Four universals were contained in the last commands of the Risen Christ: "All authority has been given unto me. Go, disciple all the nations, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you all the days." If the marching orders of the Church were to be obeyed, the Christian Faith must be brought into contact and into conflict not only with Judaism but with all the ethnic faiths. If its program is to be carried out successfully, Christianity must supersede all other religions. In this lecture we must consider the relation of Christianity to ancient religions, or those prevalent in the Roman Empire at the time of its founding, and then its relation to modern religions.

I. Christianity and Ancient Religions

That the religion of the cross, which started in a despised and persecuted sect among a people without intellectual or military prestige, should in three centuries become the state religion of the Roman Empire, is often spoken of as the miracle of history. The early missionary could not appeal to military force or to an obviously superior type of civilization, and the wonder is not that Christianity conquered the Roman world but that it ever secured a foothold at all. The familiar argument has been: "We can account for the progress of Christianity, against obstacles and without outward aids, only upon the assumption that a divine power was working within."

Since the rise of the "religious-historical school" in Germany some dozen years ago, the question of Christianity's relation to contemporary religions has come up in a new form, and has been brought into the foreground of theological discussion. The victory of early Christianity, it is asserted, is due to the fact that Paul not merely presented it to the Romans in a juridical form, but that he preached the myth or mystery of a dying and rising Saviour to the myth loving Greeks; and it is even said that the New Testament portrait of Christ, whatever historical reality lies behind it, is in fact a sort of glorified composite photograph made out of the elements of a Jewish Messiah, a Greek Apollo or Adonis and an Egyptian Osiris. The claim is made by the more extreme members of the "religious-historical school" that every feature of Christianity that was supposed to be original, and indeed practically the whole Gospel narrative, can be parallelled closely or remotely in Persian, Hindu, Syrian, Egyptian or Greek religious literature, or in the Old Testament and the teaching of the philosophers.

The reasons for Christianity's triumph over other religions may be still to seek, but its claim to supernatural authority is called in question by the recent movement in scholarship which has taken as its motto, The study of the Christian Faith in the light of the history of religions. "It would be strange indeed," a writer has remarked, "if such parallels did not raise new questionings in the place of old certainties. If the accounts of miraculous births and resurrections are plainly fabulous when we meet with them in other faiths, are they necessarily historical when they occur in the Christian Scriptures? At any rate we feel that stringent evidence will be required to prove them so."[216]

When we study the relation between early Christianity and the religions of the time it is clear that some established principles are needed to control the comparison. When it is discovered, for instance, that Confucius had seventy-two disciples and an inner circle of ten "select ones," and that he spoke the Golden Rule in a negative form, does it follow that the Gospel accounts of the choice of the twelve and of the seventy were borrowed from Confucius? Clemen's formulation of the principles that must govern the comparison will be generally accepted:

(1) "A religious-historical explanation is impossible if it leads to untenable consequences or proceeds from untenable presuppositions. (2) The sense of the New Testament passage, as well as the contents of the non-Jewish idea, must first be fully ascertained. (3) We ought never to assume that ideas of an advanced religion have been altogether borrowed, until we have done our best to discover any germs of them in the native religious literature. (4) The non-Jewish idea that is brought in as an explanation must really in some degree correspond to the Christian one. (5) This element must have been already in existence: an idea that is subsequent in its emergence cannot, of course, have given rise to one previously existent. (6) It must be shown in regard to any foreign idea that it was really in a position to influence Christianity, or Judaism before it, and how."[217] To these might be added that the possibility of coincidence must not be overlooked.

With these principles, most of them self-evident, in our minds, let us glance at the topics of immediate interest in our present field: (1) The Virgin Birth and its parallels; (2) the worship of Christ and the Emperor-cult; and (3) Christianity and the Mystery Religions.

