What Is the Christian Faith?
If every rational discussion, as Cicero has said, should begin with a definition, it would be well at the outset to try to answer the question which forms the title of this lecture. Of the definitions which may be given of the Christian Faith two may be selected as typical: (1) it is the faith in the providence and love of God which Jesus exercised and exemplified; or (2) it is the faith of which Jesus Himself is the object. In the one case the essence of Christianity will be found in the simple precepts of the Peasant-Prophet of Galilee, in the other in the developed Christology of the Apostle Paul.
It is safe to say that the average Christian will not be satisfied with either of these definitions. He looks to Jesus, it is true, as his Teacher and Example, but he also trusts Him as his Redeemer and worships Him as his Lord. The real question at issue is whether original Christianity, the religion which Jesus taught, was thus inclusive of doctrine as well as ethics. Does Christianity in its essence include Christology? The attempt to answer this question will not only introduce our general theme but will bring us into the heart of it. It will be convenient to consider in order: I. The Christianity of the New Testament Writers; II. Primitive Christianity and Pauline Christianity; III. The Christianity of Jesus and of Paul; and IV. The Dilemma of Historical Criticism.
I. The Christianity of the New Testament Writers
The scientific study of the New Testament has brought clearly to light the individual traits of the various writers, but has shown at the same time the striking agreement of these writers in their fundamental conception of the Christian Faith. For those who set forth objectively the words and ministry of Jesus as well as for those who deal more explicitly with doctrinal interpretation, the centre of interest lies in the Person, the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ. It may be well to illustrate this unity of standpoint, while the fact of it is so generally conceded that it needs no elaborate proof.
In the Apocalypse the sacrificial expression, "the Lamb," occurs at least twenty-eight times; and the central figure is that of the Lamb that was slain but is now seated upon the throne. In the First Epistle of John, Jesus is described as the propitiation for sin (ii. 2; iv. 10), and as the Son of God throughout the book. In First Peter the readers are addressed as those who have been begotten again to a living hope by the Resurrection (i. 3), and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ (i. 19). The Epistle to the Hebrews is saturated with the language of the sacrificial ritual, and describes the priestly work of Christ who tasted death, put away sin, and ever lives in the heavenly sanctuary to make intercession. The Christological element is of course very prominent in Paul's Epistles. According to the Book of Acts, the Apostles preached Jesus and the Resurrection (iv. 2; xvii. 18, etc.). The death of Christ, mentioned some thirteen times, the Resurrection, mentioned or implied twenty times, and the forgiveness of sins, mentioned in more or less close connection with these eight times,[1] were the central themes of apostolic preaching, which included in the case of Peter, an eye-witness, the teaching and mighty words of Jesus (ii. 22; x. 36-38).
In the Gospels it will be found that almost exactly one-third of the textual material (in the Westcott and Hort edition about eighty out of the two hundred and forty pages) is taken up with events connected with the Passion and Resurrection, including the incidents and teachings of the Passion week. In Luke the proportion is somewhat smaller (some sixteen out of seventy-three pages) than in the other Gospels; but that the Passion is equally prominent in the mind of the writer is shown by the fact that the shadow of it is projected back even to chapter ix. 51, and that in Luke alone the "exodus" at Jerusalem is the theme of conversation in the Transfiguration scene (ix. 31). Even Mark, showing least of all, it used to be said, the influence of later theological reflection, has been called a history of the Passion with an introduction. As Harnack has said: "The whole work of Mark is so disposed and composed that death and resurrection appear as the aim of the entire presentation."[2]
The centre of interest for the Evangelists as well as for Paul and the author of Hebrews is Christ and Him crucified, the Passion and Resurrection. It may be said, though, that the interest of the Evangelists is a biographical one, an interest in a beloved teacher or martyred leader, comparable with that of Plato and Xenophon in the last days and words of Socrates, and not a distinctly theological interest such as Paul felt in the death of Christ, as intimately connected with his own experience of redemption from sin.
One answer to this is that the interest of the Evangelists is not merely in the death but in the resurrection of Jesus. It is worthy also of note that the author of the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle of John has shown that, to one New Testament writer at least, description and interpretation were equally important. John's description of the death of Christ is as detailed and as objective as that of the other Gospel writers; yet his interpretation of the Passion as a propitiation for sin (I John ii. 2; iv. 10) is the same as that of the Apostle Paul. While John places the words "Lamb of God" in the mouth of the Baptist (i. 29, 36), and uses the expression, "the blood of Jesus his Son who cleanses us from all sin" (I John i. 7), he never, except possibly in a veiled way, places the language of sacrifice in the mouth of Jesus Himself. There is no reason to doubt that the other Evangelists who record the thrice repeated prediction of the Crucifixion (see Mark viii. 31; ix. 12; x. 33, and parallels) would, equally with John, be interested in its doctrinal interpretation. Such an interpretation is in fact suggested by the words of Jesus Himself. At the Last Supper, He brought His death into connection with the forgiveness of sins, and when He spoke of it as a "ransom for many"[3] used language which is naturally interpreted in a sacrificial sense. Luke, it is true, nowhere uses the word "ransom," but there is no reason to doubt that he shared the Pauline view of the death of Christ. This is clearly indicated by the expression, "purchased with his own blood," contained in one of the "we-sections" of Acts (xx. 28), and in fact by the words of the risen Jesus (Luke xxiv. 46, 47). As the altar was central in the Old Testament, so, from the standpoint of its writers, is the Passion in the New Testament.
