not make seems to be of great importance.
Dr. Edwin Abbott has done a great service to the
history of Christian origins by insisting in detail
on the truth that it is absurd to speak of the
" signs and wonders " recorded by the Evangelists
in the mass — that we must divide them into classes
if we would understand their nature. It is to be
observed that many of the recorded wonders are
by no means miraculous — that is to say, contrary to
1 Asiatic Studies, p. 2 1 .

142 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
experience, and in direct violation of the observed
sequences of nature. These are to be distinguished
from events purely and undeniably miraculous.

I
Unless we are prepared to regard the Synoptic
Gospels as destitute of historic basis, — a view to my
thinking untenable, — we are obliged to suppose that
Jesus professed to work two kinds of wonders, to
heal the sick and to cast out devils. Not only do
the Evangelists represent such deeds as of con
tinual occurrence, but they record many sayings in
regard to them which are quite in the manner of
Jesus, and which take their place in His authentic
teaching. We must not of course attach implicit
beHef to the details of the tales of healing and of
exorcism, since tradition continued for many years
is quite incapable of accuracy in such matters.
But the general truth to history of the Synoptic
accounts of such wonders as these must be allowed.
When we begin, however, to compare and
analyse these accounts we find some notable
features. It clearly appears that in order to be
healed, some faith was necessary in the sufferer,
as well as power in the healer. In one town Jesus
did not many mighty works because of the unbelief
of the people. In healing two blind men Jesus
said, " According to your faith be it done unto
you." To a woman He said, "Thy faith hath made
thee whole." This saying indeed He seems to

lect. v. AND MIRACLE 143
have repeated on several occasions. Paul, we
read in Acts, continuing the same line of action,
looking on a lame man, saw that he had faith to
be healed, and so bade him stand up. Now deeds
of healing, in which a certain undefined power in
the healer is met by faith in the person healed, are
in no way miraculous. History simply abounds
with them ; and though they are peculiarly liable
to be mixed with imposture, and are looked coldly
on by the more rigid schools of medicine, it is im
possible in reason to doubt their existence. Jesus
stands in history as one among a number of faith-
healers. Whether the cures which He wrought
were more numerous and more striking than those
wrought by others no one can say who has not
sifted all the evidence ; and the evidence in such
matters is exceedingly hard to sift.
Faith - healing by means of hypnotism and
suggestion is practised every day in Europe and
America. And we have to face the fact that those
who work cures in this manner, though usually
men of some distinction, are by no means always
noted for high moral or spiritual qualities. What
gives one man rather than another this strange
power over feebler natures is, I presume, not clearly
known. But we can say with certainty that it is
not always the possession of the highest ethical and
religious qualities. Even the instinct which makes
barbarians dread and obey the medicine-man does
not necessarily make them respect him. Thus it is
impossible to consider the power of healing disease

144 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
by suggestion as a proof of any divine mission,
though at the same time it is quite compatible with
spiritual eminence, and even seems naturally to
belong to the religious leader.
In ascribing the presence of disease, especially
the diseases of epilepsy and insanity, to diabolic
agency, Jesus doubtless spoke in the manner of the
age. As there is no need to attribute to the
Founder of Christianity a supernatural knowledge
of the laws of chemistry or biology, or of the
facts of history, there does not appear to be any
reason why there should be attributed to Him a
supernatural knowledge of the causes of disease.
But no one can fail to be aware that the activity
in the world of evil spirits is a part not primarily
of the theory of disease held by Jesus, but of His
ethical and spiritual teaching. He certainly re
garded the world and human souls as the battle
ground of the contending hosts of light and of
darkness. Here again He used the language of
His age and country. I do not see that we need
hesitate to say that this language was not scientific
ally accurate, or that we thereby cast any slur on
the Founder of the Christian religion, so long as
we believe that the facts expressed in this im
perfect and inexact language are real facts. All
language must necessarily be imperfect. But the
question whether good and evil impulses which
appear to come from without do struggle in the
human heart is a question of fact. Any modern
who does not believe in temptation to evil, and in

lect. V. AND MIRACLE 145
divine aid in resisting such temptation, cannot
accept the Christian view of the moral world. But
those who accept as fact the constant conflict of
good and evil in the human world, are at liberty
to regard as comparatively unimportant the terms
in which that conflict are expressed. It may be
doubted whether there is any language which better
expresses the facts than the ancient phrases as to
good and evil angels, symbolical though they may
sound to us, and no longer to be taken literally.
It may be said that the view which attributes
disease as well as sin to the agency of evil spirits
is in conflict with pathologic facts. To some
extent this may be true. The ancients did not
analyse or distinguish various kinds of disease so
clearly as we. Yet surely it must be allowed that
such disease as can be removed by a meeting of
faith and will cannot be entirely material in its
origin. The nerves are as it were the battle
ground of will and of matter ; and probably the
rigid schools of medicine carry too far their
tendency to seek for a merely physical origin of
such diseases as have their principal seat in the
nerves. II
Passing beyond mere faith-healing and exorcism,
we come to the accounts of miracle proper — to
deeds inconsistent with our experience of the work
ing of law in the material world. Here we pass,
if one may venture to speak quite plainly, from

146 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
the realm of actual to that of ideal history. Jesus
as a healer of disease is historic ; and the tales told
of His cures, though doubtless deformed by ex
aggeration and distorted by very imperfect physio
logical knowledge, rest on a basis of fact. But
Jesus as turning water into wine, as feeding
multitudes from a few baskets of food, and the
like, belongs not to history, but to a perfectly
familiar field of pseudo-historic tale and legend.
It is true that to draw the line between mere
marvel and miracle proper is by no means easy.
It is also not easy to draw a rigid line between
history and myth ; but we must needs endeavour
to draw such a line, unless we would altogether
surrender the scientific basis of history. The in
vestigation of faith-healing belongs to history ; the
investigation of miracle proper belongs rather to
anthropology, to which science the supposed miracle
is a matter of every day familiarity.
In the mental atmosphere, filled with shallow
rationalism, of the eighteenth century. Christian
miracles were to free-thinkers the result of im
posture in the Master and easy credulity in the
disciples, while they were to the orthodox pheno
mena which stood apart from the whole stream of
history, and which had to be accepted by faith as
an external testimony to the truth of the Christian
revelation. The modern point of view is very
different. Whether we investigate the history of
the past, or turn our attention to the less civilised
countries of the world in which we live, we find

LECT. V. AND MIRACLE 147
that no class of phenomena is a more constant
concomitant of the story of the rise and progress
of religions than the miraculous ; that a prophet
will scarcely be listened to in any land, unless he
is credited by his followers with the power of
reversing or superseding the laws of nature ; that
marvels follow the steps of the saint by an inevit
able law of human nature. This is, as we have
already observed, a corollary or survival of the
animistic manner of regarding the visible world.
The tendency of the disciples of a great re
ligious teacher to ascribe to him miracles is a
tendency which varies in force according to time
and place, — a tendency kept within narrower bounds
when the time is more civilised, and the place
within the field of scientific observation ; but kept
within less definite limits when the religion arises
in remote districts, or in days before the birth of
regular history.
In Greece there were many sects or schools of
religion of a mystic and enthusiastic type, which
referred their own origin to persons, sometimes
mythical, sometimes historical, but in any case raised
above the level of ordinary mankind. The Orphic
Societies traced their origin to Orpheus, who with
his lyre was said to have been able to charm to
tameness the fiercest of wild beasts, and who once
went down into the world of the dead to bring
thence his beloved Eurydice. Orpheus was said
to be a son of the Muse Calliope, and the favoured
mediator to whom the gods entrusted the know-

148 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
ledge of the means of purification and approach
to themselves. Probably Orpheus never existed
except in the imagination of the Orphic votaries.
But we find a kindred figure of more historic type
in Pythagoras, who was probably a native of
Samos, but who founded in Italy a society which
may almost be called a church. Earlier writers,
such as Herodotus, tell us of his wanderings in
search of wisdom as far as Egypt. But by degrees
his life became embroidered with tales of strange
marvels. It is told that he was a son of Apollo,
and as a sign of superhuman origin had a hip of
gold, that he had power over animals, held con
verse with divine beings, listened to the harmony
of the spheres, descended into Hades, and knew
the secrets of his own previous existences on the
earth, and of those of others. It was not
uncommon in Greece, as to this day it is not
uncommon in India, for those distinguished for
wisdom and knowledge of the divine to have
assigned to them after death a shrine and a priest
hood. And under the influence of these priests
the mortal life of the departed saint soon grew into
a tale of wonder.
If such things happened among the Greeks, the
most sane, the least fantastic in practice and belief
among mankind, we may naturally expect still
greater transformations of sober history in con
nection with the founders of the great religions
which have most moved mankind. And every one
knows that it is so.

LECT. V. AND MIRACLE 149
Perhaps of all the great founders of religions
Mohammed has been least transformed by his fol
lowers. The desert Arab is naturally sceptical, and
sees things as they are. It was not until Islam
reached the more imaginative races of Syria and
Persia that the traditional life of the prophet began
to take fantastic forms. As a great authority, M.
Dozy, has written, " The life of the prophet is
adorned with a great variety of legends, often clad
with all the glamour of poetry. Thus no doubt
historic truth has been completely disguised, especi
ally in more recent versions, more particularly in
what relates to the youth of Mohammed and his
sojourn at Mecca. But the earlier biographers
have infused the marvellous with so little skill that
one can commonly with a little critical tact dis
tinguish between truth and fiction. Mohammed
has never become a mythical or supernatural
being." ^ The same authority gives an example,^
which shows how easy in general is the process
which transfers to a new level recorded facts of
religious history. " At the outset of his mission
Mohammed said that he also had dwelt in error,
since he had taken part in the worship of idols ; but
God, he declared, had opened his heart. This
figurative phrase was taken literally, and gave rise
to the following tale, which was placed in Moham
med's own mouth : — ' One day when I was lying on
my side near the Kaaba, some one approached and
cut open my body from chest to abdomen, and took
1 Dozy, Histoire de V Islamisme, p. 132. ^ /^^'t/. p. 126.

I50 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
out my heart. There was brought to me a basin
of gold filled with faith : in it my heart was washed
and replaced in me.' According to this tradition,
as found in the earliest form of the tale in Bokhari,
the purification of the heart took place just before
the ascension of Mohammed ; but other traditions
preferred to represent the purification as having
taken place before the call to the office of prophet.
In this direction, therefore, the tale was remodelled ;
but as it still remained a scandal that Mohammed
should have erred, the time of purification was
moved farther and farther back, first to his
twentieth year, then to his eleventh, finally to his
earliest infancy." This is an exceflent example of
the plasticity of religious history when the practical
needs of a religious society are brought to bear
upon it.
In a very different medium grew to maturity
the tale of the life of Gautama. The ancient
Hindoos were a people whose mind seems to have
been, like their art, deficient in moderation and
balance, and to have tended towards the colossal
and the grotesque. Thus from the first the life
of Gautama was overlaid with outward marvel.
Instead of describing the process in my own
words, it will be better that I should quote from
the writings of a recognised authority, Mr. Rhys
Davids.-' " Gautama himself was very early re
garded as omniscient, and absolutely sinless." " As
a consequence of this doctrine the belief soon sprang
1 Buddhism, p. 182.

lect. V. AND MIRACLE 151
up that he could not have been, that he was not,
born as ordinary men are ; that he had no earthly
father ; that he descended of his own accord into
his mother's womb from his throne in heaven ; and
that he gave unmistakable signs, immediately after
his birth, of his high character and of his future
greatness. Earth and heaven at his birth united
to pay him homage ; the very trees bent of their
own accord over his mother, and the angels and
archangels were ever present with their help."
In modern India the same human tendency
broiders the lives of the saint and the ascetic with
a tissue of miracle. Sir A. C. Lyall ^ observes that
he who exhibits great religious devotion or shows
contempt for what is valued by others is still in
India " sure to be credited with miracles, probably
during his life, assuredly after his death." And
indeed it is easy in India to find examples of saints
who have not merely passed as workers of miracles,
but have after their death been accorded a place in
the Pantheon, and been regarded as great powers
of the invisible world. In that wonderful country
the road to apotheosis is by no means closed
to men. One who is personally acquainted with Moham
medanism in North Africa, M. E. Doutt6, writes as
follows : ^ " When Trumelet says that now miracles
are rarer than of old, he speaks inexactly. I myself,
in my duty as native administrator, have never
1 Asiatic Studies, p. 21.
2 Revue de Vhistoire des religions, vol. xl. p. 355.

152 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
Spoken to the Arabs about a local saint, even about
one still living, without hearing of some recent
miracle of his, that a man who had perjured himself
broke a limb on leaving the saint's presence, that
another had been rooted to the ground until he
gave up some evil purpose which he had formed,
that another endeavouring to enter the grotto of
the saint had seen it grow too narrow to admit
him." One of these Mohammedan saints killed
at a distance a woman who was intending to com
mit adultery. Another narrates the past history
and foretells the future fortunes of his chance
visitants. An odd tale is told of a saint, who,
travelling in a train, caused it to stop at the time
of prayer, nor could any efforts of the engineer
move it until the prayer was ended.
It is notorious that the miracles of the Founder
of Christianity have been supplemented in all ages
of the Church by similar wonders performed by
Christian saints. The Church of Rome has com
monly required evidence of miraculous powers in
those whom she raises to the saintly rank. The
inspiration of the Church has always been accom
panied and confirmed by the working of marvels.
It would profit us little if I culled a few flowers of
miracle from the vast flower-gardens of Catholic
history. It will be of more use if I briefly call
attention to two recent able works in which the
miracles which cling to the career of two great
saints of the Church are dealt with in a sound and
scientific spirit.

lect. v. AND MIRACLE 153
Dr. Edwin Abbott has published a masterly
treatise on the life of Saint Thomas of Canterbury
and the wonders which took place at his tomb. It
is a precise and detailed summary of evidence. Of
the conclusion of Dr. Abbott I can cite but a sen
tence or two.^ " Many of the accounts of the life
and death of Becket were written within five years
of his martyrdom. Many of the miracles, certainly
those recorded by their earliest chronicler, were
written down at the very time of their occurrence.
Yet even in these early documents we find that
writers, speaking from ' veracious relation,' record
portentous falsehoods, or let us rather say non-
facts, and that even writers depending upon the
evidence of eye-witnesses, and sometimes (though
much more rarely) on the witness of their own eyes,
fall into astonishing errors, many of which take the
direction of such amplifications as to convert the
wonderful but explicable into the miraculous and
inexplicable." The evidence collected by Dr. Abbott makes
it abundantly clear that the martyrdom of Saint
Thomas was followed by a remarkable series of
events ; it worked, in a fashion well worthy of the
close attention of psychologists, upon the minds
and bodies of that English race whose spiritual
champion he was, with the result of curing diseases
of many kinds, restoring spiritual and moral health,
leading into a new and a higher path of life. But
the evidence does not tend to show that the
1 E. A. Abbott, St. Thomas of Canterbury, vol. ii. p. 308.

154 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
miracle-working power of Saint Thomas reached
to the suspending of the physical laws of the
world : rather, when tales of such suspension are
set before us, it is often not difficult to see how
they arose out of the confusion, very natural to the
uneducated, between that which is within and that
which is without, between man and nature.
The other critical history to which I made
reference is the life of S. Francis, by M. Paul
Sabatier. This biography shows with admirable
perspicuity how in the course of the half century
which followed the death of Francis his legend
went on growing and changing, forming round
itself a larger and larger halo of supernatural
power and glory, and adapting itself to the fortunes
of the Franciscan society. The life of Francis,
written by three of his companions and published
twenty years after his death, is singularly free from
miraculous stories. But the life by Bonaventura,
written twenty years later, with a special view to
edification and the needs of the Franciscan order,
is laden with miracle and with direct divine inter
ventions, while under the stress of the supernatural
the simple and beautiful personality of Francis
becomes faint and obscure. The more he grows
into the likeness of the typical saint, the less
human and real does he become.
It is held by some that the experiments of
modern spiritualism have tended to obliterate the
line of distinction between the natural and the
miraculous in the visible world — have shown that

LECT. V. AND MIRACLE 155
spiritual forces may act directly on matter. And
persons of sound judgment have thought that
these experiments may compel us to revise our
views as to the miracles of early Christianity.
I do not like to speak of the phenomena of
spiritualism, because there is much difference of
opinion with regard to them, and in any case they
are mingled with much absurdity and much im
posture. But this is noteworthy, that according to
spiritualists the power of working physical marvels
has no close connection with moral or spiritual
pre-eminence ; it is attached to persons of a par
ticular nervous organisation. If they are right,
the working of miracles by Jesus would prove not
His special calling nor His divine mission, but
merely that He was a powerful medium. This
is not unlike the view taken by the Master's
opponents at the time. We fall back, not without
relief, upon the position that the power of working
miracles attributed to Jesus belongs not to history
but to legend. Ill
Before illustrating the growth of a halo of
miracle about the person of the Founder of
Christianity, it may be well to insist on two points :
first, that the rniracles proper attributed to Him are
few, and second, that He expressly repudiated the
position of a worker of miracles.
The impression, widely spread among Christians,
that the whole Hfe of their Master had a miraculous

156 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
setting, springs in a great degree from 'confusions.
To begin with, it has been customary to confuse
together the phenomena of faith-healing, in which
there is nothing which transcends experience and
miracle proper. As we have seen, people at an
early stage of culture do not distinguish between
that which is only remarkable and unusual, and
that which is entirely contrary to recognised laws
of nature : and this confusion has ever since
prevailed in the minds of most Christians. But
we are now obliged to distinguish. And while we
are ready in general to accept tales of healing, we
require in the case of miracles proper a clearness
of testimony on which the miracles of the Gospels
certainly do not rest.
In the Second Gospel, which is our most sober
and unadorned record of the doings of Jesus, only
four or five miracles are recorded. These are, the
walking of Jesus on the sea, and His sudden
stilling of the tempest ; the feeding of the multi
tudes, twice repeated ; and the withering of the
barren fig-tree. If we add to these, from the First
Gospel, the momentary success of Peter when he
also attempted to walk on the sea, and a few cures
which, as they are told us, seem quite beyond the
borders of the natural, the list is almost complete.
Each of these miracles falls easily into a well-
known class of wonders. The walking on the sea
is an example of the power which has in all ages
and many countries been attributed to some re
markable men of rising from the ground and

LECT. v. AND MIRACLE 157
standing without visible support. The story of
the stilling of the tempest seems merely to be
a slight exaggeration of a natural occurrence,
especially considering that in small lakes like that
of Galilee tempests rise and fall with extraordinary
suddenness. The feeding of multitudes is a tale
told of Elisha in the Second Book of Kings, and so
is at least no new portent. And if it was generally
recognised that Jesus cured diseases, it is evident
that among a community which had made no exact
study of disease, any tales of cures by their
Master would find ready currency among Christians,
even if the diseases were not really of a kind
which would yield to faith.
That Jesus Himself repudiated alike the wish
and the power to work miracles seems clear from
sayings of His recorded by the Synoptic Writers.
All three of them assert that when the Pharisees
demanded of Him a miracle or sign. He replied,
" There shall no sign be given to this generation."
Mark adds that the demand sorely troubled Him,
and it is clear, on comparing other passages, that
what grieved Him was the seeking for a super
natural sign, when the spiritual signs of the times
were visible to all who had eyes to read them.
Matthew adds to the declaration of Jesus the
phrase, " no sign shall be given but the sign of
Jonah," and this addition, if authentic, would seem
to mean that the token of divine authority which
the Pharisees sought was to be found in the
Master's preaching, which, like the preaching of

158 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
Jonah in Nineveh, was meant to save the people
from destruction. Again, Matthew records that
when the disciples of John the Baptist asked Jesus
on their teacher's behalf for some sign. He pointed
not to any miracle, but to the correspondence of
His preaching with the words of Isaiah, and its
effect in turning sinners to righteousness. It is
easiest to take the rest of the reply of Jesus,
" the dead are raised up, the lepers are cleansed,"
and the like, in a metaphorical manner, as referring
to those diseased or dead in sin. If we were sure
that we had the actual words of Jesus, this would
be a point of some importance. But considering
the circumstances of the production of this Gospel,
we cannot be sure that the phrases are not altered
by disciples ; and very probably the Evangelist
himself may have understood them as referring to
signs and wonders of healing and exorcism.
If we compare the various accounts given by the
Synoptic Writers of the same event, we may some
times see the miraculous element growing under
our eyes. In the passage just cited the preaching
of Jonah is spoken of as a sign to the Jews.^ " The
men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn it : for they
repented at the preaching of Jonah ; and behold,
a greater than Jonah is here." But into the midst
of this statement the Evangelist, or an interpolator,
has thrust a prophecy that as Jonah lay for three
days and nights in the body of the sea monster, so
^ Matthew xii. 39-41.

