07. Chapter 7. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION THE purpose of the preceding pages has been to discuss the critical questions which belong to the “introduction” to the earlier letters, and to throw some light on the general background of thought and practice which is so important a factor in explaining the motives leading to the origin of the Epistles. With regard to the critical questions, two points have been omitted. No treatment has been offered of the actual chronology of St. Paul, as distinguished from the relative chronology of the Epistles. Nor has anything been said as to the authenticity of the earlier letters. As to chronology, it has seemed better to postpone its treatment until the later Epistles are dealt with, in which connection I hope to discuss the whole question. So far as the earlier Epistles are concerned, the more or less fixed point is the famine of c. 46 a.d. The first missionary journey began soon after it, from which a rough reckoning can be made of the time occupied by the various journeys, and each Epistle dated according to the point in the journey to which it is assigned. The genuineness of the Epistles which have been discussed has, with the exception of 2 Thessalonians, been assumed without discussion. This has been done because I believe, in common with the enormous majority of all who have studied the question, that the authenticity of these documents, and their comparative freedom from serious interpolations, is quite unassailable by any reasonable criticism, and the best argument in favour of this view is the fact that, assuming the authenticity of the Epistles as genuine letters written by St. Paul, it is possible to place them satisfactorily against a background of thought and practice consistent with what we know of the first century.

It is, however, common knowledge that the authenticity of the earlier Epistles was rejected by W. C. van Manen, and respect for the memory of my predecessor at Leiden, coupled with the recognition that truth is not always on the side of the majority, impels me to give a short statement of my reasons for disagreeing with his teaching. The really serious arguments which are brought forward by those who reject the Pauline authorship of these Epistles are: (1) they are not really letters but theological treatises in the form of letters; (2) they presume an impossibly rapid development in Christian doctrine; (3) they imply a writer who has no resemblance to the historical St. Paul described in the Acts. These three arguments call for further consideration.

1. So far as the argument that the Pauline Epistles are not really letters is not a confusion of thought it seems to mean that the Epistles are theological treatises, for which the writer desired to claim superior authority by attributing them to an Apostle. Largely, however, it is really based on nothing but a confusion of thought.

There are really two distinct questions. First, whether the documents in question are properly described as letters; secondly, whether they were, whatever may be their proper description, written pseudonymously. The former question is actually very insignificant, but it has obtained a spurious importance, because it is sometimes so stated as to suggest that, if it could be shown that the documents in question are treatises in epistolary form rather than letters, they must necessarily be spurious—which is absurdly illogical. The really serious question is whether the theory of pseudonymity gives a satisfactory explanation of the Epistles. The suggestion is that the letters are the work of a circle of “Pauline” writers in the second century, who put into epistolary form a series of treatises dealing with the main points of Christian doctrine, and serving as manuals for ecclesiastical instruction and liturgical reading; their survival no less than their composition proves that they represent a dominant type of Christianity. That is in itself a possible and reasonable hypothesis: but does it correspond to the known facts? In treatises of this kind the greatest emphasis is laid on the most important points; we ought to be able to reconstruct from the documents a tolerably good picture of the main doctrines of early Christianity. Many such attempts have, of course, been made, notably in Pfleiderer’s Paulinismus,and have profoundly affected modern theology. But what is the outcome?—the monstrous result that no further trace of this alleged Paulinismus can be found anywhere except in Marcion, and that the question can be raised in vain, “How is it that the Gentile Christianity in Asia, Greece, and Rome became so thoroughly unpauline? Where did ‘Paulinismus’ survive, except in Marcion?” There is no answer, for though critics have sought long and carefully they can nowhere find their “Paulinismus,” but have to be content with tracing a faint and occasional influence in isolated passages. This is the reductio ad absurdum of the whole argument; it is impossible to believe that in the second century some unknown persons forged a series of letters which, by hypothesis, represented their own views, not those of the historic Paul, that they were so influential that these documents were soon accepted as Holy Scripture, and that simultaneously the Paulinismus, which the letters represent and were written to encourage, disappeared from off the face of the earth, and left scarcely a wrack behind. The theory does not work: the historical facts are not intelligible at all on the hypothesis of forged letters supporting a system of Paulinismus. But they seem to be quite satisfactorily intelligible if we accept the Epistles as genuine letters, dealing with definite questions, and implying a background which in the main is recognizable as possessing precisely those features of which we have a more developed form in the second century. Treat the Epistles as letters; recognize that in letters the subjects discussed are not those on which all parties are agreed, but those on which there is difference of opinion, so that the really central points are not those which are supported by argument, but those which are assumed as generally believed, and it will appear that the Christianity of St. Paul did not really differ from that of the Catholic Church as we find it at the beginning of Christian.

