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Title: The Making of the New Testament
Author: Benjamin W. Bacon
Release Date: March 28, 2012 [EBook #39288]
Language: English
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THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
Editors of THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., F.B.A.
Prof. Gilbert Murray, Litt.D., LL.D., F.B.A.
Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., LL.D.
_For list of volumes in the Library see end of book._
THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
_By_ BENJAMIN W. BACON D.D.
PROFESSOR OF NEW CRITICISM AND EXEGESIS IN YALE UNIVERSITY
[Illustration]
THORNTON BUTTERWORTH LIMITED 15 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.2
_First Impression September 1912 - All Rights Reserved_
MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
CONTENTS
PART I
CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM
CHAP. PAGE
I INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION 7
II THE REACTION TO CRITICISM 33
PART II
THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE
III PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE 56
IV PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER 83
V PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES 104
PART III
THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET
VI THE MATTHÆAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS 128
VII THE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY 154
VIII THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY 185
PART IV
THE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN
IX THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES 206
X EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS 233
BIBLIOGRAPHY 251
INDEX 255
THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
PART I
CANONIZATION AND CRITICISM
CHAPTER I
INSPIRATION AND CANONIZATION
The New Testament presents the paradox of a literature born of protest
against the tyranny of a canon, yet ultimately canonized itself through
an increasing demand for external authority. This paradox is full of
significance. We must examine it more closely.
The work of Jesus was a consistent effort to set religion free from the
deadening system of the scribes. He was conscious of a direct, divine
authority. The broken lights of former inspiration are lost in the full
dawn of God's presence to His soul.
So with Paul. The key to Paul's thought is his revolt against legalism.
It had been part of his servitude to persecute the sect which claimed to
know another Way besides the "way"[1] of the scribes. These Christians
signalized their faith by the rite of baptism, and gloried in the sense
of endowment with "the Spirit." Saul was profoundly conscious of the
yoke; only he had not drammed that his own deliverance could come from
such a quarter. But contact with victims of the type of Stephen, men
"filled with the Spirit," conscious of the very "power from God" for
lack of which his soul was fainting, could not but have some effect. It
came suddenly, overwhelmingly. The real issue, as Saul saw it, both
before and after his conversion, was Law _versus_ Grace. In seeking
"justification" by favour of Jesus these Christians were opening a new
and living way to acceptance with God. Traitorous and apostate as the
attempt must seem while the way of the Law still gave promise of
success, to souls sinking like Saul's deeper and deeper into the
despairing consciousness of "the weakness of the flesh" forgiveness in
the name of Jesus might prove to be light and life from God. The
despised sect of 'sinners' whom he had been persecuting expressed the
essence of their faith in the doctrine that the gift of the Spirit of
Jesus had made them sons and heirs of God. If the converted Paul in turn
is uplifted--"energized," as he terms it--even beyond his
fellow-Christians, by the sense of present inspiration, it is no more
than we should expect.
Footnote 1: _Tarik_, i. e. "way," is still the Arabic term for a
sect, and the Rabbinic term for legal requirement is _halacha_, i.
e. "walk."
Paul's conversion to the new faith--or at least his persistent
satisfaction in it--will be inexplicable unless we appreciate the logic
of his recognition in it of an inherent opposition to the growing
demands of legalism. Jesus had, in truth, led a revolt against mere
book-religion. His chief opponents were the scribes, the devotees and
exponents of a sacred scripture, the Law. "Law" and "Prophets," the one
prescribing the conditions of the expected transcendental Kingdom, the
other illustrating their application and guaranteeing their promise,
constituted the canon of the synagogue. Judaism had become a religion of
written authority. Jesus set over against this a direct relation to the
living Father in heaven, ever presently revealed to the filial spirit.
The Sermon on the Mount makes the doing of this Father's will something
quite other than servitude to written precepts interpreted by official
authority and imposed under penalty. It is to be self-discipline in the
Father's spirit of disinterested goodness, as revealed in everyday
experience.
Even the reward of this self-discipline, the Kingdom, Jesus did not
conceive quite as the scribes. To them obedience in this world procured
a "share in the world to come." To Him the reward was more a matter of
being than of getting. The Kingdom was an heir-apparency; and,
therefore, present as well as future. It was "within" and "among" men as
well as before them. They should seek to "be sons and daughters of the
Highest," taking for granted that all other good things would be
"added." So Jesus made religion live again. It became spiritual, inward,
personal, actual.
After John the Baptist's ministry to what we should call the
'unchurched' masses, Jesus took up their cause. He became the "friend"
and champion of the "little ones," the "publicans and sinners," the
mixed 'people of the land' in populous, half-heathen, Galilee. The
burdens imposed by the scribes in the name of 'Scripture' were accepted
with alacrity by the typical Pharisee unaffected by Pauline misgivings
of 'moral inability.' To "fulfil all righteousness" was to the Pharisee
untainted by Hellenism a pride and delight. To the "lost sheep of
Israel" whom Jesus addressed, remote from temple and synagogue, this
"righteousness" had proved (equally as to Paul, though on very different
grounds) "a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear."
Jesus "had compassion on the multitude." To them he "spoke with
authority"; and yet "not as the scribes" but as "a prophet." When
challenged by the scribes for his authority he referred to "the baptism
of John," and asked whether John's commission was "from heaven, or of
men." They admitted that John was "a prophet." Those who give utterance
after this manner to the simple, sincere conviction of the soul, voicing
its instinctive aspiration toward "the things that be of God," are
conscious that they speak not of themselves.
Jesus, it is true, was no iconoclast. He took pains to make clear that
if he superseded what they of old time had taught as righteousness, it
was in the interest of a higher, a "righteousness of God." If he
disregarded fasts and sabbaths, it was to put substance for form, end
for means. "Judgment, mercy, and good faith" should count more than
tithes from "mint and anise and cummin." He echoed what John the Baptist
had taught of repentance and forgiveness. Hope should no longer be based
on birth, or prerogative, or ritual form, but on the mercy of a God who
demands that we forgive if we would be forgiven. Such had been, however,
the message not of John only, but of all the prophets before him: "I
will have mercy, and not sacrifice." Jesus taught this higher, inward,
righteousness; but not merely as John had done. John had said: Repent,
for the wrath of God is at hand. Jesus said: Repent, for the forgiveness
of God is open. The Father's heart yearns over the wayward sons. Jesus
preached the nearness of the Kingdom as "glad tidings to the poor"; and
among these "poor" were included even aliens who put "faith" in the God
of Abraham.
The new Way started from the same Scripture as that of the scribes, but
it tended in an opposite direction. Theirs had been gradually developing
in definiteness and authority since the time of Ezra; yes, since Josiah
had made formal covenant, after the discovery of "the book of the Law"
in the temple, pledging himself and his people to obedience. As with
many ancient peoples, the codification of the ancient law had been
followed by its canonization, and as the national life had waned the
religious significance of the Law had increased. It was now declared to
express the complete will of God, for an ideal people of God, in a
renovated universe, whose centre was to be a new and glorified
Jerusalem. The Exile interrupted for a time the process of formal
development; but in the ecclesiastical reconstruction which followed in
Ezra's time "the book of the Law" had become all the more supreme; the
scribe took the place of the civil officer, the synagogue became local
sanctuary and court-house in one, the nation became a church, Israel
became 'the people of the book.'
Legal requirement calls for the incentive of reward. We need not wonder,
then, that the canon of the Law was soon supplemented by that of the
writings of the Prophets, historical and hortatory. The former were
considered to interpret the Law by showing its application in practice,
the latter were valued for their predictive element. Law and Prophets
were supplemented by Psalms, and elements from the later literature
having application to the religious system. The most influential were
the "apocalypses," or "revelations" of the transcendental Kingdom and of
the conditions and mode of its coming. Scripture had thus become an
embodiment of Israel's religion. It set forth the national law, civil,
criminal, or religious; and the national hope, the Kingdom of God. Its
custodian and interpreter was the 'scribe,' lawyer and cleric in one.
The scribe held "the key of knowledge"; to him it was given to 'bind and
loose,' 'open and shut.' Any preacher who presumed to prescribe a
righteousness apart from 'the yoke of the Law,' or to promise
forgiveness of sins on other authority, must reckon with the scribes. He
would be regarded as seeking to 'take the Kingdom by violence.'
Jesus' martyrdom was effected through the priests, the temple
authorities; but at the instigation of the scribes and Pharisees. His
adherents were soon after driven out from orthodox Judaism and subjected
to persecution. This persecution, however, soon found its natural
leadership, not among the Sadducean temple-priesthood, but among the
devotees of the Law. It was "in the synagogues." From having been
quasi-political it became distinctly religious. This persecution by the
Pharisees is on the whole less surprising than the fact that so many of
the Jewish believers should have continued to regard themselves as
consistent Pharisees, and even been so regarded by their fellow-Jews. In
reality Jewish Christians as a rule could see no incompatibility between
average synagogue religion and their acceptance of Jesus as the man
supernaturally attested in the resurrection as destined to return
bringing the glory of the Kingdom. Jesus' idea of 'righteousness' did
not seem to them irreconcilable with the legalism of the scribes; still
less had they felt the subtle difference between his promise "Ye shall
be sons and daughters of the Highest" and the apocalyptic dreams which
they shared with their fellow-Jews. Saul the persecutor and Paul the
apostle were more logical. In Gal. ii. 15-21 we have Paul's own
statement of the essential issue as it still appeared to his clear mind.
Average synagogue religion still left room for a more fatherly relation
of God to the individual, in spite of the gradual encroachment of the
legalistic system of the scribes. Men not sensitive to inconsistency
could find room within the synagogue for the 'paternal theism' of Jesus,
even if this must more and more be placed under the head of
'uncovenanted mercies.' To Paul, however, the dilemma is absolute. One
must trust either to "law" or "grace." Partial reliance on the one is to
just that extent negation of faith in the other. The system of written
precept permits no exception, tolerates no divided allegiance. If the
canon of written law be the God-given condition of the messianic
promise, then no man can aspire to share in the hope of Israel who does
not submit unreservedly to its yoke. Conversely, faith is not faith if
one seek to supplement it by the merit of "works of law."
From this point of view the Jew who seeks forgiveness of sins by baptism
"into the name of Jesus" must be considered an apostate from the Law. He
acknowledges thereby that he is following another Way, a way of "grace,"
a short-cut, as it were, to a share in Israel's messianic inheritance by
the "favour" of a pretended Messiah. The same Paul who after his
conversion maintains (Gal. ii. 21) that to seek "justification" through
the Law makes the grace of God of none effect, must conversely have held
before conversion that to seek it by "grace" of Jesus made the Law of
none effect. Even at the time of writing the axiom still held: No
resistance to the yoke of the Law, no persecution (Gal. v. 11).
It is true, then, that the legalistic system of prescription and reward
had developed--could develop--only at the expense of the less
mechanical, more fatherly, religion of a Hosea or an Isaiah. Even
scribes had admitted that the law of love was "much more than all whole
burnt-offering and sacrifice." And the movement of the Baptist and of
Jesus had really been of the nature of a reaction toward this older,
simpler faith. The sudden revolt in Paul's own mind against the scribal
system might not have occurred in the mind of a Pharisee unfamiliar with
Greek ideas. But to some extent Paul's experience of the conflict of
flesh and spirit, a 'moral inability' to meet the Law's demands _was_ a
typical Christian experience, as Paul felt it to be. To him it became
the basis of an independent gospel. To him the Cross and the Spirit
imparted from the risen Messiah were tokens from God that the
dispensation of Law is ended and a dispensation of Grace and Son ship
begun. Without this Pauline gospel _about_ Jesus Christianity could
never have become more than a sect of reformed Judaism.
The teaching and martyrdom of Jesus had thus served to bring out a deep
and real antithesis. Only, men who had not passed like Paul from the
extreme of trust in legalism to a corresponding extremity of despair
might be pardoned for some insensibility to this inconsistency. We can
appreciate that James and Peter might honestly hold themselves still
under obligation of the written law, even while we admit Paul's logic
that any man who had once "sought to be justified in Christ" could not
turn back in any degree to legal observance without being
"self-condemned."
Christianity may be said to have attained self-consciousness as a new
religion in the great argument directed by Paul along the lines of his
own gospel against Peter and the older apostles. Its victory as a
universal religion of 'grace' over the limitations of Judaism was due to
the common doctrine of 'the Spirit.' This was the one point of
agreement, the one hope of ultimate concord among the contending
parties. All were agreed that endowment with 'the Spirit' marks the
Christian. It was in truth the great inheritance from Jesus shared by
all in common. And Peter and James admitted that to deny that
uncircumcized Gentiles had received the Spirit was to "contend against
God."
After Paul's death ecclesiastical development took mostly the road of
the synagogue. The sense of the presence and authority of 'the Spirit'
grew weaker, the authority of the letter stronger. From the outset even
the Pauline churches, in ritual, order, observance, had followed
instinctively this pattern. All continued, as a matter of course, to use
the synagogue's sacred writings. Paul himself, spite of his protest
against "the letter," could make no headway against his opponents, save
by argument from 'Scripture.' He had found in it anticipations and
predictions of his own Christian faith; but by an exegesis often only
little less forced and fantastic than that of the rabbinic schools in
which he had been trained. This was a necessity of the times. The
reasoning, fallacious as it seems to-day, had appealed to and
strengthened Paul's own faith, and was probably effective with others,
even if the faith really rested on other grounds than the reasoning by
which it was defended. The results of this biblicism were not all
salutary. The claims of written authority were loosened rather than
broken. Paul himself had found room enough within these defences for the
religion of the Spirit; but a generation was coming with less of the
sense of present inspiration. Dependence on past authority would be
increased in this new generation in direct proportion to its sense of
the superior 'inspiration' of the generation which had gone before. Paul
is unhampered by even "the scriptures of the prophets" because in his
view these take all their authority and meaning from "the Lord, the
Spirit." Hence "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Only
the remembered "word of the Lord" has authority for Paul beyond his own,
even when he thinks that he also has the Spirit. With that exception
past revelation is for Paul subordinate to present. But Paul's immediate
disciple, the author of Hebrews, is already on a lower plane. This
writer looks back to a threefold source of authority: God had spoken in
former ages "by the prophets" and to the present "by a Son," but he
looks also to an apostolic authority higher than his own: The word "was
confirmed unto us by them that heard, God also bearing witness with
them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts
of the Holy Ghost." Similarly the author of the Pastoral Epistles
(90-100?) holds the "pattern of sound words" heard from Paul as a
"sacred deposit," which is "guarded," rather than revealed, "by the Holy
Spirit." The "sound words" in question are defined to be "the words of
our Lord Jesus Christ." These, taken together with "the doctrine which
is according to godliness," fix the standard of orthodoxy. To "Jude"
(100-110?) the faith is something "once for all delivered to the
saints." His message is: "Remember, beloved, the words spoken before by
the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." Authority increases, the sense
of the revealing Spirit decreases.
It is long before the sense of present inspiration, both in word and
work is lost; still longer before the recorded precepts of Jesus, the
exhortations and directions of apostles, the visions of "prophets," come
to take their place alongside the Bible of the synagogue as "writings of
the new covenant." Melito of Sardis (_c._ 170) is the first to use this
expression, and even in his case it does not bear the sense of a canon
with definite limits. Tertullian (200-210) is the first to place a
definite "New Testament" over against the Old. We must glance at some of
the intermediate steps to appreciate this gradual process of
canonization.
At first there is no other 'Scripture' than the synagogue's. Clement of
Rome (95) still uses only the Law and the Prophets (including certain
apocrypha now lost) as his Bible. He refers to the precepts of Jesus
(quoted as in Acts XX. 35 from oral tradition), with the same sense as
Paul of their paramount authority, and bids the Corinthians whom he
addresses give heed to what the blessed Apostle Paul had written to them
"in the beginning of the gospel service," to warn them against
factiousness. Nor has Clement yet lost the sense of direct inspiration;
for he attaches to his own epistle, written in behalf of the church at
Rome, the same superhuman authority claimed in Acts XV. 28 for the
letter sent by the church at Jerusalem. If the Corinthians disregard the
"words spoken by God through us" they will "incur no slight
transgression and danger," for these warnings of a sister church are
uttered in the name and by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Still, Clement
does not dream of comparing his authority, even when he writes as agent
of the church, with that of "the oracles of the teaching of God," the
"sacred Scriptures," the "Scriptures which are true, which were given
through the Holy Ghost, wherein is written nothing unrighteous or
counterfeit." He does not even rank his own authority with that of "the
good apostles, Peter and Paul."
Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, transported to Rome for martyrdom in
110-117, employs a brief stay among the churches of Asia to exhort them
to resist the encroachments of heresy by consolidation of church
organization, discipline, strict obedience to the bishop. Ignatius, too,
still feels the afflatus. His message, he declares with emphasis, was
revealed to him, together with the occasion for it, directly from
heaven. It was "the voice of God and not only of a man" when he cried
out among the Philadelphians: "Give heed to the bishop, and the
presbytery and deacons." Yet Ignatius cannot enjoin the Romans as Peter
and Paul did. They were "apostles." He is "a convict." His inspiration,
however undoubted, is of a lower order.
Hermas, a 'prophet' of the same Roman church as Clement, though a
generation later, is still so conscious of the superhuman character of
his "Visions," "Parables," and "Mandates" that he gives them out for
circulation as inspired messages of the Spirit; and this not for Rome
alone. Clement, then apparently still living, and "the one to whom this
duty is committed," is to send them "to foreign cities." In point of
fact the _Shepherd_ of Hermas long held a place for many churches as
part of the New Testament canon. Yet less than a generation after
Hermas, the claim to exercise the gift of prophecy in the church was
looked upon as dangerous if not heretical.
In the nature of the case it was really impossible that the original
sense of endowment with "the Spirit" should survive. Not only did the
rapidly growing reverence for the apostles and the Lord open a chasm
separating "the word of wisdom and the word of power" given to that age,
from the slighter contemporary claims of miracle and revelation; the
very growth and wide dissemination of the gospel message made
standardization imperative. Before the middle of the second century
Gnostic schism had swept nearly half the church into the vortex of
speculative heresy. Marcion at Rome (_c._ 140) carried Pauline
anti-legalism to the extreme of an entire rejection of the Old
Testament. Judaism and all its works and ways were to be repudiated. The
very God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was declared other than, and
ignorant of, the "heavenly Father" of Jesus. Against such vagaries there
must be some historic standard. Even Marcion himself looked to the past,
however recent, as the source of light, and since some written standard
must be found, it was he, the heretic, who gave to Christianity its
first canon of Christian writings. The Marcionite churches did away with
the public reading of the Law and the Prophets, and could only put in
their place "Gospel" and "Apostle." Not that Epistles, Gospels, and even
'Revelations' were not also in use among the orthodox; but they are not
yet referred to as 'Scripture.' Even gospels are treated merely as aids
to the memory in transmitting the teaching of the Lord. This teaching
itself is but the authoritative interpretation of Law and Prophets, and
is in turn interpreted by the writings of the apostles.
Marcion's 'Gospel' consisted of our Luke, expurgated according to his
own ideas. His 'Apostle' contained the Epistles of Paul minus the
Pastoral Epistles and a series of passages cancelled out from the rest
as Jewish interpolations. This was the first Christian Bible distinct
from 'the Scriptures' of the synagogue.
Indirectly the growth of Gnostic heresy contributed still more to the
increasing authority of apostolic and quasi-apostolic writings. One of
its earliest and most obnoxious forms was called 'Doketism,' from its
exaggeration of Paulinism into a complete repudiation of the historic
Jesus, whose earthly career was stigmatized as mere 'phantasm'
(_dokesis_). Doketism is known to us not only through description by
orthodox opponents, but by a few writings of its own. It is the type of
heresy antagonized in the Johannine Epistles (_c._ 100) and in those of
Ignatius (110-117). Now Ignatius, as we have seen, relied mainly on
church organization and discipline. The Pastoral Epistles (90-100),
while they emphasize also "the form of healthful words, even the words
of our Lord Jesus" take, on the whole, a similar direction. But 1st
John, which relies far less than the Pastoral Epistles or Ignatius on
mere church organization, is also driven back upon the life and teaching
of Jesus as the historic standard. It _does_, therefore, make formal
appeal to the sacred tradition in both its elements, but with a
difference characteristic of the Pauline spirit. The redeeming life and
death of Jesus are viewed as a manifestation of "the life, even the
eternal life (of the Logos) which was with the Father and was manifested
unto us" (the historic body of believers). Again Jesus' one "new
commandment," the law of love, is the epitome of all righteousness.
In his doctrine of Scripture as in many other respects the Johannine
writer shows a breadth and catholicity of mind which almost anticipates
the development of later ages. His task was in fact the adjustment of
the developed Pauline gospel to a type of Christianity more nearly akin
to synagogue tradition. This type had grown up under the name of Peter.
On the question of the standard of written authority 'John'[2] leaves
room for the freedom of the Spirit so splendidly set forth in the
teaching and example of Jesus and Paul, while he resists the erratic
licence of "those that would lead you astray." The result is a doctrine
of historic authority in general, and of that of the Scriptures in
particular, sharply differentiated from the Jewish, and deserving in
every respect to be treated as the basis of the Christian. In a great
chapter of his Gospel (John v.), wherein Jesus debates with the scribes
the question of His own authority, the dialogue closes with a
denunciation of them because they search the Scriptures with the idea
that in them they have eternal life, that is, they treat them as a code
of precepts, obedience to which will be thus rewarded. On the contrary,
says Jesus, the Scriptures only "bear witness" to the life that is
present in Himself as the incarnate, eternal, Word; "but ye will not
come unto me that ye might have life."
Footnote 2: In using traditional names and titles such as "Luke,"
"John," "Matthew," "James," no assumption is made as to
authenticity. The designation is employed for convenience
irrespective of its critical accuracy or inaccuracy.
In seeking the life behind the literature as the real revelation, the
Johannine writer makes the essential distinction between Jewish and
Christian doctrine. He stands between Paul, whose peculiar view was
based on an exceptional personal experience, and the modern
investigator, who can but treat all literary monuments and records of
religious movements objectively, as data for the history and psychology
of religion. If the student be devoutly minded the Scriptures will be to
him, too, however conditioned by the idiosyncrasies of temporal
environment and individual character, manifestations of "the life, even
the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us."
But the Johannine writer was far deeper and more 'spiritual'[3] than the
trend of his age. Ignatius' friend and contemporary, Polycarp, "the
father of the Christians" of Asia, in his Epistle to the Philippians
(110-117) urges avoidance of the false teachers who "pervert the sayings
of the Lord to their own lusts, denying the (bodily) resurrection and
judgment." But he has no better remedy than to "turn (probably in a
somewhat mechanical way) to the tradition handed down from the
beginning" and to study "the Epistles of Paul." The former process is in
full application in Polycarp's later colleague, Papias of Hierapolis
(_c._ 145?), who publishes a little volume entitled _Interpretation of
the Sayings of the Lord_. It is based on carefully authenticated
traditions of the 'apostles and elders,' especially a certain
contemporary "Elder John" who speaks for the Jerusalem succession.
According to Papias our two Greek Gospels of Matthew and Mark represent
two apostolic sources, the one an Aramaic compilation of the Precepts of
Jesus by Matthew, the other anecdotes of his "sayings and doings"
collated from the preaching of Peter.
Footnote 3: The Fourth Gospel is thus characterized by Clement of
Alexandria, meaning that it had a deep symbolic sense.
Grateful as we must be for Papias' efforts to authenticate evangelic
tradition, since they are corroborated in their main results by all
other ancient tradition as well as by critical study of the documents,
it is noticeable how they stand in line with the tendencies of the age.
Eusebius (325) characterizes the reign of Trajan (98-117) as a period
when many undertook to disseminate in writing "the divine Gospels." One
of our own evangelists, whose work must probably be referred to the
beginning of this period, but is not mentioned by 'the Elder,' alludes
to the same phenomenon. The apostles were gone. Hence to Luke[4] the
question of "order" was a perplexity, as the Elder observes that it had
already been to Mark. Soon after Luke and Papias comes Basilides with
his _Exegetics_, probably based on Luke (120?), and Marcion (140), both
engaged from their own point of view with the current questions of
Jesus' teaching and ministry.
Footnote 4: See Footnote 3 above.
Thus, at the beginning of the second century, the elements necessary to
the formation of a New Testament canon were all at hand. They included
the tradition of the teaching and work of Jesus, the letters of apostles
and church leaders revered as given by authority of the Spirit and the
visions and revelations of 'prophets.' Not only the elements were
present, the irresistible pressure of the times was certain to force
them into crystallization. The wonder is not that the canon should have
been formed, but that it should have been delayed so long.
For there were also resistant factors. Phrygia, the scene of Paul's
first great missionary conquests, the immemorial home of religious
enthusiasm, became the seat, about the middle of the second century, of
a movement of protest against the church policy of consolidation and
standardization. Montanus arose to maintain the persistence in the
church of the gift of prophecy, tracing the succession in both the male
and female line back to Silas the companion of Paul and the prophesying
daughters of Philip the Evangelist. The 'Phrygians,' as they were
called, naturally made much of the writings current in Asia Minor,
especially the book of 'prophecy' attributed to 'John.' Theoretically
indeed the church was unwilling to acknowledge the disappearance of this
gift. To Hermas (130-140) and the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (120-130) it
is still a "sin against the Spirit" to interrupt or oppose a prophet
during his ecstatic utterance. On the other hand, the _Teaching_
reiterates the apostolic warnings to "try the spirits," with
prohibitions of specific excesses of the order. Moreover by the time of
Montanus and the 'Phrygians' theoretical recognition of revelation
through the prophets was rapidly giving way before the practical dangers
inseparable from 'revelations' of this enthusiastic character, of which
any member of the church, man or woman, ignorant or learned, lay or
cleric, might be the recipient. The strict regulative control imposed by
both Paul and John[5] upon this type of spiritual gift (1st Thess. v. 20
f.; 1st Cor. xii. 3; xv. 29 f. 32; _cf._ 1st John iv. 1) was found
to be doubly necessary in face of the disintegrating tendencies of the
post-apostolic age, and after long debate and much protest the movement
of Montanus was at last decreed heretical at Rome, though Irenæus (186)
interceded for it, and Tertullian (210) became a convert.
Footnote 5: See Footnote 3 above.
The history of this movement in the formative period of the New
Testament canon explains why the "revelations of the prophets" obtained
but scant recognition as compared with the "word of the Lord" and the
"commandment of the apostles." Last of the three, in order of rank (1st
Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11), last also to be codified in written form, we
need not be surprised that our present New Testament retains but a
single one of the once current books of 'prophecy.' For a time the
_Shepherd_ of Hermas and the _Apocalypse of Peter_ rivalled the claims
to canonicity of our own Revelation of John, but were soon dropped. Our
own Apocalypse has suffered more opposition than any other New Testament
writing, being still excluded from the canon in some branches of the
church. Its precarious place at the end of the canon which we moderns
have inherited from Athanasius (_ob._ 373) was due, in fact, far less to
its author's vigorous assertions of authority as an inspired "prophet"
(i. 1-3; xxii. 6-9, 18 f.) than to the claims to apostolicity put
forward in the preface and appendix. For until the third century no one
drammed of understanding the "John" of Rev. i. 4, 9 and xxii. 8
otherwise than as the Apostle. Eusebius accordingly (325) is uncertain
only as to whether the book should be classed in his first group of
"accepted" writings, along with the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, or in
the third as "spurious." If written by "some other John than the
Apostle" he would not even honour it with a place in his second group of
"disputed" books, along with Hebrews, James, Jude, and 2nd Peter.
Thus at the end of the second century, while there was still much
dispute (destined indeed to continue for centuries) as to the _limits_
of the New Testament canon, there had in fact come to be a real
canonical New Testament set over against the Old, as of equal, or even
greater authority. The "word of the Lord," the "commandment of the
apostles," and at last even the "revelations of the prophets," had
successively ceased as living realities, and become crystallized into
written form. They had been codified and canonized. The church had
travelled the beaten track of the synagogue, and all the more rapidly
from the example set before it. None of the early canons (_i. e._ lists
of writings permitted to be read in the churches) coincides exactly, it
is true, with the New Testament current among ourselves. The list of
Athanasius is the first to give just our books. The Roman list of the
Muratorian fragment (185-200) omits Hebrews, James and 2nd Peter, and
gives at least a partial sanction to the _Apocalypse of Peter_. The
lists of Origen (_ob._ 251) and Eusebius (325) vary as respects both
inclusion and exclusion. All early authorities express a doubtful
judgment regarding the outer fringe of minor writings such as James,
Jude, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John. Even those of larger content, such as
Hebrews and Revelation, if their apostolicity was questioned, remained
subjects of dispute. But already by A.D. 200 the time had long since
passed when any of the thirteen epistles bearing the name of Paul could
be deemed open to question. Marcion's exclusion of the three Pastorals
had been forgotten. Dispute of the four-gospel canon could still be
tolerated; but not for long. Irenæus (186) has no patience with "those
wretched men" who cannot see that in the nature of the case there should
be neither more nor less than this number. But he explicitly refers to
those who disputed "that aspect of the gospel which is called John's."
There were, in fact, opponents of Montanism at Rome, who under the lead
of Gaius had denied the authenticity of all the writings attributed to
John, including the Gospel itself. But even those of the orthodox who
were willing enough to reject Revelation, with its now unfashionable
eschatology, agreed that Gaius' attack upon the fourth Gospel was too
radical. The small body who continued for a few generations to resist
the inclusion of any of the Johannine writings in the canon remained
without influence, and were ultimately forgotten. The 'catholic'[6]
church had repudiated heresy, standardized the faith, and confined its
recognized historic expression to a 'canon' of New Testament Scripture.
Footnote 6: Catholic is here used in its etymological sense of
"general" or universal. We shall have occasion to apply the term in
a more limited sense hereafter.
CHAPTER II
THE REACTION TO CRITICISM
The consolidated 'catholic' church of the third century might seem, so
far as its doctrine of Scripture was concerned, to have retraced its
steps to a standpoint corresponding completely to that of the synagogue.
Only, the paradox still held that the very writings canonized were those
supremely adapted to evoke a spirit of resistance to the despotism of
either priest or scribe. The Protestant Reformation was a revolt against
the former, and it is noticeable how large a part was played by the New
Testament doctrine of the 'Spirit' in this struggle of spiritual
democracy against hierocratic tyranny. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians
became Luther's Palladium.
But the post-Reformation dogmatists took fright at their own freedom.
The prediction of the Romanists that repudiation of traditional
authority in its ecclesiastical embodiment would result in internecine
schism and conflict seemed on the point of being realized. The
theological system-makers, like their predecessors of the post-apostolic
age, could see no way out but to throw all their weight on a past
inspiration assumed to be without error. The canonical books were
declared to furnish an infallible rule of faith and practice.
It was in the sincere desire to meet the requirements of this theory
that the science of criticism grew up. In the earlier days it did not
venture for the most part beyond what is known as 'textual' criticism.
For a doctrine of inerrancy is manifestly unserviceable until errors of
transmission have been eliminated. Textual criticism set itself to this
task, asking the question: As between the various readings found in
different New Testament manuscripts, which is original? Unfortunately,
to meet the logical requirement the critic, if not backed like those of
Rome by a papal guarantee, must himself be infallible. The inevitable
result of this attempt, begun in the sincerest spirit of apologetics,
was to prove that an infallible text is hopelessly unattainable. Textual
criticism is indispensable; but as the servant of apologetics it is
foredoomed to failure.
The variation of the manuscripts was not the only obstacle to biblical
infallibility. To say nothing of differences of interpretation there was
the question of the canon. Either the decision of the 'catholic' church
must be accepted as infallible, or scholarship must undertake a
'criticism of the canon' to defend the current list of "inspired" books.
A 'higher' criticism became necessary if only to vindicate the church's
choice on historical grounds. Roman Catholics like Simon, whose
_Critical History_ of the Biblical books appeared in 1689-1695, could
reopen the question with impunity. Those who based their authority on
the infallibility of Scripture alone could not meet the challenge
otherwise than as Michælis did in his _Introduction to the Divine
Writings of the New Testament_ (1750-1780). Michælis undertook a
historical inquiry into the circumstances of origin of each of the
canonical books, with the object of proving each to be in reality what
tradition declared. The twenty-seven commonly accepted were supposed to
have been either written by apostles, or at least so super-intended and
guaranteed by them, as to cover all with the ægis of an infallibility
not conceded to the post-apostolic age. Scholarship in the harness of
apologetics again found its task impracticable. Michælis himself
confessed it "difficult" to prove authenticity in cases like that of the
Epistle of Jude. Conceive the task as the scientific vindication of a
verdict rendered centuries before on unknown grounds, but now deprived
of official authority, and it becomes inevitably hopeless. Can it be
expected that doctors will not disagree on the authenticity or
pseudonymity of 2nd Peter, who always have disagreed on this and similar
questions, and have just admitted failure to agree in the matter of
text?
For half a century criticism seemed lost in the slough of mere
controversy over the (assumed) infallible text, and the (assumed)
infallible canon. Apologists fought merely on the defensive,
endeavouring to prove that men whose fallibility was admitted had
nevertheless pronounced an infallible verdict on the most difficult
subjects of literary and historical inquiry. Critics had an easy task in
showing that the church's theory of inspiration and canonicity was
incorrect; but made no progress toward a constructive explanation of the
religious, or even the historical, significance of the literature. Real
progress was made only when criticism left off the attempt either to
establish or disestablish a 'received' text, or an 'authorized' canon,
and became simply an instrument in the hand of the historian, as he
seeks to trace to their origins the ideas the church enshrined in her
literature because she found them effective in her growth.
For the great awakening in which New Testament criticism 'found itself'
as a genuine and indispensable branch of the history of religion, we are
largely indebted to the eminent church historian, Ferdinand Christian
Baur (_ob._ 1860). Baur gathered up the fragmentary results of a
generation of mere negation, a war of independence against the tyranny
of dogmatic tradition, and sought to place the New Testament writings in
their true setting of primitive church history. His particular views
have been superseded. Subsequent study has disproved many of his
inferences, and brought from friend and foe far-reaching modifications
to his general theory. But, consciously or not, Baur, in making
criticism the hand-maid of history, was working in the interest of that
constructive, Christian, doctrine of inspired Scripture which an ancient
and nameless teacher of the church had described as "witness" to the
Life, "even the eternal life, which was with the Father," and is in man,
and has been manifested in the origin and historical development of our
religion.
The Reformation had been a revolt against the despotism of the priest;
this was a revolt against the despotism of the scribe.
Baur gave scant--too scant--consideration to early tradition, making his
results unduly negative. None of the New Testament books are dated; few
besides the Pauline Epistles embody even an author's name; and these
few, 1st and 2nd Peter, James, Jude and Revelation, were (1st Peter
alone excepted) just those which even the canon-makers had classified as
doubtful, or spurious. Not even a Calvin would support the authenticity
of 2nd Peter, a Luther had denied the value of James and Revelation. It
had been an easy task for 'criticism of the canon' to show that those
who determined its content had not been actuated by considerations of
pure science. Those books secured admission which were most widely
current as ancient and trustworthy, and whose orthodoxy met the
standards of the time. Those were disputed, or rejected, which were less
widely current, or unorthodox, or could establish no direct relation to
an apostle. It was proper for the critic, once his aim had become not
apologetic but historical, to drop once for all the question whether the
canon-makers' selection--made not for scientific, but for religious
purposes--is good, bad or indifferent. The time had come for him to
apply the available evidence to his own scientific question: What
relation do these several writings bear to the development of
Christianity? It remained to be seen whether he could offer constructive
evidence more convincing than tradition.
The latest date to which an undated, or disputed, writing can be
assigned is that when the marks of its employment by others, or
influence upon them, become undeniable. This is termed the 'external'
evidence. The earliest date, conversely, is that to which we are brought
down by references in the book itself to antecedent and current events,
and writings, or by undeniable marks of their influence. This is termed
the 'internal' evidence. Counting tradition as part of the external
evidence, modern scientific criticism is able to fix within a few
decades the origin of all the New Testament writings, without incurring
opposition even from the apologist. No scholar now dreams of adopting
any other method of proof, whatever his doctrinal proclivities. The
overwhelming majority are agreed that the period covered, from the
earliest Pauline Epistles to the latest brief fulminations against
Gnostic Doketism and denial of 'resurrection and judgment,' is included
in the century from A.D. 50 to 150.