1. In its relation to the stories of current mythology, the Virgin Birth was a subject of active discussion in the time of the fathers. The patristic apologists make two points in referring to the mythological parallels. On the one hand, the similarity of the Gospel story in its supernatural element to the stories prevalent at the time is appealed to in order to commend it to the acceptance of the Greeks. Thus Justin says: "We propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter."[218] Similarly Origen says: "There is no absurdity in employing Grecian histories to answer Greeks with a view to showing that we are not the only persons who have recourse to miraculous narratives of this kind."[219] On the other hand, the difference between the Christian and the heathen stories is appealed to as proof of the moral and historical superiority of the Gospel narratives. Justin says that the Virgin conceived "not by intercourse but by power;"[220] and Origen, referring to a tradition about the birth of Plato, says that such stories are "veritable fables."[221]

The notion is popular to-day that stories of the birth of a god or a hero from a virgin are common in non-Christian religions, and the remark is heard that the Virgin Birth of Jesus would be credible were it not for these parallels. A closer examination shows, however, that while supernatural births were the common property of most ancient religions, the Virgin Birth was a distinctive and spontaneous feature of Christianity. Thus Clemen remarks that "what we find in Indian thought (at any rate in earlier times) is not a Virgin Birth in the proper sense of that term, but only a miraculous birth, and one of quite a different type from the birth of Jesus."[222] Alluding to the fact that Buddhism was so entirely outside the western range of vision as to be noticed very meagrely in the Greek and Roman literature, Clemen says that "if there are similarities that cannot be accidental between this later Buddhistic literature and the New Testament, the question would arise whether the former could not be dependent upon the latter,"[223] since Christianity penetrated early to India.

Clemen quotes Franckh to the effect that "none of these personages that play the part of a mother-goddess is thought of as a virgin. It is only in the course of time that Ishtar is everywhere put in the place of the earlier mother-goddesses.... As mother-goddess, Ishtar has no male god who permanently corresponds to her. This is the reason why she is vaguely spoken of as the 'virgin' Ishtar. But it must be emphatically asserted that here the idea of virginity undergoes a vague deflection."[224]

Of the parallels adduced, only two are clearly cases of birth from a virgin: Simon Magus (Clem. Recog. II, 14) and a certain Terebinthus (Acta Archelai et Manetis, c. 52), both of whom claimed to be born from a virgin; but, as GrÜtzmacher remarks, these stories arose under Christian influences and are found in post-Christian writings so that they are not the root but the product of the Gospel narratives;[225] and E. Petersen admits that in these cases there may be a simple taking over of the supernatural birth of Jesus.[226]

In the GrÆco-Roman myths there is always some fleshly or sensible medium. Both the essential difference in the Gospel narratives, and the lack of any proved avenue of influence leading to these narratives, with their strongly Jewish colouring, from heathen sources, makes the theory of derivation from these sources most improbable.

2. The famous Priene inscription, dated about the year 9 b. c., has shown that the titles given to the Emperor Augustus were strikingly similar to those addressed by Christians to Christ. The day of the Emperor's birth was of great significance for the human race; he is called Saviour of men, he is to abolish war and bring general happiness; and the inscription declares that "the birthday of the god was for the world the beginning of tidings of joy on his account."[227] Both religions again, the worship of Christ and the Emperor-cult, were universal religions, the essential difference being that the former excluded, while the latter tolerated, other forms of worship. Did the Christian Church derive its worship of Christ as Lord, or even such titles as "Saviour" and "Lord," from the Emperor-worship of the time?

The deification of a king was by no means an unfamiliar thing in the ancient and especially in the oriental world. The kings of Egypt are said to have worshipped themselves. To the offer of Alexander the Great to rebuild the burnt temple of Diana at Ephesus, the shrewd reply of the priests, not wishing to offend either Persia or Greece, was that it was not fitting for one deity to build the temple of another. The ascription of divine honours to the Emperor was a victory of eastern influences over Roman thought. Emperor worship was (1) a compliment to the ruler; (2) a kind of personification of the genius of the Empire, as perhaps in the case of the Mikado to-day; and (3) a convenient neutral religion, since no existing cult could be universal, binding all peoples together in a necessary religious bond. While not taken very seriously by the astute rulers themselves, it may also have been to many minds "an actual breaking out of religious longing," such as seems to be expressed in Vergil's "Fourth Eclogue," for a heaven-sent deliverer and saviour.

To Jews and Christians alike, however, the idea of the worship of the Emperor was in the highest degree abhorrent. This is shown by the fierce opposition to the setting up of the statue of Caligula in the Temple, by the refusal of the early Christians to worship the genius of the CÆsars under pain of death, and by the parallel accounts in the Acts and Josephus of the death of Herod, both Jewish and Christian authors describing his sudden death as a judgment upon his impiety in accepting divine honours. With Paul the "setting himself forth as God" was a mark of the man of sin (2 Thess. ii. 3, 4). It is then improbable in the highest degree that an idea so repellent alike to Jewish and Christian thought could have been in any way responsible for the worship of Christ as divine.