LECT. v. AND MIRACLE 159
Jesus should lie for three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth. A still clearer case of the
intrusion of the miraculous will appear if we com
pare the directions for preparing the Last Supper
in Matthew and in Mark.^ Matthew writes, " He
said. Go into the city to such a man, and say unto
him. The Master saith, My time is at hand ; I keep
the passover at thy house with my disciples." Here
there is no marvel ; no second sight. But Mark's
version is, " He sendeth two of his disciples, and
saith unto them. Go ye into the city, and there
shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water :
follow him ; and wheresoever he shall enter in, say
to the goodman of the house," etc. We have here
a most instructive glance into the minds of the
early disciples, and see how a simple tale might
grow under their hands.
That in spite of this love of marvel the Gospels
should be, on the whole, so clear of miracle is remark
able ; indeed, there is no trait which more strongly
supports the general trustworthiness of the Synoptic
narratives than the small part in them taken by
tales of miracles, and their retention of the Master's
repudiation of miracle-working. When we take up
the gospels of a later date, such as those of St.
Thomas and of the Infancy, we find them crowded
from beginning to end with miracles, mostly of an
exaggerated and tasteless kind. The universal rule
holds also in this case ; the nearer we approach the
time of a really great teacher, the less important
1 Matthew xxvi. 1 8 ; Mark xiv. 1 3.

i6o THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
and the less numerous are his miracles, the more
emphasis is laid on his character and his words.
Though, in the second age of the Church,
miracles were universally regarded as signs of the
vocation of the Master, yet even then some of the
more spiritually-minded of the Christian teachers
saw that to rely unduly upon them was the way of
materialism. The author of the interesting Epistle
to Diognetus, written in the age of the Antonines,
lays the stress of the evidence for the Incarnation
not in miracle, but in the moral transformation
visible in the lives of Christians. And Clement of
Alexandria finds proof of the mission of Christ more
surely in His character than either in the con
formity of His life to prophecy or His power of
working miracles. Down through the history of
Christianity there have always been some, though
in many ages few, who escaped the snare of giving
a miraculous basis to the Christian claims.
Many theologians of ability in recent times have
taken a view of New Testament miracles not unlike
that of Clement. They have accepted those miracles
as historic, but declared that they are not of great
importance in an evidential aspect. Such a view,
however natural and reasonable in the time of
Clement, seems to me now to be out of date. If
a belief in New Testament miracle be necessary to
Christian faith, then there is at least a very serious
reason for defending it if possible. But if it be
not so necessary, it is most desirable to remove a
stumbling-block out of the path of religion. To

lect. V. AND MIRACLE i6i
us, whether miracles actually happened or not
cannot be an otiose question. To all devoted to
and trained in physical science it is a matter of the
utmost importance. Miracles would form excep
tions to that great law of the Conservation of
Energy which men of science regard as holding in
all parts of the physical universe. Christian teachers
have no right to ask scientific men to give up
their entire confidence in this law, except for most
serious reasons. There are probably at this moment
hundreds of serious thinkers who are repelled from
the Christian Church because they think it com
mitted to a belief in miracle. It is therefore clearly
the duty of those who think that acceptance of
physical miracle is unnecessary to Christian belief
plainly to say so. IV
Of far greater importance in the history of Chris
tianity than any miracles wrought by the Founder
are the miracles which are the setting of His birth
and death, the miraculous divine birth, and the
physical resurrection. For any one who studies
the marvellous story of the rise of the Church it
soon becomes clear that that rise was conditioned —
perhaps was made possible — by the conviction that
the Founder was not born, like other men, of an
earthly father, and that His body did not rest like
those of other men in the grave, but left it and
ascended through the clouds to sit on the right

i62 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
hand of God, thence one day to return for the judg
ment of the world.
These views of the birth and the death of the
Founder have doubtless been regarded by succes
sive generations of Christians as historic fact ; and
as historic fact they have constituted, as it were, an
enduring skeleton to support a body of Christian
doctrine. But by degrees, as the nature of fact and
of history has been realised, in the slow evolution
of thought, it has become clear that not thus can
history be built up, and that the facts are facts of
psychology rather than of the visible world.
Fact is allowed, and objective history is built
up, on the ground of evidence and testimony.
And it is quite clear to any one who will for a
moment reflect that the evidence for the unusual
circumstances of the birth is of the slightest pos
sible character. Having elsewhere analysed it,^ I
may here spare myself the ungrateful task. The
miraculous birth is not history but theory — one of
the two competing theories which found course in
the early Church, as ways of accounting for the life
and the character of the Founder. The text of
Matthew and Luke, at all events in its present con
dition, supports the view that one who came to be
the Saviour and Redeemer of men could not be
born of earthly parents, but must have come into
the world in quite an exceptional way. This notion
has been, as every anthropologist knows, current
in all countries in regard to those who have come
^ Exploratio Evangelica, chap. xix.

lect. v. AND MIRACLE 163
to civilise, to raise, and to help mankind. All
primitive history is full of the deeds of sons of God
dwelling among men, and by divine power helping
them. It is a fact little known to Christians in general,
yet one which will clearly appear to all who read
the Gospels with attention, that the story of the
miraculous birth was not the only theory held by
the very early Church to account for the divine
nature of the Master ; and it seems not to have
been even the earliest theory. If we turn to the
beginning of the Gospel of Mark, we find that he
has nothing to say of any birth at Bethlehem, but
speaks of the Founder consistently as of Nazareth,
and as the son of Joseph and Mary, His account
of his Master begins with the baptism by John ;
and he tells us how at that baptism the Spirit as
a dove descended on Jesus, after which immediately
He was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.
According to this version then it was at His baptism
that Jesus received the divine Spirit, and not before
His birth. In the same way the Fourth Evangelist
does not recognise the miraculous birth, but appears
to hold that the divine Spirit, the Word of God,
was communicated to Jesus at His baptism. It is
quite true that Matthew and Luke tell both of the
miraculous birth and the descent of the Spirit at
baptism, but in doing so they combine two in
consistent explanations of the same truth. For it
is clear that if Jesus was filled with the divine
Spirit from His mother's womb, there was no

1 64 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.
need that that Spirit should come on Him at
baptism. The Fourth Evangelist and Paul hold baptism
in great and mystic honour. The Evangelist says
that men must be born again of water, as well as
of the Spirit. Paul says that the followers of
Christ are buried with Him in baptism. This view
is explicable only on the supposition that the Spirit
was given to believers as to their Master in baptism.
This new birth they share with Him, that they
may also share His life. In the early Church the
two views which dated the divine origin of Christ,
the one from His birth, the other from His baptism,
were rivals. It was only by degrees that the
former was established as orthodox, and the latter
branded as heretical.
In fact both the tale of the miraculous birth
and the tale of the miraculous baptism are early
and somewhat crude attempts of the Christian
Church to give embodiment to the great idea of
the Incarnation. It was natural that these earliest
efforts should take the form of ideal history. And
it was necessary that they should be steeped in the
hues of the supernatural. Before long, as we shall
see, the same great idea gave rise to developments
of doctrine which are better adapted for per
manence, though even they contain elements of a
temporary character. The majesty of this great
idea can be compressed into no narrative, expressed
by no miracle, and embodied in no formula.
The accounts contained in our Gospels of the

LECT. V. AND MIRACLE 165
resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ stand in
a somewhat different class from the accounts of
the birth. The story of the birth is not ex
pressly based on testimony ; the story of the bodily
resurrection is explicitly based upon the statements
of eye-witnesses. In speaking of this matter we
must carefully distinguish between the rising of the
body of the Master and His continued presence
among His disciples. That the spirit of Christ
remained with His followers and dwelt among
them we have an enormous volume of testimony.
And to people of that country and that age, this
spiritual presence would seem illusive unless the
body also rose from the grave. It may be added
that the relations of spirit and body remain alto
gether mysterious. And I suppose that if there
were any sufficient consensus of tried testimony
as to the appearance of Jesus after death to His
disciples with tangible body, any one, even some
of our most sceptical physicists and biologists,
would be ready to accept that testimony, though
we might all hold different views as to what facts
were in reality guaranteed by it. Professor Huxley
professed his willingness to accept any even
apparently miraculous phenomenon, if it were
guaranteed by adequate testimony ; and most of
us would admit such testimony with less difficulty
than Mr. Huxley.
The great difficulty in regard to the physical re
surrection arises from the unscientific frame of mind
of the early disciples, who did not in the least under-

1 66 THE SYNOPTISTS lect.v.
stand how to test or to value evidence, and who
looked on the events of the visible world through a
thick haze of preconceived notions, which made many
simple occurrences seem to them vague and mon
strous. It has been repeatedly shown by critics that
the mass of testimony as to the physical appearances
of Jesus Christ after the crucifixion is formless and
full of inconsistencies. Some writers attempt by
bold conjecture to bring order and consistency into
it. To me it does not appear that any such pro
ceeding has a reasonable chance of success. As
matters stand, those who even now hold the views
current in the early Church as to the necessity of
a body to continued existence after death, wiH
readily accept the belief in the resurrection of the
body of Jesus. Many good Christians will, no
doubt, also accept it on authority, although it does
not fit easily into their scheme of the relations
of body and spirit. But it seems to me that amid
existing intellectual conditions, the wisest plan by
far is to regard the spiritual presence of Christ
in His Church as the essential fact, and the tales
of the corporeal resurrection as results of the
experience of Christians, — results moulded by the
beliefs of the time as to the nature of spirit, and
its relations to a material body. The view, often
held, that it was in a changed and spiritual body
that Jesus appeared to His followers — such a body
as Paul speaks of in his Corinthian Epistle — is
quite untenable. The one thing on which all the
accounts insist is that the body of the Lord,

LECT.V. AND MIRACLE 167
though it had miraculous powers, was yet the same
material body which was crucified. It required
food and drink for nourishment, and the wounds of
the nails and the spear were yet unhealed, Luke
even represents the risen Christ as saying, " a
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me
having," The fact is that the story of the resurrection,
which has been discussed a thousand times from
the point of view of the sceptic, the rationalist,
the apologist, the system-maker, has never, so far
as I am aware, been adequately discussed from
the point of view of anthropology. We all, in the
light of our established ways of thinking, are
ready to say what must have happened, and to
adapt the evidence to those views. But it does
not seem to occur to any one to collect from
historic records, the investigations of anthropol
ogists, the experiments of the psychologist, all
the events of a similar character which can be
found, or to try to ascertain in what ways the
human mind works under conditions like those of
the first disciples. Until this complete inquiry
has been made, aH theories of the resurrection rest
upon insufficient grounds — do not really acknowledge
historic methods. From the scientific point of view,
ingenuity and piety are both more likely to mislead
a writer in search of historic fact than to guide him
aright.

1 68 THE SYNOPTISTS lect. v.

V
In sum, then, it appears that as in the matter of
prophecy so in that of miracle, the intellectual con
ditions of the time largely moulded the historic
narratives of the evangelists. In this case also,
" Time, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains
the white radiance of eternity." And although it
is not possible for us at once to cast aside the dis
torting medium and to see the pure light of fact
behind, yet when we clearly see certain intellectual
confusions and misconceptions to prevail in the
minds of the sacred writers, or of those from whom
they derived their materials, we must needs do
what we can to save our own views from the results
of these limitations. In the case of prophecy the
main fault or confusion of the evangelists is that
they regarded Jewish prophecy as referring to fact,
and to fact of future time, instead of to tendency
and to the ideal world. So in the case of miracle
we find a deep-lying confusion, arising out of ani
mistic theories of the visible world, which obliterated
the distinction between power over the souls, and
through the souls over the bodies of men, and
power directly exercised over physical and inanimate
nature. Seeing their Master cure disease, and
drive out evil spirits, the disciples easily received
such tales as that of the multiplication of the loaves
and the cursing of the barren fig-tree. I do not
say that the distinction between man and nature is

lect.v. and MIRACLE 169
final, or that there is any inherent impossibility in
the direct control of natural forces by human will.
That would be unjustified dogmatism. I only say
that the evidence that miracles proper were ever
wrought by Jesus is evanescent, and that He seems
expressly to have repudiated the intention of work
ing such marvels. So also of the miracles which
arose as a setting of the birth and the death of
Jesus, we can only say that they appear to re
present a hasty embodiment of the sacred experi
ences of the early Church in an external form — a
form contributed by the beliefs universally current
at the time, but now seen to possess subjective
rather than objective validity.
The attitude of mind taken by the great mass of
modern Christians towards the miraculous setting
of their Founder's life is interesting, but scarcely, as
I think, defensible. It seems that now miracles are
not regarded, as they were in the last century, as an
external proof of the divine nature of Jesus. But
holding strongly to the divinity of their Master,
Christians think that it makes the working of
miracles by Him a thing natural and fully to be
expected. If any one doubts the miracles, he is
regarded as wishing to deny the divinity. I will
cite the view set forth by Mr. Gore,^ " Christ offers
to aH men a new life." " Himself a new man. He
can make all things new. But granted that in this
fundamental sense Christ Jesus is a new moral
creation, is it possible that this new moral creation
1 Dissertations, p, 66.

170 THE SYNOPTISTS lect.v.
can have involved anything short of a new physical
creative act ? "
It is to be feared that Mr, Gore's theory intro
duces greater difficulties than it solves. His argu
ment, if its principle be fairly applied, would render
credible the miracles of the Gospels because Jesus
was a new moral creation. Among these stands,
for example, the multiplication of the loaves and
fishes. But we find that a precisely similar miracle
is recorded as having been wrought by Elisha.'
Are we to regard this as an actual event or as
legend ? If legend, then why may not a similar tale
when told of Jesus be legend also? If actual, then
was Elisha as well as Jesus a " new moral creation ? "
Of course to our fathers Old Testament and New
Testament miracle stood on the same basis ; and in
fact this is the only defensible view.
No doubt it was a strong feeling among the
disciples that their Master was not as other men,
which gave rise to the stories of miracles wrought
by Him, and of a miraculous entry into the world.
Such views at the time might well seem valid to
the keenest intelligence. But the question remains,
whether the progress of our knowledge of God's
ways in the world has not now put it out of date.
As a matter of fact, we do not find that the rise or
renovation of the moral and spiritual life in a man
alters his relations to the facts of the world about
him. To this day, as we have seen, the people of
India and of Africa think that it has such an effect ;
1 2 Kings iv. 44.

LECT.V. AND MIRACLE 171
but all the white races think that they are mistaken.
Which are we to accept — a plausible notion deeply
seated in the beliefs of the world, or the verdict of
evidence and experience ?
I must confess, with all humility, and all respect
for those who think otherwise, that to me much of
what is most characteristic in the life and teaching of
Jesus would become unmeaning if He claimed to be
a worker of miracles. By the exertion of miraculous
powers He could undoubtedly have secured an ex
ternal and visible triumph, instead of allowing His
enemies to prevail. The Evangelists perceive this,
and say that He did not exert His powers for fear the
prophecies of the Scripture should not be fulfilled.
This is their way of looking at things, but not their
Master's. He came, not to do His own will, but
the will of Him that sent Him. He read the divine
will not only in revelations from within, but in the
law and order of the material universe and in
history. When He was hungry, and the thought
suggested itself, as we read, of making bread of
stones, he rejected the suggestion as coming from
the evil one. Wherein does the making of wine
out of water differ from the making of bread out of
stones ?
Setting aside the distorting influences of the in
tellectual environment, we see with how strong a
grasp the Evangelists held to some of the ideas
which were to be the life of the future Church.
The citation of prophecy is a result of the perception
that the manifestation of the life of the spirit in all

172 THE SYNOPTISTS AND MikACLE lect.v.
ages is one — that it is a growth which gradually
arises, a life which gradually spreads. They felt
that Christ was born from the foundation of the
world. They give to that profound and final con
viction too literal a rendering ; but it is a great
thing that they really perceived it, and handed it
on through the ages.
In the same way the attribution of physical
miracle to the Master was the materialisation of a
life-giving idea. The idea belongs to the Master ;
the disciples on a lower level accept it, and give it
a body. Their real inspiration was the inwardness
taught by their Master, the predominance in the
world of the spiritual over the material, a predomi
nance which is a postulate of the higher life, though
it is not manifested in the rough and ready manner
of a suspension by will of the laws of the material
world. At the time, the Jews disputed the divine
character of the miracles, attributing them to Satanic
agency ; and there everj'' one would now allow that
they were wrong. Probably the moderns, who on
mere grounds of materialism have denied the possi
bility of miracles, are equally in the wrong. But
among us and in our surroundings belief in the
spiritual ground of life does not involve an accept
ance of miracle ; we clothe the idea in other forms.
Not less sincere should be our gratitude to those
who gave the idea a body suited to it at the begin
ning of the Christian era, and handed it down to
us in spite of all opposition and of all persecution.