Baur's conception of the course of events in this momentous century has
been described as a theory of historical progress by fusion of opposites
in a higher unity. The Hegelian scheme of thesis, antithesis and
synthesis had in fact some justification in the recognized phenomena of
the development of Christianity. It had sprung from Judaism, overcoming
the particularism of that still nationalistic faith by the sense of its
mission to the world at large. The conflict acknowledged in all the
sources and most vividly reflected in the great Epistles of Paul to the
Galatians, Corinthians and Romans, a conflict between those who
conceived Christianity as a universal religion, and those who looked
upon it as only a reformed, spiritualized and perfected Judaism, was the
characteristic phenomenon of the first or apostolic age. It was the
struggle of the infant faith against its swaddling bands. The critical
historian is compelled to estimate all later, anonymous, accounts of
this development in the light of the confessedly earlier, and
indubitably authentic records, the four great Epistles of Paul; for
these simply reflect the actual conditions, and are not affected by the
later disposition to idealize the story. Thesis and antithesis were
therefore really in evidence at the beginnings.
Equal unanimity prevailed as to the close of the period in question. In
A.D. 150 to 200, Christianity was solidifying into the 'catholic'
church, rejecting extremes of doctrine on both sides, formulating its
'rule of faith,' determining its canon, centralizing administrative
control. It had thrown off as heretical upon the extreme left Marcion
and the Gnostics, who either repudiated the Jewish scriptures
altogether, or interpreted them with more than Pauline freedom. On the
extreme right it had renounced the unprogressive Ebionites of Palestine,
still unreconciled to Paul, and insistent on submission to the Law for
Jew and Gentile, as the condition of a 'share in the world to come.'
What could be imagined as to the course of events in the intervening
century of obscurity? Must it not have witnessed a progressive
divergence of the extremes of Paulinists and Judaizers, coincidently
with a rapprochement of the moderates from the side of Peter and that of
Paul respectively? Baur's outline seemed thus to describe adequately the
main course of events. He relied upon internal evidence to determine the
dates of the disputed writings and their relation to it. But 'criticism
of the canon' in Baur's own, and in the preceding generation, had come
to include among the writings of doubtful date and authenticity not only
those disputed in antiquity, and the anonymous narrative books, but also
1st Peter and the minor Epistles of Paul. Nothing strictly apostolic was
left save the four great Epistles of Paul.
The theory of Baur and the Tübingen school (for so his followers came to
be designated) was broadly conceived and ably advocated. In two vital
respects it has had permanent influence. (1) Criticism, as already
noted, has ceased to be mere debate about text and canon, and concerns
itself to-day primarily with the history of Christian ideas as embodied
in its primitive literature. Its problem is to relate the New Testament
writings, together with all other cognate material, to the history of
the developing religion from its earliest traceable form in the greater
Pauline Epistles to where it emerges into the full light of day toward
the close of the second century. (2) Again, Baur's outline of the
process through which the nascent faith attained to full
self-consciousness as a world-religion required correction rather than
disproof. It was a grievous mistake to identify Peter, James, and John
with those whom Paul bitterly denounces as Judaizing "false brethren,"
"super extra apostles," "ministers of Satan." It was a perversion of
internal evidence to reject as post-Pauline the Epistles of the later
period such as Philippians and Colossians, on the ground that Paul
himself did not live to participate in the second crisis, the defence of
his doctrine against perversion on the side of mystical, Hellenistic
theosophy. The great Epistles written under the name of Paul from the
period of his captivity are innocent of reference to the developed
Gnostic systems of the second century. They antagonize only an incipient
tendency in this direction.
But while the transition of A.D. 50-150 was both deeper and more complex
than Baur conceived, the transfer of the gospel during that century from
Jewish to Gentile soil is really the great outstanding fact, against
which as a background the literature must be read; and the initial stage
of the process is marked by the controversy of Paul with the Galilean
apostles. What we must call, in distinction from Paulinism, 'apostolic'
Christianity is well represented in the Book of Acts. Paul's writings
show that he felt himself and his churches to represent an independent
type of Christianity in all respects equal to the 'apostolic,' the
problem being unification of the two. Now it is axiomatic that the
investigator must proceed from the relatively known and determinable to
the unknown and disputable. Accordingly it is in reality from the
Epistolary literature of the church, in particular the greater Pauline
Epistles, that he must take his start. As a source for our understanding
of the development of the life of the church the Literature of the
Apostle, directly participant in the conflicts and issues of the times,
even if in its later elements of doubtful or pseudonymous authorship,
takes precedence as a whole over the Literature of the Catechist, with
its later and more or less idealized narration, exemplified in the Book
of Acts.
Modern criticism acknowledges, then, its indebtedness to the Tübingen
school for a clearer definition of both its task and method, by
concentrating attention upon the contrast between the Petrine and the
Pauline conception of 'the gospel.' Still it must be admitted that most
of the inferences first drawn have since been overthrown. In their
chronological scheme of the New Testament writings the Tübingen critics
under-estimated the force of the external evidences (including early
tradition) and misinterpreted the internal. New discovery and more
careful study of literary relations have inverted Baur's views as to
dates of the Johannine writings. Four of these (the Gospel and three
Epistles) are anonymous. Baur's date for these has been forced back by
no less than half a century. The fifth (Revelation) bears the name of
John, but was hotly disputed as pseudonymous in the second century, and
even by its supporters was dated so late as "the end of the reign of
Domitian" (95). The Tübingen school placed Revelation thirty years
earlier, and attributed it to the Apostle. Modern criticism emphatically
reverts to the ancient date, and regards the book as pseudonymous, or as
written by "some other John."
Again the relative dates of the Synoptic writings (Matthew, Mark,
Luke-Acts) were inverted by the Tübingen critics, primarily through
wrong application of their theory of doctrinal development; secondarily,
and as a consequence, through misinterpretation of the intricate
literary relationships. Present-day criticism considers it established
that Mark is the oldest of the three, taken up by each of the other two.
There is almost equal unanimity in regarding the discourse material
common to Matthew and Luke and variously combined by each with Mark, as
independently drawn by them from the book of the "Precepts of the Lord,"
reported by Papias to have been compiled by Matthew "in the Hebrew (_i.
e._ Aramaic) tongue." Tübingen gospel criticism is thus almost entirely
set aside, in favour of the so-called 'Two-document' theory.
So with the Pauline Epistles of the second period. Doubt still clings to
Ephesians. It had been treated by some as pseudo-Pauline even before the
time of Baur; but Baur's own followers soon receded from his extreme
application of his theory to the internal evidence of Philippians,
Colossians and Philemon. It became evident that Paul's "gospel"
included something more than the mere antithesis of Law and Grace. He
had other opponents than the Judaizers, and had to defend his doctrine
against perversion by Grecizing mystics as well as against opposition by
Pharisaic legalists.
Two generations of research and controversy have greatly advanced the
cause of constructive criticism. Hand in hand with a more accurate
dating of the literature, secured through more impartial judgment of
both the external and internal evidence, there has gone a reconstruction
of our conception of the course of events. The tendencies in the early
church were not two only, but four; corresponding, perhaps, to those
rebuked by Paul at Corinth, which called themselves by the names
respectively of Peter, of Paul, of Apollos and of Christ. It seems
probable from the bitterness with which in 2nd Cor. x. 7 Paul denounces
the man who says, "I am of Christ," that this party-cry was employed in
the sense of following the example of Jesus as respects obedience to the
Law (for even Paul acknowledged that Christ had been "made a minister of
the circumcision for the truth of God"). If so, the Corinthian
"Christ-party" may be identified with those "ministers of the
circumcision" who denied both the apostleship and the gospel of Paul. At
all events those "of Cephas" were relatively harmless. They may be
identified with the so-called 'weak' of Romans, for whose scruples on
the score of 'pollutions of idols' Paul demands such consideration both
at Corinth and at Rome. His own adherents both at Corinth (those 'of
Paul') and at Rome (the 'strong') are to follow his example not merely
in recognizing that: "No idol is anything in the world," that "there is
nothing unclean of itself," and that "all things are lawful." It is to
be followed also in recognizing the limitations of this liberty. Limits
are imposed among other things by the scruples of others, so that Paul
himself becomes "as under the Law" when among Jews, though "as without
the Law" among the Gentiles. The "weak" are to be resisted only when the
admission of themselves or their claims would lead to "doubtful
disputations," or to a rebuilding of walls of separation that had been
torn down through faith in Christ. Galatians sounds the battle-cry of
endangered liberty. Corinthians (and Romans in still higher degree)
shows the magnanimity of the victor.
Whether it be possible to identify those "of Apollos" at Corinth with
the beginnings of that Hellenistic perversion of the Pauline gospel into
a mystical theosophy which afterwards passed into Gnosticism may be left
an open question. At least we have come to see that the conditions of
the church's growth were far more complex than Baur imagined. In
particular it is necessary to distinguish four different attitudes on
the single question of the obligation of the Law. There were (1)
Judaizers who insisted on complete submission to the Law as the
condition of salvation, for both Jews and Gentiles; (2) imitators of
Cephas, who considered believers of Jewish birth to be "under the Law,"
but asked of Gentiles only such consideration for it as the special
conditions seemed to require; (3) Paulinists, who held that neither Jews
nor Gentiles are under the law, yet felt that consideration should be
shown for the scrupulous when asked not as of right, but as of charity;
(4) radicals, who recognized no limits to their freedom save the one new
commandment.
But while conflict first broke out over the mere concrete question of
Gentile liberty, the real distinction of Paul's gospel from that of the
older apostles was far deeper. The question as Tübingen critics
conceived it concerned primarily the _extent_ of the gospel message,--to
how large a circle was it offered? Modern criticism has come to see that
the difference was in higher degree a difference of _quality_. Paul's
whole message of redemption through the cross and resurrection started
from other premises than those of the Galilean apostles, and was
conceived in other terms. For this reason it leads over to a new
Christology. In short, the transition of Christianity from its Jewish to
its Gentile form is not a mere enlargement of its field by the abolition
of particularistic barriers. The background we must study for the
understanding of it is not so much mere contemporary history as the
contemporary history _of religion_. The development from the Petrine
gospel broadly characteristic of the Synoptic writings, through the
Pauline Epistles to that of the Johannine writings, is a transition from
Hebrew to Hellenistic conceptions of what redemption is, and how it is
effected. Modern criticism expresses the contrast in its distinction of
the gospel _of_ Jesus from the gospel _about_ Jesus.
In the case of both Paul and his predecessors in the faith there is a
common starting-point. It was the doctrine that God had raised Jesus
from the dead and exalted Him as Christ and Lord to the throne of glory.
Its proofs were the ecstatic phenomena of the Spirit, those strange
manifestations of 'prophecy,' 'tongues,' and the like in the Christian
assembly. The inference from this resurrection faith for an apostle of
the Galilean group was that he must "teach all men everywhere to observe
all things whatsoever Jesus had commanded." Jesus had been raised up in
Israel as the Prophet like unto Moses; His apostle must repeat the
remembered word of commandment and the word of promise. He will have an
authority derived from the manifestations of signs and wonders. These
had accompanied Jesus' own career, and now, by grace of His endowment of
His disciples with the Spirit, they will be repeated by their hands.
The 'apostolic' gospel is thus primarily historical. The Pauline gospel
centres at the other pole of religious conviction. It is primarily
psychological. For Paul the immediate effect of the revelation of God's
Son "in" him is an irresistible impulse to relate his own soul's
experience. The gospel he preaches is not so much what Jesus did or said
while on earth, as what God has done, and is still doing, through the
"life-giving Spirit" which emanates from the risen Lord. Signs and
wonders are tokens of the Spirit, but are of less value, and must vanish
before the "abiding" ethical gifts. Both the Pauline and the Petrine
gospel start from the common confession of "Jesus as Lord"; but the
Christology of the Synoptic literature is an Apotheosis doctrine,
falling back on the historical Jesus. That of the Epistles is a doctrine
of Incarnation, appealing to the eternal manifestation of God in man.
For the former, Jesus was "a prophet mighty in deed and word," raised up
by God in accordance with the promise of Deut. xviii. 18, to turn Israel
to repentance. Having fulfilled this mission in rejection and martyrdom
Jesus had been exalted to God's "right hand" and "made both Lord and
Christ." He there awaits the subjection of all His enemies. In the
Pauline gospel the story of Jesus is a drama of the supernal regions,
wherein His earthly career as prophet, leader, teacher, sinks to the
level of the merest episode. As pre-existent spirit, Jesus had been
from the beginning of the creation "in the form of God." As the period
of its consummation drew near He took upon Him human form, descended
through suffering and death to the lowest depths of the underworld, and
by divine power had reascended above all the heavens with their ranks of
angelic hierarchies. Whether Paul himself so conceived it or not, the
Gentile world had no other moulds of thought wherein to formulate such a
Christology than the current myths of Redeemer-gods. The value of the
individual _soul_ had at last been discovered, and men resorted to the
ancient personifications of the forces of nature as deliverers of this
new-found _soul_ from its weakness and mortality. The influential
religions of the time were those of personal redemption by mystic union
with a dying and resurrected "Saviour-god," an Osiris, an Adonis, an
Attis, a Mithra. Religions of this type were everywhere displacing the
old national faiths. The Gentile could not think of "the Christ"
primarily as a Son of David who restores the kingdom to Israel, shatters
the Gentiles like a potter's vessel and rules them with a rod of iron.
If he employed this Old Testament language at all, it had for him a
purely symbolical sense. The whole conception was spiritualized. The
"enemies" overcome were the spiritual foes of humanity, sin and death;
"redemption" was not the deliverance of Israel out of the hand of all
their enemies, that (together with all afar off that call upon the name
of this merciful God) they may "serve Him in holiness and righteousness
all their days." It was the rescue of the sons of Adam out of the
bondage to evil Powers incurred through inheritance of Adam's sinful
flesh. This had been the tendency already of Jewish apocalypse. The
starting-point of Paul's own conceptions was not Israel's bondage in
Egypt, but a conception already tinged, like the late book of Jewish
philosophy called the Wisdom of Solomon, with the Stoic conception of
'flesh' as prison-house of 'spirit,' already inflamed, like the
contemporary Jewish apocalypses of Esdras and Baruch, with lurid visions
of a universe rescued by superhuman power from a thraldom of demonic
rule. Paul's preaching was made real by his own experience. For if ever
there was an evangelist whose message was his own experience, Paul was
such. And Paul's experience was not so much that of a Palestinian Jew,
as that of a Hellenist, one whose whole idea of 'redemption' has been
unconsciously universalized, individualized, and spiritualized, by
contact with Greek and Hellenistic thought. Paul and the Galilean
apostles were not far apart in their expectations of the future. Both
stood gazing up into heaven. But for his authority Paul inevitably
looked inwards, the Galilean apostles looked backwards.
It is hopeless at the present stage of acquaintance with the history of
religion, particularly the spread of the various 'mysteries' and
religions of personal redemption in the early empire, to deny this
contrast between the gospel of Paul and the gospel of "the apostles and
elders at Jerusalem." It is shortsighted to overlook its significance in
the transition of the faith. Whereas the Jewish-Christian had as its
principal background the national history, more or less
transcendentalized in the forms of apocalypse, Paul's had as its
principal background the speculative mythology of the Hellenistic world,
more or less adapted to the forms of Judaism. Only ignorance of the
function of mythology, especially as then employed to express the
aspiration of the soul for purity, life and fellowship with God, can
make these mythologically framed religious ideas seem an inappropriate
vehicle to convey Paul's sense of the significance of Jesus' message and
life of "Son ship." They were at least the best expression those times
and that environment could afford of the greater Kingdom God had
proclaimed in the resurrection of the Christ, and was bringing to pass
through the outpouring of His Spirit.
Modern criticism must therefore recognize that the beginnings of our
religion were not a mere enlargement of Judaism by abolition of the
barriers of the Law, but a fusion of the two great streams of religious
thought distinctive of the Jewish and the Hellenistic world in a higher
unity. Alexander's hoped-for "marriage of Europe and Asia" was
consummated at last in the field of religion itself. Denationalized
Judaism contributed the social ideal: the messianic hope of a world-wide
Kingdom of God. It is the worthy contribution of a highly ethical
national religion. Hellenism contributed the individual ideal: personal
redemption in mystic union with the life of God. It is a concept derived
from the Greek's newly-awakened consciousness of a personality agonizing
for deliverance out of the bondage of the material and transitory, alien
and degrading to its proper life. The critic who has become a historian
of ideas will find his study of the literature of the apostolic and
post-apostolic age here widening out into a prospect of unsuspected
largeness and significance. He will see as the two great divisions of
his subject, (1) the gospel _of_ Jesus, represented, as we are told, in
the first beginnings of literary development by an Aramaic compilation
of the Precepts of the Lord by the Apostle Matthew, circulating possibly
even before the great Pauline Epistles among the Palestinian churches;
(2) the gospel _about_ Jesus, represented in the Pauline Epistles, and
these based on their author's personal experience. It is a gospel of
God's action "in Christ, reconciling the world." It interprets the
personality of Jesus and his experience of the cross and resurrection
as manifestations of the divine idea. The interpretation employs
Hellenistically coloured forms of thought, and is forced to vindicate
itself first against subjection to legalism, afterwards against
perversion into an unethical, superstitious theosophy. But surely the
doctrine _about_ Jesus, interpreting the significance of His person and
work as the culmination of redemption through the indwelling of God in
men and among men belongs as much to the essence of Christianity as the
gospel of love and faith proclaimed _by_ Jesus.
Besides these two principal types of gospel and their subordinate
combinations the critical historian may see ultimately emerging a type
of 'spiritual' gospel, growing upon Gentile soil, in fact, receiving its
first literary expression in the early years of the second century at
the very headquarters of the Pauline mission-field. This third type aims
to be comprehensive of the other two. It is essentially a gospel about
Jesus, though it takes the form for its main literary expression of a
gospel preached by Jesus. The fourth evangelist is the true successor of
Paul, though the conditions of the age compel him to go beyond the
literary form of the Epistle and to construct a Gospel wherein both
factors of the sacred tradition shall appear, the words and works, the
Precepts and the Saving Ministry of Jesus. But it is in no mechanical or
slavish sense that the fourth evangelist appeals to this supreme
authority. He lifts the whole message above the level of mere baptized
legalism, even while he guards it against the unbridled licence of
Gnostic theosophy, applying to this purpose his doctrine of the
Incarnate Logos. His basis is psychology as well as history. It is the
Life which is the light of men, that life whose source is God, and which
permeates and redeems His creation; even "the eternal Life which was
with the Father and was manifested to us."
In the critical grouping of our New Testament writings the Gospel and
Epistles of John can occupy, then, no lesser place than that of the
keystone of the arch.
To sum up: the Literature of the Apostle owed its early development and
long continuance among the Pauline churches of Asia Minor and Greece, to
the impetus and example of Paul's apostolic authority. The Literature of
the Teacher and Prophet, growing up around Jerusalem and its daughter
churches at Antioch and Rome, came slowly to surpass in influence the
"commandment of the apostles," as the church became more and more
exclusively dependent upon it for the "teaching of the Lord." It was the
function of the great "theologian" of Ephesus (as he came early to be
called), linking the authority of both, to furnish the fundamental basis
for the catholic faith.
PART II
THE LITERATURE OF THE APOSTLE
CHAPTER III
PAUL AS MISSIONARY AND DEFENDER OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE
Most vital of all passages for historical appreciation of the great
period of Paul's missionary activity and its literature is the
retrospect over his career as apostle to the Gentiles and defender of a
gospel "without the yoke of the Law" in Gal. i.-ii. Especially must the
contrast be observed between this and the very different account in Acts
ix.-xvi.
Galatians aims to counteract the encroachments of certain Judaizing
interlopers upon Paul's field, and seems to have been written from
Corinth, shortly after his arrival there (_c._ 50) on the Second
Missionary Journey (Acts xv. 36--xviii. 22). We take "the churches of
Galatia" to be those founded by Paul in company with Barnabas on the
First Missionary Journey (Acts xiii.-xiv.), and revisited with Silas
after a division of the recently evangelized territory whereby Cyprus
had been left to Barnabas and Mark (Acts xv. 36--xvi. 5; _cf._ Gal. iv.
13).
The retrospect is in two parts: (1) a proof of the divine origin of
Paul's apostleship and gospel by the independence of his conversion and
missionary career; (2) an account of his defence of his "gospel of
uncircumcision" on the two occasions when it had been threatened.
Visiting Jerusalem for the second time some fifteen years[7] after his
conversion, he secured from its "pillars," James, Peter, and John, an
unqualified, though "private," endorsement. At Antioch subsequently he
overcame renewed opposition by public exposure of the inconsistency of
Peter, who had been won over by the reactionaries.
Footnote 7: Or perhaps thirteen. Gal. ii. 1 may reckon from the
conversion (31-33). In both periods (Gal. i. 18, and ii. 1) both
termini are counted.
Acts reverses Paul's point of view, making his career in the period of
unobstructed evangelization one of labour for Jews alone, in complete
dependence on the Twelve. It practically excludes the period of
opposition by a determination of the Gentile status in an 'Apostolic
Council.' Paul is represented as simply acquiescing in this decision.
As described by Paul, the whole earlier period of fifteen years had been
occupied by missionary effort for _Gentiles_, first at Damascus,
afterwards "in the regions of Syria and Cilicia." It was interrupted
only by a journey "to Arabia," and later, three years after his
conversion, by a two-weeks' private visit to Peter in Jerusalem. In this
period must fall most of the journeys and adventures of 2nd Cor. xi.
23-33. It was practically without contact with Judæa. His "gospel" was
what God alone had taught him through an inward manifestation of the
risen Jesus.
As described by Luke[8] the whole period was spent in the evangelization
of Greek-speaking _Jews_, principally at Jerusalem. This was Paul's
chosen field, worked under direction of "the apostles." Only against his
will[9] was he driven for refuge to Tarsus, whence Barnabas, who had
first introduced him to the apostles, brought him to Antioch. There was
no Gentile mission until Barnabas and he were by that church made its
'apostles.' This mission was on express direction of "the Spirit" (Acts
ix. 19-30; xi. 25 f.; xiii. 1-3; _cf._ xxii. 10-21). Paul's
apostleship to the Gentiles begins, then, according to Luke, with the
First Missionary Journey, when in company with (and at first in
subordination to) Barnabas he evangelizes Cyprus and southern Galatia.
The two are agents of Antioch, with "letters of commendation" from "the
apostles and elders in Jerusalem" (Acts xv. 23-26). Paul is not an
apostle of Christ in the same sense as the Twelve (_cf._ Acts i. 21
f.). He is a providential "vessel of the Spirit," ordained "by men and
through men." His gospel is Peter's unaltered (_cf._ Acts xxvi. 16-23).
Footnote 8: We apply the name to the writer of Luke-Acts without
prejudice to the question of authorship.
Footnote 9: Acts xxii. 10-21 is not quite consistent with xxvi.
15-18; but the general sense is clear.
There is even wider disparity regarding the period of opposition. Luke
slightly postpones its beginning and very greatly antedates its
suppression. Moreover, he makes Paul accept a solution which his letters
emphatically repudiate.
According to Acts there was no opposition before the First Missionary
Journey, for the excellent reason that there had been no Gentile
propaganda.[10] There was no opposition after the Council called to
consider it (Acts xv.), for the conclusive reason that "the apostles and
elders" left nothing to dispute about. As soon as the objections were
raised the church in Antioch laid the question before these authorities,
sending Paul and Barnabas to testify. On their witness to the grace of
God among the Gentiles, Peter (explicitly claiming for himself (!) this
special apostleship, Acts xv. 7) proposes unconditional acknowledgment
of Gentile liberty, referring to the precedent of Cornelius. In this
there was general acquiescence. In fact the matter had really been
decided before (Acts xi. 1-18). The only wholly new point was that
raised by James in behalf of "the Jews among the Gentiles" (Acts xv. 21;
_cf._ xxi. 21). For their sake it is held "necessary" to limit Gentile
freedom on four points. They must abstain from three prohibited meats,
and from fornication, for these convey the "pollution of idols." The
"necessity" lies in the fact that _liberty from the Law is not conceded
to Jews_. They will be (involuntarily) defiled if they eat with their
Gentile brethren unprotected. "Fornication" is added because (in the
words of an ancient Jewish Christian) it "differs from all other sins in
that it defiles not only the sinner, but those also _who eat or
associate with him_." Paul and Barnabas, according to Luke, gladly
accepted these "decrees," and Paul distributed them "for to keep" among
his converts in Galatia (!). _Peter_ is the apostle to the Gentiles.
Antioch and Jerusalem decide the question of their status. The terms of
fellowship are those of _James_ and Peter.
Footnote 10: Cornelius' case (Acts x.-xi. 18) is exceptional, and no
propaganda follows. The reading "Greeks" in Acts xi. 20, though
required by the sense and therefore adopted by the English
translators, is not supported by the textual evidence. Luke has here
corrected his source to suit his theory, just as in x. 1--xi. 18 he
passes by the true significance of the story, which really deals
with the question of _eating_ with Gentiles (xi. 3, 7 f.).
Paul has no mention of either Council or 'decrees.' His terms of
fellowship positively exclude both. He falls back upon the private
Conference, and lays bare a story of agonizing struggle to make
effective its recognition of the equality and independence of Gentile
Christianity. The struggle is a result of his resistance to emissaries
"from James" at Antioch, who had brought over all the Jewish element in
that mixed church, including Peter and "even Barnabas" to terms of
fellowship acceptable to the Pillars. After the collision at Antioch
Paul leaves the "regions of Syria and Cilicia," and transfers the scene
of his missionary efforts to the Greek world between the Taurus range
and the Adriatic. For the next ten years we see him on the one side
conducting an independent mission, proclaiming the doctrine of the Cross
as inaugurating a new era, wherein law has been done away, and Jew and
Gentile have "access in one Spirit unto the Father." On the other he is
defending this gospel of 'grace' against unscrupulous Jewish-Christian
traducers, and labouring to reconcile differences between his own
followers and those of 'the circumcision' who are not actively hostile,
but only have taken 'offence.' Throughout the period, until the arrest
in Jerusalem which ends his career as an evangelist, Paul stands alone
as champion of unrestricted Gentile liberty and equality. He cannot
admit terms of fellowship which imply a continuance of the legal
dispensation. Jewish Christians may keep circumcision and the customs if
they wish; but may not hold or recommend them as conferring the
slightest advantage in God's sight. He will not admit the doctrine of
salvation by faith _with_ works of law. Jew as well as Gentile must have
"died to the Law." There is no "justification" except "by faith _apart_
from works of law."[11]
Footnote 11: The assertion has recently been made in very high
quarters on the basis of 1st Cor. vii. 18 that Paul also took the
"apostolic" view that the Christian of Jewish birth remains under
obligation to keep the law. One would think Paul had not added verse
19!
Unless we distinctly apprehend the deep difference, almost casually
brought out by this question of the (converted) Jew among Gentiles and
his obligation to eat with his Gentile brother, a difference between
'apostolic' Christianity as Luke gives it, and the 'gospel' of Paul, we
can have no adequate appreciation of the great Epistles produced during
this period of conflict. The basis of Luke's pleasing picture of peace
and concord is a fundamentally different conception of the relation of
Law and Grace. Paul and Luke both hold that the Mosaic commandments are
not binding on _Gentiles_. The point of difference--and Paul's own
account of his Conference with the Pillars goes to show that Luke's idea
is also theirs; else why need there be a division of 'spheres of
influence'?--is Paul's doctrine that the believing Jew _as well as the
Gentile_ is "dead to the Law." And this doctrine was never accepted
south of the Taurus range.
Agreement and union were sure to come, if only by the rapid
disappearance from the church after 70 A.D. of the element of the
circumcised, and the progressive realization in 'Syria and Cilicia' of
the impracticability of the Jerusalem-Antioch plan of requiring Gentiles
to make their tables innocuous to the legalist. If only the
participation of Paul and Barnabas be excluded from the story of Acts
xv. (or better, restored to its proper sequence after Acts xi. 30) we
have every reason to accept Luke's account of an Apostolic Council held
at Jerusalem not long after "Peter came to Antioch" to settle between
the churches of northern and southern Syria the knotty question of the
Christian Jew's eating or not eating with Gentiles. It is almost certain
that Syria did adopt this modus vivendi for "the brethren which are of
the Gentiles _in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia_" (Acts xv. 23); for we can
trace its gradual obsolescence there. In Revelation (a book of
Palestinian origin republished at Ephesus _c._ 95; _cf._ Rev. ii. 14,
20, 24) in the _Teaching of the Twelve_ (125), and in the 'Western' text
of Acts xv. (150?) there is a progressive scaling down of the 'burden.'
Gentiles are at last asked to do almost nothing more than Paul had
demanded on moral grounds without recognition of the validity of
"distinctions of meats." In A.D. 120 the 'burden' is: "Concerning meats,
keep what thou art able; however, abstain at all events from things
offered to idols, for it is the food of dead gods."
But to take Luke's account of how peace was restored, with its
implication that the Pauline gospel as developed in Greek Christendom
between the Taurus range and the Adriatic was nothing more than a branch
from the parent stock of the 'apostolic' church in "Syria and Cilicia,"
would be like viewing the history of the United States from the
standpoint of a British imperialist of a period of Anglo-Saxon reunion
in A.D. 2000, who should omit entirely the American War of Independence,
holding that Washington and Franklin after bearing testimony before
Parliament accepted for the colonies a plan of settlement prepared by a
Liberal Government which reduced to a minimum the obnoxious requirements
of the Tories.
The history of this period of the development of the independent
'gospel' of Paul and of his independent churches is so vital, and so
confused by generations of well-meaning 'harmonizers,' that we must take
time to contrast once more Luke's theory of the process of reunion with
Paul's.
_In Acts Paul takes precisely the view of Peter and James._ He is
himself 'under the Law.' He does _not_ disregard it even among Gentiles.
On the contrary, he sets an example of scrupulous legality to the Jews
among the Gentiles, himself 'walking orderly, keeping the Law.' The
statement that he "teaches them to forsake Moses, telling them not to
circumcise their children, nor to obey the customs" is a calumny (!)
which he takes public occasion to disprove (Acts xxi. 20-26). Before the
Sanhedrin he emphatically declares himself a consistent Pharisee (Acts
xxiii. 1, 6); before Felix and Festus, blameless by the standard of Law
and Prophets (xxiv. 14-16; xxv. 8); before Agrippa, a strict Pharisee in
his conduct hitherto (xxvi. 5, 22 f.). Titus, whose circumcision Paul
strenuously resisted, is never mentioned in Acts. Conversely Timothy (a
Jew only on his mother's side) Paul "took and circumcised" immediately
after the Jerusalem Council "because of the Jews that were in those
parts" (Galatia!). His visit with Barnabas to Jerusalem is not
occasioned by opposition to Gentile missions, though it falls between
Barnabas' mission from Jerusalem to investigate the alarming reports of
Gentile conversions at Antioch, and the First Missionary Journey on
which the two take with them Mark, who had accompanied them from
Jerusalem. No; according to Luke Gentile missions did not yet
exist[12](!). This visit (that of the Conference, Gal. ii. 1-10) was
merely to convey a gift from the Antioch church to that of Jerusalem
because of the famine "about that time" (it occurred in 46-47).
Conversely the great 'offering of the Gentiles' made at the risk of
Paul's life in company with delegates from each province of his field,
as a proffer of peace, the enterprise which occupies so large a place in
his effort and his letters of this period (1st Cor. xvi. 1-6; 2nd Cor.
8-9; Rom. xv. 15, 16, 25-32), has in Acts no relation to the
controversy--for the demonstration of Paul's exemplary legalism in the
temple is merely incidental. The gift Paul brought was "alms to my
nation" (!) (Acts xxiv. 17). The reader asks in vain what necessitates
this dangerous journey. The only motives assigned are a Nazarite vow
assumed in Cenchreæ (xviii. 18; xxi. 24), and regard for the Jewish
feasts (xx. 16).
Footnote 12: On the reading "Greeks" in Acts xi. 20 see Footnote 10
above., p. 59.
The background of history against which the modern reader must place the
great letters of Paul of the first period, is manifestly something quite
different from the mere unsifted story of Acts. Their real origin is in
a profound difference in Paul's idea of 'the gospel' and the necessity
of defending the independence of it and of the Gentile churches founded
on it. The difference originates in Paul's own religious experience. It
found its first expression in his antithesis of Law and Grace, his
doctrine that the cross marks the abolition of the economy of Law.
Both in Galatians and everywhere else Paul treats on equal terms with
the representatives of the "apostleship of the circumcision." He
denounces Peter and "the rest of the Jews," including "even Barnabas,"
at Antioch, after they have withdrawn from Gentile fellowship in order
to preserve their legal 'cleanness,' and the point of the denunciation
is that this is inconsistent with _their_ (implied) abandonment of the
Law as a means of salvation when they "sought to be justified by faith
in Christ." This makes their conduct not only inconsistent but cowardly
and "hypocritical."
Here is something far deeper than a mere question of policy. Paul's
attitude shows that from the beginning he has really been preaching "a
different gospel." A gospel _about_ Christ in which the central fact is
the cross as the token of the abolition of a dispensation of Law wherein
Jew and Gentile alike were in a servile relation to God, under angelic
(or demonic) "stewards and governors," and the inauguration of a
dispensation of Grace, wherein all who have 'faith' and receive in
baptism the gift of 'the Spirit,' are thereby adopted to be God's sons.
Beside this cosmic drama of the cross and resurrection wherein God
reveals his redemptive purpose for the world, the mere inculcation of
the easy yoke of Jesus as a new Law, simplifying and supplementing the
old by restoring the doctrine of forgiveness for the repentant believer
(_cf._ Matt. xxviii. 20; Acts x. 42 f.; xiii. 39; xxvi. 22 f.) seems
only half a gospel.
Paul can never surrender the independence of his God-given message, nor
the liberty wherewith Christ has made all believers free in abolishing
the economy of law and making them "sons" by the Spirit. And yet he is
even more determined to achieve peace and reunion than the apostles 'of
the circumcision'; only he has a different plan. Paul and his churches
fall back upon the Jerusalem Conference, not upon the 'Apostolic
Council.' The Conference is their Magna Carta. Its recognition of
Paul's independent gospel and apostleship as no less divine than Peter's
is their guarantee of liberty and equality; its request for brotherly
aid is their promise of fraternity.
Approaches were made on both sides. It is true the ill-advised attempt
of the Judaizers to secure unity by a renewal of their propaganda of the
Law, seducing the Greek churches from their loyalty to Paul and his
gospel, provoked from him only such thunderbolts as Galatians, with its
defence of "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," or 2nd Cor.
x. 1 to xiii. 10, with its denunciation of the "ministers of Satan."
Peace through surrender was not to Paul's mind. But the sincere attempt
of the followers of Peter to find a _modus vivendi_, even if they did
not venture to claim liberty from the Law for themselves, found Paul
prepared to go more than half-way. His epistles are not more remarkable
for their strenuous defence of the liberty of Son ship, than for their
insistence on the obligation of brotherly love. His churches must be not
only morally pure for their own sakes, but must avoid offences to the
more scrupulous. Even that which Christian liberty allows must be
sacrificed to the scruples of the 'weak,' if only it be not "unto
doubtful disputations," or demanded as of right. From 1st Thessalonians
(Corinth, A.D. 50), where, in the absence of all Judaizing opposition
Paul merely exhibits his simple gospel of the resurrection and judgment
to come, unaffected by questions of Law and Grace, on through Galatians
with its sublime polemic for the liberty of sons, to the Corinthian
correspondence, with its insistence on the duty of consideration and
forbearance, its stronger note of love, its revelation of the
widespread, strenuous exertions of Paul to promote his great 'offering,'
down to Romans, where the 'offering of the Gentiles' is ready to be made
(Rom. xv. 16-33), and Paul is sedulously preparing to enter a great new
field already partially occupied, by presenting a full and superlatively
conciliatory statement of his entire 'gospel' (i. 15-17), there is
steady progress toward the "peace" and "acceptance" which he hopes to
find in Jerusalem. The later Epistles, with their different phase of
conflict, the very attitude of 'apostolic' Christianity toward Paul, as
exhibited in Acts, make it incredible that substantial unity was not in
fact secured.[13] We cannot, indeed, accept Luke's representation of
Paul as performing the Nazarite ceremonial in the temple in order to
prove _that he does not teach that the Law is not binding on Jews_. But
it does not follow that Paul may not have done even this to prove that
his principle of accommodation to the weak (1st Cor. ix. 19-22) left
ample room for fellowship with the Jewish Christian--except when (as
with Peter and Barnabas at Antioch) the needless scruples of the
legalist were made a pretext for "compelling the Gentiles to live as do
the Jews."
Footnote 13: The actual outcome is seen in the reduction of the
'burden' to the two items of abstinence from "fornication and from
things offered to idols." Paul's nicer distinctions under the latter
head (1st Cor. viii. 1-13, x. 14-23) as well as his distinction
between the ceremonial and the moral grounds for abstinence, were
disregarded.