I submit that this is strong evidence in favour of the authenticity of the Epistles, and of the general correctness of the view of the “background of the Epistles” which has been taken in the preceding chapters.

2. A second line of argument is that the Epistles represent a much greater amount of development than can possibly have taken place before the second century. The answer to this contention is twofold. In the first place, the “Urchristentum” with which the Pauline Epistles are compared is a figment of the imagination. According to the extreme radical school of criticism, we possess no documents of the first century or even of the early second century. The Urchristentum which they postulate has no documentary evidence, on their own showing. It may, indeed, in one sense, be admitted that they understate the case with regard to development; if the original early Christianity had had the character they suggest, it could never have produced the early Christian literature; but instead of concluding from this that no early Christian literature is genuine until the second century, that even then it is grossly interpolated, and that all the evidence of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny is a forgery, it might be well to ask if it is not possible that the fault lies in the conception of early Christianity. In the second place, critics of this school seem to under-estimate the speed at which development takes place in a young movement. A comparison with the history of the Salvation Army, or of Babiism in Persia, in the nineteenth century shows that so far as the general possibilities of development are concerned the most suspected parts of the Pastoral Epistles, to say nothing of the earlier Epistles, might well have been written within thirty years of the Crucifixion.

3. A far more important argument than either of the preceding is that the historical St. Paul, who is revealed by the Acts, could never have written the Epistles. Apart from the critical question, whether the Acts ought to be preferred to the Epistles, this objection really means that the Epistles cannot have been written by a Jew of the first century. Now it must be admitted that it is very hard to believe that the Epistles could have been written by the Rabbinical Jew whom critical fancy has read back from the Talmud into the first century; and if we accept the criticism which identified the Judaism of the first century with that of two centuries later, van Manen’s criticism is not only proper, but perhaps unanswerable. So far, however, from its appearing to be true that all Jews, or even all Pharisees, in the first century were of the later Rabbinical type, it is becoming more and more plain (α) that we know comparatively little about the various parties, sects, and tendencies in Judaism before the fall of the Temple; (β) that many Jews, especially in the Diaspora, were of a liberal and ethnicizing disposition. There is a general tendency to discount Friedlander’s work on Judaism, and probably he may have exaggerated his case, but the quotations in his writings cannot be wholly brushed aside, and even though many of them be inaccurate, there is enough amply to cover St. Paul, and to show that his letters might well have been written by a Tarsiote Jew of the first century. It is true that St.

Paul in the Acts says that he was a pupil of Gamaliel, but the importance of this fact may be over-estimated. For this view two reasons may be alleged; in the first place, supposing that it is quite certain that St. Paul was, before his conversion, a strict Pharisee, it does not follow that the change which his thoughts underwent did not include a change to the more liberal point of view with which he surely must have been acquainted in Tarsus and elsewhere. In the second place, it does not follow that pupils always follow the doctrine of their teachers. Saul of Tarsus may have been a pupil of Gamaliel, and been profoundly affected by him, and yet have afterwards succumbed to other influences. We do not always follow all the opinions of our teachers, and it would be scarcely suggested that our books are not authentic because they do not agree with the teaching which we received at our Universities or Theological Colleges. For these general reasons it seems to me that the attack on the authenticity of the Epistles has completely failed. It is unnecessary to go into further details; those who desire more will find that the works of Deissmann and Clemen have dealt faithfully with all the arguments which were brought forward by van Manen. His premature death removed the possibility of his making any full rejoinder; one cannot say what he would have written had he lived; but none of his followers have shown any power of refuting the German scholars who criticized his position.