It is needless to show in detail that an exalted view of the person of Christ is with the New Testament writers connected with the central place which they assign to His death and resurrection. Mark, whose Christology is thought to be least developed, may be taken as a single example. In the opening scene of the ministry, as in the Transfiguration scene, the divine voice says: "Thou art (this is) my beloved Son" (i. 11; ix. 7); and in the closing scene the centurion exclaims, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (or a son of God, Mark xv. 39). The climax of the narrative is said to be the confession of Peter, "Thou art the Christ" (viii. 29); and Jesus alludes to Himself as "the Son," above prophets and men and angels (xii. 6; xiii. 32). At the trial, in answer to the solemn question of the high priest, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed?" He said, "I am" (xiv. 61-62). Bousset admits that the three first Gospels differ from the Fourth only in degree,[4] and in his latest work he says that if the phrase "Son of God" (i. 1), omitted in many manuscripts of Mark, is really an interpolation, it is a suitable one as indicating the theme of the book.[5] Wrede even says the Gospel of Mark belongs in a sense to the history of dogma.[6]
For the writers of the New Testament, leaving out for the present the question of sources, in spite of differences in time and place and race and circumstances, and by implication for the various circles of readers, Jewish, Greek and Roman, whom they addressed, there was but one kind of Christianity, one gospel of the Kingdom and the Cross and the Son of God.
II. Primitive Christianity and Pauline Christianity
It is asserted that the striking unanimity of the New Testament writers in their view of Christianity is not due to the teaching of Jesus, but to the powerful influence of the Apostle Paul. The statement is made in many quarters that not Jesus but Paul was the virtual founder of Christianity, so far as its central doctrines, its institutions, its worship of a divine Christ, and its world-wide propaganda are concerned. In Paul, it is said, the gospel of a simple piety and a pure ethic, the gospel of Jesus, was so overlaid by the incrustations of dogma that its true nature was hidden until rediscovered by modern criticism; and it had thus lost the simplicity that is in Christ. It was Paul himself, whose missionary labours carried the gospel throughout Europe, that really preached "another gospel." As Schweitzer, following Kalthoff, suggests with some irony, there was, under this supposition, "an immediate declension from and falsification of a pure original principle" in Christianity, comparable only to the Fall in the moral history of mankind.[7]
The teaching of the primitive apostles is sometimes declared to be an intermediate step between the gospel of Jesus and the doctrinal Christianity of Paul. It is desirable then to compare the Pauline teaching, first with the teaching of the other apostles and the Jerusalem church, and then with the teaching of Jesus.
When we examine the historical situation, the lines of connection between Paul and the primitive apostles and the Jerusalem church are so many and so strong as practically to negative the supposition of a fundamental difference between them in their conception of the gospel.
(1) If Luke had written the Fourth Gospel, the case would be different; but Luke wrote (assuming his authorship of the Third Gospel and the Acts)[8] the Gospel which contains the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. When one remembers that Luke was the intimate companion of Paul and his co-labourer in missionary work before he wrote his Gospel, that he derived his material largely from "eye-witnesses of the word," and that afterwards he recorded the teaching of both Peter and Paul in the Acts, it is clear that Luke himself saw no essential difference between the Christianity of the primitive apostles and that of Paul, and it becomes improbable that such a difference existed.
(2) Paul took with him on his missionary journeys Barnabas and Silas, accredited leaders and representatives of the primitive Jerusalem church (Acts xiii. 2f.; xv. 40). Paul's work for years was carried on under the surveillance of these men, and Barnabas stood sponsor for Paul before the Jerusalem authorities (Acts xv. 12). The close connection of these two men with both parties excludes the supposition of any radical difference in their doctrines.
(3) Paul's Christology was accepted by his Jewish-Christian opponents at Jerusalem, and never questioned by them. Paul we know to have been bitterly assailed by a Pharisaic party in the Jerusalem church. They dogged his steps wherever he went; they impugned his orthodoxy from the Mosaic standpoint; they called in question his apostleship and his sincerity. But it is significant that they never assailed as an innovation the Christological views in which he is supposed to differ from them. "Certain from James" (Gal. ii. 12), in the bitter polemic over circumcision, never accused Paul, as they would have done if his views were different in this respect, of a declension from Jewish monotheism. Paul doubtless used the name current in Jerusalem when he spoke, in a context in which he puts Christ above men and above angels and on an equality with God as a source of grace, of "James, the Lord's brother" (Gal. i. 3, 12, 19). He used the same titles as did those at Jerusalem, and a difference in Christological dogma can only be made out by saying that the names are used in different senses.[9] This is to admit that the difference discovered by modern critical acumen was so small as not to be recognized by either party at the time. In Paul's controversial encounter with Peter, in a context full of the characteristic Pauline ideas of Justification, of the Cross, of the indwelling Christ, and of Jesus as the Son of God, Paul appealed to the essential unity of their Christian faith and experience (Gal. ii. 11-21).