LECTURE VI
THE LOGOS DOCTRINE OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST
We have next to speak of the interpretation of the
Master's person and work which took its rise
among those of His followers who were less
closely limited by the Jewish horizon. This inter
pretation is mainly due to three great theologians
of the first century — Paul, the author of the Fourth
Gospel, and the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. Whether or not any of these writers
had himself witnessed the earthly career of Jesus,
it is quite certain that they were less under the
influence of historic tradition than the Synoptic
Writers. Christ after the Spirit, not Christ after
the flesh, is the source of their inspiration. The
wider and more permanent life of the Master in
His Church dominates them rather than His
miraculous power or His Messianic functions, or
even His lofty spiritual teaching. In fact, in the
hands of these writers the Christian message
changed its character, and the Christian Church
its standing - ground. When I use the word
" change," I do not mean that they took up the

174 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vl
doctrine of a Hebrew prophet, and prepared it for
being the basis of a world-religion. That has
often been maintained, but it seems to me a super
ficial view. The thesis of Matthew Arnold, that
Jesus stood so high above His immediate followers
that they entirely misunderstood Him, is profoundly
true. As we have seen, the Synoptic Writers, for
all their candour, seem to have narrowed and
materialised their Master, to have made Him more
Jewish and more apocalyptic. No doubt as regards
the teaching of Jesus, the Synoptic Writers are our
most valuable authorities. But in regard to the
bearing of His life and the secret of His per
sonality, it is open to doubt whether Paul and the
Fourth Evangelist may not have seen more of the
truth than the Synoptists. There is nothing that
blinds us to the loftier side of the personalities of
men than a close and daily association with them.
Over and over again in history it has happened that
those who have had but little personal contact
with a religious teacher have been most truly his
spiritual children. Most blessed are those who
have not seen, and yet have believed. Of course
in thus speaking I assume that the author of
the Fourth Gospel was not one who had close
intercourse with Jesus, to which point I will return
later. I
It should be possible to set forth wherein mainly
the three great theologians of early Christianity

lect. VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 175
differ from the more strictly Jewish school, and
have a common likeness one to another. Their
similarity lies in this, that each of them in his
own way interprets the Founder of Christianity in
the light of the permanent fundamental religious
ideas of humanity.
At that time in Persia, in Egypt, in Greece, in
Italy, the old tribal religions which had sufficed
at all events for the public and official life of
the nations when they stood apart in spiritual
isolation, had been undermined by the cosmopolitan
spirit which had arisen first in Greece, and had
been propagated by the conquests of Alexander
and his Roman successors through the civilised
world. A process of comparison, of syncretism,
had taken place, which had corrupted the vital
force of these religions as expressions of tribal or
national character. The city or the state had
ceased to be the religious unit, and the individual
with his religious needs, his hopes and aspirations,
was more in the forefront of the world of belief.
Instead of thinking of themselves as fractions of
a state or clan, men had grown more concerned
with their own fates, alike in this world and that
which is to come. The religions of Egypt and of
Persia, which had led the way in fixing the pivot
of faith in a world beyond the grave, gained wider
acceptance. In Greece, which was after all the
brain of the world, the trend of religious thought
and feeling had taken two directions. The in
tellect had busied itself in religious speculation as

176 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
to the nature of God, of man, of morality ; and philo
sophic religious systems, like those of the Stoics
and the Epicureans, dominated the schools of
Athens and Rome. The heart meanwhile, with
its aspirations and needs, finding but cold comfort
in philosophy, had turned towards the incoming
religions. Sarapis, Mithras, Sabazius, were the
deities who commended themselves to the en
thusiastic. And in spite of the superstitions
which accompanied the rites of these more mystic
faiths, and the imposture which too often marked
their priests and hierophants, at this distance of
time we can see clearly that the change in the
religious outlook was one betokening progress.
The more enthusiastic cults preserved many reli
gious ideas and feelings which had almost become
atrophied in the respectability of the authorised
national and civic cults. They recognised the
main truths of eternal religion, the guilt of man,
his need of a Saviour, the possibility of dying to
the world and rising to a new life of the spirit,
the hope of a life in God beyond the grave. If
Christianity had been, as many people think it
orthodox to suppose that it was, an entirely new
departure, it is past calculation how much of the
higher yearnings and strivings of successive genera
tions in the pre-Christian age would have died
away, and left no fruit on earth. But it was not
thus in fact. The stream of Christianity had
scarcely left its copious source in the divine mount,
before it began to gather to itself all the streams

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 177
of religious thought and feeling which at the time
had way among mankind. Many men must have
found, to parallel the Pauline language, that Sarapis
and Mithras acted as pedagogues to bring them to
the school of Christ.
But we have not sounded the bottom of the
religion of the thiasi and the mysteries in Greece.
Individualism can in the long run be only transi
tional in religion. Purely individual faith dies
with every generation ; only as a common life in
spires its members can any sect or community
attain to continuous existence. So, though the
enthusiastic religions of later Greece made their
first appeal to the individual, his needs and his
hopes, they met those needs and regulated those
hopes by the teaching and practice of a common
life. The deity worshipped by the thiasos was its
bond of union, and through identification with
that deity each member of the society hoped for a
better life upon earth, and a safe passage to the
realm of disembodied souls. For the tie of city and
country, a different tie was substituted — a spiritual
relation between the souls of men, based on com
munion with the divine. By a variety of cere
monies and sacraments this tie was recognised,
and its binding force increased. Thus the Greek
world showed a tendency to break up into spiritual
units, rather than civic units such as the family
and the city. The teaching of the Founder of
Christianity as to the Kingdom of Heaven was
indeed well fitted to blend with this tendency.

178 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
But the pagan cults might contribute to the
Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints
something which we scarcely find, or at least do
not find in developed form, in the writings of the
Synoptists. It is of course impossible that I should discuss
in detail the phenomena of the mystic and en
thusiastic religions of later Greece and Italy. But
I was obliged hastily to characterise them, because
I think we may formulate a sort of ratio. As the
religion of the wide Hellenistic world was to the
civic cults of early Greece and Asia, so was the
religion of Paul and John to that of the Judaising
Christians of the first century. The narrow Jewish
wing of the Christians was little more than a
Hebrew sect. It demanded of the Gentile con
verts that they should undergo circumcision, and
keep the law. It looked upon Jesus Christ, even
after all that had happened, as a national Jewish
deliverer, who was to come again in the clouds
of heaven in order to establish on earth the mil
lennial reign of the saints. At the other pole
of the Christian world, Paul and John abandon
the racial for the cosmopolitan spirit, freely admit
Gentiles, and regard Jesus Christ as a great
spiritual power, briefly revealed to the world, but
ever living at the right hand of God, the life of
the Church, and the source of all its powers and
virtues. They are the preachers of faith, of
salvation, of mediation, of redemption. And the
germs, at all events, of the beliefs which these

lect.vl of THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 179
words imply may be traced in the writings and
traditions, scanty and mutilated as they are, which
tell us of the workings of the enthusiastic religions
of the Hellenistic world.
For a fuller statement of this important fact I
know not where to refer, .save to a chapter in
my Exploratio Evangelica} where the parallelism
between the mystic and soteriologic aspects of the
later Paganism and of rising Christianity is drawn
out as well as the existing materials have enabled
me to depict it. The pagan mysteries aimed above
aU things at salvation, which they guaranteed to
their votaries, alike in a blessed immortality here
after, and in a new life on earth lived in a small
society, which was under the special protection of
the deity which it worshipped.
Some foreign critics have accused me of
going beyond the evidence in comparing the ten
dencies of these religions with those of developing
Christianity. And it must be allowed that our
objective knowledge of them is not great, and
constantly breaks down when one tries to build
upon it. It must also be allowed that the cults
of Mithras, of Cybele, and of Isis, have in
them much to repel any person of moral sense.
They were mingled with elements of indecency, of
1 Chap. xxvi. : " Christianity and the Thiasi." This chapter
perhaps more than any in the book contains an original contribution
to the early history of Christianity. It is worthy of note that
among all the English notices of the book not one appears to
realise this fact ; not one selects this chapter for comment, whether
favourable or unfavourable. f

i8o THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
extravagance, of imposture. The old-fashioned
Romans held them in utter contempt, as tending
to the dissolution of the family life and of society.
Yet these held the same view of Christianity,
and in fact confused Christianity with the new-
fashioned and aggressive cults. It is noteworthy
that at the present time the secret of the hatred
felt by the Chinese and Japanese for Christianity
is that they regard it as a solvent of the ties of
family and clan, which in their view are the basis
of all morality.
Let me explain my view more clearly. The
great theologians of early Christianity, from a very
different point of view, disliked and despised the
cults of Hellenism as much as did the conservative
Romans. They would be very unlikely to con
sciously copy them, regarding them as a result
rather of diabolic than of divine inspiration. And
yet I think the evidence shows that many of the
ideas and beliefs which have in Christianity worked
for the salvation of men, worked in these heathen
cults at a very inferior level, and yet on the whole
for good. Certain divine ideas found an unsatis
factory and corrupt body in some of the cults of
later Greece before they found a nobler and more
enduring body in the Christian society.
And it was the working of these ideas which
made the great difference between the Pauline and
Johannine writings and the Synoptic Gospels.
By Paul and John the human life and the death
of the Master are read in a higher light — the light

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST i8i
of His exaltation and spiritual pre-eminence. To
them He was, not primarily the Messiah, nor the
teacher of the way of life, but the hidden source
of life, the saving power, the ruler of the spiritual
world. To the narrower Judaic Christians Jesus
succeeded and outshone the prophets, surpassing
them as the son surpasses the mere servant. To
the newer school Christ succeeded, and took the
place of all the spiritual revelations which God had
given to Jew and to Gentile, and so made a new
and a living way whereby man could be saved,
reconciled to God, and made even on earth a
partaker of the divine nature.
It is natural, in view of the greater spirituality
of this school of Christian teachers, and the more
permanent conditions under which they worked,
that in their theories of the person of their Master
there should be less of the material, the temporary,
the racial, than there was in the Synoptic writings.
Nevertheless, if we consider their respective beliefs,
we shall find that they also did not escape the
limitations natural to the age and the country,
II
It is on the whole best to treat of the em
bodiment of these ideas in biography before we
speak of their embodiment in doctrine. We will
deal in the present lecture with the Fourth Gospel :
in the next with the Pauline literature. Yet one
must never forget that by this procedure we

1 82 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vi.
reverse chronological order. The Pauline Epistles
must be earlier by nearly half a century than the
Fourth Gospel : they are indeed earlier than the
Synoptic Gospels in their present form. Indeed,
we may go further, and say that our present pro
cedure in some degree puts the cause after the
effect. The Fourth Gospel had its origin in
Ephesus, in one of the churches founded and
nurtured by Paul. It may fairly be said that, but
for the work and the preaching of Paul, it could
never have come into being. It assumes a change
in the conception of the nature of Jesus Christ
and of His relation to the Church, which, as we
shall see, was mainly the result of Pauline influence.
It is often convenient to call the Fourth Gospel
the Gospel of John, though in using the phrase I
by no means intend to accept the view that this
Gospel is from the pen of John the son of Zebedee.
Its authorship is notoriously one of the most difficult
and one of the most frequently discussed of New
Testament problems. I can only express my own
view in the matter. It is clear that the Gospel was
written by a Christian of the second generation, a
member of the Church of Ephesus, a man acquainted
with the Platonic philosophy in its later form. As
the Evangelist, in epistles almost certainly written
by him, calls himself The Elder (d m-pea-^vTepoi;),
there is much to be said for the view to which
Harnack incHnes, that he was a certain " John the
Elder " of Ephesus, mentioned by Papias. If John
the Elder, being a disciple of John son of Zebedee,

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 183
wrote the Gospel, its attribution to the Apostle
would be quite natural. In my opinion this view
at present holds the field. The usual view of con
servative critics, that the Gospel as it stands was
written by the Apostle John, not only labours under
the greatest critical difficulties, but it is even more
on the side of scepticism than others. For if the
Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John are both
the records of eye-witnesses, then it becomes wholly
impossible to determine what the life and teaching
of Jesus were really like : for we have two utterly
irreconcilable accounts of it of equal authority.
For' our present purposes it is unnecessary to
discuss in detail the authorship of the Fourth Gospel,
For we have to do, not with the author of the book,
but with the book itself And the book, when
looked at with the eyes of historic and literary
criticism, tells us all that we need in the present
place to know in regard to it. It is clearly made
up of two distinct elements. In the first place it
appears almost certain that the author had at his
disposal detailed traditions or records of some parts
of the life of Jesus. In some passages — that which
records the events of the last supper, for example —
his sources of information seem to be more accurate
than those of the Synoptists. And the mention of
people and places sometimes seems to show precise
local knowledge, as when he speaks of " Aenon
near to Salim," and when he records the events by
the pool of Bethesda, and the doings of Nathanael
and Nicodemus. Such detailed knowledge may

1 84 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vi.
well have come from one of the Apostles, very
likely from John son of Zebedee. But this know
ledge of some events in the life of Jesus is entirely
dominated by the second element in the Gospel — an
intense feeling of the exalted nature of Jesus Christ,
which appears to be based not so much upon any
tradition of His life and sayings as on experience
of His relations to the Christian community after
He had departed from earth.
The Synoptic Writers on the whole faithfully
reflect the teaching of the historic Jesus. " Do the
will of God and you will be blessed : love God, and
in God aH mankind." The Fourth Gospel seems
to embody the response made by the spirit of the
Master to the complaint of the Church, " Without
Thee we have no strength to do the will of God ;
through Thee alone can we love God." That the
promises of the risen Christ should be embodied in
words attributed to the historic Jesus Himself is
quite contrary to all modern notions of the duty of
a biographer. But there is nothing in it contrary
to the literary habits of the time. And, as we shall
presently see, it can be proved beyond all possibility
of reasonable doubt that the discourses of the Fourth
Gospel are compositions of the writer of the Gospel,
though they are inspired by Christian experience.
In some passages of the Synoptic Writers we find
an echo of the intense conviction of the early dis
ciples that their Master, though lost to sight, stiH
in exalted spiritual being dwelt among them, and
guided the infant society. But this conviction.

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 185
which only colours isolated passages in the Synoptic
Gospels, exercises in the Fourth Gospel an enor
mous transforming power, colouring most of the
words attributed to Jesus. Parts of the traditional
teaching which could not be read in this light, or
thus transformed, do take a place in the Fourth
Gospel ; but its whole colour and tendency come
from the utterances in which the person of the
Master is more conspicuous than His teaching, and
His relation to His Church overshadows His
Messiahship. I have already observed that the acceptance of
Jesus as the Messiah, and the application to Him of
Messianic prophecy, was the tribute paid by the
first followers of Jesus to the idea of the continuity
of history — was the outcome of their conviction that
Jesus Christ was not a new creation ; but one pre
pared by all the course of Jewish history, the crown
of the long spiritual life of Israel. The Fourth
Evangelist does not give up the Messianic belief,
but he practically supersedes it with the Logos
doctrine, of which I shall presently speak, which
has over it the great advantage that it attributes
to the risen Christ a great power and function in
the spiritual world, and at the same time does not,
like the Messianic idea, omit the Gentiles from
account. For the word of God came not only to
Jewish prophets, but also to Greek saints and sages.
It is impossible for any one who has received
literary and historic training to accept the view that
the Synoptic and the Johannine discourses came

i86 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
from the same lips. If we suppose that the teach
ing recorded in Matthew and Luke really comes
from the Founder of Christianity, then we are
obliged to maintain that the discourses of the Fourth
Gospel, though the theme of them may sometimes
be an authentic saying of the Master, are yet com
posed in a style widely different from his. And
that style is precisely the manner of the Evangelist
himself, as shown in his Epistles, and in his explana
tions in the Gospel itself To make this clear we
will begin with an examination of a speech given in
the Fourth Gospel to John the Baptist. It is suffi
ciently obvious that it is most unlikely that speeches
of the Baptist should be correctly transmitted from
mouth to mouth for seventy or eighty years until
they reached the Evangelist. And this probability
becomes a certainty when we turn to the phrasing
of the speech itself in John iii. Here we find every
indication of a dramatic composition arranged on a
set theme. At v. 26 we have the occasion : John's
disciples doubt as to the mission of Jesus, and so
give John an opportunity of speaking on the subject.
He begins, with complete verisimilitude, with a
statement that he regards Jesus as the greater
teacher for whom he can only prepare the way.
" He must increase," says the Baptist, " but I must
decrease." So far there is no difficulty : if John
did not say these things, he well might have said
them. But at v. 31 we find what purports to be a
continuation of his speech. It begins, "He that
Cometh from above is above all," and goes on to set

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 187
forth in the regular style of the Fourth Gospel some
of the tenets especially dear to the author. John
the Baptist preaches in the style quite peculiar to
the Fourth Evangelist ! So obvious an incongruity
could not escape the critics, who try in various ways
to explain it. Surely there is one explanation, and
one only, which is reasonable — that the Evangelist
composes speeches for his characters, and sometimes
is so far carried away as to forget to make those
speeches appropriate. He passes unconsciously
from narrative to preaching.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, scarcely any
writer is free from such inconsistency as this, not
even Shakespeare himself, who in the Merchant of
Venice most inappropriately places in the mouth
of Portia, pleading in a law court, that charming
panegyric of mercy, beginning, " The quality of
mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle
rain from heaven. Upon the place beneath." In
itself this praise of mercy is beautiful, but as an
appeal to Shylock it lacks all propriety, especially
as it ends with a reference to the Lord's Prayer.
Even Shakespeare is sometimes led away from
dramatic propriety, when he is embarked on a
passage which will certainly appeal to, and carry
away, his audience.
And as the Fourth Evangelist composes speeches
for John the Baptist and for Jewish opponents, so
he composes them for his Master also. Admir
able as is the beauty, and perfect as is the
spirituality, of the discourses attributed to Jesus

1 88 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
in the Fourth Gospel, it is quite impossible to
suppose that in this form they came from His
lips. What the teaching of the Master really was
like we may fairly judge from the fragments of it
piled together in the Sermon on the Mount, or
the parables of the kingdom. Short pithy sayings,
precepts dictated by authority, tales bearing an
obvious moral, — such was the Master's discourse.
But the speeches given in the Fourth Gospel are
in character utterly different. I speak now of
their form and style, not of their contents. They
are in fact brief sermons. Starting usually with
some remarkable and pregnant saying, they dwell
upon it, explain it, turn it about. Very generally
some interlocutor is introduced, who misunder
stands the text by taking it literally and not
spiritually ; and this gives occasion to the speaker
more clearly to bring out its force. All this shows
a thoroughly artificial construction on a set plan.
No better example can be taken of the method
of constructing the Johannine discourses than the
discourse with Nicodemus. First we have the
occasion. Nicodemus comes by night to consult
Jesus as a teacher sent from God. The teacher
at once opens with a sublime paradox, " Except a
man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God." Whether this phrase is likely to have
come from the Founder of Christianity it is not
easy to determine. It is one of those grand
spiritual truths to which He often gives utterance ;
and in Matthew we have a parallel in the words.

LECT. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 189
" Except ye turn and become as little children,
ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven."
But, on the other hand, the particular word reborn
is closely associated with the mystic religion of
the time, would certainly be current at Ephesus,
and is more akin to the teaching of the Fourth
Evangelist than to that of his Master. One
would say that the difference between " become as
little children " and " be born anew " exactly ex
presses the difference in view between the Jesus
of the Synoptics and the Jesus of the Fourth
Gospel. Nicodemus, however, at once supposes
that some physical second birth is intended, " Can
he enter a second time into his mother's womb " ?
Such crassness is scarcely in human nature ; the
reply is merely a rhetorical artifice, to give occasion
for explanation. In fact this artifice is constantly
used by the Evangelist, as we see by a dozen
other passages. The Samaritan woman, when
she hears of " living water," says, " Sir, thou hast
nothing to draw with, and the well is deep : from
whence then hast thou that living water ? " When
Jesus speaks of giving His flesh for the life of
the world, the Jews murmur, " How can this man
give us his flesh to eat ? " Every reader of Plato
will remember how in similar fashion those who
oppose Socrates by their very objections give him
opportunity more clearly to bring out his meaning.
In the conversation with Nicodemus, the ex
planation called for comes at once, partly in the
form of another noble statement of law, " That

igo THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the spirit is spirit." The severe anti
thetic style of this saying belongs to the Evangelist;
but the words take us at once to the doctrine of
Paul, with whom the contrast of flesh and spirit
is a primary subject of teaching. The next words
seem to belong to the author of the Gospel.
" Except a man be born of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God." The
stress here laid on baptism is quite without pre
cedent in the Synoptic Gospels. It is indeed very
doubtful whether baptism was a custom of the
infant Christian society until after the Crucifixion.
But the Fourth Evangelist, dating the divine
mission of Jesus from His baptism by John,
attaches very great importance to the rite, though
he states in another place that " Jesus Himself
baptized not, but His disciples."
To return to Nicodemus. At this point of
the discussion, he does not express misunderstand
ing but incredulity, "How can these things be?"
The immediate reply of Jesus, "Art thou the teacher
of Israel, and understandest not these things,"
has many parallels in the Synoptic Gospels, for
instance, " Can ye not discern the signs of the
times ? " But at that point we begin to drift
further and further from the authentic. The
Master proceeds, " If I told you earthly things,
and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell
you heavenly things?" It will be observed how
at this point the Thou, natural in discourse be-

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 191
tween two, gives way to the plural Ye. Nicodemus
is passing into the background, and the occasion
of the discourse is being forgotten. The contrast
of earthly things with heavenly is entirely in the
manner of Jesus, and reminds us of such saying
as, " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your Father which is heaven give good things to
them that ask Him?" But although in itself the
saying may well be authentic it is not suited to
this connection, for the new birth is exactly the
sort of event which Jesus usually speaks of as
heavenly, as having to do with the " kingdom of
heaven." After this the occasion and the interlocutor pass
out of the mind of the Evangelist, and he pro
ceeds as if he were preaching in the synagogue,
beginning, " No man hath ascended into heaven,
but he that descended out of heaven, even the
Son of man, which is in heaven," where all except
the expression, " Son of man," belongs to Jesus
Christ looked back on by the Church, and present
to the experience of Christians, but not to the Jesus
known to us from the Synoptic Writings.
To any one at all accustomed to the ways of
ancient historians the notion that Nicodemus would
go, like a modern newspaper reporter, to set down
on paper the discourse which he had heard, seems
fanciful. It was the custom of all the historians
in Greece and Rome to tell their tale partly by a
narrative of events, partly by (composing for their

192 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vi.
principal characters speeches which should more
clearly than a narrative explain the position of
affairs, and characterise a situation. The speeches
which abound in Thucydides, Tacitus, Livy, are
not verbatim reports, are not in most cases the
substance of what was uttered by the persons in
whose names they are given, but usually com
positions of the historians, framed with dramatic
propriety. The speeches of Socrates as given in
the dialogues of Plato are no records of actual
words. Though they doubtless at once follow
and idealise Socrates' habits in discourse, yet many
of the views put forward in them, the doctrine of
ideas for example, are probably quite foreign to the
teaching of Socrates, and belong to Plato himself
It would not appear to Plato that in thus attribut
ing the advocacy of his own views to Socrates, he
was doing his master any injustice. He would
doubtless consider his procedure a compliment to
that master, and a mark of sincere gratitude. And
in spite of literary customs, which from the modern
and historic point of view could scarcely be
reckoned as right, most critics of ancient philo
sophy have thought that in some respects Socrates
is more satisfactorily mirrored in the dialogues of
Plato than in the less intellectual and less im
aginative pages of the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
A painted portrait, even if the drawing be incorrect,
may give one a better notion of the person depicted
than a matter-of-fact photograph.
It is sometimes contended in conservative circles.