However important critical questions may be, they are merely preliminary; and the main purpose of the preceding chapters has been to discover the general characteristics of the Gentile Christianity in the Churches to which St. Paul wrote. The necessity for discussing critical and literary problems has lengthened the process, but it is, after all, the world of religious life and thought implied by the Epistles which is really important. Of this world each Epistle gives us a glimpse: it is never a clear vision, but enough is revealed to show that, in spite of local differences, the general background is in the main the same. It is, moreover, a background very different from that of our own time, and it is, therefore, desirable to give a little space to a concluding discussion of the permanent importance of the principal points. As was said in the second chapter, the circle of Gentiles who accepted Christianity was chiefly that of the God-fearers, who were already imbued to some extent with Jewish ideas, as well as with the general conceptions of the Mystery Religions which were practically the only cults which were really alive at that time. Thus, quite apart from the influence of Jewish converts, there were from the beginning Jewish and Graeco-Oriental strains in early Christianity, and the difference between various communities is partly to be explained as due to the varying proportions in which these strains were mingled, and the consequently varying point of view from which the original Christian preaching was regarded. The general basis of Christian life seems to have been the assurance of salvation, the belief that this salvation was obtained by the “mysteries” or sacraments, through which the believer was united to the Redeemer-God Jesus, and the expectation that this same Jesus would speedily come to destroy the power of evil and establish the kingdom of God on earth. The point in this complex which was debated was the relation of sacramental salvation to ethical and moral obligation; the Greek element was, on the whole, liable to ignore the necessity of moral life, and to regard the mysteries or sacraments as magical, while the Jewish element introduced a legalistic conception of morality and regarded obedience to the Law as the source of salvation. Looked at in this way, we can see that the problems faced by St. Paul in Corinth and in Rome or Galatia, are really very closely related. It is in each case the relation of ethical to sacramental religion which is the central question, and the difference in the Epistles is due to the fact that while in the more purely Greek circles at Corinth the danger was an unethical sacramentalism, in Rome, under the influence of Jewish propaganda, an unspiritual and legalistic conception of morality was the more prominent evil. The task which we have to face is not that of giving an exposé of St. Paul’s arguments against his opponents, or of proving the undesirability of a religion which is unethical on the one hand or legalistic on the other. The former I hope to discuss more fully on another occasion, the latter is so generally recognized as to require no further exposition. It is more important to direct attention to the psychological basis of the two types of imperfect Christianity which are revealed in the background of the Epistles.

It will be convenient to refer to the two types as Greek and Jewish; such a nomenclature is of course unfair, if it be pressed, for many Greeks had the finest ethical perception, and many Jews were deeply spiritual, but it does not inadequately represent the weak sides of the two nations. The Jewish type of religion is connected with a special way of regarding life. According to it life is a series of acts; it is conduct. Now, it is often very hard to do what is right, and thus for the Jew the primary importance of religion is that by its means man obtains information as to what he ought to do—he is given a law. It makes, for the psychology of the question, no difference whether this law be given once for all in an inspired code, or communicated by degrees directly or indirectly. The point is that men wish to know what to do, and religion tells them. Such men think in terms of action or conduct. Their conception of salvation as well as that of sin and repentance is expressed in the same terms. Sin is, to such persons, wrong-doing; and this definition remains true, whether they do or do not add the qualification that it must be conscious wrong-doing—the act of choice which sees the good and takes the evil. Repentance, again, is (as the Jew always was inclined to express it) a “turning back and walking in the right direction,” and a state of safety or salvation is that which is reached by the man who walks in the way of the Lord, and “doeth that which is lawful and right.” It needs no argument to show that for such a type institutional religion appeals in so far as it offers a code of righteous conduct by which “he who doeth it shall live,” and personal religion is valuable so far as it is a means whereby help is obtained in the difficulty of choosing the right and rejecting the wrong course of action. The Greek type, on the other hand, regards life as “being” rather than conduct. What a man is, not what he does, is important. Obviously, this affects the whole series of religious ideas. For such men sin is not doing wrong, but being wrong. It is, with such a conception of life, possible never to do anything wrong, and still to be the greatest of sinners; for sin is a leprosy of the soul, which is deadly in itself, even though it never manifest itself in action. Repentance similarly is not a change of conduct, but rather the desire for a change of nature; and salvation is a new nature, or “regeneration,” a “new creation” or a transfiguration to a different being. Obviously, for such natures religion is valuable in so far as it offers, either as an institution or as the result of personal communion with a higher power, the means of obtaining, here or hereafter, this “new life,” which ensures salvation, and brings us nearer to the ideal which we sometimes see and never attain. That these two types are rarely found in an unmixed state needs no demonstration. A purely “Greek” or purely “Jewish” form of experience is exceptional, and therefore the foregoing statement is unduly sharp, and neglects the existence of a long series of intermediate types. Nevertheless, most people are inclined to one or the other extreme, even though their natures contain some degree of mixture of the other sort.