Had unity been attained through the simple process imagined by Luke,
obedient acquiescence of Paul and the Gentiles in the divinely inspired
verdict of "the apostles and elders in Jerusalem," Christianity would
have been an immeasurably poorer thing than it became. Indeed, it is
questionable whether a gospel of mere simplification, extension and
supplementation of the Law would ever have made permanent conquest of
the Gentile world. It is because Paul stood out on this question of
'meats' for the equal right of his independent gospel, refusing
submission until his great ten-years' work of evangelization by tongue
and pen had made Gentile Christianity a factor of at least equal
importance with Jewish, that our religion was enriched by its
Hellenistic strain. The deeper insight into the real significance of
Jesus' work and fate born of Paul's peculiar experience and his
Hellenistic apprehension of the gospel found embodiment in the
beginnings of a New Testament literature. The writings of this period
must accordingly be viewed against the background of a critical history.
Luke's account, written in the interest of "apostolic" authority, must
receive such modifications as the contemporary documents require.
Taking up the story at the point of divergence we see Paul and Barnabas
returning to Antioch after the Conference with the Pillars, glad at
heart, and expecting now to resume the work for Gentiles without
impediment. Besides Titus, John Mark of Jerusalem, a nephew of Barnabas,
accompanied them. The Missionary Journey to Cyprus and (southern)
Galatia follows, Mark returning, however, to Jerusalem after leaving
Cyprus.
It was probably during the absence of the missionaries that "Peter came
to Antioch" and, at first, followed the Pauline practice of disregarding
'distinctions of meats.' Later, on arrival of certain "from James" he
"drew back and separated himself, fearing those of the circumcision."
While matters were at this stage Paul and Barnabas reappeared on the
scene. Paul thought it necessary to rebuke Peter "openly, before them
all." Barnabas, former head of the Antioch church, took sides with Peter
and "the rest of the Jews," doubtless determining the attitude of the
church; for Paul says nothing of prevailing upon them by his argument,
but merely turns it at once upon the Galatians themselves. Moreover,
Barnabas now takes Cyprus as his mission field, with Mark as his helper,
while Paul with a new companion, Silvanus (in Acts "Silas," a bearer of
the 'decrees' from Jerusalem), takes the northern half of the newly
evangelized territory, and through much difficulty and opposition makes
his way to the coasts of the Ægean.
This second visit to the churches of Galatia (Acts xvi. 1-5) was
signalized by warnings against the (possible) preaching of "another
gospel" (Gal. i. 9); for Paul had reason to anticipate trouble from the
"false brethren." If Acts may be believed, it was also marked by an
extraordinary evidence of Paul's readiness to "become all things to all
men" in the interest of conciliation. He is said to have circumcised a
Galatian half-Jew named Timothy. If so, it was certainly not to prove
his respect for the legal requirement, but rather its indifference.
"Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision nothing; only faith working
through love." But these generous 'accommodations' of Paul produced more
of misrepresentation than of conciliation. He had cause to regret his
liberality later (Gal. i. 10; v. 11 f.; _cf._ 1st Cor. vii. 18).
Some unexplained obstacle (Acts xvi. 6) prevented Paul's entrance into
the Province of Asia at this time. Ephesus, his probable objective, had
perhaps already been occupied (xviii. 24-28). He turned north through
Phrygia-Galatia, hoping to find a field in Bithynia, but was again
disappointed. At Troas, the very extremity of Asia, came the
turning-point in the fortunes of the missionaries. Encouraged by a
vision they crossed into Macedonia and found fields white for the
harvest.
The Epistles to Thessalonica address one of these Macedonian churches
from Corinth, whither the missionaries have been driven. Timothy had
been sent back from Athens when Paul's own repeated attempts to return
had been frustrated, and has just arrived with good news of the church's
perseverance in spite of a persecution stirred up by the Jews. It is
against these, apparently, not against Jewish-Christian detractors, that
Paul defends his character and message (1st Thess. ii. 1-13). There is
also an urgent warning against fornication (iv. 1-8) and exhortation to
abound in love (iv. 9-12), with correction of the natural Greek tendency
to misapprehend the Jewish eschatology and resurrection-doctrine (iv.
13--v. 1-11; _cf._ 1st Cor. xv.). The closing admonitions relate to the
direction of church meetings and discipline.
2nd Thessalonians corrects and supplements the eschatology of 1st
Thessalonians by adding a doctrine of Antichrist, which is at all events
thoroughly Jewish and earlier than 70, when the temple was destroyed in
which it expects the manifestation of "the man of sin." It is the only
one of the Epistles of this period whose authenticity is seriously
questioned by critical scholarship. How little this affects the question
of Paul's 'gospel' may be seen by the fact that the entire contents
cover less than 3 per cent. of the earlier Epistles, while the subject
is a mere detail.
Far more significant is it to observe the close correspondence between
the missionary preaching of Paul as here described by himself (1st
Thess. i. 9 f.) and the general apostolic message (_kerygma_) as
described by Luke (Acts x. 42 f.; xiv. 15-17; xvii. 24-31). Where
there are no Judaizers there is no reference to the dispensations of Law
and Grace and the abolition of the former in the Cross. The doctrine is
the common gospel of the Resurrection, wherein Jesus has been manifested
as the Messiah. Faith in him secures forgiveness to the repentant; all
others are doomed to perish in the judgment shown by his 'manifestation'
to be at hand (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 11; Rom. i. 3-5).
Galatians was written but slightly before (or after?) the letters to
Thessalonica. Its single theme (after the retrospect) is the Adoption to
Son ship through the Spirit. Against the Judaizer's plea that to share
in the Inheritance one must be adopted (preferably by circumcision) into
the family of Abraham, or at all events pay respect to the Mosaic Law,
Paul asserts the single fact of the adoption of the Spirit. "It is
because ye are sons that God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts crying (in the ecstatic utterances of 'tongues') Abba, that is,
Father" (Gal. iv. 6). To go back to legal observances is to revert from
redemption to bondage. All Christians are indeed sons of Abraham, but
only as sharers of his trust in God. Abraham was made "heir of the
world" (Rom. iv. 13) for his faith. Circumcision and the Law came
afterwards. They were not superimposed stipulations and conditions of
the promise. On the contrary they were temporary pedagogic measures
intended to produce the consciousness of sin and (moral) death, so that
when the Heir should come men should be ready to cast themselves on the
mercy of God displayed in his vicarious death.[14] Thus the messianic
Redemption is a redemption from a system issuing in sin and death. On
the cross even the sinless Christ incurred the curse in order that
believers thus redeemed might have the Blessing of the Abrahamic promise
(Gal. iii. 1--iv. 7).
Footnote 14: Romans enlarges the conception of the economy of Law by
making it include the Gentile law of 'conscience' (Rom. i. 18--ii.
16). In Galatians this point is covered only by classing the
"angels" through whom the Mosaic Law was given, with the "Elements"
honoured in Gentile religion. Both are codes of "stewards and
governors."
But this transfer from bondage to liberty, from the legal to the filial
relation, does not "make Christ a minister of sin." On the contrary, if
the delivering Spirit of Son ship has been received at all, it controls
the life for purity and love. One cannot be a son and be unfilial or
unbrotherly. The unity of the redeemed world in Christ is the unity of
loving service, not of subjection to a bygone system of rules (iv.
8--vi. 18). Thus does Galatians meet the insidious plea of the
Judaizers, and their charges against Pauline liberty.
The church founded by Paul in Corinth (Acts xviii. 1-17) was grounded
from the beginning in this doctrine of the Cross. Paul purposely
restricted himself to it (1st Cor. i. 17-25; ii. 1-5). He had indeed a
world-view, of which we learn more in the Epistles of the Captivity, a
philosophy revealed by the Spirit as a "mystery of God." Those who
afterwards in Corinth came to call themselves followers "of Apollos" had
nothing to teach him on this score. But consideration of this Grecizing
tendency, too often issuing in a mere "philosophy and vain deceit after
the Elements of the world and not after Christ" (Col. ii. 8), must be
deferred, in favour of questions which became more immediately pressing.
For after Paul had left Corinth to make a brief visit via Ephesus to
Cæsarea and Antioch, and had returned through the now pacified Galatian
churches to make Ephesus his permanent headquarters (Acts xviii. 18-23),
he received disturbing news of conditions in Corinth. Under Apollos (now
at Ephesus with Paul) an Alexandrian convert thoroughly indoctrinated
with Paul's gospel (Acts xviii. 24-28) the church had flourished, but
discussions had subsequently arisen, resulting in a letter to Paul
asking his advice on disputed points. Besides this there were moral
blemishes. First the factious strife itself, of which Paul has learnt
from newcomers from Corinth; secondly a case of unpunished incest. A
previous letter from Paul (now lost, or but partially preserved in 2nd
Cor. vi. 14--vii. 1) had required the church "to have no company with
fornicators." The church, making the application general, had pleaded
the impracticability of "going out of the world." Paul now explains: "If
any man _that is named a brother_ be a fornicator ... with such a one
no, not to eat." After further rebuke for litigiousness, and a lack of
moral tone, especially in the matter of "fornication" (ch. vi.), Paul
takes up seriatim "the things whereof ye wrote." We are chiefly
interested in the long section (viii. 1--xi. 1) on "things offered to
idols" wherein Paul instructs those who would be imitators of his
freedom, but who forget that he has always refused to assert his rights
when thereby the 'weak' were stumbled. Moreover fornication is never
among the permissible things, nor even the eating of meats offered to
idols _at the heathen banquet itself_. Such food is unobjectionable only
when it has been sold in the market, and can be eaten without 'offence.'
The other questions related to church meetings for the "Lord's supper"
and the exercise of "spiritual gifts." They give opportunity for the
development of Paul's noble doctrine of unity through loving service
(xi. 2--xiv. 40). The doctrinal section of 1st Corinthians concludes
with a full statement of Paul's doctrine of the resurrection body
(called forth by Greek objections to the Jewish). From the items of
business at the close we learn that "the collection for the saints" has
been under way some time already "in Galatia," and that Paul hopes,
after passing through Macedonia, to join the delegation which is to
carry the money to Jerusalem (xvi. 1-6).
As it turned out Paul actually followed the itinerary outlined in 1st
Cor. xvi. 1-6, but not until after distressing experiences. Timothy,
sent (by way of Macedonia, Acts xix. 22) as Paul's representative (iv.
17; xvi. 10 f.), was unable to restore order. The opposition to Paul's
apostolic authority, treated almost contemptuously in ix. 1-14, grew to
alarming proportions. Paul received so direct and personal an affront
(either on a hasty visit undertaken in person from Ephesus, or in the
person of Timothy) that he despatched a peremptory ultimatum, whose
effect he is anxiously waiting to hear when 2nd Corinthians opens with
Paul driven out from Ephesus, a refugee in Macedonia (_c._ 55). It is
highly probable that the disconnected section appended between 2nd Cor.
ix. 15 and the Farewell, is taken from this "grievous" letter written
"out of much affliction and anguish of heart with many tears" (2nd Cor.
ii. 1-4; vii. 8-16); for it was not only a peremptory demand for
punishment of the offender, but also a letter of forced
self-commendation. Paul cannot have written in self-commendation on more
than one occasion, and he promises not to repeat this in iii. 1 ff. We
may take 2nd Cor. x.-xiii., then, as representing the "grievous" letter.
The opposition emanates from Judaizers who say they are "of Christ," and
may therefore be identical with those of 1st Cor. i. 12. But it has
grown to proportions which for a time made Paul despair of the church's
loyalty. Titus' arrival in Macedonia with news of their restored
obedience had been an inexpressible relief (ii. 5-17; vii. 8-16). It
remains only to set his 'ministry of the new covenant' once more in
contrast with the Mosaic 'ministry of condemnation and death,' including
further elucidation of the doctrine of the resurrection body (iii.
1--vi. 10) and to urge generosity in the matter of the collection (chh.
viii.-ix.).
The somewhat disordered, but unmistakably genuine material of 2nd
Corinthians was probably given out as a kind of residuum of Pauline
material long after our 1st Corinthians had been put in circulation,
perhaps when renewed strife had caused the church in Rome to intervene
through Clement (95), who quotes 1st Corinthians, but shows no knowledge
of 2nd Corinthians. The correspondence is not only invaluable to the
church for its pæan of love as the invincible, abiding gift of the
Spirit (1st Cor. xiii.) and its sublime eulogy of the "ministry of the
new covenant," but instructive in the highest degree to the historian.
Almost every aspect of Paul's work as missionary, defender of his own
independent apostleship and gospel, guide and instructor of developing
Gentile-Christian thought, and ardent commissioner for peace with the
apostolic community in Syria, is here set forth. The best exposition of
the history is the documentary material itself, and conversely.
Romans was written during the peaceful winter at Corinth (55-56) which
followed these weeks of tormenting anxiety in Macedonia (Acts xx. 1-3).
Paul feels that he has carried the gospel to the very shores of the
Adriatic (xv. 19). He is on the point of going to Jerusalem with his
great 'offering of the Gentiles,' and has already fixed his eye on Rome
and "Spain"! Just as before the First Missionary Journey he forestalled
opposition by frankly laying his gospel before the Pillars, so now he
lays it before the church in Rome, but most delicately and tactfully,
not as though assuming to admonish Christians already "filled with all
knowledge and able to admonish one another" (xv. 14), but "that I with
you may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith" (i. 12).
Thus the Epistle is an eirenicon. For Rome was even more than Ephesus
had been, a preoccupied territory, though a metropolis of Paul's
mission-field. Most of the church are Paul's sympathizers, but there
are many of the 'weak,' who may easily be 'offended.' The letter repeats
and enlarges the argument of Galatians for the gospel of Grace, carrying
back the promise to Abraham to its antecedent in the fall of Adam,
whereby all mankind had passed under the domination of Sin and Death.
The function of the Law is again made clear as bringing men to
consciousness of this bondage, till it is done away by (mystical) death
and resurrection with Christ. In the adoption wrought by the Spirit the
whole creation even, groaning since Adam's time under 'vanity,' is
liberated in the manifestation of the sons of God. Jesus, glorified at
the right hand of God, is the firstfruits of the cosmic redemption (Rom.
i.-viii.). Such is Paul's theory of 'evolution.' It is followed by a
vindication of God in history. Rom. ix.-xi. exhibits the relation of Jew
and Gentile in the process of the redemption. Israel has for the time
being been hardened that the Gentiles may be brought in. Ultimately
their very jealousy at this result will bring them also to repentant
faith.
Paul's sublime exposition of his view of cosmic and historic redemption
is followed (as in all the Epistles) by a practical exhortation (chh.
xii.-xiv.), the keynote of which is unity through mutual forbearance and
loving service. It repeats the Corinthian figure of the members in the
body, and the Galatian definition of the 'law of Christ.' Special
application is made to the case of the scrupulous who make distinctions
of days and of meats. Here, however (xiv. 1--xv. 13), there is no longer
need to resist a threatened yoke. Only tenderness and consideration are
urged for the over-scrupulous "brother in Christ." It was in this spirit
that Paul and his great company of delegates from the churches of the
Gentiles went up to Jerusalem (Acts xx. 4--xxi. 17).
CHAPTER IV
PAUL AS PRISONER AND CHURCH FATHER
The second period of Paul's literary career begins after an interval of
several years. This interval is covered indeed, so far as the great
events of the Apostle's personal story are concerned, by the last nine
chapters of Acts, but exceedingly obscure as respects the fortunes of
his mission-field and the occasion for the group of Epistles which come
to us after its close. It is barely possible that a fragment or two from
the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, Titus), which
seem to be compiled long after Paul's death on the basis of some
remnants of his correspondence, may have been written shortly after the
arrest in Jerusalem and "first defence." In 2nd Tim. iv. 11-18 a journey
is referred to from Troas by way of Ephesus which coincides in many
respects with that of Acts xx. If the fragment could be taken out from
its present setting it might be possible to identify the two; for it is
clear from the forecast of Acts xx. 25, 38 that Paul never did revisit
this region. The grip of Rome upon her troublesome prisoner was not
relaxed until his martyrdom, probably some considerable time before the
"great multitude" whom Nero condemned after the conflagration of 64.
However, until analysis can dissect out with greater definiteness the
genuine elements of the Pastoral Epistles, they cannot be used to throw
light upon the later period of Paul's career. A historical background
has indeed been created to meet their requirements--a release of Paul,
resumption of missionary activities on the coasts of the Ægean, renewed
imprisonment in Rome and ultimate martyrdom. But this has absolutely no
warrant outside the Pastorals themselves, and is both inconsistent with
Acts and open to criticism intrinsically. The story thus created of a
release, _second_ visitation of the Greek churches, and _second_
imprisonment must, therefore, be regarded as fictitious, and the
Pastoral Epistles in their present form as products of the post-Pauline
age.
It is our task to trace the development among the Greek churches of
Christianity conceived as a "revelation of God in Christ," alongside of
its development in the 'apostolic' church, until the period of
'catholic' unity and the completed canon. Upon this development the
story of Paul's personal fortunes in Acts throws but little light. We
merely see that his great peace-making visit to Jerusalem was suddenly
interrupted by his arrest in the temple, while engaged in an act of
worship undoubtedly intended by him to demonstrate his willingness in
the interest of unity to "become as under the Law to them that are under
the Law." After this his great delegation from the Gentile churches must
have scattered to their homes. Paul remained a prisoner for two years in
Cæsarea, and after an adventurous journey covering the ensuing autumn
and winter (59-60), spent two more years in less rigid confinement at
Rome. We need no hint from his request in 2nd Tim. iv. 13 for "books and
parchments" to infer that the years of forced seclusion in Cæsarea were
marked by study and meditation; but narrative and inference together
convey but little of what we mainly desire to know: the course of
religious development in the Pauline churches, as a background for the
literature.
On the other hand recent research into religious conditions in the early
Empire has removed the principal objections to the authenticity of
Philippians, Philemon, Colossians, and even Ephesians. We are far from
being compelled to come down to the time of the great Gnostic systems of
the second century to find a historical situation appropriate to this
group of letters purporting to be written by Paul from his captivity.
Indeed they exhibit on any theory of their origin a characteristic and
legitimate development of the Pauline gospel of Son ship by the Spirit
of Adoption abolishing the dispensation of Law. It is a development
almost inevitable in a conception of 'the gospel' formed on Greek ideas
of Redemption, if we place in opposition to it a certain baser type of
superstitious, mongrel Judaism, revealed in the Epistles themselves,
repeatedly referred to in Acts, and now known to us by a mass of
extraneous documentary material.
The new disturbers of the churches' peace revealed in the Epistles of
the Captivity are still of Jewish origin and tendency; but at least in
the region of Colossæ (in the Lycus Valley, adjacent to southern
Galatia) the issue is no longer that between Law and Grace, but concerns
the nature and extent of the Redemption. The trouble still comes from a
superstitious exaltation of the Mosaic revelation; but those whom Paul
here opposes do not "use the Law lawfully," frankly insisting on its
permanent obligation as the will of God for all sons, unaffected by the
Cross. It is now admitted to be an "ordinance of angels"; but the
observance of it is inculcated because man's redemption can only come
through conciliation of these higher beings. Mystical union with
superhuman Powers is to be promoted by its observances. This
superstition is neither purely Jewish, nor purely Greek. It is
composite--Hellenistic. Judaism is imitated in the superstitious
reverence for the Law; but the conception of Redemption leaves behind
every thought of national particularism and is openly individualistic.
The redemption sought is that of the individual soul from the
limitations of humanity, and doubtless the name of Jesus played an
important rôle in the emancipation, as in the exorcisms of the sons of
Sceva (Acts xix. 13 f.); only it was not "above every name."
But even Jewish apocalypses such as _Enoch_ and _Baruch_ with all their
superstitious angelology and demonology manage somehow to cling to the
ancient Jewish faith in the primacy of man, and Paul in like manner
upholds against the theosophists the doctrine of the believer's Son ship
and joint-heirship with Christ. In fact the Adoption, Redemption and
Inheritance accorded in the gift of the Spirit are to his mind gifts so
great and exalted as to make it a "gratuitous self-humiliation" to pay
homage, in Mosaic or other ceremonial, to "angels," "principalities," or
"powers." In Christ we already have a foothold in the heavenly regions.
We were foreordained in his person to be "heirs" "before the foundation
of the world." His resurrection and ascension "to the right hand of God"
participated in by us through "the Spirit" was a "triumph" over the
'Elements' and 'Rulers.' They should be beneath the Christian's feet in
feeling, as they soon will be in reality.
This exalted doctrine of Christ's Son ship as compared with the mere
temporary authority of "angels and principalities and powers," secures
to the Epistles of the Captivity their well-deserved title of
"Christological"; for they lay the foundation for all later doctrines of
the Logos or Word. It is well to realize, however, that the doctrine is
in origin and meaning simply a vindication of the divine dignity of
manhood.
An idea of outward conditions at the time of writing may be gained from
the two Epistles of the group most universally admitted to be genuine,
Philemon and Philippians. Both are written from captivity, almost
certainly in Rome, because the writer is expecting, if released, to
revisit the Ægean coasts, which was not Paul's expectation in Cæsarea.
But there is a wide difference between the two as respects the
circumstances presupposed. The tone of Philemon is hopeful, sprightly,
even jocose. Paul is in company with a group of "fellow-workers" which
significantly includes "Mark," as well as two companions of the voyage
to Rome, "Aristarchus" of Thessalonica, and "Luke" (Acts xxvii. 2).
Epaphras, his "fellow-prisoner," appears in Colossians as the founder of
that church and a teacher in the adjacent towns of Hierapolis and
Laodicea. He has brought to Paul either of his own knowledge or by
report from others, disturbing news of the inroads of the heresy.
Onesimus, whose case occasions the letter to Philemon, is an escaped
slave of this friend and convert of Paul. The apostle is sending back
the slave with the request that he be forgiven and manumitted. The
interrelation of the persons mentioned in Philemon and Colossians shows
that the occasion is the same. Tychicus (_cf._ Acts xx. 3) the bearer of
Colossians (Col. iv. 7) accompanies Onesimus. Ephesians (if authentic)
belongs to the same group, being also carried by Tychicus (Eph. vi. 21).
It was certainly _not_ intended for Ephesus, but for some church or
churches not directly known to Paul (i. 15; iii. 2). It bears much the
same relation to Colossians as Romans to Galatians. In spite of copious
evidences of its use reaching back even to Clement of Rome (95) the
genuineness of Ephesians is more seriously questioned than that of any
other Pauline letter save the Pastorals. In the present writer's
judgment this suspicion is unfounded, but the question of Pauline,
semi-Pauline or deutero-Pauline is immaterial to the general
development.
Philippians is of later date than Philemon and its companions. Paul has
been in circumstances of dire physical distress, and is comforting his
correspondents in view of an immediately impending decision of his case
(ii. 23). The issue will be life or death, and Paul has no earthly (but
only super-earthly) reasons for hoping the verdict may not be adverse.
He is still expecting, if released, to revisit the Ægean coast (ii. 24);
but it is only smiling through his tears when he tells the Philippians
that their need of him is so great that he is confident he will be
spared to them (Phil. 1. 12-30). Knowing that this journey was never
made, we can but infer that the fate so near at hand in Phil. ii. 17
came actually to pass. Paul's blood was "poured out a libation," as
tradition of extreme antiquity credibly reports, and it can hardly have
been after a release, return to Greece and second arrest. The passage in
2nd Tim iv. 5-8 which repeats the figure of the libation (Phil. ii. 17),
treating it no longer as doubtful, but a tragic certainty, will have
been penned (if authentic) but a few weeks at most after Philippians,
and immediately before the end. If Philemon-Colossians-Ephesians be
dated in 62, Philippians, with the possible fragments in 2nd Timothy,
may be dated a few months later.
Conditions at Philippi appear only in a favourable light from this
latest authentic epistle. Paul can thank God upon every remembrance of
these loyal and liberal Macedonian friends. In Rome, however, he is
still affected by Judaizing opposition, though his attitude toward it
(in Rome at least) shows the significant difference from Galatians that
he can now be thankful that Christ is preached even thus (Phil. i.
15-18). Moreover there is a difference in the type of legalism
represented; for while in his warning to the Philippians of the possible
coming of the heretics Paul is moved to recall his own renunciation of
legalistic righteousness, the terms of opprobrium applied to the
disturbers imply an immorality and assimilation to heathenism (Phil.
iii. 2 19; _cf._ Rom. xvi. 17-20) which could not justly be said to
characterize the legalism of the synagogue.
The doctrinal elements of Philippians consist of two passages: (1) the
denunciation of the "concision" (a term applied to the heathenized
renegade Jew) ending with a reminder of the high enthronement of our
spiritual Redeemer (iii. 1-21); (2) the definition of the "mind," or
"disposition," of Christ exhibited in his self-abnegating incarnation,
obedient suffering, and supreme exaltation (ii. 5-11). Both passages are
characteristic of Paul's gospel in general, which is always, as against
that of the Judaizers, the gospel of a drama, or spectacle, witnessed;
not a gospel of teachings heard. It is a gospel _about_ Jesus, not of
precepts inculcated _by_ Jesus, a drama of redemption for all mankind
out of servitude into Son ship, wherein the cross is central. Both
passages are also characteristic, as we shall see, of the later period
of Paul's literary activity; for even in Philippians, the dominant
doctrinal motive is the Redemption to which Paul is looking forward, and
this is now conceived even more strongly than in the earlier letters in
terms of personal religion. He anticipates "departing to be with Christ"
(i. 23) rather than awaiting Him on earth (1st Thess. iv. 17). The
"goal" toward which the Christian "presses on" is personal immortality
through mystic union with Christ in the life of God (iii. 10-14). This
too is a real doctrine of the Kingdom of God; but its starting-point is
humanity's triumph over its enemies 'sin' and 'death,' not Israel's
triumph over its oppressors. Still more in the Colossian group does it
become apparent how the 'far-off, divine event' is a unity of mankind
through the Spirit corresponding to the Stoic figure of the members and
the body rather than the 'Kingdom of David.'
Again the opponents in Phil. iii. 2, 18 f. are not mere Pharisaic
legalists, unable to see that Law and Grace are mutually exclusive
systems, and nullifying the significance of the Cross by perpetuating
the system it was intended to abolish. If we may explain the difference
by Colossians, they are Jews of heathenish tendencies, pretended
adherents of the gospel, who nullify its significance by perpetuating
regard for the Law; only the servility deplored is not servility toward
God, but toward "angels" (Col. ii. 18).
To appreciate the enlargement which has come to Christianity beyond its
merely 'apostolic' form through the independent development of the Greek
churches in this second period we must realize that Paul's 'gospel of
the uncircumcision' differed in respect to promise as well as law. The
coming Kingdom which he preached was something more than "the kingdom of
our father David" extended from Jerusalem. What it really was becomes
fully apparent only in the 'Christological Epistles.' But we must study
the opposition to appreciate how differently the idea of Redemption had
developed on Greek soil.
That aspect of Judaism which was most conspicuous to the outsider in
Paul's day was not the legalism of the scribes and the Palestinian
synagogue, perpetually embalmed in the Talmud and orthodox rabbinism of
to-day. It was the superstition and magic which excite the contempt of
satirists like Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, and call forth descriptions
like that of the letter of Hadrian to Servianus, characterizing the
Samaritans, Jews _and Christians_ dwelling in Egypt as "all astrologers,
haruspices, and quacksalvers." It is this type of Jew who is most widely
known in the contemporary Hellenistic world; whose spells and
incantations, framed in Old Testament language, are perpetuated in the
leaden incantation rolls and magic papyri of the Berlin collection;
whose portrait is painted in the Simon Magus of Acts viii. 14-24, the
Elymas the sorcerer of Acts xiii. 6-12, the "strolling Jews, exorcists,"
and the "seven sons of Sceva" of Acts xix. 13-20. A Christian writer
early in the second century is so impressed with this characteristic of
contemporary Judaism that he even distinguishes as the third type of
religion, besides idolatry and Christianity, "the Jews, who fancy that
they alone know God, but do not, worshipping angels and archangels, the
moon and the month," and seeks to prove his case by citing the Old
Testament festal system. Indeed this idea of Judaism is the predominant
one among the second-century apologists. Jewish "superstition" is a
notorious fact of the time. The transcendentalizing of Jewish theology
after the Persian period had led inevitably to an elaborate angelology
and demonology. When as part of this process a more and more
supernatural character was attributed to the Law it could but have a
two-fold effect. The learned and orthodox would treat it soberly as a
revelation of the divine will. This is the legalistic development we see
in the Talmud and the Palestinian synagogue. The ignorant and
superstitious, especially in the Greek-speaking world, would use it as a
book of magic. This is what we see among many Jewish sects, particularly
in Samaria, Egypt and among the Greek-speaking Jews. The tendency was
marked even in Galilee. Jesus Himself stigmatizes the morbid craving of
His countrymen for miracles as the mark of an "adulterous" generation,
because the power invoked was not divine, but always angelic, or even
demonic. Paul alludes to the same trait (1st Cor. i. 22). But while
there is a singular absence both from the Pauline and the Johannine
writings of any reference to exorcism, the typical miracle of Synoptic
story, it has been justly remarked that no element of Paul's thought
has been so little affected by that of Jesus as his angelology and
demonology. Paul's world-view, like that of the apocalypses of his time,
is a perfect phantasmagoria of angels and demons, "gods many and lords
many." His conception of the redemption conflict is not a wrestling
against flesh and blood, but against "world-rulers of this (lower region
of) darkness," against "archangels," "elements," "principalities,"
"powers." The one thing which takes away all harmful influence from this
credulity (if we must apply an unfairly modern judgment to an ancient
writer) is his doctrine of the Son ship and Lordship of Jesus, with whom
the redeemed are "joint-heirs" of the entire creation and thus superior
to angels. In this respect Paul has imbibed the mind of Christ. Jesus'
remedy for superstition is not scientific but religious. It does not
deny the popularly assumed relation to "spirits" good or evil, but
affirms a direct relation to the Infinite Spirit, which reduces all
angels and demons to insignificance save as "ministers." Paul's
world-view starts with the creation of man to be lord and heir of the
world (Gal. iv. 1; 1st Cor. iii. 22; _cf._ Gen. i. 28). The "purpose of
God, which he purposed in Christ Jesus, before the creation, unto a
dispensation of the fulness of the ages" is "to our glory." It would be
frustrated if the "Second Adam" did not become the Heir, in whom the
redeemed creation would find the goal of its long expectancy. Paul has a
cosmology as well as "Enoch." He could not be a worthy follower of
Jesus--he could not even be a loyal "son of the Law" without holding to
the accepted doctrine of the Inheritance intended for Messiah and his
obedient people. It did not make him less firm in this conviction when
as a Christian he thought of Jesus as the Messiah, and of Jew and
Gentile united in his kingdom; only the starting-point is not the
subjection of the sons of Abraham under Gentiles, but the subjection of
the sons of Adam under "world-rulers of this darkness." When he combines
Ps. viii. and Ps. cx. in his depiction of the reign of Christ in 1st
Cor. xv. 24-27, it is a sure indication of its scope as Paul understood
it. He included in the lordship over creation, and the subjection of all
"enemies" which the exalted Christ is awaiting "at the right hand of
God," the subjection of "angels, and principalities, and powers and
every name that is named, whether of beings in heaven, or on earth, or
under the earth." Paul pursues, then, the method of the apocalyptic
writers in making his doctrine of Redemption and the Kingdom
transcendental. By making it cosmic he undermines its Jewish
particularism. He avoids the superstition by holding firmly to Jesus'
doctrine of Son ship by _moral_ affinity with God.
In the Christological Epistles accordingly it is apparent that the
Pauline churches are learning to think of the coming Kingdom in a widely
different way from the 'apostolic.' The Greek doctrine of mystic union,
not the rabbinic of a "share in the world to come," is the basis. In due
time we shall see how difficult the process of reconciliation became
between Greek and Semitic thought in this field also. For the present we
can only note how in the great theme of the Unity of the Spirit in Eph.
iv. 1--vi. 9 it is not the 'apostolic' ideal of a restoration of the
kingdom to Israel according to the oath sworn to Abraham (Luke i. 68-75;
_cf._ Acts i. 6) that dominates, but an enlargement of the figure of the
body and members, a figure commonly employed by Stoic writers, to apply
to the unity of the church in Corinthians and Romans. In the Epistles of
the Captivity the doctrine of the Kingdom is a social organism permeated
and vitalized by Christ's spirit of service. Personal immortality is
union with the life of God.
In view of the notoriety of Ephesus as the very centre of the trade in
magic (so much so that spells and incantations were technically known as
"Ephesian letters") and of what Acts tells us of the enormous
destruction there of "books of magic" effected by Paul's preaching, it
is not surprising that Asia and Phrygia should appear a few years after
Paul's departure as the hot-bed of a "philosophy and vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the 'elements' of the world, and not after
Christ." Acts xx. 29 makes Paul predict the heresy.
Such was especially the case at Colossæ, a little town long after
notorious for its superstition, where Epaphras, now Paul's
fellow-prisoner, had founded the church. Epaphras himself at the time of
Paul's writing was in great anxiety both for this church and for the
adjoining churches at Hierapolis and Laodicea. Colossians is written to
meet this danger, and was sent by the same bearers as the note to
Philemon. It was to be exchanged, after being read at Colossæ, for
another epistle sent simultaneously to Laodicea. Whether our Ephesians
is this companion letter or only a deutero-Pauline production framed on
the basis of some genuine letter written on this occasion, is a disputed
point among critics. In Marcion's canon our Ephesians was called
"Laodiceans," and in our own oldest textual authorities it has no
address. We may assume that Ephesians is really the companion letter,
whose original address was for some reason cancelled;[15] or that it is
but partially from Paul's own hand. Neither view will materially alter
our conception of his teaching, or the special application of it to the
circumstances of the churches of the Lycus Valley. The important thing
to observe is that whereas the application in Colossians is specific, in
Ephesians it is systematic and general. Colossians wages a direct
polemic against those who are making believers the spoil of mere
'Elements' by introducing distinctions of "meats _and drinks_" (a step
beyond Mosaism), with observance of "feast days, new moons and
sabbaths." In Ephesians we have, either altogether at first hand, or to
a greater or less extent at second, a general, affirmative presentation
of Paul's doctrine of Lordship in Christ. It has only incidental
allusion to being "deceived with empty words" (v. 6), and a warning not
to be "children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness, after the wiles of error"
(iv. 14).
Footnote 15: Harnack very ingeniously suggests as a reason the ill
repute later incurred by Laodicea (_cf._ Rev. iii. 15 f.);
comparing the chiselling out from inscriptions of the names of
unpopular kings.
Colossians and Ephesians develop, accordingly, that (cosmological)
wisdom of God conveyed to Paul by the Spirit of Christ in a "mystery,"
at which he had only hinted in 1st Cor. ii. 1-16. Paul's _gnosis_, or
insight, concerns the purpose of God in creation, hidden even from the
(angelic) "world-rulers," who are coming to nought. The Spirit of
Christ, who as the divine Wisdom had been the agent of creation, is
given to Christian apostles and prophets. It affords them in the
revelation of this "mystery" a philosophy both of creation and
redemption which puts to shame mere speculative reasoning. The
Inheritance--the things God prepared for those that love Him--consists
(as an apocalyptic writer had said) of "things which eye had not seen,
nor ear heard, nor had entered into the heart of man to conceive." Paul
had purposely refrained from unfolding this revealed cosmology and
philosophy of history to the Corinthians, in order to avoid just the
evils which the teaching of Apollos had apparently precipitated at the
time when 1st Corinthians was written. Still, we can gain from this very
epistle (1st Cor. viii. 6; xv. 24-28) a partial conception of his
doctrine of Christ as the beginning and end of the creation, the Wisdom
of God by whom and for whom as Heir, all things were created. From
Romans i.-viii. and ix.-xi. we can easily see that as Second Adam the
Messiah was to Paul the key to the world's development and to human
history; for since the triumph of Satan in Eden the whole creation had
waited, groaning, for the advent of the sons. Galatians makes it no less
clear that he thought of the Cross as the epoch-making event, which
marks the transition from the period of the control of the world by
secondary agencies, to the rule of the Son. This "mystery" is simply
brought out and developed now in the Epistles of the Captivity. The
effort and prayer is that the readers may "have the eyes of their heart
enlightened," obtain something of Paul's own insight into the riches of
the inheritance they are to share with Christ, something of Paul's
experience of the power of God in raising Christ from the dead and
setting Him on the throne of glory. If they but realize what Son ship
and heirship with Christ implies--if they but take in the fact that by
the resurrection Spirit within them they have already in a sense shared
in this deliverance and this exaltation, they will be forearmed against
all the vain deceits of theosophy. It is in fact this resurrection
Spirit which brings about the unity of the world as a single organism.
It extends from the uppermost height to the nethermost abyss. And
because it is the Spirit of Jesus, it fills all it touches with the
disposition to loving service. It affords a new ethics and a new
politics whose keynote is the law of love in imitation of God and
Christ. All social relations are recreated by it, beginning with family
and church. Hence we must think of our redemption as like Israel's from
the bondage and darkness of Egypt. The principalities and powers of this
world, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the super-terrestrial regions,
are vainly endeavouring to hold back the people of God, in "this
darkness." We have only to wait like Israel at the Passover "with our
loins girt, and our feet shod." The Deliverer will soon appear from
heaven, clad in armour of salvation, as in the ancient passover songs,
cleaving the darkness with his sword of light, and leading forth the
captives.