But was it not possible that such titles as "Lord" and "Saviour" should on Gentile soil have been unconsciously taken over by the Christians, suggested to them by the growing use of these terms as addressed to the Emperor and their free ascription to heathen deities? This position has been defended by Bousset, who says that "it was in the air that the first Hellenistic Christian community should give to its cult-hero the title Kyrios (Lord)."[228] Even this theory of an unconscious verbal influence exerted on Gentile soil is full of difficulty. To maintain that the title "Lord" originated in the Gentile-Christian church it is necessary, of course, to discard the evidence of all the documents, the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistles. It must be denied that Jesus called Himself Lord, or that the title was given Him in the Jerusalem church. Doubt must be thrown upon the whole record of the apostolic days in the Acts; and the evidence, in Paul's allusion to "James, the Lord's brother" (Gal. i. 19), of the use of the title in the Jerusalem church must be ignored.

Bousset's theory is that Paul did not originate the title but found it already in use by the Gentile church. But there is no evidence that at the time of Paul's conversion there was any church on Gentile soil that was not composed, in the main, of former Jews and of Jews who had come from Jerusalem. When it is said that "between Paul and the primitive church of Palestine stand the Hellenistic churches in Antioch, Damascus, Tarsus,"[229] it must be remembered that the church at Damascus was composed primarily of Jerusalem Christians who were persecuted to foreign cities; that the church at Antioch was founded by those from Judea, and grew under the leadership of Barnabas, a priest and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts xi. 19 f.; Gal. ii. 1, 12); and that there is no evidence that there were any Christians at Tarsus until the time of Paul's visit (Acts ix. 30; Gal. i. 21). It is hard to see how there can be any question of an entirely new title spontaneously arising from the heathen environment, and free from the influence of the church at Jerusalem.

If it be asked how Jews could dare to apply the name Kyrios, "the holy cult-name of the Old Testament Jahwe," to Jesus, the answer is suggested by Bousset himself when he says: "Therein lay a piece of monotheistic feeling: God alone should be prayed to and worshipped. This powerful religious feeling, free from all reflection, has once and again in the history of Christological dogma asserted itself."[230] The essence of the matter is that Christian converts both Jewish and Gentile called upon the name of the Lord, and worshipped Him; but it is evident that Jesus was first worshipped on Jewish soil as King of Israel, and Lord in the sense made familiar in the Old Testament (Rom. x. 9-13; Acts ii. 17, 21), before He was worshipped on Gentile soil as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Aside from all else it is highly improbable that in the time of Paul's conversion the use of the title Lord (Kyrios, Dominus) as applied to the Emperor was so wide-spread as to have exercised any appreciable influence upon Christianity. "It would after all," Bousset himself acknowledges, "in spite of all analogies in substance and words, be an erroneous and over-hasty inference, were we to bring the Christian Kyrios-cult and its origin into immediate connection with the cult of the CÆsars. In the time and in the regions in which the Kyrios-Jesus cult arose, the worship of the ruler scarcely as yet had possessed so dominating a rÔle that the worship of Jesus as Lord must be regarded as having arisen in conscious opposition to it."[231]

The conscious opposition no doubt came later, as Deissmann has suggested, when the cult of the Christ went forth into the Roman world and endeavoured to reserve for itself words which had just been transferred to the deified emperors, or had been invented for that worship. "Thus there arises," he says, "a polemical parallelism between the cult of the emperor and the cult of Christ, which makes itself felt where ancient words derived by Christianity from the treasury of the Septuagint and the Gospels happen to coincide with solemn concepts of the Imperial cult which sounded the same or similar."[232] It was inevitable that, as Paul preached Jesus Christ as Lord, the contrast between the Christian worship and the worship of the CÆsars should suggest itself, together with their irreconcilable antagonism. This "polemical parallelism" is probably expressed in such titles as "our only Master and Lord" (Jude 4), "Every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. ii. 11), and "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Rev. xix. 16).

3. The relation of Paul to the Mystery Religions of his time is a topic which has of late been actively discussed. A thesis now widely maintained has been expressed by Loisy in an epigrammatic form: "The mystery of Paul's conversion is his conversion to the mysteries." To discuss the question in all its bearings, one would need a general acquaintance with classical literature, a special knowledge of religious conditions in the early Roman Empire, and, most important of all, a first-hand exegetical knowledge of Paul's epistles.