Each type has its own strength and weakness. The “Jewish” type develops a high morality, but it is liable to degenerate into a hard legalism, and to give rise to hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Allowing for the usual inaccuracy of generalizations, it is the source of all that is best and all that is worst in Protestant Puritanism. The Greek type, on the other hand, takes a deep and sympathetic view of life; it recognizes that life is something more than a series of acts, that human nature, as it is, is unsatisfactory, and longs for some new development which will raise it to something higher. Its strength is spiritual; but in some natures it is accompanied by a somewhat feeble sense of morality, or of right and wrong as such. Thus, there is often a danger of moral failure, a tendency to despise conduct, and to think slightingly of “mere morality.” To some extent, these two types are the same as William James’s, or rather F. W. Newman’s, “Once born” and “Twice born.”The “Jewish” type is “once born.” It seeks for no change of nature. The Greek type is “twice born”; it is dissatisfied with its nature and seeks (and obtains) in religion a “new birth.” Or to use a different nomenclature, also from William James, the “Jewish” type is in the main the “healthy-minded” and the “Greek”is the “sick soul.” The ethical, “Jewish” type of nature can quite well be contented with things as they are. The spiritual “Greek” can scarcely be happy before he has gained access to a new life. Until he has done this he is a “sick soul,” though the degree of his suffering may vary from occasional unrest to the greatest agony of spirit. The classical description of his experience in the New Testament is Romans 7:1-25, Romans 8:1-39; for St. Paul, though by blood a Jew, was by nature a “Greek,” who had passed through the misery of the “sick soul” to the peace of the “twice born.” When we consider the facts in this way it is fairly clear why the religion of the Greek tends to become a “Mystery Religion,” and that of the Jew a “religion of legalism,” while the ordinary “mixed type” of man combines something of each. More difficult is the question why the “Mystery Religions” really succeed in supplying by means of their sacraments the regeneration which is sought. For that they are actually successful is not open to dispute. The theory which has been dominant in Christianity may be called the sacramental theory. According to this God has ordained various acts which the Christian must perform under various conditions, and if he does so he will receive a blessing of Divine grace which he would not otherwise obtain, and which cannot be gained in any other way. The difference between this and Magic is that a Sacrament implies that the worshipper obtains certain benefits by fulfilling a covenant made with him by God, while Magic implies that he obtains them because he knows how to compel the deity to grant them. The difference is real, but not superficially obvious, and in every age has been ignored or misunderstood by the adherents no less than by the opponents of Catholic Christianity; so that it is true both that to many uneducated Catholics the Sacraments are merely Christian magic, and that the educated Catholic is justified in protesting that the true orthodox doctrine is not magical.

Much more confusion of thought has, however, been produced by the feeling that “magic” is a delusion, and therefore that sacramental religion, which is, at the least, akin to magic, must also be a delusion. This reasoning fails to distinguish between the facts which the sacramental theory seeks to explain, and the theory itself. The facts of experience, to confine the question to one side of research, are that certain persons habitually receive the Sacraments of the Church and habitually are conscious that they derive benefit after doing so. On this is based the theory that they derive this benefit because they receive the Sacraments. It is held that it is propter hoc as well as post hoc. The theory is, of course, open to argument: it is impossible to deny the efficacious working of sacramental religion, but whether the sacramental theory is correct or not is a matter of evidence. If the Catholic theory of Sacraments prove in the end to cover all the facts, and to be the only theory which does cover them, it will in the end be universally accepted, and the more it is discussed the sooner will this end be reached. At present, however, the difficulty is that Catholics argue too much as though “Catholic” experience really were “universal” experience, and up till now no final answer has been given to three anti-Catholic statements.

First, there exists in contemporary Protestantism a body of Christians, who can produce the same experiential evidence of “grace” as can the Catholic Church, and do not attribute it to the Sacraments, which some of them reject entirely. It is, for instance, hard to deny the evidence of spiritual life among the Quakers in England, and yet they have neither Baptism nor Eucharist.

Secondly, the student of religions is inclined to dispute the exclusive claim of the Christian Sacraments on the ground that the same claims can be substantiated by other Mystery Religions. This is a comparatively new point, but it is likely to obtain increasing importance in the discussion of this subject.

Thirdly, the students of psychology suggest to us that there is a rival explanation in the facts of “suggestion” and in the working of the “subliminal consciousness” which seems to be in a marked degree the seat of religious life. To discuss these points at length would be outside the province of the present book, but it is probably safe to say that they serve to indicate the main lines which research into sacramental religion will follow in the immediate future. To return to history. One of the most important factors in the development of early Christianity was the preponderance of the “Greek” or “twice born” type in the first generation, and the gradual increase of the “Jewish” type (though not of Jewish nationality) in those which followed. That the first generation should be “Greek” is obviously natural; it is the “sick souls,” not the “healthy minded,” who wander in the search for help in religion. The latter are not irreligious, but they generally remain in the cult in which they were born, or if they change it is for intellectual or social reasons. Thus in all new religious movements the first generation is usually “Greek,” and “twice born.” The majority of mankind, however, belongs rather to the other type, and therefore, as Christianity grew older, the second generation, born in the Church, began to be more and more “Jewish,” “healthy-minded,” and “once born.” The fact is of enormous importance for the history of doctrine. It explains why the Church so soon adopted a “law,” almost as strict and quite as externalized as anything the Synagogue ever knew. It also explains how Christian doctrine, which was originally the expression of religious experience, came to be regarded as a model to which all experience must conform, and its centre was shifted from the soul to the intellect. But to deal with these facts is the office of the historian of a later period, and I must not here pursue their study any further.