LECT. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 193
and even Matthew Arnold has accepttd the con
tention, that the discourses of the Fourth Gospel
cannot be the work of the Evangelist, because he
was incapable of producing them, and because they
contain teaching so original and so lofty that it
must go back to Jesus Himself This is distinctly
an apriori view. How do we know of what the
Evangelist under divine inspiration may have been
capable ? Should we not, judging in the same
apriori manner, decide that some Pauline passages,
such as the praise of charity, could not be the work
of a mere disciple, but must go back to the Master ?
When we look closely into the teaching of the
Johannine discourses we see clearly that, on the
contrary, much of it could not have come from the
earthly Jesus, and that much of it is strongly in
fluenced by Paul. For example, the Johannine
parable of the vine and the branches contains the
same teaching as the Pauline parable of the body
and the members. There is nothing corresponding
in the Synoptists ; and the Pauline version is the
original. If the Johannine Christ speaks of Himself
as " the Way," we may find in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, which is probably earlier in date, a passage
in which Christ is spoken of as a " new and living
way." Probably the stately beauty of style in the
Johannine discourses impresses on many readers
the conviction that they are reading the very words
of Jesus; but there is no question whatever that
this style belongs wholly to the Evangelist himself.

13

194 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
III
In so spiritual a work as the Fourth Gospel, we
may seem to have reached the very essence of
Christianity as understood in the Christian com
munity, and to have passed beyond materialism
and that which is temporary. And no doubt the
ideas which inspire the Evangelist are central in
Christianity. But in giving them a body in his
Gospel, the Evangelist is not always lifted above
that which belonged to the time, and must with
time decay. To begin with, as a biographer, using
for the biography passages selected from the
Christian tradition, he cannot wholly free himself
from the limitations which we have observed as
controlling the Synoptic Writers. Sometimes he
dwells on a literal fulfilment of prophecy with the
same insistence as they. An instance already cited,
in which the distribution of the clothes of Jesus is
made literally to conform to the words of the prophet,
is from the Fourth Gospel. This Evangelist is in
general above materialism, so that such phrases as,
" Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet
have believed," seem naturally to belong to him.
And yet he insists even more strongly than other
Evangelists on the value of the mighty works of
Jesus as a testimony to the truth of His mission.
He even puts into the mouth of Jesus the strong
phrase, " If I had not done among them the works
which none other did, they had not had sin," which
contrasts with the saying in the Synoptists, " There

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 195
shall no sign be given to this generation." He
recounts miracles of Jesus, few in number, but
strongly marked in character. He is not able fully
to recognise, like the author of the Epistle to
Diognetus and Clement of Alexandria, that the
character and teaching of Jesus are better proofs of
His mission than any miracle could be. We must
make allowance in his case also for the stress of
controversy and practical necessity.
It seems a very simple and natural supposition
that the elements in the Gospel, which seem at
variance with the character of its author, should
be due to the apostolic authority from whom he
accepted many of the narratives embodied in the
Gospel, and to whom no doubt he looked up with
reverence, as one who had been a companion of
his Master. I have already suggested that this
authority may be John the son of Zebedee, who, as
he comes before us in the Gospels, is a character
frank, warm-hearted, and affectionate, but decidedly
limited, passionate, by no means especially spiritual.
If it was, as seems very possible, he who compiled
the Apocalypse, he was one of the narrow and Judaic
party among the early Christians. If, then, we
accept the view that the author of the Fourth Gospel
was not an eye-witness, but had behind him oral
testimony of John the son of Zebedee, it is naturally
to this Apostle that we shall refer his occasional
materialism. On the other hand, in some respects the Evan
gelist is strikingly on the side of the modern world

196 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
against the limitations of his age. It is notable
that whereas the demonology of the time colours
almost every page of the Synoptists, and even Jesus
Himself seems to have accepted it, the Fourth
Evangelist says nothing about daemonic possession
or the exorcism of evil spirits. If we compare the
writings of many early Christian teachers, which
are steeped in demonology, this may well seem a
remarkable fact. In itself it is an almost irresistible
proof how loose he sat to historic tradition when it
did not accord with what commended itself to him
as a higher view.
We pass from the defects, or what historic
students would regard as defects, in the Fourth
Evangelist considered as a biographer, to certain
weaknesses which seem to be inseparable from the
position which he takes up as a philosopher. In
Platonising, he necessarily inherits the defects as
well as the admirable virtues of the Platonic manner
of thought. And we must remember that it is not
from the great philospher himself that he would
take the elements of Platonic thought, but from
disciples of less genius, from the speculations of
later Greeks or of Hellenistic Jews.
To this Evangelist his Master appears as an
embodiment or an incarnation of the Logos or
reason of God and of the divine light which shines
into every man born into the earth. It would
indeed be hopeless to attempt in this place even
a sketch of the history in pre-Christian religious
thought of these phrases. The Logos doctrine,

LECT. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 197
whatever its origin, is essentially Greek. The
Greeks sought after wisdom, were the discoverers
of philosophy and of all scientific thought, first
taught mankind the higher uses of the intellect.
But the doctrine of the divine light goes back to
another mental atmosphere, that of Persia, where
light rather than thought was regarded as the most
express mirror of the Deity.
Although the Logos doctrine appears first in
fully developed form in the Fourth Gospel, yet in
earlier writings we may find approximations to it.
Paul in this as in many matters prepared the way
for the Evangelist. In Romans (x. 6) he writes,
" The righteousness which is of faith saith thus. Say
not in thy heart. Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that
is, to bring Christ down :), or. Who shall descend
into the abyss ? (that is, to bring Christ up from the
dead.) But what saith it ? The word is nigh thee,
in thy mouth, and in thy heart." Here, although
the noun rendered " word " is rema and not logos,
yet Paul seems within a step of speaking of Christ
as the Word of God. And the step which Paul
does not take is actually taken by the writer of the
Apocalypse, when he speaks of the rider on the
white horse, who is arrayed in a garment sprinkled
with blood ; and whose name is The Word of God.
The great benefit which came to the Church
from the adoption by Christianity of the doctrines
of the Logos and the divine light, is that it re
moved from the Christian thought as to the person
of the Master the limitations of time and of space.

198 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
and recognised it in relations of the loftiest and
most ideal kind with God and with the world.
The place of birth, which in regard to the Jewish
Messiah was important, became in regard to the
Christ unimportant, since He was born from the
foundation of the world, and was present wherever
God was revealed to man and in man. The
" Christ in you " of Paul takes the place of the
Christ born at Bethlehem of Matthew and Luke.
Death, which seemed to remove the Messiah to a
distant sphere, whence He should come again to
judge the world, could not quench the light that
enlightens every man who comes into the world.
Thus it became possible for thoughful Christians to
use language such as is used by Justin Martyr
in the middle of the second century, " Lest some
should without reason, and for the perversion of
what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ
was born one hundred and fifty years ago, under
Quirinius, and subsequently, in the time of Pontius
Pilate, taught what we say He taught ; and should
cry out against us as though all men who were born
before Him were irresponsible, let us anticipate
and solve the difficulty. We have been taught
that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have
declared above that He is the Word of whom
every race of men were partakers ; and those who
lived with reason {jMera Xoryov) are Christians, even
though they have been thought atheists ; as, among
the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men
like them ; and among the barbarians, Abraham

LECT.VL OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 199
and Ananias, and Azarias and Misael, and Elias,
and many others whose actions and names we
now decline to recount, because we know it would
be tedious. So that also they who lived before
Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and
hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived
reasonably." ^
This is indeed a remarkable passage, and brings
out clearly the liberal and broad religious spirit
which naturally goes with the doctrine of the
Logos. But it also throws into clear relief what
is the weak side of that doctrine, and indeed of
all the speculation of the school of Alexandria
which arose out of it. Both reason and light
belong rather to the intelligent than to the voli
tional side of our nature. If Jesus Christ was
the embodiment of the reason or light of God,
His mission to the world would have been
mainly intellectual, as Justin evidently thinks.
In this way we make Jesus Christ a philoso
pher — a pattern to the world of wisdom rather
than of will in union with the divine. And this
brings us into collision not merely with history,
but with the primary laws of the spiritual word.
For we find, alike from experience and from the
enlarged experience which history offers us, that
divine inspiration does not save those who are
inspired from the necessity of ascertaining the truth
in regard to visible and material things by the
ordinary methods of investigation, or from the
' First Apology, chap. Ixvi.

200 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vl
necessity of recovering the history of the past by
means of document and testimony. In the iirst
ages of Christianity, psychology was in its infancy,
and it was quite natural that no clear distinction
should be drawn between the inspiration which
leads men to fulfil the law of their being, the
wisdom which enables them to choose the right
path for the attainment of high ends, and the
knowledge which gives power among men. It is
quite natural that the abyss between knowing what
was right and doing it should be glossed over,
as it was in all schools of Platonic thought.
These original weaknesses have had and still
have unsatisfactory results in the history of Christian
doctrine. Since it seems to follow that he who em
bodies the wisdom and the light of God must be
in knowledge infallible, it seems even now to many
Christians a stumbling - block that Jesus should
cite as by David a Psalm which belongs to a much
later date than that of David, or that He should
ascribe disease to the presence of evil spirits.
Next, the absence of infallible knowledge in the
teaching of Jesus as reported in the Synoptists
being undeniable, theologians have been led to
extend in a particular direction Paul's doctrine of
the kenosis, holding that in coming into the world
the divine Word emptied Himself of the divine
knowledge in order to submit to human conditions.
This doctrine, like most Christian doctrines, may
have justification in some aspects, but it may be
questioned whether it is not based on an unsound

lect. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 201
psychology, and whether it does not contribute to
producing that artifical and non-natural complexion
of religion which estranges from it those men who
are determined as far as possible to see things
as they really are. It is often an unfortunate
result of introducing a theological doctrine, which
in itself seems free from objection, that it entices
men to make it complete from the theoretical point
of view, and so it drags in after it as corollaries
other doctrines which may present greater difficulty
from the psychologic or scientific point of view.
Another corollary of the Logos doctrine, which
has had wide influence in theological construction,
must here be mentioned — the doctrine of the agency
of Christ in the formation of the material world.
When early religious thought, at the time of the
rise of Greek civilisation, had begun to occupy
itself with the relation between the creating Deity
and the world, an Ionian philosopher had summed
up that relation in the phrase, " All things were in
confusion ; reason ordered them." At a period
possibly even earlier than this, Jewish thought in
one of its noblest flights had pictured wisdom or
reason as associated with the Creator, " When He
prepared the heavens, I was there : when He set
a compass upon the face of the depth : when He
established the clouds above: when He strengthened
the fountains of the deep : when He gave to the
sea His decree, that the waters should not pass
His commandment: when He appointed the founda
tions of the earth : then I was by Him, as a master

202 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
workman (R. V.) : and I was daily His delight,
rejoicing always before Him."^ It can scarcely
be wondered that the Wisdom thus delightfully
spoken of in the Book of Proverbs became in
later Jewish writing more and more personal.
And so the Jesus Christ, who was the Word of
God, was inevitably regarded as one with the
personified Wisdom which had guided the Creator
in His planning of the worlds. The inconsistency
between this view and the sternly monotheistic
language of the account of creation in Genesis
was scarcely of a character to disturb the early
Christian theologians. Introduced into the Creeds
it might well have been a considerable source of
confusion. And yet we may discern that truth
was built into its foundation — a truth which it does
not seem impossible to translate into the language
of the most modern schools of thought, and to
commend to an age which has accepted evolution
as a condition not merely of the physical world,
and the world of biology, but also of the human
world. To the thought of the time it was quite natural
to assert that Jesus Christ, as the divine Word,
was the agent or vicegerent through whom this
visible world of ours was made out of the primitive
chaos, and endowed with animal and vegetable life.
Those who supposed the world to have been set
up all at once like a castle in the bosom of the
void might easily carry their anthropomorphic view
^ Proverbs viii. 27.

lect. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 203
a step further, and imagine Jesus Christ as its
architect. But wherever evolutionary views of
creation prevail, the ground is cut from under such
fancies. If, however, we regard Jesus Christ,
the embodiment of ideal humanity, not as the
architect of the world, but as its final cause, — that
to which it leads up, and which it realises in the
slow course of history, — then we have a doctrine as
well suited to modern as to ancient conditions.
To all save those who regard as satisfactory a
merely mechanical and materialist view of the
world, man must seem the crown and consum
mation of it all ; and the ideal and spiritual man,
the citizen of the kingdom of God, must be the
crown of mankind. They will place the Word,
not at the temporal beginning of the world, but
in the realm of the ideal, as representing the
purpose which the Creator is gradually working
out in the world which He is still occupied in
making. There is another phrase used by the Fourth
EvangeHst at the beginning of his work, "In Him
was life " ; and here we have no criticism to make.
For the life which began with the Founder has
gone on from that day to this — a life into which
have been absorbed the desires and aspirations and
energies of thousands of the greatest and best men
who have ever lived. Christianity is indeed far
better thought of as a life than either as reason
or as light. And when we turn from the proem
of the Fourth Gospel to the wonderful discourses

204 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect.vl
contained in it, we see that after all the Platonic
culture of the writer was not very thick, and that
beneath it he bore a truly Christian heart. In
those discourses Christ is set forth under many
forms, as the way, the truth, the door, the bread
of life, the stem of the vine, but always with
reference not to intellectual illumination, but with
reference to fact, to experience, and to life. If the
Fourth Evangelist Platonizes in his own person, he
scarcely represents his Master as Platonizing, but
rather as speaking the language of profound and
essential religion, coloured by the new revelation
which was dawning on the world.
IV
Thus, however much justice there may be in
our criticisms, the fact remains that the EvangeHst
did for the infant Church an inestimable service in
giving a new embodiment to the idea of the incar
nation — an embodiment historic and yet not narrowly
historic — one destined to be of enormous value in
the thought of the Church of the early centuries of
Christianity. No one who does not want to rob
his own soul of a great treasure will be willing on
critical grounds to neglect or depreciate the glorious
store of spiritual truth to be found in the Fourth
Gospel. If we regard the Gospel with the eyes
not of grudging criticism but of generous apprecia
tion and gratitude, the defects we have found in
the author will seem but as spots in the sun. He

lect. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 205
dwelt among the deep secrets of God, the profound
realitiesof the Christian experience, and has embodied
them in a form which, even if imperfect, has been
for eighteen hundred years the treasure of devout
souls, the spring of many a noble life, the promoter
of the sacred communion between God and man.
He has baptized into Christ some of the profoundest
beliefs of universal religion, and brought them into
the theology of the Christian Church. The first,
and probably the greatest of Christian mystics, he
has enriched for all time the blood of Christianity
with elements without which it would have been
comparatively thin and poor.
The thing most necessary to remember, in order
that we may do justice to the Gospels, is the entire
change which has come over the civilised world
since they were written, in regard to the writing
of histories and biographies. As in art so in
literature, the last word of the ancient world was
idealism, the last word of the modern world is
realism. Partly it is the result of our great and
increasing reverence for fact which has grown up
with the growth of physical and biological science.
Partly, it may be the result of our familiarity with
photography and other mechanical ways of repre
senting the world about us. Whatever may be the
cause, it is certain that we expect in a modern
historian a respect for proved fact, a carefulness in
weighing evidence, an objectivity of view, which
was not required in the ancient, nor indeed in the
mediaeval world, A modern writer may attempt to

2o6 THE LOGOS DOCTRINE lect. vl
give form to his beliefs and experiences in a novel
or tale, but we do not think it legitimate that he
should embody them in a history or a biography.
It is his business, if he can, to see the inner mean
ing and connections of events in the past. But he
must not, in order to make clear such meaning,
bend that framework of facts received on testimony
which is the skeleton of history as understood
by us moderns. But take the Lives of Plutarch,
one of the most admirable and high-minded writers
of antiquity. Here we are frankly in the realm
of the ideal. Personages, mythical and historical,
stand side by side as a gallery of characters or
rather of types. Plutarch uses historical materials,
memoirs and the like, but he picks and chooses
with a view to a result. He is less rhetorical than
many ancient writers ; he does not usually, like
Thucydides, introduce speeches to characterise the
position of affairs, but his biographies are dominated
by a fine ethical spirit, to which they owe their
stimulating effect.
A modern reader, and especially a reader who
has not had a classical education, does not find it
easy to bring back his mind to the ancient point of
view, A book which is published in the name of
another, very likely out of pure modesty, he is apt
to regard as a forgery. A speech put into the
mouth of a personage, in order to illustrate his
supposed views and character, is liable to be
reckoned a falsehood. The transference, on literary
grounds, of a remark from one set of circumstances

lect. VI. OF THE FOURTH EVANGELIST 207
to another seems indefensible. Thus until the
spirit of carping criticism is generally superseded
by the true historic spirit which judges a writer by
his own standards and in the light of the purposes
which he has set before him, I fear that the historic
parts of the New Testament may greatly suffer in
general estimation. The plain man may hold that
they either correspond to facts and are true, or do
not correspond to facts and are false, not under
standing that by such rigid and superficial criticism
he will rule out of court almost all of ancient and
much of modern history.
" We live by admiration and by love," not by
criticism. Yet to criticism our age is given, and
the tendency reaches those whose education is very
imperfect. And the perception of defects which
one had not expected in a book often for the time
thwarts one's admiration for it, just as a mote in the
eye may prevent a man from admiring the finest
landscape. Therefore it is for us of the present
day fortunate that most of the ideas which by the
Evangelists are embodied in an ideal biography are
by St, Paul set forth not .in history but in doctrine,
translated not into the tense of the past, but boldly
into that of the ideal.