A marked feature of the age in which the Apostle lived was a merging of deities, and the practice of oriental cults side by side with the official Roman religion and the worship of the CÆsar. This syncretism was promoted by the tolerance of an official religious indifferentism, and by a pantheistic philosophy which was hospitable to the worship of a multiplicity of deities as aspects of the One and the All. At a time when the Orontes was pouring its waters into the Tiber, the mysteries of the oriental religions were actively propagated in the West and coalesced with the mysteries practiced among the Greeks.

In spite of the labours of philologists and archÆologists, our knowledge of the ritual of the various mysteries and even of the ideas symbolized is comparatively slight. It can still be said with Cumont that, "shut out from the sanctuary like profane outsiders, we hear only the indistinct echo of the sacred songs and not even in imagination can we attend the celebration of the mysteries."[233]

The moral effect of the mystery cults is also a matter of some doubt. Plato, as we know (PhÆdo, 69 D, 81 A), had a high opinion of the Greek mysteries; but the cruel and sensual rites of the oriental religions scandalized the Latin writers as well as the Christian apologists. Even Cumont, who thinks that the mystery cults were superior in their religious appeal and influence to the cold, prosaic and austere Roman religion, admits that by the adoption of the mysteries "barbarous, cruel and obscene practices were undoubtedly spread."[234] It is evident that the oriental religions became spiritualized in course of time, and that the various deities at least of Egypt and of Syria came to be conceived, in accordance with the dominant philosophy, in a henotheistic or pantheistic way. Uhlhorn thinks that oriental worship "with all its distortions was more profound, and contained unconscious presages of the Deity who has indeed in birth and death descended to redeem us."[235]

When Paul preached "the mystery of God which is Christ" (Col. ii. 2), he incorporated into Christianity, it is said, in adapting it to the Gentile world, features which were common to the mystery brotherhoods of the day, and virtually transformed it into a mystery religion. Pauline Christianity, say the extreme advocates of this view, adopted its vocabulary, its missionary methods, its philosophical and religious ideas, its sacraments and symbolism, its mystical experiences and even its organization, from the compound of oriental mysticism and Greek philosophy which was popular in the cities which Paul visited.

The points in dispute will appear if we glance at the Pauline doctrine of the sacraments, and of dying and rising with Christ, and then at the Pauline vocabulary.

That the ritual of the mysteries had something in common with the Christian sacraments is shown by the fact that the charge of borrowing was made from both sides in early times. The Christian writers accuse the heathen priests of a blasphemous parody of the Christian sacraments inspired by the spirit of lies, and the priests retorted that the sacraments were a plagiarism from the mysteries. Cumont believes that both were much mistaken.

The material for comparison is somewhat meagre because baptism is not prominent in Paul's epistles. He never mentions his own baptism, and, aside from I Corinthians i., in which he says that he was not sent to baptize, he uses the verb in but four passages (I Cor. x. 2; xii. 13; xv. 29; Gal. iii. 27); the noun in two (Eph. iv. 5; Col. ii. 12); and both verb and noun in one passage (Rom. vi. 3-4). In the mysteries there were lustrations with salt water, water of the Nile and sacred water, but little is known of the exact significance of the rituals. Kennedy is not persuaded that it meant regeneration.[236] There was no baptizing "in the name of" the gods.

On the other hand we know little of any sacrificial meal in the mysteries corresponding to the Eucharist. Reitzenstein observes that unless a happy chance sheds more light upon the use and meaning of the mystery-meals common in most cults, a comparison with the sacraments remains only "a play with possibilities."[237] Clemen thinks that both the institution of the Lord's Supper by Jesus and its continued observance are fully explained without bringing in foreign influences.[238]

It is probable that the mystery cults exerted an influence upon the later development of sacramental doctrine, but this is aside from our question. Thus Wendt would place the influence of the mystery religions upon the Christian sacraments in the post-Pauline age, and thinks that "to Acts we owe the undoubtedly correct tradition that these Christian rites go back to a date preceding the Hellenistic mission of Paul, and must be sought for in the very earliest practice of the Apostolic community."[239] Hatch also believes that between apostolic and post-apostolic times the sacraments were modified in important respects under the influence of the mysteries. "The primitive 'see here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?' passed into a ritual which at every turn recalls the ritual of the mysteries."[240]