It remains to consider the eschatological element. There is at present much controversy among theologians as to the amount of eschatological teaching which can really be traced back to Jesus Himself. Personally, I think that the Synoptic Gospels give us a correct account of the facts, and I see no reason for the excision of Mark 13:1-37, or of parts of it, as a Jewish interpolation. But it is unnecessary to discuss this point, for probably no one denies that a strong eschatological expectation, that the Parousia of the Messiah was imminent, was one of the most fundamental parts of early Christianity. The critics who deny that this view was that of Jesus may possibly be right, but at all events the Synoptic Gospels were largely written to prove the opposite, and whether we trust the Evangelists or not as to their report of Jesus’ teaching, they are absolutely contemporary evidence as to the view of the first Christians, and the indirect testimony of the Epistles supports them.

It is quite certain that the first Christians expected the immediate coming of the Kingdom, and they believed that Jesus would be the anointed King, the representative of God, in that Kingdom. This is what was meant by saying that Jesus was the Messiah. So far there is probably no dispute among students of the New Testament. Nor is it disputed that this belief is found in the Pauline Epistles; the point which is seriously doubted is whether it is central or peripheral. That it was absolutely central to the average Gentile Christian in, for instance, Corinth, I do not believe; for the centre of Christianity for him was the Sacraments rather than the expectation of the Parousia, even though the latter was a very prominent part of his creed. On the other hand, for a Jewish Christian, the expectation of the Parousia was probably quite central. I believe that it was so for St. Paul himself, and the reason why there is comparatively so little in the Epistles on the subject is because it was not a subject for controversy among Christians, but an undisputed hope, which all cherished. St. Paul found it necessary to devote pages of argument to the discussion of the Law, as against Jewish Christians, and to that of “Spirits” as against Gentile Christians, but he never stopped to argue that “that day” was coming,—this was a common element of belief. Similarly, he never gives any reason to Thessalonians or Corinthians for believing in the Parousia; he only assures them that death—which they had not expected—could not exclude Christians from the company of Christ when He came. The manner and the consequences of the Parousia were open to further discussion. The fact that it was imminent was generally conceded.

Most of the foregoing statement is generally accepted; nevertheless, there is a strong tendency among theologians to dislike the eschatological element in early Christianity, to under-estimate its importance, and to reduce its dimensions by a free use of the critical knife. The reason for this tendency is worth consideration, because the process of discussion is the best means of emphasizing the real nature of eschatological thought, and showing that much of the reluctance which is shown to accepting the fact of its early importance is based on a misconception of its implications.

Perhaps the antipathy to a full recognition of early Christian eschatology may be summed up in two propositions: (1) Eschatological hope is, and was, an illusion; (2) eschatological thought is unethical. Of these the first is a half-truth, the second is wholly untrue. The eschatological expectation of the first Christians has undoubtedly been falsified by history. They expected that Jesus would return within their lifetime, and that the Kingdom of God would be established by a dramatic catastrophe, abolishing sin, suffering, and death, and raising to life the righteous dead. That did not happen: in the sense that the Christian hope of the Parousia was disappointed, the eschatological expectation was an illusion. Nor is it possible to say that the Christians were only wrong as to the time. There are, it is true, still some Christians who cherish the hope of a “second coming”; but there are many more, though they are largely a silent majority, to whom this hope is altogether strange. I do not doubt but that they are right. The eschatological hope of the first Christians, in the exact form in which they held it, has undoubtedly been falsified; there is no reason to suppose that it will be fulfilled in some inexact form, and the more we study the history of religions, the more plainly we can see that the eschatological prognostication of a dramatic judgment of the world, the sudden inauguration of a Kingdom under the rule of the Messiah, and the change of human nature to an original, but lost, perfection, is a legacy from older speculations, and has no real claim to our acceptance. As a prophecy of the future the eschatological hope has not been justified, and all that distinctly belongs to it, in that sense, has to be given up. There is nothing gained by attempting to gloss over this fact. As a prognostication of the course of history Christian eschatology has proved to be an illusion. It does not in this respect differ from other prognostications.