LECTURE VII
THE CHRISTIANITY OF ST, PAUL
In the last lecture I tried to show how the broader
and more mystic view of Christianity which sprang
up after the Crucifixion, especially among those who
had not seen and yet believed, acted in the re
moulding of the life of the Master in the light of
the experience of the Church. The result was the
combination, through the continual working of the
Christian spirit, of Jewish and Hellenic religion.
A new and vigorous tributary stream had come in
to alter the course of the Jewish Christian current.
But the Greeks were to have in another direction
— the direction of doctrine — a still larger share in
the shaping of Christianity. And the true road
for the Greek spirit was, by a strange practical
paradox, struck out first by a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee,
who from his youth up had been a zealous follower
of the Jewish law, and who hated Christianity
principally, it would seem, because it appeared to
be the enemy of the law — an anti-national move
ment, leading to an apostacy of Israel. Strange as

LECT. viL THE CHRISTIANITY OF ST. PAUL 209
this sounds, the wonderful history of the Jewish
race provides us with several parallel instances.
The extant letters of Paul are of an earlier date
than the Synoptic Gospels, but he yet represents a
more highly developed phase of Christianity than
they, mainly no doubt because he had not seen and
yet believed. So marked indeed is the contrast
between the very early date of Epistles like those
to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, which
are attributed to the fifties and sixties of the first
century, and the highly developed scheme of
Christian doctrine which they embody, that a
school of theologians has in recent years arisen in
Holland who maintain all the Pauline Epistles to be
of later date, and to come from the hands of dis
ciples of Paul rather than from his own. This is
an inevitable phase of criticism, but it is yet an
aberration, rejected by all the sound and sober
schools of theology. The substantial genuineness
of the four great Pauline Epistles — those to the
Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians — is almost be
yond dispute, and few critics now reject the claims
of most of the rest to authenticity. Even the
Epistles to Timothy and Titus are regarded as
containing passages which are from Paul's hand,
though worked up with matter of a later date.

I
By every student of the New Testament it must
be sometimes felt as a relief to turn from the
14

2IO THE CHRISTIANITY lect. vn.
memorials of Jesus in the Gospels to the writings
of Paul. Of the Founder one continually feels that
He is high, unattainable. Our panting thought and
aspiration toils upwards, but never attains the high
mountain peaks where He abides for ever. One
gains a glimpse here, a hope there, but one can
never see the Son of Man standing forth in full
image. When we come to Paul, we are at once on
a human plane. Perhaps there is no character in
all ancient history, unless it be Cicero, who is so
well known to us in his weakness and his strength,
who appeals so directly to our hearts and in
tellects, as Paul. In every page of his letters we
feel the pulse of the man ; we share his experiences
and sympathise with his aspirations ; we feel not
only boundless admiration for his manliness, his
unselfishness, his talents, but also love for his noble
humanity. It is strange indeed that any school
or any church should destroy the character of his
writings by raising them to the dead level of infalli
bility. It is like covering up the beautiful Gothic
tracery of a cathedral with a thick layer of vulgar
whitewash. It is true that Paul does sometimes
claim a right to speak in his Master's name, inspired
by the spirit of Christ. But usually he speaks in
his own name, as a man, as Paul the Aged, as the
teacher and father of his converts — even sometimes,
as he touchingly says, as one of the foolish. If the
Pauline writings, on the one hand, go deep into the
essential facts of religion and touch the springs of
the life of the spirit, in their expression they are,

LECT. VII. OF ST. PAUL 2 1 1
on the other hand, full of the temporal and personal,
of rabbinical learning, of private views in science
and psychology, of the tinge of personal affection
or indignation. Paul was no more infallible than
Augustine, or than his great antitype in the modern
world, Luther, or than John Wesley, all of whom
drew from the same wells as Paul, and walked in
the same strength. Paul has had the greater effect
on the world because he came first and at a more
decisive crisis. He is the highest mountain of the
chain, but there are a dozen other summits which
soar with him into heaven, and hundreds of smaller
hills of the same geological character and general
formation. It is a cardinal principle that in speaking of Paul
we must judge him from his own writings and not
from what we are told about him in the Acts. It is
true that some of the missionary journeys of Paul
are well reported in the Acts, more especially in
that part of the narrative where the word "we"
constantly recurs, and the facts of which are pro
bably gathered from one of his companions. But
in many ways the picture of the Apostle as given
in the Acts differs from that which we derive from
the Epistles, and when this is the case we cannot
hesitate which of the two accounts we should prefer.
In particular the story of the sudden and complete
conversion of Paul, of which we have three varying
accounts in the Acts, though it may probably have
some basis of fact, is yet no doubt misleading.
When Paul speaks in his Epistles of his own con-

212 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
version, he tells us that he was a persecutor of the
Christian society, but when it pleased God to reveal
His Son in him, he was entirely changed. The
great change was inward, perhaps gradual, and
though it may well have culminated in a vision,
yet the writer of Acts probably misleads us in his
love of the external, the sudden, the dramatic.
More certainly Acts misleads those who trust to it
as regards the relations of Paul to the heads of the
Church at Jerusalem. That book says that the
Apostle, not long after his conversion at Damascus,
came to Jerusalem, and was with the disciples coming
in and going out, and preaching in the name of the
Lord. This, however, is expressly denied by Paul
himself in the Epistle to the Galatians, " Neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles
before me," " I was unknown by face unto the
churches of Judaea which were in Christ." In this
same passage Paul insists with the utmost emphasis
that he did not receive the Gospel which he
preached from the Apostles and the eye-witnesses
of the life of Jesus, nor indeed from any man. It
came to him direct through revelation of Jesus
Christ. Paul may somewhat exaggerate his own
independence, yet he was a spirit of remarkable
originality, and it is a mistake to regard his view of
Christianity as merely a modification of that preva
lent among the first disciples.
It is necessary to emphasise this point, because
almost all theologians have been misled by attaching
too much weight to the vivid account in Acts of

lect.vh. of ST. PAUL 213
Paul's conversion, to the speeches which on various
occasions are in Acts put into the mouth of Paul,
and to other passages which are, in fact, expressive
of the views of Luke rather than of Paul. Now
the views which Paul held of the person and mission
of Christ were very different from the views held
by Luke on those subjects. Among those who
have been misled is a great critic, to whose remark
able insight I owe much — Matthew Arnold. In
his admirable essay on St. Paul, Arnold expresses
the view that it was primarily a contemplation of
the human life of Jesus which worked upon the
Apostle. Paul saw that His Master was without
sin, that " Those eternal vicissitudes of victory and
defeat, which drove Paul to despair, in Jesus were
absent. Smoothly and inevitably he followed the
real and eternal order, in preference to the moment
ary and apparent order."
We see all this in the life of Jesus as reported
by the Synoptic Writers. It is familiar from child
hood to all who live in England. But we must go
back in imagination to the time of Paul. The
Gospels were not then written. All knowledge
of the life of Jesus was in the hands of the eye
witnesses, of those who had been with the Master
in Galilee, and in the few days before His death
in Jerusalem. And Paul tells us in the plainest
and most decisive language that of them he made
no enquiry, that it was not from men that he
received the grounds of his faith, that it was not
the Hfe but the death of Jesus that interested him.

2 14 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
that he did not dwell on Christ after the flesh, but
on Christ after the spirit.
How different in this respect the view of Paul
was from that of modern divines, we may judge
from an almost startling expression of his in
Romans xv. 3. He is exhorting his converts to
be unselfish, not to please themselves. By so
doing they will follow their Master, " for Christ
also pleased not Himself" How natural it would
be to prove this by citing the events of Jesus' life,
or the circumstances of His death. But this does
not occur to Paul ; he goes on to establish his
statement, not by citing historic fact, but by quoting
a supposed Messianic prophecy: "as it is written.
The reproaches of them that reproached thee,
fell upon me." This passage shows in a vivid
way how the mind of the great Apostle turned
naturally away from history towards prophecy and
doctrine. He could not of course stand entirely aloof from
the sacred tradition of the life-companions of the
Master, which was naturally repeated orally in the
Christian synagogues long before it was com
mitted to writing. His attitude towards this
tradition is clearly defined in a passage in
I Corinthians xv. He there recapitulates the facts
of the Gospel history as he received them, and as
he passed them on to the converts : " I delivered
unto you first of all that which also I received,
how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that He

LECT.VH. OF ST. PAUL 215
was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures, and that He appeared unto Cephas."
And he goes on to teH of the other appearances
to the disciples, including one to himself Not a
word as to the miraculous birth, of which indeed
he had probably heard nothing ; not a word as to
the miracles, the transfiguration, the teaching.
Paul speaks only of His Master's death, resurrec
tion, and exaltation. The death to him is en
veloped in doctrine, "for our sins"; the resurrection
is connected with Old Testament prophecy ; of the
exaltation he claims to be himself a witness. I
think we have here a clear expression of Paul's
teaching, so far as it was historic. When he
institutes the Lord's Supper in the Church of
Corinth, he claims to receive it not from tradition,
but direct " from the Lord." It was impossible
that a nature so intense could care for mere tradi
tion in anything like the same way in which he
cared for his own experience. The end and object
of his teaching was not to communicate history,
but to build up his hearers into the life of Christ.
What he represents is not uniformity of teaching,
but continuity of life.
But, it will be said, if Paul thus received his
message directly by inspiration, how could he be
called a member of the Christian society ? Was
he not rather the founder of a new religion ?
Many critics have thought so. And it was from
this point of view that F. W. Newman uttered
his celebrated judgment — that of the two, Jesus

2i6 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
and Paul, Paul was the greater. But this view
seems to me to rise out of a very imperfect com
prehension of spiritual fact, and great scepticism as
to the divine working in man. It sets intellect
above will, and philosophy above experience. It
ignores the continuity of spiritual life in the world.
It was by something which may perhaps best be
called a divine contagion that the spirit of Paul
was absorbed into the life of Christ. He had
long striven after the forgiveness of sins and
righteousness in the sight of God, but he had
striven in vain. Through living by the Jewish
law, he had attained the outward correctness of a
Pharisee, but his heart was not cleansed. He stiH
loved the evil, through he struggled against doing
it, and at every forward step in the divine life
slipped back again. At his conversion, by the
grace of God, all this was changed. We cannot
hope to describe the change better than in his
own words : "It pleased God to reveal His son in
me." To find a path fit for the heavy steps of
human intelligence between the human life of
Jesus and the Christ in whom dwells the Christian
Church is very difficult. It involves the making of
theories which can scarcely be more than com
promises — temporary expressions of eternal realities.
But when after all these ages we look back on the
history of the formation of the Christian Church,
we see that as a fact the spirit of Jesus absorbed
that of Paul. Paul expresses in new doctrinal
forms some of the essential ideas of Christianity.

LECT. VIL OF ST. PAUL 217
He introduces into the Church some of the great
religious ideas which were working among his
contemporaries, pagans and Hellenistic Jews. Yet
the spirit which presides over all the developments
is the spirit which began to work in the world
when the career of the Founder begins, and whose
working has in all the ages since never wholly
intermitted. II
It would indeed be a foolish attempt, if I strove
in a single lecture ^to mark even the outlines of
the theology of Paul. It is a subject on which
there are innumerable books. Although our
preachers in church are seldom willing to allow
that they do not fully understand the views of
Paul, yet I fear that many of them would soon fail
under cross-examination. Paul is unquestionably
a very difficult writer : and perhaps one of the
chief reasons of his difficulty is the reality of his
inspiration. The great systematic theologians are
determined that Paul also shall be a great
systematic theologian. And they proceed, as
Matthew Arnold has said, with great " vigour and
rigour " to map out his scheme, as a consistent
whole. But the difference between Paul and his
commentators is that they try to develop as a
logical scheme what was in origin not so de
veloped. Paul was a great thinker. But his
writings do not constitute a philosophic system,
because they are not purposefully hammered out.

2i8 THE CHRISTIANITY lect. vn.
but fused by an intense heat from within. His
basis is not only certain principles worked out to
their logical results, but also experiences, like
flashes of lightning which lit up the cave of con
sciousness, and melted its contents into new and
sometimes irregular forms.
Recurring to the views set forth in the first two
lectures, we observe that religious doctrine proper
is distinguished alike from philosophic system and
from dogmatic construction by this very thing,
that it is not the offspring of thought, but the
direct reflection in the world of intelligence of
spiritual experience. The experience acts primarily
on the will, in moving the springs of action. But
it must also affect the intellect. And experience
does not come into a mind void and formless,
without history or principles. It takes its place in
a personal history, an evolution. Thus doctrine is
in those who originate it always formed and
coloured by accepted principles. So in the case
of Paul, The key to his doctrinal principles must
be sought, partly indeed in his Christian experience,
but also in the principles established in his mind
at the time of his conversion — principles partly
belonging to his Jewish parentage and upbring
ing, partly to the atmosphere of late Greek or
Hellenistic religion and philosophy which pervaded
all parts of the Levant, and notably the city of
Tarsus, which was one of the celebrated seats of
Greek cultivation. And attention has in recent
years been called, especially by Professor Ramsay

lect.vh. of ST. PAUL 219
of Aberdeen, to other very important conditions of
the Hfe and of the mind of Paul— conditions arising
from the developed organisation of the Roman
Empire, of his citizenship, of which the Apostle
would seem to have been proud.
Wonderful indeed is the history in the Church
of the doctrinal views of Paul. At first they can
have been but little understood. How many
among those to whom it was addressed can have
understood the drift of the wonderful Epistle to
the Romans ? The Synoptic Gospels did not rouse
opposition in the Church, since the narrative of a
life does not directly appeal to the combative forces
of the human intellect. But schemes of doctrine
which can be followed only by those capable of
systematic and persevering thought can scarcely
be accepted in a moment. Certain parts of them
will appeal to various minds, and the relation of
the various parts must take new form in every
powerful intellect. Thus in the writings of the first
century of Christianity we find indeed traces of Paul,
but Paul's specific doctrines are modified. From
time to time there have arisen in the Church great
theologians who have reverted to Paul, as Francis
reverted to Jesus. But their teaching has never
been really that of Paul, but a new version of it,
suited to another mind and a different environment.
Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Calvin, Jansen, have
all been Pauline, yet in the main they were rather
great thinkers of independent views than mere
echoes of the great Apostle. From the day when

2 20 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
he wrote, Paul has ever been misunderstood ; but
the misunderstandings have been better for the
life of Christianity than a more rigidly correct
interpretation. For in that way the profound
spiritual truths, the real facts which lie at the basis
of the Pauline doctrines, have been emancipated
from what was imperfect and temporary in his
embodiment of them.
When in the spirit of historic criticism we take
up the Epistles of Paul, — take them up not to gain
thence help for our spirits or fresh views of that
which is eternal, but merely to see' what place the
writer holds in Church history, — the imperfect and
temporary side of his teaching soon becomes evident.
We see that in his interpretation of the Old Testa
ment he is more learned, but not less fanciful, than
the Synoptic Writers. Like them he twists in
arbitrary fashion to a Christian meaning passages
which were certainly written with quite another
intention, as when he argues in Galatians from the
use of the singular airkpyua, seed, that there is an
allusion to the coming Messiah ; or when he writes,
" Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and
answereth to the Jerusalem that now is, for she is
in bondage with her children." We see that to
Paul, as to Philo and other learned Jews, Scripture
required to be interpreted, not in a simple and
natural fashion, but as figure and allegory, as hold
ing a meaning which did not meet the eye, but lay
beneath the surface. And in this, after aH, Paul
only saw somewhat amiss a great and eternal truth.

LECT.VH. OF ST. PAUL 221
It is quite true of all really inspired words that their
full meaning only by slow degrees comes out in the
course of ages. It is a truth which applies to
the writings of Plato and ^Eschylus as well as to
the Hebrew psalms and prophecies. He was only
wrong in taking this truth in too literal and obvious
a way, as if all phrases when used in the books of
Scripture became thereby endowed with a variety
of invisible meanings, like the words of a magic
spell. In another matter, in which the ordinary feelings
of mankind led astray the Evangelists, Paul stands
singularly free. He did not perhaps definitely set
aside the miracles connected in common report with
the life of his Master. He did not even deny that
the working of wonders, the practice of healing and
exorcism in the name of Jesus Christ, was the sign
of Apostleship. But he shows us in clear and strong
language that he valued spiritual gifts, and sufferings
voluntarily undergone for the Master's sake, far
more than he valued these manifestations. In the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians he is impelled by
the attacks of enemies to set forth in a most pathetic
and human passage his claims to apostleship. He
reminds his converts what he has been to them, he re
counts the Hfe which on their account he has led, " in
labours more abundantly, in prisons more abun
dantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft."
Then he comes to what is the crown of his glory, the
mark of an exceptional calling by God, the visions
and revelations of the Lord, which are the basis of

222 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
his teaching. In concluding he adds, " The signs
of an apostle were wrought among you in all
patience, by signs and wonders and mighty works."
But he speaks rather of these wonders as due to
the Church than as matters of boasting to himself
In the same way in Romans (xv. i8) Paul mentions
signs and wonders as wrought by himself, but puts
them at a far lower level than his preaching. He
was really the author of the way of regarding
miracles which prevailed amongst the great theo
logians of Alexandria — that they were of far less
account than the spiritual wonders which accom
panied the rise of Christianity, the turning of
multitudes to God, the character and work of Jesus.
Of course, exactly this point of view is not open to
us moderns, for the question of the power of human
will over the forces of nature is one of enormous
scientific interest, and we cannot thus lightly dismiss
it. But at that stage of the world's history it was
probably the noblest line open to thought.
Before we pass from the necessary task of show
ing the inevitable weakness of the Pauline doctrine
to the more grateful work of appreciating its under
lying truth, we must touch on another side of the
matter. Doctrine is the expression of spiritual
truth in the language of intellectual systems. As
in reading New Testament history we are obliged
to be on our guard against the conventions of the
time accepted in the writing of history, so in what
concerns doctrine, we must beware of too readily
accepting from Paul what he only assumed as the

lect.vh. of ST. PAUL 223
psychologic and philosophic truth allowed in the
schools. No human being can make his mind a
tabula rasa before he begins to think.
It need not be regarded as inconsistent with the
unique sonship of Jesus Christ that He should have
been dependent for knowledge as to what was going
on around Him on the evidence of the ordinary
senses, or that He should accept the current views
as to astronomy and physics. On direct spiritual
teaching, such as that of the Synoptic Gospels, this
has no effect. But it is not the same in regard to
doctrine. As soon as any religious teacher begins
to formulate doctrine, the intellectual horizon tells.
For example, many people do not like to call in
question Paul's teaching as to the natural and
spiritual bodies, or as to the opposition between
flesh and spirit, because they regard his views in
these matters as guaranteed by the nature of his
inspiration. And yet these are merely stones which
lay ready to hand in the beliefs of the time, and
which Paul accepted because they were so shaped
that they could well be built into the construction
which he intended. The notion of a spiritual body,
as opposed to the body of flesh and blood, is one
which exists almost everywhere among peoples at
a lower range of civilisation,^ as well as sometimes
in more advanced schools. The ghost has a body
just as much as the living person, but this body has
different properties ; it can be seen but not felt ; its
relations to space are far less closely restricted, and
¦'See Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap. ix.