(4) Paul asserts the identity of his gospel with that of the primitive apostles as well known to his readers. He preached the faith of which he once made havoc (Gal. i. 23). His gospel of a crucified and risen Christ, he declares, was "received," not invented (I Cor. xv. 3), was in accordance with Jewish Scriptures, and the inference is unavoidable that it was held and taught in common by Peter and James, the Jerusalem leaders. Both Peter and Paul taught Jesus and the Resurrection (Acts ii. 31; xiii. 34; xvii. 31); and as Harnack says, there is no reason to doubt the representations of the first chapter of the Acts as to early apostolic belief.[10]
The Resurrection is emphasized alike in the speeches of Peter in Acts and in the First Epistle (I Peter i. 3; ii. 24; iii. 21). In Romans the Resurrection is mentioned seven times (i. 4; iv. 25; vi. 4; vii. 4; viii. 34; x. 9; xiv. 9), and enters into the warp and woof of Paul's teaching. The thought of Paul is doubtless more systematic and constructive, but it is unnatural to believe either that Paul had a different view of the nature of the Resurrection, or that he drew doctrinal inferences from it which the other apostles would not accept.[11] It is hard to see, moreover, how the theory that Paul's teaching was essentially different from that of the Jerusalem church, and the theory that Paul profoundly influenced all of the New Testament writers can consistently be held at the same time.
III. The Christianity of Jesus and of Paul
A more serious question meets us when we come to the relation of Paul's teaching to that of Jesus Himself. Behind the writers of the New Testament and behind the teaching of the apostles, is there not in the authentic words of Jesus as determined by criticism a simpler gospel of the love of God and the duty of man, from which Christology and the doctrines of the Cross are excluded? May we not "lighten the distressed ship of the gospel" by casting overboard its cargo of doctrine? Harnack thinks that we may; and in his famous lectures on the "Essence of Christianity" has set forth the seeming anomaly of the gospel of Christ with Christology omitted, a gospel which includes only the Father and not the Son.
The essence of Christianity according to Paul would be contained in the statements, "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. v. 8); "God was in Christ reconciling the world" (2 Cor. v. 19); "He loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20). Paul's gospel was the gospel of Christ and Him crucified. The essence of Christianity according to Harnack consists in the truths of the fatherly love of God and the value of the individual soul. It is indeed a gospel preached by Christ, but in the content of its message is the Father only—not the Son.[12] The contrast thus asserted suggests the need of a closer examination of the relation of Jesus and Paul.
Nothing is more striking in the comparison between Jesus and Paul than the difference in their personality and yet the similarity in their ethical teaching. Jesus was a Galilean, born in humble circumstances, belonging to the peasant or working class, a stranger to the training of the schools, a "layman," and an Oriental in His mode of thought and expression. Paul was a native of Tarsus, a Greek city which was noted as the seat of a philosophical school; his father was a man of consequence, a Roman citizen, who gave his son the best education that the Jewish schools could afford. He was a typical member of the proudest caste of a proud nation, proud of his race, of his learning, of his strictness in religion and his zeal for the Law (Phil. iii. 6), trained in the refinements of Rabbinical dialectic, but an Occidental in his method of thought. Yet in ethics Paul stands very near to Jesus. Both emphasized the same virtues, and these the very virtues most foreign to Paul's early GrÆco-Roman environment and his later Pharisaic prejudice. Where Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," Paul, blameless in the law, said, "Boasting is excluded. By grace are ye saved" (Rom. iii. 27; Eph. ii. 5). Where Jesus said, "He that exalteth himself shall be humbled" (Luke xviii. 14), Paul, the Pharisee, said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves" (Phil. ii. 3). Where Jesus said, "Love your enemies," Paul, the persecutor now the persecuted, repeated the command so foreign to the moral ideals of his time (Rom. xii. 20). Both taught that in the command to love one's neighbour was a summary of the moral law (Rom. xiii. 10; Matt. xxii. 38, 39).
Paul's great ethical passages, such as Romans xii. and I Corinthians xiii., are but republications in Pauline language of the Sermon on the Mount. In moral teaching Jesus and Paul are at one, although there can be no doubt which was the originator of the Christian philosophy of life. Jesus whose code was but the transcript of His character is the original; and Paul, conformed in thought and spirit to the image of Jesus, was the echo.
But Paul's moral teaching was by no means merely an echo or reminiscence of the ethics of Jesus; it was organically connected with his own doctrinal teaching. In Paul's letters there is usually an ethical section, but this is preceded by a didactic or doctrinal section. Doctrine with him, in the words of Phillips Brooks, was the "child of faith and the mother of duty." Admittedly his doctrine is used to enforce and to inspire his ethics. A high Christology—"Christ also pleased not himself" (Rom. xv. 3)—enforces the appeal not to please oneself. The Incarnation is the supreme example of generosity to the poor, and the death upon the Cross of lowliness of mind and obedience (2 Cor. viii. 9; Phil. ii. 5-8). His own sacrifice for our sins grounds the plea for a life of unselfishness (2 Cor. v. 14, 15; Rom. xii. 1). We should walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us (Eph. v. 2); and should walk in newness of life, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father (Rom. vi. 4). Doctrine with Paul and ethics in its solemn sanctions and its inspiring motivation are inextricably intertwined. Paul's doctrine about the person of Christ and His death and resurrection can be disentangled from his ethical teaching as little as it can from his experience. Certainly the doctrine was no alien or extraneous element in Paul's system, and certainly it strengthened rather than weakened his ethical appeal.