Nevertheless, to consider the matter from this point of view alone is narrow and erroneous. An eschatological expectation is strange and repulsive to many minds at the present, because they do not see that it is much more than a prognostication of the course of history: it is the last chapter in a complete view of the universe—a catastrophic weltanschauung—which stands directly opposed to the evolutionary system which we all usually employ. It is opposed to the strong points of the latter, but it is also opposed to its weak points. The strong point of an evolutionary weltanschauung is that it does justice to the elements of progress, of continuity, and of consequence in the universe. There is no difficulty with an evolutionary system in recognizing that the whole of history is a progress of steadily increasing complication, or in showing that this formula can be applied with considerable justice to the spiritual and intellectual as well as to the material and economic sides of life. But progress, continuity, and consequence are not the only elements in life. There are also present catastrophic factors. On the one hand, progress—which is life—is apt after a period of scarcely perceptible growth to burst out into a sudden efflorescence of production by which more seems to be accomplished in a single generation than in the fifty which preceded it. So it happened in the domain of art in the time of Pericles, and so it has happened in our own time in the domain of natural and mechanical science. In such an efflorescence there is something catastrophic, which is usually overlooked by the votaries of evolution. On the other hand, degeneration—the passing away of life from institutions and nations which have served their purpose—is apt to end in a cleansing conflagration of disaster. So it was in the fifth century in the Roman Empire, and in such a conflagration there is always something sudden, decisive, and catastrophic, which overwhelms what has previously seemed to be the strongest and best elements of the existing organization of society.

It would be unfair to say that an evolutionary weltanschauung cannot do justice to this catastrophic element in history: in the hands of its masters it can be made to express this as well as the elements of steady and consistent growth. But it expresses them with more difficulty, and in the hands of smaller men frequently does not express them at all. The catastrophic weltanschauung, on the contrary, expresses admirably the catastrophic element in history, but at the expense of other sides. It recognizes and explains the value of the sudden efflorescence, of the “golden ages” of history, and does equal justice to those great conflagrations of disaster which are necessary to cleanse the world from its accumulation of putrefying degeneration, or—to use a more Biblical metaphor—to burn up the chaff, and prepare the threshing-floor for the next harvest.

If the eschatology of early Christianity be regarded in this way as part of a weltanschauung rather than as a prognostication of the future, all questions of illusion or anything of the kind are seen to be beside the mark. No view of the universe, or weltanschauung, is perfect: it is an attempt to see as much as possible of the facts of life from one point of view. But although some points of view are better than others, it is certainly not at present possible to see all the facts from the same point of view, nor can it be denied that different facts can be best seen from different points. Few really large landscapes can be seen completely from a single point. The fact that the traveller has to move from point to point, and from each point sees something new, is not regarded as proving the desirability of never moving, nor, because the accidents of one point of view may produce an appearance which the greater facilities of another point show to be an illusion, is any one prepared to argue that the first point has no advantages. So it is with an eschatological weltanschauung. It provides us with a point of view from which we see certain features of life—the catastrophic features—to the greatest advantage; other elements—the slow, constant progress—we cannot see at all; and others again—the probable course of future history—we see distorted and in a false perspective. It is therefore, on the whole, a good thing that we have moved on to another point of view, and generally adopted the evolutionary weltanschauung, which enables us to see to advantage what was formerly obscured. But we should not forget that in losing the disadvantages, we have also lost the advantages of our former position; it is not necessary to deny what we could see there; and it is certainly desirable to reflect that a prognostication of the course of history based exclusively on evolutionary thought, is quite as certain to prove a distortion and an illusion as that which was once based on a catastrophic or eschatological foundation. The objection that an eschatological gospel is unethical is often made, and more often implied. It must in the first place be claimed that, even if this were true, it would not justify the historian in arguing that therefore early Christianity had not an eschatological gospel. Our business is to interpret our evidence, to find out what the witnesses really do say, not to make them say what we wish that they had said. Nothing has retarded the progress of research into the history of early Christianity more than the subconscious feeling that the first Christians cannot have been really influenced by ideas foreign to the thought of the present generation. It is an unkind parody of the truth to say that much “Liberal” criticism has gone on the system of thinking that its own special brand of Protestant theology is identical with the Gospel of Luther in the sixteenth century, and of St. Paul in the first: it is an unkind parody, and the men against whom it is directed have taught us all ten times more than any other school of criticism, nevertheless, there is just a sufficient element of truth in it to point a warning to ourselves.