Those who push back the influence of the mysteries upon the sacraments to the teaching of Paul himself are compelled to interpret the Apostle's language, contrary, we believe, to the best exegetical tradition, in a physical or what is called an ex opere operato sense. It is significant that when the sacraments are so interpreted they appear to be a foreign element in Paul's system. "It is no wonder that interpreters like HeitmÜller and Weinel, who attribute a magical view of the sacraments to Paul, are concerned to point out that his sacramentalism is a sort of erratic boulder in his system as a whole."[241] We are reminded of Clemen's principle that the sense of the New Testament passage should be fully ascertained before dependence is assumed.

When von DobschÜtz says that "the unique sacramental conception of the Early Church, which has no analogy in the history of religion because it belongs essentially to the Christian religion, has its origin solely in Christian faith and Christian experience,"[242] the same may be said of Paul's doctrine of dying and rising again with Christ. When Paul says "buried with him in baptism" (Rom. vi. 4 and Col. ii. 12), he speaks of no pantheistic or magical union with the deity such as seemed to dominate the thought of the mysteries, so far as their meaning can be ascertained. In both contexts Paul immediately goes on to exhortation. "Let not sin reign" (Rom. vi. 12), "Seek the things above; mortify your members" (Col. iii. 1-5). It should further be noticed that the passage most relied upon to prove Paul's borrowing from the mysteries (Rom. vi.) was addressed to a church which Paul did not found, composed of both Jewish and Gentile Christians. The doctrine in question was not put forth as a novelty, but is assumed to be known to them: "Are ye ignorant, etc.?" (Rom. vi. 3).

Paul's doctrine of dying and rising with Christ is ethical rather than "metaphysical" or magical or sacramental. It is surprising to find how little sacramental it is. With no allusion to his own baptism or to the Lord's Supper he says, "I have been crucified with Christ. The world is crucified to me and I to the world" (Gal. ii. 20; vi. 14). "Christ died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. v. 14). "To know Christ, to be found in him, to be transformed into his death" (Phil. iii. 8 f.). His doctrine is based upon a personal experience of grace, and this is associated with the Cross rather than with the sacraments. The bond which mediated his union with Christ in His death was faith. It was through faith that the Spirit is to be received (Gal. iii. 14), and even when he says, "Christ liveth in me," he adds, "I live in the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. ii. 20, and see Eph. iii. 17). He would gain Christ that he might have "the righteousness of God through faith" (Phil. iii. 9). The Cross and not the sacraments was central alike in the Apostle's experience and in his doctrine of dying and rising with Christ, and the bond of union between him and Christ was faith. There was no mystical absorption of personality as in the Hermetic prayers: "Thou art I, and I am thou."

Finally the Pauline mystery was distinguished from the heathen mysteries by its connection with an historical Person. In the Pauline mystery, it has been said, the divine appeared in a "concrete and comprehensible guise," and "this connection of a religious principle with a Person who had walked upon earth and suffered death was a phenomenon of singular power and originality."[243] There is a world of difference between the nature-myths, underlying the mysteries, of the annually dying and rising vegetation gods, without historical reality, and promising to the initiated release from transitoriness and mortality, and the record of Christ who died for our sins, and who being raised from the dead dieth no more. To say that Paul not only conformed the Lord's Supper to the heathen mysteries, but invented it in imitation of the mysteries, is to accuse him of deliberate misstatement; for in a passage of unusual solemnity (I Cor. xi. 23 ff.), he says that he received it of the Lord, and relates the circumstances of the institution of the Supper by Jesus Himself.

The argument from vocabulary is relied upon by Reitzenstein to prove the influence of heathen ideas upon the thought of the Apostle. It is his theory that Paul spent the two years of inner disturbance, in part at least, in the study of Hellenistic religion and philosophy, and that this influence helped him in the construction of a new religion. In substance Reitzenstein's argument is that Paul shows the use of technical religious terms found in the Hermetic writings, especially in the "Poimandres"; and that the "Poimandres" is to be dated earlier than the "Shepherd" of Hermas; and that the conceptions it embodies were current in the Roman Empire, and in a literary form, in the time of Paul. The argument is twofold, first, that the Hermetic writings were current in the time of Paul, and, second, that Paul shows their influence in his vocabulary. As the date of the "Poimandres," the most important of the Hermetic writings, is in dispute, the latter point may be considered first.