Is there a similar blending of ethics and doctrine in the teaching of Jesus? For the gospel of Jesus in its purity we must, according to a popular school of criticism, go back of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics, and back of these to their sources, practically to Mark and to the source called Q (Quelle), or the Logia, representing the non-Markan agreements of Matthew and Luke. Even in these sources, it is often maintained, caution must be used, and foreign elements must be eliminated. Let us see, then, whether there is such a mingling of the ethical and the Christological in the authentic teaching of Jesus as we have noticed in that of Paul. The Sermon on the Mount, the words to the disciples after the confession of Peter (Mark viii. 34-38), and the teaching on true greatness (Mark x. 42-45), may be taken as typical examples of Jesus' ethical teaching. In these passages are not merely disconnected maxims, but an ethical system, containing a profound and, as we may say, fully thought out philosophy of life, in which the religious and ethical elements are organically united.
The Beatitudes begin with passive virtue, humility, meekness, longing for righteousness; they pass on to the possession of righteousness and purity of heart; ascend to works of active benevolence; and culminate in a character so positive and pronounced in goodness as to excite opposition from the forces of evil. At least one element in the consciousness of Jesus as He spoke these words may be compared with the Christological standpoint of Paul. The impression which His teaching made upon His hearers is summed up in the words: "He taught them as one having authority" (Matt. vii. 29). If we seek to analyze this authority, we find it to be, first, the authority of perfect moral insight. A flaw discovered in the character of a teacher easily neutralizes the force of his moral appeal. The ethic of Jesus is not merely a system of rules, but the blending of a code which has guided human progress and a character in which men have found their supreme ideal of moral excellence. His sureness of touch, His clearness of moral insight, His transparent beauty of character, betray a consciousness unique among men. The verdict of mankind as they have studied the character of Jesus, and studied themselves in the light of it, is that that character is as much a miracle in the moral sphere,—that is, opposed to a uniform experience—as is the birth from a virgin, for example, in the physical sphere. The consciousness of Jesus, at the very least, must have been profoundly influenced by the fact, assuming it to be a fact, that He alone among the children of men did perfectly the will of the Father.
The authority of Jesus, again, was that of a lawgiver from whose words there could be no appeal. His words superseded all previous legislation, in the sense of completing it, and all current interpretation. The imperial "I say unto you" implied the power, not simply of judicial interpretation, but of repealing old laws and enacting new ones. Nor was His teaching in His own conception of it a mere phase, albeit the highest at the time, of moral development. His legislation was final, and never to be superseded; and obedience to it, or neglect of it, was to be the decisive factor in human welfare and destiny (Matt. vii. 24-27).
But the authority of Jesus was not merely that of a lawgiver. He inaugurated the Kingdom whose coming He proclaimed and whose laws He formulated, and He is to be the final judge of the worthiness of its members. These members were not merely pious Jews in general or John's disciples, but were His disciples. They were the light of the world because they were His disciples, and the crowning element in their character was endurance of persecution for His sake (Matt. v. 11, "for my sake"; Luke vi. 22, "for the Son of man's sake"). His teaching instead of pointing away from Himself to God, in the spirit of the other wisest teachers of men, pointed to Himself as the One by whom fully and finally God's will and purpose were to be made known. He plainly taught or clearly implied that men's relations to Himself as Teacher, Lord, Lawgiver and Judge, were supremely important for human destiny (Matt. vii. 21-24).
No words in the ethical-religious message of Jesus are more striking in form and thought, and no others have more deeply impressed the minds of men, than those in which He asserted that the value of the soul outweighs all earthly good: "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" These words, says Eucken, have given the soul a history. In the startling paradox in the context, "He that saveth his life shall lose it," we have the saying of Jesus most often repeated in the Gospels, occurring six times, and assigned to four different occasions (Mark viii. 35; Matt. x. 39; xvi. 25; Luke ix. 24; xvii. 33; John xii. 25).
The study of these sayings in their context (Mark viii. 34-38 and parallels) shows that the thought which was uppermost in the mind of Jesus, and in fact dominated at this point the ethical teaching, was precisely that of His own person and death and resurrection. His question to Peter, "Whom say ye that I am?" (Mark viii. 29) shows that He was dissatisfied with the title of prophet given Him by others, and that He would draw from the disciples a confession that they had come to hold a higher view of His mission. When Peter, according to the accounts in Mark and Matthew, refused to accept the prediction of His death, He showed that it was necessary for all His disciples to take up the cross and follow Him. The goal of life is to be reached only by those who follow Him in spirit in His death and resurrection, and confess Him before men. The losing of the highest in life is for those who are ashamed of Him in this generation. The destiny of men hinges upon their relation to Himself. The connection between the most oft-repeated and self-authenticating maxims of Jesus and His own person, death, and resurrection is as clear and organic as the connection between the ethical and doctrinal, or Christological, teaching of Paul.