In these themes, variously interwoven in Ephesians and Colossians, it is
difficult to say whether it is the note of unity or the note of freedom
which predominates. Certainly we can recognize the same great apostle of
liberty who in the epistles of the earlier period had proved the power
and value of his religious insight by seizing upon the doctrine of Son
ship as the essential heart of the gospel. It is the same genius
consciously taught of God who had demanded and obtained recognition on
equal terms for his gospel of Grace and Son ship, a gospel given by
revelation of God's Son "in" him, who now demands that the gift of the
Spirit to Jew and Gentile be recognized as calling for reconstruction of
the doctrine of the coming Kingdom. "He that ascended is the same also
that descended to the lowest depths that he might fill all things." And
he poured out the "gifts" in order that they might make one organism of
the new social order, a new creation animated and vitalized by Jesus'
spirit of loving service.
For just as in all the great earlier epistles the note of longing for
peace and unity in love rings ever stronger and clearer above the
strife, so in the later epistles, the note of triumph in liberty has a
deep under-chord of thanksgiving for reconciliation achieved. The great
pæan of reverent adoration for the glory of God's grace in Eph. i. 3-14,
is a thanksgiving for the union of Jew and Gentile in one common
redemption. The retrospect of the work of God in ii. 11-21 is the
proclamation of "peace to him that was far off and peace to him that was
nigh." It is described as the building of Jew and Gentile into one
living temple, upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ
Jesus Himself being the chief corner-stone. The exhortation to the unity
of the Spirit in iv. 1--vi. 9 rests upon an exultant application of the
figure of the "one new man" in whose body all are members, that would be
inconceivable if at the time of writing the church which had received
the gifts from the ascended Lord was not indeed one body, but two bodies
standing apart in mutual distrust and jealousy.
In fact we may say not of Ephesians only, but of Colossians likewise,
and indeed of all the group: Their keynote is not so much the conquest
of all things by Christ as "the reconciliation of all things in Christ,
whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens" (Col. i. 20).
It is not unreasonable to infer from such undertones as these that the
prayer was answered in which Paul when he set out from Corinth had
besought the Roman church by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of
the Spirit to strive together with him, that his ministration which he
had for Jerusalem might be acceptable to the saints, that so his coming
to them in Rome through the will of God might be in joy, and that
together with them he might find rest.
CHAPTER V
PSEUDO-APOSTOLIC EPISTLES
We cannot wonder that an epoch of the church's history which followed
upon the martyrdom in rapid succession of all its remaining great
leaders, should at first be poor in literary products. James the Lord's
brother was stoned to death by a mob in Jerusalem in the year 61-2. His
namesake, brother of John, had been beheaded early in 44 by Herod
Agrippa I. Among the "others" who, as Josephus informs us, perished
along with James in 61, we may, perhaps, reckon John, who stands beside
him in Paul's list of the Pillars. This John, son of Zebedee, brother of
the other James, is reckoned a martyr in the same sense as his brother
in the earliest gospels. The brothers are assured that they shall drink
the same cup of suffering as the Lord, though they may not claim in
return pre-eminent seats in glory (Mark x. 39 f.). John did not suffer
with his brother James in 44, because he is present at the conference in
46-7 (Gal. ii. 9); but one of the traditions of the Jerusalem elders
reported by Papias declared that he was "killed by the Jews" in
fulfilment of the Lord's prediction, and this early tradition must be
accepted in spite of its conflict with one which gradually superseded it
after John came to be regarded as author of Revelation and the Fourth
Gospel. The statement that he was killed "together with James his
brother" may be due merely to the (not infrequent) confusion of the two
Jameses.
Paul's decapitation in Rome occurred not more than a year or two later,
and was followed there in 64, according to very ancient and trustworthy
tradition, by the martyrdom of Peter. The death of all the principal
leaders explains why the Jerusalem church when it reassembled after the
overthrow of city and temple in the year 70, put forward no more
prominent candidates for the leadership than a certain Symeon, son of
Clopas, one of the group of 'relatives of the Lord' who are traceable
"until the time of Trajan," and a certain unknown Thebuthis. Symeon,
according to Eusebius, who takes his account from Hegesippus (165), was
the representative of "those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord
that were still living, together with the Lord's relatives." Thebuthis
is said to have sprung from one of the heretical Jewish sects and to
have organized a schism in consequence of his disappointment. All we can
be sure of is that Jerusalem 'down to the time of Trajan' continued to
regard itself as the seat of apostolic authority and arbiter of
orthodoxy, on account of its succession of disciples and relatives of
the Lord. Among the latter the leading, if not the only, representatives
of the seed of David, when "search was made" in the persecution under
Domitian (81-95), were two _grandsons_ of Jude, the Lord's brother. Jude
himself, then, was no longer living. Luke (_c._ 100), Papias (145), and
Hegesippus (165) successively exhibit the growing authority of the
"tradition handed down," especially that of "the apostles and elders in
Jerusalem." But what Papias records of the traditions of these "elders"
does not rise above the level of Jewish midrash, and the epistles which
bear the names of James and Jude have little intrinsic value, and
enjoyed from the beginning only the most meagre acceptance. At Rome
tradition attaches to the name of Peter, but besides the bare fact of
his martyrdom "at the same time with Paul" (64-5) it has little of value
to relate. We cannot safely go beyond the tradition reported by Porphyry
that Peter fed the lambs (at Rome) for a few months before his
martyrdom, and that reported by Papias that Mark, who had been Peter's
assistant, compiled there the Gospel which bears his name, basing it
upon his recollections of Peter's preaching. Of this vitally important
work (_c._ A.D. 75) we must speak in another connection. We are
concerned at present with writings which directly reflect the
development of Christian life and doctrine in this sub-apostolic
period, especially that in the Pauline mission-field.
Except for the appearance of the Gospel of Mark at Rome (_c._ 75) there
remains nothing to break the silence and darkness of twenty years after
the deaths of James and Peter and Paul. The writings which finally did
appear were almost inevitably anonymous or pseudepigraphic, because
apostolic authority stood so high that no other could secure
circulation. Hebrews (_c._ 85) has an epistolary attachment at the close
of its "exhortation," but either never had an address or superscription,
or else has been deprived of it. All the Synoptic writings are
anonymous, though Luke-Acts (_c._ 100) is dedicated to a literary
patron. Revelation (_c._ 95) is boldly asserted to be the work of the
Apostle John in the prefatory chapters and the epilogue (i. 2, 4, 9;
xxii. 8). But the body of the work, though of Palestinian origin, has a
totally different standpoint, and claims the authority of a prophet, not
that of an apostle. Similarly the Fourth gospel when finally published
received an appendix (ch. xxi.) which cautiously suggests the Apostle
John as its author; but the three Epistles by the same writer are
anonymous. The homily called James (90-100) has a superscription which
superficially connects it with the chief authority in Jerusalem, and the
Epistle of Jude prefixes to itself the name which stood next in the same
class. But even in antiquity they had a precarious standing, and
neither is a real letter. Finally there are the Epistles to Timothy and
Titus, purporting to be written by Paul, and a whole series of every
kind, epistles, gospel, acts, and apocalypse, written in the name of
Peter, of which only two secured final adoption into the canon. Of all
these only 1st Peter and the so-called Pastoral Epistles (1st and 2nd
Timothy and Titus) have some claim to be considered genuine; for 1st
Peter is certainly of early origin (_c._ 85), and was undisputed in
antiquity; while the Pastorals, though rejected by Marcion, and as a
whole of late date (90-110), are made up on the basis of some authentic
Pauline material.
The post-apostolic epistles may be grouped into two classes, according
as they are predominantly occasioned (_a_) by internal dangers of heresy
and moral laxity; or (_b_) by the external peril of persecution. To the
former (_a_) must be reckoned (1) the so-called Pastoral Epistles; (2)
Jude; (3) 2nd Peter. All these concern themselves outspokenly with a
type of false doctrine which has certain more or less definite traits,
and is tending toward the Gnostic heresies of the second century, if not
yet clearly identifiable with them. But the inspired genius of Paul is
wanting. The age is not creative, but conservative. Its writers are
ecclesiastics and church teachers, not apostles and prophets. Their
distinctive note is appeal to apostolic authority. Whether the name by
which they cover their own insignificance be that of "Paul," or "Jude
the brother (son?) of James," or "Peter," they have little or no
independent message. They hark back to the "pattern of sound words" the
"deposit," "the faith once for all delivered to the saints," "the words
spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of the Lord and
Saviour through your apostles," in particular the "wisdom of our beloved
brother Paul" who (in the Pastoral Epistles) had predicted the heresy,
and "in all his epistles" had spoken of the resurrection and judgment.
Second Peter, which refers in the passage just quoted (2nd Pet. iii. 2,
15 f.) to the Pauline Epistles alongside "the other Scriptures"
belongs to a very late period (_c._ 150). In fact this Epistle, now
almost universally recognized to be pseudonymous, merely reëdits the
Epistle of Jude, supplying a prefix (ch. i.) and an appendix (ch. iii.)
to make special application of its denunciations to the case of the
false teachers who were "denying the (bodily) resurrection and the
judgment." Neither plagiarism nor pseudonymity were recognized offences
at the time; so that we bring no indictment against the author of 2nd
Peter, were he the Apostle or not. Still our conception of the Galilean
fisherman will be higher without this example of pulpit rhetoric than
with it.
Of the nature of the heresies controverted in this series of writings we
must speak later. As to the region whence they originate something can
be made out already. Not indeed from 2nd Peter, which is of too late
date to be of service. True the readers addressed are assumed to be the
same as in the first epistle, in other words the Pauline mission-field
of Asia Minor (1st Pet. i. 1), and there is reason to think "Asia" was
the region first affected. "Ephesus" and "Asia" are in fact the regions
affected in 1st and 2nd Timothy (1st Tim. i. 3 f.; 2nd Tim. i. 15).
Moreover it is in this same region that we find Polycarp (110-117)
adverting to those who "pervert the sayings of the Lord to their own
lusts, and deny the resurrection and judgment." To the same region and
the same period belong the letters of "the Spirit" in Rev. i.-iii. (_c._
95) with their denunciation of the Balaamite and Nicolaitan heretics,
and still further 1st-3rd John and the Epistles of Ignatius, which are
also polemics against a Gnostic heresy (Doketism) tending to moral
laxity. It is doubtful, however, in view of the general address (2nd
Pet. i. 1), whether the author of 2nd Peter really has a definite circle
in mind, and does not rather in iii. 1 mistakenly treat 1st Peter as a
general epistle. Denial of the resurrection and judgment was not limited
to one locality or period. Hegesippus regards it as a pre-Christian
heresy combated already by James. Equally precarious would be the
assumption that Jude, with its similar general address, was necessarily
intended for Asia Minor. The false teachers resemble those we know of
there, and the denunciation is incorporated by 2nd Peter, but 'Cainites'
and 'Balaamites' were not confined to the regions of 1st John and
Revelation, and Jude might have almost any date between 90 and 120. The
most that can be said is that before the death of Paul the last view we
obtain of his mission-field shows it exposed, especially in the region
of Ephesus, to a rising flood of superstition and false doctrine, while
documents that can be dated with some definiteness in 95-117, such as
Revelation, the Johannine and Ignatian Epistles, and the letter of
Polycarp, show a great advance of heretical teaching in the same region.
The later heresy corresponds in several respects to that combated in
the Pastorals, Jude and 2nd Peter, but becomes at last more distinctly
definable as Doketism, whose most obnoxious form comes to be denial of
the (bodily) resurrection and judgment. The three Pastoral Epistles,
Jude and 2nd Peter may, therefore, be taken as probably reflecting the
growing internal danger confronted by the churches of Asia (if not by
all the churches) in the sub-apostolic age.
Unfortunately, literary relations sometimes interfere with historical
classification, and we are, therefore, compelled to defer treatment of
1st-3rd John and the Epistles of "the Spirit" to the churches (Rev. i.
3), which really belong to our present group (_a_) of writings against
the heresies of (proconsular) Asia. Their relation to the special canon
of Ephesus, whose writings are all ascribed to John, makes it convenient
to consider them in another connection. The reader should bear in mind,
however, that the group extends continuously down to the Epistles of
Ignatius and centres upon Ephesus, where, according to Acts xx. 29 f.,
the "grievous wolves" were to enter in after Paul's departing.
Similar considerations affect the grouping of the Epistle of James,
which almost demands a class by itself. It might be called
anti-heretical, except that its nature is the reverse of controversial,
and its author seems to have no direct contact with the false teachers.
In a remote and general way he deplores the vain talk and disputation
which go hand in hand with a relaxation of the practical Christian
virtues. On the whole it seems more correct to class James with 1st
Peter and Hebrews, particularly as it displays direct literary
dependence on the former, if not on both.
Our second group (_b_) consists of writings not primarily concerned with
heresy. Its first and best example speaks in the name of Peter as
representative of "apostolic" Christianity at Rome. But the doctrine,
and even the phraseology and illustrations of 1st Peter are largely
borrowed from the greater Epistles of Paul, particularly Romans and
Ephesians. Nothing even remotely suggests an author who had enjoyed
personal relations with Jesus, or could relate his wonderful words and
deeds. On the contrary the doctrine is Paul's gospel minus the sting of
the abolition of the Law. In view of the known internal conditions of
the churches to which 1st Peter is addressed in Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, _Asia_ and Bithynia it is remarkable how completely the
subject of heresy or false doctrine is ignored. Their adversary the
devil is not at present taking the form of a seducing serpent (2nd Cor.
xi. 3), but of a "roaring lion" openly destroying and devouring (1st
Pet. v. 8 f.), and the same sufferings the Asiatics are called upon to
endure are being inflicted upon their brethren throughout the world. A
systematic, universal "fiery persecution" is going on, which has come
almost as a surprise (iv. 12) and may compel any believer, after having
made "defence" before the magistrate of "the hope that is in him," to
"suffer as a Christian" and to "glorify God in this name." The author
exhorts to irreproachable conduct as citizens, and kindness and good
order in the brotherhood. If such blamelessness of living be combined
with patient endurance of the unjust punishment, Christians who still
must sanctify in their hearts Christ (and not the Emperor) as Lord, will
ultimately be left unharmed.
Superior as is this noble exhortation to patient endurance of suffering
in the meekness of Christ to the controversial rhetoric of 2nd Peter,
immeasurably better as is its attestation in ancient and modern times,
even the most conservative modern critics are compelled to regard it as
at least semi-pseudonymous. It might be just possible to carry back the
conditions of persecution presupposed to the time of Nero. But if it be
Peter writing from Rome after the recent martyrdoms of James and Paul,
why is there no allusion to either? Again, we might possibly prolong the
life of Peter (against all probability) down to the beginning of the
reign of Domitian (81-95). In that case the absence of any allusion to
the great events of recent occurrence in Palestine would be almost
equally hard to explain. Moreover, with any dating the real author
remains a literary man, a Paulinist, a Grecian Jew, and the share
attributable to Peter personally becomes most shadowy. The simpler, and
(as the present writer has come to believe) the more probable view is
that 1st Peter, like the later writings which assumed the name, is
wholly pseudonymous. If, however, it appeared (as we are persuaded) some
twenty years after the Apostle's death, among those perfectly aware of
the fact, assuming no other disguise, but frankly dealing with the
existing situation, this is a kind of pseudonymity which should be
classed with literary fictions and conventions which are harmless
because (at the time) perfectly transparent. Letters written under
fictitious names were in fact a very common literary device of the age.
At all events the Apostle appears as an old man (v. 1) writing from
"Babylon"--rightly taken by the fathers to be a cryptogram for Rome.
Salutations are conveyed from Mark, his "son" (_cf._ Philem. i. 10). The
bearer (writer?) is represented to be Silvanus (like Mark a companion of
Paul with relations to Jerusalem as well), and Silvanus is commended as
a "trustworthy" disciple. The author states it as his object to "exhort
and testify that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand."
Ignorant as we are of its author's name it is fortunate for our study of
the times that the date of 1st Peter is fairly determinable by the
convergence of external and internal evidence. Echoes from it appear
already in Clement of Rome (95) as well as in James and Hermas. We must
think of it, then, as a hand of cordial encouragement extended by a
representative of the Petro-Pauline church at Rome, soon after the
outbreak of the persecution of Domitian (_c._ 90), to the still
independent but suffering churches of Asia Minor. If we remember that it
undertakes to endorse the doctrine of one third of contemporary
Christendom, and (in substance) offers a 'letter of commendation' to
Silvanus, it will be obvious that no name of less authority than that of
Peter could have served. As Zahn has well remarked: "The significant
thing ... is that it is Peter, the most distinguished apostle of the
circumcision (Gal. ii. 7) who bears witness to the genuineness of their
state of grace."
We must place alongside of 1st Peter one other epistle in which the
motive of exhortation to endurance of persecution without relaxation of
the moral standard is prominent, though not exclusive, and a second,
wherein it appears only in a faint echo of "trials," which turn out,
however, as the reader proceeds, to be only "temptations," while the
real occasion of writing is plain--moral relaxation without either
heresy or persecution to excuse it. The two writings in question are the
anonymous "exhortation" handed down under the title "To the Hebrews,"
and the so-called Epistle (in reality a homily) of James. Hebrews begins
as an exposition of the two psalms Paul had quoted in his reference in
1st Cor. xv. 24-28 to the exaltation of Jesus (Pss. viii. and cx.)
proving Him to be the Son, who, after temporary subordination to the
angels, has been exalted above them to the place of supreme dominion.
Christ has thus effected a greater redemption than Moses and Joshua. He
is also a "high-priest after the order of Melchizedek" according to Ps.
cx.; so that the Aaronic priesthood and ceremonial are surpassed as well
as the Mosaic legislation, by the sacrifice of Calvary and intercession
of the risen Redeemer. It is no wonder that in the period of debate
against Judaism the canon-makers gave to this anonymous sermon a title
which ranks it first in the class of subsequent controversial pamphlets
"against the Jews." Controversy, however, is subordinate in the writer's
purpose to edification. He is not unconscious of the dangers of that
superstitious 'worship of the angels,' against which Paul's Asian
epistles had been directed, but his demonstration of the superiority of
the institutions and aims of Christianity to those of Judaism has the
practical object of reinforcing the courage and "faith" of his readers
under pressure of persecution. His argument culminates in an inspiring
list of Scriptural heroes and martyrs, leading up as a climax to "Jesus
the author and perfecter of our faith." As Jesus endured, looking beyond
the shame and suffering of the cross to the joy of His reward, so should
the readers "endure their chastening." Apostacy will meet a fearful doom
in the judgment of fire. To this homily (Heb. i.-xii.) is appended a
concluding chapter (probably by the author himself) which transforms it
into a letter. The author is a church-teacher of the second generation,
as he frankly confesses himself (ii. 3); a disciple of Paul, to judge by
his use of Paul's doctrine and some of his epistles, especially Romans.
To judge by his rhetorical style and his Alexandrian ideas and mode of
thought, he is the sort of teacher Apollos will have been. Just at
present he is separated from his flock (xiii. 19). Where they are we
can only infer from xiii. 24, which conveys salutations from those in
the writer's neighbourhood who are "from Italy." He himself is probably
among the Pauline churches, for he sends news of Timothy (xiii. 23) and
hopes to come soon in company with him. Ephesus, where Apollos was at
last accounts, may possibly be the place of writing. Hebrews would seem
then to be written to Rome, long after the first "great fight of
afflictions" (the Neronian outbreak of 64) and when the danger of
"fainting under the chastening" of a second persecution (that of
Domitian _c._ 90) was imminent. Such slight indications as we have of a
literary relation between Hebrews and 1st Peter suggest the priority of
Hebrews, but the date and occasion must be nearly the same.
"James" is also a homily exhorting to patient endurance, but there is
nothing to suggest its having ever been sent anywhere as a letter, save
the brief superscription written in imitation of 1st Pet. i. 1. "James
... to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion." Imagine the mode of
delivery! Nor is it called forth by any special emergency. There is an
allusion to false doctrine. It is the heresy (!) of "justification by
faith apart from works." But the writer is no more conscious of
contradicting Paul than is Luke in describing Paul's apostleship and
gospel. He merely impersonates the 'bishop of bishops' addressing
Christendom at large, deprecating the loquacity of the "many teachers,"
and commending the 'wisdom' of a "good life" instead. There is protest
against oppression. But it is only the oppression of the poor by the
rich in the Christian brotherhood. He returns to this subject con amore.
Evidently the church of his age is characterized by worldliness both of
thought and conduct, among clergy and laity. But all colour of region or
period is wanting. Take 1st Peter, substitute the head of the Jerusalem
succession for the head of the Roman, remove the Pauline doctrine, the
traces of Jesus and his gospel of Son ship, remove the special
references to local conditions and particular emergencies, leaving only
moral generalities, and the result will be not unlike the Epistle of
James. The author has heard something of Paulinism, has read Hebrews
(Jas. ii. 21-25; v. 10), and imitated 1st Peter (Jas. i. 1, 18, 21; iv.
6 f.; v. 20). Strong arguments have even been advanced to prove that
he was not a Christian at all. He probably was, if only from his
literary connection with the above-named earlier writings, and the
influence exerted by his own on Hermas (Rome, 120-140), and perhaps
Clement (Rome, 95). But as for connection with the historic
Jesus--"Elijah" is his example of the man of prayer (v. 13-18), and
"Job" and "the prophets" his "example of suffering and patience" (v. 10
f.). Hebrews can show more of the influence of Jesus than this (Heb.
v. 7 f., xii. 2-4). Like Hermas (who, however, does not even mention
the name of Jesus) 'James' thinks of Him simply as "the Lord of glory,"
without raising the question how He came to be such.
Apart from the superscription, whose object is only to clothe the homily
with the authority of a name revered throughout the 'catholic' church,
there is nothing to connect James with Syria rather than any other
region outside Paul's mission-field. Even Palestine might be its place
of origin if the date were late enough to account for the Greek style.
At all events it comes first to our knowledge at Rome. There is some
reason to think that Clement of Rome (A.D. 95), whose moralizing is of a
similar type, has been directly influenced by James. If so we have in
James, Clement and Hermas a series illustrative of the decline at Rome
of the Pauline gospel of conscious revelation and inspiration toward the
hum-drum levels of mere 'catholic' catechetics.
With every allowance for differences among critics as to date and origin
of the non-controversial epistles of the sub-apostolic age, it is easy
to see that the resistless march of events is taking up and
accomplishing Paul's effort and prayer for the unity of the two branches
of the Church. One great event of this period, which for us stands out
with startling vividness upon the pages of history, is curiously without
trace or reflection in this literature. We search the New Testament in
vain for the slightest allusion (outside the writings directly or
indirectly derived from Palestine itself) to the fall of Jerusalem in
A.D. 70, and the consequent cessation of Jewish national life and temple
ceremonial. The remoteness of the writers with whom we are dealing both
in time and national interest from the affairs of Jerusalem is not the
only cause. The fate of the temple had no effect to weaken the types of
Judaism with which the church of the sub-apostolic age had to contend.
The Pharisaic legalism of the synagogue became only the stronger when
the hollow Sadducean priesthood collapsed, and temple ceremonial became
simply a ceremonial on paper, the affair no longer of priest and Levite,
but of scribe and Pharisee. So also with the denationalized Judaism of
the Dispersion, a more insidious danger for early converts from
heathenism than the stricter, legalistic type. The crushing of the
nationalistic rebellion, the temporary suppression of the war-party, the
Zealots, only strengthened and promoted Pharisaism, and the Dispersion
was scarcely affected by the losses of the war. When Jerusalem and the
temple fell, temple and city had become entirely superfluous factors to
both parties in the great strife of church versus synagogue. Hebrews
knows of a type of Judaism which is formidable by reason of the appeal
of its ordinances of angels and its sacerdotal system written in a book
of acknowledged divine authority. But the characteristic point is that
in Hebrews, as truly as in Barnabas and Justin Martyr, it is only the
prescription and not the practice which is in question. But for the fact
that the "new testament" of Heb. ix. 15 is still unwritten, its
controversy might properly be described as a battle of books.
On the other hand the pressure of persecution without, combined with the
disappearance of creative leadership within, is visibly forcing the
independent provinces of Christendom toward organic unity under the
principle of apostolic authority. First Peter is the first and greatest
evidence of this tendency to union promoted by external pressure.
Hebrews and James follow as illustrative of the need felt for
maintaining the standards both of doctrine and of morals at their full
height. Christianity must not be thought of as on a level with Judaism,
it is the final and universal revelation. It must not be practised
half-heartedly, with "double-mindedness," nor in vain philosophizing and
professions belied by deeds. It must be obeyed as a new and royal law,
the mirror of divine perfection.
If, then, we turn from these evidences of general conditions in church
and empire to the inward dangers revealed by the writings against
heresy, we shall see how this disruptive influence, already distinctly
apprehended in Paul's later writings, makes itself more and more
strongly felt, and in more and more definite form, with Ephesus and the
churches of Asia as its chief breeding-place.
The Pastoral Epistles in their present form cannot be dated much before
the time when they begin to be used by Ignatius and Polycarp (110-117).
Indeed some phrases (perhaps editorial additions) seem to imply a still
later date, as when in 1st Tim. vi. 20, Timothy is warned against the
"antitheses of miscalled Gnosis," as if with direct reference to
Marcion's system of this title. Their avowed purpose is to counteract
the inroads of heresy, and the remedy applied is ecclesiastical
authority and discipline. Far more of Paul's inspired gospel of Son ship
and liberty, far more of his conception of the redemption in Christ as a
triumph over the spiritual world-rulers of this darkness, is found in
1st Peter and Hebrews than here. Nothing appears of Paul's broad
horizon, his spirit of missionary conquest, his devotion to the unity of
Jew and Gentile in their common access to the Father in one Spirit.
There is no trace of the great Pauline doctrines of the conflict of
flesh and spirit, the superseding of the dispensation of Law by the
dispensation of Grace, the Adoption, the Redemption, the Inheritance.
The attention is turned wholly to local conditions, maintenance of the
transmitted doctrine and order, resistance to the advance of "vain
talk," "Jewish fables," "foolish questionings, genealogies and strifes
about the Law," which go hand in hand with moral laxity. In short the
outlook and temper are those of the Epistle of James, while the remedy
is that of Acts and the Epistles of Ignatius. The Paul who here speaks
is not the missionary and mystic, but the shrewd ecclesiastic. There is
only too much evidence to show that in the Pauline mission-field the
remedy resorted to against the licence in thought and action which
threatened decadence and dissolution after apostolic inspiration had
died out, was the religion of authority, doctrinal and disciplinary, not
the religion of the Spirit. Ecclesiastical appointees take the place as
teachers and defenders of the faith of those who had been the inspired
apostles and prophets of its extension.
And on the other side are the false teachers. They are of Jewish
character in their doctrine, aspiring to be "teachers of the Law" though
really ignorant of its meaning. The worst of them are actual Jews (Tit.
i. 10), which implies that some were not. Moreover the type of doctrine
is still less like the Pharisaism of the synagogue than the "philosophy
and vain deceit" rebuked by Paul at Colossæ. There is similar
distinction of meats (treated in 2nd Tim. iv. 1-5 as a doctrine of
"seducing spirits and demons"), and a prohibition of wine and marriage.
There is side by side with this ascetic tendency one equally marked
toward libertinism and love of money (2nd Tim. iii. 1-9). Both phases
remind us of the "concision" of Paul's later letters. But besides the
larger development new features appear of Hellenistic rather than Jewish
type. The new doctrine of the resurrection as something "past already"
is more closely connected with the Pauline mysticism, the present union
of the believer with the life of Christ "hid in God," than with the
Jewish idea of return to earth in resuscitated flesh. The Paulinist of
the Pastorals is already foreshadowing the great conflict of Ignatius,
Justin and Irenæus against those who "denied the resurrection,"
perverting (as the fathers allege) the meaning of Paul's saying, "flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (_cf._ 2nd Pet. iii. 16).
And the Pastorals tend toward the un-Pauline doctrine soon to be
formulated in the 'catholic' church: "I believe in the resurrection of
the _flesh_." Again the false doctrine now distinctly avows itself a
form of Gnosis. "They profess that they know God, but by their works
they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good
work reprobate." And our Paulinist's remedy is the traditional doctrine,
the "pattern of sound words," the "deposit" of the Church teacher, more
especially the whole-some words, "even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness." Thus even the
rich, if they do good, and become "rich in good works" will "lay up in
store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come."
We have only to place these pseudo-Pauline writings side by side with
the Epistles of John and Ignatius to recognize the advance of the heresy
which soon declared itself as Gnostic Doketism, with the Jew Cerinthus
at Ephesus as its principal exponent. Moreover this steadily increasing
inward danger of the Pauline mission-field, a danger not merely sporadic
like the outbursts of persecution, but constant and increasing, is
forcing the two great branches of the Christian brotherhood together on
the basis of 'catholicity' and the 'apostolic' tradition. Between the
churches of the Ægean and that of Rome, where both parties stand on
neutral ground, there are exchanged generous and sympathetic assurances
of essential unity of doctrine in the great outbreak of persecution in
85-90. Among the Pauline churches themselves there is an irresistible
reaction against the vagaries and moral laxity of heretical teaching
toward 'apostolic' tradition and ecclesiastical authority. It appears
with almost startling vividness in the Pastoral Epistles, and meets its
answer from without, perhaps from Rome, perhaps from Syria, in the
homily dressed as an encyclical called the Epistle of James. It is not
hard to foresee what sort of Christian unity is destined to come about.
Nevertheless the creative spirit and genius of Paul was to find
expression in one more splendid product of Ephesus before the Roman
unity was to be achieved.--But before we take up the writings of the
great 'theologian' of Ephesus we must trace the growth in Syria and at
Rome of the Literature of the Church Teacher and Prophet.
PART III
THE LITERATURE OF CATECHIST AND PROPHET
CHAPTER VI
THE MATTHÆAN TRADITION OF THE PRECEPTS OF JESUS
As we have seen in our study of the later literature addressed to, or
emanating from, the Pauline mission-field, the church teacher and
ecclesiastic who there took up the pen after the death of Paul had
scarcely any alternative but to follow the literary model of the great
founder of Gentile Christianity. Inevitably the typical literary product
of this region became the apostolic letter, framed on the model of
Paul's, borrowing his phraseology and ideas, when not actually embodying
fragments from his pen and covering itself with his name. Homilies are
made over into "epistles." Even 'prophecy,' to obtain literary
circulation, must have prefixed epistles of "the Spirit" to the
churches; and when at last a gospel is produced, this too is
accompanied, as we shall see, by three successive layers of enclosing
'epistles.'
At the seat of 'apostolic' Christianity it was equally inevitable that
the literary products should follow a different model. Here, from the
beginning, the standard of authority had been the commandment of Jesus.
Apostleship had meant ability to transmit his teaching, not endowment
with insight into the mystery of the divine purpose revealed in his
cross and resurrection. "The gospel" was the gospel _of_ Jesus. The
letters of Paul, if they circulated at all in Syria and Cilicia at this
early time, have had comparatively small effect on writers like Luke and
James. At Rome the case was somewhat different. Here Pauline influence
had been effectually superimposed upon an originally Jewish-Christian
stock. The Roman Gospel of Mark, accordingly, has just the
characteristics we should expect from this Petro-Pauline community.
Antioch, too, though at the disruption over the question of
table-fellowship it took the side of James, Peter, and Barnabas against
Paul, had always had a strong Gentile element. But Jerusalem, the church
of the apostles and elders, with its caliphate in the family of Jesus,
and its zeal for Jewish institutions and the Law, was the pre-eminent
seat of traditional authority. No other gospel, oral or written, could
for a moment compare in its eyes with its own cherished treasury of the
precepts of Jesus. Its own estimate of itself as conservator of
orthodoxy, and custodian of the sacred deposit, vividly reflected from
the pages of Hegesippus, was increasingly accepted by the other
churches. 'James' and 'Jude' were probably not the real names of the
writers of these 'general' or 'catholic' epistles; but they show in what
direction men looked when there was need to counteract a widespread
tendency to moral relaxation and vain disputations, or to demoralizing
heresy.
We have also seen how inevitable was the reaction after Paul's death,
even among his own churches, toward a historic standard of authority.
Even more marked than the disposition to draw together in fraternal
sympathy under persecution, is the reliance shown by the Pastoral
Epistles on "health-giving words, even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (1st Tim. vi. 3), and on a consolidated apostolic succession as
a bulwark against the disintegrating advance of heresy. In (proconsular)
Asia early in the second century there is an unmistakable and sweeping
disposition to "turn to the word handed down to us from the beginning"
(_Ep. of Polyc._, vii.) against those who were "perverting the sayings
of the Lord to their own lusts." The ancient "word of prophecy" and the
former revelations granted to apostolic seers were also turned to
account by men like Papias and the author of 2nd Peter against those who
"denied the resurrection and judgment."
This Papias of Hierapolis, the friend and colleague of Polycarp, had
undertaken in opposition to "the false teachers, and those who have so
very much to say," to write (probably after the utter destruction of the
community of 'apostles, elders, and witnesses' at Jerusalem in 135), _an
Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord_. He based the work on authentic
tradition of the Jerusalem witnesses, two of whom (Aristion, and John
'the Elder') were still living at the time of his inquiries. In fact,
this much debated "John the Elder," clearly distinguished by Papias from
John the "disciple of the Lord," may be identified, in our judgment,
with the John mentioned by Eusebius and Epiphanius midway in the
succession of 'Elders' of the Jerusalem church between A.D. 62 and 135.
Epiphanius dates his death in 117. Papias gives us practically all the
information we have regarding the beginnings of gospel literature. He
may have known all four of our Gospels. He certainly knew Revelation and
"vouched for its trustworthiness," doubtless against the deniers of the
resurrection and judgment. He "used testimonies" from 1st John, and
probably the saying of Jesus of John xiv. 2; but he seems to have based
his _Exposition_ on two gospels only, giving what he had been able to
learn of their history from travellers who reported to him testimonies
of 'the elders.' Papias' two gospels were our Matthew and our Mark,
whose differences he reconciled by what the Jerusalem elders had
reported as to their origin. Matthew, according to these authorities
(?), represented in its Greek form a collection of the Precepts of the
Lord which had formerly been current in the original Aramaic, so that
its circulation had of course been limited to Palestine. The original
compiler had been the Apostle Matthew. Various Greek equivalents of this
compilation had taken its place where Aramaic was not current. Thus
Papias, in explicit dependence on "the Elder" so far as Mark is
concerned, but without special designation of his authority for the
statement regarding Matthew. It is even possible that his representation
that the primitive Matthew was "in the Hebrew tongue" may be due to
rumours whose real starting-point was nothing more than the _Gospel of
the Nazarenes_, a product of _c._ 110-140 which misled many later
fathers, particularly Jerome. We cannot afford, however, to slight the
general bearing of testimony borne by one such as Papias regarding the
origins of gospel composition, and particularly the two branches into
which the tradition was divided. For Papias had made diligent inquiry.
Moreover his witness does not stand alone, but has the support of still
more ancient reference (_e. g._ 1st Tim. vi. 3, Acts i. 1) and the
internal evidence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves. The motive for his
statement is apologetic. Differences between the two Gospels had been
pointed out on the score both of words and events. Papias shows that
Gospel tradition is not to be held responsible for verbal agreement
between the two parallel reports of the Lord's words. The differences
are attributable to translation. So, too, regarding events. Exact
correspondence of Mark with Matthew (or other gospels) is not to be
looked for, especially as regards the order; because Mark had not
himself been a disciple, and could not get the true order from Peter,
whose anecdotes he reproduced; for when Mark wrote Peter was no longer
living. Mark has reproduced faithfully and accurately his recollection
of "things either said or done," as related by Peter. But Peter had had
no such intention as Matthew of making a systematic compilation
(_syntagma_) of the sayings of the Lord, and had only related his
anecdotes "as occasion required." If the tradition regarding Matthew, as
well as that regarding Mark, was derived from the Elder, he, too, as
well as Papias, knew the Greek Matthew; regarding it as a "translation"
of the apostolic _Logia_, he naturally makes Matthew the standard and
accounts as above for the wide divergence of Mark as to order.