2 24 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
the like. The tales of the resurrection of Jesus Christ
insist upon it that the very fleshly body of the Lord
arose from the grave, and ascended into heaven.
Paul, who will know Christ after the spirit and not
Christ after the flesh, cannot accept this view.
Flesh and blood, he says, cannot inherit the King
dom of God. Christ arose in a spiritual body, and
so shall His followers also arise, leaving in the grave
the impediments and infirmities of the flesh. How
this will be, Paul knows not ; but he takes the
resurrection of Christ and His appearance to himself
as proof that in similar manner believers also shaH
rise. But the belief in the future life, which is the
thing for which Paul really cares, is tenable quite
apart from the theory of a spiritual body, the exist
ence or non-existence of which is a question of
science and not of religion, is a matter of evidence
rather than of doctrine. We may accept Paul as a
witness for religious fact without therefore com
mitting ourselves to his views as to the spiritual
body. That other doctrine of sin, of the war between
the spirit and the flesh, and the inherent badness
of the latter, rests, as every one may know from
experience, on truth and reality. Every one is
tempted in the flesh by passion and the desire of
the moment, and has to combat that passion by the
power of the higher life. But put in the form in
which it appears in Romans, the doctrine of the evil
flesh is one familiar to students of ancient religion
as one of the main tenets of the Mysteries in later

lect. vn. OF ST. PAUL 225
Greece. In the cults of Sabazius, of Mithras and
other deities, the soul was regarded as imprisoned
in the flesh, from which prison-house it is emanci
pated, either by death, or by mortification of the
flesh, or by communion with some saving deity.
Here again we may distinguish between the facts,
the stern and undeniable facts of human sin and
corruption, and the theory as to the cause of those
facts. Paul seems to have two explanatory theories,
the first Jewish and quasi-historic — that in the first
of men Adam all sinned ; the second Hellenistic
and mystic — that matter is essentially vicious. Few
people now would accept either of these explana
tions, which are obviously inconsistent one with the
other. We know that the fall of Adam is a myth
invented to explain facts of human nature — ideal not
actual history ; and probably physicists and biologists
in these days would call us atheists if we proclaimed
the inherent badness of matter. Modern thought
takes one of two ways, either asserting with Brown
ing and others that evil and sin are delusive
appearances, not realities, or else, with almost all
serious moralists, allowing the existence of evil and
sin, and either not attempting to explain that exist
ence, or trying to show that it is an essential part
of the moral constitution of the universe.
As Paul's view of the past was conditioned by
his acceptance of current belief as to Old Testa
ment history and prophecy, so his view of the
future was under the dominion of the expectation,
universally current among the early Christians, of
15

226 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
the Master's speedy return to reign in a glorified
earth. The passages in which Paul speaks of his
earnest looking for the parousia are familiar to us
all from infancy ; and it is probably for that reason
that we do not see how different the history of the
Church has been from what Paul expected it to be.
He looked for the sudden trumpet of the arch
angel, for the thronging of the dead in Christ to
meet their Master, while the living also were
caught up to meet the Lord in the air. In a
moment material bodies were to be transformed
into spiritual ; and while the Christians in a joyous
throng accompanied their Master to His throne,
the unbelieving and the wicked would be annihilated
in the second death.
Now all this vision belonged to the time, and
as a child of the time Paul accepted it. But his
unique greatness and his Christian inspiration are
shown by the way in which in spite of it he rose
to nobler spiritual levels. Though Christ was to
come again visibly, yet in the meantime He was
not absent from His Church, but the source of its
continued life ; though men were destined to a
dramatic resurrection, yet the spiritual resurrection,
to be attained here and now, was far more pro
minent in the Apostle's thought. Among his
followers, perhaps even with himself towards the
end of his life, the mists of materialism began to dis
perse, and he thought, not of being caught up alive
to meet the Lord in the air, but of departing to be
with Christ, which was far better than staying. Part

lect.vh. of ST. PAUL 227
of Paul's gradual assimilation to His Master might
well lie in the rejection of the apocalyptic phantas
magoria, as he had already rejected the appeal to
miracle, and the idolatry of the Old Testament.
But certainly in the great mass of the Pauline
writings which have come down to us, apocalyptic
expectations are everywhere interwoven in the
spiritual fabric.

Ill
It seems that the same distinctions must be
made, and that the same principles will hold, in
regard to Paul's view of His Master. The real, the
essential thing, was his experience of life in Christ ;
the theories as to the being of Christ were corol
laries. The kernel of the Pauline doctrine is given
in the Epistle to the Philippians (iii. 8- 11), "that
I may gain Christ, and be found in Him," " that I
may know Him, and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming
conformed unto His death ; if by any means I
may attain unto the resurrection of the dead." To
die with Christ, and with Him to rise into newness
of life ; to crucify the flesh, and to attain to the
righteousness and salvation which come of loyalty
to the divine will as embodied in Christ, — this is the
bottom of the teaching of Paul. And in this
there is nothing temporary or local : it is as true
in the experience of thousands to-day as it was
in the first Christian age. It has been repeated

2 28 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
by all the great masters of Christian teaching, of
whatever school.
But it was quite natural that Paul should not be
content with the mere record of experience. That
experience had to be explained in intelligible
fashion. The outlines of Paul's Christology are
written plainly enough in his Epistles, and yet
may to some be unfamiliar. I will repeat his views
as nearly as I can in his own words, only premising
that in some cases these words may possibly come
from his followers rather than himself, the author
ship of some Pauline Epistles being disputed.
Jesus Christ, then, was a heavenly being,-' destined
from times eternal for human redemption,^ in whom
and through whom all things were created both in
heaven and earth.^ Being rich, for our sakes He
became poor ; * being in the image of God, He
counted it not an object of ambition to be on an
equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking
the form of a slave, being made in likeness of
men ; and being found in fashion as a man He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore also God
highly exalted Him, and gave Him the name
which is above every name, that every tongue
should call him Lord.° Ere long this same Lord
shall descend from heaven, with a shout and the
voice of the archangel,® to gather the saints to
Himself Under His feet shaH all things be put :
1 I Cor. xv. 47. 2 Tim. i. 9. ^ Qgi \ j^
* 2 Cor. viii. 9. ^ Phil.u. g. 6 i Thess. iv. 16.

LECT. VIL OF ST. PAUL 229
until the end, when He shall deliver the kingdom
to God the Father : and then the Son also shall
be subject to God, that God may be all in all.''
Paul's notion of Jesus Christ as a heavenly
being who voluntarily humbled Himself and was
then by God exalted is persisent. I certainly do
not propose to criticise this view, which has been
partly followed in the great epic of Milton. But
it is surely not necessary to prove that the theory
of Paul is very different from that which was after
wards expressed in the creeds of the Church.
Another point is that in it doctrine goes beyond
its natural sphere, which is the present, into the
past and the future. And however experience
may guarantee statements as to the present, it
can scarcely reveal to us the past and the future
of the world. In his anticipation of the future
Paul was demonstrably mistaken ; in his account
of the past, he probably, as I showed in the last
lecture, confused the efficient with the final cause
of creation. It further appears from Paul's own words that
he supposed with Mark and the authors of the
genealogies that Jesus was born in the natural
way of a father sprung from the family of David.
It is probable that, like the Fourth Evangelist, he
held that the divine spirit was imparted to Him
at baptism. At least that seems to be implied
when he speaks of Christ as buried in baptism
until He rose at the resurrection from the dead.
1 I Cor. xv. 28.

230 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
However, we must not be led into further dis
cussion of Paul's views of his Master's person :
I can now treat the subject only in barest outline.
It must not be forgotten that in spite of Paul's
great intellectual power, the bent of his nature was
intensely practical. The Fourth Evangelist has
been of great service to the growth of Christian
doctrine, and to the faith of individuals. But Paul
was a born statesman and missionary, having, like
many great missionaries, a root deep in mysticism,
but a habit of turning all thought into the mould of
¦action, of thinking according to the laws of tendency,
rather than those of logic. The life of the Churches
which he founded was concentrated in him. What
was necessary for their growth was developed in
his mind. It is to Paul that is due the mystic
doctrine of baptism and the higher view of the
Lord's Supper. The importance of these institu
tions is far more urgent upon him than upon the
Fourth Evangelist. In the sense of organisation
and the determination to assert discipline and main
tain order which mark the Pauline Epistles we may
safely trace the spirit which gave birth to the
Christian organisation.
In fact the whole Pauline theology is the ex
pression of a battle — a battle waged first in the
heart and soul of Paul himself, and then in the
Christian community. From his youth up he had
lived in the strictest following of the Jewish law,
seeking through a close observance of its com
mands to attain to the forgiveness of sins and a

lect.vh. of ST. PAUL 231
state of inward peace. His chief ground for per
secuting the Christians had probably been the fear
that they were working towards the destruction of
the law. But his attempts towards the attainment
of peace within failed ; and he discovered, we know
not how, that forgiveness and salvation, to which he
could never attain by any struggles and resolutions
of his own, could be reached by submitting to an
inspiration revealed in the world by Christ, and
accessible through communion with Him in His
exalted life. And when once, after a terrible in
ternal conflict, the new life had mastered his heart
and will, he made it the purpose of his whole life to
rescue others from the bondage whence he had
escaped, that they might partake of the happiness,
both present and future, which he had secured.
Hence his hostility to those who relied on the
Jewish law, though Paul never ventures to deny
the divine origin of the law. But the Apostle soon
found that the way of salvation of which he had to
tell was more readily understood and welcomed by
the Greeks than by the Jews. The Judaic Christian
leaders were steadily hostile to him. Why this
should be we see clearly. It was because the later
cults of the Greek world had prepared the way for
the Pauline mysticism, while veneration for the law
was in most Jews intertwined with the very founda
tions of religion. But to Paul it was probably less
intelligible. It was the difficulties thus raised, and
attempts to meet them practicaHy, mingled with
the teaching of his youth, changed but not eradi-

232 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
cated, which set his intellect to work in the way of
doctrine. His views as to the law, as to faith in
Christ, as to predestination, justification, and the
like, were thus formed, and his vehement and fervent
intellect could never rest until he had worked them
out into something like a system, though on many
points he never reached self-consistency.
The Apostle's notions as to justification by faith
may be hard and pedantic in form, distorted by the
analogies of primitive law, and perverted by the
fancy that merit and guilt can be transferred from
person to person as material goods are transferred.
But the root of it all lies deep in religious experi
ence, in the knowledge of man's utter helplessness
to attain by any effort of his own to a state of peace
and salvation, in a conviction that without divine
aid it is impossible to please God. What rouses
above all Paul's passion of humanity is any teaching
which may veil this fact from men, and may set
them going about to establish their own righteous
ness, treading again that bitter path which by a sad
experience he had learned to lead only to failure
and to despair.
The Church occupies in the teaching of Paul the
place which in his Master's teaching is taken by
the Kingdom of Heaven. As the Kingdom of God
was to Jesus the part of human Hfe in which God's
will was done, so the Church of Paul was the part
of human life in which the perfect obedience of
Christ was carried on — the society which abode in
Christ and carried on his life in the world. Christ

lect. VII. OF ST. PAUL 233
was not merely its head, but its soul, and in Him
the members of the Church were one in Christian
love and union. But so intensely practical a nature
as Paul's could not rest content with perceiving an
idea and expressing it in thought. He must needs
try to embody it, at least in some degree, in the
visible world. Thus it seems very natural that the
ecclesiastical discipline, the orders of bishops and
elders, appear first in the Churches of Asia Minor
founded by Paul. The organisation took place, it
is true, after Paul's departure, but it was probably
a legacy of his spirit.
The same practical tendency marks all parts of
the Pauline theology. When Paul discusses sin
and repentance and justification he is not intent on
building up a system, but on making Christianity a
working religion. When he speaks of the relations
of law and gospel, he is dominated by intensely
practical and pressing questions as to the admission
of Gentiles into the Christian community. And
when he speaks of the nature and person of his
Master, he is full of the experiences of the Christian
life, of his own life-history, of Christ as living in the
Church, as well as revealing Himself to His votaries.
He does not usually think out new and consistent
views as to human psychology, as to the power
of daemons, as to the pre-existence of Christ, but
adopts such current views as naturally commend
themselves to him, and baptizes them into the spirit
of the Christian life. And it is for such reasons
that the Pauline theology has proved so wonderfully

234 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
full of vitality in history, continually rising again
when almost forgotten, and starting on a fresh
career. It is close to life and intertwined with
reality. It is only the more exterior and unessential
parts of it which grow outworn with time, and are
ready to drop away. The essence of it is true to
the experience of all ages.

IV
The third great theologian of the early Church,
the author of the so-called Epistle to the Hebrews, is
not to be compared with either Paul or the Fourth
Evangelist as an original thinker. Yet there is
something very fascinating about his writing, and
his particular line of thought has had a great effect
on Christian doctrine in subsequent ages. Like
Paul and Philo, he too looks on the Jewish Scrip
tures as full of a hidden meaning, of type and
symbol to be gradually explained. He regards the
first and obvious meaning of Jewish ceremony and
rite as ever the least important. Working in such
a frame of mind, he might merely have added a
chapter to the Talmud, full of quaint sayings and
far-fetched interpretations. But happily he lighted
on certain veins of gold. The special subject which
attracts him is the ancient custom of propitiatory
sacrifice ; and this is no mere Jewish custom, but
one belonging to man at almost all stages of his
career — an instinctive manner of meeting one of the
most profound and human of all the cravings of the

LECT. VIL OF ST. PAUL 23s
heart. Thus he takes up in a Christian sense one
of the great branches of primeval religion, and
grafts it for all time into the Christian tree.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews Jesus Christ is
represented as the only great atoning sacrifice for
men, foreshadowed by all the abundant animal
sacrifices of the Jewish ritual, foreordained from
the beginning of the world, sufficient to make com
pensation for all the sins of the world. As
Christianity had to make its way among races to
which the customs of sacrifice were familiar, and
among which the great ideas at the root of sacrifice
had an immense sway, it was an inestimable ad
vantage to absorb and to baptise into Christ two of
those ideas — the idea of the sacrifice of communion,
and the idea of the sacrifice of propitiation. In the
Christian Sacrament, which seems, so far as we can
judge, to owe its character mainly to Paul, the
primitive sacrifice of communion, in which deity and
votary entered into a close blood-relationship one
with the other, was perpetuated and raised to quite
another level. Paul had also much to do with the
spread of the belief that Jesus Christ was a sin-
offering effectual for the removal of the sins of all
those who came to Him by faith. But Paul's dis
ciple, who wrote Hebrews, has given us the most
clear and detailed exposition of the doctrine.
The great ideas which underlie the universal
customs of sacrifice belong in origin to peoples at a
low level of culture. In the view of the school of
anthropology which takes its tone from Robertson

236 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
Smith, their working may first be observed among
peoples who are at the totemic stage of develop
ment. But it would be a great mistake to suppose
that because these ideas have power among bar
barous peoples, they are nothing to us. On the
contrary, they are suited to human nature at all
stages of its development. The humbleness of
their origin no more tells against them than does
the fact that man is descended from a creature
resembling the ape prove that he is incapable of
high moral and spiritual attainments. These ideas
have a history : their relation to man is gradual.
On their adoption into Christianity they at once
moved forward on to a higher plane. The Christian
sacrifice of communion is to multitudes in our own
day the great way of salvation. And even those
who do not hold it in so high honour must find
some institution to take its place. The Christian
doctrine of sin-offering or vicarious sacrifice, with its
corollary of justification by faith in Christ, has been
of as great importance to the Reformed Churches
as has the doctrine of the Sacrament to those who
call themselves Catholic. And if the old fashioned
doctrine of the Atonement is losing ground among
modern conditions, yet in other forms the idea stiH
persists, and must persist, unless the world is going
to descend the spiritual hill which it has so painfully
ascended. There is also another idea, connected closely with
the custom of sacrifice, yet different from the ideas
of sin-offering and of the sacrifice of communion.

LECT.VH. OF ST. PAUL 237
which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
brought within the Christian fold. I mean the idea
of the priest as intercessor, as standing for men in
the sight of God, as the representative of a com
munity, and the channel whereby the prayers of
the people reach the divine presence. We find
indeed traces of this idea in the earlier history of
Christianity ; but they have not taken final form.
The very title " Son of Man," so famiHar to aH
readers of the Synoptists, yet so difficult of explana
tion, seems to imply that the Founder of Christianity
was conscious of in some way representing collective
humanity in the sight of God. The Fourth Evan
gelist, however, although he embodies in the great
last discourse a view of the relations of his Master
to God and to man which places him much in the
position of an Intercessor, yet seems to reject that
particular intellectual interpretation when he writes,
" I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for
you, for the Father Himself loveth you." The
phrase, " One mediator between God and man, the
man Christ Jesus," does occur in a PauHne Epistle,
but it is the First Epistle to Timothy, which cannot
be regarded as fair evidence for the views of Paul
himself And in the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 26),
when Paul is speaking definitely of intercession
with God, he writes, " The Spirit himself maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered," not " Jesus Christ maketh intercession."
Thus it was left for the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews to find full intellectual expression of

238 THE CHRISTIANITY lect.vh.
the mediatorial office of Christ. The idea of a
representative human mediator is apparently almost
as old as religion itself Everywhere the priest
not only represents his deity to men, but brings the
prayers of his society before the deity. Among the
Jews the mediatorial office was definitely taken by
the High Priest of the House of Aaron. This
perhaps made with many Jews a difficulty in allow
ing a mediatorial office in Jesus Christ, who was
regarded as a descendant of David and not of
Aaron. The writer of Hebrews avoids this diffi
culty by citing the tale how Abraham, and in
his person all his descendants, acknowledged the
superior priestly claims of Melchizedek, priest and
king of Jerusalem ; and finds a bond of union be
tween Melchizedek and Jesus in the Messianic
verse in the Psalm, " Thou art a priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek."
This line of argument, whereby the writer of the
Epistle proves the mediatory character of Christ,
could appeal only to Jews ; it is rabbinical, of the
race and the time. And yet what a history in the
Christian Church was in store for the conception
thus strangely introduced into it. It is only in
nature itself that we can find parallels for so lowly
origins of growths so magnificent. It is again the
tale of the grain of mustard seed and the tree, of
the hairy savage and the civilised man. And what
is yet stranger, the doctrine of the mediatorial
character of Christ was for ages and ages obscured
by a thousand superstitions, while saints of very

lect. VII. OF ST. PAUL 239
doubtful lives, and human priests buried in super
stition, acted in the Church the mediatorial part.
At the Reformation the tree planted by the writer
of Hebrews revived, and in a changed environment
bore the fruit of action, of feeling, and of thought,
of which it was capable. In our own times, doubt
less, the intellectual horizon has again entirely
changed ; and the doctrine in the form in which the
Reformers put it forth, is to many no longer accept
able. Perhaps the facts of which it is the expression
need a new setting.
It is beyond denial that to a realisation of Christ
in experience some view of His person is necessary,
since, unless the intellect has a definite view, faith
and feeling are cramped and stunted. And the
never-ending and bitterly serious controversies in
Christology which divided and perplexed the Church
down to the time of Athanasius and later, prove the
matters involved in those controversies to be of
great import to history and religion. One cannot
doubt that in this case, as in many others, what
was ostensibly fought out in the field of intellect
and philosophy was really a question of important
ethical bearing. What, however, I venture to
maintain is that various intellectual and doctrinal
solutions are best suited to the mental and ethical
conditions of various ages. A stereotyped formula
is of no value to life. The moment a doctrine
ceases to grow and change with changing conditions
it becomes sterile, unsuited to its surroundings —
mere dead wood in the tree of religion, and he who

240 THE CHRISTIANITY OF ST. PAUL lect.vh.
has the courage to lop it off is a benefactor to the
tree. Perhaps he will be a still greater benefactor
who manages to infuse new life into a branch
apparently atrophied. I venture to think that with
a view to the formulation of doctrine no preparation
can be more necessary than a careful survey of the
forms which doctrine has taken in the past — a sur
vey conducted not in the interest of any particular
creed or church, but in a resolutely historic spirit.