It remains to consider the passage (Mark x. 42-45; Matt. xx. 25-28) on true greatness and service. Here we have a characteristic teaching of Jesus cutting athwart the ordinary opinion of mankind. But the maxim, "Whosoever would become great among you," is connected with Himself as the example of true greatness. He, the teacher and example of humility, refers to Himself as the supreme illustration of true greatness. His death is the supreme expression of self-sacrifice for the good of others, and in it by implication is the highest service done to man.[13] Ethics and doctrine about Himself and His death are as inextricably blended in this saying of Jesus as in Paul's statement, "Though he was rich yet for your sakes became poor," or John's, "He laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (2 Cor. viii. 9; I John iii. 16). In His deepest ethical teaching Jesus points not away from Himself, as do other moral teachers. His words in the Synoptics are not essentially different from those in John: "If I your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet" (xiii. 14).
The Christology of Jesus finds expression in the familiar words in Matthew xi. 25-30 (Luke x. 21, 22): "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, etc." These words are often spoken of as the climax of His self-revelation in the Synoptic Gospels, and modern criticism unites with Christian devotion in recognizing their importance. The conviction is growing that the words, as they stand in all the Greek texts, cannot have been the utterance of a merely human Jesus, the pattern of truthfulness and the example of humility.
A few examples will show the trend of recent interpretation. Plummer thinks that the self-revelation of Jesus in the expression, "All things were delivered unto Me, etc.," "contains the whole of the Christology of the Fourth Gospel;"[14] and he believes that the aorist verb "points back to a moment in eternity, and implies the preËxistence of the Messiah."[15]
Critical acumen, says Lemme, may seek to empty the saying of its content, but "there remains the exclusiveness of the mediatorial work of Jesus for the totality of mankind, there remains the absolute uniqueness of His redemption, there remains His lonely elevation above the entire realm of the human, there remains His unique fellowship of life with the Father, which enabled Him, and Him alone, to know God adequately, or, what is the same thing, to reveal the truth. We must take our choice: such an utterance is either the delirium of a reckless self-exaltation, or the appropriate testimony of a divine Being demanding unreserved faith."[16]
The logion has been made the subject of an exhaustive monograph by Schumacher, who concludes that the reciprocal knowledge of the Father and the Son implies the consciousness of divine Sonship in a full metaphysical sense.[17]
In his lectures on the "Essence of Christianity," Harnack takes the text as it stands, but, ignoring the implications of reciprocal knowledge, says: "The consciousness he possessed of being the Son of God is, therefore, nothing but the practical consequence of knowing God as the Father and as His Father. Rightly understood, the name of Son means nothing but the knowledge of God."[18] In his critique of Harnack, Loisy objects to this interpretation as being "artificial and superficial,"[19] and says: "Obviously the text indicates a transcendental relationship, whence springs the lofty dignity of Christ, and not a psychological reality, which in regard to God is clearly impossible. Father and Son are not here simply religious terms, but have already become metaphysical theological expressions, and dogmatic speculation has been able to take possession of them, without much modification of their sense."[20] Loisy takes the meaning as fundamentally the same as John i. 18, and cannot accept it in the form we have it as a genuine word of Jesus.[21]
In his "Sayings of Jesus," Harnack omits from the text, on what seem to be slender grounds, the first clause of the parallel, "No one knoweth the Son but the Father."[22] He candidly admits, however, that if the text stands no fair exegesis can prevent a Christological reference. It must mean "a relationship of Father and Son which never had a beginning, but remains ever the same." "We cannot by any method of interpretation make it much less metaphysical."[23]
Bousset, who in his "Jesus" (1904) accepted the utterance as spoken by Jesus,[24] now sees in it the expression of a high Christology. He believes, against Harnack, that the expression, "All things have been delivered to me," refers to power, not simply to knowledge; and, retaining both clauses expressing reciprocal knowledge of the Father and the Son, he finds in this "majestic self-testimony" in its present form the work of the Church.[25]
We may speak, then, of a consensus of opinion in the recent interpretation of this saying of Jesus. When we remember that the verbal resemblance between Matthew xi. 25-27 and Luke x. 21, 22 is remarkably close, and that the saying thus belongs to the earliest strata of Gospel tradition, that is, to the conjectural "Q," it is significant that the minute examination to which it has been subjected has convinced critics of different dogmatic standpoints that they can only interpret it in a high Christological sense. It is agreed that the words as they stand imply the preËxistence of the Messiah, a relation which can properly be called "metaphysical" between the Father and the Son, and a unique relation to men as the only bearer of the full revelation of God. The saying, often called an "aerolite from the Johannine heavens" (Hase), contains in a nutshell, if taken with verses 28-30, the teaching of the fourteenth chapter of John, revealing Jesus in similar relation alike to God and to men, and as supplying all the deepest needs of men. Sanday has even said that "we might describe the teaching of the Fourth Gospel as a series of variations upon the one theme which has its classical expression in a verse of the Synoptics. 'All things have been delivered unto me, etc'"[26]
It has been argued that the saying of Jesus, Johannine in style and substance, is so isolated in the Synoptic narrative that, in spite of its secure position in the sources, doubts of its genuineness must arise. Bousset employs this argument, remarking that the thoughts of our logion "in the remaining Synoptic tradition are scarcely found at all."[27] It is noticeable, however, that the isolation is established only by cutting away a large portion of the Synoptic material. The parable of the Vineyard, in which Jesus speaks of Himself as a beloved son, the heir (Mark xii. 6, 7), is objected to because "never thus did Jesus elsewhere in His parables force His person into the foreground."[28] The Markan saying in which Jesus distinguishes Himself, as Son, from men and angels (xiii. 32) is set aside;[29] the filial consciousness implied in the repeated use by Jesus of the expressions, "My Father," "your Father," "the Father," but never "our Father," is attributed to later theological reflection,[30] and the narratives of the divine voice at the Baptism and the Transfiguration are discredited. Similarly the incidental claims which Jesus makes for Himself in forgiving sin, in speaking of Himself as the "Bridegroom," the Physician who came to cure the moral ills of men, and as Lord of the Sabbath, are all referred to secondary strata of tradition or to dogmatic overworking of the facts.[31]
So drastic is the process by which Bousset attempts to reduce the consciousness of Jesus to a purely human level that he even rejects the major part of the narrative of the Trial and Crucifixion. Whatever differences there may be in detail, there is no room for doubt that the charge upon which Jesus was put to death is correctly given by John. "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" (John xix. 7). We may believe that the result would have been different if for one moment He had disclaimed divine prerogatives, and said, "I am of thy brethren the prophets: worship God."