The Jerusalem elder who thus differentiates the two great branches of
gospel tradition into Matthæan Precepts and Petrine Sayings and Doings,
is probably "the Elder John"; for this elder's "traditions" were so
copiously cited by Papias as to lead Irenæus, and after him Eusebius, to
the unwarranted inference of personal contact. Irenæus even identified
the Elder John with the Apostle, thus transporting not only him, but the
entire body of "Elders and disciples" from Jerusalem to Asia, a pregnant
misapprehension to which we must return later. In the meantime we must
note that this fundamental distinction between _syntagmas_ of the
Precepts, and narratives of the Sayings and Doings, carries us back as
far as it is possible to penetrate into the history of gospel
composition. The primitive work of the Apostle Matthew, was probably
done in and for Jerusalem and vicinity--certainly so if written in
Aramaic. The date, if early tradition may be believed, was "when Peter
and Paul were preaching and founding the church at Rome." Oral tradition
must have begun the process even earlier.[16] Mark's work was done at
Rome, according to internal evidence no less than by the unanimous voice
of early tradition. It dates from "after the death of Peter" (64-5)
according to ancient tradition. According to the internal evidence it
was written certainly not long before, and probably some few years
after, the overthrow of Jerusalem and the temple (70). At the time of
Papias' writing, then (_c._ 145), all four gospels were probably known,
though only Matthew and Mark were taken as authoritative because
(indirectly) apostolic. At the time of prosecution of his inquiries the
voice of (Palestinian) tradition was still "living and abiding." If, as
tenses and phraseology seem to imply, this means Aristion and the Elder
John (_ob._ 117?) it is reasonable to regard it as extending back over a
full generation. The original Matthew was even then (_c._ 100), and in
Palestine itself, a superseded book. It had three successors, if not
more, two Greek and one Aramaic, all still retaining their claim to the
name and authority of Matthew[17]; but all had been re-cast in a
narrative frame, which at least in the case of our canonical first
Gospel was borrowed from the Roman work of Mark. So far as the remaining
fragments of its rivals enable us to judge, the same is true in their
case also, though to a less extent. It is quite unmistakably true of
Luke, the gospel of Antioch, that its narrative represents the same
"memorabilia of Peter"; for so Mark's gospel came to be called. Thus the
Petrine story appears almost from the start to have gained undisputed
supremacy. But side by side with this remarkable fact as to gospel
_narrative_ is the equally notable confirmation of the other statements
of 'the Elders' regarding the Precepts. For all modern criticism
admits, that besides the material of Mark, which both Matthew and Luke
freely incorporate, omitting very little, our first and third
evangelists have embodied, in (usually) the same Greek translation but
in greatly varied order, large sections from one or more early
compilations of the Sayings of Jesus.
Footnote 16: Some authorities of the first rank think there is
evidence of literary dependence in 1st Cor. i. 18-21 on the Saying
(Matt. xi. 25-27 = Lk. x. 21 f.).
Footnote 17: The orthodox Aramaic _Gospel of the Nazarenes_ borrows
from Luke as well as Matthew, but speaks in the name of "Matthew."
This apostle was also regarded as author of the _Gospel according to
the Hebrews_, a heretical product of _c._ 120, current in Greek
among the Jewish Christians of Palestine (Ebionites).
It is indispensable to a historical appreciation of the environment out
of which any gospel has arisen that we realize that no community ever
produced and permanently adopted as its "gospel" a _partial_
presentation of the message of salvation. To its mind the writing must
have embodied, for the time at least, the message, the whole message,
and nothing but the message. Change of mind as to the essential contents
of the message would involve supplementation or alteration of the
written gospel employed. No writing of the kind would be produced with
tacit reference to some other for another aspect of the truth.
It was not, then, the mere limitation of its language which caused the
ancient Matthæan Sayings (the so-called _Logia_) to be superseded and
disappear; nor is mere "translation" the word to describe that which
took its place. The growth of Christianity in the Greek-speaking world
not only called upon Jerusalem to pour out its treasure of evangelic
tradition in the language of the empire, but stimulated a sense of its
own increasing need. That which could once be supplied by
eye-witnesses, the testimony of Jesus' mighty works, his death and
resurrection, was now fast disappearing. And simultaneously the
appreciation of its importance was growing. It was impossible to be
blind to the conquests made by the gospel _about_ Jesus. Enclosed in it,
as part of its substance the gospel _of_ Jesus found its final
resting-place, much as the mother church itself was later taken up and
incorporated in a catholic Christendom. So it is that in the Elder's
time the church of the 'apostles, elders and witnesses' have done more
than merely supersede their Aramaic(?) _Syntagma_ of the Precepts by
"translations." They had adopted alongside of it from Rome Mark's
"Memorabilia of Peter" as to "things either said or done by the Lord."
We can see indeed from the apologetic way in which 'the Elder' speaks of
Mark's limitations (Peter is not to be held responsible for the lack of
order) that Mark's authority is still held quite secondary to Matthew's;
but the very fact that his work is given authoritative standing at all,
still more the fact that it has become the framework into which the
old-time _syntagma_ has been set, marks a great and fundamental change
of view as to what constitutes "the gospel."
No mere _syntagma_ of the Precepts of Jesus has ever come down to us,
though the papyrus leaves of "Sayings of Jesus" discovered in 1897 at
Behneseh in Egypt by Grenfell and Hunt had something of this
character.[1] It was impossible that any community outside the most
primitive one, where personal "witnesses of the Lord" still survived
"until the times of Trajan," could be satisfied with a "gospel" which
gave only the precepts of Jesus without so much as an account of his
crucifixion and resurrection. And, strange as it may seem, the evidence
of Q (_i. e._ the coincident material in Matthew and Luke not derived
from Mark), as judged by nearly all critics, is that no narrative of the
kind was given in the early compilation of discourses from which this
element was mainly derived. After the "witnesses," apostolic and other,
had begun to disappear, a mere _syntagma_ of Jesus' sayings could not
suffice. It became inevitable that the precepts should be embodied in
the story. And yet we have at least two significant facts to corroborate
the intimations of ancient tradition that this combination was long
postponed. (18) When it is at last effected, and certainly in the
regions of southern Syria,[19] there is even there practically nothing
left of authentic _narrative_ material but the Petrine tradition as
compiled by Mark at Rome. Our Matthew, a Palestinian Jew, the only
writer of the New Testament who consistently uses the Hebrew Bible,
makes a theoretical reconstruction of the order of events in the
Galilean ministry, but otherwise he just incorporates Mark substantially
as it was. What he adds in the way of narrative is so meagre in amount,
and so manifestly inferior and apocryphal in character, as to prove the
extreme poverty of his resources of oral tradition of this type. Luke
has somewhat larger, and (as _literary_ products) better, narrative
additions than Matthew's; but the amount is still extremely meagre, and
often _historically_ of slight value. Some of it reappears in the
surviving fragments of the _Preaching of Peter_. To sum up, there is
outside of Mark _no_ considerable amount of historical material,
canonical or uncanonical, for the story of Jesus. This fact would be
hard to account for if in the regions where witnesses survived, the
first generation really took an interest in perpetuating narrative
tradition. (2) The _order_ of even such events as secured perpetuation
was already hopelessly lost at a time more remote than the writing of
our earliest gospel. This is true not only for Mark, as 'the Elder'
frankly confesses, but for Matthew, Luke and every one else.
Unchronological as Mark's order often is (and the tradition as to the
'casual anecdotes' agrees with the critical phenomena of the text), it
is vastly more historical than Matthew's reconstruction. On the other
hand Luke, while expressly undertaking to improve in this special
respect upon his predecessors, almost never ventures to depart from the
order of Mark, and when he does has never the support of Matthew, and
usually not that of real probability. In short, incorrect as they knew
the order of Mark to be, it was the best that could be had in the days
when evangelists began to go beyond the mere _syntagmas_, and to write
"gospels" as we understand them, or, in their own language, "the things
which Jesus began _both_ to do _and_ to teach" (Acts i. 1). From these
two great outstanding phenomena of gospel criticism alone it would be
apparent that the distinction dimly perceived in the tradition of the
Jerusalem elders reported by Papias, and indeed by many later writers,
is no illusion, but an important and vital fact.
Footnote 18: It was superscribed "These are the ... words (_logoi_
as in the Pastoral Epistles, not _logia_ as in Papias and Polycarp)
which Jesus the living Lord spoke to the disciples and Thomas."
Footnote 19: The possibility should be left open that the Greek
Matthew was written in Egypt (cf. Matt. ii. 15), as some critics
hold. From the point of view of the church historian, however, Egypt
must really be classed as in "the regions of southern Syria." Its
relations with Jerusalem were close and constant.
A third big, unexpected fact looms up as we round the capes of critical
analysis, subtracting from Matthew and Luke first the elements peculiar
to each, then that derived by each from Mark. It is a fact susceptible,
however, of various interpretation. To some it only proves either the
futility of criticism, or the worthlessness of ancient tradition. To us
it proves simply that the process of transition in Palestine, the home
of evangelic tradition, from the primitive _syntagma_ of Precepts,
framed on the plan of the Talmudic treatise known as _Pirke Aboth_, or
"Sayings of the Fathers," to the Greek type of narrative gospel, was a
longer and more complex one than has commonly been imagined. A cursory
statement of the results of critical efforts to reproduce the so-called
"second source" of Matthew and Luke (Mark being considered the first),
will serve to bring out the fact to which we refer, and at the same
time, we hope, to throw light upon the history of gospel development.
The mere process of subtraction above described to obtain the element Q
offers no serious difficulties, and for those who attach value to the
tradition of 'the Elders' it is natural to anticipate that the remainder
will show traits corresponding to the description of an apostolic
_syntagma_ of sayings of the Lord translated from the Aramaic, in short
the much-desired _Logia_ of Matthew. The actual result is disappointing
to such an expectation. The widely, though perhaps somewhat
thoughtlessly accepted equivalence Q = the _Logia_ is simply false. Q is
_not_ the _Logia_. It is not a _syntagma_, nor even a consistent whole,
and as it lay before our first and third evangelists it was not (for a
considerable part at least) in Aramaic. True, Q does consist _almost_
exclusively of discourse material, a large part of which has only
topical order, and is wholly, or mainly, destitute of narrative
connection. Also we find traces here and there of translation at some
period from the Aramaic, though not more in the Q element than in Mark.
But to those who looked for immediate confirmation of the tradition the
result has been on the whole disappointing. Some, more particularly
among English critics, have considered it to justify a falling back upon
the vaguer generalities of the once prevalent theory of oral tradition.
In reality we are simply called upon to renew the process of
discrimination. Most of the Q material has the saying-character and is
strung together with that lack of all save topical order which we look
for in a _syntagma_. But parts of it, such as the Healing of the
Centurion's servant (Matt. viii. 5-10, 13 = Luke vii. 1-10), or the
Preaching of the Baptist and Temptation Story (Matt. iii. 7-10, 12; iv.
2-11 = Luke iii. 7-9, 17; iv. 2-13), obstinately refuse to be brought
under this category. Moreover, the latter section has the unmistakable
motive of presenting Jesus _in his character and ministry_ as "the Son
of God," precisely as in Mark. It begins by introducing Jesus on the
stage at the baptism of John, after the ancient narrative outline (Acts
i. 22; x. 37 f.), and cannot be imagined as forming part of anything
else but a _narrative_ having the conclusion characteristic of our own
type of gospel. Other considerable sections of Q, such as the Question
of John's Disciples and Discourse of Jesus on those that were 'Stumbled'
in him (Matt. xi. 2-11, 16-27; Luke vii. 18-35; x. 13-22), share with
the Baptism and Temptation section not only the doctrinal motive of
commending Jesus in his person and ministry as the longed-for Son of
God, but in a number of characteristics which set them quite apart from
the general mass of precepts and parables in Q. We can here mention only
the following: (1) the coincidence in language between Matthew and Luke
is much greater in these sections of Q, often even greater than in the
sections borrowed from Mark, showing clearly the existence of a common
document written not in Aramaic, but in the Greek language. (2) This
material, unlike most of Q, has served as a source and model in many
portions of Mark. (3) It is for the most part not included in the five
great blocks into which Matthew has divided the Precepts by means of a
special concluding formula (vii. 28; xi. 1; xiii. 53; xix. 1, and xxvi.
1) but appears outside, in the form of supplements to the Markan
narrative (iii. 7--iv. 11; viii. 5-13, 18-22, xi. 2-27; xii. 38-45,
etc.). Finally (4) the Q material of this type seems to be given more
copiously by Luke than by Matthew, and with something more than mere
conjecture of his own as to its historical occasion. In fact, since it
appears that at least this element of Q was known to Mark, there is
nothing to justify exclusion from it of such material as the
Transfiguration story, though in this case it would be needful to prove
that Mark was not the source. Similarly it would be reasonable to think
of Luke's wide divergence from Mark in his story of the Passion as
occasioned by his preference for material derived from this source.
Only, since Matthew has preferred to follow Mark, we have no means of
determining whence Luke did derive his new and here often valuable
material.
The existence, then, of an element of Q which quite fails to correspond
to what we take the Matthæan _syntagma_ to have been by no means proves
either the futility of criticism or the worthlessness of the ancient
tradition. It only shows that our synoptic evangelists were not the
first to attempt the combination of discourse with narrative, but that
Luke at least had a predecessor in the field, to whom all are more or
less indebted. Criticism and tradition together show that there are two
great streams from which all historically trustworthy material has been
derived. The one is Evangelic Story, and is mainly derived from Mark's
outline of the ministry based on the anecdotes of Peter, though some
elements come from another source, principally preserved by Luke, which
we must discuss in a later chapter devoted to the growth of Petrine
story at Rome and Antioch. The other stream, "Words of the Lord," comes
from Jerusalem, and is always associated in all its forms with the name
of Matthew. We have every reason for accepting the statement that as
early as the founding of the church in Rome (45-50) the Apostle Matthew
had begun the work of compiling the Precepts of Jesus, in a form
serviceable to the object of "teaching men to observe all things
whatsoever he had commanded." Our present Gospel of Matthew, however, is
neither this work nor a translation of it; for the only three things
told us about the apostle's work are all irreconcilable with the
characteristics of our Matthew. The compilation of "Words of the Lord"
was (1) a _syntagma_ and not, like Mark, an outline of the ministry. It
was (2) written in Aramaic; whereas our Matthew is an original Greek
composition. It was (3) by an apostle who had personal acquaintance with
Jesus; whereas our first evangelist is to the last degree dependent upon
the confessedly defective story of Mark. Still if we take our Matthew as
the last link in the long chain of development, covering perhaps half a
century, and including such by-products as the _Gospel according to the
Hebrews_ and the _Gospel of the Nazarenes_, we may obtain a welcome
light upon the environment out of which has come down the work which an
able scholar justly declared, "the most important book ever written, the
Gospel according to Matthew."
The language in which it was written was alone sufficient to place the
Greek Matthew beyond all possible competition in the larger world from
Aramaic rivals. But its comprehensiveness and catholicity still further
helped it to the position which it soon attained as the most widely used
of all the gospels. Matthew is not only in its whole structure a
composite gospel, but shows in high degree the catholicizing tendency of
the times. Just as it frankly adopts the Roman-Petrine narrative of Mark
with slightest possible modification, so also it places in Peter's hand
with equal frankness the primacy in apostolic succession. Almost the
only additions it makes to Mark's account of the public ministry are the
story of Peter's walking on the sea (xiv. 28-33), and his payment of the
temple tribute for Christ and himself with the coin from the fish's
mouth (xvii. 24-27). The latter story introduces the chapter on the
exercise of rulership in "the church" (ch. xviii.), beginning with the
disciples' question: "Who _then_ is greatest in the kingdom?" Peter is
again in it the one salient figure (xviii. 21). An equally important
addition, connected with xviii. 17 f. is the famous committal to Peter
of the power of the keys, with the declaration making him for his
confession the 'Rock' foundation of "the church." This addition to
Mark's story of the rebuke of Peter at Cæsarea Philippi, is one which
decidedly alters its bearing, and seems even to borrow the very language
of Gal. i. 16 f. in order to exalt the apostleship of Peter. In fact,
the Roman gospel and the Palestinian almost reverse the rôles we should
expect Peter to play in each. Matthew alone makes Peter "the first" (x.
2), while Mark seems to take special pains to record rebukes of the
twelve and the brethren of the Lord, and especially the rebukes called
down upon themselves by Peter, or Peter and John.
In respect to the primacy of Peter we can observe a certain difference
even among the Palestinian gospels which succeeded to the primitive
_syntagma_ of Matthew. Little, indeed, is known of the orthodox _Gospel
of the Nazarenes_, beyond its relatively late and composite character;
for it borrowed from Matthew, Mark and Luke in turn. Its list of
apostles, however, begins with "John and James the sons of Zebedee,"
_then_ "Simon and Andrew," and winds up: "Thee also, Matthew, did I
call, as thou wert sitting at the seat of custom, and thou followedst
me." The anti-Pauline _Gospel according to the Hebrews_ shows its
conception of the seat of apostolic authority by giving to "James the
Just" the place of Peter as recipient of that first manifestation of the
risen Lord, which laid the foundation of the faith. Why then does the
Greek Palestinian gospel, in contrast with its rivals, lay such special
stress on the primacy of Peter?
From the cautious and (as it were) deprecatory tone of the appendix to
John (John xxi.) in seeking to commend the "other disciple whom Jesus
loved" as worthy to be accepted as a "true witness" without detriment to
the acknowledged authority of Peter as chief under-shepherd of the
flock, we may infer that not at Rome alone, but wherever there was
question of 'apostolic' tradition, the authority of Peter was coming
rapidly to the fore. The tendency at Antioch is even more marked than at
Rome, as is manifest from Acts. If, then, it seems stronger still in a
region where we should expect the authority of James to be put forward,
this need not be taken as a specifically Roman trait. We must realize
the sharp antagonism which existed in Palestine from the time of the
Apostolic council down, between (1) the consistent legalists, who
maintained down to the period of Justin (153) and the _Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions_ (180-200), their bitter hostility to Paul and
his gospel of Gentile freedom from the Law; and (2) the 'catholic,' or
liberal, Jewish-Christians, who took the standpoint of the Pillars. It
is but one of many indications of its 'catholic' tendency that our
Matthew increases the emphasis on the apostolic authority of Peter to
the point of an actual primacy. The phenomenon must be judged in the
light of the disappearance or suppression of all evangelic story save
what came under the name of Peter, and the tendency in Acts to bring
under his name even the entire apostleship to the Gentiles. Peter is not
yet in these early writings the representative of Rome, but of
_catholicity_. The issue in Matthew is not as between Rome and some
other dominant see, but (as the reflection of the language of Gal. i.
17 f. in Matt. xvi. 17 shows) as between 'catholic' apostolic
authority and the unsafe tendencies of Pauline independence.
Nevertheless, for all his leanings to catholicity the Greek Matthew has
not wholly succeeded in excluding materials which still reflect
Jewish-Christian hostility to Paul, or at least to the tendencies of
Pauline Christianity. Over and over again special additions are made in
Matthew to emphasize a warning against the workers of "lawlessness." The
exhortation of Jesus in Luke vi. 42-45 to effect (self-)reformation not
on the surface, nor in word, but by change of the inward root of
disposition fructifying in deeds, is altered in Matt. vii. 15-22 into a
warning against the "false prophets" who work "lawlessness," and who
must be judged by their fruits. They make the confession of Lordship
(_cf._ Rom. x. 9) but are not obedient to Jesus' commandment, and lack
good works. In particular the test of Mark ix. 38-40 is directly
reversed. The principle "Whosoever is not against us is for us" is not
to be trusted. A teacher may exercise the 'spiritual gifts' of prophecy,
exorcism, and miracles wrought in the name of Jesus, and still be a
reprobate. A similar (and most incongruous) addition is made to Mark's
parable of the Patient Husbandman (Mark iv. 26-29), in Matt. xiii.
24-30, and reiterated in a specially appended "interpretation" (xiii.
36-43). This addition likens the "workers of lawlessness" to tares sown
alongside the good seed of the word by "an enemy." A similar incongruous
attachment is made to the parable of the Marriage feast (Matt. xxii.
1-14; _cf._ Luke xiv. 15-24) to warn against the lack of the 'garment of
good works.' Finally, Matthew closes his whole series of the discourses
of Jesus with a group of three parables developed with great elaboration
and rhetorical effect, out of relatively slight suggestions as found
elsewhere. The sole theme of the series is the indispensableness of good
works in the judgment (Matt. 25; _cf._ Luke xii. 35-38; xix. 11-28, and
Mark ix. 37, 41). A similar interest appears in Matthew's insistence on
the permanent obligation of the Law (v. (16) 17-20; xix. 16-22--in
contrast with Mark x. 17-22), on respect for the temple (xvii. 24-27)
and on the Davidic descent of Jesus, with fulfilment of messianic
promise in him (chh. i.-ii.; ix. 27). He limits the activity of Jesus to
the Holy Land (xv. 22; contrast Mark vii. 24 f.), makes him in sending
forth the Twelve (x. 5 f.) specifically forbid mission work among
Samaritans or Gentiles, and while the prohibition is finally removed in
xxviii. 18-20, the apostolic seat cannot be removed, but remains as in
x. 23, among "the cities of Israel" to the end of the world.
There is probably no more of intentional opposition to Paul or to his
gospel in all this than in James or Luke. We cannot for example regard
it as more than accidental coincidence that in the phrase "an enemy hath
done this," in the parable of the tares, we have the same epithet which
the Ebionite literature applies to Paul. But enough remains to indicate
how strongly Jewish-Christian prejudices and limitations still affected
our evangelist. With respect to date, the atmosphere is in all respects
such as characterizes the period of the nineties.
It does not belong to our present purpose to analyze this gospel into
its constituent elements. The process can be followed in many treatises
on gospel criticism, and the results will be found summarized in
_Introductions_ to the New Testament such as the recent scholarly work
of Moffatt. We have here but to note the general character and structure
of the book as revealing the main outlines of its history and the
conditions which gave it birth.
Matthew and Luke are alike in that both represent comparatively late
attempts to combine the ancient Matthæan _syntagma_ with the
'Memorabilia of Peter' compiled by Mark. But there is a great
difference. Luke contemplates his work with some of the motives of the
historian. He adopts the method of narrative, and therefore subordinates
his discourse material to a conception (often confused enough) of
sequence in space and time. Matthew, as the structure of his gospel, no
less than his own avowal shows, had an aim more nearly corresponding to
the ancient Palestinian type. The demand for the narrative form had
become irresistible. It controlled even his later Greek and Aramaic
rivals. But Matthew has subordinated the historical to the ethical
motive. He aims at, and has rendered, just the service which his age
demanded and for which it could look to no other region than Jerusalem,
a full compilation of the commandments and precepts of Jesus.
The narrative framework is adopted from Mark without serious alteration,
because this work had already proved its effectiveness in convincing men
everywhere that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of God." Like Luke,
Matthew prefixes an account of Jesus' miraculous birth and childhood,
because in his time (_c._ 90) the ancient "beginning of the gospel" with
the baptism by John had given opportunity to the heresy of the
Adoptionists, represented by Cerinthus, who maintained that Jesus
_became_ the Son of God at his baptism, a merely temporary "receptacle"
of the Spirit. The prefixed chapters have no incarnation doctrine, and
no doctrine of pre-existence. They do not intend in their story of the
miraculous birth to relate the incoming of a superhuman or non-human
being into the world, else they could not take up the pedigree of Joseph
as exhibiting Jesus' title to the throne of David. Miracle attends and
signalizes the birth of that "Son of David" who is destined to become
the Son of God. Apart from the mere question of attendant prodigy the
aim of Matthew's story of the Infancy is such as should command the
respect and sympathy of every rational thinker. Against all Doketic
dualism it maintains that the Son of God is such from birth to death.
The presence of God's Spirit with him is not a mere counterpart to
demonic "possession," but is part of his nature as true man from the
beginning.
But the doctrinal interest of Matthew scarcely goes beyond the point of
proving that Jesus is the Christ foretold by the prophets. Doctrine as
well as history is subordinate to the one great aim of teaching men to
"observe all things whatsoever Jesus commanded."
CHAPTER VII
THE PETRINE TRADITION. EVANGELIC STORY
Of the extent to which the early church could do without narrative of
Jesus' earthly ministry we have extraordinary evidences in the
literature of Pauline Christianity on the one side and of Jewish
Christianity on the other. For Paul himself, as we know, the real story
of Jesus was a transcendental drama of the Incarnation, Redemption, and
Exaltation. It is probable that when at last "three years" after his
conversion he went up to Jerusalem "to get acquainted with Peter," the
story he was interested to hear had even then more to do with that
common apostolic witness of the resurrection appearances reproduced in
1st Cor. xv. 3-11, than with the sayings and doings of the ministry. As
to this Paul preserves, as we have seen, an almost unbroken silence. And
that which did not interest Paul, naturally did not interest his
churches.
On the other hand those who could have perpetuated a full and authentic
account of the ministry were almost incredibly slow to undertake the
task; partly, no doubt, because of their vivid expectation of the
immediate end of the world, but largely also because to their mind the
data most in need of preservation were the 'life-giving words.' The
impression of Jesus' character, his person and authority was not, as
they regarded it, a thing to be gained from the historical outline of
his career. It was established by the fact of the Resurrection, by the
predictions of the prophets, which found fulfilment in the circumstances
of Jesus' birth, particular incidents here and there in his career and
fate, but most of all in his resurrection and the gifts of the Spirit
which argued his present session at the right hand of God. Once this
authority of Jesus was established the believer had only to observe his
commandments as handed down by the apostles, elders and witnesses.
On all sides there was an indifference to such historical inquiry as the
modern man would think natural and inevitable, an indifference that must
remain altogether inexplicable to us unless we realize that until at
least the time of the fourth evangelist the main proofs of messiahship
were not looked for in Jesus' earthly career. His Christhood was thought
of as something in the future, not yet realized. Even his resurrection
and manifestation in glory "at the right hand of God," which is to both
Paul (Rom. i. 4) and his predecessors (Acts ii. 32-36) the assurance
that "God hath made him both Lord and Christ," is not yet the beginning
of his specific messianic programme. Potentially this has begun, because
Jesus has already been seated on the 'throne of glory,' "from henceforth
expecting until his enemies be made the footstool of his feet."
Practically it is not yet. The Christ is still a Christ that is to be.
His messianic rule is delayed until the subjugation of the "enemies";
and this subjugation in turn is delayed by "the long suffering of God,
who willeth not that any should perish, but that all men should come to
repentance." Meantime a special "outpouring of the Spirit" is given in
'tongues,' 'prophecies,' 'miracle working,' and the like, in fulfilment
of scriptural promise, as a kind of coronation largess to all loyal
subjects. This outpouring of the Spirit, then, is the great proof and
assurance that the Heir has really ascended the 'throne of glory' in
spite of the continuance of "all things as they were from the foundation
of the world." These 'gifts' are "firstfruits of the Spirit," pledges of
the ultimate inheritance, proofs both to believers and unbelievers of
the complete Inheritance soon to be received. But the gifts have also a
practical aspect. They are all endowments for _service_. The Great
Repentance in Israel and among the Gentiles is not to be brought about
without the co-operation of believers. The question which at once arises
when the manifestation of the risen Christ is granted, "Lord, dost thou
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" is therefore answered by
the assurance that the time is in God's hand alone, but that the 'gifts
of the Spirit,' soon to be imparted, are intended to enable believers to
do their part, at home and abroad, toward effecting the Great Repentance
(Acts i. 6-8).[20]
Footnote 20: The parallel in Mark xvi. 14-18 is very instructive,
but needs the recently discovered connection between verses 14 and
15 to complete the sense: "And they excused themselves (for their
unbelief) saying, This age of lawlessness and unbelief is under the
dominion of Satan, who by means of the unclean spirits prevents the
truth and power of God from being apprehended. On this account
reveal thy righteousness (_i. e._ justice, in the sense of Isa. lvi,
1 _b_) even now. And Christ replied to them, The limit of years of
Satan's power is (already) fulfilled, but other terrible things are
at hand; moreover I was delivered up to death on behalf of sinners
in order that they might return unto the truth and sin no more, that
they might inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory which is in
heaven." Then follows the mission into all the world and endowment
with the gifts.
For a church which felt itself endowed with living and present evidences
of the messianic power of Jesus it was naturally only a second thought
(and not a very early one at that) to look back for proof to occurrences
in Jesus' life in Galilee, however notable his career as "a prophet
mighty in deed and word before God and all the people." The _present_
gifts of his power would be (at least in demonstrative effect) "greater
works than these." With those who had the resurrection testimony of 1st
Cor. xv. 3-11, and even the recurrent experience of "visions and
revelations of the Lord," anticipatory revelations of his messiahship,
utterances, like that to Peter at Cæsarea Philippi, wherein Jesus only
predicted the great work to be divinely accomplished through him,
whether by life or death, in going up to Jerusalem, intimations which
had been disregarded or disbelieved at the time, could not rank with
present knowledge, experience and insight. They would be recalled merely
as confirmatory foregleams of "the true light that now shineth," as the
two who had received the manifestation at Emmaus exclaim, "Did not our
heart burn within us while he talked to us in the way?"
We could not indeed psychologically account for the development of the
resurrection faith after the crucifixion, if before it Jesus' life and
utterances had not been such as to make his manifestation in glory seem
to the disciples just what they _ought_ to have expected. But,
conversely, nothing is more certain than the fact that they _did not_
expect it; and that when the belief had become established by other
means, the attitude toward the "sayings and doings" maintained by those
who had them to relate--as we know, the most successful missionary of
all felt it no handicap to be entirely without them--was one of looking
back into an obscure past for things whose pregnant significance became
appreciable only in the light of present knowledge. "These things
understood not his disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified,
then remembered they that these things had been written of him, and that
they had done these things unto him."
We are fortunate in having even one example of the "consecutive
narratives" (_diegeses_) referred to in Luke i. 1. Our Mark is a gospel
written purely and simply from this point of view, aiming only to show
how the earthly career of Jesus gave evidence that this was the Son of
God, predestined to exaltation to the right hand of power, with little
attempt, if any, to bring in the precepts of the New Law. We should
realize, however, that this is already a beginning in the process soon
to become controlling, a process of carrying back into the earthly life
of Jesus in Galilee of first this trait, then that, then all the
attributes of the glorified Lord.
Ancient and reliable tradition informs us that this first endeavour to
tell the story of "Jesus Christ the Son of God" was composed at Rome by
John Mark, a former companion of both Peter and Paul, from data drawn
from the anecdotes casually employed by Peter in his preaching. There is
much to confirm this in the structure, the style, and the doctrinal
object and standpoint of the Gospel.
To begin with, the date of composition cannot be far from 75. Mark is
not only presupposed by both Matthew and Luke, but in their time had
already acquired an extraordinary predominance. To judge by what
remains to us of similar products, Mark in its own field might almost be
said to reign supreme and reign alone. Such almost exclusive supremacy
could not have been attained, even by a writing commonly understood to
represent the preaching of Peter, short of a decade or more of years. On
the other hand we have the reluctant testimony of antiquity, anxious to
claim as much as possible of apostolic authority for the record, but
unwilling to commit Peter to apparent contradictions of Matthew, that it
was written after Peter's death (64-5).[21] Internal evidence would in
fact bring down the date of the work in its present form a full decade
thereafter. It is true that there are many structural evidences of more
than one form of the narrative, and that the apocalyptic chapter (ch.
xiii.), which furnishes most of the evidence of date, may well belong
among the later supplements. But in the judgment of most critics this
'eschatological discourse' (almost the only connected discourse of the
Gospel) is clearly framed in real retrospect upon the overthrow of
Jerusalem and the temple, and the attendant tribulation on "those that
are in Judæa." The writer applies a general saying of Jesus known to us
from other sources about destroying and rebuilding the temple
specifically to the demolition effected by Titus (70). He warns his
readers in the same connection that "the end" is not to follow
immediately upon the great Judæan war, but only when the powers of evil
in the heavenly places, powers inhabiting sun, moon and stars, are
shaken (xiii. 21-27). The Pauline doctrine of 2nd Thess. ii. 1-12 is
adopted, but with careful avoidance of the prediction that the "man of
sin" is to appear "in the temple of God." Paul's "man of sin" is now
identified with Daniel's "abomination that maketh desolate" (Dan. xii.
11), which therefore is spoken of as "he" (masculine). "His" appearance
will prelude the great Judæan tribulation; but his standing place is
ill-defined. It is only "where he ought not." Matthew (following his
usual practice) returns more nearly to the language of Daniel. With him
the "Abomination" is again an object standing "in _a_ holy place." But
Matthew is already applying the prophecy to another tribulation still to
come. He does not see that Mark refers to the sack of Jerusalem on which
he himself looks back in his addition to the parable of the Supper
(Matt. xxii. 6 f.; _cf._ Luke xiv. 15-24), but takes Mark xiii. 14-23
as Jesus' prediction of a great final tribulation _still to come_.
Footnote 21: So Irenæus (186) and (by implication) Papias. Clement
of Alexandria (210) meets the difficulty by alleging that Peter was
still alive, but gave no aid to the writer.
Mark's crudities of language and style, his frequent latinisms, his
explanation to his readers (almost contemptuously exaggerated) of Jewish
purifications and distinctions of meats (vii. 3 f.), presupposition
of the Roman form of divorce (x. 12), explanation in Roman money of the
value of the (Greek and Oriental) "mite" (_lepton_), are well-known
confirmations of the tradition of the writing's place of origin. But
these are superficial characteristics. More important for us to note is
the fundamental conception of what constitutes "the gospel," and the
writer's attitude on questions of the relation of Jew and Gentile and
the authority of the apostles and kindred of the Lord.
The most striking characteristic of Mark is that it aims to present the
gospel _about_ Jesus, and is relatively indifferent to the gospel _of_
Jesus. Had the writer conceived his task after the manner of a Matthew
there is little doubt that he could have compiled catechetic discourses
of Jesus like the Sermon on the Mount or the discourse on prayer of Luke
xi. 1-13. The fact that he disregards such records of Jesus' ethical and
religious instruction does not mean that he (tacitly) refers his readers
to the Matthæan Precepts, or similar compilations, to supplement his own
deficiencies. It means a different, more Pauline, conception of what
"the gospel" is. Mark conceives its primary element to be attachment to
the _person_ of Jesus, and has already gone far toward obliterating the
primitive distinction between a Jesus whose earthly career had been "in
great humility," and the glorified Son of God. The earthly Jesus is
still, it is true, only a man endowed with the Spirit of Adoption. But
he is so completely "in" the Spirit, and so fully endowed with it, as
almost to assume the Greek figure of a demi-god treading the earth
incognito. No wonder this Gospel became the favourite of the
Adoptionists and Doketists.
Mark does not leave his reader in the dark as to what a man must do to
inherit eternal life. The requirement does not appear until after Jesus
has taken up with the twelve the road to Calvary, because it is
distinctly _not_ a keeping of commandments, new or old. It is an
adoption of "the mind that was in Christ, who humbled himself and became
obedient unto death." In Matthew's 'improved' version of Jesus' answer
to the rich applicant for eternal life, the suppliant is told he may
obtain it by obeying the commandments, with supererogatory merit ("if
thou wouldest be perfect"), if he follows Jesus' example of
self-abnegating service. In the form and context from which Matthew
borrows (Mark x. 13-45) there is no trace of this legalism, and the
whole idea of supererogatory merit, or higher reward, is strenuously,
almost indignantly, repudiated. No man can receive the kingdom at all
who does not receive it "as a little child." Every man must be prepared
to make every sacrifice, even if he has kept all the commandments from
his youth up. Peter and the disciples who have "left all and followed"
are in respect to reward on the same level as others. Peter's plea for
the twelve is answered, "There is no man that hath left" earthly
possessions for Christ's sake that is not amply compensated even here.
He must expect persecution now, but will receive eternal life hereafter.
Only "many that are first shall be last, and last first." Even the
martyr-apostles James and John will have no superior rights in the
Kingdom.
Such passages as the above not only reveal why Mark's gospel shows
comparative disregard of the Precepts, but also displays an attitude
toward the growing claims of apostolic authority and neo-legalism which
in contrast with Matthew and Luke is altogether refreshing. The kindred
of the Lord appear but twice (iii. 20 f., 31-35 and vi. 1-6), both
times in a wholly unfavourable light. John appears but once, and that to
receive a rebuke for intolerance. James and John appear only to be
rebuked for selfish ambition. Peter seldom otherwise than for rebuke.
All the disciples show constantly the blindness and "hardness of heart"
which is explicitly said to characterize their nation (vi. 52; vii. 18;
viii. 12, 14-21). Their self-seeking and unfaithfulness is the foil to
Jesus' self-denial and faithfulness (viii. 33; ix. 6, 18 f., 29; x.
24, 28, 32, 37, 41; xiv. 27-31, 37-41, 50, 66-72). That which in Matthew
(xvi. 16-19) has become a special divine revelation to Peter of the
messiahship, marking the foundation of the church, is in the earlier
Markan form (Mark viii. 27-33) not a revelation of the messiahship at
all. Peter's answer, "Thou are the Christ," is common knowledge. The
twelve are not supposed to be more ignorant than the demons! There is,
however, a caustic rebuke of Peter for his carnal, Jewish idea of the
implications of Christhood. A revelation of its significance almost
Doketic in character is indeed granted just after to "Peter, James and
John"; but they remain without appreciation or understanding of the
'vision,' though it exhibits Jesus in his heavenly glory in company with
the translated heroes of the Old Testament. The revelation still
remains, therefore, a sealed book until "after the resurrection."