But, as a matter of fact, it is not in the least true that an eschatological gospel is or must be unethical. The earliest Christian gospel—that of Jesus Himself—was two-fold: (1) The Kingdom is at hand; (2) Repent. The first half is eschatological; the second half is ethical. Of the two most ancient sources in the Synoptic Gospels Mark is inclined to emphasize rather the eschatological side, and Q the ethical side, but both contain both elements. The fact is that, so far from eschatology being unethical, ethical teaching of the highest kind can be given better in the terms of an eschatological weltanschauung than in the language of evolution. The Sermon on the Mount, which may be taken as the typical example of Christian ethics, is not a code which can be applied directly and simply to our ordinary daily life. It is impossible not to resist evil, it is undesirable to lend, distrusting no man, and it is ruinous to give to every one who asks. You cannot base a code of conduct on the literal observance of the Sermon on the Mount, if society is to continue, and human nature remain as it is. That is exactly the point; early Christianity assumed that society was not going to continue, and that human nature was going to be changed. With that assumption Christians were in a position to see and to appreciate the absolute principles of life at its highest. The effect of their eschatological belief was that they were enabled to see ethical problems in isolation —in an unnatural isolation, if you like—and to reach nearer to reality than they could ever otherwise have done. That “the world is passing away” and the “Kingdom of God is at hand” was the very clear and vivid eschatological belief of the first Christians, and it enabled them to produce an ethical gospel which is permanent, just because it can never be a practical code for the world as it is, but is the eternal possession of the children of the Kingdom. That is what the eschatological assumption rendered possible. The evolutionary assumption has not yet proved equally valuable in enabling us to state the law of spiritual life, as distinct from economic and social life. This is not to deny that in other respects evolution is probably an hypothesis much nearer the truth than was the eschatological hope, or the catastrophic weltanschauung. The marked contempt shown in so many liberal circles for anything to do with eschatology is as little justifiable as would be a similar attitude on the part of a soldier to the bows which were used at Creçy. We cannot afford to despise or to patronize the arms by which our fathers won their victories, even though we do not propose to use them ourselves. It is more desirable to ask what were actually the disadvantages and advantages to the early Church entailed by the eschatological point of view.

Some disadvantages there certainly was: the eschatological hope was the main reason why Christianity stood apart from the general life and culture of the Roman Empire, and the Dark Ages, in which the Empire fell but the Church remained, are partly due to this cause. It is always lamentable when any large part of the best men are excluded, or exclude themselves, from the public service of organized society. This is what happened with regard to Christians in the Empire, and it was not entirely and only the fault of the Empire. Moreover, the mass of Western Christianity stood largely apart from the best culture and the best philosophy. Of course it would be unfair to say that this was the wholly fault of Christian teachings. Primarily, it was due to the defect of character in the best intellectual life of the day which made men shrink from anything new, and from the sterner side of religious or ethical truth. But, secondarily, it was due to an unjustifiable tendency on the side of Christians to regard the whole fabric of society as irredeemably evil and its culture as sinful. It cannot be doubted that this was largely due to the eschatological hope which made men regard the Empire and the whole of existing human society as doomed to a speedy extinction by the judgment of God. On the other hand, the eschatological hope worked for good in two ways. Christianity began during a time of efflorescence. The first century was the efflorescent period of law and organization which produced the Empire. Roughly speaking, this period was the culminating point of seven hundred years of preparation, and it lasted rather less than two centuries. By the second century the signs of decay were obvious, with startling rapidity the process of degeneration set in, and the catastrophic fall of the culture of the Empire followed. The one thing which survived to be the source of another civilization was the Church; and the Church survived largely because her eschatological hope had kept her from entirely identifying her life with any single form of social organization. Nor was this the only way in which the eschatological hope, illusion though it was as a prognostication of the future, worked for good in the development of Christianity. The first Christians had expected the coming of a Kingdom—of a state of society—in which everything would be different, and this expectation enabled them to accept a method of life and a series of commands which were only permanently possible if society underwent a radical change. It is true that society did not undergo a radical change, and that the main problem for the succeeding generations of Christians was to accommodate to a society which showed no signs of passing away beliefs and doctrines which had been based on the expectation of its transitoriness. Instead of entering a new world, Christians found themselves busy with the task of improving the old one. Not only is this true, but it is one of the most important factors in early Church history; on the success with which the readjustment was made depended the existence of the Church. Nevertheless, it is equally true that the driving power which enabled the Church to succeed was largely due to the expectation which she had once cherished. The Messianic Kingdom, its laws and its teaching, ceased to be an expectation, but survived as an ideal. Though men gradually ceased to look for the coming of a Kingdom in which sin, suffering, and death would miraculously be abolished, they never wholly forgot that they had enjoyed the vision of the time when these things would happen, and they pressed forward to make the world in which they were living correspond somewhat more closely to the city of God which they had seen.