LECTURE VIII
SUMMARY AND INFERENCES
Our subject, and a subject amply sufficient for
these few lectures, is "A Historic View of the
New Testament." It is therefore abundantly clear
that I cannot, after our rapid examination of the
Gospels and Epistles, carry down further into the
history of the Church an exposition of the successive
views which prevailed in it as to the person of the
Founder. I can only suggest that the clue which
has led us thus far would, if followed, l>^.ad us further
with safety. In the second and third centuries, as
in the first, the key to the history of doctrine
probably lies in the continued experience of the
Church. Views prevailed rather because they were
suited to their environment than because they were
logical or in close correspondence with historic fact.
But though this is generally true, yet no doubt, as
the fervour of the original inspiration died down,
and intellectual needs became more prominent,
there was more tendency, in Matthew Arnold's
language, to Hellenise, to develop intellectual
systems, and to care more for consistency than
i6

242 SUMMARY lect. vih.
for precise correspondence with experience. It
was in the School of Alexandria, and in the days
of Clement and Origen, that Christology became
among the educated a branch of philosophic theory.
The able author of the Continuity of Christian
Thought '^ traces most of the corruptions of the
later Church to the fact that it left the thought of
these great Greek masters for the Roman theories
of Augustine and the Teutonic views of Anselm.
Herein he seems to me to go too far. Beautiful as
was the spirit, and advanced as was the philosophy of
Clement, it became unsuited to the surroundings of
the following ages, which were, we must remember,
by no means ages of quiet thought, but of storm
and stress, of barbarian invasions and imperial
tyrannies. The Church had to study self-preserva
tion rather than perfection. However, the second
and third centuries do not belong to my subject.
I will instead briefly sum up the results which we
have thus far reached, and conclude with a glance
at the conditions of the present age.
I
The Synoptic Evangelists have preserved for
us an invaluable record of their Master's teaching.
But when they deal with His deeds. His birth, life,
and death, they are under the influence of two pre
possessions which are sources of illusion, yet which
have in them a kernel of truth. They bend the
' Dr. A. V. G. Allen, of the American Cambridge.

LECT. vni. AND INFERENCES 243
life of their Master in order that it may correspond
literally with supposed foretellings of the Jewish
prophets of what the Messiah must be and do.
And they tend, under the influence of animistic
views of the relations of spirit and matter, to
ascribe to Him a miraculous power over the world
of things visible, which He Himself appears to have
expressly repudiated. But the illusion is of the
surface ; the truth lies deep. The relation of the
life of Jesus to the utterances of the Jewish prophets
was real and profound, more real and profound than
the Evangelists could imagine, since both were
embodiments of one sacred inspiration, both gave
expression to the same spiritual truths. The words
of Isaiah do not foretell the deeds of Jesus, but
they record the whole spirit of His life. The
servant of Jehovah, who bears the sins of many,
and follows the path of self-renunciation to the
bitter grave, is by Isaiah seen dimly, but in the
pages of the Gospels He is visible actually walk
ing the earth. And miracles mark every step of
His life ; not, however, the miracles which the
Jews desired and the Saviour refused, but moral
miracles of renovation of heart and soul, of power
over the souls and bodies of men. He liberated
men from the power of Satan, proclaimed liberty
to the captives, raised the spiritually dead to a
new life.
In fact the Evangelists really grasped their
Master's main teaching, that man's business in
the world is to do the will of God. But they

244 SUMMARY lect-. viii.
thought that will to be revealed in time and
space in ways in which, as we have learned from
experience, it is not revealed. As regards time
they thought it was expressed in definite and
detailed prophecy : as regards space and the
visible world they thought that it was revealed
in contraventions of the fixed order of nature. In
both these respects, so far as we can judge, their
Master stood on another level and did not share
their views — views at the time natural and all but
universal, yet destined in time to become untenable.
When, however, the Synoptists speak of their
Master's second coming for judgment, it becomes
harder to distinguish their additions and interpreta
tions from words which He may have uttered. Our
corrective here lies in the early history of the
Church, in which we may discern the gradual
eclipse of a more Jewish and materialistic view by
one better fitted to be part of a great human
religion. The vision of a Judge coming in the
clouds of heaven to avenge the Church of its
enemies, and to set up on the earth a millennial
reign of the saints, gradually pales, and its place in
the heart of the Church is taken by the more
spiritual doctrine of a judgment of souls, and of
reward and punishment in a future life. This doc
trine no doubt accumulated also a certain amount of
barbarous imagery and unpurged superstition. Yet
in essence it has held its own from those days to
our own ; and in various modified forms still sways
the minds of the mass of educated men.

LECT. VIII. AND INFERENCES 245
In the searching fire of modern criticism the
Synoptic Writings must lose something : they are
not free from dross, and the dross must go. But the
loss is largely made up for by the greater security
and reality which pertain to those elements in them
which survive the ordeal. The dross apart, they
come out as pure gold, and the sediment of ages
which had concealed their brightness and beauty is
removed. Never probably, since they were first
written for the good and happiness of the Church,
have they been so fully and wisely appreciated as
they are likely to be in the century which is
dawning upon us. The real Jesus shines through
them, and to an age which is passionately longing
for reality He will come home more and more.
It is otherwise with the Fourth Gospel. One
cannot help feeling, with profound regret, that for
a time to this wonderful masterpiece criticism must
bring more loss than gain. For the author of it
has attempted a task which to our changed literary
views does not seem legitimate. He has painted
the past in the colours of the present ; he has
mingled with the biography of the historic Jesus
thoughts and feelings which belong rather to the
spirit of Christ in the Church. Like the Cyrus of the
Cyropadia or the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues,
the Jesus of the fourth Gospel is removed from the
domain of actual history to the realm of the ideal.
In an age which is set upon making history scientific,
a work like this Gospel must needs for a time
be a stumbling-block. We see indeed how many

246 SUMMARY LECT. VIH.
thoroughly critical Christian writers find themselves
unable frankly to face the truth in regard to it.
Yet wisdom is justified of all her children. As the
Fourth Gospel has been a great light of Christianity
in the past, so it is doubtless destined to be in the
future. Its rehabilitation will begin the day its true
nature is generally recognised. So long only as it
is criticised as history will investigation injure it.
We must learn to apply in this case the funda
mental principle of all criticism — that an author must
be judged from his own point of view rather than
from one which he does not recognise or contemplate.
Thus regarded, the Evangelist must be considered
not merely as one of the greatest of the world's
theologians, but also as an inspired writer, full of
the sap of religion, and an embodiment of the
Christian spirit in one of its highest and noblest
forms. In the course of Christian history, we observe a
remarkable fact in regard to the Pauline theology.
It has frequently during long periods been relegated
to the background, and then again brought forward
by some inspired thinker in whom the spirit of Paul
has seemed to live again. Augustine, Anselm,
Luther, Jansen, have all been as it were cases of
reversion to type, though of course in successive
ages the idea has varied in expression. In each of
these cases a great revival of religious thought
arose from a return to the Pauline writings. One
may wonder whether there is in store for the pre
sent day a revival of Pauline Christianity in a form

LECT. VIII. AND INFERENCES 247
adapted to our newest modes of thought. It has
been shown in the recent writings of Professor
Ramsay that even careful geographic and historic
research may do much to bring home to us the
surroundings of Paul's life. And that the inner
meaning of the Pauline views has not yet been half
exhausted has been made clear by many writers,
notably Professors Weizsacker and Pfleiderer, Mr.
Orello Cone, and Matthew Arnold in his remarkable
Essay, In the case of the theologians of the New Testa
ment, as in the case of the historians, we have to
make distinction between the earthly vessel and the
ambrosia which it contains, and which without the
vessel could not have been brought to the lips of
thirsting men. The Logos theory, which may
fairly be regarded as the bridge over which Platon-
ism passed from heathen to Christian territory, has
been of infinite value in the elaboration of Christian
doctrine. The windows of heaven had been opened,
and through the revelation of Jesus Christ a rich
flood of new and divine inspiration had come down
upon the earth. To the minds of the educated in
Greece and Asia that inspiration could only com
mend itself if it came in a partially Platonic dress.
And so great a master is Plato in the realm of
philosophic thought that probably for all time a
large part of those men who are attracted to philo
sophy wiH be in a degree descendants of Plato. In
my opinion the growth of science, and the spread
of what may be called the physiological method of

248 SUMMARY lect. vih.
treating of mind and its activities, — the method of
which I treated in my second lecture, — will in future
greatly narrow the field of philosophic speculation,
and render obsolete much of the philosophy of the
past. But even so, what has been well thought in
that philosophy will reappear in the systems of the
future in a somewhat different guise. Some trans
lation or some offshoot of the Logos doctrine may
be in possession of the schools of theology ages
hence. However Paul and the great thinkers of early
Christianity may have been unfitted for the con
struction of permanent systems of belief by their
limitations, by imperfect philosophy and undeveloped
science, we none the less owe to them the first and
normal expression in the language of thought of
the eternal facts of the Christian experience. By
them the great central ideas of religion — sin, repent
ance, forgiveness, divine grace, and the new birth
— are expressed in forms new to the history of the
world, and at a far higher level than any previous
expression. They baptized into Christ the two
great forces of mystic religion and philosophic
ethics, and the baptism saved those forces from
destruction in the long stress of the Middle Ages,
when materialism and primitive passions were in
danger of ruining the whole fabric of religious
thought elaborated by the strivings and aspirations
of a hundred generations.
In fact the progress of theology, when theology
is left free to progress, is closely parallel to the

LECT. VIH. AND INFERENCES 249
progress of natural science. Science has as its
task the explanation of the facts of the world, and
it accomplishes that task by the invention and pro
mulgation of one hypothesis after another. The
theories live for a time ; they colligate fact and
make consistent thought possible ; but after a while
they are modified or disappear. In the same way,
theology tries to explain the facts of the spiritual
life by those hypotheses which are called doctrines.
For a time each of these has its uses ; but the use
passes, and the need arises for a fresh statement.
Unless human authority intervenes to forbid the
natural process, doctrine will undergo change, decay,
and renovation, just like scientific hypothesis.
I cannot resist the temptation to sum up the
results of my lectures in the words of a modern
prophet, Thomas Carlyle. " Is not this the history
of all highest truth that comes or ever came into
the world ? The body of them all is imperfection,
an element of light in darkness : to us they have
to come embodied in mere logic, in some merely
scientific theorem of the universe, which cannot be
complete, which cannot but be found one day in
complete, -erroneous, and so die and disappear.
The body of all truth dies ; and yet in all, I say,
there is a soul which never dies — which in new and
ever nobler embodiment lives immortal as man
himself"

2 5° SUMMARY lect. vih.
II
It is with unfeigned diffidence that I turn from
the past to the present. The past belongs to
history ; but in regard to the present only those can
claim a hearing who have devoted themselves to
religious teaching. If, as a mere critic, I venture
on a few observations, it is because it seems to be
part of my task in a tentative way to endeavour to
discern the bearing of the results of our historic
investigation on the religious circumstances of our
own age. In the present age, as in the past, there
must be resistances — circumstances intellectual and
social — which will determine the form in which the
great ideas of religion must be embodied. Such
embodiment must now as then be the work of men
who are at once inspired with the ideas of religion
and powerful in thought. No doubt, on all sides of
us, in various degrees, this great work of construc
tion has been going on. It is very difficult to
criticise it because we see it so imperfectly. We
are in the midst of the wood, on which our successors
will look down as from a mountain-top. And yet
it is we, not they, who will have to find a way
through the wood.
The great formative ideas of Christianity are
doubtless the same in our age as in the past ages
of the Church. The spirit of the Founder still lives,
and inspires the society which carries on the work
which He began. To do the will of God is still the
great end of Christian striving. To bring the King-

LECT. vin. AND INFERENCES 251
dom of God from heaven to earth is still the object
of Christian prayer and Christian deed. But it
needs must be that the outward expression should
be different now to what it was in other days — that
Christian doctrine should be affected by the marvel
lous changes which have taken place in an age
when events have followed one another faster than
ever before, when the swift progress of thought has
in some degree rivalled the swiftness of modern
locomotion, when new views of society, of morality,
of all the bases of human intercourse, have succeeded
one another like the flashes of lightning on a stormy
night. Since my limits in this concluding lecture are
very narrow, I can hope but to mark a few outlines.
I will first briefly indicate the efforts made in recent
days by great systematic theologians to adapt to
modern intellectual horizons the scheme of Christian
doctrine. Afterwards I will give one or two ex
amples of the way in which particular doctrines are
generally in our days modified.
Before I speak of recent theology in England, I
must turn for a few minutes to Germany. Germany
has surpassed all the countries of modern Europe
in the method and the power of systematic thought.
Every educated person knows how largely the
thought of the nineteenth century has been directed
and controlled by the influence of German philo
sophy. Several of our greatest thinkers — notably
Coleridge and Carlyle — have been under untold
obligations to Kant and to Goethe. Most people

252 SUMMARY lect. vih.
are also aware of the fact on which I dwelt in my
opening lecture — that critical and constructive views
of the history of Christianity are to be found in
their highest perfection in the writings of the great
Protestant theologians of North Germany. It is
known to a much narrower circle that not only the
history but the philosophic and dogmatic aspects
of Christianity have been the subjects of most per
sistent and methodic thought on the part of great
German writers. In recent years the influence of
German methodic theology has begun to penetrate
England, and Scotland in particular. It is a safe
prophecy that this stream of influence will rapidly
increase in volume. A book published in English,
Professor Pfleiderer's Development of Theology in
Germany and Great Britain, will give even to those
who are not specialists a clear notion of the extent
and the tendencies of systematic theological thought
in Germany in the nineteenth century. And most of
the important works of German doctrinal construc
tion are now to be had in English translations.
I am aware that with an English audience one
incurs suspicion if one appears to follow German
lead too closely. And this feeling has some justi
fication. We cannot in England adopt as they
stand the great German systems of philosophy
and theology. Yet every one acquainted with the
history of the Reformation in England knows how
much it owed to the great systematic theologians
of the continent — Luther and Calvin and Zwingli,
And to come to more recent times, Coleridge and

lect. viiL AND INFERENCES 253
Carlyle are quite English in their type of thought ;
yet had they not drawn from German wells they
would have been far less rich and far less effective.
I venture to think that in this matter my life's study
of archaeology has made me better able to judge.
I have been obliged to use ten German books for
one English book, and the merits and demerits of
German methods have become familiar to me from
long practice. Let us profit all we can by the deep
and systematic thought of Germany ; but let us
never forget that we belong to a nation with a
different history and gifted with different abilities
from those of the continental Germans.
On the boundaries of the eighteenth and nine
teenth centuries stands the colossal figure of Kant,
on one side summing up in his critical philosophy the
ordered and reasoned scepticism of the eighteenth
century ; on the other side offering to the nine
teenth by his theory of the practical reason an
escape from the barrenness of negation into the
world of wider faith and nobler inspiration. Kant
belongs not to Germany but to the world. He
occupies in relation to modern philosophy a position
simflar to that occupied by Plato in the philosophy
of Greece, or Aristotle in that of the Middle Ages.
It was through the door opened by Kant that
the great constructive theologians of Germany
passed into a land of distant perspectives and wide
liberty. First comes the noble figure of Schleier
macher, the man of genius who stands at the head
of modern theology, though others of his contem-

2 54 SUMMARY lect. viii.
poraries, such as Herder and De Wette, had an
important share in the great movement.
The result of the activities of Schleiermacher
and Herder, and others, has been to bring about in
theology a change parallel to that which Copernicus
carried out in astronomy, when he showed the sun
instead of the earth to be the centre of our system.
In place of the teaching of the supernatural school,
which made of doctrine a series of statements of
fact sent down from heaven to earth, we find views
of the Christian faith as developed from within the
Church, not by a mere process of rational thinking,
but as the result of the profound feelings of the
religious heart. Hence arise the two great teach
ings of modern liberal theology : the relative or
practical character of doctrine, and its gradual evo
lution in the history of the Church — two views of
which the former stands at the basis of doctrinal
construction, the second at the basis of religious
history as understood in our times. No claim of
absolute truth can be made on these lines for any
doctrinal statements : they are the outcome of the
observation of religious feeling, and must not be
confounded with mere statements of the speculative
intelligence. It is on such a basis that the recent doctrinal
theologians of Germany have buHt. I will not
mention many names, which would be but names ;
but I must speak briefly of one theological school
which is of great importance in Germany, and has in
Scotland of late attracted much attention — the school

LECT. VIH. AND INFERENCES 255
of Albrecht Ritschl. Two useful works on this
school have been published in English by Professor
Orr and Mr. Garvie ; and a brief German summary
by Dr. Wendland is perhaps even more trustworthy.^
Among those who have been strongly influenced
by Ritschl are some of the ablest theologians of
Germany — Herrmann and Kaftan, and Schiirer, the
first of authorities on Jewish history, and Harnack,
whose history of dogma is one of the greatest
achievements of the nineteenth century.
The real core of Ritschlianism, and that which
has made it a force in the world of religion, is its
acceptance of what I have called the physiological
view of religion, which is enforced not only by
the discoveries of modern science, but also, as
in these lectures I have tried to show, by the
authoritative voice of the Founder of Christianity.
That action and feeling in religion precede thought,
and that thought out of relation to action and
feeling is lifeless and useless, — this has been at the
bottom of Ritschlian philosophising. As Mr. Garvie
observes, this view is in fact but a new way of
putting the truth that if a man does the will of
God he will know the doctrine, whether it be
of God or not.
The Ritschlian theology lays great stress on the
distinction between theoretic judgments and what
it terms value -judgments — that is, judgments in
1 J. Orr, Ritschlian Theology and Evangelical Faith, 1 898 ; A.
E. Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, 1899; J. Wendland, Albrecht
Ritschl und seine Schiikr, 1899.