In the Pauline vocabulary Reitzenstein believes that we have "an absolutely certain proof of the immediate influence of Hellenism upon the Apostle, and at the same time a measure of its strength."[244] "Only when the existence and meaning of a religious literature in Hellenism is assured and the sort of linguistic dependence is seen to depend on literary mediation is the opportunity of an explanation afforded."[245] Many words thought to be characteristically Pauline are said to have been technical terms in the popular mystery cults of the day, before the Apostle adopted them as the expression of his own religious teaching.

Without attempting to follow the argument in detail, we may observe (a) that Paul uses many of these terms in a different sense from that of the Hermetic literature. Compare, for example, Paul's use of familiar words such as "salvation," "glory," "grace," with that of the Magic Papyri. In "Hermes-Prayer I," the petition is for "health, salvation, prosperity, glory, victory, power, loveliness."[246] So in "Prayer II," "Give me grace, food, victory, good luck, loveliness, etc."[247] Again in "Hermes-Prayer III," we read, "Save me always from drugs and deceit, and all witchcraft and evil tongues and all trouble, from all hate both of Gods and men. Give me grace and victory and business and success; for Thou art I, and I am Thou.... I am thy image."[248] In these prayers from the later Hermes-Thot religion, the Pauline terms are evidently used in a worldly sense, contrasting strongly with their use by Paul.

(b) Much of the technical phraseology common to Paul and the Hermetic literature is current in the Old Testament; and with the language of the Old Testament we know that Paul's mind was saturated. Clemen's maxim should be observed, and we should seek the source of an idea (or word) in the native religion before going farther afield. Thus before Paul's doctrine of the Spirit is assigned with confidence to Hellenistic sources, the use of the term Spirit both in the Old Testament and in pre-Pauline Christianity should be studied. Paul quotes the passage from Joel which promises the outpouring of the Spirit (Rom. x. 13 f.; see Acts ii. 21). He brings the Spirit into connection with the blessing of Abraham (Gal. iii. 14). The Spirit is also mentioned in the introduction to the ministry of Jesus alike by Mark and by the non-Markan source. A sufficient and natural explanation of Paul's doctrine of the Spirit is to be found in the Old Testament, in Evangelical tradition and in the experience of the church at Pentecost, and in his own experience. When Paul speaks of "the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, 'Abba, Father'" (Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv. 6), we have to do not with remote literary influences nor with the dry bones of any technical theology, Hebraic or Hermetic, but with the heart-throb of personal experience.

Reitzenstein believes that the Pauline vocabulary is best explained by the Hellenistic parallels, but he recognizes that the parallelism with the Old Testament should be considered. Thus while he thinks that he has shown parallels for all the Pauline uses of the word pneuma, he says "whether with equal ease all may be explained from the Hebraic use of ruach and nephesh or the use of pneuma in the Septuagint the theologian must decide."[249] Harnack, with some irony, advises Reitzenstein and his school to gain a clearer knowledge of Paul the Jew and Paul the Christian before they take account of secondary elements which he borrowed from the Greek mysteries. A conscious acceptance, he thinks, of such elements is out of the question.[250]

If the Hermetic writings are to be dated later than the time of Paul, then the question of literary influence is reversed. Similarity in words will then be due to coincidence or to the prevalence of a common religious vocabulary, or else, as has recently been said, "if it is necessary to suppose literary connection, the artificial literary composition of 'Poimandres' makes it more probable that the borrowing was on that side."[251] The question hinges upon the date of the "Poimandres," which it has been usual, at least since the middle of the seventeenth century, to assign to the age of Porphyry. Hermes has been regarded as "a convenient pseudonym to place at the head of the numerous syncretic writings in which it was sought to combine Neo-Platonic philosophy, Philonic Judaism and cabalistic theosophy, and so provide the world with some acceptable substitute for Christianity."[252]

By a brilliant tour de force and with great learning Reitzenstein has sought to reverse this relationship, and to show that the original form of these writings, or at least the fixed religious ideas, vocabulary and ritual which they presuppose, antedated Pauline Christianity and profoundly influenced the writings of Paul and of John. He argues that the "Shepherd" of Hermas is dependent upon the "Poimandres," relying mainly upon two points: the similarity between the two writings in their introductions, and the fact that in the "Shepherd" the divine messenger appears on a mountain, Arcadia, which was the alleged birthplace of Hermes and a centre of the Hermes cult. The significant points of the introduction may thus be shown:

The decisive thing in the comparison is said to be not the change of form nor the assurance that the revealing spirit would always be with the prophet, "but that he revealed himself, to the heathen as the Shepherd of men (Menschenhirten), to the Christian as the Shepherd of this man."[254] The comparison leads Reitzenstein to the twofold conclusion that the "Shepherd" of Hermas has taken over awkwardly a type foreign to Christian revelation literature, and that "the Christian borrowed that description of the shepherd from an originally fuller text."[255]

The argument for borrowing is obviously weakened by the admission that Hermas did not borrow from the extant "Poimandres" but from an assumed earlier form of the text; and, further, it is by no means clear why the figure of the shepherd, familiar in the Old Testament and in the Gospel parables, should be a foreign type in Christian literature. Nor is the case materially strengthened by the argument that a later mention of a mountain in Arcadia, in the "Shepherd," implies an acquaintance with the "Poimandres" where no mention of Arcadia, but simply of descent from a mountain, is made. It is admitted that the leading up upon a mountain is a current form of Christian literature, but it is said that "the exact choice of Arcadia is more than surprising, since the author lived in Rome, and besides saw his visions at Rome or CumÆ."[256]

It seems unnecessary to guess with Zahn that "Arikia" should be read instead of "Arkadia," or to assume that Hermas was a native of Arcadia, or had a book of travels in his hands, or that he was thinking of Hermes or the Hermetic writings. The literary tradition connecting Arcadia with shepherds and with pastoral poetry was in itself enough, as Vergil's "Eclogues" may suggest. It is admitted that Hermas was a literary man even if "a man of the people," and what more natural place for a shepherd to appear, if it was to be upon a mountain, than a mountain in Arcadia? Shepherds have suggested Arcadia from the time of Vergil to that of Sir Philip Sydney, and Vergil, in breaking away from the Sicily of Theocritus, was quite probably following a tradition already established at Rome.

An historian of Roman religion, W. Warde Fowler, says of Christianity as preached by Paul that "the plant, though grown in a soil which had borne other crops, was wholly new in structure and vital principle. I say this deliberately, after spending so many years on the study of the religion of the Romans, and making myself acquainted in some measure with the religions of other peoples. The love of Christ is the entirely new power that has come into the world; not merely as a new type of morality, but as 'a Divine influence transfiguring human nature in a universal love.' The passion of St. Paul's appeal lies in the consecration of every detail of it by reference to the life and death of the Master."[257]

The gospel which conquered the Roman Empire was no syncretic product growing from GrÆco-Roman soil, no mÉlange of oriental religions and Greek philosophy, no cunningly devised fable or myth for the myth-loving Greeks. No explanation of the character of Pauline Christianity, or of its victory over its rivals in the ancient world, can ignore the statements of Paul himself: "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son; he revealed his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles" (Gal. iv. 4; i. 16).

II. Christianity and Modern Religions

The relation of Christianity to modern religions is a matter of practical rather than theoretical interest. After the brilliant victories of the early missionary age, the activity of the church in spreading the gospel among the non-Christian peoples was for many centuries remitted, and it is only practically within the last one hundred years that the Christian Faith has been brought into actual contact, through the work of its missionaries, with the non-Christian religions.

Through its missionary propaganda Christianity has shown its genuineness and its devotion to the commands of its Founder; and so far as it has proved its ability to meet the religious needs and quicken the religious and intellectual life of diverse nationalities, it has supplied a practical demonstration of its divine origin and authority. The missionaries have supplied the church with a pattern of apostolic zeal, and have kept burning the fire of a passionate love and devotion for their Master. A British statesman has said that the unselfish imperialism of its missionary propaganda has been the crowning glory of the Anglo-Saxon race.

While the unceasing struggle of Christianity against worldliness, greed, indifference and unbelief still continues, it may be said that Christianity has to-day no rival as a claimant to be the universal religion. It alone can stand the white light of modern science, and it alone can stand the test of those moral ideals which have been largely created by itself. It is absolutely certain that none of the present ethnic religions can compete with Christianity in its contest for world supremacy.