This exaggeration of the disciples' obtuseness is partly due, no doubt,
to apologetic motives. The evangelist has to meet the objection, If
Jesus was really the extraordinary, superhuman being represented, and
was openly proclaimed such by the evil spirits, why was nothing heard of
his claims until after the crucifixion and alleged resurrection? His
carrying back into the Galilean ministry of the glorified Being of
Paul's redemption doctrine compels him to represent the twelve as
sharing the dullness of the people who "having eyes see not, and having
ears hear not." But with all allowance for this, the Roman Gospel shows
small consideration for the apostles and kindred of the Lord.
It shows quite as little for Jewish prerogative and Jewish law. Jesus
speaks in parables because to those "without" his preaching is to be
intentionally a 'veiled' gospel (iv. 1-34). The Inheritance will be
taken away from them and given to others (xii. 1-12). Priests and people
together were guilty of the rejection and murder of Jesus (xv. 11-15,
29-32). Forgiveness of sins is offered by Jesus on his own authority in
defiance of the scribes. Their exclusion of the publicans and sinners he
disregards, proclaims abolition of their fasts, and holds their
sabbath-keeping up to scorn (ii. 1--iii. 6). On the question of
distinctions of meats his position is the most radical possible. The
Jewish ceremonial is a "vain worship," mere "commandments of men."
Defilement cannot be contracted by what "goes into a man." Jesus' saying
about inward purity was not aimed at the mere 'hedge of the Law' (Matt.
xv. 13), nor the mere matter of ablutions (Matt. xv. 20), but was
intended to "make all meats clean" (vii. 1-23). Moses' law in some of
its enactments does not represent the real divine will, but a human
accommodation to human weakness (x. 2-9). Obedience to its highest code
does not ensure eternal life (x. 19-21). The single law of love is "much
more than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices" (xii. 28-34). When
_all_ the references to Judaism, its Law, its institutions, and its
prerogative, are of this character, when Jesus _always_ appears in
radical opposition to the Law and its exponents (xii. 38-40; xiii. 1
f.), _never_ as their supporter in any degree, the evangelist comes
near to making it too hard for us to believe that he really was of
Jewish birth.
On the other hand we cannot doubt the statement that he derives his
anecdotes, however indirectly, from the preaching of Peter. The prologue
(i. 1-13), indeed, makes no pretence of reporting the testimony of any
witness, but acquaints the reader with the true nature of Jesus as "the
Christ, the Son of God" by means of a mystical account of his baptism
and endowment with the Spirit of Adoption, probably resting upon that
document of Q, which we have distinguished from the Precepts. But the
ensuing story of the ministry opens at the home of Peter in Capernaum,
and continues more or less connected therewith in spite of interjected
groups of anecdotes whose connection is not chronological but topical,
such as ii. 1--iii. 6; iii. 22-30; iv. 1-34. It reaches its climax where
Jesus at Cæsarea Philippi takes Peter into his confidence. Here again
the mystical Revelation or Transfiguration vision (ix. 2-10) interrupts
the connection, and shows its foreign derivation by the transcendental
sense in which it interprets the person of Jesus. Certain features
suggest its having been taken from the same source as the prologue (i.
1-13).
The story issues in the tragedy at Jerusalem, where, as before, Peter's
figure, however unfavourable the contrast in which it is set to that of
Jesus, is still the salient one. The outline in general is identical
with that so briefly sketched in Acts x. 38-42--_except_ that the
absolutely essential point, the one thing which no gospel narrative can
possibly have lacked, the resurrection manifestation to the disciples,
and the commission to preach the gospel, is absolutely lacking!
That Mark's gospel once contained such a conclusion is almost a
certainty. Imagine a gospel narrative without a report of the
manifestation of the risen Lord to his disciples! Imagine a church--and
that the church at _Rome_--giving out as the first, the authentic,
original, and (in intention) the only account of the origin of the
Christian faith (Mark i. 1), a narrative which _ended_ with the apostles
scattered in cowardly desertion, and Peter the most conspicuous, most
remorseful renegade of them all! He who writes in Peter's name from Rome
but shortly after, affectionately naming Mark "my son," must have had
indeed a forgiving spirit. But traces of the real sequel have not all
disappeared. Many outside allusions still remain to the turning again of
Peter and stablishing of his brethren in the resurrection faith. The
earliest is Paul's (1st Cor. xv. 5). The present Mark itself implies
that it once had such an ending; for Jesus promises to rally his flock
in Galilee after he is raised up (xiv. 28), and the women at the
sepulchre are bidden to remind the disciples of the promise, though
they fail to deliver their message. Indeed the whole Gospel looks
forward to it. To this end "the mystery of the kingdom" is given to the
chosen twelve (iii. 13 f., 31-35; iv. 10-12); for this they are
forewarned (though vainly) of the catastrophe (viii. 34--ix. 1, 30-32;
x. 32-34; xiv. 27-31). In fact the promise of a baptism of the Spirit
(i. 8) probably implies that the original sequel related not only the
appearance to Peter and (later) to the rest with the charge to preach,
but also their endowment with the gifts, perhaps as in John xx. 19-23.
What we now have is only a substitute for this original sequel, a
substitute so ill-fitting as to have provoked repeated attempts at
improvement.
From xvi. 8 onwards, as is well known, the oldest textual authorities
have simply a blank. Later authorities give a shorter or longer
substitute for the missing Manifestation and Charge to the twelve. The
shorter follows Matthew, the longer follows Luke, with traces of
acquaintance with John. Fanciful theories to explain these textual
phenomena, such as accidental mutilation of the only copy, are
improbable, and do not explain. If conjecture be permissible it is more
likely that the original work was in two parts, after the manner of
Luke-Acts, the 'former treatise' ending with the centurion's testimony,
"Truly this man was a Son of God" (xv. 39). The second part continued
the narrative in the form of a Preaching of Peter, perhaps ending with
his coming to Rome; for the ancient literature of the church had several
narratives of this type. Its disappearance will have been due to the
superseding (perhaps the embodiment) of it by the work of Luke. When the
primitive Markan 'former treatise' was adapted for separate use as a
gospel it was quite natural that it should be supplemented (we can
hardly say "completed") by the addition of the story of the Empty
Sepulchre (xv. 40--xvi. 8), though this narrative is quite unknown to
the primitive resurrection preaching (_cf._ 1st Cor. xv. 3-11), and one
in which every character save Pilate is a complete stranger to the body
of the work. The subsequent further additions of the so-called "longer"
and "shorter" endings belong to the history of transcription after A.D.
140.
It will be apparent from the above that the Gospel of Mark is no
exception to the rule that church-writings of this type inevitably
undergo recasting and supplementation until the advancing process of
canonization at last fixes their text with unalterable rigidity. Whether
we recognize "sources," or earlier "forms," or only earlier "editions"
of Mark, it is certain that appendices could still be attached long
after the appearance of Luke, and probable that in the early period of
its purely local currency at Rome the fund of Petrine anecdote had
received more than one adaptation of form before it was carried to
Syria and embodied substantially as we now have it in the composite
gospels of Matthew and Luke. The omission by Luke of Mark vi. 45--viii.
26 is intentional,[22] and cannot be used to prove the existence of a
shorter form; and the same is probably true of the omission of Mark ix.
38-40 by Matthew. Mark xii. 41-44, however, is probably an addition
later than Matthew's time. Neither Matthew nor Luke had a text extending
beyond xvi. 8. But signs of acquaintance with the original sequel appear
in the appendix to John (John xxi.) and in the late and composite
_Gospel of Peter_ (_c._ 140). According to the latter the twelve
remained in Jerusalem scattered and in hiding for the remaining six days
of the feast. At its close they departed, mourning and grieving, each
man to his own home. Peter and a few others, including "Levi the son of
Alpheus," resumed their fishing "on the sea." ... The fragment breaks
off at this point. The story may be conjecturally completed from 1st
Cor. xv. 5-8, with comparison of John xxi. 1-13; Luke v. 4-8; xxii. 31
f.; xxiv. 34, 36-43.
Footnote 22: See below.
As we look back upon the undertaking of this humble author, named only
by tradition, one among the catechists of the great church of Paul and
Peter, writing but a few years after their death, but a few years before
1st Peter and Hebrews, one is struck by the grandeur of his aim. It is
true he was not wholly without predecessors in the field. The work
which afforded him at least the substance of his prologue, and in all
probability other considerable sections of his book, had already aimed
in a more mystical way to connect the Pauline doctrine of Christ as the
Wisdom of God with the mighty works and teachings of Jesus. Duplication
of a considerable part of Mark's story (vii. 31--viii. 26 repeats with
some variation vi. 30--vii. 30) shows that his work was one of
combination as well as creation. But outline, proportion and onward
march of the story show not only skill and care, but large-minded and
consistent adherence to the fundamental plan to tell the origin of the
Christian faith (Mark i. 1).
Confirmation of the belief and practice of the church--it is for this
that Mark reports all he can learn of the years of obscurity in Galilee
followed by the tragedy in Jerusalem. Not only belief in Jesus as the
Son of God will be justified by the story, but the founding,
institutions, and ritual of the existing church. He manifestly adapts it
to show not only the superhuman powers and attributes of the chosen Son
of God, but the germ and type of all the church's institutions. Its
baptism of repentance and accompanying gift of the Spirit of Adoption
only repeats the experience of Jesus at the baptism of John. Endowment
with the word of wisdom and the word of power is but the counterpart of
Jesus' divine equipment with "the power of the Spirit" when he taught
and healed in Galilee. The Sending of the Twelve sets the standard for
the church's evangelists and missionaries, just as the Breaking of the
Bread in Galilee gives the model for its fraternal banquet. So for the
Judæan ministry as well. The path of martyrdom is that which all must
follow, its Passover Supper of the Lord and Vigil in Gethsemane are
models for the church's annual observance, its Passover of the Lord, its
Vigil, its Resurrection feast. The grouping of the anecdotes is not all
of Mark's doing, for we can still see in many cases how they have grown
up around the church observances, to explain and justify the rites,
rather than to form part of an outlined career. But taking the work as a
whole, and considering how far beyond that of any other church was the
opportunity at Rome, where Paul had transmitted the lofty conception of
the Son of God, and Peter the concrete tradition of his earthly life, we
cannot wonder that Mark's outline so soon became the standard account of
Jesus' earthly ministry, and ultimately the only one.
But little space remains in which to trace the developments of gospel
story in other fields. Southern Syria and Egypt soon found it needful,
as we have seen, to adopt the work of Mark, but independently and as a
framework for the Matthæan Precepts. It cannot have been long after that
Antioch and Northern Syria followed suit. For Luke, though acquainted
with the work of 'many' predecessors gives no sure evidence of
acquaintance with Matthew. When we find such unsoftened contradictions
as those displayed between these two Greek gospels in their opening and
closing chapters, and observe, moreover, that while both indulge in
hundreds of corrections and improvements upon Mark, these are rarely
coincident and never make the assumption of interdependence necessary,
it is hard to resist the conclusion that neither evangelist was directly
acquainted with the other's work. Now no other gospel compares with
Matthew in the rapidity and extent of its circulation, while Luke
declares himself a diligent inquirer. He could not ignore the claims of
apostolic authority to which this early and wide acceptance of Matthew
were mainly due. The inference is reasonable that Luke's date was but
little later than that of Matthew. If the probability of his employment
of the _Antiquities_ of Josephus could be raised to a certainty this
would suffice to date the Gospel and Book of Acts not earlier than 96.
Internal and external evidence, as judged by most scholars, converge on
a date approximating 100.
The North-Syrian derivation of Luke-Acts is less firmly established in
tradition than the Roman origin of Mark and the South-Syrian of Matthew.
Ancient tradition can point to nothing weightier than the statement of
Eusebius, drawn we know not whence, but independently made in the
argumenta (prefixed descriptions) of several Vulgate manuscripts that
Luke was of Antiochian birth. However, internal evidence supplies
corroboration in rather unusual degree. If the reading of some texts in
Acts xi. 28, "And as we were assembled," could be accepted, this alone
would be almost conclusive corroboration. But dubious as it is, it
furnishes support. For if an alteration of the original, it is at any
rate extremely early (_c._ 150?) and aimed to support the belief in
question.[23] Moreover the whole attitude of Luke-Acts in respect to
apostolic authority, settlement of the great question of the terms of
fellowship between Jew and Gentile, and description of the founding of
the Pauline churches, is such as to make its origin anywhere between the
Taurus range and the Adriatic most improbable; while if we place it in
Rome we shall have an insoluble problem in the relation of its extreme
emphasis on apostolic authority, and quasi-deification of Peter, to the
stalwart independence of Mark. Conversely there are many individual
traits which suggest Antioch as the place of origin. Next to Jerusalem,
the never-to-be-forgotten church of "the apostles and elders," Antioch
is the mother church of Christendom. There the name "Christian" had its
origin. There the work of converting the Gentiles was begun. The Greek
churches of Cyprus and Asia Minor are regarded as dependencies of
Antioch. Even those of the Greek peninsula are linked as well as may be
to Antioch and Jerusalem, with suppression of the story of the schism.
Antioch, not the Pauline Greek churches, is the benefactress of "the
poor saints in Jerusalem," and at the instance of Antioch, by appeal to
"the apostles and elders," the "decrees" are obtained which permanently
settle the troublesome question of the obligation of maintaining
ceremonial cleanness which still rests upon "the Jews which are among
the Gentiles." As we have seen, the settlement is as far from that of
Mark and the Pauline churches on the one side, as from the thoroughgoing
legalism of Jerusalem on the other. As late as the Pastoral Epistles
abstinence from "meats which God created to be received with
thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth" is to the Pauline
churches a "doctrine of devils and seducing spirits" taught "through the
hypocrisy of men that speak lies." Distinctions of meats belong to
Jewish superstition, because "every creature of God is good and nothing
is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving" (1st Tim. iv.
1-5). Mark, as we have seen, takes precisely this standpoint. He is
equally radical in condemning distinctions of meats as essentially "vain
worship," and a "commandment of men" (Mark vii. 1-23). In truth if we
distinguish one of Luke's _sources_ from Luke himself we shall find
exactly this doctrine taught to Peter himself by special divine
revelation in Acts x. 10-16; xi. 3-10. Only, as we have already seen (p.
59, note), this is not the application made by the Book of Acts, as it
now stands, of the material. To 'Luke' nothing could be more repugnant
than the idea of an apostle forsaking the religion of his fathers, of
which circumcision and "the customs" are an essential part. His
cancellation, in the story of Peter's revelation and the Apostle's
subsequent defence of it before the church in Jerusalem, of one of its
essential factors, viz. the right to _eat_ with Gentiles, regardless of
man-made distinctions of meats ("what _God_ hath cleansed make not
_thou_ common") is quite as significant as his restriction of even
Paul's activity to Greek-speaking _Jews_, until "the Spirit" has
expressly directed the church in Antioch, immediately after the
persecution of Agrippa I, to proceed with the propaganda. Both
alterations of the earlier form of the story are in line with a
multitude of minor indications, and furnish us, in combination with
them, the real keynote of the narrative. In Luke-Acts more clearly than
in any of the gospels the writer assumes the distinctive function of the
_historian_. He, too, would relate, like Mark, the origin of the
Christian faith, and that "from the very first." He even deduces the
pedigree of Jesus from "Adam, which was the son of God." But the object
is far more to prove the pedigree of the faith than the pedigree of
Jesus. Christianity is to be defended against the charge of being a
_nova superstitio_, a _religio illicita_. On the contrary it is the one
true and revealed religion, the perfect flower and consummation of
Judaism. Yet it is not, like Judaism, particularistic and national, but
universal; for while God at first made that nation the special
repository of his truth, it was his "determinate foreknowledge and
counsel" that they should reject and crucify their Messiah, making it
possible to "proclaim this salvation unto the Gentiles." The one thing
Luke is so anxiously concerned to prove that he wearies the reader with
constant reiteration of it, proclaims it, argues it, in season and out
of season, with his sources, against his sources, with the facts,
against the facts, is that this faith was never, never, offered to the
Gentiles except by express direction of God and after the Jews had
demonstrated to the last extremity of stiff-necked opposition that they
would have none of it. Christianity, then, and not Judaism, is the true
primitive and revealed religion, the heir of all the divine promises.
Footnote 23: Note, also, how in Acts vi. 5 the list of
deacon-evangelists concludes "and Nicholas _a proselyte of
Antioch_."
We can see now why Luke finds it impossible to adopt Mark's story of a
missionary journey of Jesus in "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" and will
not even mention the name of Cæsarea Philippi. His method in omitting
Mark vi. 45--viii. 26 is more radical than Matthew's, but his motive is
similar. The central theme of this portion of Mark appears in the
chapter (ch. vii.) recording Jesus' repudiation of the Jewish
distinctions of clean and unclean as "precepts of men," and departing to
heal and preach in phoenecia and Decapolis. This is the theme of Luke's
second treatise; and, as we have seen, his solution of the problem is
radically different. If he cannot admit that even Paul disregarded "the
customs" or Peter preached to Gentiles until after express and
reiterated direction of "the Spirit," we surely ought not to expect him
to admit the statement that Jesus repudiated the distinctions of
Mosaism, declared "all meats clean," and departing into the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon first healed the daughter of "a Gentile" and afterward
continued his journey "through Sidon" and "the regions of Decapolis,"
repeating the symbolic miracles of opening deaf ears and blind eyes, and
feeding with loaves and fishes. Even if this supposed ministry of Jesus
among the Gentiles stood on a much stronger foundation of historical
probability than is unfortunately the case (_cf._ Rom. xv. 8), it could
not logically be admitted to the work of Luke without an abandonment of
one of his firmest convictions and a rewriting of both his treatises.
Luke was probably not the first to divide his work into a "former
treatise" covering "both" the sayings and doings of Jesus "until the
time that he was taken up," and a second devoted to the work of the
apostles after they had received the charge to proclaim the gospel "to
the uttermost parts of the earth." "Many," as he tells us, had already
undertaken to "draw up narratives" (_diegeses_) of this kind, of which
the one Luke himself has chiefly employed, had originally, as we
concluded, a sequel like his own Book of Acts. There are even features
of the Petrine source of Acts which particularly connect it with Roman
doctrine (_e. g._ Acts x. 10-15; _cf._ Rom. xiv. 14 and Mark vii. 18
f.) and even with the person of Mark (Acts xii. 12). Its balance
between Peter and Paul and its close with the establishment of
Christianity at Rome, are also suggestive that the greater part of
Luke's second treatise came _ultimately_ from the same source as his
first. But the division of the work into two parts: (1) the gospel among
the Jews; (2) the gospel among the Gentiles, would have followed,
independently of any such precedent, from the whole purpose and
structure of the work. Christianity is to be proved in the light of its
origin, and in spite of the hostility of the Jews among whom it arose,
and whose sacred writings it adopts, to be the original, true, revealed
religion. To prove this it must be shown that the rejection and
crucifixion of Jesus by his own people as a result of his earthly
ministry was due not to his own failure to meet the ideal of the
Scriptures in question, but to _their_ perversity and wilful blindness.
If it is important to prove in the former treatise that the opposition
of the controlling authorities among the Jews was due to this perversity
and jealousy, it is at least equally so to show that the lowly and
devout received him gladly. Hence the peculiar hospitality of Luke
toward material showing Jesus' acceptance of and by the humbler and the
outcast classes, the poor and lowly, women, Samaritans, publicans and
sinners. The idyllic scenes of his birth and childhood are cast among
men and women of this type of Old Testament piety, quietly "waiting for
the kingdom of God." During his career it is these who receive and hang
upon him. Even on Calvary _one_ of the thieves must join with this
throng of devout and penitent believers. Jesus' preaching begins with
his rejection by his own fellow-townsmen only because "no prophet is
accepted in his own country"; though before their attempt to slay him he
proves from Scripture how Elijah and Elisha had been sent unto the
Gentiles. His ministry ends with his demonstration to the disciples
after his resurrection from "Moses and all the prophets" how that "it
was needful that the Christ should suffer before entering his glory,"
and that after his rejection by Israel "repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem."
The second treatise shows how this purpose of God to secure the
dissemination of the true faith by the disobedience and hardening of its
first custodians was accomplished, chief stress being always laid upon
the fact that it was only when the Jews "contradicted and blasphemed"
that the apostles said, "It was necessary that the word of God should
first be spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge
yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." There
is no interest taken in the subsequent fortunes of Jerusalem and Jewish
Christianity, nor even in the fate of Peter and James, after this
transition has been effected to Gentile soil. There is no interest taken
in the spread of Christianity as such, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Cyrenaica,
Cyprus, Mesopotamia; but only where the conflict rages over the
respective claim of Jew and Gentile to be the true heir of the promises,
_i. e._ the mission-field of Paul. At the individual centres the story
goes just far enough to relate how the gospel was offered to the Jews
and rejected, compelling withdrawal from the synagogue, and thereafter
it is told over again with slight variations at the next centre. The
book concludes with a repetition of the stereotyped scene at Rome
itself, in spite of the representation of the very source employed, that
an important church had long existed there before Paul's coming, ending
with a quotation of the classic passage from Isa. vi. 9 f. to prove
God's original purpose to harden the heart of Israel, so that his
"salvation might be sent unto the Gentiles." The very fate of Paul
himself has so little interest for Luke in comparison with this
demonstration of Christianity as the one original, revealed religion,
enclosed in Judaism as seeds are confined in the hardening seed-pod
until disseminated by its bursting, that he leaves it unmentioned, like
that of all other leaders of the church whose death was not directly
contributory to the process.
Many, and vitally important to the development of Gospel Story as we
know it, as were the sources of Luke, both by his own statement (Luke i.
1) and the internal evidences of his work, he has made analysis
extremely difficult by the skilful and elaborate stylistic embroidery
with which he has overlaid the gaps and seams. Nor is this a proper
occasion for entering the field of the higher critic. Luke-Acts
represents the completed development, not the naïve beginnings of this
type of the Literature of the Church Teacher. We have seen reason to
think we may have traces of the earlier "narratives" (_diegeses_) to
which Luke refers, not only in the great Roman work of Mark, but in a
part of the Q material itself. If Antioch were the place of origin of
this early source, if here too were found those archives of missionary
activity whence came the famous Diary employed in Acts xvi.-xxviii., the
contribution of this church to Gospel Story was such as to make Antioch
the appropriate centre for the great "historical" school of
interpretation of the fourth and fifth centuries. When we consider the
dominant motive of Luke and his extraordinary exaltation of 'apostolic'
authority we seem to be breathing the very atmosphere of Ignatius the
great apostle of ecclesiasticism and apostolic order, discipline and
succession. Ignatius' hatred of Doketism, too, is not without a certain
anticipation in the opening and closing chapters of Luke's Gospel, and
perhaps in the fact that the great exsection from Mark begins with the
story of the Walking on the Sea (Mark vi. 45-52).
CHAPTER VIII
THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY
In Paul's enumeration of the "gifts" by which the Spirit qualifies
various classes of men to build in various ways upon the structure of
the church, the class of "prophets" takes the place next after that of
"apostles," a rank even superior (as more manifestly 'spiritual') to
that of "pastors and teachers." The Book of Acts shows us as its most
conspicuous centre of "prophecy" the house of Philip the Evangelist at
Cæsarea. This man had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and in
his house Paul received a 'prophetic' warning of his fate from a certain
Agabus who had come down from Judæa. There were also prophets in Antioch
(Acts xiii. 1), though the only ones mentioned by name are this same
Agabus[24] and Silas, or Silvanus, who is also from Judæa. In the
_Teaching of the Twelve_ the 'prophet' still appears among the regular
functionaries of the church, for the most part a traveller from place
to place, and open to more or less suspicion, as is the case at Rome,
where Hermas combines reverence for the "angel" that speaks through the
true prophet, with warnings against the self-seeker. In 1st John the
"false prophets" are a serious danger, propagating Doketic heresy
wherever they go. In fact, this heresy was, as we know, the great peril
in Asia. However, Asia, if plagued by wandering false prophets, had also
become by this time a notable seat of true and authentic prophecy; for
the same Papias who shows such sympathy with Polycarp against those who
were "perverting the Sayings of the Lord to their own lusts," and had
turned, as Polycarp advised, "to the tradition handed down from the
beginning," had similar means for counteracting those who "denied the
resurrection and judgment." Among those upon whom he principally relied
as exponents of the apostolic doctrine were two of those same
prophesying daughters of Philip the Evangelist, who with their father
had migrated from Cæsarea Palestina to Hierapolis, leaving, however,
one, who had married, a resident till her death at Ephesus. As late as
the time of Montanus (150-170), the "Phrygians" traced their succession
of prophets and prophetesses back to Silvanus and the daughters of
Philip.
Footnote 24: The mention of Agabus, however, in xi. 27 f. is
hardly consistent with xiii. 1 and xxi. 10-14. It seems to be due to
the editorial recasting of xi. 22-30.
We cannot be sure that the traditions Papias reported from these
prophetesses were derived at first hand, though it is not impossible
that Papias himself may have seen them. However it is certain that many
of his traditions of 'the Elders' had to do with eschatology, and aimed
to prove the material and concrete character of the rewards of the
kingdom; for we have several examples of these traditions, attributing
to Jesus apocryphal descriptions of the marvellous fertility of
Palestine in the coming reign of Messiah, and particularizing about the
abodes of the blessed. Moreover Eusebius blames Papias for the crude
ideas of Irenæus and other second century fathers who held the views
called "chiliastic" (_i. e._ based on the "thousand" year reign of
Christ in Rev. xx. 2 f.). We also know that Papias defended the
"trustworthiness" of Revelation, a book which served as the great
authority of the "chiliasts" for the next fifty years in their fight
against the deniers of the resurrection. He quoted from it, in fact, the
passage above referred to; so that if reason must be sought for his
placing "John and Matthew" together at the end of his list of seven
apostles instead of in their usual place, it is probably because they
were his ultimate apostolic authorities for the "word of prophecy" and
for the "commandment of the Lord" respectively. Justin Martyr, Papias'
contemporary at Rome, though converted in Ephesus, and unquestionably
determined in his mould of thought by Asiatic Paulinism, has, like
Papias, but two _authorities_ for his gospel teaching: (1) the
commandment of the Lord represented in the Petrine and Matthæan
tradition; (2) prophecy, represented in the Christian continuation of
the Old Testament gift. This second authority, however, is not appealed
to without the support of apostolicity. Revelation is quoted as among
"our writings," like "the memorabilia of the apostles called Gospels,"
but not without the additional assurance that the seer was "John, one of
the _apostles_ of Christ."
For 'prophecy,' however acclimated elsewhere, was in its origin
distinctively a Palestinian product. Its stock in trade was Jewish
eschatology as developed in the long succession of writers of
'apocalypse' since Daniel (165 B.C.). Of the nature of this curious and
fantastic type of literature we have seen some examples in 2nd
Thessalonians and the Synoptic eschatology (Mark xiii.=Matt. xxiv.=Luke
xxi.). More can be learnt by comparing the contemporary Jewish writings
of this type known as 2nd Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch. Older
examples are found in the prophecies and visions purporting to come from
Enoch. For apocalypse became the successor of true prophecy in
proportion as the loss of Israel's separate national existence and the
enlargement of its horizon compelled it to make its messianic hopes
transcendental, and its notion of the Kingdom cosmic. Hence comes all
the phantasmagoria of allegorical monsters, spirits and demons, the
great conflict no longer against Assyria and Babylon, but a war of the
powers of light and darkness, heaven and hell. Yet all centres still
upon Jerusalem as the ultimate metropolis of the world, whose empires,
now given over to the leadership of Satan, will soon lie prostrate
beneath her feet.
Some such eschatology of divine judgment and reward is an almost
necessary complement to the legalistic type of religion. If Christianity
be conceived as a system of commandments imposed by supernatural
authority it must have as a motive for obedience a system of
supernatural rewards and punishments. Not merely, then, because for
centuries the legalism of the scribes had actually had its corresponding
development of apocalypse, with visions of the great judgment and Day of
Yahweh, but because of an inherent and necessary affinity between the
two, "Judæa" continued to be the home of 'prophecy' in New Testament
times also.
However, the one great example of this type of literature that has been
(somewhat reluctantly) permitted to retain a place in the New Testament
canon appears at first blush to be clearly and distinctively a product
of Ephesus. Of no book has early tradition so clear and definite a
pronouncement to make as of Revelation. Since the time of Paul the
Jewish ideas of resurrection provoked opposition in the Greek mind. The
Greek readily accepted immortality, but the crudity of Jewish
millenarianism, with its return of the dead from the grave for a
visible, concrete rule of Messiah in Palestine repelled him. The
representation of Acts xvii. 32 is fully borne out by the constant
effort of Paul in his Greek epistles to remove the stumbling-blocks of
this doctrine. It is no surprise, then, to find the 'prophecy' of
Revelation, and more particularly its doctrine of the thousand-year
reign of Messiah in Jerusalem, a subject of dispute at least since
Melito of Sardis (167), and probably since Papias (145). Fortunately
controversy brought out with unusual definiteness, and from the earliest
times, positive statements regarding the origin of the book. Irenæus
(186) declared it a work of the Apostle John given him in vision "in the
end of the reign of Domitian." The same date (93), may be deduced from
statements of Epiphanius regarding the history of the church in
Thyatira. Justin Martyr (153), as we have seen, vouches for the crucial
passage (Rev. xx. 2 f.) as from "one of ourselves, John, an apostle of
the Lord." Papias (145) vouched for its orthodoxy at least, if not its
authenticity. There can be no reasonable doubt that it came to be
accepted in Asia early in the second century, in spite of opposition, as
representing the authority of the Apostle John, and as having appeared
there c. 95. In fact, there is no book of the entire New Testament whose
external attestation can compare with that of Revelation, in nearness,
clearness, definiteness, and positiveness of statement. John is as
distinctively the father of 'prophecy' in second century tradition as
Matthew of 'Dominical Precepts' and Peter of 'Narratives.'
Moreover the book itself purports to be written from Patmos, an island
off the coast of Asia. It speaks in the name of "John" as of some very
high and exceptional authority, well known to all the seven important
churches addressed, the first of which is "Ephesus." By its references
to local names and conditions it even proves, in the judgment of all the
most eminent modern scholars, that it really did see the light for the
first time (at least for the first time in its present form) in Ephesus
not far from A.D. 95.
One would think the case for apostolic authenticity could hardly be
stronger. And yet no book of the New Testament has had such difficulty
as this, whether in ancient or modern times, to maintain its place in
the canon. It must also be said that no book gives stronger internal
evidence of having passed through at least two highly diverse stages in
process of development to its present form.
The theory of "another John" is indeed comparatively modern. Nobody
drammed of such a solution until Dionysius of Alexandria hesitatingly
advanced the conjecture in his controversy with Nepos the Chiliast. Even
then (_c._ 250) Dionysius (though he must have known the little work of
Papias) could think of no other John at Ephesus than the Apostle,
unless it were perhaps John Mark! It is Eusebius who joyfully helps him
out with the discovery in Papias of "John the Elder." But Eusebius
himself is candid enough to admit that Papias only quoted "traditions of
John" and "mentioned him frequently in his writings." When we read
Papias' own words, though they are cited by Eusebius for the express
purpose of proving the debatable point, it is obvious that they prove
nothing of the kind, but rather imply the contrary, viz. that John the
Elder, though a contemporary of Papias, was not accessible, but known to
him only at second hand, by report of travellers who "came his way." In
short, as we have seen, "Aristion and John the Elder" were the surviving
members of a group of 'apostles, elders and witnesses of the Lord' in
Jerusalem. If, then, one chose to attribute the 'prophecies' of Rev.
iv.-xxi. to this Elder there could be no serious objections on the score
of doctrine, for the "traditions of John" reported by Papias were not
lacking in millenarian colour. Only, it is not the 'prophecies' of Rev.
iv.-xxi. which contain the references to "John," but the enclosing
prologue and epilogue; and these concern themselves with the churches of
Asia as exclusively as the 'prophecies' with the quarrel of Jerusalem
with Rome.
The second century is, as we have seen, unanimous in excluding from
consideration any other John in Asia save the Apostle, and if the
writer of Rev. i. and xxii. produced this impression in all contemporary
minds without exception, including even such as opposed the book and its
doctrine, it is superlatively probable that such was his intention. The
deniers of the resurrection and judgment did not point out to Polycarp,
Papias, Justin, Melito and Caius, that they were confusing two Johns,
attributing the work of a mere Elder to the Apostle. They plumply
declared the attribution to John fictitious; and since the internal
evidence from the condition of the churches and growth of heresy in chh.
i.-iii. and the imperial succession down to Domitian in chh. xiii. and
xvii. strongly corroborate the date assigned in antiquity (_c._ 93), we
have no alternative, if we admit that the Apostle John had long before
been "killed by the Jews,"[25] but to suppose that this book, like
nearly all the books of 'prophecy,' is, indeed, pseudonymous. It does
not follow that he who assumes the name of "John" in prologue and
epilogue (i. 1 f., 4, 9; xxii. 8) to tell the reader definitely who
the prophet is, was guilty of intentional misrepresentation. If anything
can be made clear by criticism it is clear that the prophecies were not
his own. They were taken from some nameless source. The "pseudonymity"
consists simply in clothing a conjecture with the appearance of
indubitable fact.
Footnote 25: See above, p. 104.
But why should a writer who wished to clothe with apostolic authority
the 'prophecies' he was promulgating, not assume boldly the title of
"apostle," as the author of 2nd Peter has done in adapting similarly the
Epistle of Jude? Why, if he assumes the name of the martyred Apostle
John at all, does he refrain from saying, "I John, an _apostle_, or
_disciple of the Lord_," and content himself with the humbler
designation and authority of 'prophet'?
This question brings us face to face with the most remarkable structural
phenomena of the book, and cannot be understandingly answered until we
have considered them.
The outstanding characteristic of Revelation is its adaptation of
literary material dealing with, and applicable to, one historical and
geographical situation, to another situation almost completely
different. The opening chapters, devoted to "John's" vision on Patmos
and the conditions and dangers of the seven Churches of Asia, employ
indeed some of the expressions of the substance of the book. The
promises of the Spirit to the churches recall the glories of the New
Jerusalem of the concluding vision of the seer. There is some reference
to local persecution at Smyrna incited by the Jews ("a synagogue of
Satan") and which is to last "ten days," and there is an isolated
reference to a martyrdom of days long gone by in the message to the
church in Pergamum (ii. 13) recalling remotely the blood and suffering
of which the body of the work is full. This we should of course expect
from an adapter of existing 'prophecies.' But the converse, _i. e._
consideration for the historical conditions of Ephesus and its sister
churches, on the part of the body of the work, is absolutely wanting. On
the one side is the situation of the Pauline churches on the east coast
of the Ægean in A.D. 93-95. The prologue and epilogue (Rev. i.-iii. and
xxii. 6-21) are concerned with these churches of Asia, and their
development in the faith, particularly their growth in good works,
purity from defilements of the world, and resistance to the inroads of
heretical teaching. The message of the Spirit, conveyed through "John,"
is meant to encourage the members of these churches to pure living in
the face of temptations to worldliness and impurity. The epistles to the
churches, in a word, belong in the same class with the Pastorals, Jude,
and 2nd Peter, as regards their object and the situation confronted;
though they are written to enclose apocalyptic visions which deal with a
totally different situation.
The visions, on the contrary, take not the smallest notice of
(proconsular) Asia and its problems. Their scene is Palestine, their
subject the outcome of Jerusalem's agonizing struggle against Rome. From
the moment the threshold of iv. 1 is crossed there is no consciousness
of the existence of such places as Ephesus, Smyrna and Thyatira. The
scenes are Palestinian. The great battle-field is Har-Magedon (_i. e._
city of Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon, the scene of Josiah's
overthrow, 2nd Kings xxiii. 29 f.). "The city," "the great city," "the
holy city" is Jerusalem; though "spiritually (in allegory) it is called
Sodom and Egypt" (_i. e._ a place from which the saints escape to avoid
its doom). When the saints flee from the oppression of the dragon it is
to "the wilderness." When the invading hordes rush in it is from beyond
"the Euphrates." When the redeemed appear in company with the Christ it
is on Mount Zion; they constitute an army of 144,000, twelve thousand
from each of the twelve tribes. Two antagonistic powers are opposed. On
the one side is Jerusalem and its temple, now given over to the Gentiles
to be trodden under foot forty and two months, on the other is Rome, no
longer, as with Paul, a beneficent and protecting power, but the city of
the beast, Babylon the great harlot, at whose impending judgment the
Gentiles will mourn, but all the servants of God rejoice. Jerusalem
rebuilt, glorified, the metropolis of the world, seat and residence of
God and his Christ, will take the place of Rome, the seat of the beast
and the false prophet. The gates of this New Jerusalem will stand open
to receive tribute from all the Gentile nations, and will have on them
the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The foundations of the city
wall will have on them "the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."