If it be denied that Jesus made these claims before and at His trial, the cause of His death is unknown. This is admitted by Bousset, who rejects the whole account of the trial, including the question of Pilate, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" (Mark xv. 2), and the title on the cross, retaining only the accusation that He said "I will destroy this temple" (Mark xiv. 58; xv. 29). Apart from this concrete accusation, not in itself sufficient, because not blasphemy "in the strict juristic sense of the word," it is admitted that "we cannot say any more with exactness why Jesus was condemned by Pilate."[32] In the answer of Jesus to the high priest, telling of the Son of Man "sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven," it is said that "we hear directly the Christian confession, 'seated on the right hand of God, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.'"[33] It is to be noted that these passages, implying in Bousset's opinion the substitution of the "day" of Jesus for the Old Testament "day of Jahweh,"[34] and implying the metaphysics of the creeds, are to be found in Mark, not in John, and in the narrative of the trial of Jesus, not in that of His resurrection.
The "isolation" of the great passage in Matthew and Luke, as to its essential content, is thus made out only by a thoroughgoing process of elimination running through the whole story of the Gospels. Every page of the Gospels testifies, in fact, to Jesus' consciousness of a unique relation to God and to men; and an examination of His teaching in whatever part or whatever context confirms the judgment of von DobschÜtz that "Jesus implicitly stands everywhere in the centre of His gospel. The 'I am He,' which is recognized as the leading motive of the Fourth Gospel, runs through all His words also in the Synoptics."[35] The self-revelation of Jesus and the great invitation of Matthew xi. 25-30 may be the climax of Synoptic teaching as to the relation of Jesus alike to the Father and to mankind (unless the words of the risen Christ, Matt. xxviii. 18-20, are so regarded), but the passage is no alien or intrusive element in its context. If it is the high point of Synoptic teaching, it is the capstone of a pyramid firmly and broadly supported by the whole Synoptic narrative.
Carlyle has said that the greatness of a character is measured by the contrasts it exhibits. The words of Jesus we have been studying, taken in their entirety and in their context, show the contrasts between knowledge and humility, between power and humility, and, when the woes on the cities are contrasted with the invitation, "Come unto me," between sternness and tenderness. When Socrates was told by the oracle that he was the wisest of men, he was in perplexity for a time, but finally decided that he was wise because he recognized his own ignorance. In His knowledge of the Father and in the mystery of His own person, Jesus places Himself on an equality with God. Yet this knowledge did not "puff up." There was no need with Jesus as with Peter for the moment of spiritual insight to be followed by a rebuke for presumption; nor did He need like Paul, because of the greatness of the revelation, to have the thorn in the flesh lest He be exalted above measure. These contrasts, not found in any other historical character, are a self-authenticating feature of the words of Jesus. All of His actions, in fact, and all of His attitudes towards men, whether they were friends or foes, and all His words, whether of compassion, forgiveness, warning or indignation, were those of a "Prince and a Saviour," a Prince in majesty and power and a Saviour in pity. Both deeds and words showed that union of qualities which it would be impossible to invent, "the self-assertion of the great example of humility."
IV. The Dilemma of Historical Criticism
An indirect evidence of transcendent elements in the consciousness of Jesus, and of the essential harmony between His teaching and that of Paul, is furnished by the increasingly skeptical tendency of liberal criticism and the complete skepticism in which that criticism has culminated. We must discount, say the extreme Liberal critics in effect, the Ascension and Resurrection narratives, because they were written under the belief that Jesus was the exalted Son of God. We must discount the Passion narrative because dominated by the belief that Jesus was and claimed to be the Messiah; we must discount the miracles, and must take from the Gospel page everything that indicates that Jesus claimed divine prerogatives, or Messianic honours, or used titles such as "the Christ," "the Son of God," "Lord," or even "the Son of Man," because these betray the dogmatic views of the Church. But why not go further with the "mythical" school and discount the whole narrative because written under the prepossession that Jesus was an historical character? If the faith of the Church—"the enemy of history"—has been able to create those features in the portrait of Christ which have been regarded as significant for religion during the ages of Christendom, why cannot its creative activity have extended to the historical foundation? Why could it not have created its portrait of Jesus out of nothing, or at least out of the social strivings and religious needs and practices of a syncretic age?