The great danger to Christianity to-day, from the side of other religions, is not that of persecution or the hostility of the state. The danger lies in the temptation to compromise. Let Christianity, it is said, lay aside its assumption of divine and exclusive authority and of infinite superiority to all other religions, and let it make in its ethics some concessions to the weakness of human nature, and the path to world-conquest will be open.

Never was the temptation to compromise, with Judaism on the one hand and heathenism on the other, stronger than it was in the early ages of the Christian Church. If Christianity had compromised in the time of Jesus and Paul, persecution would have ceased and the scandal of the cross would have been removed. If early Christianity had compromised with heathenism, and had not waged unrelenting warfare upon idolatry, it could have escaped the united hostility of the state and of the other religions and philosophies; on the other hand, if Christianity had come to terms with Judaism or Paganism, while it might perhaps be known historically as an obscure Jewish sect, or as a ripple upon the wave of oriental religious influence upon the GrÆco-Roman world, it would never have been the mighty spiritual power that it has been in human society.

It is a mistake to-day to think that for Christianity the way of conquest is the way of compromise, and that Christianity can become a world religion, superseding all others, by laying aside its distinctive features and its exalted and exclusive claims. It would, indeed, be a mistake to import our doctrinal systems in all their controversial details into the heathen world, and the mystical oriental mind may easily clothe Christianity, itself an oriental religion, in new and more beautiful forms; but it would be, if possible, a greater mistake to attempt to substitute ethics or natural religion for doctrinal Christianity.

The rock of Islam will not yield to the preaching of a merely human and prophetic Jesus; nor will the preaching of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man—the same message which the Swamis and Babists, with a more pantheistic content to their message, preach in England and America—be effective to overthrow the hoary superstitions of India and the caste system with its hold upon every fibre of human nature.

A prominent educator and leader of thought has recently complained that Christianity as usually preached in foreign lands is unsuitable to the oriental mind. On the other hand, he chides the members of his own religious communion because they, "with magnificent ideals, with glorious concepts, with the truth of Christ in all its purity and simplicity, sit in smug content offering the world of missions, in the hour of its hunger, only the dry bones of criticism of those who already serve."[258] But every practical movement, enlisting great masses of men and demanding tremendous sacrifice for its accomplishment, must have a rational basis. A humanitarian impulse is not sufficient to carry through to a conclusion so vast and world-embracing a plan as is contemplated by Christian Missions. The impulse however strong and noble will evaporate, unless based upon and fed by a theory of what the Christian religion is, of what it offers to men, of man's need of it, and of the obligation of Christians to carry it to the non-Christian nations. The history of missions has shown that no mere feeling of benevolence or desire to better social and economic conditions, but the command of Christ, love for Christ and gratitude to Christ has led the army of missionaries to endure separation, hardship, persecution and death.

Lowell has said that every new edition of an Elizabethan dramatist "is but the putting of another witness into the box to prove the inaccessibility of Shakespeare's standpoint as poet and artist." Every comparison of Christianity with other religions, ancient and modern, brings its own superiority into stronger relief. In Jesus Christ and in Him alone have been fulfilled the great religious ideas of the race. In Him as prophet God's word is perfectly spoken, and He is the example who leads in the way of His own precepts. In Him are fulfilled the ideas of sacrifice and priesthood; He is the great High Priest, separate from sinners in His holiness, but near them in His compassion and mercy. He has put away sin and put away sacrifice by the offering of Himself once for all, and has destroyed the whole sacrificial system of Jews and Gentiles. He is the fulfillment of the idea of incarnation, of God coming to man and of the Most High visiting the children of men, for their rescue from all danger and the supply of all their needs.

In other religious and philosophical systems there have been golden maxims for the conduct of life, wonderful insights into truth and visions of beauty, and evidences of the reaching out of the human soul after God; but Christianity is the only religion of which the enlightened reason and conscience of the world can say that it is from heaven and not from men. In no other religion has there been a long period of centuries of preparation in the religious education of a people to be the recipients and the messengers, in the fullness of time, of the final revelation. In no other religion is there found a teaching so profound, and yet so simple and self-evidencing, upon the great themes of human interest, God, Immortality and Duty. From no other has gone forth an influence so beneficent and transforming in human history. In no other has there been a Calvary and an Easter Day, the great historic facts upon which the hopes of the world rest, and in no other has the undiscovered country been transformed into "the Father's house."