All this is cumulative proof that the horizon of the seer of Rev.
iv.-xx. is that of Palestine. Its expansion in the introductory Letters
of the Spirit to the Churches to include the seven churches of
(proconsular) Asia, is as limited in its way as the original. The later
writer merely adds the special province where he wishes the 'prophecy'
to circulate, with its special interests; there is no real interrelation
of the two parts.
It is a problem of great complexity to disentangle the various strands
of this strange and fantastic work, certain as it is that we have here a
conglomerate whose materials come from various periods. Some elements,
such as ch. xi. on the fate of Jerusalem, seem to date in part from
before 70; others, such as ch. xviii. on the fate of Rome, show that
while originally composed for the circumstances of the reign of
Vespasian or Titus, the time has been extended to take in at least the
beginning of that of Domitian.[26] The author rests mainly upon the
Hebrew apocalyptic prophets, such as Ezekiel, Daniel and Enoch, but he
has not been altogether inhospitable to such originally Gentile
mythology as the doctrine of the seven spirits of God, and the conflict
of Michael and his angels with the dragon. He intimates himself that his
prophesying had not been confined to one period or one people (x. 11).
When he translates the "Hebrew" name of the angel of the abyss,
"Abaddon," into its Greek equivalent (ix. 11), or uses Hebrew numerical
equivalents for the letters of the name of a man (xiii. 18), it is not
difficult to guess that this prophecy had at least its origin in
Palestine. In fact, there is no other country where the geographical
references hold true, and no other period save that shortly after the
overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, that affords the historical situation
here presupposed, when worshipping "the beast and his image" is demanded
of the saints by the earthly ruler (Domitian), and the overthrow of the
seven-hilled city by one of its own rulers in league with lesser powers
is looked forward to as about to avenge the sufferings inflicted on the
Jews. As regards this hope of the overthrow of Rome, we know that the
legend of Nero's prospective return at the head of hosts of Parthian
enemies to recapture his empire gained currency in Asia Minor in
Domitian's reign, and this legend is certainly developed in Rev. xiii.
and xvii. On the other hand, the author, if he ever came to Asia, did
not cease to be a Palestinian Jew. He operates exclusively (after iv. 1)
with the materials and interests of Jewish and Jewish-Christian
apocalypse. He has no interest whatever in the churches of Asia. He does
not betray by one syllable a knowledge even of their existence, to say
nothing of their dangers, their heresies, their temptations. He does
make it abundantly clear that he is a Christian prophet (x. 7-11), and
(to us) almost equally clear that he is _not_ one of the twelve
apostles whose names he sees written on the foundation-stones of the New
Jerusalem (xxi. 14). But since his prophecy, with all its heterogeneous
elements had to do with the final triumph of Messiah, and the
establishment of His kingdom, after the overthrow of the power of
Satan--since it depicted "the time of the dead to be judged, and the
time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the
saints and to them that fear thy name," it could not fail to be welcomed
by orthodox Christians in (proconsular) Asia. For the churches of Asia
were engaged at this time in a vigorous struggle against the heretical
deniers of the resurrection and judgment. Only, a mere anonymous
prophecy from Palestine could not obtain any authoritative currency in
Asia. To be accepted, even among the orthodox, some name of apostolic
weight must be attached to it, as we see in the case of the two Epistles
of Peter and those of James and Jude. The Epistles of the Spirit to the
churches are, then, as truly "letters of commendation" as though they
introduced a living prophet and not merely a written prophecy. The John
whom they present is not called an apostle for the very simple reason
that the visions themselves everywhere refer to their recipient as a
'prophet.' The author of the prologue and epilogue does not disregard
the language of his material. As we have seen, he carefully weaves its
phraseology into the 'letters.' So with his insertion of the name
"John." It occurs nowhere but in i. 1 f., 4, 9 and xxii. 8 f. All
these passages, but especially xxii. 8 f., are based upon xix. 9_b_,
10, adding nothing to the representation but the name "John" and the
location "Patmos." In fact, xxii. 6-9 reproduces xix. 9 f., for the
most part verbatim, although it is clearly insupposable that the seer of
the former passage should represent himself as offering a _second_ time
to worship the angel, and as receiving _again_ exactly the same rebuke
he had received so shortly before. He who calls himself "John" in xxii.
8 is, therefore, _not_ the prophet of xix. 10. The epilogue itself has
apparently received successive supplements, and the prologue its prefix;
but he who inserts the name John has done so with caution. He may not
have intended to leave open the ambiguity found by Dionysius and
Eusebius between the Apostle and the Elder, as a refuge in case of
accusation, but he has at least been careful not to transgress the
limits of the text he reproduces. The seer spoke of himself as a
"_prophet_" writing from the midst of great _tribulation_, about the
_kingdom_ to follow to those that _endured_. He had said that he
received "true _words of God_" from an _angel_ who declared "I am a
fellow _servant_ with thee and with thy _brethren_ that hold _the
testimony of Jesus_" (_i. e._ the confession of martyrdom). The
prologue, accordingly, describes "John" as a _servant_ of Jesus, who
received from an _angel_ the _word of God_ and _the testimony of Jesus_
(i. 1 f.). He is a _brother_ and partaker in the _tribulation_ and
_kingdom_ and _endurance_ which are in Jesus. When he comes to Asia it
is "for the _word of God_ and _the testimony of Jesus_." The spot whence
he issues his prophetic message is not located in Ephesus, or in any
city where the residents could say, "But the Apostle John was never
among us." He resides temporarily (as a prisoner in the quarries?) in
the unfrequented island of Patmos. Thence he could be supposed to see
"in the Spirit" the condition of affairs in the churches of Asia without
inconvenient questions as to when, and how, and why.
Footnote 26: Note the addition of an "eighth" emperor in ver. 11.
We may think, then, of this book of 'prophecy' as brought forth in the
vicinity of Ephesus near "the end of the reign of Domitian" (95). But
only the enclosing letters to the churches, and the epilogue
guaranteeing the contents, originate here at this time. The
'prophecies,' occupied as they are exclusively with the rivalry of
Jerusalem and Rome, and the judgment to be executed for the former upon
her ruthless adversary, bear unmistakable marks of their Palestinian
origin, not only in the historical and geographic situations
presupposed, but in the "defiant" Hebraisms of the language, and the
avowed translations from "the Hebrew." They are an importation from
Palestine like "the sound words, even the words of the Lord Jesus"
referred to in the Pastorals. The churches of Asia are feeling the need
of apostolic authority against the deniers of the resurrection and the
judgment, as much as against the perverters of the Lord's words. Such
centres as the homes of the prophesying daughters of Philip at Ephesus
and Hierapolis were even more abundantly competent to supply this demand
than the other. Agabus will not have been the only Judæan prophet who
visited them, especially after the "great tribulation" which befell
"those in Judæa." There is nothing foreign to the habit of the times,
even in Christian circles, if nameless 'prophecies' from such a source
are translated, edited, and given out under cover of commendatory
epistles written in the name of "John" at a time when John had indeed
partaken both of the tribulation and of the kingdom of Jesus. They would
hardly have obtained currency had they not been attributed to an
apostle; for a denial of the apostolicity of this book has always
deprived it of authority.
On the other hand, the actual (Palestinian) prophet has no such exalted
opinion of himself as of those whose names he sees written on the
foundation of the walls of the New Jerusalem (xxi. 14). He is not an
apostle and does not claim to be. He shows not the faintest trace of any
association with the earthly Jesus, and indeed displays a
vindictiveness toward the enemies of Israel that has more of the spirit
of the imprecatory psalms than the spirit of Jesus. He thinks of Jesus
as a king and judge bestowing heavenly rewards upon the martyrs in a
manner quite inconsistent with his rebuke of James and John (Mark x.
40). It is a far cry indeed from this to apostleship and personal
intimacy with Jesus.
The chief value of Revelation to the student of Christian origins is
that by means of its clearly determinable date (Ephesus, 93-95) he can
place himself at a point of vantage whence to look not only around him
at the conditions of the Pauline churches as depicted in the letters,
vexed with growing Gnostic heresy and moral laxity, but also both
backward and forward. The backward glance shows Palestine emerging from
the horrors of the Jewish war, filled with bitterness against Rome, held
down under hateful tyranny and longing for vengeance upon the despot
with his "names of blasphemy" and his demands of worship for "the image
of the beast" (emperor-worship). Here Jewish apocalyptic (as in 2nd
Esdras) and Christian 'prophecy' are closely in accord. Indeed a
considerable part of the material of Rev. iv.-xxi., especially in chh.
xi.-xii. is ultimately of Jewish rather than Christian origin. What the
development of Christian 'prophecy' was in Palestine from apostolic
times until the scattering of the church of "the apostles and elders"
after the war of Bar Cocheba (135), we can only infer from the kindred
Jewish apocalypses and the chiliastic "traditions of the Elders" quoted
by Irenæus from Papias. A forward look from our vantage point in Ephesus
_c._ A.D. 95, shows the effects of the Palestinian importation extending
down from generation to generation, first in the long chiliastic
controversy against the Doketic Gnostics, including Montanist
'prophecy'; secondly, in the growth of a claim to apostolic succession
from John.
(1) In the chiliastic controversy for a century the chief bones of
contention are the (non-Pauline) doctrine of the resurrection of the
_flesh_ (so the Apostles' Creed and the second-century fathers), and
that of a visible reign of Christ for a thousand years in Jerusalem. The
new form of resurrection-gospel which at about this time begins to take
the place of the apostolic of 1st Cor. xv. 3-11, centering upon the
emptiness of the sepulchre and the tangibility and food-consuming
functions of Jesus' resurrection body, instead of the "manifestations"
to the apostles, is characteristic of this struggle against the Greek
disposition to spiritualize. Luke and Ignatius represent the attitude of
the orthodox, Ignatius' opponents that of those who denied that Jesus
was "in the flesh after his resurrection." Revelation, like the
"traditions of the Elders," champions the visible kingdom of Messiah in
Jerusalem.
(2) In the effort for apostolic authority the writings which came
ultimately to represent Asian orthodoxy have all been brought under the
name and authority of the Apostle John, although for many decades after
the appearance of Revelation, Paul, and not John, remains the apostolic
authority to which appeal is made, and although the writings themselves
were originally anonymous. There was, indeed, a contributory cause for
the growth of this tradition in the accidental circumstance that a
Palestinian Elder from whom Papias derived indirect, and Polycarp in all
probability direct, traditions, bore also the name of John, and survived
until A.D. 117. Still, the main reason why this particular apostolic
name was ultimately placed over the Gospel and Epistles of Ephesian
Christendom, can only have been its previous adoption to cover the
compilation of Palestinian 'prophecies' of A.D. 95.
PART IV
THE LITERATURE OF THE THEOLOGIAN
CHAPTER IX
THE SPIRITUAL GOSPEL AND EPISTLES
Asia, as we have come to know it through a succession of writings dating
from Colossians-Ephesians (_c._ 62) down to Papias (145), had come to be
the chief scene of mutual reaction between 'apostolic' and Pauline
Christianity at the close of the first century. Here at Ephesus had been
the great headquarters of Paul's missionary activity. Here he had
reasoned daily in the school of one Tyrannus, a philosopher, and had
found "many adversaries." Here he had encountered the "strolling Jews,
exorcists," and had secured the destruction of an immense mass of books
of magic. Here, according to Acts, he predicted the inroads of heresy
after his "departure," and here the succeeding literature abundantly
witnesses the fulfilment of the prediction. Ephesians and Colossians
begin the series, the Pastoral Epistles (_c._ 90) continue it. Then
follow the 'letters to the churches' of Revelation (95) and the
Ignatian Epistles (110-117), not to mention those whose origin is
uncertain, such as Jude and 2nd Peter.
The Pastorals already make it apparent that even the Pauline churches
are not exempt from the inevitable tendency of the age to fall back upon
authority. The very sublimity of Paul's consciousness of apostolic
inspiration made it the harder for the next generation to assert any for
itself. Moreover heresy was growing apace. If even the outward pressure
of persecution tended to drive the churches together in brotherly
sympathy, still more indispensable would appear the need of traditional
standards to maintain the "type of sound doctrine," "the faith once for
all delivered to the saints." Without such it would be impossible to
check the individualism of errorists who took Paul's sense of personal
inspiration and mystical insight as their model, _without_ Paul's
sobriety of critical control under the standard of "the law of Christ."
It is no surprise, then, to find even at the headquarters of Paulinism
early in the second century a sweeping tendency to react toward the
'apostolic' standards. In particular, as Gnostic exaggeration of the
Pauline mysticism led continually further toward disregard of the
dictates of common morality, and a wider divergence from the Jewish
conceptions of the world to come, it was natural that men like Polycarp
and Papias should turn to the Matthæan and Petrine tradition of the
Lord's oracles, and to the Johannine 'prophecies' regarding the
resurrection and judgment.
Had nothing intervened between Gnostics and reactionaries the most vital
elements of Paul's gospel might well have disappeared, even at this
great headquarters of Paulinism. The Doketists, with their exaggerated
Hellenistic mysticism, were certainly not the true successors of Paul.
They showed an almost contemptuous disregard for the historic Jesus, a
one-sided aim at personal redemption, by mystic union of the individual
soul with the Christ-spirit, to the disregard of "the law of Christ,"
even in some cases of common morality. Paul was characterized by a
splendid loyalty to personal purity, to the social ideal of the Kingdom,
and to the unity of the brotherhood in the spirit of reciprocal service.
On the other hand men like the author of the Pastoral Epistles, Ignatius
and Polycarp, with their almost panic-stricken resort to the authority
of the past, were not perpetuating the true spirit of the great Apostle.
Their reliance was on ecclesiastical discipline, concrete and massive
miracle in the story of Jesus, particularly on the point of the
bodily--or, as they would have said, the "fleshly"--resurrection. Their
conception of his recorded "words," made of them a fixed, superhuman
standard and rule, a "new law." Teachers of this type, much as they
desired and believed themselves to be perpetuating the "sacred deposit"
of Paul, were in reality conserving its form and missing its spirit.
Such men would gladly "turn to the tradition handed down," of the
Matthæan Sayings, and the Petrine Story. But in the former they would
not find reflections of the sense of Son ship. They would find only a
supplementary Law, a new and higher set of rules. In the story they
would not discover the Pauline view of the pre-existent divine Wisdom
tabernacling in man, producing a second Adam, as elder brother of a new
race, the children and heirs of God. They would take the mysticism of
Paul and bring it down to the level of the man in the street. Jesus
would be to them either a completely superhuman man, approximating the
heathen demi-god, a divinity incognito; or else a man so endowed with
"the whole fountain of the Spirit" as to exercise perpetually and
uninterruptedly all its miraculous functions. The story of the cross
would be hidden behind the prodigies.
Least of all could the importation of apocalyptic prophecy do justice to
the Pauline doctrine of the 'last things.' True, Paul is himself a
'prophet,' thoroughly imbued with the fantastic Palestinian doctrines.
He, too, believes in a world-conflict, a triumph of the Messiah over
antichrist. More particularly in one of his very earliest epistles (2nd
Thessalonians) we get a glimpse into these Jewish peculiarities. But
these are always counterbalanced in Paul by a wider and soberer view,
which tends more and more to get the upper hand. His doctrine of
spiritual union with Christ, present apprehension of "the life that is
hid with Christ in God," a doctrine of Greek rather than Hebrew
parentage, prevails over the imagery of Jewish apocalypse. In the later
epistles he expects rather to "depart and be with Christ" than to be
"caught up into the air" with those that are alive and remain at the
'Coming.' So even if Paul did have occasion again and again to defend
his Jewish resurrection-doctrine against the Greek disposition to refine
it away into a mere doctrine of immortality, his remedy is not a mere
falling back into the crudities of Jewish millenarianism. Least of all
could he have sympathized with the nationalistic, and even vindictive
spirit of Rev. iv.-xxi., with its great battle of Jerusalem helped by
Messiah and the angels, against Rome helped by Satan and the Beast.
Paul's doctrine of the resurrection of the "body" by "clothing" of the
spirit with a "tabernacle" derived "from heaven," his hope of a
messianic Kingdom which is the triumph of humanity under a "second
Adam," has its apocalyptic traits. It is a victory over demonic enemies,
"spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"; but it has the
reserve of an educated Pharisee against the cruder forms of Jewish
prophecy. It shows the mind of the cosmopolitan Roman citizen and
philosophic thinker, not merely that of the Jewish Zealot.
How salutary if Paul himself could have lived to control the divergent
elements among his churches, to check the subjective individualism of
the Gnostics on the one hand, and the reactionary tendencies of the
orthodox on the other. His parting words to his beloved Philippians are
sadly appreciative of how needful it was for their sake that he should
"abide in the flesh" (Phil. i. 24). Yet there was one thing still more
expedient--that he should abide with them in the spirit. And that is
just what we find evidenced in the great 'spiritual' Gospel and its
accompanying Epistles from Ephesus.
Debate still rages over a mere name, attached by tradition to these
writings that themselves bear no name. The titles prefixed by early
transcribers attribute them to "John." But they are never employed
before 175-180 in a way to even remotely suggest that they were then
regarded as written by John, or even as apostolic in any sense. And when
we trace the tradition back to its earliest form, in the Epilogue
attached to the Gospel (John xxi.) it seems to be no more than a dubious
attempt to identify that mysterious figure, the "disciple whom Jesus
loved." If, however, we postpone this question raised by the Epilogue,
the writings can at least be assigned to a definite locality (Ephesus)
and a fairly definite date (_c._ 105-110), with the general consent both
of ancient tradition and of modern criticism. This is for us the
important thing, since it enables us to understand their purpose and
bearing; whereas even those who contend that they were written by the
Apostle John can make little use of the alleged fact. For (1) the little
that is known of John from other sources is completely opposed to the
characteristics of these writings. They are characterized by a broad
universalism, and reproduce the mysticism of Paul. To attribute them to
the Pillar of Gal. ii. 9, or the Galilean fisherman of Mark i. 19 and
ix. 38, it becomes necessary to suppose that John after migrating to
Ephesus underwent a transformation so complete as to make him in reality
another man. (2) The meagre possibility that the basis of Revelation
might represent the Apostle John becomes more remote than ever. Now it
is a curious fact that critics who hold to the much-disputed tradition
that the Apostle John wrote the Gospel and Epistles, although these
writings make no such claim, and have no affinity with the known
character, show as a rule remarkable alacrity to dismiss the claims of
Revelation, which positively declares John to have been its author, and
has far stronger evidence, both internal and external, in support of the
claim, than have either the Gospel or the Epistles. We may prefer the
style and doctrine of the Gospel and Epistles, but this playing fast
and loose with the evidence can only discredit criticism of this type.
(3) The value of the demonstration of Johannine authorship would lie in
the fact that we should then have a first-hand witness to the actual
life and teaching of Jesus, immeasurably superior to the remote and
indirect tradition of the present Synoptic sources. But as a matter of
real fact those who maintain the Johannine authorship do not venture to
assert any such historical superiority. On the contrary they consider
the Synoptic tradition not only historically superior to "John," as
respects both sayings and course of events, but they are apt to
attribute to this Galilean apostle an extreme of Philonic abstraction,
so that he even prefers deliberate "fiction" to fact. Thus the reasoning
employed to defend the tradition destroys the only factor which could
give it value.
On the other hand it is possible to disregard these secondary disputes,
which aim only to increase or diminish the authority of the writings by
asserting or denying that they were written by the Apostle John, and to
approach the interpretation of them on the basis only of what is really
known, accredited both by ancient tradition and by modern criticism. On
this basis we can safely affirm that they originated in Ephesus early in
the second century, 'spiritualizing' what we have designated 'apostolic'
teaching, while at the same time strongly reacting against Doketic and
Antinomian heresy. By such a procedure we shall be employing modern
critical methods to the highest practical advantage in the interest of
genuinely historical interpretation.
Even those who find minute distinctions in style and point of view
between the Epistles and Gospel of John will admit that all four
documents emanate from the same period, situation, and circumstances,
and represent the same school of thought. We shall make no serious
mistake, then, if we treat them as written by the same individual, and
even as intended to accompany one another. We shall have the example of
so high an authority as Lightfoot, who considered 1st John an Epilogue
composed to accompany the Gospel in place of the present Epilogue (John
xxi.). Moreover the distinctions in the ancient treatment of 1st John
and the two smaller Epistles are all subsequent to the attribution of
the Gospel and First Epistle to the Apostle, and a consequence of it.
For 1st John and the Gospel had always been inseparable, and having no
name attached could easily be treated as the Apostle's. But 2nd and 3rd
John distinctly declare themselves written by an "Elder"; and in the
days when men still appreciated the distinction between an Elder and an
Apostle it was felt to be so serious a difficulty that 2nd and 3rd John
were put in the class of "disputed" writings. In reality 1st John and
the Gospel are just as certainly the work of an "Elder" as 2nd John and
3rd John, though no declaration to that effect is made. Moreover 1st
John and the Gospel may safely be treated as from the same author; for
such minute differences as exist in style and point of view can be fully
accounted for by the processes of revision the Gospel has demonstrably
undergone. This is more reasonable than to imagine two authors so
extraordinarily similar to one another and extraordinarily different
from everybody else.
"The Elder" does not give his name, and it is hopeless for us to try to
guess it, though it was of course well known to his "beloved" friend
"Gaius," to whom the third letter (the outside envelope) was addressed.
We have simply three epistles, one (3rd John) personal, to the aforesaid
Gaius, who is to serve as the writer's intermediary with "the church,"
because Diotrephes, its bishop, violently opposes him. Another (2nd
John) is addressed to a particular church ("the elect lady and her
children"), in all probability the church of Diotrephes and Gaius. It
may be the letter referred to in 3rd John 9. The third (1st John) is
entirely general, not even so much modified from the type of the homily
toward that of the epistle as Hebrews or James; for it has neither
superscription nor epistolary close. And yet it is, and speaks of itself
(i. 4; ii. 1, 7, 9, 12-14, etc.) as a literary product. It is not
impossible that this group of 'epistles,' one individual, one to a
particular church, one general, was composed after the plan of the
similar group addressed by Paul to churches of this same region,
Philemon, Colossians, and the more general epistle known to us as
Ephesians. They may have been intended to accompany and introduce the
Gospel written by the same author, just as the prophecies of Rev.
iv.-xxi. are introduced by the 'epistles' of Rev. i.-iii., or as
Luke-Acts is sent under enclosure to Theophilus for publication under
his patronage. At all events, be the connection with the Gospel closer
or more remote, to learn anything really reliable about the writer and
his purpose and environment we must begin with his own references to
them, first in the letter to Gaius, then in that to "the elect lady and
her children," then in his 'word of exhortation' to young and old, of
1st John. Thus we shall gain a historical approach finally to that
treatise on the manifestation of God in Christ which has won him the
title since antiquity of the 'theologian.'
Third John shows the author to be a man of eminence in the (larger?)
church whence he writes, old enough to speak of Gaius with commendation
as one of his "children," though Gaius himself is certainly no mere
youth, and eminent enough to call Diotrephes to answer for his
misconduct. He has sent out evangelistic workers, some of whom have
recently returned and borne witness "before the church" to their
hospitable reception by Gaius. For this he thanks Gaius, and urges him
to continue the good work. The main object of the letter, however, is
to commend Demetrius, who is doubtless the bearer of this letter as well
as another written "to the church" (2nd John?). This letter, the author
fears, will never reach its destination if Diotrephes has his way. There
is very little to indicate whence the opposition of Diotrephes arises,
but what little there is (ver. 11) points to those who make claims to
"seeing" God and being "of" Him, without adequate foundation in a life
of purity and beneficence. The letter "to the church" is more explicit.
Second John is perfectly definite in its purpose. After congratulating
the "elect lady" on those of her children (members) whom the writer has
found leading consistent Christian lives, he entreats the church to
remember the "new commandment" of Jesus, which yet is not new but the
foundation of all, the commandment of ministering love. The reason for
this urgency is that "many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even
they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh" (ver. 7).
And here we come upon a very novel and distinctive application of an
ancient datum of 'prophecy,' clearly differentiating this writer from
the author of Revelation. The Doketic heresy is explicitly identified
with "the deceiver and the antichrist." That must have been a new and
surprising turn for men accustomed to connect the antichrist idea with
the persecuting power of Rome. Satan, as we know, had been repeatedly
conceived as operating through the coercion of outward force brought
against the Messiah and his people through the Beast and the false
Prophet (Rev. xiii.). There was good authority, too, for a mystical "man
of sin" setting himself forth as God in the temple (2nd Thess. ii. 4),
or for connecting Daniel's "abomination that maketh desolate" with the
sufferings of the Jewish war and the later attempts of false prophets to
deceive the elect with lying wonders (2nd Thess. ii. 9; Mark xiii. 22;
Rev. xiii. 14). But this was a new application of the prophecy. To
declare that the heretical teachers were themselves antichrists was to
call the attention of the church back from outward opposition to inward
disloyalty as the greater peril. And the identification is not
enunciated in this general warning alone, but fully developed and
defended in two elaborate paragraphs of the 'word of exhortation' (1st
John ii. 18-29; iv. 1-6). When, therefore, we find Polycarp in his
letter (110-171) quietly adopting the idea, almost as an understood
thing, declaring "For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh, is antichrist" (vii. 1), it becomes almost a
certainty that he had read 1st John.[27]
Footnote 27: Not 2nd John; for it is only in 1st John ii. 18 that
the elder speaks of "many antichrists," identifying each separate
Doketist with the apocalyptic figure. In 2nd John vii. it is the
heresy itself as a phenomenon which constitutes _the_ antichrist.
Our elder's warning "to the church" (perhaps more particularly its
governing body) is to beware of these deceivers; not to receive them,
nor even to greet them, because they "go onward" (are 'progressives')
and do not "abide in the teaching of Christ." To abide in this
"teaching" is the church's only safeguard.
If next we turn to the more general epistle known as 1st John the lack
of any superscription is more than counterbalanced by the writer's full
and explicit declarations regarding motive and occasion. The epistle was
certainly intended to be read before entire congregations. Of part of it
at least the author himself says that it was "written concerning them
that would lead you astray" (ii. 26). Comparison of the full
denunciation with what we know of Doketism from its own writings, such
as the so-called _Acts of John_ (_c._ 175), shows very plainly what type
of heresy is meant. Moreover we have the Epistles of Ignatius, written
to these same churches but a few years later, and the detailed
descriptions of the Doketist Cerinthus and his doctrines given by
Irenæus, together with the explicit statement that the writings of John
were directed against this same Cerinthus.
Yet 1st John is far more than a mere polemic. The author writes to those
"that believe on the name of the Son of God, that they may know that
they have eternal life" (v. 13). This certainly is the result of the
conscious indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus. It is not evidenced,
however, by boastful words as to illumination, insight and knowledge,
but by practical obedience to the one new commandment; for "God is love,
and he that _loveth_ (not he that hath _gnosis_) is begotten of God and
knoweth God." This inward witness of the Spirit is a gift, or (to use
our author's term) an "anointing" (_i. e._ a 'Christ'-ening), whose
essence is as much beyond the Greek's ideal of wisdom, on the one side,
as it is beyond the Jew's ideal of miraculous powers on the other. It is
a spirit of ministering love corresponding to and emanating from the
nature of God himself. This is "the teaching of Christ" in which alone
it is safe to "abide."
But again as respects the historic tradition of the church our author is
not less emphatic. He values the record of an actual, real, and tangible
experience of this manifested life of God in man. The "progressives" may
repudiate the mere Jesus of "the flesh," in favour of one who comes by
water only (_i. e._ in the outpouring of the Spirit in baptism), and not
by the blood of the cross. For the doctrine of the cross was a special
stumbling-block to Doketists, who rejected the sacrament of the bread
and wine.[28] The actual sending of God's only-begotten Son into the
world, the real "propitiation" for our sins (so lightly denied by the
illuminati), is a vital point to the writer. The sins "of the whole
world" were atoned for in Jesus' blood actually shed on Calvary. The
church possesses, then, in this story a record of fact of infinite
significance to the world. The Doketists are playing fast and loose with
this record of the historic Jesus. They deny any value to the "flesh" in
which the æon Christ had merely tabernacled as its "receptacle" between
the period of the baptism and the ascension--an event which they date
_before_ the death on the cross.[29] They are met here with a peremptory
challenge and declaration. The experience of contact with the earthly
Jesus which the Church cherishes as its most inestimable treasure is the
assurance, and the only assurance that we have, of real fellowship with
the Father; for "the life, the eternal life" of God in man, the
Logos--to borrow frankly the Stoic expression--is known not by mere
mystical dreams, but by the historic record of those who personally knew
the real Jesus. The manifestation of God, in short, is objective and
historical, and not merely inward and self-conscious; and that outward
and objective manifestation may be summed up in what we of the Christian
brotherhood have seen and known of Jesus.
Footnote 28: In the _Acts of John_ the Christ spirit which had been
resident in Jesus comes to John after he has fled to a cave on the
Mount of Olives from the posse that arrested the Lord. The sweet
voice of the invisible Christ informs him there that the blinded
multitude below had tortured a mere bodily shape which they took to
be Christ, "while I stood by and laughed." In the _Gospel of Peter_
Jesus hung upon the cross "as one who feels no pain" and was "taken
up" before the end.
Footnote 29: See note preceding.
It is when we approach the Fourth Gospel by way of its own author's
adaptation of his message to the conditions around him that we begin to
appreciate it historically, and in its true worth. The spirit of polemic
is still prominent in 1st John, but the Gospel shows the effect of
opposition only in the more careful statement of the evangelist's exact
meaning. It is a theological treatise, an interpretation of the doctrine
of the person of Christ, written that the readers "may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have
life in his name" (xx. 31). In an age so eagerly bent on ascertaining
the historic facts regarding Jesus' life, and the true sequence of
events (Luke i. 1-4), it is insupposable that an author so strenuous to
uphold the concrete reality of the church's historic tradition should
not give real history so far as he was able. He could not afford to
depreciate it in the face of Doketic myth and fancy and contempt for a
"Christ in the flesh." The idea that such a writer could deliberately
prefer fiction to fact is most improbable; ten times more so if he was
the only surviving representative of the twelve, a Galilean disciple
even more intimate than Peter with Jesus from the outset. But real
history was no longer attainable. The author of the Fourth Gospel
reports no event which he does not take in good faith to be fact. Yet it
must be apparent from his own statement of his purpose as well as from
the very structure of the book that he does not aim to be a historian,
but an interpreter of doctrine. He aims to give not _fact_ but _truth_.
And his handling of (supposed) fact has the freedom we should expect in
a church teacher of that age, and of the school of Paul the mystic. The
seven progressive "signs" that he narrates, culminating in the raising
of Lazarus, are avowedly (xx. 31) illustrative selections from a
multitude of current tales of miracle, aiming to produce that faith in
Jesus as the Son of God which will result in "life," _i. e._ the eternal
life which consists in his indwelling (1st John v. 20). They are not
described as acts of pity, drawn from one with whom the power of God was
found present to heal. Jesus does not yield as in the Synoptics when
compassion for trusting need overcomes reluctance to increase the
importunity that interfered with his higher mission. Their prime purpose
is to "manifest the glory" of the incarnate Logos, and Jesus performs
them only when, and as, he chooses. Pity and natural affection are
almost trampled upon that this "manifestation of his glory" may be made
more effective (ii. 4; iv. 48; ix. 3; xi. 4-6, 15). As in Paul, there is
no exorcism. This most typical and characteristic miracle of Petrine
story (Mark iii. 15; Acts x. 88) has disappeared. Or rather (as in Paul)
the casting out of Satan from his dominion over the entire world has
transcended and superseded it (John xii. 31-33; _cf._ Col. ii. 15). In
John, requests for miracle, whether in faith or unbelief, always incur
rebuke (ii. 4; iv. 48; vi. 30-36; vii. 4-7; xi. 3-15). Jesus offers and
works them when "his hour" comes, whether applied for or not (v. 6-9;
vi. 6; ix. 1-7). His reserve is not due to a limitation of almighty
power; for the power is declared explicitly to be his, _in his own
right_ (v. 21; xi. 22, 25, 42). He restrains it only that faith may rest
upon conviction of the truth rather than mere wonder (ii. 23-25; iii. 2
f.; iv. 39-42, 48; vi. 29-46; xiv. 11). He is, in short, an omniscient
(i. 47-50; ii. 25), omnipotent Being, temporarily sojourning on the
earth (iii. 13; xvi. 28).
The dialogue interwoven with these seven signs is closely related in
subject to them. It does not aim to repeat remembered Sayings, but
follows that literary form which since Plato had been the classic model
for presenting the themes of philosophy. The subject-matter is no
longer, as in the Synoptics, the Righteousness required by God, the
Nature and Coming of the Kingdom, Duty to God and Man. It is the person
and function of the speaker himself. Instead of the parables we have
allegories: "seven 'I am's'" of Jesus, in debate with "the Jews" about
the doctrine of his own person as Son of God.
This uniformity of topic corresponds with a complete absence of any
attempt to differentiate in style between utterances of Jesus, or the
Baptist, or the evangelist himself, in Gospel or Epistles. Had the
writer desired, it is certain that he could have collected sayings of
Jesus, and given them a form similar to those of Matthew and Luke. He
does not try. The only device he employs to suggest a distinction is an
oracular ambiguity at first misunderstood, and so requiring progressive
unfolding. The main theme is often introduced by a peculiar and solemn
"Verily, verily."
As with the 'signs' the lingering Synoptic sense of progress and
proportion has disappeared. At the very outset John the Baptist
proclaims to his followers that his own baptism has no value in itself.
It is not "for repentance unto remission of sins." It is _only_ to make
the Christ "manifest" (i. 19-34). Christ's atonement alone will take
away the sin (i. 29), Christ's baptism alone will convey real help (i.
34). Jesus, too, proclaims himself from the outset the Christ, in the
full Pauline sense of the word (i. 45-51; iv. 26, etc.). He chooses
Judas with the express purpose of the betrayal, and forces on the
reluctant agents of his fate (vi. 70 f.; xiii. 26 f.; xviii. 4-8;
xix. 8-11).
All this, and much more which we need not cite, makes hardly the
pretence of being history. It is frankly theology, or rather
apologetics. We have as a framework the general outline of Mark, a
Galilean and a Judæan ministry (chh. i.-xii.; xiii.-xx.), with traces of
a Perean journey (vii. 1 ff.). This scheme, however, is broken through
by another based on the Mosaic festal system, Jesus showing in each case
as he visits Jerusalem, the higher symbolism of the ceremonial (ii. 13
ff. Passover; v. 1 ff. Pentecost; vii. 1 ff. Tabernacles; x. 22
ff. Dedication; xii. 1 ff. Passover). There is in chh. i.-iv. a
'teaching of baptisms' and of endowment with the Spirit corresponding
roughly to Mark i. 1-45. There is in ch. v. a teaching of the authority
of Jesus against Moses and the Law, corresponding to Mark ii. 1--iii. 6.
There is a teaching of the 'breaking of bread' corresponding to Mark vi.
30--viii. 26 in John vi., though this last has been related not merely to
the brotherhood banquet ('love-feast') as in Mark, but anticipates and
takes the place of the teaching as to the Eucharist (_cf._ John vi.
52-59 with John xiii.). There is a Commission of the Twelve like Matt.
x. 16-42, though placed (with Luke xxii. 35-38) as a second sending on
the night of betrayal (xiii. 31--xviii. 26). There is dependence on
Petrine Story, and to some extent on Matthæan Sayings. In particular
John xii. 1-7 combines the data of Mark xiv. 3-9 with those of Luke vii.
36-50; x. 38-42 in a curious compound, making it certain that the
evangelist employed these two--and Matthew as well, if xii. 8 be
genuine (it is not found in the ancient Syriac). Yet our Synoptic
Gospels are not the only sources, and the material borrowed is handled
with sovereign superiority. In short, as even the church fathers
recognized, this Gospel is of a new type. It does aim to "supplement"
the others, as they recognized; but not as one narrative may piece out
and complete another. Rather as the unseen and spiritual supplements the
external and visible. This Gospel uses the established forms of
miracle-story and saying; but it transforms the one into symbol, the
other into dialogue and allegory. Then by use of this material
(supplemented from unknown, perhaps oral, sources) it constructs a
series of interpretations of the person and work of the God-man.