The mythical hypothesis, it is clear, is not a mere eccentricity of criticism. It is more than an effort of youthful audacity in scholarship striving to gain public attention. It is the natural, if not the inevitable, outcome of the direction in which criticism, discarding more and more of the Gospel narrative, and deserting more and more, it may be said, the sure ground of historical evidence, has been moving. The method of a progressive reduction of the sources and elimination of unacceptable material has been only pushed by the Radicals to an extreme. The Radicals, avowedly basing themselves on the Liberals, contend that the latter have stopped at an untenable half-way position. Thus Drews says that since the days of Strauss doubts of the historical existence of Jesus have never been lulled to rest;[36] and Reinach, avoiding Drews' extreme, yet declares that "it is contrary to every sound method to compose, as Renan did, a life of Jesus, eliminating the marvellous elements of the Gospel story. It is no more possible to make real history with myths than to make bread with the pollen of flowers."[37] It was thought that an irreducible minimum had been reached in Schmiedel's famous nine "foundation-pillars" for a scientific life of Christ,[38] but even these are shattered by the modern critical artillery.[39]
When Schmiedel finds the bed-rock of historical truth in a few expressions or incidents which run counter to the general intention of the Gospel writers, it is open to W. B. Smith to base an elaborate argument upon a single phrase or even word "the things concerning Jesus," or "the Jesus," Acts xviii. 25; xxviii. 21, etc., in favour of a pre-Christian Jesus-cult.[40] And when Bousset with the Gospels before him confesses that we cannot know certainly why Jesus was put to death, it is open for Frazer and Reinach to transform the Crucifixion into a sort of Haman-and-Mordecai play;[41] or even for J. M. Robertson, criticizing Frazer, to say that the capital error of the latter is in the postulate that Jesus existed at all.[42] It must be confessed that there is a facile descent from the "reduced Christianity" of the extreme Liberals to the reductio ad absurdum of the Radicals, and that the difference between them is often one of degree rather than of principle. The astringents used to remove the brilliant colours of miracle and transcendence have proved so strong as to destroy the portrait they were intended to restore. By proposing the dilemma, A miraculous Christ or a mythical Christ, the Radicals have shown the difficulty of drawing the picture of an historical Jesus from which the transcendent elements have been removed. It should be noticed further that the "historical" Jesus who is left has a diminishing importance for religion, and even for ethics. When Jesus is reduced to the level of mere humanity, that humanity is apt to be of an inferior order. He accepts the title and rÔle of Messiah unwillingly, as a burden and under compulsion from His followers, or under the strong delusion that, defeated in His earthly mission, He would immediately come in glory. In either case there is an element of weakness, whether intellectual or moral, in His character; He cannot be the supreme example and moral leader of humanity. Or else, relieved of the Messianic burden in the imagination of the critic, He becomes a "warrior for the truth,"[43] a sort of Galilean Socrates, the wisest and best of men, but with no clear outlines in His personality and no distinctive traits in His message.
Whether the Founder of the Christian religion be pictured as "merely a pious preacher of morality in the sense of present day liberalism,"[44] or a "psychopathic anomaly," obsessed with the idea that He was the Messiah, the picture is not convincing to the historian any more than it is consoling to the Christian. In neither picture can the Christ of the Gospels or the Christ of Christian experience be recognized. Matters are not mended when extremes meet, and Jesus is pictured as at once the sunny and serene Galilean pietist, and the rapt ecstatic obsessed by the thought of His own immediate and glorious return—a deluded enthusiast who saw life steadily and saw it whole. If the representation is not that of a moral or mental weakling, below the level of the normal in clearness of outlook upon life or in sincerity and decision of character, we are left with a largely imaginary figure, from which most of the concrete features have been removed. We do not know what manner of man He was, nor, it must be acknowledged, does it matter very much for religion whether He was at all; for with the increasing vagueness in the historical portrait of Jesus, there comes inevitably a weakening of His influence as a teacher whether of religion or morals.
His gospel, in the first place, was never intended to become universal, since the Gentile mission is attributed to the influence of later ecclesiastical ideas. But is not the content of Jesus' religious teaching, the Fatherhood of God and the value of the soul, unaffected by any views which are held as to His Person? Tendencies are observable in modern thought which are not reassuring upon this point; and, in fact, the history of thought shows that theism, apart from the support of Christian doctrine, is apt to pass into a pantheistic mysticism or a semi-deistic naturalism. The Fatherhood of God may be regarded as too anthropomorphic a conception, and a semi-pantheistic "all-Father" may be substituted for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Strauss, while he is the classical example, is not alone in this passage from Liberal Christianity to a more complete skepticism which gives up theistic belief. It is not surprising that in certain circles the expression "Christian pantheism" is now heard, and that a sympathetic attitude towards pantheism should be shown by the Liberal critic. Thus J. Weiss says: "Pantheism may, indeed, have its limitations and defects, yet, without doubt, it lies very near to our time, inspired as it is by both scientific and artistic ideas. Why should we not recognize this form of religious life alongside of other forms, in case it finds vital expression in emotion and action?"[45]
On the other hand, the theistic content of Jesus' teaching is immeasurably strengthened when enforced by His divine authority, and read in the light of His Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. As Drews remarks: "The chief obstacle to a monistic religion and attitude is the belief irreconcilable with reason or history, in the historical reality of a 'unique,' ideal, and unsurpassable redeemer."[46] Certainly the assurance that God is a loving Father and that we are His children, said to be the essence of Christianity, is wonderfully safeguarded and buttressed by the doctrines, or facts, of an Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Christ.