¹ See especially the article on “Chronology” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, by C. H. Turner.

¹ Pfleiderer, of course accepted the greater Epistles as genuine; but he always handled them as theological treatises, and in so far he was naturally the forerunner of the Dutch school, who saw—as he did not—that if the Epistles are treatises they represent a Christianity which is not that of the first century. Therein I entirely agree; but the mistake is in ever regarding them as treatises.

¹ Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, p. 101.

² I was much interested lately to hear the obiter dictum of one of the foremost representatives of the Dutch school to the effect that the Epistles were imbued with the Catholic spirit, and (it was implied), therefore, could not be primitive. The Dutch school represents a keen and independent criticism of the Protestant view that Catholic Christianity is a degenerate form of Primitive Christianity. It sees that the Epistles belong to Catholic Christianity, and argues that they are, therefore, late. The true conclusion is that Catholic Christianity is, therefore, primitive.

¹ The most important literature on the subject is: W. C. van Manen, Paulus and his article on “Old Christian” Literature in the Encyclopaedia Biblica; and R. Steck, Der Galaterbrief, impugning the authenticity of the Epistle; and A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien and Neue Bibelstudien (translated in a single volume as Bible Studies); Th. Zahn, Einleitung, 1 pp. 108 ff.; C. Clemen, Paulus, sein Leben und Wirken, 1 pp. 6–114. This section is valuable not only for its own merits, but also for its full reference to other literature. I believe that there is also a full treatment in Knowling’s Witness of the Epistles, but this book has not been accessible to me.

¹ That this factor also affected Church organization is probable, but there is so little evidence as to organization at the time of the earlier Epistles that no definite information of importance can be gained, The most important point is the evidence of the litigious tendency in Corinth (see pp. 131 ff.).

¹ Not, of course, of all Puritans. Indeed, I imagine that the leaders of Puritan movements have sometimes belonged to the other type; but the average Puritan has always been inclined to lay great stress on conduct, to regulate it according to a code, and to be distinctly intolerant and unintelligent towards other people.

² William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 80 ff. James calls attention to and quotes from F. W. Newman’s The Soul; its Sorrows and its Aspirations, 3rd ed., 1852.

³ I am quite prepared to believe that this statement would be ridiculous if applied to classical Greek religion; but it seems to be true of the Greek elements in early Christianity. The truth is, of course, that in Christian times the word “Greek” had gained a different connotation, and a Greek was more Oriental than Hellenic in his religious feelings.

¹ My impression is that, in this sense, many of the heathen Mystery Religions had, by the first century, ceased to be magical and become sacramental.

¹ It is to my mind a most remarkable fact that many scholars who haggle and dispute over the exact meaning of an obscure phrase in the Gospels, spend an infinity of trouble in discussing the precise Aramaic of the phrases used by Jews, and are shocked at the suggestion of doctrinal corruption in the text, are nevertheless quite ready to believe that the disciples wholly misunderstood Jesus and that the eschatological expectation of the first Christians was not based on His own sayings. If the Gospels are trustworthy, let us trust them, and if not let us confess our ignorance. The choice is not between eschatology and ethics, but between history and myth.

¹ If the earlier writers had seen this as clearly as their successors do, we should probably have been all talking about involution rather than evolution. The two things have come to mean the same: it is evolution so far as it is a movement from an original type, it is involution so far as it results in something containing, not so much anything new, as old elements involved in each other, and reacting on each other in ever-increasing complexity.

¹ The truth about the ethics of the Gospels seems to me best expressed in paradox. It was an “interim” ethic, for the Kingdom of God was coming in which it would be impossible to love one’s enemies, because there would be no enemies left. It was an absolute ethic, because it expressed principles derived from the world of reality, not from the imperfect society in which we live.

² It is unnecessary to remind those who know anything of the history of physical science that the value of an assumption for experimental purposes does not depend on its actual truth. The truths of physical laws have often been established by experiments involving assumptions either known to be mathematically untrue, or afterwards to be so.

¹ It is impossible to read Plutarch on the subject of Isis and Osiris and contrast him with Justin Martyr’s Apology for Christianity and not feel that intellectually Plutarch stands higher.

² There were, of course, exceptions on some points. Justin, for instance, says that Socrates was inspired by the Logos, but by no means all Christians admitted this.