Of one peculiarly distinctive feature we have still to speak. Where the
reader has special need of an interpreter to attest and interpret a
specially vital fact, such as the scenes of the night of the betrayal,
or the reality of Jesus' propitiatory death (denied by the Doketists),
or the beginning of the resurrection faith, Peter's testimony is
supplemented and transcended by that of a hitherto unknown figure, who
anticipates all that Peter only slowly attains. This is the mysterious,
unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" (xiii. 23 ff.; xviii. 15 f.;
xix. 25-37; xx. 1-10; _cf._ Gal. xx. 20), a Paul present in the spirit,
to see things with the eye of spiritual insight. There is no
transfiguration-scene and no prayer of Gethsemane in this
Gospel--Transfiguration is needless where the glory shines uninterrupted
through the whole career. Prayer itself is impossible where oneness with
the God-head makes difference of thought or purpose inconceivable. Hence
the prayers of Jesus are often only "for the sake of those that stand
by" (xi. 41 f.). The same is true of the Voice from heaven at the
scene which takes the place of Transfiguration and Gethsemane in one
(xii. 27-33). Jesus will not ask for deliverance from that hour, because
he had sought it from the beginning. His prayer is "Father, glorify thy
name." The Voice, which some take to be an angel speaking to him (_cf._
Luke ix. 35; xxii. 43) is for the sake of the bystanders. The Voice at
his baptism likewise is not addressed to him (the incarnate Logos does
not need a revelation of his own identity) but to the Baptist.
So again and again Synoptic scenes are retouched and new scenes are
added in a way to present a consistent picture of the "tabernacling" of
the pre-existent Son of God in human flesh. As we review the whole, and
ask ourselves, What is the occasion of this strange new presentation of
the evangelic message? we begin to realize how indispensable is the key
which the evangelist has himself hung before the door. Many and complex
are the problems which confront us as we move through this heaped-up
tangle of anecdote, dialogue, and allegory. There is room for the
keenest scrutiny of criticism to determine, if possible, when, and how,
and from what sources these meditations were put together. But nothing
that critical insight, analysis, and comparison can furnish avails so
much to throw real light upon the work as what the evangelist himself
has done, by setting forth in a prologue (i. 1-18) the fundamental
principles of his conception.
In a word evangelic tradition as it had hitherto found currency still
lacked the fundamental thing in the Christology of Paul--the Incarnation
doctrine. Paul conceived the story of Jesus as a supernal drama,
beginning and ending in heaven at God's right hand. Even Matthew and
Luke, carrying back the adoption to Son ship from the baptism to the
birth of Jesus, had not essentially changed the pre-Pauline point of
view. Still there was no pre-existence. Jesus was not yet shown as the
Wisdom of God, through whom all things were created, the "heavenly man,"
the second Adam, taking upon him the form of a servant, humbling himself
and becoming obedient unto death, rich, and for our sakes becoming poor.
He was still, even in Mark, just the prophet mighty in deed and word,
raised up by God from among his brethren, and for his obedience exalted
to the messianic throne of glory. How _could_ this satisfy churches
trained in the doctrine of Paul? We should almost rather marvel that the
Synoptic narratives ever found lodgment at all, where Paul had preached
from the beginning a doctrine of the eternal Christ.
And the transformation is not one whit more radical than we ought to
anticipate. The Transfiguration story had been a halting attempt to
embody Pauline doctrine in Petrine story. But apart from the obvious
hold afforded to mere Doketism, how inadequate to Paul's conception of
the "Man from heaven"! The Fourth evangelist depicts the person of Jesus
consistently and throughout, despite his meagre and refractory material,
along the lines of Pauline Christology. There is no concession to
Doketism, for in spite of all, and designedly (iv. 6; xix. 28, 34),
Jesus is still no phantasm, but true man among men. There is no
hesitation to override, where needful, on vital points the great and
growing authority of 'apostolic' tradition. Tacitly, but
uncompromisingly, Petrine tradition is set aside. The "disciple whom
Jesus loved" sees the matter otherwise. In particular, apocalyptic
eschatology is firmly repressed in favour of a doctrine of eternal life
in the Spirit. The second Coming is not to be a manifestation "to the
world." It will be an inward indwelling of God and Christ in the heart
of the believer (xiv. 22 f.).[30] The place of future reward is not a
glorified Palestine and transfigured, rebuilt Jerusalem. The disciple,
like Paul, will "depart to be with Christ." The Father's house is wider
than the Holy Land. It has "many mansions," and the servant must be
content to know that his Master will receive him where he dwells himself
(xiv. 1-3; xvii. 24).
Footnote 30: Some few passages inconsistent with this are found in
the body of the Gospel. Like that of the appendix (xxi. 22) they are
later modifications of a doctrine too Hellenic for the majority.
To realize what it meant to produce the 'spiritual' Gospel that comes to
us from Ephesus shortly after the close of the first century we must
place ourselves side by side with men who had learnt the gospel of Paul
_about_ Jesus, the drama of the eternal, pre-existent, "heavenly Man,"
incarnate, triumphant through the cross over the Prince of this world
and powers of darkness. We must realize how they found it needful to
impregnate the 'apostolic' material of Petrine and Matthæan tradition
with this deeper significance, preserving the concrete, historic fact,
and the real manhood, and yet supplementing the disproportionately
external story with a wealth of transcendental meaning. The spirit of
Paul was, indeed, not dead. Neither Gnostic heresy could dissipate it,
nor reactionary Christianized legalism absorb it. It had been reborn in
splendid authority and power. In due time it would prove itself the very
mould of 'catholic' doctrine. The Fourth gospel, as its Prologue
forewarns, is an application to the story of Jesus as tradition reported
it of the Pauline incarnation doctrine formulated under the Stoic Logos
theory. It represents a study in the psychology of religion applied to
the person of Christ. Poor as Paul himself in knowledge of the outward
Jesus, unfamiliar with really historical words and deeds, its doctrine
_about_ Jesus became, nevertheless, like that of the great Apostle to
the Gentiles, the truest exposition of 'the heart of Christ.'
CHAPTER X
EPILOGUES AND CONCLUSIONS
Few of the great writings cherished and transmitted by the early church
have escaped the natural tendency to attachments at beginning and end.
In the later period such attachments took the form of prefixed
_argumenta_, _i. e._ prefatory descriptions of author and contents, and
affixed _subscriptions_, devoted to a similar purpose. These, like the
titles, were clearly distinguished from the text itself, and in modern
editions are usually not printed, though examples of 'subscriptions' may
be seen in the King James version after the Pauline Epistles. Before the
time when canonization had made such a process seem sacrilege they were
attached to the text itself, with greater or less attempt to weld the
parts together. We need not add to what has been already said as to
certain superscriptions of the later epistolary literature, such as
James and Jude, where the relation to the text impresses us as closer
than is sometimes admitted; nor need we delay with the preamble to
Revelation (Rev. i. 1-3). That which has been added at the close, in
cases where real evidence exists of such later supplementation, is of
special significance to our study, inasmuch as it tends to throw light
where light is most required. For that is an obscure period, early in
the second century, when not only the churches themselves were drawing
together toward catholic unity under the double pressure of inward and
outward peril, but were bringing with them their treasured writings,
sometimes a collection of Epistles, sometimes a Gospel, or a book of
Prophecy, sometimes, as in the groups of writings attributed to John and
Peter, a full canon of Gospel, Epistles and Apocalypse, followed but
little later by 'Acts' as well.
The most ancient list of books authorized to be publicly read that we
possess is that of the church of Rome _c._ 185, called after its
discoverer the Canon of Muratori. From this fragment, mutilated at
beginning and end, we learn that Paul's letters to the churches were
arranged in a group of seven[31] of which Romans stood last. It is
probably due to its position at the end that Romans has been
supplemented by the addition of Pauline fragments, which did not appear
in some early editions of the text. The letter proper ends with ch. xv.
though xvi. 21-23 probably followed, perhaps concluding with ver. 24,
which some texts insert after ver. 19. Ver. 25-27 is another fragment
omitted in some texts.
Footnote 31: The personal letters formed a separate group. Two
letters to the same church (1st Cor., 2nd Cor.) were counted as one.
Marcion (140) counted ten in all, and had a different order.
We have seen above (p. 200) how Revelation has received conclusion after
conclusion, so that the relation of personalities has become almost
unintelligible. We have very meagre textual material for Revelation, and
can scarcely judge whether any of the process represented in Rev. xxii.
6-21 belongs to the period of transmission, after the publication of the
book in its present form. Until the discovery of new textual evidence
the phenomena in Revelation must be treated by principles of the higher
criticism, as pertaining to its history before publication. At all
events we know that the attribution to "John" (ver. 8 f.) was current
as early as Justin's _Apology_ (153).
The longer and shorter supplements to Mark belong again to the field of
textual criticism. The manuscripts and early translations carry us back
to a time when neither ending was known; though only to leave us
wondering how the necessity arose for composing them--a question of the
higher criticism. Mark xvi. 9-20 shows acquaintance with Luke, and
probably with John xx. It is noteworthy, however, in view of the
author's attempt to cover the resurrection appearances of these two
gospels, that he betrays no sign of acquaintance with John. xxi. In this
case of the Roman gospel, however, textual evidence enables us to trace
something of the history of supplementation. The so-called 'Shorter'
ending provides a close for the incomplete story, resembling Matthew,
while the 'Longer' is drawn from Luke and John. i.-xx. Subsequent
employments show that the 'Longer' ending had been attached (perhaps at
Rome) not later than _c._ 150. It is the first evidence we have of
combination of the Fourth gospel with the Synoptics; for even Justin,
though _affected_ by John, does not _use_ it as he uses Matthew, Mark
and Luke. Parity among the four is not traceable earlier than Tatian
(_c._ 175), the father of gospel 'harmonies.' The 'Shorter' ending, if
not the Longer as well, would seem to have been added in Egypt. The
supplements to Mark have this at least of singular interest, that they
show the progress of a process whose beginnings we traced back to
Palestine itself in the church of the 'apostles, elders and witnesses of
the Lord,' where "the Elder" in the tradition reported by Papias is
already offering explanations of the disagreements of Matthew and Mark
with a view to their concurrent circulation.
After the addition of Mark to Matthew it was comparatively easy to take
in Luke-Acts as a third, and to form composites out of the three such as
the _Gospel of Peter_ (North Syria _c._ 130) and the _Gospel of the
Nazarenes_ (Coele-Syria _c._ 140). Justin at Rome (_c._ 153) is still
such a three-gospel man, though affected by the Fourth; whereas his
predecessor Hermas (125-140) seems to rest on Mark alone, though perhaps
acquainted with Matthew. The step was a harder one which aimed to take
in the Fourth gospel. Tatian at Rome (_c._ 175) and Theophilus at
Antioch (181) are the agents of its accomplishment; and, as we have
seen, it was not effected without a determined opposition, led at Rome
by the presbyter Gaius, and answered by Irenæus (_c._ 186) and
Hippolytus (_c._ 215). Such opposition from the side of advocates of
Petrine apostolicity is anticipated in the most significant and
important of all the epilogues, the so-called Appendix or Epilogue to
the Fourth gospel (John xxi.).
Just when, or where, this supplement was added is one of the most
difficult problems of the higher criticism. On the side of external
evidence we have the fact that it shows no effect in Mark xvi. 9-21,
where John xx. is employed, and that there is a great change about A.D.
170 in the treatment of this Gospel and its related Epistles, those who
use them before this time showing no disposition to treat them as having
high apostolic authority. On the side of internal evidence there are
such data as the use of the second-century name for the Sea of Galilee
("Sea of Tiberias," xxi. 1), and references to the martyrdom of Peter at
Rome (xxi. 18 f.) and to legends of John as the 'witness' who should
survive until the Coming (xxi. 23). Whether these data suggest an origin
at Ephesus, or at Rome, and at just what date, are problems for
technical research. That which is of chief interest for us is the motive
and function of this supplement to the Ephesian Gospel, and the light it
throws upon conditions in the church at large.
It is quite apparent that John xxi. forms a subsequent attachment after
the formal conclusion of the Gospel proper in xx. 30 f. For, apart
from differences in style and doctrinal standpoint, it makes a complete
new departure along the lines of Mark's story of Galilean resurrection
manifestations; whereas the Gospel follows the Lukan type, and brings
everything to a close without removal from Jerusalem. The message to the
disciples by the women at the sepulchre is here given by Jesus in person
as in Matt. xxviii. 10, and is actually delivered as in Luke xxiv. 10
f. It is followed by the promised manifestation to the disciples with
the overcoming of their incredulity, and by the great Commission,
accompanied by the Gift of the Spirit. The story has thus been brought
to a formal conclusion, the invariable and necessary conclusion of all
evangelic narratives. The author's recapitulation of the nature and
contents of his book and assurance in direct address to the reader of
his purpose in writing ("that _ye_ may believe") follows appropriately
as a winding up of the whole. It is not conceivable that the same
writer should resume immediately after this, at an earlier point in the
narrative, where the disciples are still scattered in Galilee,
unconscious of their vocation and commission. For in spite of the
endeavour of the supplementer in ver. 14 to make this out "the third[32]
time that Jesus was manifested" they have manifestly returned to their
original means of livelihood unawakened to the resurrection faith.
Moreover the story culminates with a restoration of Peter to favour,
with unmistakable reference to his humiliating failure to live up to the
promise (xiii. 36-38), "Lord, why cannot I follow thee even now? I will
lay down my life for thee" (_cf._ xxi. 15-19). If it had been the
evangelist's intention to tell this he would have told it before the
Commission in xx. 19-23. In short, we have here two widely variant forms
of the tradition of the rallying of the disciples from their unbelief by
the risen Christ and commissioning of them to their task. The two
commissions, one a general commission of all "the twelve," like Matt.
xviii. 18, the other a special commission of Peter like Matt. xvi. 19,
are attached one after the other, with the curious infelicity that the
restoration of Peter from his defection, together with his installation
as chief under-shepherd of the flock, comes _after_ the commission in
which he has already appeared with the rest, restored to full faith and
favour, and gifted with the inspiration and authority of the Spirit.
Footnote 32: A miscount for "fourth," unless we disregard xx. 11-18,
or else (with Wellhausen) consider xx. 24-29 an insertion later than
the Epilogue.
It is true that the function of "tending the flock of God" (_cf._ 1st
Pet. v. 2) committed to Peter in xxi. 15-19 is a more special one than
the apostolate conferred on all in xx. 21-23; but the Epilogue has
previously (xxi. 1-14) given to Peter a special and commanding part in
the apostolate (extension of the gospel to the world). No one will
question that in such a writer as the Fourth evangelist (and if anything
still more the writer of the Epilogue) narratives of miracle are
intended to have a symbolical sense. Nor will it be denied that the
miraculous draft of fishes, which in Luke v. 1-11 attends the original
vocation of "Simon,"[33] is here applied to the work the twelve are to
accomplish in the now opening future as "fishers of men." The
particularization of the number of the fishes, and the statement that
the peril of the rending of the net (_cf._ Luke v. 6) was happily
avoided, are, of course, also intended to convey a symbolical sense,
which Jerome makes still easier to grasp by informing us that 153 was
taken by naturalists of the time to be the full number of all species of
fish. John xxi. 1-14 is therefore a primitive story of the appearance
of Jesus after his resurrection "to Peter and them that were with him,"
in Galilee (not in Jerusalem as in John i.-xx. and Luke), having a
relation to Luke v. 1-11, and probably also to Matt. xiv. 28-33 (_cf._
John xxi. 7). It is also nearly akin to the fragment at the end of the
_Gospel of Peter_. It symbolizes the work of the apostolic mission under
the figure of the fishing of men (_cf._ Mark i. 17; Matt. xiii. 47-50),
and gives to Peter the leading part. In fact Peter not only comes to the
Lord in advance of all the rest, and alone maintains with him something
like the intimate relations of the past, but performs after his private
interview with Jesus the gigantic feat of bringing unaided to land the
entire miraculous catch. The great and various multitude, which all
working in common had enclosed in the net, but had not been able to lift
into the boat, Peter, at Jesus' word, brought safely home. The writer
who so employs the already conventionalized symbols of ecclesiastical
imagery, surely had no mean idea of the apostleship of Peter. In at
least as high degree as the author of Acts he conceives of Peter as
commissioned in a special sense to be the great director and leader of
all missionary activity, to Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts xv. 7), and
to have been the saviour of the unity of the church in the hour of its
threatened disruption. When in addition he is invested by Jesus with the
insignia and office of chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, the
stain of his threefold denial wiped out by a threefold opportunity to
prove his special love by special service, and the ignominy of his
previous failure to "follow" (xiii. 36-38) atoned for by the promise
that in old age he shall have opportunity to follow Jesus in martyrdom
(xxi. 18 f.), there remains nothing that the most exacting friend of
'catholic' apostolicity could demand in the way of tribute to its great
representative.
Footnote 33: The addition in ver. 10_a_ and the plural "they" in
ver. 11, are mere editorial adaptations of the story to Mark i.
16-20.
And yet the main object of the Epilogue has not yet been touched. It was
not written, we may be sure, merely to glorify Peter; though it is, of
course, insupposable that the Gospel in its primitive form simply left
Peter in the attitude of a renegade after xviii. 27, to reappear quite
as if nothing had happened in xx. 1 ff.[34] It pays its tribute to
Peter as chief witness to the resurrection, chief apostle, chief saviour
of the unity of the church, chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, in
the interest of that catholic apostolic unity which all churchmen were
so earnestly labouring to achieve in the writer's time, and for which
the name of Peter was increasingly significant. But the chief object of
the Epilogue is something else. It was written primarily to commend and
find room for another authority, the authority of the Gospel to which
it is appended, and which repeatedly sets over against Peter a
mysterious unnamed figure, who always sees when Peter is blind, believes
when Peter is unbelieving, is faithful when Peter and all the rest have
fled in cowardly desertion. The object of the Epilogue is to find room
alongside the growing and salutary authority of Peter for the authority
and message of "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Its purpose appears in
its conclusion, "This (the disciple whom Jesus loved) is the disciple
which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we
(the church which cherishes and gives forth this 'spiritual' Gospel)
know that his witness is true."
Footnote 34: We must conclude that _both_ these data from Synoptic
tradition, the denial (xiii. 36-38; xviii. 15-18, 25-27) _and_ the
restoration (ch. xxi.) are supplements to the original form of the
Gospel.
The writer does not explicitly say that he means the Apostle John
(reputed in Ephesus the author of Revelation); for such direct
identification might well endanger his own object. But he makes it clear
in two ways that John is really intended, as, indeed, subsequent writers
immediately infer.[35] (1) "The sons of Zebedee" are introduced for the
first time in the entire work in xxi. 2, among the group who are present
with Peter. An easy process of elimination,[36] then, leaves open to
identification as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (ver. 7) only John, or
else one of the two unnamed "other disciples," who could hardly be
reckoned among Jesus' closest intimates.
Footnote 35: The _Muratorianum_ bases its legendary account of the
writing of the Fourth gospel by "John" with the endorsement of "his
fellow-disciples and bishops" on John xxi. 24.
Footnote 36: The early death of James the son of Zebedee (Acts xii.
1) excludes him from consideration.
(2) The scene of the prediction of Peter's martyrdom (xxi. 18 f.) is
followed immediately (ver. 20-23) by a reference to traditions which we
know to have been current before the close of the first century
regarding the martyrdom of the two sons of Zebedee, in particular
regarding John. Peter in xxi. 21 raises the question as to the _fate_ of
"the disciple whom Jesus loved" (literally, "and as to this man,
what?"). The pregnant command of Jesus to Peter, "Follow me," is clearly
intended to have reference to martyrdom (_cf._ xiii. 36 f.), and it is
obeyed by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" as well as Peter. Peter's
inquiry and the Lord's reply had given rise "among the brethren" to the
belief that this disciple would "tarry" till the Coming. Now it is of
John, son of Zebedee, and only of him, that we have a curious
vacillation of ancient tradition between belief in his martyrdom in the
same sense as his brother James (Mark x. 39), and a belief (probably
based on Mark ix. 1) that he would tarry as an abiding witness until the
Coming ('white martyrdom'). The writer of the Epilogue has manifestly
these traditions about the fate of John in mind. He would have his
readers understand that the enigmatic prophecy of Jesus neither
promised the permanent survival of John, nor his violent death, but was
at least capable of an interpretation which set John alongside of Peter,
not as a rival of his leadership, or directive control, but simply as a
witness ('martyr') to the truth. Peter is willingly granted the office
of 'ruling elder' in the church, if only "the disciple whom Jesus loved"
may have the function of the prophet and teacher 'in the Spirit,' the
man of faith and insight, whose function it is to interpret 'the mind of
Christ.'
Few things could be more significant of the conditions of Christian life
and thought in the earlier years of the second century than this
Epilogue, appended to the 'spiritual' Gospel to commend it to general
acceptance in the church. It is not vitally important whether the
cautiously suggested identification of the Beloved Disciple with John,
the son of Zebedee, be correct or not. It is important to a historical
appreciation of the great literary contribution of the churches of Paul
to the 'catholic' Christianity of the second century, that we realize
what Petrine catholicity had then come to mean, and how the Pauline
spiritual gospel came half-way to meet it. On this point a study of the
epilogues is rewarding, but especially of the great Epilogue to the
Gospel of John.
We have reached the period for our own concluding words. The process of
combination and canonization of the New Testament writings, which
followed upon the consolidation of the churches in the second century
falls outside our province. We have sought only to give some insight
into the origins, considering the Making of the New Testament to apply
rather to the creations of the formative period, when conscious
inspiration was still in its full glow, than to the period of collection
into an official canon. As we look back over the two leading types of
Christian thought, Pauline and 'Apostolic,' the Greek-Christian gospel
_about_ Jesus, and the Jewish-Christian gospel _of_ Jesus, the gospel of
the Spirit and the gospel of authority, we cannot fail to realize how
deep and broad and ancient are the two great currents of religious
thought and life that here are mingling, contending, coming to new
expression and clearer definition. Each has its various subdivisions and
modifications, Pauline Christianity in the Greek world has its problems
of resistance to Hellenistic perversion on the one side, to reaction
toward Jewish external authority on the other. Apostolic Christianity
whether in its more conservative form at Jerusalem, or in broader
assimilation to Pauline doctrine at Antioch and Rome, has also its
divergent streams, its more primitive and its more developed stages. The
literature, as we slowly come to appreciate it against the background of
the times, more and more reveals itself as an index to the life. Not to
the mere idiosyncrasies of individuals, but to the great Gulf-stream of
the human instinct for social Righteousness and for individual
Redemption, as it sweeps onward in its mighty tide.
The literature of the New Testament must be understood historically if
understood at all. It must be understood as the product, we might almost
say the precipitate, of the greatest period in the history of religion.
It represents the meeting and mutual adjustment of two fundamental and
complementary conceptions of religion. The antithesis is not merely that
between the particularism of the Jew and the universalism of the
Gentile. It is an antithesis of the social ideal of Law and Prophets
against the individual ideal of personal redemption through union with
the divine Spirit, which lay at the heart of all vital Hellenistic
religious thought in this period of the Empire. Christianity as we know
it, the religion of humanity as it has come to be, the ultimate
world-religion as we believe it destined to become, is a resultant of
these two factors, Semitic and Aryan, the social and the individual
ideal. Its canonized literature represents the combination. On the one
side the social ideal is predominant. It perpetuates the gospel _of_
Jesus in the form of Matthæan and Petrine tradition, supplemented by
apocalypse, which tradition attaches conjecturally to the name of John.
The goal it seeks is the Kingdom of God, righteousness and peace on
earth as in heaven. On the other side the individual ideal predominates.
It perpetuates the gospel _about_ Jesus in the form of the Pauline and
Johannine doctrine of his person, regarded as the norm and type of
spiritual life. The goal it seeks is personal immortality by moral
fellowship with God. Its faith is Son ship, by participation in the
divine nature, without limitation in time, without loss of individual
identity. Both types of gospel are justified in claiming to emanate from
Jesus of Nazareth; but neither without the other can claim to fully
represent the significance of his spirit and life.
The unity of the New Testament is a unity in diversity. Just because it
presents so widely divergent conceptions of what the gospel is, it gives
promise of perennial fecundity. Studied not after the manner of the
scribes, who think that in their book of precept and prophecy they have
a passport to rewards in a magical world to come, but studied as a
"manifestation of the life, even the eternal life" of the Spirit of God
in man, it will continue to reproduce the spirit and mind of Christ.
Studied as a reflection at various times and in divers manners of that
redemptive Wisdom of God, which "in every generation entering into holy
souls makes men to be prophets and friends of God" (Sap. vii. 27), and
which the Greeks, considering it, unfortunately, in its intellectual
rather than its moral aspect, call the Logos of God, it will prove, as
in so many generations past it has proved, an "incorruptible seed," a
"word of good tidings preached unto" the world, a "word of the Lord that
abideth for ever."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. General Introductions to N.T. Literature.
MOFFATT, JAS. _"Internat. Theol. Library" Series._ Scribner's, 1911.
Standard, comprehensive, progressive. Best compendium of the subject
in English. A book for experts. 671 pp., 8vo.
JÜLICHER, A. Engl. transl, by D. A. Ward, from 4th German ed.
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1903. The most serviceable of modern
German Introductions, based on the standard work of the "liberal"
school, by H. J. Holtzmann. 650 pp., large 8vo.
ZAHN, THEO. Engl. transl. from 3rd German ed., by M. W. Jacobus.
Scribner's, 1909. Standard "conservative" work. Immense scholarship
in the harness of apologetics. Total, 1750 pp., in 3 vols., large
8vo.
BACON, B. W. _"New Test. Handbook" Series._ Macmillan 1900. Similar
to Moffatt's in standpoint, but without the survey of the
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PEAKE, A. S. N.Y., Scribner's, 1910. 250 pp., 12mo. An excellent
primer of the subject, generally conservative.
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SHAW, R. D. _The Pauline Epistles, Introductory and Expository
Studies_, 2nd ed. T. & T. Clarke, 1904. 518 pp., large 8vo. Sober
and cautious. For general readers.
RAMSAY, W. M. _Pauline and other Studies in Early Christian
History._ Hodder & Stoughton, 1906. 425 pp., large 8vo. _The Cities
of St. Paul_ (1907, 468 pp.) is by the same author, an eminent
geographer and archaeologist ardently enlisted against German
criticism. Interesting but diffuse.
PFLEIDERER, O. _Paulinism._ Engl. transl. by E. Peters. 2nd ed.
1891. Williams & Norgate. 2 vols. 8vo. Total, 580 pp., 8vo. Still a
standard exposition of Paul's system of thought. A book for experts.
BAUR, F. C. _Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ, his Life and Work,
Epistles and Doctrine._ Engl. transl. of Zeller's (2nd), German ed.,
by A. Menzies. Williams & Norgate, 1876. Two vols. 8vo (375 + 350
pp.). An epoch-making book, the starting-point of modern criticism.
SCHWEITZER, A. This able, though one-sided, critic has issued
already (1912) the conclusion to his study of modern Lives of Christ
(see below, _The Quest of the Historical Jesus_) under the title
_Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung_. It may be expected that
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1907. 190 pp., 12mo. A brief, brilliant, popular sketch, radical,
suggestive. Needs the balance of more cautious criticism.
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and New York, Harper & Bros., 1909. 130 pp., 12mo. An effective
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by a progressive and able critic.
Lives of Paul by Cone, Clemen (German) and others are abundant in
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II. Cambridge University Press, 1903-1909. 297 + 400 pp., 8vo. A
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the work of a scholar for scholars.
CONE, O. _Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity._ Putnam's,
N.Y., 1891. 375 pp., small 8vo. Liberal, semi-popular.
BURKITT, F. C. _The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus._
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and popular. Burkitt is a leading progressive scholar.
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DRUMMOND, JAS. _Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel._
Scribner's, N.Y., 1904. 544 pp., 8vo. The ablest recent defence of
the traditional authorship. Scholarly discussion of the literary
history.
BACON, B. W. _The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate._ Moffat,
Yard & Co., N.Y., 1910. 556 pp., 8vo. A similar discussion of the
evidences reaching the reverse conclusion.
SCOTT, E. F. _The Fourth Gospel, its Purpose and Theology._ T. & T.
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style, semi-popular.
SCHMIEDEL, P. W. _The Johannine Writings._ Engl. transl., by M. A.
Canney. London, A. & C. Black, 1903. 295 pp., 12mo. Brief, popular,
radical, by one of the ablest of N.T. critics.
General.
REUSS, E. _History of the N.T._ Engl. transl. from 5th German ed.,
by E. L. Houghton. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884. 649 pp. 2
vols. large 8vo. A standard treasury of scholarly information.
WERNLE, P. _The Beginnings of Christianity._ Engl. transl., by G. A.
Bienemann. London, Williams & Norgate, 1904. 388 + 404 pp., 8vo. 2
vols. Able, scholarly, advanced.
PFLEIDERER, O. _Christian Origins._ Engl. transl., by D. Huebsch.
New York, B. W. Huebsch, 1906. 295 pp., 12mo. Popular lectures
showing something of the views of the modern school of critics known
as _religionsgeschichtlich_. Pfleiderer's critical opinions are
fully expressed in his _Primitive Christianity_ (Engl. transl., by
W. Montgomery, in four vols., 8vo. Putnams, 1909).
MUZZEY, D. S. _The Rise of the N.T._ New York, Macmillan, 1900. 156
pp., 12mo. An excellent primer for beginners.
WREDE, W. _The Origin of the N.T._ Engl. transl. by J. S. Hill.
Harper & Bros., London & New York, 1909. 151 pp., 12mo. An admirable
primer by a brilliant leader of advanced criticism.
VON SODEN. _The History of Early Christian Literature. Writings of
the N.T._ Engl. transl., by J. R. Wilkinson. Williams & Norgate,
1906. 476 pp., 12mo. A book for beginners by a great N.T. scholar of
liberal views. A closely connected field is covered by various
_Histories of the Apostolic Age_, of which the most recent and
important are those of Weizsäcker (Engl. transl., 1895) and
McGiffert (1897). Less technical and more orthodox are those of
Vernon-Bartlett (1899) and J. H. Ropes (1906). _Critical Lives of
Christ_ present the results of critical study of the Gospels. A
survey of this field of research, keenly analytical and severely
critical, is given by A. Schweitzer in _The Quest of the Historical
Jesus_ (Engl. transl. by W. Montgomery. A. & C. Black, 1910. 416
pp., 8vo). Schweitzer writes with great scholarship and power, but
decided polemic interest as a "consistent eschatologist."
INDEX
Abomination, 161, 218
Acts, 57 ff., 64 ff., 174 ff.
Agabus, 185, 202
Allegory (in John), 224
Angelology and demonology, 95
Antichrist, 217 f.
Anti-legalism (of Mark), 166
Antinomian heresy, 149, 214
Antioch, 71, 175 ff., 183 f.
Apocalypses, 29, 51, 87, 188, 197
Apostolic Christianity, 42, 126, 129, 246
Apostolic Commission, 238 f.
Apostolic Council, 60, 63, 67
Apotheosis doctrine, 49
Appendix to John, 107, 147, 211, 236 ff.
Asia, Churches of, 197 ff.
Athanasius, 29 f.
Babylon (= Rome), 115, 196
Baptist (in John), 225
Bar Cocheba, 204
_Baruch, Apocalypse of_ 188
Baur, F. C., 37 ff.
Beloved disciple, the, 227, 243 ff.
Cæsarea, 85
Calvin, 37
Canonization of the Law, 12
Cerinthus, 219
Chiliasts, 187
Christological Epistles, 97
Christ-party, 45
Clement of Rome, 19 f., 79, 115, 119
Clement of Alexandria, 25
_Clementine Homilies and Recognitions_, 148
Colossians, 98
Corinthian Epistles, 76 ff.
Decrees of Jerusalem, 60
Diary of Acts, 183
Dionysius of Alexandria, 191
Disputed books, 30
Doketism, 21, 110, 126, 153, 163, 184, 186, 214, 217, 219
Elder (of 2nd and 3rd John), 215
Elements, 76, 99
Ephesians, 98
Ephesus, 76, 97, 111 f., 191, 201, 211
Epiphanius, 131
Epistles (Major), 43
Epistles of the Captivity, 42, 85, 100
Eschatological discourse, 161
Esdras (Apocalypse of), 188
External evidence, 38
False brethren, 41
Feasts (in John), 226
Fornication, 60, 77
Gaius (3rd John), 215 f.
Gaius of Rome, 31, 237
Galatians, 56, 74
Gentile liberty, 61 ff.
Gnosticism, 40, 108, 207 f.
_Gospel according to the Hebrews_, 135, 145
_Gospel of the Nazarenes_, 132, 145 ff., 236
Harnack, 98
Hebrews, 107, 116 ff.
Hebrews, Apostolic authority in, 18
Hebrews, Canonical standing of, 31
Hegesippus, 105 f., 111
Hellenistic religion, 247
Hermas, 21, 28, 119 f., 237
Ignatius, 20 f., 23, 111, 124, 126, 208
Incarnation Doctrine, 49, 154, 229, 231
Infancy of Jesus (in Matthew and Luke), 152
Internal evidence, 38
Irenæus, 81, 133, 219
James, 104 ff., 107, 112 f., 130
Jerusalem Conference, 67, 71
Jerusalem succession, 105 f., 119
John, the Apostle, a martyr, 104, 194, 243
John, Gospel of, 25, 31, 43, 54, 206 ff.
John, Revelation of, 30, 43, 63, 107, 131, 187, 189 ff., 235
John, Epistles of, 43, 111, 126, 211 ff.
John, _Acts of_, 219 f.
John, the Elder, 26, 131, 133, 236
Josephus (used by Luke), 174
Judaism _v._ Hellenism, 52 f.
Judaizers, 68
Jude, 19, 80, 107, 130
Justin Martyr, 187, 190, 235 f.
Kindred of the Lord, 164 f.
Laodiceans, 98
Law _v._ grace, 8, 14, 66, 74, 81, 123
_Logia_, 136, 141
Logos-doctrine, 55, 221, 232
Lordship (of Christ), 96
Luke, 27, 139, 173 f.
Luke, his omissions from Mark, 178 f.
Luke, his purpose in writing, 180 f.
Luther, 37
Magic, 93 ff.
Marcion, 22 ff., 40
Mark, 129, 134, 159 ff.
Mark, Duplication in, 172
Mark, Endings of, 168 ff., 235 f.
Matthew, 131 ff., 187
Melito of Sardis, 19, 190
Michælis, 35
Missionary Journey, First, 58 f.
Missionary Journey, Second, 72
Moffatt, Jas., 151
Montanus, 28 f.
Muratorian Fragment, 30, 234
Nepos, the Chiliast, 191
Offering for the poor, 69
Palestine, Origin of Revelations, 195 ff.
Papias, 26, 105 f., 130 f., 186 f., 190, 208
Parables (in Matthew), 149 f.
Passover, 101, 173
Pastoral Epistles, 19, 31, 83, 108, 111, 123
Patmos, 191, 200 f.
Paul, Original Apostle of Asia, 205
Paul, his religious experience, 16
Paul, martyrdom, 105
Pauline _v._ Petrine gospel, 49
Paulinism of Mark, 162
Persecution, 13, 122
Peter (the Apostle), 24, 26, 106, 133, 146
Peter, _Apocalypse of_, 29 f.
Peter, Commission of, 240 f.
Peter, Epistles of, 41, 108 f., 112 ff.
Peter, _Gospel of_, 171, 221, 236
Peter, _Preaching of_, 139
Pharisaic Judaism, 121
Philemon, 88
Philip, Daughters of, 185 f.
Philippians, 89 ff.
Phrygian heresy, 28
_Pirke Aboth_, 141
Polycarp, 26, 110, 130, 186, 218
Porphyry, 106
Post-Reformation dogma, 33 f.
Precepts (of Jesus), 137
Prologue (of John), 231
Prophecy, 188 f., 209
Q-material, 141 ff.
Reconciliation with God, 103
Redeemer-gods, 50
Redemption doctrines, 86, 93
Reformation, 37
Repentance (the Great), 156 f.
Resurrection-doctrine, 73, 78, 125, 155, 158, 204, 210
Revelation (_See_ John, Revelation of)
Romans, 75, 80 ff.
Rome, 120, 129
Satan, Dominion of, 157
Scripture, Use in Paul, 17
Scripture, Use in John, 25
Second Coming, 230
Sermon on Mount, 9
Signs in Fourth gospel, 223
Simon, Richard, 35
Spirit, Doctrine of the, 17, 67, 101 156, 220
Subscriptions, 233
Superstitious Judaism, 93 f.
Symeon, son of Clopas, 105
Synoptic writings, 44, 107
Synoptic writings in John, 228
Syria and Cilicia, 61, 129
_Teaching of the Twelve_, 28, 63, 185
Tertullian, 19, 29
Thessalonian Epistles, 73
Timothy (_See_ Pastoral Epistles), 78
Titus (_See_ Pastoral Epistles)
Transfiguration, 165, 167, 228, 230
Tübingen School, 43 ff.
Unity of the Church, 70, 103, 120
Unity of the N.T., 248
Way (= sect), 8
Weak (party of the), 45
Wisdom of God, 99, 209, 229
Wisdom of Solomon (Sap.), 51
Words of Jesus, 19, 129 f., 144 f.
Zahn, 115
_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
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