Whatever happens to the Christian doctrines and the Christian history, many will declare that the ethical teaching of Jesus will remain, and will continue to exercise its empire over the lives of men. But such an inference finds little support in present conditions. An aggressive militarism maintains that each nation should be free to develop its own religious ideas, and chides Strauss with half-way measures in holding to Christian ethics while discarding Christian doctrines and miracles. A militant feminism which objects to the marriage service, and a militant socialism which sees in the family the main support of the right of private property, will not, if they have their way, leave the marriage relation unaffected. Jesus taught, we are reminded, in a pre-scientific and a pre-Darwinian age. His teaching, in fact, whatever its acknowledged excellence and importance, was but a phase, and that not the final phase, of moral evolution. His teaching, as many hold, was only an Interimsethik, not intended to be the norm for all men and all time. There is no assurance that even the character of Christ will remain undimmed in splendour, and undiminished in power of appeal, for there is no evidence for sinlessness, except evidence which is rejected on the ground of exaggeration or idealization in the case of miracles, and other claims implying the supernatural. Christian ethics doubtless makes an appeal of its own, but apart from the support of Christology its supremacy is by no means assured. If we go back to the moral teaching or to the example of Jesus alone, there will be no teaching with authority, no divine Teacher who is the Truth, and no regenerative power of the Spirit behind the teaching. The power of Christ's example lies in the union of humility and authority. "Take Christ's difference from us out of Christianity and His identity with us loses all its glorious power." If their Lord and Master washes the disciples' feet, the example comes with the force of a divine command: "Ye ought also to wash one another's feet." It is not merely a beautiful act to be admired (or perhaps by some to be despised); it is a divine imperative to be obeyed.
The strongest argument for a doctrinal Christianity is not the indirect one to be found in the lessening significance of a merely human-historical Jesus, and the tendency of His figure to become dim upon the field of history, and of His voice to die away as an echo over the Judean hills. It is rather to be found in the positive evidence of the Christian documents, in the testimony of Christian experience, and in the broader effects of a doctrinal Christianity in the course of the centuries.
The statements of Harnack in his later essays show the inadequacy of a gospel which does not include in its content the Person of the Redeemer. "Only God is the Redeemer—and yet Christendom calls Jesus of Nazareth its Redeemer. How is this contradiction to be solved?"[47] It is a fact that He is the inner possession of His own. "But that which lies behind this fact, which is expressed in the confession 'Christ liveth in me,' the persuasion of the eternal life of Christ, of His power and glory, that is a secret of the faith which mocks all explanation."[48] When there is such a contradiction between experience and theory, it will be natural to question the adequacy of a theory which finds no interpretation for the deepest experiences of religion. Harnack, indeed, goes far towards admitting the harmony between the gospel of Jesus and that of Paul when he says: "The 'first' gospel contains the truth, the 'second' [Paul's gospel of redemption] the way, and both together the life."[49]
There is in essence but one gospel, differently presented by Jesus and Paul, whose focal point in the teaching of both is Christ and Him crucified. The differences, as shown by von DobschÜtz in a notable essay, explain themselves naturally from the situation. In John and Paul there is only expansion and repetition of what was contained implicitly in the words of Jesus in the Synoptists. The later time was not creative, but only selected and developed; its message was an echo, not a new utterance. In the teaching of Paul as compared with that of Jesus there are three points of difference: (1) the person of Jesus is much more strongly emphasized; (2) His death and resurrection appear as basal redemptive acts; and (3) everything is brought into connection with redemption from sin. All three of these differences are explained by the historical situation. Jesus Himself had brought them to God, and His resurrection had brought them out of their despair and strengthened their faith and given them courage for preaching. As to the differences, two considerations should be borne in mind: "That the gospel should be differently set forth before the death of Jesus than it was after that event is not to be wondered at; and, secondly, it is also natural that the standpoint and exposition of the recipients of grace should be different from the attitude of One who was free from sin, and knew that He was sent to bring man to God."[50]
In the future as in the past, we may believe, doctrinal Christianity, that is a Christianity broad enough to include the teaching and example, and the person and passion and resurrection of Christ, will be for men and nations the power of God unto salvation. If the essence of a thing is shown in its activity, the essence of Christianity cannot be separated from its doctrinal content. Certainly it was Christianity in a doctrinal form that inspired the greatest achievements of the Christian Church in the course of her history. It was doctrinal Christianity that loosed the bonds of Jewish legalism, inspired the missionary enterprise of the primitive and the modern church, raised the standard of the Reformation, laid the foundations of modern democracy, and guided the sanest and bravest attempts at social reform.
Our argument has been that the primitive gospel which began to be preached by the Lord was a doctrinal gospel, a gospel of the Kingdom, the Cross and the Son of God, that no other message can be found with any distinctness within or beneath the Gospel records, and that this has been at the basis of Christian experience and of the life of the Christian Church. The gospel of the grace of God is the gospel of the glory of Christ.