256 SUMMARY LECT. VIII.
which will and character have a greater share than
man's mere faculties of knowledge ; and the judg
ments with which religion is concerned are of this
practical character. Hence the Ritschlians are
prepared to reject religious statements which are of
a metaphysical and apriori character ; Christianity
is brought down from the formulae of creeds and
the mists of history into relation with human needs
and hopes.
The doctrine of value-judgments, as taught by
Ritschl, has been from the first the favourite target
for the darts of his opponents. Certainly it is easy
for an enemy to place the doctrine in an unfavour
able light, and easy for a follower to caricature it
into something quite unworthy to form the base
of a great theological system. Yet in fact it is
but a form of stating the duality of man as
thinking and willing being, which nature has
established, and which must bring to the ground
any intellectual system set up in disregard of its
truth. I may quote from Mr. Garvie a statement of
the way in which from such a point of view Ritschl
approaches the great problems of Christology.
" To reach the worth of Christ he starts from
the work of Christ. This is the inductive method
of modern science. He starts from facts — what
Christ is and does in the community which bears
His name, and thus he reaches the truth, which
alone explains the fact, of what Christ is in His
own person. Christian theology hitherto has

LECT. VIII. AND INFERENCES 257
usually started from the self-witness of Christ, or
the apostolic testimony to Christ ; but this method
may be charged with two defects. In the first
place it must at the beginning of the investigation
assume the entire and constant trustworthiness
of the Scriptural records and reports ; and such
an assumption, unless it be the conclusion of a
previous searching and thorough critical process,
cannot be made the foundation for such a structure
as the ecclesiastical dogma of Christ's person.
But this method suffers from a still more serious
defect. It is not experimental ; it does not start
from the religious consciousness itself; the confes
sion of Christ's divinity rests on external authority,
not personal conviction. Ritschl's method seems
provisionally at least to be the better of the two." ^
Mr. Garvie is, as I think, too much disposed
to attribute to Ritschl in particular qualities which
belong rather to the modern theology of Germany
generally. And it cannot be denied that the
theology of Ritschl, suggestive though it may be,
is by no means free from defects. He certainly
treats passages of Scripture in a very arbitrary
fashion. His Christology is by means entirely
free from speculative elements derived from the
old metaphysical theology. And his determina
tion to be regarded as a spiritual descendant of
Luther sometimes mars his liberty of thought, or
makes him misinterpret the writings of the great
Reformers. 1 Garvie, op. cit. p. 267.
17

258 SUMMARY LECT. VIIL
One marked feature of Ritschl's teaching
deserves notice. Schleiermacher had held that
whereas in Catholicism the relation of the in
dividual Christian to his Master depends on his
relation to the Church, in Protestantism, on the
other hand, the relation of the Christian to Christ
comes first, and his relation to the Church is
secondary. But Ritschl, on the contrary, maintains
that even in the Reformed Churches the community
is in union with the Head, and individuals with
the community. It is certainly a remarkable testi
mony to the spread of Socialist ideas that such a
view as this could be set forth by an adherent of
the Lutheran theology.
The Ritschlian school is the most prominent
among German schools of theology, and there
fore deserves a special mention. But some critics
who have called my work Exploratio Evangelica
Ritschlian have been mistaken. When I wrote it,
Ritschl was to me only a name. So far as my
limited researches into German theology have taken
me, I find much greater attraction in the writings
of some of Ritschl's contemporaries and opponents
than in his own. In dealing with New Testament
literature there seem to me to be many safer
guides than Ritschl. And in the theory of cogni
tion and the construction of doctrine. Professor
Lipsius of Jena, recently lost to the visible Church,
occupies a sounder and a more defensible position.
Into the questions at issue between great
German religious thinkers I cannot now enter.

LECT. VIIL AND INFERENCES 259
And it is clear that whatever may be the value of
their great theological constructions, they cannot
be merely transplanted from the soil of Germany
to that of England. If we are to receive
benefit from them, that must again take place
which happened at the time of the Reformation.
Then Germany and Switzerland produced the
great system-makers, who influenced all northern
countries. Yet in every land the Reformation took
a different course, in accordance with national
circumstances and character. I do not doubt that
the same will be the case in our day. It is not
enough to translate writers like Hegel and Ritschl ;
we must re-think their thought from the beginning
before it can be adapted to the English mind. We
are far less capable than the Germans of long
trains of systematic thought, and we above all
nations attach pre-eminent value to experience.
The national type of mind is rather that of Locke,
Adam Smith, Thomas Huxley, than that of the
speculative thinker. So though we take our start
with the foHowers of Schleiermacher and make
for the same goal, we shall probably find that our
roads do not coincide.
I shaH make no attempt to trace the outlines of
the history of English theology during the last
century. In comparison with the writers of the
Continent our great religious teachers have been
less methodical and more hesitating : in fact it is
not the English way to work out in logical fashion
great systems of theology. Thus even a grateful

2 6o SUMMARY lect. viii.
reader of the works of Church and Maurice, West
cott, Robertson, Dale, and Martineau, may feel that
there is still much to be done in the way of religious
thought. On the other hand, writers who have not
been primarily religious, historians like Carlyle and
Seeley, poets like Tennyson and Browning, critics
like Matthew Arnold and R. H. Hutton, have
expressed in their writings with great force some
of the aspects of religious experience and progress.
Theology is alive and moving ; and he would be a
bold man who would venture to foretell in what
directions it is likely to turn in the coming days.
We have also in England had great religious
movements of far-reaching effect, especially the
well-known Oxford movement in the thirties, and
the far more massive and important movement
which was originated by Wesley and Whitefield in
the eighteenth century. I hope I am not pre
sumptuous in saying that, great as these move
ments have been in the religious world, they have
not been nearly so great in the world of thought.
Wesley was a born missionary and organiser like St,
Paul, but he had not St, Paul's power of religious
theory. The leaders of the Oxford movement were
in intellectual matters merely reactionary, faHing
back on the early Christian Fathers. Newman
alone among them could be called a great thinker,
but even in him thought was largely controlled
by emotion. One cannot help sometimes wonder
ing what would have been the history of English
religion if Wesley had had the power of systematic

LECT. VIIL AND INFERENCES 261
thought which belonged to Calvin, or Newman
the religious boldness of Schleiermacher. But
such speculations are otiose. Probably the added
weight would have prevented Wesley and Newman
alike from doing their appointed work in the world.
That work was indeed serious. To the influence
of Wesley was mainly due the great Evangelical
movement in England ; and the Wesleyan churches
in America have far more members than any other
branch of the Reformed Church, We have also
seen the rise in recent years of that vast organisa
tion called the Salvation Army, which is an offshoot
of Methodism, The great change as regards
seriousness and efficiency which has in the last
half century come over the Church of England
doubtless goes back to the Tractarians as its
origin. But meantime the fact remains that the powerful
and energetic Churches of England and America are
in the matter of systematic religious thought some
what backward. Christianity is doubtless more
real, more living, in England than in Germany ;
it has close contact with spiritual fact, but it is
seldom in touch with advanced thought. There is
here much leeway to be made up in the dawning
century. It may be thought that to the ordinary
Christian it is not important to think consistently.
This, however, is a mistake of the same kind as is
made when it is supposed that high scientific educa
tion is not necessary to the progress of practical
manufacture — a common but a demonstrable delu-

262 SUMMARY lect. vhl
sion. The thoughtful must think wisely in order
that the practically minded may act wisely.

Ill
Can we venture, after observing the religious
movements and tendencies about us, to judge what
kind of expression the spirit of Christianity is likely
to take among us ? It seems to me that from
these lectures we can gather at least three sugges
tions, which I cannot of course set forth now in any
detail ; but I can scarcely more appropriately con
clude than by briefly submitting them to the judg
ment of those who are responsible for our religious
teaching. First : Belief in the continuity and inspiration of
history must needs clear and exalt our views of the
history of the Christian Church, which must be
taken as a whole.
Second : Proper appreciation of the function of
the will in active and religious life must have a
direct effect on doctrine.
Third : The growing habit of regarding society
as an organism rather than a mere congeries of in
dividuals must tend to revive the Founder's teach
ing as to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The prominence given in England to such studies
as anthropology, comparative mythology, prehistoric
archaeology, have familiarised us, perhaps beyond all

LECT. VIH. AND INFERENCES 263
nations, with the comparative method in all historic
studies, while the specialism which has in Germany
been carried so far has there tended to hinder the
co-ordination of different branches of science. I can
not believe that in England we shall rest content,
like the Ritschlians, with treating Christianity as if
it were set apart from all other religions, and to be
investigated without reference to them. Ritschl
refused to see in conscience an immediate witness
of God, would hear nothing of a natural revelation,
and regarded the suggestion of it as injurious to
Christian faith ; and even Harnack seems to regard
the adoption by the early Church of Greek elements
of religion as a forsaking of its mission in the world.
Yet if we believe in the divine government of the
world, and in evolution in history, we must needs
hold that to all good men in various measure and
degree the divine Spirit communicates religious
impulse and the seeds of belief
There can be no question that the transfer of
the theory of evolution, and of the survival of the
fittest, from the domain of biological to that of social
and historic science must needs not only add greatly
to the dignity of history, but also make us look on
the past with more appreciative and less coldly
critical eyes. For if those theories be well founded
it follows that no religious movement of the past
can have been altogether wanting in justification ;
if it had not had some reason for success it could
not have succeeded. And if there be any divine
control of events, we are bound to regard it as at

264 SUMMARY LECT. VIII.
least probable that in the great majority of cases it
was the good rather than the evil in the move
ment which won for it the victory. So doctrine
accepted in the past by the Church, if accepted
on grounds of experience rather than of logic, is
almost sure to have in some way expressed the best
mind of the Church, and tended towards progress.
Instances of retrograde tendencies and of corrupting
doctrines may of course be found ; but we shall be
justified in considering them as the exception, not the
rule,^the result of disease, not of normal growth.
We may put away for ever the base and degrading
view that past history is but a record of the faults
and follies of mankind — that the history of the
Church before the Reformation was nothing but
a downward course.
This has been the fault of Protestant Church
history. But the fault of Catholic Church history
has been graver still, in that it has confused the
invisible kingdom of God with a visible organisa
tion. Such a view might be natural before the
Reformation, when all Western Europe was united
in one fold, and the Churches of Eastern Europe
were so far away as to be out of sight. In our days
it may still be possible for an educated Italian or
Spaniard to retain this point of view. But how it
can be retained by a theologian of England or
Germany or America it is not easy to see. The
history of the whole Church, from the day when the
Founder called His first disciple, to last Sunday,
with the sermons preached on it in every Christian

LECT. VIII. AND INFERENCES 265
country, belongs to every member of the body of
Christ on earth. The religious ancestry of every
one of us goes back, from spiritual father to spiritual
father, to the founders of Christianity, and from
them back to the first man who felt an emotion of
awe in the presence of the unseen, or curbed his
fleshly appetite in obedience to a higher law felt
within. II
The two great Kantian teachings of the relativity
of knowledge and of the primary importance of will
must needs have, with all who accept them, — that is
to say, with the vast majority of thinking men, — an
immense effect on the fabric of Christian doctrine.
At the first contact the effect seems utterly destruc
tive, for doctrine has, in all past ages of the Church,
been largely built in apriori fashion, in a region
which now appears to be outside the limits of
legitimate and effective thought. That the World
and the Church are hereby to some extent im
poverished is true. But yet speculative systems of
doctrine have after all no very close relation to the
religious life — at all events in our time. And it will
probably be found in due course, as indeed the
history of religious thought in Germany abundantly
proves, that much which is shown to be in a purely
speculative aspect illegitimate can be restored and
established upon a less dignified but more durable
practical basis,
I do not agree with those Christians — very

2 66 SUMMARY lect. vih.
numerous in our days — who hold that doctrine in
religion is out of date, and life and character the
sole tests of faith. This is an exaggeration of the
truth. Apriori metaphysical constructions, such
as the more elaborate creeds or the Westminster
Confession, are out of date. But for doctrine there
still remains a place, though less exalted than of
old, and functions which are important though more
humble than our ancestors supposed. Doctrine can
not hope to comprise eternal truth in human words,
but it can summarise in intelligible speech the
experiences of the religious life. Its basis wiH be
practical, not speculative ; its methods psychological
rather than logical. It will not be afraid of con
stantly stopping when the limits of thought are
reached : it will not even be ashamed to leave
standing side by side antinomies which cannot be
reconciled, but both of which embody an aspect of
reality. If men cannot fathom the divine thought
they can follow the divine will. Right thought in
religious matters is very important ; but rather
because of the close relations which exist between
thought and character than because thought in
itself can measure the height and length and
breadth of spiritual reality. Some theologians in
England have strongly felt that in future character
must be the basis of doctrine, especially the late
Dean Church, who, but for his excessive modesty,
might well have become the head of a school of
religious thought in England.
The change in the spiritual centre of gravity

LECT. VIII. AND INFERENCES 267
must needs have a great effect on received doctrine.
It bears directly upon the religious view of man and
his natural history — upon such matters as sin and
forgiveness, repentance, and the new life — on divine
grace and the hope of a future life. And it bears
also upon the ideas accepted in the Church in regard
to the person of the Founder of Christianity, No
one can take up the widely influential works of
modern theology, Ecce Homo, Lux Mundi, Robert
son's Sermons, and the like, without seeing how this
leaven is working on all sides of us. To what final
results it will work we see as yet but imperfectly ;
it may be that generations will pass before the
process is complete ; on the other hand changes
may come sooner than we imagine.
As a striking indication of change in the outlook
not of one school but of many, I will refer to a recent
paper published by Mr. Wilfred Ward in the Fort
nightly Review for May 1 901, in which he maintains
that Cardinal Newman and the late Professor
Sabatier had much in common in their teaching.
"In Cardinal Newman's sermon, already referred to,
we have expressly set forth four principal points in
M. Sabatier's theory: (i) that religion creates
dogmatic propositions (not vice versa), such propo
sitions being the result of the mind's reflection on
the impressions it receives of revealed truth ; (2)
that the formulated dogmas are not essential to the
genuineness or perfection of religion or religious
belief; (3) that the dogmatic propositions whereby
such truths as the Trinity and Incarnation are

268 SUMMARY lect. vih.
defined are only a partial analysis of the sacred
impressions and ideas which are the life of religion,
and are only symbols of the reality; (4) that
dogmas and creeds, although not adequate to
these impressions and ideas, are one chief means
of transmitting and perpetuating them.
These propositions, which, according to Mr.
Ward, are common to Newman and Sabatier, I
heartily accept. The relative view of religion
which these propositions embody is in effect the
view of Schleiermacher, of Ritschl, of Lipsius. I
have only to add that the early history of the
Church, when examined on this basis, in accord
with the well known and generally recognised rules
of historic research, will take some such form as
it takes in Professor Harnack's Wesen des Christen
thums, or in the present work. Newman of course
did not realise this any more than did Schleier
macher, because the principles of historic investiga
tion were in their days very imperfectly understood;
but it has since become clear. Sabatier was fully
aware of it. Can it be that on these lines we are
approaching a view of Christian doctrine in which
the highest and the broadest of Churchmen may
unite ?
These lectures have been, as all treatises which
deal with early Christian doctrine must be, largely
concerned with the theories of the person of Christ
which prevailed with successive schools of theology.
If it be true, as I have maintained, that these
theories are mainly attempts to account for

lect. viii. and inferences 269
Christian experience in the current formulae of the
schools, then it becomes quite clear that the
substitution of psychology for metaphysics, which
is a marked feature of contemporary thought, must
have a great effect on all systems of Christology.
Instead of dwelling on nice metaphysical distinc
tions of substance and personality, which have to
us lost their meaning and attraction, the modern
theologian wiH try to ascertain through observation
aided by history what is the actual nature of divine
revelation to man, and how it uses the medium of
humanity. In my opinion investigations of this
kind are quite as likely to be destructive of the less
as of the more orthodox systems of Christology
which have prevailed in the past, — as likely to put
out of court many rationalist and theistic views as
the Athanasian Creed itself The apriori method
in theology, which starts not from what actually
takes place, but from what people choose to regard
as reasonable assumptions, has been in favour with
some members of the most diverse schools down to
our own day. Many of us still apply in theology
methods which in physical science had become
antiquated in the days of Aristotle, although at the
same time beneath the crust of arbitrary theory
there runs the hot lava of the Christian Hfe. What
is really wanted is a consistent and intelligible
explanation of the rise of Christianity and the course
of Christian history; and the theory which will
fully explain all these phenomena is the Christology
suited to the age.

270 SUMMARY LECT. VIH.
Ill
There is another respect in which the trend of
modern thought has given us a new way of regard
ing Christianity. As the growth of historic know
ledge and the acceptance of evolution in religion is
setting aside the shallow rationalism which marked
the eighteenth century, so social feeling among men
is laying the axe to the root of the mere individu
alism which has in recent times been a constantly
increasing danger among us. Socialism, alike in
thought and in action, has gained much ground.
It has become impossible to think of a man as an
isolated being, without relation to the stock from
which he springs and the human beings to whom
on every side he is closely related. The com
munity no less than the individual has to be
considered as an unity, with history, with purposes,
with ideals.
It is not strange, in view of this trend of feeling,
to find that the most prominent place in the
Ritschlian theology is taken not by the conception
of the spiritual life in individuals, but by that of the
Kingdom of God, It is not the individual so much
as the society or community which is the recipient
of divine inspiration. The object of God's love is
not men taken one by one, but humanity as
organised in the Kingdom of God through love.
It may be that in this matter Ritschl goes too far,
for after all it is only in the consciousness of indi
viduals that divine inspiration can be realised ;

LECT. VIH. AND INFERENCES 271
religious utterance must come from individuals ; and
the will of individuals must lead society in the right
way. Nevertheless there is profound and most im
portant truth in the recognition of the divine mission
of the society. Individualism carried to extremes
has been the bane of Protestant countries. In them
the rights of the individual conscience, the free and
separate standing of every man in the sight of God,
has been dwelt on to the exclusion of all besides.
The great and original Christian idea of a Kingdom
of God has been lost sight of This it seems to
me is the chief cause of the constant and undeniable
attraction which the Roman Church exercises in
Teutonic countries. In however materialist and
arbitrary a form the Roman Church has embodied
the idea of the divine kingdom, at all events she
has embodied it, and thus has often seemed to
represent order and love as opposed to the con
scientious self-isolation of the Calvinist and the
Puritan. And when Protestants have endeavoured
to bring about on earth some realisation of the
divine order — some reign of the saints under their
heavenly King, as in the English Commonwealth
and the States of New England, and at Geneva,
they have proceeded with so much harshness, so
complete disregard for natural human feelings and
ties, that a strong reaction has always followed.
The Reformed religion can never recover the
position which it once held among Teutonic races
until it has discovered some embodiment in belief
and in organisation of the idea of the Kingdom of

272 SUMMARY lect. viil
God, which shall be effectual in penetrating and
swaying the population in Teutonic countries.
Consciously or unconsciously this conviction, I think,
has wide sway among us, and lies at the roots
of some of the greatest of modern religious move
ments. IV
In conclusion, I will return for a moment from
the social to the intellectual outlook.
I have already spoken of the Wesleyan and the
Tractarian movements in England, and have sug
gested that in both these movements the most strik
ing fact is their poverty in religious thought. Both
movements have failed to gain a firm hold on the
educated laity. I do not think that the cultured
laity are giving up religion ; but they are ceasing
to look for it to the Churches, looking rather to
writers like Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin. There
seems to me a great danger that the public worship
of Christianity may be left to the clergy, to women,
to the uneducated. And this danger can be ob
viated only by bringing the teaching of the Churches
nearer to the level of modern thought.
In the first centuries of Christianity the move
ment which originated with Paul, was carried on
by the Fourth Evangelist, and completed in the
Alexandrian school of theology, brought Christian
thought on to the level of Greek philosophy, which
was at the time the highest of existing intellectual

LECT. VIIL AND INFERENCES 273
developments. In our day religion has again to
be put on terms with culture. But philosophy no
longer holds the place which it held among the
Greeks. Its place is largely taken by science — by
ordered knowledge of the material, the living, and
the human worlds. It is now generally recognised
that physical science and religion do not clash,
because they have different spheres. But the
relations between religion and human science,
between theology on the one side and psychology
and history on the other, are not clearly deter
mined, and here there is continual clashing and
friction. Until the teachers of religion realise that
in our days psychology and history are under
going great changes and a vast development, and
until they succeed in reconciling religious thought
to that development, they will preach to hardened
minds, and have effect only on those which are less
robust. If will be the final fact in human nature, and
man's active faculties more primary than his think
ing powers, it does not hence follow that thought
in religion may be neglected. An unreasonable
religion — a religion which is in constant collision
with evidence and with fact — cannot be lasting ; and
it loses its hold over men in proportion as their
intelligence is developed. In times of stress and
sadness they may recur to it in spite of all intel
lectual difficulty, because man is a religious creature,
and he cannot live cut off from the spiritual forces
which surround us. But it would save infinite pain

2 74 SUMMARY AND INFERENCES lect. viii.
and loss if religion could grasp and satisfy men in
their hours of intellectual activity, instead of merely
finding an entrance through emotion, and being
retained because it meets the cravings of human
nature.

THE END

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
EXPLORATIO EVANGELICA
A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF THE BASIS AND
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I. Benzinger, Ph.D. (Temple, etc.).
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